Deceiver < Stinger < Atlantis / Czar Do you think this should be a bug or a feature?

I dislike the importance of map specific build orders. I also like it being possible to give an atlantis stealth by loading a deceiver into it. The two are very different points.

It also seems strange to me that a hidden non-intuitive glitch where giving an attack-move rally point from a factory artificially increases an engineer’s reclaim range is seen as sacrosanct (despite having a notable impact on games and being frequently used by players aware of its existence) but a rarely seen unit interaction that is to some extent consistent with other interactions involving that unit (deceiver) must be removed.

That said I can understand removing if it’s a side effect of removing the potential for more serious bugs/interactions that exist from permitting this, and/or if its the only solution to weird looking graphics/unit selections.

For the avoidance of doubt even thiugh Im disappointed it’ll be removed I don’t see it as a big deal (and other changes made in this patch that I’ve commented on less such as spread commands and mobile factories I see as more important)

@blackyps

It's a false equivalence, on top of the false equivalence of confusing the people in that thread with the people in this one. You need to learn (and practice) build orders for each map, but you only need to learn the intricacies of deceiver interactions once, with no practice required.

Where are we going with this, talking about other people complaining about something else? What do you believe? Should knowledge of the game translate to an advantage while playing it?

Supcom has always been about game/unit knowledge and not about micro, this is not StarCraft

Waiting for factory attack move to be patched out since it's a bug/glitch

Need some consistency here

@slicknixon said in Deceiver < Stinger < Atlantis / Czar Do you think this should be a bug or a feature?:

Where are we going with this, talking about other people complaining about something else? What do you believe? Should knowledge of the game translate to an advantage while playing it?

I believe that the removal or keeping of this feature is pretty irrelevant. Jip noticed it, the balance team gave its approval for removing it, so it got removed. The reasoning for the change sounds pretty convincing to me as well.
This whole discussion will lead to nothing as a decision has already been made and there are no substantial counterarguments to be made other than personal opinion. Which is fine, in the end things like "how much micro should be in the game" always boils down to personal opinion, as there is no objectively correct answer.
I've been taking part in this discussion because it was entertaining to a degree, but it has become more and more redundant

@blackyps said in Deceiver < Stinger < Atlantis / Czar Do you think this should be a bug or a feature?:

@slicknixon said in Deceiver < Stinger < Atlantis / Czar Do you think this should be a bug or a feature?:

Where are we going with this, talking about other people complaining about something else? What do you believe? Should knowledge of the game translate to an advantage while playing it?

I believe that the removal or keeping of this feature is pretty irrelevant. Jip noticed it, the balance team gave its approval for removing it, so it got removed. The reasoning for the change sounds pretty convincing to me as well.
This whole discussion will lead to nothing as a decision has already been made and there are no substantial counterarguments to be made other than personal opinion. Which is fine, in the end things like "how much micro should be in the game" always boils down to personal opinion, as there is no objectively correct answer.
I've been taking part in this discussion because it was entertaining to a degree, but it has become more and more redundant

Removal of this feature goes against supcom, the game where you can do anything.

Justification for removal is also inconsistent.

Priority of removal was extremely high for something nobody even does.

I'm telling you, these are not good signs. Will faf be ok, yeah.

@blackyps

no substantial counterargu..

An aircraft with a stealth field also stealths the carrier.

mod that adds a stealth field to UEF spyplane

This whole discussion will lead to nothing as a decision has already been made and there are no substantial counterarguments to be made other than personal opinion.

There's also no substantial arguments in favour other than personal opinion, and fait accompli is not an argument. There is no issue or bug to be fixed when nobody ever does this and an immediate and final decision like this shuts off any discussion in the other direction, of making carriers more interesting. When's the last time anyone used Atlantis, cybran carrier or a CZAR as an actual carrier and not just temporary storage for produced units?

Please direct your complaints to the balance team, if you think they are making bad decisions.

An aircraft with a stealth field also stealths the carrier.

mod that adds a stealth field to UEF spyplane

From my understanding all intel (and intel maintenance costs) should be disabled when units are inside a carrier. Have you tested if the mod still works on fafdevelop?

@blackyps

Whether the patch missed some edge case or another/is itself bugged has zero bearing on the justification for implementing it in the first place (and it didn't, as far as I can see the patch linked by SpikeyNoob disables all intel in carriers).

My point was that much hay was made about intel within carriers (IWC) being a glitch that's related to transports within transports (TWT). @Black_Wriggler made a comment--"load a spy plane into a carrier and it has omni"--and I got curious if it held true for all intel, for all units in cargo, regardless of if they're attached to another transport, land, air, whatever. And it does! IWC works regardless of the presence of TWT.

Given that half of the stated reason for removing IWC was glitchiness due to the engine's inability to handle TWT, that there is in fact no relationship between the two would suggest a reassessment of that reasoning is appropriate.

Based on how the conversation has gone so far, I suspect we'll ditch the glitch justification and settle for the local minimum of "it's purely a balance issue" instead. As stated, these are not good signs.

If it's purely balence issue, it's outside of normal operation as it got updated immediately instead of the next balence patch.

