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The Great Artillery Debate
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Einhander
Cyborg Soldier


Joined: 17 Apr 2014

PostPosted: Mon Sep 28, 2015 11:27 pm    Post subject:  The Great Artillery Debate
Subject description: An overview of the viability of deployed artillery units.
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Hello everyone, after much testing and debate I am finally ready to post my findings on this question:

Are deployed artillery units viable for game play?
In short the answer is yes.

My team and I tested deployed artillery through a battery of tests to discover the feasability of such a mechanic for the game.
(Tested: Nod mobile artillery, testing of the other artillery units will be postponed until the choice is made to use deployed artillery.)

Test 1 is the control and I am sure you all know how the results of that played out.

Test 2 was the incorporation of the deploy function for the artillery which created some interesting uses or play styles for the adapted unit. This test did not alter the attributes of the standard mobile artillery unit.

Players were observed to attempt to use them in mostly defensive roles which was expected, but when they attempted to "turtle" with them they found that they would quickly be out maneuvered by their opponent.  So far the most favorable tactic seen was to bombard the deployed artillery with air units to devastating effect. The deployed artillery were also victims of fast attack vehicles like Humvees which could easily outrun the slow projectiles.

When the players began using the deployed artillery in support roles such as supporting an assaulting force to maintain control of the ground outside of an enemy base they found it was easier to maintain a constant assault or prevent retaliation from their enemy.

All of these things the normal un-deployed artillery can do, if you are a master at micromanagment. In this case we effectively evened the playing field so that players with little or no skill to moderate players could find some equal footing with more advanced players.

Test 3 involved not only the new deploy function but also altered some the the artillery's attributes while deployed. We tested range, damage, guard range, rate of fire, and even the armor of the artillery.

We noticed almost immediately that if this were to be implemented that it would need to be balanced by the developers of Dawn of the Tiberium Age. While we did have a lot of fun playing around with the nuances of the unit we cannot say for certain it would be in the best interest for game play. We only tested this simply because Bittah stated that players would expect the deployed artillery to have "bonuses" or "something special"; we found that it was unnecessary.

The problem we kept encountering when we altered the stats of the unit was that it began to take the shape of something other than artillery when we tried to balance it with the game. When we tried to just do a simple "buff" its results were out of place with the way the game should be played. Please take note that I am not dismissing the possible application of a buffed deployed artillery but it does seem unlikely with the current state of the game.

The best buff we tested was simply extending the guard range but I am sure you could understand what consequences that could have on game play.

So in conclusion taking the mobile artillery and allowing a deploy function would in fact enhance game play while not taking away from it. By only adding a deploy function the unit remains completely the same except that it could remain stationary which would reduce how much players would need to micromanage the unit.

For aiding in these tests I would like to thank Bittah for the continued support thoughout the process and instruction in the coding And my team that helped me test who wished to remain unnamed.

If anyone has questions regarding these closed tests feel free to ask them here and I will do my best to convey the relevant information.

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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 7:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I see 2 problems
a) if guard range is lower than weapon range, you still have to manually give it the order to fire on units for max efficiency. And if you then do a wrong click on clear ground, the unit will slowly undeploy, making it for several seconds an easy target. So a wrong click means the end to the unit. Thus more cons and no pros compared to mobile unit.

b) if guard range is matching the weapon range, the unit is overpowered, since only air can then take it out or a much bigger mobile army. In both cases, the player with the deployed artilleries has a better cost/casualties/kills ratio than the other player.
In this case, they also make every single base defense (except AA) completely useless. Why building a base defense with lower range and power consumption, when i can deploy artilleries.

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Algerian Major
Rocket Infantry


Joined: 07 Mar 2015
Location: Drinking Vodka with Lenin, Stalin and Putin

PostPosted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 11:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well maybe a slower fire rate could bring some balance

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Bittah Commander
Defense Minister


Joined: 21 May 2003
Location: The Netherlands

PostPosted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 12:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

A slower firing rate would basically just deceive players who don't happen to know about this, because you'd generally expect a unit to become more powerful after deploying.
Leaving the units stats exactly the same has exactly the same problem, considering players then still expect it to become more powerful by deploying it and many people will then frequently end up doing this with this assumption, which will then backfire on them for the first reason LKO mentioned (especially considering that the people who are supposed to benefit from this are those with less than great micro management skills and will thus risk miss-clicking their targets frequently).
So all in all, giving an artillery the ability to deploy with the sole purpose of making it stationary will only be practical for the small group of people who happen the know exactly how and why this was implemented, while all other players instead be confused and/or disadvantaged.

While giving a deployed artillery better stats would partially solve the issues I mentioned above, it'd make the unit overpowered and it'd be necessary to completely re-balance the unit (and thus severely change the gameplay) to make it work properly.

