Arcen Games

General Category => AI War II => : x4000 March 16, 2018, 12:56:01 PM

: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: x4000 March 16, 2018, 12:56:01 PM
Basically my assertion is that this needs to happen, and I want to see if people agree. I am referring to the big forcefield bubbles. My reasoning: 

1. These are at least some drain on the CPU, how much is up to debate.

2. These are a huge and ongoing source of micro or frustration on the part of players thanks to needing to keep their stuff under it. There is likely no perfect solution to this, and anything we try likely causes more CPU load.

3. By their very nature, they tend to look bad or at best kinda funky. A bunch of big balls of forcefields all over the place can only look but so many ways.

4. They make everything else feel less powerful by their very existence. If the survivability of certain ships depends on shields, then that strikes me as a problem with that ship.

5. They just feel... antiquated, to me, personally. It takes away from the feeling of space naval battles from so much sci-fi lore. Neither Star Wars nor Star Trek have shields that protect other units, EXCEPT as a big MacGuffin in the case of the shield around the second Death Star. I just finished reading the Bobiverse books, and a while back I was reading The Lost Fleet, and it really strikes me how there are never giant shield bubbles there. Any sort of naval engagements never have that, either.

6. Just in a general sense, I really, really feel like we're borrowing trouble with shields in general, and I greatly regret having ever added them to the first game. I feel that these will continue to take up dev time that could be better spent in other areas of the game, making the entire experience more fun if they did not exist.

I know that these were a thing in the first game.  And we do already have them in the second game.  But part of good game design is knowing when to trim fat.  Can they go?  Will you be upset?

This discussion is also on kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arcengames/ai-war-ii-0/posts/2138437

P.S.: Answers of "let people use them if they want to turn on an extra option" are not okay, because that would destroy balance and reintroduce all the other problems if we have that.  This is black and white, they are either in or out. :)
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: mithrandi March 16, 2018, 01:01:12 PM
Removing them sounds good to me; I never felt like I was getting much positive out of shield micro in AI War 1.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: x4000 March 16, 2018, 01:02:20 PM
One down!  Hopefully some of the other diehards around here agree. :)
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: BadgerBadger March 16, 2018, 01:03:30 PM
What if we had it so shields blocked unit movement from everything (not just enemy ships)? So you could have a ship with shields, but it couldn't protect other ships. Then you could restrict it to only Rare units (so maybe a high level Spire ship could get a shield generator, or a Dire Guardian)

I would be okay with removing shields from mobile units and making shield generators much rarer. But it would be a bummer to remove them entirely.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Otagan March 16, 2018, 01:09:32 PM
If you want them gone because they're a micro nightmare and kinda look ugly, that's reason enough for me. Do it.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: x4000 March 16, 2018, 01:15:08 PM
If we want to have ships with shields, we can do that in a TLF-style way by having basically a bar that recharges on them over time, secondary to the health bar.  That's more like deflector shields in Star Wars, or like the shields on the enterprise in Star Trek.  They prevent hull damage for that particular ship, but get weakened over time.  They don't really have a visual component other than the second health bar that is just for shields, because they are, well, invisible. 

And the way they differ from health is that they recharge over time if they have not been shot lately, for free.  Health has to be repaired by something else, for metal.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: zeusalmighty March 16, 2018, 01:20:40 PM
Oh boy, this is big. I can't imagine AI classic without them but I suppose I need to compartmentalize. They felt necessary in classic because so many capturables were utterly fragile and irreplaceable to boot. This mechanic worked for classic imo because it really forced you to TD in meaningful ways--I wonder if this would be lacking from AI 2

Insofar as these irreplaceable capturables don't have this liability in AI2 then I suppose shields don't seem necessary. The one strategy that was kinda interesting that will be lost because of this change is the ability to tactically control positioning. This is kinda cool and I wonder if there would be ways to accomplish this w/o shield. Still, I get the reasoning to get rid of them

TLDR: If it needs to be done let's do it sooner than later. RIP shields  :'(
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: MondSemmel March 16, 2018, 01:25:21 PM
I have no strong opinions either way and I trust you to do what you think is best for the game.
Speaking only from experience with AI War 1, I do think forefields have some significant positive effects, but these could probably be compensated for in other ways. (That said, I'm mostly talking about static forcefields which can cover buildings / turrets; I don't think I particularly care about shield-bearing ships either way.)

For instance, and off the top of my head:

And on the AI side, the one risk I can think of off the top of my head is that AI critical infrastructure must be protected in *some way*; if there are no forcefield generators / core shields / whatever they're called, the strategy component of the game could devolve into suicide missions and unsatisfying rushes.

...

Put more generally, you designed AI War I when it contained shields, and several game elements expect shields to exist; if shields were to be removed, this could have far-reaching consequences re: balance and game flow. If it's handled correctly, the consequences needn't be bad, though.

But none of these things strictly require shields specifically; e.g. any missile-based attacks could be shot down with missiles, or there could be ships or buildings with permanent e.g. EMP-style effects to slow or disrupt such suicide attacks. Etc.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: mithrandi March 16, 2018, 01:41:10 PM
The easiest fix to "fragile structures need shields" is just to make them tanky on their own instead of fragile :)
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Pumpkin March 16, 2018, 01:44:51 PM
One voice : let them die.

Gravity turrets, tractor turrets, ship personal armor... I had enough to play with in AIWC. If AIW2 is at least as rich, I see only upsides to getting rid of bubble-shields.

Do what the game needs, be it add or subtract. You have my blessing.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: x4000 March 16, 2018, 02:12:57 PM
Cool.  From the kickstarter thread, here's something:



Okay, so based on what people are saying, here's what I'm thinking at the moment:

1. We keep the big bubble shields as-is but JUST for a few enemy planets, maybe 3 at most, because beating them down is fun.  One per planet, max, and they are immobile.  You can't get them, and the AI can't build more.  They're just a "hey, that's neat" thing for rare occasions.

