Author Topic: Conveying the new Quadrangle  (Read 11293 times)

Offline Pumpkin

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Conveying the new Quadrangle
« on: September 11, 2016, 01:34:24 pm »
So Chris walked in a bar and ended a discussion...

Quote
Structures
This is a generalized thing, and would include all of the immobile stuff EXCEPT for turrets.  Turrets need to have one of the four main classes, since they are combat-oriented, and thus bombers are not just the answer to every turret situation ever.  That would be an example of going way too simple.
On the other hand, “simple” things like fortresses and other semi-stationary stuff that is high-health and structure-like would simply be marked as a structure, because that’s part of the important role of bombers.  It’s important for you to guard the bombers during combat as they complete their run, and that’s fun.

Strike
This is the “most basic” class in a lot of ways, and it’s fighters as well as a variety of other types of ships that are highly mobile and generally best at shooting other things that move.
“Air superiority” is another common term of this, or sometimes assault craft.
These are the primary counter against bombers, just as in real life.  These also outclass the smaller and more specialized “blitz” group, which includes the melee units, shorter-range specialized for things like parasites, and other particularly-strange stuff.
Bear in mind that just because the Strike class is going to beat the heck out of the Blitz class, that doesn’t mean the Blitz folks aren’t going to inflict some… oddness… on the Strike group.  Aka, parasites may have captured a bunch of fighters.  An autobomb may have done extra structural damage despite its death.  Etc.

Bombing
These are mostly anti-structural units, and given that that’s a fair part of the game, that makes these important.  But in the core quad of actual ship-on-ship combat, these guys come up a bit short, which makes sense given their outsized role in the game at large.
That said, they still are a very important counter to the Archer group, which otherwise is going to eat up your Strike class, so it’s not like you don’t want these around.  They simply are useful against a much smaller set of combat ships than Strike or Blitz ships.

Archer
A name that is thematic for these guys is tough.  But overall their distinguishing feature is some degree of precision-striking over a longer range than normal munitions.  So these are great against Strike craft, because they’ll generally destroy them before the range can be closed.
However, these are less effective against the hulls of both Bombing and Blitz ships, because (thematically speaking) they have anti-archery materials or whatever. ;)  This lets those close the distance and eat the poor corvettes (formerly missile frigates).
THAT said, shelling stuff from a distance is both useful and fun.  It thus only makes good sense to give these guys a secondary role as well (like Bombing class).  This also does the double-duty of making it so that bombers are not SO central to the entire freaking game.  Two things to guard, rather than one, depending on the context!
These are thus good against the “Scary Generalists,” which are basically big “I kill everything” kinds of ships.  Nothing is particularly good against a scary generalist, because one-on-one it kills everything.  However, if you’re going to throw your resources into something to combat these… throw those resources into Archer ships.  They are in no way a hard counter against those scary generalists, but they are “the best of the things that are bad at it,” which is, after all, pretty good when you’re facing a golem or whatever it happens to be.

Blitz
This was a hard group to come up with, because it’s not part of the core triangle that was pre-existing in AI War Classic.  However, the core goal of this class is that is that they are probably short-lived (comparably) but inflict a lot of damage on a variety of things.
It is fitting that the “air superiority” type of ships would eat these for lunch, since that’s part of what air superiority means.  But these guys then being really good at carving holes in everything else (possibly at an outsize cost to themselves) makes them threatening and relevant.

Scary Generalists
Golems, Major Weapons, etc.

... Then a new discussion started.
"How do we convey that to new players?"
(And most veterans will be "new" for that specific mechanism.)

First, I dislike the "blitz" name used here. I think it's confusing with "strike". I propose "specialist", as this better convey that they win with tricky stuff instead of fast attack. Also, I think it implies they die fast, because... I don't know. Don't you feel that too? (I imagine I could tell a friend about a FPS game with classes and say "This class is the specialist. It has many weird weapons but dies fast." and the friend would reply "Obvious.")

I rather like the names for Strike(r), Archer and Bombinger.

"Scary Generalists" need a true name. I thought about "Destroyer". Sounds clear, right?

Turrets and Guard Posts will fit in these categories. I think that will be a bit odd for Strike and Blitz, but for Archer, Bomber, Specialist and Destroyer, no problem, IMO. (Well, I don't think we'll have many Bomber turrets/posts.) I clearly see the Fortress and HBC in the Destroyer category.