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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 12:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

the only deploy feature i would agree with is, if the deployed artillery
-gets unarmed (no weapon)
-and gets very strong armor and hitpoints (something like 3 times a mammoth strength)
-maybe also a slow auto-repair, which even repairs it back to full strength.

Then the vulnerable slow artillery has a way to turn into a solid bunker and survive for a short while even under heavy fire and this way wait for reinforcements.
This strong solid block of armor and hitpoints could be then also used to block small passages like bridges and offer an additional tactic.


While a quick deploy would also make any A10 strike harmless to them, you would still lose the offensive capability and thus a lot of firepower, which the opponent can use to advance further with his army.

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Einhander
Cyborg Soldier


Joined: 17 Apr 2014

PostPosted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 1:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Quote:
-gets unarmed (no weapon)
-and gets very strong armor and hitpoints (something like 3 times a mammoth strength)
-maybe also a slow auto-repair, which even repairs it back to full strength.


While we never had a thought to remove the weapon, I still can't see something like that working to benefit the unit or player.  

At one time we tinkered with a quick fire low damage projectile, but we found that to be useless since infantry could walk up to it without any real issues and destroy it.

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virtue
Vehicle Driver


Joined: 08 Oct 2014
Location: UK

PostPosted: Tue Oct 20, 2015 1:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

2 things really annoy me about artillery which making deployable would solve.

1. They tend to chase any retreating enemies even if you wall them in and you have to manually stop them from doing so. Many times ive been concentrating on attacking a base only to scroll back to mine and find all my defences have buggered off and got themselves destroyed!

2. the AI cheats. Why is it that the AI can get the maximum range and angles  all the damn time!? Ive even seen the AI Mobile Artillery outrange V2's! and they somehow manage to make them sit back and pick off your defences from way far back whilst yours do that thing and scramble out of your base trying to hit them!

I think having deployed artillery would circumvent the most annoying bug in TS, you dont need to give it any extra attributes, except maybe equal the guard range to its weapon range (which the AI exploits all the time anyway).

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DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr
General


Joined: 16 Feb 2005
Location: North America Posts: You cannot comprehend...

PostPosted: Tue Oct 20, 2015 1:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

^^ yee-up, that is the one thing that makes deploy arties good - they wont wander off, which is a very annoying problem in DTA. Not so much Mental Omega, or TI, but in DTA, I always notice having to constantly pull my arties back because they pursue a retreating enemy.

But its always been like this, its part of the micro. All you really have to do is hotkey the arties and hit the "S" key to stop them from wandering off - its the next best thing to a hold position command.

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Bittah Commander
Defense Minister


Joined: 21 May 2003
Location: The Netherlands

PostPosted: Tue Oct 20, 2015 2:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

While I already specified the reasons against making the artillery deployable in my previous post, I must state that the AI's artillery does not have greater weapon range than that of the human player's.
What most likely happened is that the AI's artillery destroyed enough units/structures to become elite and that does increase its weapon range.

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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2015 7:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr wrote:
Not so much Mental Omega, or TI

MO is RA2/YR engine which doesn't has this bug
TI has the same bug, but gameplay is a lot faster, with a lot more suicide attacks by AI (less retreating) and turtle players are even less likely to survive in TI.

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^Rampastein
Rampastring


Joined: 11 Oct 2008
Location: Gensokyo

PostPosted: Thu Oct 22, 2015 10:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

In TI it's only the Hammerhead and the GDI MLRS Walker that suffer from this issue, since the Nod artillery needs to deploy to fire. The Hammerhead and the GDI MLRS, while artillery units, have relatively shorter ranges than the DTA artillery, so that's why the bug is more serious in DTA.

If HasStupidGuardMode worked for vehicles..

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Einhander
Cyborg Soldier


Joined: 17 Apr 2014

PostPosted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 7:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I don't believe incorporating other mods in this discussion will get us anywhere as they have no bearing on the topic at hand. Personally I thought this debate was resolved with the decision to leave the artillery units as is. But if individuals still feel the need to explore this idea then don't let me stop you.

To clarify: Yes deployed artillery would be "neat and ease game play", but the fact remains that the deployed artillery would need to fit with the current motif that if it deploys in DTA it becomes interesting in some way and must show or act like it.

In all the ways my team and I tried to manipulate its attributes to in effect balance a buffed unit, failed simply because adding or subtracting from such a specialized unit would inevitably change the balance and game play. Possibly forcing a re-balance of existing balanced units to combat this theoretical unit. And since the unit would only be viable if it remained unbuffed it created the question of "Is this really even necessary?"

After some considerable thought the only way to balance the artillery for deploying is to remove the ability to fire while undeployed like in TS (Surprisingly the easiest balancing method the original devs thought of first.) And that in my opinion would destroy the current state of the game.

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