2. For ships that have "personal shields," that would work like in TLF: a shield health bar exists, and goes down when shot.  It prevents hull damage while existing.  When not shot for a while, it automatically regenerates, for free.

3. Shield starships and shield guardians would give personal shields to, say, the nearest 30 allied ships, regardless of distance, on the same planet.  So you can still adjust the battlefield substantially with them, but it's not a black and white on/off scenario anymore, and there's no real micro with it.  Any ship being granted personal shields from a shield starship/guardian in this manner would simply work like a ship that had personal shields from its own default nature.

4. We'll add "woirmhole blockers," which you or the AI can place near a wormhole in order to prevent exit through that wormhole.  It only prevents movement of enemies through the wormhole (not allies or neutrals), and it only prevents it one-directionally (the side the blocker ship is on, so it can be shot at).

5. And beyond that, we need to make sure that the battlefield has appropriate terrain simply in the form of enemy fleet composition variance.

Fin.

Thoughts?



This is also worth posting:

The terrain issue definitely exists with or without shields at the moment, and there are some changes in the near future which should help with those. Specifically regarding the way power generators work and how that affects turrets if a power generator goes out. So that should help.

But one of the very biggest things, to me, is that we need to get away from the fleet-ball mentality. It should be absolutely moronic to bring your bombers into a ball against a ball that has fighters in it, because those fighters just absolutely wreck your bombers. We recently upped the bonus against unlike-types from 300% to 900%, but it may need to go even higher, we'll see.

Part of this boils down to enemy composition needing to be more nuanced than it was in the first game (and -- sidebar -- at one point the first game worked like this, and fleet balls were less of a thing). You send in your fighters and your missile corvettes first, clear out certain forces there, and then send the bombers in, etc.

That sort of thing used to exist, and that doesn't require any sort of terrain. It just requires a clear and effective rock paper scissors mechanic. This is one of those things that I think we can focus on better with shields removed, to be honest. Right now there are some things that are "paper actually beats scissors and rock if it's under a shield, but otherwise it loses to rock a little and scissors a lot." Whut? ;)

We had this at one point, and lost it. At one point I'd never have thought of approaching a variety of positions with my bombers along because I'd just be out bombers without them accomplishing anything. Other places it was a matter of keeping my fighters away from the enemy missile frigates, and letting my bombers and missile frigates close in and wreck the enemy before I resumed chasing.

It's only when the enemy gets so homogeneous and swirled-together that the players have to resort to the same. We have to stop that, and then I think the shields piece is moot.

The nice part about what I'm describing above is that it's only the loosest form of micro, and it's not on/off. Keep your bombers generally back, but if the enemy gets off a couple of pot shots then it's not like the bombers are insta-toast. You're not trying to get bombers or any other ship type to within a few pixels of a certain position, in other words. You're working in broad strokes as to what you put where.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: tadrinth March 16, 2018, 02:20:14 PM
They add a LOT of complexity and fiddlyness to AIWC:
* Human forcefields work differently than AI FF and mobile FF
* Flak turrets and milspec commands interact with them differently than normal
* You run out of FFs to cover all your capturables, which depending on the map can be really frustrating (esp with things like Dark Spire)
* Shieldbearers are a giant pain in AI hands, because they soak so much damage and negate all your bonuses against anything but FFs
* Zombards aren't coming back right? Because FFs were immune to them, which was interesting in human hands but caused incredibly annoying micro when the AI sent them in waves
* units that ignored FFs were vastly better in AI hands than human hands, in my experience... you just couldn't get enough of them to make much of a difference, but the AI could
* FFs were different sizes depending on mark, which was incredibly annoying to me, as I'd have to redo all my defenses around the new FF size when I upgraded. 
* Plasma siege ships are supposed to be good against them, but I usually just mob the FFs down with bombers instead... the AI gets more use out of them because the humans reliably put important stuff under FFs. 

The biggest thing they added was the decision of where to put your limited global supply of them, and the necessity of unlocking more FFs as you acquired more capturables to cover. If they're planetary capped now, there's not really any decision to be had.

So yeah, I think they can be mostly removed. Just increase the health of all the stuff the player usually put under them.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: etheric42 March 16, 2018, 02:55:45 PM
I think there are some UI upgrades that could make mobile shields less fiddly.  Escort commands from your shield starship (or from the ships in the bubble) could keep them all together.  But what do shields do: they provide a large HP boost to glass cannons.  What are glass cannons in this game?  Squads.  Does naval air power cluster together and snipe IRL or in your common fiction?  No, they go out quickly and attack a long distance from the fleet.

What if squads work differently with mobile shields than starships do?  Starships sit under the shield and shell from massive range.  Squads can't fire from out from under the shield, but they can pass through the opponent's shields to knife-fight their starships?

Of course I never liked static shields in the first game.  Okay cleared everything non-shielded, time to have my fleet surround the shield and go pay attention to something else for awhile while I wait to finish it off.  I get the purpose was "go here last" unless you had something that went through shields, but that could be accomplished by making the forcefield invulnerable and then having unshielded generators around the map that had to be destroyed.  Maybe call them forcefields to differentiate form mobile shields?
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: lessster March 16, 2018, 03:11:40 PM
If they appear to be a problem (CPU-wise) you should take them out, no question. I am confident you will find enough ways to make the game fun without the need of any unnecessarily CPU-consuming bubbles...
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Broken_Marrow March 16, 2018, 03:19:58 PM
Take them out, but please rebalance other things at the same time. I started a game last night, and would have had to grind my face against that first ai planet for hours, without a shield starship to keep at least some of my fighters alive.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Toranth March 16, 2018, 03:23:13 PM
The easiest fix to "fragile structures need shields" is just to make them tanky on their own instead of fragile :)
This is my primary concern - some things simply need to be protected.


