Reclaim Brush

No double standards please. Allowing (1), (2), (6), (7), and (10) but not this seems silly.

I wasn't involved with FAF when (1), (2), (and (9)) were integrated. (6) and (7) are UI mods, they are not integrated. (10) is a response to (7) to guarantee stable performance for something that was already possible. I'm not sure why it is in your list.

Calling me out for having double standards is inappropriate and closely resembles a personal attack. Don't do that.

but not this seems silly.

Using this argumentation (we have x, so why not y too) means we can allow anything. I'm quite confident that it is a logical fallacy, but I can't find the name. It is also what got us to the performance we had in May 2021, before I started my performance crusade.

Also, based on the numbers you listed, I think you're imagining a larger brush size than I am, and a smaller brush size would result in faster processing the way I'm imagining implementing this. Regardless, the brush size (or max brush size, if adjustable) could be tested in FAF develop and set to a sensible value.

A brush means painting. Painting means you can include any amount of reclaim you desire. To quote you from your first post:

Imagine it like a brush in a visual editor (ie: paint), where you manually apply a circular brush, but instead of painting the terrain, it shows a visual circle where the brush would give manual reclaim orders within if used there.

If that is not your intend then you should've been more clear on what this actually means in practice. Add a picture with a clear interaction. The video and topics that Sheikah linked talks about a more generic area reclaiming, which is what the majority of us will be thinking about.

The user already has to deal with numerous arbitrary limitations to the game

Same logic used earlier that I think is a logical fallacy: just because there are already existing issues doesn't make it more legitimate to add more of them.

Don't get me wrong - I'd love to have a feature like this. But if we're not careful then we just introduce more stutters. It is also the same reason why my example here is on hold because I haven't figured out how to do it properly yet.

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

And on another note, we already have a solution made by @Strogo that makes manual reclaiming a lot less painful:

I'd love to integrate that at some point, but I recall there were some issues with it. All of the changes Strogo suggests with that UI mod are improvements to existing features, he doesn't introduce new features.

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

@maudlin27 you are alloweded to automate mex capping only because you could automate it via doing a simple key binding.

"Good luck and a safe landing commanders!"

It seems like you want the brush to not be as efficient as maual reclaim, but then the whole "people don't need to manual reclaim anymore" falls flat, as they will still see the pros do it and think it is important. If it's not supposed to completely replace manual reclaim it's just redundant because it provides a middle ground to two options which both have their role. We don't need another option that is a bit of both. One of the extremes will always be the better option.

Regardless of the above, I feel this feature would just collapse because of the processing power requirements that it will have.
You claim that is possible to implement it in a way that is not laggy, while still providing better pathfinding to the reclaim targets than attack move. Yet when looking at the details all evidence seems to point to the contrary. At this point you need to go into more details how you think you can solve this and why it would still be a good feature even with the limitations you need instead of handwaving the problems away with "we'll limit the number of commands somehow".

Not gonna get implemented. As it was already mentioned it does nothing to adress the actual issue which is that people think that manually reclaiming is the correct way to spend their APM in the first place. Just use attack move (I can get behind making it easier to use, more modern or w/e).
If we were to implement this it wouldn't have positive impact for most players while it would, in my opinion, be detrimental for high level play as Pros would be able to utilize this feature to quickly grab the mass after any attacks thus massively nerfing raiding.

Not to mention it would make the game lile 2x harder if it were as efficient/very close to manual reclaim because your economy would become even more volatile.
On the other hand if it were close in efficiency to the attack move then the feature would either have no point or would replace the attack move.

When engis reclaim on attack or patrol move, they stop between reclaims.? Engineer reclaims, does nothing, reclaims, does nothing, reclaims etc? While on manual reclaim they reclaim, reclaim, reclaim etc. So even when not considering advantage of choice of order on manual reclaim, manual reclaim is faster as long as player has apm for it.
Advantage in the beginning of the game can snowball into big advantage, it is not so important from what rating exactly people have necessary apm in average. It favors click spam like some game on smartphone where you do nothing but click as fast as you can. No tanks, units, nothing but clicking.

