I'll shut up until the game comes out, but as for F2P games in general, pretty much the only good one is DOTA 2, because it doesn't sell any gameplay -influencing items in its store, and the only reason it can do this is because Valve is fucking rich. If Hardware doesn't sell any gameplay stuff in the store then I can pretty much guarantee I'll play it and hopefully enjoy it. If people can buy more powerful units, though, I'm not sure it will be fun. We'll have to wait and see, though, and we'll especially have to wait if we don't drop $50 to get into the beta. |
sarcasm?
Unfortunately I'm not joking. Their website says: "This is Hardware, the newest Free to Play (F2P) real-time strategy (RTS) game from the creators of Homeworld." They're selling beta access (to their FREE GAME) in the store and check out the prices: it's $50 to get into the beta and get a strategy guide, and $100 to get that plus an art book, a soundtrack, and naming rights. They are fucking greedy as hell and you just know that if it's a F2P RTS they're going to make their money by selling units and other stuff. No company greed enough to charge $50 for a beta for a free game is going to pass up the chance to sell units for money. This is pretty much just the artists from Homeworld hoping their pretty pictures can get people to play Company of Heroes Online again. |
Freezing doesn't "restrict' strategy at all because it's pointlessly easy to avoid. Just go into cover or a building or next to a fire. You keep posting about how you're so much more knowledgeable about how dangerous cold is in real life and about how us vCoH vets want the game to be exactly the same, but you're ignoring how we constantly say that the cold is not dangerous and how it's not a change from vCoH because it's so easy to keep from freezing. We want a change from vCoH because right now it is the same as vCoH, because freezing to death doesn't matter here any more than it matters in vCoH. It's about as easy to avoid here as it is in the first game.
Bumping up the "how long would it take to freeze to death" timer would make dying from cold even more pointless and make it even less of a strategic decision, which is impressive because it barely is one right now. |
This discussion has dissolved into a he said she said argument. A matter of opinions. So I for one am out of this specific argument, because both points have been made.
I definitely encourage other people to chime in to say which of the two positions they find more convincing, or whether they have a third take on the issue. |
Your own posts don't count MVGame |
The "makers" of Homeworld isn't quite accurate - it's just artists, I think. It's a free to play "social" strategy game, and if those words don't make you throw up then I don't know what will. I mean maybe it will turn out to be fun but basically I'm picturing "use your credit card to buy the best units." Like, even worse than CoH 2 is going to be. |
You have a reason to keep them from freezing.
Its called not dying from freezing.
Okay, but that's not what I asked for. I asked for the opposite. Here is the quote:
What I want is for me to have a reason not to keep them from freezing.
See the "not" in italics?
Thats a pretty severe, obvious and concrete reason to keep them from freezing, if you ask me!
Which, ironically and contradictorily, is exactly the reason you want to remove.
I want to replace it with a bevy of non-lethal reasons.
As for a reason NOT to keep them from freezing, that is up to you.
Reasons are multitude. Maintaining your territory, repairing, consolidating forces, moving units to warmth in sectors in anticipation of post-blizzard pushes or defense.
You can do literally all of these without freezing, and it is trivially easy to do so. In other words, none of these are reasons not to keep my units from freezing because I can do all of these without freezing.
If you, however, feel you have a reason to suicide your troops, and pay the economic cost for that, for whichever reason, then go ahead and sacrifice models if that is your inclination.
Sure, but that's basically never the right choice, so this isn't an interesting strategic tradeoff.
Id argue that is a pretty stupid decision, due to the economic cost, but if you want to lose models, go ahead.
There are plenty of reasons NOT to keep them from freezing. All of them strategic, tactical and ultimately economical as well, as long as you dont allow them to die (which is the limitation you are proposing to remove).
Sorry, I guess I was being unclear. By "freezing" I meant freezing to death. Obviously there are plenty of reasons to let them get cold but not to die. What we're talking about is whether death adds anything to the equation, though, so when I'm talking about freezing I'm of course talking about freezing to death. I have no problems with the other aspects of blizzards as currently implemented.
What improvement would removing death from cold provide?
Capacity to overextend infantry that is anyways combat incapable due to cold modifiers?
No benefit and no strategic use.
They are not "combat incapable" in the same way that death makes them combat incapable. They are at least useful enough to sometimes make it worth your while to have them fight. Removing death lets you make this choice, sometimes. Right now, with death, it's a dumb choice.
Capacity to leave units stranded in the middle of snow, completely combat incapable duemto cold modifiers?
No benefit or strategic use.
Dude they are so not "completely combat incapable." In fact they can cloak in the snow.
You asked me two questions, which I answered below.
Kindly reciprocate an answer to my single following question:
What concrete improvement to the game would removing death from cold provide?
It would allow players to use frozen units strategically and force them to make the decision as to whether to use frozen units or pay the micro tax to warm them up. This cannot happen in the current game because frozen units die, at which point they are no longer useful.
1) Never, unless I am forced into a last ditch situation where the sacrifice is necessary for winning.
2) I almost always radically alter my strategy to keep units from freezing, because, as we have already agreed, as also in my statement above, only in extreme circumstances is the economic cost worthwhile. In all other cases, I always formulate my strategy to avoid freezing, specifically, and directly, to avoid that economic cost.