3. Shield starships and shield guardians would give personal shields to, say, the nearest 30 allied ships, regardless of distance, on the same planet.  So you can still adjust the battlefield substantially with them, but it's not a black and white on/off scenario anymore, and there's no real micro with it.  Any ship being granted personal shields from a shield starship/guardian in this manner would simply work like a ship that had personal shields from its own default nature.
All the rest sounds good to me - But this sounds like many of the complications of bubble-shields, without the graphics.  "Regardless of distance" also scares me.  If you were to make Planetary Shield Generator (a fixed AI structure) that behaves like this, that'd be one thing, but Shield Starships or Guardians working this way brings to mind AI Shieldbearers all over again.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Matruchus March 16, 2018, 07:43:28 PM
I personally find shields the most fun part of the game. I love to defend buildings with heavy shielding connected with planetary fortresses, heavy tower defenses. This is coming from AI War 1.

This will basically totally change the gameplay and turn it in to a totally different game. This is one thing I don't want to see removed.

This is will also kill all turtling options for players who love that gameplay style. And I'm definitely a turtler.
 
How will you replace the definsive options that heavy shield generators give you?

As for hardware needed to run the game you shouldnt support anything older then five years eitherway and those computers should run the game without any problem.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: x4000 March 16, 2018, 08:11:11 PM
Matruchus -- I think, based on the way that things are shaping up in the new builds, that you'll be doing far less with shields, but instead using cloaking (which works quite differently from the first game).  It's more dynamic, in that you can fire from a cloaked position, but your "cloaking health" goes down based on enemy planet tachyon and/or your firing.  Since, as a turtle, most of the time there won't be enemy tachyon at all, it's all about how you're choosing to fire.

Basically setting up shop with a bunch of cloaked turrets in an array, which fire with impunity for a bit, then pop into visibility and keep firing, should give you a pretty solid maginot line.

To be honest, though, during the beta in particular (and sooner if you care to give thoughts, but honestly waiting a few weeks is fine) I would really like your feedback.  This is a very different game, because it's built from different premises in terms of how things work.  Like cloaking, etc.  A lot of these things were basically "the things we wanted to do in Classic, but couldn't due to design inertia, CPU load, or whatever the heck."  Cumulatively, that makes for a pretty different experience in the moment-to-moment, but we're aiming for this to feel like the natural evolution of the older concepts in a grand sense.

Basically, the old one was clunky and fiddly in a variety of places, and we're trying to avoid that while giving you the same breadth of gameplay options, styles, and freedom.  If we've streamlined something out that then causes a playstyle to be less valid or no longer fun... well, then we need to look at what we can do to rectify the situation.  In most cases that won't mean "just do it like Classic did," because that typically comes with unwanted baggage.  But instead we want to really think about the core of what you're after, and look at how to deliver that same feeling even if the mechanics are a little different.

Personally, I find the mental image of a giant death array of turrets that are cloaked, probably with minefields in front of them, to be a lot more thematically threatening than just bubbles upon bubbles of forcefields.  Not that this is all about thematic feel or something, that's not what I meant.  But if the mechanics are equivalent-ish... well, you know, in every Mario Kart game I've noticed they adjust the timing just slightly for the controls, so you have the fun of learning it again.  Not that we're trying to do that, either; it's not change for the sake of it.

I'm probably making my case pretty poorly. ;)  But basically, AI War Classic was built up in a very ad-hoc manner.  I built things based on Supreme Commander, and then felt around for what would be fun.  I found some things that worked, others that didn't, and gradually pared and pruned and added and pruned again.  Past a certain point, that was 1.0.  Then there was a huge flurry of revisions, and a ton of additions, and we had 2.0.  That was the first "real" version of the game, for a lot of people.  Then we just kept slapping things on, building in a really exploratory way on an ad-hoc foundation.

This time around, we have 6 years of developing the first game under our belt, and 10 years of thinking about it under our belt, and so we set out with intention on each part of the whole.  Not all of those pieces have worked out, which is not unexpected, and we're going through some major revisions right now in a number of areas to make it more streamlined while also feeling more like Classic.  But the foundation this time is a lot better, and more cohesive and thought-out.  On the gameplay design side, that's entirely thanks to Keith.  The rest of us have helped him refine it, but he basically found the Minimum Central Feature Set, if that makes sense, and we've been trying to build around that rather than just having infinite tiny variations like in Classic.  There were so many similar little bonus ships throughout all the expansions in Classic.  And both cloaking and shields were pretty frustrating, and in some ways tacked-on (because both were "late" additions in the pre-1.0 Classic game).  Here the cloaking mechanics are a lot more central and well-designed, and  so are the tractor mechanics, and it was my surprise that this works out super well (on paper) for the sort of scenarios you're talking about.

If, in practice, that isn't true, then we'd like to find out during beta and find a way to make you happy.  I don't want it to be "just add the fiddly thing back," but I do want to talk to you and find out what's not feeling right and brainstorm ways to solve it, whether that's a revision to a mechanic, or a new unit, or who knows.  I know a lot of people like the style of game you describe, though, and I'm halfway in that camp, too (I turtle, but not to quite that extreme).

If that makes sense?  I really hope you'll be a voice during the early part of beta in two to three weeks, so that we're sure not to leave you and people like you behind by accident.  I'm confident that we can come up with something that works, so long as we have feedback from people with that playstyle.  We can only design but so far when it gets to playstyles that are wildly divergent from our own.

Wow long post.  ;D  But I just want to make sure that you don't get the idea that we don't care, or are just going to dismiss you out of hand or something.  Hopefully you can also give the new mechanics a fair shake, and if it doesn't feel right, well, it doesn't feel right, and we'll have to look at things together.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: zeusalmighty March 16, 2018, 09:24:14 PM
I've like the idea of keeping a few shields around for the A.I. (1 per planet max and super rare). Individually they do stand out in a good way but they don't look good cluttered as such. Seems like a good compromise anyway (and I would be sad to see them gone altogether)


The issue about territory, or lack thereof, might be addressed with some other mechanics. Here is some food for thought:

Local hazards: Basic idea is to add more diversity to a given planet well by having avoidable "terrain"

A) (Static/fixed) Nebulous patches that interferes with targeting (e.g. gas clouds)
B) (Dynamic/shifting) ion storms that damage engines of ships
C) (Dynamic/fixed) Asteroid belt that operates like a floating mine field but can be "dodged"

Would be cool if this was also implemented with respect to planet types. Is any of this even feasible?