I can understand consideration of gamespeed. And at some extent the added complexity of new command. Althought having extra command seems easyer to learn, than to learn how to spam hundreds of clicks very fast.

There is also possibility to modify actual attack move/ patrol. Removing that "do nothing" part should make it more effective. Without negative effects. Drawing a ring, or corridor of effect when placing it could make it easyer to learn and make it more "moderne" (maybe with option to remove it). And then placing shift attack moves( as some players do), would cover an area. There could be a reclaim choosing inside the actual reclaim circle/radius, eventually. So that engineer chooses higher than x mass reclaim before the small reclaim. But only around itself in the limit where it does not need to move to get it. So that althought it adds some calculations to game, it would be always very limited. Eventually recalculated when engie moves and stops on attack move. This also should add effectivenes, with minimal performance setback.
I would like the option, that engis just stop, when mass bar is almost full, rather than running into unbroken trees, but this is kind of out of the scope of this discussion...

on top of tagadas point, on maps where there are many rocks (10-30 mass) inbetween broken trees, I would assume such a mod to prioritise the rocks, enableling a player to massively increase the reclaim rate on such maps, which will change the meta on such maps. the reclaim is hidden in trees for exactly that reason.
Any changes that add prioritisation are not acceptable from a balance perspective since they will break the meta/balance on some maps.

"Advantage in the beginning of the game can snowball into big advantage, it is not so important from what rating exactly people have necessary apm in average. It favors click spam like some game on smartphone where you do nothing but click as fast as you can. No tanks, units, nothing but clicking."

this only matters if a) you are actually able to capitalise on the extra mass instead of just overflowing it, having no e , not noticing youre having idle facs/engies... (classic <1.5k issues)
b) you dont get a dissadvantage from not spending the time on sth else (e.g. not noticing youre suiciding 19 tanks into 20).
on high level there only rarely is actual coockie clicker reclaim after min 3 or so (youve nothing else to do before that anyways so clicking reclaim actually saves you from boredom there...)

Forumpros doing balance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wTcguJZh3A .
When a canis player remembers to build more than 3 units https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hjp8xJHuyA .

Very conjectural to presume that <1500 people are not able to use mass 🙂
Anyway that was what I meant by saying "necessary apm".

If they knew how to use mass they wouldn't be below 1500. Sorry that's the truth no matter how you spin it.

@wikingest Having decent eco-management alone allows you to have 1.5x times more tanks than your opponent, if you follow that by moving your army into his expansion you can get you to 1.8k quite easily. That's exactly how I've done it. There is no real need for T2 or any tech or eco'ing. In 90% of the games on maps smaller than 20x20 you can finish your game on T1 stage. So yes, you can assume with 99% certainty that people below that level don't know or are not able to properly manage their economy, injecting 300 extra mass won't fix the lack of fundamentals nor the feel for the game's economy that's necessary to properly balance it.

@wikingest said in Reclaim Brush:

When engis reclaim on attack or patrol move, they stop between reclaims.?

We could fix this if engineers had better reclaiming while they were on patrol/attack move. If they can instantly switch targets instead of pausing every time they finish sucking up a thing, people wouldn't have to worry about manual reclaim.

It would also solve a lot of the problem of tree groups, because engineers would be much faster at sucking up all the trees in a broken group. If someone broke your trees, it would not be a big deal.

@E33144211332424 I never said they would know how to use mass perfectly. I said they would be "able to use mass". I am 1100 and if not braindead tired, I am not overflowing mass in first minutes. Yeah, you are surely better than me, and if you constantly need to underline your rating, you can say it again. But as he said: "this only matters if a) you are actually able to capitalise on the extra mass instead of just overflowing it..." "(classic <1.5k issues)" It kind of made me laugh. I would think that people at 1300-1400 are able to use mass in early game, even if not perfectly. Anyway, as said, it was under the assumption, that those people have "necessary apm".

