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Some Feedback
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Rhob
Vehicle Driver


Joined: 25 Feb 2015
Location: U.S.A.

PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 4:41 pm    Post subject:  Some Feedback Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I've only been playing this a couple weeks and 1st let me say its great and I really enjoy playing. I've done skirmishes and some CNCNet play and have a few comments/questions. None of these are meant as bashing or anything of the sort.

My main concern is with the Allies. In Red Alert, it has been discussed to death that the Soviets overpowered the Allies. But the Allies had "tricks" like the Spy Satellite, Chronosphere, Mechanic, Spy, and the superior Navy. It seems some of what made the Allies is lacking and results in them being underpowered in DTA. Granted, the TS engine has limitations concerning the Chronosphere (and Iron Curtain).  

But for a Spy Satellite revealing the map, is that not possible? The map can be revealed at the start, so is there a way to attach that logic to a building when placed?

The Allied Medium Tank. Why this has a prerequisite of a Tech Center is beyond me. I understand not making it a T1 vehicle since they have a light tank. But it seems the Radar Dome could serve as a more practical prereq. The T1 allied light tanks are easily outclassed by GDI and Soviets, resulting in extra cash spent for the tech center while heavy tanks and medium tanks over run you.

Allied Artillery. It appears identical to Nods artillery, yet it is not. This causes confusion. Perhaps use a different model or find some way to distinguish the 2? But I think it would be pointless to give them the same weapon.

Why the complicated process to build multiple Chrono tanks? Would it not be easier to Q production like every other vehicle? All the other factions have powerful ground units, where the allies seem like they could have one, the building process just makes it overly complicated and impossible to keep with AI doing the same thing.

Field Mechanic is absent. Nod has a repair vehicle. Why not give an allied mechanic a similar weapon? It would give the allies some of their edge back.

Spy is absent. Again, this could give the allies some of their edge back. Although I did read in Rules that AI completely ignores a incognito spy which is overpowered. No way to make the Dogs get him?

The buildable land mines, as far as I can tell, do not work at all. When a enemy unit approaches it, the mine decloaks then the enemy fires on it and blows it up.

Why the build limit on phase transports? nod has stealth Tanks. Allies good use a good ambush unit in numbers since they lack any powerful units.

Overall, the Allies seem underpowered and unbalanced and I think it could be a little bit better. I noticed no one ever picks them on CNCnet.

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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 6:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Rhob wrote:
But for a Spy Satellite revealing the map, is that not possible? The map can be revealed at the start, so is there a way to attach that logic to a building when placed?

Unfortunately no. The trigger to reveal the map is done for all players.
Either all get it revealed or none.
Only some very ugly workaround could lead to this effect: something like an invisible random moving unit (using visceroid random movement) that moves super fast and has Sight=10. So you would have some kind of auto-revealing unit for you. But that would by far not revealing instantly the entire map.

Rhob wrote:
The Allied Medium Tank. Why this has a prerequisite of a Tech Center is beyond me. I understand not making it a T1 vehicle since they have a light tank. But it seems the Radar Dome could serve as a more practical prereq. The T1 allied light tanks are easily outclassed by GDI and Soviets, resulting in extra cash spent for the tech center while heavy tanks and medium tanks over run you.

The Allies light tank is still balanced in a way, that it can keep up with GDI medium tanks or heavy tanks.
Heavy tanks are in fact no match for the fast and cheap Allies tanks. They just dodge them and kill crucial base buildings while the Soviet snails try to catch them.
GDI M1A1 are also slower, so the Light tank is almost always dictating the battle.

Allies Medium tank is on tech center level, because
a) it would otherwise make the light tank much earlier redundant.
b) it is now the most cost-efficient tank in the game. no other side can produce that cheap tanks which are that powerful.

So right now Allies have a nice fast hit and run tank and later a cheap good medium tank for the harder jobs.

In short: what Allies lack in armor, they make up with sheer unit numbers due to cheap tanks.

Rhob wrote:
Allied Artillery. It appears identical to Nods artillery, yet it is not. This causes confusion. Perhaps use a different model or find some way to distinguish the 2? But I think it would be pointless to give them the same weapon.

I wouldn't mind giving the Allies artillery a different image, but i'm sure the RA fans wouldn't want that. Same as TD fans like me wouldn't like the Nod artillery to get a different image.
Though if you have a suggestion/solution, let us know. Smile

Rhob wrote:
Why the complicated process to build multiple Chrono tanks? Would it not be easier to Q production like every other vehicle? All the other factions have powerful ground units, where the allies seem like they could have one, the building process just makes it overly complicated and impossible to keep with AI doing the same thing.

