A Topic of Dumb Ideas!
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Just get rid of hover and everything is solved.
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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).You must deceive the enemy, sometimes your allies, but you must always deceive yourself!
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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.
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@FtXCommando Thanks for the thoughts!
I do mostly play team games. As I said I'm a lower rank, so I don't have that higher level perspective.
I have seen people use aircraft carriers for their AA, but it never seemed like it was that effective. IIRC cruizers have more AA-DPS per invested resource, which may be why I avoided trying to utilize them. That and they present a single large target, not a fan. I suppose they just didn't seem like aircraft carriers, carrying aircraft into fleet engagements. Then again I think you would need those 81km maps for that to become a 'thing'
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They have more aa, they have less hp
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@FtXCommando Yeah, just double checked the unit DB and it looks like they average ~10x the HP for ~2x the mass. Pretty interesting. Does not seem very aircraft carrierry, but at least they have some use. Just wish it was more around carrying aircraft. Thank you for the insight.
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@KaletheQuick said in A Topic of Dumb Ideas!:
TBH I wish it was expanded, so I could reorder the priority entirely.
You can modify the advanced target priorities mod however you want! If you want PD/mex/pgens/facs/AA in that order you can just edit the orders.lua.
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Create and integrate a mod which allows you to repeat move orders (like patrol but using move instead of attack move). This should have been in the game from the start.
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@Tagada said in A Topic of Dumb Ideas!:
@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.
Tagada, I do not doubt that you'd kick my ass on any map...
However, it does not follow that your skill level implies that clicking tiny rocks is good for the game. It just doesn't.
And I get that you probably worked your ass off to get where you are, and it might be insulting to be disagreed with by someone that hasn't put in that kind of effort. I really do.
But it doesn't change the fact that fundamentally, being better at the game just doesn't imply that you're actually right on every little micro issue the game has.
And frankly, the clicking little rocks issue... it is clearly a lame fucking mechanic.
I'm amazed that anyone bothers to argue it. It goes against what fundamental separates Supcom from other games in its genre. It IS a lame mindless repetitive mechanic.
And you're right that I thought it went on for longer than it did, but that doesn't change it being a lame mechanic.
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yes id rather stare at my base for 20 seconds until i have something to do
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@TheWheelie There are other solutions to the slow start in this game. The man is completely right: Clicking on rocks manually is an extremely lame mechanic.
A generally good rule of thumb when considering whether a concept is any good as a whole is to put yourself into a state of mind where the thing doesn't exist, and try to imagine the response if it were proposed. A proposal to add the necessity of manually clicking a bunch of rocks in the first few minutes in order to compete at high levels on certain maps would simply be laughed out by any playerbase which was not already pre-conditioned to accept it.
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@IceDreamer said in A Topic of Dumb Ideas!:
@TheWheelie There are other solutions to the slow start in this game. The man is completely right: Clicking on rocks manually is an extremely lame mechanic.
A generally good rule of thumb when considering whether a concept is any good as a whole is to put yourself into a state of mind where the thing doesn't exist, and try to imagine the response if it were proposed. A proposal to add the necessity of manually clicking a bunch of rocks in the first few minutes in order to compete at high levels on certain maps would simply be laughed out by any playerbase which was not already pre-conditioned to accept it.
This...
When I posted this, I knew that people would hate the idea, but I also felt like this is just a clearly obvious (although admittedly minor) flaw.
And while I expected this to perhaps not be worth pursuing because its so minor and because it would be controversial, I never imagined the kind of reaction its gotten.
Its always surprising when sane, intelligent people take a clearly ridiculous position and dig in.
"You're just low rated and don't understand the depth added by all the tiny rock clicking"...
sigh...
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@IceDreamer said in A Topic of Dumb Ideas!:
A generally good rule of thumb when considering whether a concept is any good as a whole is to put yourself into a state of mind where the thing doesn't exist, and try to imagine the response if it were proposed. A proposal to add the necessity of manually clicking a bunch of rocks in the first few minutes in order to compete at high levels on certain maps would simply be laughed out by any playerbase which was not already pre-conditioned to accept it.
Turning the concept around and attempting to propose the system in an unreasonably weak fashion - so much so that your original position appears stronger; is completely duplicitous, and a mockery of legitimate game design.
No sane individual - not even a novice designer, or a random pleb on a forum - would legitimately attempt to introduce manual reclaim to a game by stating "we should let people click on tiny rocks to gain advantages in the game." Doing so would be akin to pure idiocy, or in this example: be an underhanded tactic to garner support for the alternative position. One so blatant, and so weak, that anyone with a modicum of experience in any design field would be able to call out upon reading the post. As I am doing to you now.
We are after all; standing in a group of people who contort every word, grammar mark, or point of evidence, into something that may help envision themselves as some sort of hero. Fighting against an uncaring or otherwise elitist majority regardless of value or virtue, just like dear Moses is inferring in the post above mine. There is no way a legitimate proposal to the game would break from that trend when it implies no value to do so, and only a proposal that is inherently duplicitous would benefit from that.
People have already explained the merits of reclaim in depth, and trying to argue with people like moses who may or may not be afflicted with mental disorders is not going to change the opinion of anyone in the thread. Just don't try and contort design iteration into an argument. Especially one that infers that the community is a conditioned, perhaps even brainwashed mess, and that you are a hero for attempting to defeat them. It's not that people are "conditioned against you," its just that your ideas are bad.
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Another dumb idea, seeing as curently SACU balance is been looked into, just remove the ability to upgrade them entirely and have a set of indevidual units the gateway can build. No longer would the devs need to balance mixing and matcing upgrades.
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While on the gateway part why not allow to transport units between two gateways and allow faster repair for an acu that is sitting on top of gateway.
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On the topic of unit repair: we got these incredibly op air staging facilities that can repair an expensive strat for free in two millliseconds. The only reason why everyone is not using them is essentially apm. How about creating the same for ground units? Basically a unit repair center, but you need to load units into it manually. You trade apm for free mass, much like reclaiming stuff. And it would make veterancy and micro more valuable, because you could heal up veterans and make so they get even more vet. I always missed a repair feature and think it would add depth to the game
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@Whatisbennis actually sprint/ba have that and they are sort of usefull, currently repairing is waste of mass.
Having something repair proportional to 1-50 mass per second for example for 50-1500 energy per sec would be great addition (so better than regural fabricator energy to mass convertion). -
@Reckless_Charger this is considered cheating by mods "casue unfair advantage" lol, mod got removed from game)
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Just make it that any unit that has not been damaged in the last 60 seconds gets trippled passive regen rate
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@realslmshdy what mod was this? And it wouldn't be cheating if it was integrated and everyone could do move - patrol. We have attack - move patrol so what's the problem here?