@Tagada So you say, that if there is optimal way to win the game, it should not be won on other way? Lets say at x condition, it is better to win with t1, so no one should win it on t2? All the games should be played the same way? lets modify this example. I play CYB, and my opponent plays UEF. And for the sake of example, UEF t2 is 2times stronger massvise than CYb t2. Now all the noobs are screaming that this is unfair (or gives advantage to click spammers, on reclaim topic), and you tell that CYB should just win at t1 stage... So all is fine. The fact, that some other things (you pointed out eco-management, or playing t1 at x condition), give advantage, possibly bigger one, does not mean that manual reclaim does not give advantage also.

"injecting 300 extra mass won't fix the lack of fundamentals", but if I play against someone at my level, it can very well win the game for me. Even if you say that it is not optimal way, manual reclaim wins games in some conditions. Unluckily I dont remember in which ones of my games, but it gives quite big advantage sometimes. And I think that if this would not give such an advantage, game would be easyer to learn, player retention would be better, game would be more fun and less mechanic.

@wikingest said in Reclaim Brush:

game would be more fun and less mechanic.

Faf is already a lot less mechanical than more popular rts' like aoe2 and sc2. Why do you assume that less mechanical is more fun when faf is already low on it in conparison.

Also the game is (mostly) balanced around conpetitive play, not suboptimal play.

@TheWheelie I dont know those games enough to make an analyse. Are they more popular because more mechanical or for some other reason. I express my opinion, and that of people with I have spoken, when saying that less mechanic is more fun.

"Also the game is (mostly) balanced around competitive play, not suboptimal play." Thats what they say. I dont feel like I try to unbalance it for competitive play. I do little bit manual reclaim, and i am still against the overly big advantage of it. And I think that if I would have +2000 points I would be against it exactly the same.

@wikingest
You don't need to know how to use mass perfectly, even tagada, nexus and Yudi aren't capable of that seeing as they still lose games and can be seen stalling at times or floating mass. The reality is that this magic manual RECLAIM thingy is not what's gating you from achieving greatness. It's not even that important in the grand scheme of things as proper attack moves are more than good enough at reclaiming stuff.

The whole notion that this would somehow free up your apm is also nothing but fallacy considering factory attack move already exists and is great way to scoop up massive reclaim fields at basically no APM cost.

Like what is next? Discussion about the building Q reclaim that makes your engies scoop up all the mass fast beneath the Q'ed building?

Also, if I'm still somehow 1.7k rated and mostly using attack move for my reclaim orders apart from early where there is literally nothing to do then maybe manual reclaim ain't what is gating you from the great heights? And as someone who was 2k but dropped back to 1.7k currently I can 100% say that manual reclaim knowledge and APM aren't the issues that I'm facing but lack of feeling for the game and abysmal economy management coupled with suicidal tendencies. Literally few reclaim rocks are the least of my concerns if I were to be aiming at getting back to my peak rating. And anyone who thinks that this is the problem is just deluding themselves to find anything but their own shortcomings as the reason they are stuck.

@E33144211332424 I never said that I want to "achieve greatness" in FAF rating. Or that manual reclaim is what is gating me from the great heights. I never said that manual reclaim is the most important thing, or that you will win games by doing only manual reclaim. But manual reclaim is (small) part of the game. People do it. You do it. And it would be lie to say that you do it only in first couple of minutes of the game.
Manual reclaim is more effective, if you have apm, capabilities, and conditions to do it (might be hard to find Setons replay 1100+ with out someone making at least some manual reclaim). If you dont understand it, we are turning in cercles here. Try sandboxing maybe.

@wikingest Well u don't need to reclaim manualy if u don't have the apm to do so just attack move is more effective on setons because of the large trees groups (u make it manually just for the first 3 engies or in extream need of reasources )

There is also possibility to add "do nothing" time to manual reclaim, rather than removing it from automated reclaim. Adding small wait time before every manual reclaim (as in automated reclaim), would reduce the effectiveness of click-spam. With already discussed beneficial effects. Maybe the change would be less noticable in the game.

@Unknow Doing it for first 3 engies is donig it. And have you seen often people getting mid reclaim only with attack move?

@wikingest What do u have to do other than this in the first 3 minutes ? Mid reclaim can be recalim by attack moves