Okay, this is an interesting answer, because you're altering your strategy to keep from losing units to the cold. I suspect most players don't alter their strategy. They just right click near a fire or into cover or into a building before anyone freezes to death. I think you're overreacting to the cold. You're so scared of dying that you're making strategically ridiculous decisions. Players with a modicum of micro and good sense are not scared of the cold and they do not radically alter their strategy. Right now you're making silly tradeoffs. Once you realize this and stop making those tradeoffs, you will agree with me and others in this thread that dying from the cold doesn't add much to the game. |
From your perspectives, you want to be able to use infantry in blizzards without risk of death from cold. Yet you have agreed that there are more than enough warmth sources to prevent death. This is in and of itself contradictory, since you agree that nobody should be losing models to cold both for the ease of warmth from a micro perspective, and because it is not economically viable to so so. Ergo: Death from cold is not a problem, in and of itself, in the current system, since it is easily mitigated and economically it is a "direct" choice that maneuvering so that you cause them to die is an economic failure.
Correct. 100%.
This leads to the question, why so you want death from cold removed?
The only logical conclusion is because you want to be able to continue moving infantry in blizzards with impunity, regardless of cold, without the economic and tactical penalty of losing models.
No, I can still move in blizzards with impunity. Have you ever played this game? It's almost impossible to let someone freeze to death unless you try. If you APM is halfway decent you can get them to a fire or a building or cover before they die. What I want is for me to have a reason not to keep them from freezing.
You support this, by stating that being able to move them without dying in cold would open more strategic options. Yet simultaneously you agree there are sufficient mitigations existing to prevent dying from cold. Ignoring the internal contradiction there for the moment,
There is no contradiction. I'm saying that dying is so bad that I always make the "do not let them die" choice.
your second supporting argument is that removing death would make it a viable choice to deliberately freeze units for some purpose, thereby making freezing a sustainable limitation on a unit as weighed against what you try to achieve with the now significantly impaired unit.
Is that correct?
Yes, I think that's what I'm saying, assuming I understand you correctly.
You perceive that the hard limit on infantry action from dying from exposure limits strategic use of the unit. I can agree on this point. It does limit it. You perceive that this limitation reduces strategy because it limits options, and again, that is indeed objectively true and I agree. We both agree though that there are sufficient warmth options to mitigate this currently, and that except in extreme circumstances, it is better to conserve the unit near warmth than lose models on an action that gives some other advantage.
Right.
But where we disagree is that:
-You think the dying limits strategic choices during blizzards
-I think the dying forces forces alternative strategic choices suring blizzards.
Its a cup half full/half empty dilemma.
You say that dying from cold "doesnt matter", but at the same time you want it removed.
I say that dying from cold DOES matter, and that is exacly why it does not need removing.
Why do you think it matters? Do you lose units to the cold? If you do, you're bad at the game. I'm sorry. That's how it is. You're making the wrong choices. Don't let anyone die in the cold. It's dumb. Put them into cover before the skull shows up on the thermometer. That's a better choice 99% of the time. Even better, micro them to the nearest fire. There's usually one close by. If you disagree with this you're probably wrong. Dying in the cold is a very bad tactic.
Removing it would only result in overextended infantry action during the blizzard, because there is no longer a hard limit to what you can and cannot do during blizzards. It is exactly this limitation which forces alternwtive strategies during blizzards. Removing the death would reduce the impetus for having to utilise alternative blizzqrd specific tactics.
Infantry would get overextended, yes, but they would pay for it with cold penalties. Right now you cannot make a strategic choice to overextend in a blizzard. It's just stupid. You'll lose too much manpower and your squad won't accomplish anything because it's half frozen.
Im struck that maybe at the root here is a desire that CoH2 was more like vCoH and people are struggling to adapt to the blizzards effects on the flow of the game. They want to be able to largely continue playing during blizzards with as little actuakneffect on the usual vanilla flow of the game as possible.
Incorrect. I want the blizzard to force interesting choices. You have forgotten all the stuff you typed in the earlier part of your post about how easy it is to not freeze to death. If you keep that in mind, you'll realize that right now, blizzards in CoH 2 barely change anything. They lower site range and impose a tiny APM tax on people. But they never lead to anyone freezing to death. Because if your units freeze to death, you've made a mistake, not an interesting choice.
This is understansable, but if you alternatively considered the blizzard periods as a sort of minigame, a temporary shift in the games mechanics which allows for alternstive strategies from the vanilla state, for the duration, you would see the cup as half full, and instead focus on developing strategies to use the blizzard period to its fullest, rather than trying to play through it as younwould the through the vanilla phases of the game.
Dying in the cold doesn't lead to alternative strategies. Putting units in a halftrack is not an alternative strategy that death enables because the slower movement speed and other penalties the blizzard brings can still make halftracks useful, and there's almost nowhere on a map you can get to in a halftrack that you can't get to without a halftrack because it's so easy not to die from the cold if you're halfway decent at the game.
Let me give you two simple questions: how often do your units freeze to death? How often do you radically alter your strategy to avoid freezing to death?
My answers are "never" and "never, because it's so easy to keep them from dying." What are your answers? |
There goes my whole "make an account named RelicTychoCelchuuu" plan. Dang. |
I find it very suspicious that so many of the Relic devs have "Relic" in there name. That's too many Relics to just be a coincidence. I think there's some connection... |