I'm not really satisfied with the numbers (x2, x3, 0.5, 0.75, etc) but as long as they don't get in my way/face, I won't complain. Like I can look them up in an "advanced" tooltip, but I just need to see the class of a unit and remember the arrows in the diagram. Fine.

Just for the sake of discussion.
Where will the Starships be? Each in a category? (Raid in Strike, Leech in Blitz, Plasma in Bombing/Archer, etc) So bombers won't be pure anti-starships anymore. That sounds fine to me.
Where will the Younglings be? All in Strike? All in Blitz/Specialist? Each in a category? (Tigger in Bombing, Weasel in Blitz, Commando in Strike, etc) I think they have a strong connection and should go in the same category. Specialist is my best bet.

Ammo for thematic purpose only is completely fine as long as it keeps a sort of underlying coherency. (I would see something like that: overall, X prefers Y, but there are some exceptions and some exotic ammo: Striker-shell, Archer-missile, Bomber-bomb, Specialist-laser, Destroyer-energy.)

TL;DR:
I like these changes.
Now it's time to refine them.
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline kasnavada

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Re: Conveying the new Quadrangle
« Reply #1 on: September 11, 2016, 01:53:48 pm »
I like the concept.

I'd call "scary generalists" specialists though. Not sure about the other names.

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Conveying the new Quadrangle
« Reply #2 on: September 11, 2016, 02:57:35 pm »
I like the concept.

I'd call "scary generalists" specialists though. Not sure about the other names.
Golems, Dire Guardians and Spirecrafts? Specialists? Well, that's one way to look at them, indeed.
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline kasnavada

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Re: Conveying the new Quadrangle
« Reply #3 on: September 11, 2016, 03:10:54 pm »
I see specialist as out of the box, and here they're out of the box.
That said... not sure about names.

Offline Sestren

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Re: Conveying the new Quadrangle
« Reply #4 on: September 11, 2016, 03:13:13 pm »
What this unit relationship diagram sort of reminds me is the old RTS Empire Earth.

Bit of background, Empire Earth had the premise of essentially covering all of human history. While Age of Empires II had four ages for tech advancement, Empire Earth had no less than fifteen. While the early ages relied on simple triangle arrangements, with the advent of tanks and aircraft and naval units and whatnot, the late game relationships got fairly complex. However, this was in the era of manuals and other physical media coming with your game so there existed a handy reference card that the player could refer to.

If you do want to set up multiple roles interacting like this (and mind you I'm all for it), the easiest way in my mind to explain that diagram is to just SHOW the player that diagram in the game somewhere. Don't try to come up with some weird mnemonic for memorizing what is essentially a directed graph, just show the graph itself. Then if for whatever reason, you want to extend it in the future, it doesn't invalidate your ability to communicate unit roles. No its not a very 'organic' solution, but that sort of thing doesn't concern me because if such a graph doesn't exist in the game itself, I'm the sort of person who will just look up a fan-created one anyway.

How much of your playerbase cares strongly about things being communicated organically anyway? Not rhetorical, I really want to know if anyone has a solid estimate.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Conveying the new Quadrangle
« Reply #5 on: September 11, 2016, 04:43:09 pm »
Kudos to you Chris.

I've talked at length at how I think archetype balancing is the way to go, and I think this is a great step forward in terms of both balancing and futureproofing the game. I'm definitely excited to hear more.
"Inner peace is the void of expectation. It is the absence of our shared desperation to feel a certain way."

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Conveying the new Quadrangle
« Reply #6 on: September 11, 2016, 05:19:21 pm »
I see specialist as out of the box, and here they're out of the box.
Good point.
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline PokerChen

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Re: Conveying the new Quadrangle
« Reply #7 on: September 11, 2016, 05:37:35 pm »
Quote from: Sunday's Design Doc
Reading commentary from players on ships from the base game, the number of times we see “I’m not even sure what this one is really for; I don’t use it” is a bit eye-opening on that front, too. 
Haha...

= = =
So anyway, according the 7.c.i section we have a diagram.
I'll try to come up with alternative names for a comparison.
  • Archers -> Skirmisher, Flanker perhaps?
  • Blitz -> Specialists, agreed. Other terms seem to be a bit too specific to the style of combat. Will want to see what goes in there.
  • Scary Generalists -> Titans, Elite, or similar, terms that try to link their names directly to their sheer stat-power in the game. Units that are difficult to fight directly against.