Sure other ideas like this would work as well.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Cyborg March 16, 2018, 10:01:20 PM
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pwDFjMF6X4Q/maxresdefault.jpg)

Something about Star Wars not having bubble shields? Couldn't find a smaller version. Also, other examples of bubble shields include the game Perimeter, Halo, anime such as Bleach (Seireitei is inside the bubble, if you remember). I could probably keep thinking of more, but there you have it.

That being said, I'm not attached to bubble shields if you can come up with something cool. If you go with individual shield bars, it would be nice if the graphics had some kind of shield effect for the different ammo types.

Chris, sometimes when you denigrate something about AI War, my knee-jerk reaction is to defend it with intensity, and then I remind myself that you invented it.  :)

It's the only game that has stayed on my hard drive for almost 10 years now. I still keep around the pre-Unity version because in some ways, it's a different game. People are attached to it. Hundreds of hours. So it's not just as simple as saying, "Forget about that, this is better!"

To everyone else, some of the sacred cows just have to go. I think the force fields present some major problems besides just theme. It would be more constructive to discuss the play styles and what makes things fun rather than get stuck on the bubble itself. Maybe the bubble comes back later, who knows.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: TheVampire100 March 16, 2018, 10:14:54 PM
If we want to have ships with shields, we can do that in a TLF-style way by having basically a bar that recharges on them over time, secondary to the health bar.  That's more like deflector shields in Star Wars, or like the shields on the enterprise in Star Trek.  They prevent hull damage for that particular ship, but get weakened over time.  They don't really have a visual component other than the second health bar that is just for shields, because they are, well, invisible. 

And the way they differ from health is that they recharge over time if they have not been shot lately, for free.  Health has to be repaired by something else, for metal.
This sounds like the best ida in my honest opinion.
I will use another exaple of a video game, where they used shields.
Earth 2150, which is still to date one of my favourite sci-fi video games out there. Mind, this one is on earth (and occasionally on the moon), so no space battles. However, since both games use a 2d plane instead of  a3d plane to fight, there is not much difference except Earth 2150 has terrain and space obviously hasn't.

Shields in E2150 worked just liek you described. Units in the game could be designed by the player, they had a vehicle part that you could select and each vehicle could mount multiple weapons. You could also mount a shield generator for extra costs (once researched), which added a second life bar.
The trick about ths is, shields deflected energy related weapons (which made up most of the late game weapons, so basically the strongest weapons) but would let through conventional weapons like MGs and rockets. That way, the older but weaker weapons had still a use and could penetrate heavy shielded units.

I think Ai War 2 could use this as well, shielded units are frontline "tank" units that draw fire in for you but as in AIWC, there are units that can penetrate forcefields (Raider starship), s you have basically a forcefield/shield counter if you need one.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Draco18s March 17, 2018, 03:29:54 AM
I'm ok with them not existing because of how it screws up the balance. Command stations always had this health number that never got buffed (it was like 20k when a fighter did 4k a second before bonuses).

I like the idea of doing it TLF style etc etc. I might have more better thoughts in the morning.

(And oh, by the way, Star Wars had tons of shields, usually on planets (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Planetary_shield))
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: RecursivelyEnumerable March 17, 2018, 09:26:25 AM
From a gameplay perspective, we would need something else to make sure command stations and other important structures aren't too easily killed. In AIWC, forcefields and shield-mounting Modular Fortresses ensured my planets could ride out attacks too powerful for the defenses to wipe out until reinforcements arrived. Otherwise, the only way to reliably defend high-value structures is to destroy every single attacker befroe they get into range.

A couple of possible alternatives:

-Cloaking: As mentioned by others in this thread, cloaking may fill this role nicely. Though you'll probably have to do some balancing to make sure it's not too easy or too hard to destroy important structures.

-'Barriers' instead of forcefields: Why do forcefields have to be circles? You could instead reinvent them to be one-dimensional barriers in space. When you place two or more 'Barrier Generators' in range of each other, they 'link up' to create barriers that can't be moved through by most enemy ships and absorb a lot of fire.

From a lore perspective, shields and forcefields are one of the main defining characteristics of the Spire (The others being absurdly powerful beam weapons and absurdly large modular warships, hehe). To be honest I don't want them to be too different to the Spire in AIWC, I like them as they are. Though I guess you can just increase their health, armour and deflectors and keep the other stuff. Please don't give the Spire cloaking, that would be way too radical a change.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: WolfWhiteFire March 17, 2018, 10:13:45 AM
I am not really sure about removing shield entirely, though the unit shields may work. I am also wondering why the poll isn't a poll?  That seems kind of odd, wouldn't it be easier to see the general preference if it was instead of everyone who wants their opinion heard having to make a comment and you having to read them all?
Also...
But one of the very biggest things, to me, is that we need to get away from the fleet-ball mentality. It should be absolutely moronic to bring your bombers into a ball against a ball that has fighters in it, because those fighters just absolutely wreck your bombers. We recently upped the bonus against unlike-types from 300% to 900%, but it may need to go even higher, we'll see.

Part of this boils down to enemy composition needing to be more nuanced than it was in the first game (and -- sidebar -- at one point the first game worked like this, and fleet balls were less of a thing). You send in your fighters and your missile corvettes first, clear out certain forces there, and then send the bombers in, etc.

That sort of thing used to exist, and that doesn't require any sort of terrain. It just requires a clear and effective rock paper scissors mechanic. This is one of those things that I think we can focus on better with shields removed, to be honest. Right now there are some things that are "paper actually beats scissors and rock if it's under a shield, but otherwise it loses to rock a little and scissors a lot." Whut?

We had this at one point, and lost it. At one point I'd never have thought of approaching a variety of positions with my bombers along because I'd just be out bombers without them accomplishing anything. Other places it was a matter of keeping my fighters away from the enemy missile frigates, and letting my bombers and missile frigates close in and wreck the enemy before I resumed chasing.

