Stop putting small rocks everywhere
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@jip I already said this in the OP. Clicking a rock is not some mastermind tactical choice.
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@cptant Clicking rocks doesn't require a mastermind. But knowing when to click rocks and when not to requires quite a bit of experience (same as with ecoing). Generally you are getting a good factor of two by reclaiming manually over using attackmove:
So it is not a huge improvenemt. Do it when you have time to, which should be only be a very small portion of the game. Otherwise multiple engineers on attackmove is what you should get used to. -
This has probably been stated many times before, but balance by bad UI is a terrible practise. All you are doing is wasting peoples time because they are fighting the game in telling their units what to do. Of course the game shouldn't make decisions for you, but clicking a rock is the most mundane of things.
Having fewer, but bigger rocks has no disadvantage at all.
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Is the rock mix manual reclaim with move commands for optimal engie positioning or just reclaim orders?
@harzernoob said in Stop putting small rocks everywhere:
@cptant Clicking rocks doesn't require a mastermind. But knowing when to click rocks and when not to requires quite a bit of experience (same as with ecoing). Generally you are getting a good factor of two by reclaiming manually over using attackmove:
So it is not a huge improvenemt. Do it when you have time to, which should be only be a very small portion of the game. Otherwise multiple engineers on attackmove is what you should get used to. -
@aulex I don't remember anymore but I made sure to not do horrible paths.
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This is why attack move is a thing. Send an engie in the right general direction and forget about it.
Also, how is manually reclaiming small rocks worse than manually reclaiming wrecks on a battlefield? -
Yeah, I also dont like it, I think the fine motor skill aspect of it is counter to my idea of the game. But I also have shaky hands sometimes and just can't master the reclaim clicking. I would make a script to automate it, but that would be cheating.
I do however, find the rocks aesthetically pleasing to the map. I want to make a selection of statues to put on maps I make to be larger chunks of reclaim, while still looking cool.
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I feel you CPTANT, also hate this aspect of the game, it's not very fun, it's not very rewarding or satisfying ... As Thomas once put it, it's just like vaccuming your house, a boring chores you have to do ahah.
I wish map designer would put less little rocks in their future maps. If those rocks are for decorative purpose, just use other models that contain no mass (maybe we could make alternate version of the existing rocks, where they contain no mass).
This being said, it's not much of a problem at low-medium level. As others said, just use automated reclaim (patrol, attack move) and you'll do just fine on most maps. It only becomes mandatory to use some manual reclaim when you aim for the top level, and even pros are most of the time lazy about it, manual reclaim is just something you do in the very early game.
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@auricocorico said in Stop putting small rocks everywhere:
I wish map designer would put less little rocks in their future maps. If those rocks are for decorative purpose, just use other models that contain no mass (maybe we could make alternate version of the existing rocks, where they contain no mass). Same as those maps that have loose trees mixed with rocks, you make manual reclaim absolutely mandatory.
You would still reclaim 0 mass rocks and therefore it would actually make the problem worse by noobtrapping those that attack or patrol move through wasted engie time.
People overstate how critical 5-15 mass rocks are, not even Blackheart has the motivation nor need to spam click the rocks on Syrtis to beat everyone aside from like maybe 2 dudes on FAF.
You micro the little rock early reclaim for your first few factories when you have nothing else to do, particularly at a high level, since you already know the meta and don’t need to worry about the “thinking” step until min 5. If you don’t know the meta, thinking about what would be best to do will make you play better than clicking like a madman.
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What about adding "rock groups" similar to "tree groups" but for rocks? A single entity as far as reclaim is concerned, but aesthetically it looks like many rocks.
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That solves the problem aesthetically, no idea how that impacts gameplay
ie:
do you make “10 small rocks” rock group equal the mass of 10 “small rocks” as now you have significantly faster scale for significantly lower effort.Arguably this already exists with Ditch/Daroza “rock groups” that equal 250-750 mass but mappers intentionally do not use them as the scale is waaaaaay too quick for what they are trying to do.
We also have like 200-300 matchmaker maps that now need to get “FAF versions” applied to them using the new concept (after agreeing on what is a good value that doesn’t destroy the gameplay on a lot of maps) or we just accept we have the idiosyncrasies of not being able to trust whether things are small rocks vs rock groups similar to the issue for tree groups vs singular trees that new players face.
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Those rock groups already exist in geothermal maps (moon-like maps). See also Daroza Sanctuary, if I got the name right. 1v1v1v1 GPG map.
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@jip said in Stop putting small rocks everywhere:
Those rock groups already exist in geothermal maps (moon-like maps). See also Daroza Sanctuary, if I got the name right. 1v1v1v1 GPG map.
So we just need similar rock models that have a bit less mass, because 175 is too much. I'm thinking 20-50 is what we'd want.
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If there is a problem with putting big rocks because it gives mass to fast can try wrecks, wrecks take twice more time to reclaim.. it is still insanely fast but still.
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As a map maker I won't use those bigger rock piles though. They give you too little freedom as to how you want the rock placement too be. Makes them too easy to spot.
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If you are below 2k then manually reclaiming the rocks doesn't really matter. Sure you will do some with your first 1-3 engies but what else are you gonna do, watch your factoruy build the next engie because issuing simple orders like mexes on maps you know takes only a couple of seconds? After that there is 0 need for it, you can do perfectly fine without it and most people would probably GAIN rating if they would spend that time micro'ing their t1 units.
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I don't think I'll stop placing small rocks. I place big rocks and wrecks for early game reclaim targets, and small rocks for aesthetics and late game attack move engineers. They serve different purposes. Admittedly on maps of mine like Stickleback I could replace some of the rock bundles with geothermal style rock groups but then I have to worry about the aesthetics and the disproportionately large reclaim the geo rocks provide.
Edit: one of the maps that I think gets the balance pretty perfect is Twin Rivers.
