@maudlin27 For balanced gameplay on large maps, I created another mod - "Gameplay Scaling". It increases the time and cost of building everything by 2 or 4 times. This helps to get good gameplay on maps 2 or 4 times larger, respectively. But we pay for this by increasing the duration of games. I tested M28AI on the 81 km Debris map with 4x increasing, and got the same game logic as when playing on a 20 km map, only the game develops 4 times slower. The same number of units on the map, so there are no brakes.

The increase in build time described in this topic has a different purpose. For example, if in this case a T3 generator (or anything) is destroyed, then it will take 5 times more time to restore it, which will lead to the loss of much more energy income. Or you must have 5 times more build power, but this is an additional expense. That is, battles will affect the outcome of the game much more strongly. This is what I meant when I wrote about "dominance of economy over war". In vanilla balance, the economy is too strong, because the one who has gained an economic advantage, in the vast majority of cases, simply "crushes with mass" his opponent. The game develops like a snowball. And the one who is lagging behind has almost no opportunity, from a strategic point of view, to stop this avalanche. And in the vast majority of games, everything happens according to almost the same scenario. Linearity and monotony. And my assumption is that it is the build time that is the reason for this. The linearity of the gameplay was discussed, for example, here: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/5552/title-a-time-for-change-faf-community-balance-team

Praise dev

@Nuggets I was just answering why touching the lobby code frowned upon

Thanks for the feedback, we’ve made some adjustments to clarify the references to monkey spam accordingly

@Strife custom games can be ranked as well, idk what you’re saying

In steam FA you can ctrl + right click to issue a formation order instantly but FAF removed that with an engine patch, and now you only have the option of holding right click to begin issuing a formation move order. You can also formation attack move by holding alt alongside right click.

Formation move is useful if you don't have the apm to keep your army in formation while moving across the map (this is not that often) but you need to because you have different speed units or need shields (snipers). You can also use formation move in place to quickly get your units into formation with a desired orientation. Some sandboxing shows it can be better than normal move orders when attacking because while it does make your units move slower, it guarantees way less bumping, so overall more units get into range faster and stay in range.

@Kilatamoro said in You guys ever thought if moving to a new engine?:

@Defiant Why would anyone want this? It's about the feeling of the game, not 3D models and unit names. We can get free from copyright.

Reasonable.

Games similar to FAF are out there now. A more direct FAF clone might still risk Square Enix, so we could give them license accountability.

@JaggedAppliance
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on some points.

I think it's fine to work on some feature without the intention to include it. It could just be an experiment. It could be because it doesn't work out the way you think it would for the user. Or because you're not happy with the implementation of it for the future maintainer. I do this type of experimentation a lot and it helps me with learning and exploring what is possible. Even if some of it never ends up in the product directly. it's not obvious in my mind that if I spent time on something that it also means that I want to see it become part of the product in question.

As an example, initially I had a focus on better graphics. I had a great proof of concept, but I was unable to make an implementation that did not have a terrible experience for everyone involved. I dropped it at the time. Years later with the hard work and effort of @BlackYps we now have the shaders. And the map generator and editor support for the new shaders too. It's a good user experience because of some automation he included into the map editor. Now it's a great time to include it. For those that are interested, see also his work on GitHub here and here.

@JaggedAppliance said in Another dumb idea from Dorset:

I'm not sure what the point was about the cybran nano. Just that that was game design happening? This is getting silly now but yes it's related to game design, but again it doesn't make anyone a game designer if they were involved.

I did not make this claim. It certainly was not the intention. I tried to make the claim that the decision is about game design - not that the people making the decision are game designers because of it. How people perceive a game is all about game design. And this made an impact on their perception of the game for some users. Interestingly enough, just like it did for you.

I find it interesting that you write that you do not understand why I brought it up. And you conclude the same paragraph with that it was a bad change that damaged the identity of Cybran. That is why I brought it up! And that identity is perceived, it is in my opinion related to the design of the game. Just like the majority of changes are except those that are purely technical (same user experience, but better code structure or better performing code).