It's only when the enemy gets so homogeneous and swirled-together that the players have to resort to the same. We have to stop that, and then I think the shields piece is moot.

The nice part about what I'm describing above is that it's only the loosest form of micro, and it's not on/off. Keep your bombers generally back, but if the enemy gets off a couple of pot shots then it's not like the bombers are insta-toast. You're not trying to get bombers or any other ship type to within a few pixels of a certain position, in other words. You're working in broad strokes as to what you put where.
No offence,  but that seems to me to be far more than "the loosest form of micro," with what you are describing, you would need to be able to tell the exact composition of the enemy fleet to make sure your fighters or whatever aren't weak to it, you would need to remember a ton of different counters if the number of ship types is anything like it was in classic, you would need to make SEPARATE control groups for every single ship type, and keep putting the new ships into the appropriate control group, as the shipyards can be set to put all their units in a certain control group, but not different types into different groups, and it would be hard to avoid them getting close to their counters if you don't have separate control groups. Also, if a fighter and a bomber were similar in actual combat strength, with that 1 fighter would theoretically be able to defeat 9 bombers, and no matter bombers being less able to fight fighters well, I can't imagine any possible situation where 9 or 18 of them wouldn't be able to defeat 1 or 2 fighters, that seems to be a bit high for the strength against the types they counter.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: eRe4s3r March 17, 2018, 02:02:16 PM
Mhhhhh, I think the only relevant answer to this would be, does removing shields make the game more fun or more tedious? If that is a yes to more fun then imo it should be done, not with a poll, but flat out. If it does add more tedium then the answer should be no.

At the core, the question is really pointing to another problem, namely that you got a fleet combat game without fleet controls. The more units you allow, the more you have to abstract CnC elements to allow them to be easily controlled, and thus bombers and fighters, frigates and starships get problems.

In an obscure japanese fleet rts game, fleets were "single units" that were in range when the front ship was in range (rather they only started firing then) with long range ships firing their long range weapons etc. The tactics came from positional things and admirals, front lines and skirmish squadrons that were heavily armored and had hard-hitting close rang weapons that couldn't be intercepted by AA etc. Shields existed in this game and long range fire would have a 1% hit chance (but very high damage IF it hits) at best on max range, so it was only to hold a front line light show basically.

Map tactics were done via impassable nebulas or minefields or dust clouds or other anomalies. Fortresses were extremely tough challenges as their long range weapons had huge AOE and you needed to pincer and circle like crazy. Just describing it to establish a reference frame really.

Should shields be in the game? Well.... the only thing shields do is add HP on top of the HP bar, so the answer is no. If you have shields and ARMOR as PART of HP functionality then it should be in 1 bar too. HP|Armor|Shield hh|aa|ss<-- HP bar ?

Basically, I don't see exactly how removing shields would make the game more fun and not more tedious to play. Can someone playing the beta describe how it would / wouldn't do that?
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Wingflier March 17, 2018, 02:13:56 PM
Came into this discussion a little late (actually it seems that the discussion exploded!), but I've viewed what people are saying on both this forum and Kickstarter.

I agree with the overwhelming consensus that shields should go. They don't add much to the game (in my opinion), and they even create a significant balance concern, where Keith was adding a 4th category to the Rock-Paper-Scissors style paradigm he was using, which just felt really out of place and I'll be happy when things are simpler on that front.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: etheric42 March 17, 2018, 02:47:20 PM
In an obscure japanese fleet rts game, fleets were "single units" that were in range when the front ship was in range (rather they only started firing then) with long range ships firing their long range weapons etc. The tactics came from positional things and admirals, front lines and skirmish squadrons that were heavily armored and had hard-hitting close rang weapons that couldn't be intercepted by AA etc. Shields existed in this game and long range fire would have a 1% hit chance (but very high damage IF it hits) at best on max range, so it was only to hold a front line light show basically.

You've got my curiosity.  What's the name of that game?

Basically, I don't see exactly how removing shields would make the game more fun and not more tedious to play. Can someone playing the beta describe how it would / wouldn't do that?

I haven't played a ton so far, but a little bit with and a little bit without shields.  With shields all your fragile units get an entire health bar that is vulnerable to a different kind of attacker at the expense of having to stay close to the shield starship.  Since squads are all pretty fragile (but some more than others), this means it was pretty optimal to clump them into a single ball and roll around the map doing damage.  You could do multiple balls per shield starship, but that was hard to micro because ships kept trying to kite out of the shield bubble if you weren't paying attention (this could be fixed with a UI feature, but that UI feature would take some work to implement).  And anyway you could always overlap shields and then just get even more HP to protect your glass cannons all in one ball.

Because the shields provided such protection, some of the ships have a hard time doing anything without them, and with them they became incredibly useful because their high DPS or high range could be utilized while ignoring their weakness (HP).

And then you came to AI shield balls, where you kept your ships clustered under your shield and traded fire with their shield and you hoped you could out DPS them.

Playing around without shields, there is still some room to tweak things (the glass cannons needs some way to be less glass cannony since they can't just use another unit to negate their weakness), but now I'm doing more "deploy the right units" micro, which feels more satisfying, but is more micro (well, not necessarily more micro than trying to keep all those units in the shield, but that would have to be fixed if shields were staying anyway so I'm not counting it). 

There are only 3 defense types, armor, evasion and structure.  So remembering counters isn't as bad and there are some UI updates in the pipeline that will let you see matchups more easily.  There are also some AI seeding changes that increase the chance of planets not just having an even distribution of strengths/defenses and encourage "reading the room".

namely that you got a fleet combat game without fleet controls.