Consistency is key

@slicknixon said in Deceiver < Stinger < Atlantis / Czar Do you think this should be a bug or a feature?:

And it does! IWC works regardless of the presence of TWT.

Tell that to jamming.
The thing is, the proper way to fix this bug (not allowing stingers with cargo or stingers in general into carriers) is either impossible to fix or has greater balance implication than just disabling the one interaction that creates weird side effects. If this was a feature i'd see no reason why transports can't get into carriers. And preventing these scenarios is important as the only thing we know is, the engine can't handle it. We have no idea what exactly might possibly happen (like the invincible hover tank).
Removing this is also an improvement for the game as all stealth/jamming units continued to drain e for no effect while in a carrier. So this also gets fixed while only removing this small interaction.

@blackyps said in Deceiver < Stinger < Atlantis / Czar Do you think this should be a bug or a feature?:

@slicknixon said in Deceiver < Stinger < Atlantis / Czar Do you think this should be a bug or a feature?:

Where are we going with this, talking about other people complaining about something else? What do you believe? Should knowledge of the game translate to an advantage while playing it?

I believe that the removal or keeping of this feature is pretty irrelevant. Jip noticed it, the balance team gave its approval for removing it, so it got removed. The reasoning for the change sounds pretty convincing to me as well.
This whole discussion will lead to nothing as a decision has already been made and there are no substantial counterarguments to be made other than personal opinion. Which is fine, in the end things like "how much micro should be in the game" always boils down to personal opinion, as there is no objectively correct answer.
I've been taking part in this discussion because it was entertaining to a degree, but it has become more and more redundant

You haven't answered the question. SlickNixon asked specifically: Do you believe that knowledge of the game should translate in an advantage while playing the game?

I've already explicitly stated that this change in particular isn't something that will suddenly make FAF unplayable, but that it does fit in a larger pattern of changes that have been made in the recent past. This pattern of changes seems to involve homogenizing factions, as well as removing niche interactions and faction-specific units or abilities.

No substantial counterarguments [have been] made other than personal opinion

Now who is being reductive here?

Several people here, @SlickNixon in particular, have been explaining their arguments and reasoning very well. Do not dismiss their comments out of hand as mere personal opinion.

I've been taking part in this discussion because it was entertaining to a degree, but it has become more and more redundant

I've not been finding this discussion entertaining, but I've found it important, because I genuinely believe that the recent changes and decisions by the balance team are taking the game into a direction that is unhealthy.

Given that half of the stated reason for removing IWC was glitchiness due to the engine's inability to handle TWT, that there is in fact no relationship between the two would suggest a reassessment of that reasoning is appropriate.

That is not true, it was explained here:

@jip said in Deceiver < Stinger < Atlantis / Czar Do you think this should be a bug or a feature?:

The engine disables all weapon ranges of units that are inside a carrier. All weapons of those units are disabled too. Intel is not disabled by the engine because unlike the average unit-related system, intel is entirely managed in Lua. You can read up about it here
Given that the unit is unable to interact with the simulation. And given that the unit is unable to be damaged. And given that you can not select the unit (even though when the game thinks you can, but can't) it seems a natural conclusion that the unit does not exist at that moment.

All changing of unit interactions is also a balance issue to some degree. I get that it blurs the line between game patches and balance patches, but I think that is just how it is. Would you have preferred it if the change was delayed to the next balance patch? Why would that be better?

@indexlibrorum said in Deceiver < Stinger < Atlantis / Czar Do you think this should be a bug or a feature?:

Do you believe that knowledge of the game should translate in an advantage while playing the game?

I think in general my answer is yes, but I don't see how it is relevant. From this question we can't deduce that we should definitely keep this unit interaction.

@slicknixon said in Deceiver < Stinger < Atlantis / Czar Do you think this should be a bug or a feature?:

these are not good signs.

@veteranashe said in Deceiver < Stinger < Atlantis / Czar Do you think this should be a bug or a feature?:

Consistency is key

@indexlibrorum said in Deceiver < Stinger < Atlantis / Czar Do you think this should be a bug or a feature?:

I genuinely believe that the recent changes and decisions by the balance team are taking the game into a direction that is unhealthy.

I see that you have concerns, but I don't really understand what exactly you want.

Let me try to address the removing or rather changing of unit interactions as this seems to be one part of it, albeit not everything.
These ones have been explicitly named:
Ctrl k sat to destroy nuke
Asf hitting nukes to detonate
Asf hitting strat bombs
T1 aa hitting nukes
Off screening is bannable

The problem with the first three is that they are not hard to pull off and there is no counterplay. It was not a good option to just leave them as is as they turned out to be a real balance concern. If you just leave them in you get "faf is unplayable because of op cheese", if you patch them you get "faf removes all of the fun". There was an effort to patch these interactions in a way that preserves emergent behaviour as much as possible. For example the sat still does damage (I believe), but lands in a random location. The nuke now has a lot more HP, so it kills the AA projectiles and the colliding ASF instead of dying itself. So it still allows for simulated projectiles, but fixes the glaring balance issues.
Of course it was cooler when the nuke exploded because a random plane hit it, but is it still cool if nukes get catched by a scout swarm every game, making nukes useless? Do you have solutions to keep these interactions while still addressing the balance issues they cause?