It's to make sure only 1 chrono tank in teleport mode can exist at any time.
Imagine 20 chrono tanks in teleport mode jumping in your base. There is no way to defend against these.
Since TS engine has no real chrono locomotor for vehicles, this is the best balanced solution i think.

Rhob wrote:
Field Mechanic is absent. Nod has a repair vehicle. Why not give an allied mechanic a similar weapon? It would give the allies some of their edge back.

engine limitation. In TS
only vehicles can repair vehicles and
only infantry can repair infantry.
It's not possible to let infantry repair vehicles without some workaround that causes unwanted sideeffects. e.g. such an infantry mechanic would not stop repairing the vehicle when it is full. Even if no more hitpoints are repaired, the mechanic would still continue repairing it.
The mechanic would also need to be force fired on your own vehicles while it would automatically attack (repair) enemy vehicles.

Rhob wrote:
Spy is absent. Again, this could give the allies some of their edge back. Although I did read in Rules that AI completely ignores a incognito spy which is overpowered. No way to make the Dogs get him?

Disguised units are indeed completely ignored by AI. There is no Dog logic left in TS.
The only possibility is a cloaked infantry.
But spy logic in itself is also bugged and bad working in TS.
e.g. a spy infiltrated a radar, the units of the infiltrated player are then revealing the map for all players. Not only for the player who send the Spy.

Rhob wrote:
The buildable land mines, as far as I can tell, do not work at all. When a enemy unit approaches it, the mine decloaks then the enemy fires on it and blows it up.

we can look at this, though iirc they work. Can you give a detailed example of that so we can reproduce it? Were you using infantry or tanks against the mines? Which unit do you used?

Again the TS engine has no real mine logic, so we had to use a workaround to get close to the one you know from RA1. That workaround might still need some more work to get them work better, or there is simply nothing left we can do to improve their functionality.

Rhob wrote:
Why the build limit on phase transports? nod has stealth Tanks. Allies good use a good ambush unit in numbers since they lack any powerful units.

Phase transport is one hero unit of Allies. Many of these could be overpowered.
Imo it's also a rather ugly, cobbled together unit (APC+Destroyer turret) which WW obviously didn't gave much love. So i wouldn't like to see this in masses.
It would also make Allies very/too similar to Nod.

Since Allies have only the phase transport as a cloaked unit, many opponent players also forget to build MSAs in their base. So a single PT has a good chance to surprise the opponent, while many mass produceable PTs would cause every opponent to build MSAs as a default defense.

Rhob wrote:
Overall, the Allies seem underpowered and unbalanced and I think it could be a little bit better. I noticed no one ever picks them on CNCnet.

I like playing Allies. They are fast and have some nice sneaky units (chrono tank, tanya+phase transport).

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^Rampastein
Rampastring


Joined: 11 Oct 2008
Location: Gensokyo

PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 7:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

LKO pretty much answered it all, but I want to answer to one point:
Quote:
Overall, the Allies seem underpowered and unbalanced and I think it could be a little bit better. I noticed no one ever picks them on CNCnet.

I also like playing as Allies. The light tank, while not being that strong in direct combat, is the fastest tank available and so it can be really strong if micromanaged well. In our staff games we've found out that Allies usually beat Soviet because when Allies attack with light tanks, the Soviet tanks cannot catch the light tanks moving through their base and destroying critical buildings. While if Soviet tries to make an early rush, the slow Heavy tanks are easily countered with rocket infantry and the powerful Allied turrets (Allies have the best earlygame defenses with the pillboxes for countering infantry and the powerful, long-range turrets for countering tanks).

Maybe it's so that Allies aren't preferred in games between less skilled players, but in games between experienced players Allies are a commonly seen side.

In PvP, while the Allies don't have strong armored units lategame, Chrono Tanks and Tanya can really hurt if used right. It's often easy to distract your opponent with some light tanks and at the same time teleport a Chrono tank to their base and take out a couple of refineries.

Allies have a disadvantage in direct combat against Nod (microwave tanks and the SSM hurt) and Soviet (V2s) lategame, but they're fairly even against GDI. GDI has no hard counter for a group of Medium tanks and Artillery, and while A10s kill artillery easily, Allies have the strongest mobile AA in the entire game (the mobile Flak Cannon) which effectively counters the A10.