What kind of controls would you like to see in a fleet game?  They may-or-may-not be in scope (or fitting to the vision of) AI War, but I like that kind of stuff and really want to hear about them.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Miloch March 17, 2018, 02:52:49 PM
My reply as an avid scifi reader and video gamer.  We do need some kind of projected force field around certain structures.  Whether these are built on the structure itself or are some small building you put next to it either way we need to be able to protect important structures.  IE command structures and unreplaceable/captureables.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Draco18s March 17, 2018, 03:00:54 PM
But one of the very biggest things, to me, is that we need to get away from the fleet-ball mentality. It should be absolutely moronic to bring your bombers into a ball against a ball that has fighters in it, because those fighters just absolutely wreck your bombers. We recently upped the bonus against unlike-types from 300% to 900%, but it may need to go even higher, we'll see.

One of the contributing factors for fleet balls was that the enemy fleet was always of mixed company.

Sure, their ball had fighters in it, but it also had frigates. Your bombers attacked their frigates, your frigates attacked their fighters, and your fighters attacked their bombers.

In other cases it wasn't so clear cut, but it still almost always boiled down to "hug IT, GRAB EVERYTHING, GAH, GO GO GO, HURRY. LAUNCH EVERY ZIG." Even if you paused and tried to analyze what was coming at you it was almost certainly always the right thing to "just send everything you had." Because even the 1% extra DPS and 1% extra HP meant that the Important Stuff didn't die as quickly: your bombers (or whatever was weak to what they had and strong against nothing) acted as flak (albeit very expensive flak) and took some shots that ultimately meant that your fighters didn't take shots and consequently took out a larger portion of the enemy.

If we approach the problem from a different direction--the number of things the player can focus on and manage directly--we get into a MIT Overmind situation: the AI can just straight up better manage their units than we can. Even if the AI isn't performing dodge rolls by scattering units away from an AOE attack (as Overmind does in order to take out Archons with Hydralisks, ie hard-countering the hard counter through use of micro) it can still do more than you can and has more units with which to do so.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Zenithir March 17, 2018, 03:59:50 PM
Reading the Kickstarter and here, I have a few thoughts.

Removing Shields because they are troublesome technically seems like a misconception on the nature of shields and ways they can be used. From what people said there is more concern around topics such as terrain [which space certainly has, otherwise there wouldn't be points of interest], ways to buffer their fragile or key points, sci-fi-ing it up, and control of ship interaction.

I vote shields out, but only if there is a means to implement what they emulate.

I have always felt shields to be too much of a catch-all. They are fun, and when implemented nearly requisite. However, as you noted they either aren't that big a deal or they are a little gimmicky, like special armor. I think what is missing is the reason for shields and what can make them sci-fi tastic.

First though, an example of shield bubbles in real life:
Earth, from Ozone, to atmosphere, to our ionosphere, to the magentic fields and more we both know and are probably completely unaware of, as well as our reliance on them.

Also, as others pointed out both starwars and startrek were able to project their shields over others, in some cases as a morphing of the fields, or space, and others by simply being large enough for others to snuggle in close. Honestly though, while both the star* are fun, they aren't really about battle mechanics, how shields might actually work, or more importantly how a mechanic would work better in AW2.

All that said, there are fun alternatives.
1)warping gravity in areas to prevent targeting or make certain absorb blows. This could also extend to ships seemingly shifting, or seeming in other places than they are. Bending signals is probably a bit easier than gravity.
2)Blinding groups, or temporarily making lanes unstable [or simply the location], you could even involve relativistic time.
3)more expansive space, adding in terrain is more approachable if each location is larger. Then distance can account for a fair amount of the shielding, especially with the now powerful tractors.
4)Size and movement difference expanded. This addresses the sense of fleet vs blob as well as shields.  Smaller ships could form a screen, or pester targets, disable parts of the opponents, outmaneuver weapons. The fact that they are smaller though suggests a lack of strength. While I would be hesitant to suggest something so overwhelming as damage resistance levels, there is a reason though armor has been such a prevalent notion in combat. Formations then could be extended to focus on doing more intense damage, attrition [like a phalanx], or other such formations. Perhaps introducing an ai we use to set the ranges
5)beamed energy; you could have a ship which projects shields or deflectors to target individuals instead of as a bubble. The idea isn't complicated, the trick would be they'd need some line of fire, whether direct or somehow directed.

ultimately the notion of a shield that protects from everything but that people can freely pass through is a little far fetched. And perhaps that is part of your crux. While this can repulse, reflect or defend 1-way (like in a simple instance a mirror), to allow such would take quite a unique set of circumstances and at best preparation which would allow others to detect how to completely bypass such shields.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Lord Of Nothing March 17, 2018, 05:42:23 PM
Well, my initial thought was, No Way, I like forcefields!
But my second, more rational though was, well, what did forcefields do, in Classic?
And you do seem to have addressed most of those concerns.
But my third, final thought was, what do I miss most when I play Ashes of the Singularity compared to supreme commander?
Shield generators.

Just my $0.02.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Valsacar March 17, 2018, 06:06:03 PM
Personally, I liked using shields but their place really depends on the overall design of the game.  I actually enjoyed the micro-managing aspects of the game.

I do want to point out that Star Trek DOES have shields that protect other units.  In countless episodes they say "extend the shields around..."
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Wingflier March 17, 2018, 10:49:21 PM
Well, my initial thought was, No Way, I like forcefields!
But my second, more rational though was, well, what did forcefields do, in Classic?
And you do seem to have addressed most of those concerns.
But my third, final thought was, what do I miss most when I play Ashes of the Singularity compared to supreme commander?
Shield generators.

Just my $0.02.
I do like Forged Alliance Forever significantly more than Ashes of the Singularity, but for me FAF is just the better game even without considering the shield generators.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: yllamana March 18, 2018, 10:02:06 AM
Apparently I wrote a post complaining about the shield mechanics back in November 2016. :) I don't think they're great because, among other things, they make battles very binary - either the shield pops and everything dies, or the shield doesn't pop and nothing dies.

