A Topic of Dumb Ideas!

@Jip said in A Topic of Dumb Ideas!:

Competitively this is not true and happens throughout the game.

ASF that fight on high-rated games are part of some micro
Land battles that fight on high-rated games are part of some micro (shields up front, move them back when they are about to fall, try to bump into the other ACU, use overcharge carefully)
Navy battles are full of micro, especially when you are Aeon or fighting against Aeon. Managing the hover shields and moving your ships manually to evade enemy fire is crucial.
Manually placing your engineers between reclaim (props, wrecks) and then queuing reclaim commands is more efficient, regardless of whether the reclaim are props or wreckages.
Up to an extent, you can even micro your economy.

To me being able to do things manually is the difference between a casual match and a competitive match. In a casual match I'll just let an engineer reclaim through attack move and / or patrol. But if the match is competitive then hell yes - give me all the manual control when applicable and let's go.
Removing this, and other elements of micro, is in my opinion the same as removing the capability for the game to be competitive. Speaking off, some micro has been removed from the game through UI mods. Such as Eco Manager and Advanced Attack Priorities. If used properly these mods will allow a player to play the game more casually while achieving (roughly) the same, with less clicks.

I'm not saying that the game should have no micro, I'm saying that to the extent possible your micro should reflect a conscious decision that you've made about how to defeat your adversary.

Mindlessly clicking individual trees is not that. If you replaced that with an attack-move order, the decision to put an engineer on reclaim is still captured, still meaningful.

Having to execute dozens of little actions to convey your intent to the game - that goes against the spirit of this game series.

The devs ruthlessly removed silly bullshit micro from this game with a powerful UI and AI system that allows the players to convey their intent in just a few clicks.

Reclaim of minor map objects is just one instance that they missed.

At the very least, attack move should reclaim rocks and trees as efficiently as manual micro when not factoring in things like keeping the engineer from moving. If people want to select whether they micro a rock or a tree - if they want to expend their attention on that, I think that's fair, but the race to the bottom should be removed by making attack-move and patrol more efficient at reclaim collection.

I understand that making those approaches more efficient would be nice - sadly I don't think we can because as far as I know the exact behavior is defined beyond the c-boundary of the game. The part that we just can not access.

With that in mind, I don't see it as often as you mention. Yes, manually reclaiming is great but it takes a lot of time to accomplish. Take this replay from two high-rated players: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_sgg5NNEag. Yes, he spends some time on manual reclaim commands at the start, but I don't see the issue of it.

@Jip said in A Topic of Dumb Ideas!:

I understand that making those approaches more efficient would be nice - sadly I don't think we can because as far as I know the exact behavior is defined beyond the c-boundary of the game. The part that we just can not access.

With that in mind, I don't see it as often as you mention. Yes, manually reclaiming is great but it takes a lot of time to accomplish. Take this replay from two high-rated players: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_sgg5NNEag. Yes, he spends some time on manual reclaim commands at the start, but I don't see the issue of it.

That's fair, but just removing minor objects from the list of things that can be manually reclaimed would fix this issue.

You can fix attack move, or you can remove the ability to manually reclaim. Either way you remove the mindless click spam, and maybe you lose the ability to select rock or tree... but is that really so great a loss that its worth it to force everyone to engage in mindless click spam game after game after game?

EDIT: Re-reading this, what I meant to say was not clear.

If this cannot be fixed, well... that sucks.

Best fix is to just make the attack-move and patrol reclaim mechanics more efficient so that they're competitive with manual reclaim. This removes the incentive to race to the bottom for the most part, but if people really want to manually click rocks out of a mixed reclaim type environment, they're free to do so. Generally though, this would reduce the impact of the mindless clicking which would hopefully make doing it unnecessary in most cases.

If that's not possible then maybe it is possible to differentiate what's manually reclaimable by mass or energy value, I think that's better than leaving things as they are. If its got less than say 12 mass value, it only gets reclaimed via passive methods like attack-move.

And if nothing can be done, then I guess nothing can be done.

In starcraft I lose the game because I didn’t maintain proper focus on unit micro for 4 seconds. This does not interest me.