That said, it seems you are also talking about a more general trend, but canyou be more explicit about this? Right now it feels like simply complaining, but I would like to arrive at solutions.
What do you think why things are running the way they are right now? What do you want to have changed?

If you just leave them in you get "faf is unplayable because of op cheese"

That's not the case with deceivers in carriers since nobody does that. I don't think carrier functionality is used at all by anyone, so it's very underpowered if anything.

Those were features of the game that have been changed or banned, I don't care too much about them as they mostly ruin a game for someone.

What I am going on about is this is inconsistent with the normal balence approach and also inconsistent of what glitches should be patched out. Every organization needs consistency or it will fail.

If this was consistent and normal it would have been tested with the balence team, put on faf beta balence, and listed in the next balence patch thread, instead it's just gone now.

If this was consistent on removing all glitches, all would be removed, and the 1 example I listed of a glitch I can guarantee you will not be removed, which is the 2x glitch of factory attack move.

Like I said, this is not a good showing from those in charge at faf. If you want to make the community better you need to keep a consistent and proven process, not knee jerking and patching this out. This little issue is not a big deal but there will be a big deal later on down the road if consistency is not followed.

Truth hurts sometimes.

@nex

Tell that to jamming.

Well, I don't have much to say to jamming, so I'll amend my statement to

And it does! Omni or stealth field gets added by cargo regardless of whether that cargo is an aircraft or ground unit attached to an aircraft.

@BlackYps

That is not true, it was explained here

My brother in Christ, I know what I said and I know what I tested. When you put an aircraft with omni in a carrier, the carrier gets omni. When you put an aircraft with a stealth field in a carrier, the carrier gets a stealth field. When you put a transport with an attached unit with either of those intel properties in a carrier, the carrier gets that intel property. (Jamming is an exception to this, as noted above).

There have been many statements to the effect that the behavior people are looking to correct is somehow related to how the engine handles a unit attached to a transport inside a carrier. It is not. I suspect that conclusion arose from the coincidence that the only way to get a stealth field unit inside a carrier in the stock game is via a deceiver attached to a stinger. However, as I demonstrated in the mod I posted, a normal aircraft with a stealth field will exhibit the same behavior as a deceiver + stinger combo when loaded into a carrier, if it has a stealth field defined in its blueprint.

That's the statement. It's true. I ran a test and gathered evidence. You can also run my test, and if you get different results you can tell me mine are bullshit. If you'd like to demonstrate in some other way that there is a relationship between the two I'd be happy to see whatever evidence you've gathered. "Stingers with attached units act funny when they're inside carriers" does not imply that every aspect of that situation is a result of that behavior.

Lastly, given that the explanation you posted is in large part verifiable facts, I'll focus on the conclusion:

it seems a natural conclusion that the unit does not exist at that moment

It's a computer program. The existence or lack thereof of what's ultimately a series of bits recorded in one location or another (and it's recorded somewhere, whether it's inside or outside of a box) is not a rigorous idea, so there's nothing there to contradict what I've repeated above.

...
(finally)

I think in general my answer is yes, but I don't see how it is relevant.

It's relevant insofar as everyone is trying to figure out what point you were trying to make when you brought it up.

The paragraph by Jip that I linked refers to units within carriers. Not units in stingers in carriers.
Your observations are correct, but it is also correct that it was explained that Intel in carriers is something that was decided should be removed. The stinger issue comes on top of that

@blackyps

We've arrived at lexical analysis. An inevitability to it. But we can do it together.

From your quoted section:

and given that you can not select the unit (even though when the game thinks you can, but can't)

Background: when stingers with attached units are in carriers, the stinger can still be highlighted from outside the carrier as though it could be selected (but it can't be selected). You can test this for yourself or look at the photo Jip posted as an example.

"The unit" in the paragraph in question refers to a unit which "the game thinks you can [select], but can't". The next sentence in the paragraph (that you omitted) refers to "the cargo of the unit".

The unit is a stinger, carrying another unit, inside a carrier. As a context clue, the introductory section of that post (after the, you know, other stuff) mentions the engine being unable to properly process transports-within-transports or transports-within-cargo.

From Jip's earlier comments, some five days prior:

Being able to give constant stealth a CZAR because of this glitch can hardly be considered intended

The interaction being discussed is clearly unintended. No other unit that enters the Atlantis has this bug for example, except for Stingers with cargo

Zero interest in belaboring this point further.

So. Is there a pot of gold for me at the end of this rainbow? I don't think you understood the point I was making before. It seems you also didn't understand the section you quoted to refute that point (that you didn't understand). You can't claim in good faith that I haven't articulated my arguments. Your MO is heavy on gotchas and it's diminishing my desire to continue this conversation. Where do we go from here?

There's a difference between "unintended" as in explicitly not wanted and "unintended" as in emergent behaviour. Nobody patched out groundfiring subs even though it's also "clearly unintended", how is this different?

I'm sorry, but this thread is wasting my time