Death to shields!
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Atepa March 18, 2018, 11:50:34 AM
*thumbs up*
While I did like the balls of shields protecting my own stuff, far more often they were a nuisances from the enemy when they'd do it to me. It is a big shift from a defense stand point IMO, but that's already shifting a fair bit this time around, so now is the time to cut it if we're going to.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: planeswalker March 18, 2018, 03:24:26 PM
I was expecting a poll first off.  I use force fields in AI war 1 to shield the fragile capturables and command stations.  I'd like to keep them in, but if there is a solution to make those type of structures more durable, they wouldn't need forcefields.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: chemical_art March 18, 2018, 04:04:07 PM
Shields are general band aid for several things. Command stations, IV factories, etc, need extra hp. Shields allowed players to have a pool of HP that they could distribute to aid in this. Or to allow the player to delay AI movement. So, in theory, if the reasons why such structures needed extra HP could be addressed then the shields could go with little problems and for the movement control. Examples:

"Unique" structures such as IV factories, etc, could leave ruins that a player could reclaim if the planet is reclaimed.
Command structures could get upgrades to further increase HP in some way.
High HP structures that deny enemy units from escape a local wormhole could be made to simulate that shield use.
 "Decoy" structures protect other <only certain close range defensive> structures but allow movement.

Etc.

Regarding naval tactics, jamming and other forms of ECM are very common and shields are just a more physical form of that. They allowed to simulate that fact without resorting to % chance hits which are never fun in any game.

If useful alternatives to these shield uses are found then shields can go. But they fill a vital and broad role. That is their value. They do a lot of things at once and that makes it easier for a player to understand rather than manage a half dozen things try to compensate for it. This also doesn't cover ship based shields, which are vital if you are trying to build a fleet that wins using long range tactics.

So I vote no until a simpler group of tools are already in place. AIW2 doesn't need to be more complex then AIW1. AIW1 is already on the complex side of games which is part of its niche, going more complex is not the way to go.  Removing shields leaves gaps that will not be simple to fill. If they can be filled simply, fill them first. Their virtue will win out compared to shields by default if they truly are simpler.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Qoojo March 19, 2018, 10:11:13 AM
I am against it because of sci-fi lore. Each ship should have its own shield. I don't care so much about visual representation of the shield. If there are balance reasons then I would say instead of removing them, limit them to large ships.

To me, it just sounds like, "We can't figure out how to do it efficiently...", and the rest of the reasons are there to talk yourself into it. I think you are creating an inferior game with their omission. With that said, I doubt you will ever lose one sale or read one review about their exclusion.

To directly answer the question, I would not be upset over it. It's your game and vision.

Edit to add: Reading other comments, it sounds like you never balanced shields properly. So perhaps it's best you if remove them.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: vordrax March 19, 2018, 01:25:06 PM
Add me to the "I'm completely fine with removing force fields" bucket.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: x4000 March 19, 2018, 03:59:26 PM
Cheers, folks.  I don't have time to respond to everything here, but I've read them all.  A couple of key things:

1. Definitely I get the whole "denigrating anything about Classic riles me up" feeling.  Regardless of the fact that I initially created it, it's no longer mine.

2. As far as balance of shields in the first game goes, that is one of the reason I really dislike them in a general sense: we spent the better part of 5 years trying to balance them, and never could.

3. In the end, I am coming around to the idea of basically keeping a small number of them -- one per planet on the player side, in my opinion, but make them big and exciting -- and have them as something that is basically a "lifestyle choice" per planet, same as I am hoping fortresses will turn out to be.  The default way of playing, and accomplishing what forcefields used to do, are the new and improved tractors on defense, and the new and improved cloaking on offense.  Those are really so far superior.  But having these alternative methods for the super-defensive turtles and super-aggressive turtles is something that strikes me as interesting and also makes me think that some of the people here might be a lot happier because it fits their playstyle better.

4. Oh yeah, on the Star Wars shields thing.  I totally forgot about that, mainly because I have seen Ep I maybe twice, Ep II and III once each, and I've tried to block them out. ;)  Compared to dozens of times for the original trilogy, and even twice on the new ones in theaters for all of them except Rogue One.  (Which I enjoyed despite its flaws.)  Now various camps of SW fans are going to come out and bludgeon me. ;)

5. I'm a little worried that the crowd is going with me because of the way that I phrased the question, and in general a bit too much trust in me.  I don't want to accidentally create a Jar Jar in the sense that Lucas did; I need people telling me "no," which is why Cyborg and chemical_art are so invaluable on an ongoing basis, and why Matruchus' comments bother me so much.  If it's a new feature that you guys have never seen, I'm merciless with it; but when we're talking about a legacy 10 years old at this point, I have to tread lightly and be keenly aware of a wide variety of opinions since the game means different things to different people.  You get those folks that only play 10/10 and bludgeon themselves against it, etc.

Keith and I are still having some discussion on this subject, but this is where my head, personally, is at at the moment.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: etheric42 March 19, 2018, 05:25:14 PM
4. Oh yeah, on the Star Wars shields thing.  I totally forgot about that, mainly because I have seen Ep I maybe twice, Ep II and III once each, and I've tried to block them out.   Compared to dozens of times for the original trilogy, and even twice on the new ones in theaters for all of them except Rogue One.  (Which I enjoyed despite its flaws.)  Now various camps of SW fans are going to come out and bludgeon me.

The poor souls to died defending the shield generator on Hoth are rolling in their icy graves.

Actually, that's interesting, all of the shield generators barring Death Star II are there to prevent long range bombardment, but you could just walk into them (Episode 1) or under them (Episode 5).  In some ways you could even walk into the Death Star II one, or else they would probably have preferred to just shell it from orbit.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: eRe4s3r March 19, 2018, 05:32:04 PM
In an obscure japanese fleet rts game, fleets were "single units" that were in range when the front ship was in range (rather they only started firing then) with long range ships firing their long range weapons etc. The tactics came from positional things and admirals, front lines and skirmish squadrons that were heavily armored and had hard-hitting close rang weapons that couldn't be intercepted by AA etc. Shields existed in this game and long range fire would have a 1% hit chance (but very high damage IF it hits) at best on max range, so it was only to hold a front line light show basically.

You've got my curiosity.  What's the name of that game?