And anyway I’m basically entirely attracted to FAF for the economy aspect of it. Optimizing it is fun for me and reclaim is what makes that optimization possible.

Also about advanced target priority, that has introduced micro rather than taken it away. It allows you more control over your units which gives you the ability to micro them a lot more and make them way more efficient.

Why is it when high rated players tell you that manual reclaim of tiny rocks doesn’t matter at high level you just ignore it and keep arguing the same wrong theory. I can even get a quote of jagged saying the same thing several years ago for you.

https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13632&p=140840&hilit=apm#p140840

Maybe stop baseless solutions when you don’t even know the problem.

The less you have going on that isn’t manual reclaim, the more your ability to manual reclaim matters. Why is that? Because the tradeoff for spending time on units or base management or literally anything else vs manual reclaim is so out of favor for reclaim it isn’t even funny. It is so far down your list of priorities when you can simply attack move and accomplish the same thing at like 80% efficiency. If there is nothing else to do in ur faf game, then that efficiency difference matters.

Take it away and most teamgames are still t3 mex ras boy simulators. Except now I have nothing to click and will instead be looking at how quality the grass looks on the map to pass the time.

I think I've kept up with where the topic has went for discussion.
Yes, a point ive tried to make clear, from whatever directions in things in FAF would seem best no to take away to say a better game because it most likely wont happen. But that is just with a good percentage of any games.

Reclaim I think is fine, if there should be a priority of it should be either be info about in-game or more choices surrounding what reclaim could amount of.
Engine Stations just for reclaim makes sense but at a tome should have an option to gain more energy also.
Reclaim is Mass and Energy, as the eco. Not metal and power.

Also, Without teams games I fail to see where say Supcom or FA is within FAF for a better worth.
Teams in themselves should just be more variant then what is already offered.

@FtXCommando said in A Topic of Dumb Ideas!:

Why is it when high rated players tell you that manual reclaim of tiny rocks doesn’t matter at high level you just ignore it and keep arguing the same wrong theory. I can even get a quote of jagged saying the same thing several years ago for you.

Because you're clearly fucking liars? You tell me it doesn't matter but wind up with a mass advantage doing it in every game? You want to prove me wrong, its easy, Get some high rated ladder player to stop doing it, play 50 games and see if you can stop your rating from tanking. If it doesn't fall by a a significant amount I'll concede the point.

Don't tell me it doesn't matter while you click click click away at every reclaim point you can in a frenzied bout of index-finger injuring spam. Stop doing it, and we'll see if it doesn't matter.

The less you have going on that isn’t manual reclaim, the more your ability to manual reclaim matters. Why is that? Because the tradeoff for spending time on units or base management or literally anything else vs manual reclaim is so out of favor for reclaim it isn’t even funny. It is so far down your list of priorities when you can simply attack move and accomplish the same thing at like 80% efficiency. If there is nothing else to do in ur faf game, then that efficiency difference matters.

Oh, you think I'm such an idiot that I don't understand that you can only click click click mindlessly after you've taken care of other things? I understand that that's how it works. I just don't think mindless repetitive bullshit should be part of the game just to separate the high APM from from the rest of us. If you're really skilled, you'll still win the game, you don't need the free high APM reclaim crutch to help you do it.

Take it away and most teamgames are still t3 mex ras boy simulators. Except now I have nothing to click and will instead be looking at how quality the grass looks on the map to pass the time.

Maybe you could spend the time... I don't know... communicating a plan with your team or launching an early attack. I'm sure you'll be able to find something to do with yourself.

Whatever you do though, I imagine it will be better for the game than performing mindless repetition - even if it doesn't give you a safe easy to acquire advantage.

tfw chad top player beats beta noobs and doesn’t even know why

You’re delusional dude.

@moses_the_red said in A Topic of Dumb Ideas!:

@FtXCommando said in A Topic of Dumb Ideas!:

Why is it when high rated players tell you that manual reclaim of tiny rocks doesn’t matter at high level you just ignore it and keep arguing the same wrong theory. I can even get a quote of jagged saying the same thing several years ago for you.