Overally I feel that Allies are a strong side if used well; they are disadvantaged if you try to fight directly against your opponents, but their damaging surprise capabilities (Chrono tank and Tanya with C4 + Phase tank) give them plenty of area control which often leads to having better economy and eventually winning the game. DTA maps have been built so that unless you enable Infinite Tiberium, you need to expand to have a good economy, and when your enemy expands their base area grows, often making it easy to throw a Chrono tank or Tanya into a weak spot in the enemy's defense, cause some significant damage and win the game because you have stronger income and can build so many tanks that you significantly outnumber the enemy.

Note that I'm only talking about Enhanced Mode -- Classic mode follows TD/RA unit stats and so the balance is messed up there, and we can't really fix it without pissing off some TD/RA fanatics #Tongue

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Last edited by ^Rampastein on Fri Feb 27, 2015 7:32 pm; edited 2 times in total

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Graion Dilach
Defense Minister


Joined: 22 Nov 2010
Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary

PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 7:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Question: Is HunterSeeker already used? If not, could HunterSeeker be used to spawn a unit which has the Mechanic art and a mech loco - itself being an infantry disguised into vehicle, with having the barracks as HSBuilding?

RA2 mods in the heroic age (more than a decade ago) did similar by giving the Mechanic as a FreeUnit to Service Depots, which I can understand why a no-go - but this could work.

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"If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more...

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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 8:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

The HS is only used as crate goodie unit, but the SW is unused.

Having the big vehicle selection box and a full cell covering mechanic would look bad.
Then I'd rather create a new SHP for some kind of repair mech (like Alien powerloader) and let it build straight from the warfactory as a normal vehicle.

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X-Mech Calendar (28 Mechs for GDI and Nod)
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Bittah Commander
Defense Minister


Joined: 21 May 2003
Location: The Netherlands

PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 9:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Most questions have already been answered, but I'd like to say that the Allied Artillery actually really is completely identical to Nod's; only its weapon sounds are different to match those from Red Alert (and in classic mode also the price is different to match RA).

Concerning the Allies, as mentioned it's indeed far from underpowered in enhanced mode and since I usually just pick random, I'm generally actually glad when I end up playing as them.

Also, the Phase Tank's weapon is actually pretty powerful; it does almost twice as much damage as Nod's Stealth Tank, while having tank armor that receives little damage from small arms (where the Stealth Tank has a light armor, allowing it to easily be destroyed by a few light infantry).
If I'd remove the build limit, I'd pretty much have to make the Phase Tank into a direct copy of the Stealth Tank (only with the ability to carry passengers) in order to keep it from being overpowered.

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Rhob
Vehicle Driver


Joined: 25 Feb 2015
Location: U.S.A.

PostPosted: Sat Feb 28, 2015 3:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Thanks for the replies. As I thought more about it, I realized a lot of my suggestions would make the Allies too similar too Nod.

I did not realize the Allied medium tanks were better than GDI's, I'll have to note all the tanks differences in the unit guide. I did notice the Allied light tanks were faster than Nods and used them well for hit and run strikes.

As far as Phase transports and Tanya, I figured out that tactic and used it as a "hail marry" after I was getting my ass handed to me by Nod in direct Combat, that was a good player. What about a build limit on phase transports like the A10s?

Since a mechanic is a no go, perhaps the allies could just get a type of mobile repair vehicle as well? Its virtually faithful to the original given the engine limits.. And it would help where they lack in armor.

Okay I obviously have not figured out how to properly use Chrono tanks then, I haven't had them teleport anywhere on the map. I'll get those details in the unit guide as well.

I could have sworn Nod artillery had a longer range weapon... must have been imagining it. Maybe just a name change in the Rules "Nod Mobile Artillery" "Allied Mobile Artillery". Dont want to go changing too many graphics.

I'll tinker around more with the landmines and try to reproduce the issues and report back.

The E4 Cameos, I think they are switched. Soviets show Nod cameo and Nod shows soviet cameo.

Oh and 1 more thing. Whats the reason the Soviets can build airstrips and Yaks right from the start? I don't remember it that way in RA.

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ChronoSeth
Sergeant


Joined: 13 Mar 2010
Location: Canada

PostPosted: Sat Feb 28, 2015 11:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Rhob wrote:
Oh and 1 more thing. Whats the reason the Soviets can build airstrips and Yaks right from the start? I don't remember it that way in RA.

It's an attempt to give the soviets a bit more flexibility early in the game, since they don't have a unit equivalent to the humvee, buggy, or ranger. Building a couple of Yaks early on makes it far easier to deal with enemy infantry and scouts, which heavy tanks can't do much about.

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