I think we have a different definition of game design, and specifically where game design starts and ends. In my opinion, even some mod authors can be characterized as game designers. They introduce new mechanics, new rule sets, sometimes even entirely new genres (looking at you Dota). But just because you are a mod author does not imply that you are also a (good) game designer. Just like people who are good at the game also does not imply that they are a (good) game designer. But in my opinion we definitely need people that look at the game from the perspective of a game designer. Which is also why I think the teams should be merged - just like they were initially if my history is correct.

Statutes are whatever. Let's be honest, it was probably written in thirty seconds. It reads like that anyway.

I agree with you that it feels like these statutes can use some work. But I disagree with dismissing them. Without the intention to patronize you, but statutes exist to help the community understand what a team is doing here, and how the team is supposed to work. It originates from this proposal that comes with this document that was approved during a general meeting of the association. To quote the document at the end:

The detailed responsibilities of each team are intentionally not specified here so they can be changed without requiring a GM. Instead the teams have the duty to define their area of responsibilities and write them down somewhere public.

Which is what the statutes are. The team can update them as they see fit. Take for example the status of the DevOps, Game and Promotion teams. They're much more informative about how the team operates, even if some roles are vacant at the moment. Back to the statutes of the balance team - for now it's all we have to work with to understand the role of the balance team.

I appreciate you sharing your approach as balance team lead.

And I agree that describing the average mod author as both passionate and (to be) crazy (with their ideas) is probably a great description, in a good way 🙂 .

I also agree that it's important to guard the game from ideas that just don't work. To come back to my earlier post - I'd like to express that even if something should not be in the game, it can still be interesting to just explore the idea with the mod author/contributor instead of just getting a 'no'.

The mod author is clearly passionate about FAForever in some fashion by spending so much time and effort. The conversation does not have to take hours, something as simple as just having a decent conversation (over voice) about the idea together can be sufficient. It can be meaningful for both parties, even if it is just about discussing the context of it and why it was declined.

Which brings me back to my first paragraph of this post. To me, these conversations can be more meaningful then the changes becoming part of the product. And that conversation can bring in a new team member in the future. It certainly worked that way for me. The reason I am here is because @Uveso spent some effort on my first mods and/or pull requests to help streamline them. His open and friendly attitude is what made this place feel accessible. Thanks for that 🙂 .

In case you want a really deep dive into all the code-side changes that were made to FAF (there are over 4,500 changes):
https://github.com/FAForever/fa/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed

@Khal i am currently working on providing new statistics and made a few python scripts do pull info from the API. Contact me on discord and we can have a chat.

Deribus is right lets focus on the billy

I propose two changes

reduce the range by a third meaning the acu will be slightly more exposed in order to use it.

if the damage of a normal missile is 6k lets keep it at 6k and make the billy an aoe upgrade to the regular missile. (so at least some t3 units can survive)

perhaps a cost reduction could be in order with these changes to match

maybe the Resistance knows more, he invited me to participate in it

That seems about the same rate of success custom games have lol. I swear it's 1 re for every 3 attempts but we are all FAF crackheads who aren't overly bothered by it 😉

I haven't been huge into ladder over the years but in the last few weeks I played a lot before I left country for work and I felt that ladder had been connecting fairly reliably.

I recommend keeping your spirits up and just sticking with it. A few times when a ladder game didn't reconnect I immediately rejoined que and seemed to get matched with the same group and had some great games.

AI uses TML very well to pick off valuable targets, so you really don't want them to set up. It's going to take proactive scouting to find where they are and some quick bomber or gunship strikes to take them out.

Defensively, the upside is that T2 TMD is relatively cheap and can be spammed, but if you're playing for map control you clearly can't defend everything, so going on the offensive is better.

Alternate option: Play cybran and get T3 loyalist bots ASAP and watch those missiles bounce back to the launchers that sent them. lol