Because you're clearly fucking liars? You tell me it doesn't matter but wind up with a mass advantage doing it in every game? You want to prove me wrong, its easy, Get some high rated ladder player to stop doing it, play 50 games and see if you can stop your rating from tanking. If it doesn't fall by a a significant amount I'll concede the point.

Don't tell me it doesn't matter while you click click click away at every reclaim point you can in a frenzied bout of index-finger injuring spam. Stop doing it, and we'll see if it doesn't matter.

The less you have going on that isn’t manual reclaim, the more your ability to manual reclaim matters. Why is that? Because the tradeoff for spending time on units or base management or literally anything else vs manual reclaim is so out of favor for reclaim it isn’t even funny. It is so far down your list of priorities when you can simply attack move and accomplish the same thing at like 80% efficiency. If there is nothing else to do in ur faf game, then that efficiency difference matters.

Oh, you think I'm such an idiot that I don't understand that you can only click click click mindlessly after you've taken care of other things? I understand that that's how it works. I just don't think mindless repetitive bullshit should be part of the game just to separate the high APM from from the rest of us. If you're really skilled, you'll still win the game, you don't need the free high APM reclaim crutch to help you do it.

Take it away and most teamgames are still t3 mex ras boy simulators. Except now I have nothing to click and will instead be looking at how quality the grass looks on the map to pass the time.

Maybe you could spend the time... I don't know... communicating a plan with your team or launching an early attack. I'm sure you'll be able to find something to do with yourself.

Whatever you do though, I imagine it will be better for the game than performing mindless repetition - even if it doesn't give you a safe easy to acquire advantage.

I like how you were upset with people in the other thread "Tips for making team games" for not providing any valid arguments and doing a "pissing contest" but when you are presented with constructive criticism and arguments from a high rated players that are contradictive to your opinions you call them "fucking liars" and continue to rant about how we all know nothing and you, the 1k have the full understanding of the game but it's this pesky system that requires insanely high levels of APM averaging to 50 APM and peeking at 90 APM during air fights that holds you back clearly.
But sure, I know nothing right? As a lowly TOP 4 player on FAF I can not possibly understand the game better then you.

Manual reclaim is necessary only during first the opening BO ( up to around 3 min game time) when there is legit nothing else happening and if you wouldn't do that you would be staring at your factory that is slowly making engineers.
After that manual reclaim is only worth it if there is nothing else going on or there is some extremely high value reclaim eg. first t2 wrecks, t3 wrecks, t4 wrecks.

BTW This guy got 100 ladder rating in 1 day! Amazing! How did he do it!? It's simple, you can learn it too! STOP CLICKING TINY 10 MASS ROCKS AND START MICROING YOUR UNITS! YOU CAN KILL ENEMY ENGIES WITH THEM, YOU CAN TRADE BETTER IN FIGHTS.

Arguing with you is like arguing with entitled child, you know little, you think you know better and when someone else has other opinions and you can't beat their arguments you call it bullshit or the person a liar. Just grow up, admit that your knowledge of the game is limited, ask for advice and improve. Also maybe stop wasting 1h a day on forums writing walls of text that nobody except few can be bothered to read and start actually improving at the game.

Idk, doing some trial runs of say the further micro for eco does seem to yield a greater gain but seems marginal for the trade off but makes sense why can be a captivation.

Reclaim, Reclaim, Reclaim, Reclaim, Reclaim, Alt-RMB...etc. Makes a noticeable difference rather reasonable or not.

I've moaned about this before, but give Wagners the ability to surface and use their guns; it'll go some way to allow kibran to get back in the water. Cybran is the only faction that has zero practical tools for fighting off ships on your shores. UEF can spam Riptides, Aeon can spam Blazes, Sera can spam zthueys, Nomads can spam... well god knows what they can spam but they probably have something, amirite? (ETA: Quelle surprise )

"Give engie" is not a solution. Jesters are not a solution. Torps are not a solution. Nanite torp is NOT a solution except situationally.

The fact that Cybran engies don't hover and are at the mercy of subs just adds insult to injury.

@LittleMissMurder

@LittleMissMurder. Do you mean dive and use their guns??