What kind of controls would you like to see in a fleet game?  They may-or-may-not be in scope (or fitting to the vision of) AI War, but I like that kind of stuff and really want to hear about them.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes (Ginga Eiy? Densetsu)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf57myMJKyg
Link to WIKI (https://gineipaedia.com/wiki/Legend_of_Galactic_Heroes_(2008_game))

As for fleet control, I think battles should be tactical challenges with generals, fleets, functions tied to parts of fleets, etc. so I am not convinced on this whole concept of fighting in an entire planetary or solar gravity well....

But then this game already exists, just nobody ever played it or knows about it.

If I had to describe it, it was like playing a tug of war game with abilities and important admirals allowing you (and the enemy) to direct a push on parts of the front line, since you commanded around 12 to 15 fleet "elements" you could also micro them and position them as you wanted before the game. Your fleet elements had a <> shape or a box shape or whatever and that was a physical shape, other fleets could NOT pass through it assuming you didn't leave a fleet sized gap (they could merge with it though, which was usually really bad if your artillery flotilla got caught this way by skirmish fleets)

Long exchanges brought capital ships to bear the brunt of fire too, since they are the biggest target, carriers on 1 side and artillery throwing nukes and lasers at the enemy etc. Essentially, a fleet combat was a high stakes tug of war and if your fleets moral brakes you may live to fight another day too, it was very rarely (only when you managed a total pincer) that enemy fleets were completely wiped out quickly. Also abilities were not targeted, your fleet weapons have fixed ranges and fired in a fixed (position related) zone in front of them (or ability commands HARD TURN and then fires), that means you had to predict enemy movement in this game, and you could totally waste your precious nuke salvos if the enemy wasn't otherwise occupied and dodged it, you could also specify which elements of the enemy fleet to target meaning near the end you could have weakened fleets peppered by swarms of bombers type ships. (Drones) and yes, locking the enemy fleets with a skirmisher fleet element and THEN nuking everything WAS a valid tactic, if you pulled the skirmishers out (they had captains who could push through fleet chevrons behind the lines) in the last minute ;p

X4000 said he wants to move from the fleet ball, that's good. In LOGH a fleet spanned an entire screen and your abilites only used parts of your squadrons (so you had to decide before battle already where to put your artillery, where your AA and where your skirmishers or special fleet elements) and the abilities would be more or less useful depending on your position to the enemy, a staggered in-depth formation with 3 rows would also bombard "3 rows" of space far out in front of them, so if enemy was only a thing line that would really hurt that part of the line, but the line on the wings could easily pincer you.

Just worth to mention, the game had directional damage, shields were only frontal deflectors. If you turned part of your fleet to face the enemy, a surprise pincer move could push skirmishers into your lines with nothing shooting at them, which is USUALLY a really bad thing as being shot at at "optimal" range is where 90% of the kills happened in this game ;) I can't stress enough how important position was in that LOGH game, if your abilities activated and your line of 15 ships all fired their nukes, and your enemy formation was 7 rows deep, then you only hit 1 line at the front while wasting 14 fleets worth of ammo. And these nukes did true damage, no shield deflection. Hence why they were so important in this combat system, missiles in general were an extremely powerful but also limited use tool in battle. Each admiral also had their own formation preferences where some fleet classes worked better in a specific position than in others etc.

Anyway, regarding shields, shields should be fun in the game right now. Do they add a tactical FUN element to battles? Then they should stay. If they don't do this then they should not be in the game in their current form, or at all. Isn't the fleet ball a thing in this game because nothing gives fleet combat any structure (in shape and form) currently? Wouldn't removing the shield bubbles mean that shields are nothing but extra HP you now.. don't have anymore?

So you see I am not sold on the "it was in classic so it has to be here" argument. Classic was a 2D game in sectors, 2.0 is a game around gravity wells (which has it's own problems and is not how I would do space combat after playing nearly every space game ever made).

Also obviously I completely agree with Chemical Art (When did I ever not? :D) because shields are a clutch in classic and not a fun aspect, I hate that I have to bring bombers MK1 to MK3 into the fight with my fleet ball just to have them survive 10 seconds to kill a single core shield. This is like literally the worst aspect of the game to me.

Sorry I went kinda ranty with this reply, it's not easy to formulate such thoughts. When I mean fleet combat I mean, in AI War 1, the most optimal way to fight was build everything to the max and point it at a target (maybe with the exception of super fortresses) and then sort out what survived and died later. Progress was made with losses anyhow, the amount never mattered. In the other direction shields were super important in defense because HP'S were never properly balanced, and structure armor was neither. Only hard-balanced building in the entire game without shields taken into account is the super fortress. Which is why that structure is so utterly broken when it's beneath a core shield btw....

Ps.: Just to be make it clear, I am for removing shields if it makes the game objectively better. I have absolutely ZERO issues with that, Shields were not properly balanced since AI war 1.0 (literally) and all expansions made it worse because they might add new ships good against other ships armor, but shields always were there, and they always had to be taken out first. So bombers were never "optional" ;) And why couldn't my engineers mount plasma bombs on a star destroyer that survives more than 1 hit?
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: Lord Of Nothing March 19, 2018, 05:45:52 PM
I guess if you do end up keeping shields, one way to stop them destroying the counter relationships of the game is to make them inherit the vulnerability of whatever is being shot at. So everything within a shield is targeted as if the shield were not there, but the shield takes the damage, (or perhaps a percentage of the damage, with the rest bleeding through). Not sure what that's going to be like from the perspective of making things run well, though.

I would also be inclined to say that the movement-preventing properties of shields should go- that's something I've thought for a long time- and tractor beams balanced with that in mind.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: etheric42 March 19, 2018, 05:56:22 PM
Wow, that sounds (and looks) a lot like Total War in space.  What a cool idea.  Thanks for sharing.
: Re: Poll: Would you be okay with us removing shields/forcefields?
: x4000 March 19, 2018, 07:38:21 PM
I always forget about the shield generators on Hoth just because they were invisible.