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Conveying the new Quadrangle
« Reply #8 on: September 11, 2016, 06:01:41 pm »
I'm actually pleased with "Elite". Sounds great when you have some and scary when they are in the other team.
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Offline Captain Jack

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Re: Conveying the new Quadrangle
« Reply #9 on: September 11, 2016, 06:22:56 pm »
    • Scary Generalists -> Titans, Elite, or similar, terms that try to link their names directly to their sheer stat-power in the game. Units that are difficult to fight directly against.
    Superweapons, like we call them on the forums.

    Offline Draco18s

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    Re: Conveying the new Quadrangle
    « Reply #10 on: September 11, 2016, 07:34:07 pm »
    I like the new names. "Blitz" isn't the best name, I suppose, but it works.  I think the "standard RTS term" is "Zerg" as in "Zerg Rush" but zerg rushing is a form of blitzkreig with a type of unit named "zergling."

    Offline Wingflier

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    Re: Conveying the new Quadrangle
    « Reply #11 on: September 11, 2016, 07:38:05 pm »
    I think by "Blitz" he means units that are hard to fit into another class, like melee units for example, or carriers that spawn melee units. Ships like that definitely deserve their own archetype.
    "Inner peace is the void of expectation. It is the absence of our shared desperation to feel a certain way."

    Offline kasnavada

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    Re: Conveying the new Quadrangle
    « Reply #12 on: September 12, 2016, 01:33:51 am »
      • Scary Generalists -> Titans, Elite, or similar, terms that try to link their names directly to their sheer stat-power in the game. Units that are difficult to fight directly against.
      Superweapons, like we call them on the forums.

      Not sure about superweapons, because it kind of categorize them as huge threats.
      I'd love to have a swarm of small units in that category. Much like Chaos damage in warcraft 3.

      [/list]
      « Last Edit: September 12, 2016, 02:05:53 am by kasnavada »

      Offline PokerChen

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      Re: Conveying the new Quadrangle
      « Reply #13 on: September 12, 2016, 01:56:15 am »
      Yeah, superweapons are great fits for golems, but sometimes make it sound like small things don't belong. As far as I'm aware, Hunter-Killers are about the size of starships, but are some of the most deadly because they represent the pinnacle of AI's prowess miniaturisation (in that Japanese meme where the final form is a small child or the such).

      = = =
      The main feature to stress is that we have two fleet-combat archetypes, and two utliity archetypes.
      There are the Strikes and the Blitz category - you can make a fleet out of these two alone, and it will make decent work of the small fish. In a medieval scenario I'd have called them Warriors and Berserkers/Skirmishers.
      Then there are the Bombers and Archers, which provide the means to attack and defend against major AI assets. In that same medial scenario, I'd have called them Siegers and Archers (noting that siege equipment such as organ guns, hwachas, etc. are anti-personnel).

      Of course, in most game where an archetype are supposed to have long range, precise, and high-calibre weapons designed to take out slow  or elite combatants, I would have called them Snipers instead of Archers. Snipers lose both to opponents that can heavily out-DPS them at range (Bombers), or are able to charge them (Blitz).

      Offline Sestren

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      Re: Conveying the new Quadrangle
      « Reply #14 on: September 12, 2016, 02:15:51 am »
      You could go the gratuitous latin route and call them Omni- something or other.

      Much as names like Titan or Dreadnought are fun, given that starships aren't a separate 'kind' of ship in this one, its likely that some old starship designs will wind up here as well (spire starship, maybe the plasma siege, stuff like that) so something that doesn't pigeonhole the group into sounding physically large would be better. If nothing interacted with them, I'd be tempted to call them something along the lines of 'typeless' but they do interact with archers, so that isn't entirely true.

      Although I do have another question. The scout starship very well could get dumped if scout drones are but there's also the cloaker starship and the two neinzul ships (that I incidentally really love and want to make it in). What category do they go in? You could make a pretty good argument for the neinzuls being blitz I guess but would the cloaker just be structural then? Some sort of typeless...thing? Same with engineers and the like. It might be good to have a default 'doesn't interact with anything' category that isn't 'exactly' structural and would never be used on direct combat stuff... or you could just say engineers taking 5x damage from bombers is rather irrelevant given that they would have died anyway and you wouldn't be wrong... but on the third hand a mobile structural entity just seems weird. Maybe call this category 'support'. That's a good generic not-really-combaty name.

       

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