Thanks

@Mvk_- Just give them the ability to engage hovering crap over water when you are unable to build boats because you've been pushed out. All the other factions have something. This would in effect turn them into a kind of tracked submarine. It's but one of many ideas that have been thrown around.

What it boils down to is, hover is a shit mechanic and should be removed entirely in lieu of amphib.

So Cybran T2 Amphibious Wagner cant shot other hovering units over water?

Thanks

Only when it's on land. I'm proposing being able to turn it into a boat on command. Rises to the surface and can shoot.

Sounds reasonable but maybe the outcome can still be achieved in another way, if not needed of another way than fine. But having to where it can say just fire at all "land" based units, naval within range and air that has landed, "land" unit, not sure the wagner itself would have to change much, but a point behind it might be that it cant though also.

Thanks

Just get rid of hover and everything is solved.

There was a big discussion above about APM and manual reclaim and why people play FAF vs other RTS or some shit. I'm not gonna quote the whole thing but I'm going to add my thoughts to the fire.

I'm not exactly sure why manual reclaim is held in such high esteem. I understand the role of reclaim in the game, but I do remember being told that making a UI mod that would auto que up reclaim orders is a banable offense. That might have been joking but it still shows some defensive nature on the topic. I for one would love an order that was just "reclaim everything in range" but apparently that for some reason is bad?

From what I have been able to gather from this thread and some other places, this is a concept that hits skill level groups differently. The early game start "mass small rock" reclaim isn't actually /that/ important, to 1500s, but to 2000s the skill is so high that the 1% economic boost it gives you might be the edge on the other guy. Where in a game of 500s it's going to be a few minutes before a factory gets built so it's meaningless.
The other point seems to be one of activity. In that if you have queued up all your important orders, and thus have spare APM, there is a place to spend it that gives you a marginal boost. This is an interesting concept and something that could be expanded.
Am I correct in trying to understand this problem? I am just an 800 rank player, but I am also an aspiring game dev, so help me understand this bit deeper.

And on the target priority thing: I do love it. The whole draw to supcom for me was that it was the first actual real time STRATEGY game I played (earlier titles just feeling more tactical in scale). And telling platoons what types of things to attack just feels like a strategic decision. TBH I wish it was expanded, so I could reorder the priority entirely. PD/mex/pgens/facs/AA in that order, or something. Then saving and applying presets.

And for a dumb idea make Aircraft carriers useful.
Give them com/support style upgrade slots, and each slot is a wing of planes that gets auto rebuilt and stays within some range of the carrier (perhaps a toggle for range categories).

A ui mod (or really a macro) that reclaims at the same efficiency as manual reclaim (say it does the equivalent of 500 apm in rock clicking) at the touch of a single action is a bannable offense because it necessitates mandatory usage. There is no tradeoff in such a mechanic and it results in this not being some optional ui mod but rather a mandatory modification at any competent level in the game.

Therefore, it either is integrated into base FAF to not give an unfair competitive advantage or it is blanket banned. It is essentially going to be an arms race to make what automates the game as much, and as efficiently, as possible.

You don't really have "spare APM" to go around clicking tiny rocks in 1v1s or 2v2s on larger maps. There are vastly more important things to be putting your attention to at any point in the game, really. The only time this "spare APM" tradeoff exists is in teamgames where there is a ton of dead air because you have a singular role, a singular lane, and a singular way to play on most maps. There is no management other than getting the most eco out of the map as quickly as possible so you can continuously scale.

Teamgame players will watch top ladder (which are really top teamgame players anyway) play teamgames and see them whore reclaim and assume this is what makes them good ladder players. It isn't. Spend 300 apm at the start clicking rocks for some 300 mass advantage over the enemy. Makes sense, there is no engagement going on, nothing to really watch on the map. Spend 300 apm at min 15 for the same advantage when losing 2 pillars will give the enemy 400 mass? Yeah, no good.

Aircraft carriers are useful; they are beefier AA that can't be quickly sniped like cruisers can. The utility only comes into play on maps like sentons where you have an air player with 40 air factories but also a ton of space for major t3 navy buildup.