Profile of dpfarce

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Thread: Supply - in-game currency 19 Feb 2015, 12:28 PM EDIT: I made this post without realising that thread I was in, hopefully I didn't post it in the wrong place. Jump back to quoted post7 Feb 2015, 23:15 PMInverse Snip about how rts team games can't be balanced As a player of Age of Empires 3, I must respectfully disagree. Age of Empires 3 is similar to starcraft in mechanics. I wish to emphasise here what similar means, and how it does not mean 'the same'. To simplify the counter system; Skirmishers > Musketeers > Cavalry > Skirmishers Cannon > Infantry > Cavalry > Cannons In a 1v1 game; Player A builds skirmishers only. Player B builds cavalry only. Therefore, player B wins Clearly, this is a terrible idea for player A. So he needs to build a mix of units. But which mix? Player A: Cavalry and Skirmishers. Can you think of a combination that beats Cav + Skirms? .. Cav + Cav Yep. That's right. A single unit spam > combined arms!!! What about Cav + Musketeers? .. Musketeers + Musketeers!!! (Musketeer = Musketeer, Musketeer > cav, therefore Musk + Musk > Cav + Musk) Mathematically, every 2 unit combination has a 1 unit counter. What about 3 unit combinations (3v3 is the most popular game mode for aoe3...go play if you don't believe me) Cav + Musk + Skirm (all 3 units) No 1 unit combination can defeat this, but... Cav + Cav + Skirm = Cav + Musk + Skirm Yes, it's not a 'hard counter', but a combination of micro + soft counter means that every 3 unit combination (there is only one) is defeated/equalled by a 2 unit combination From player A's perspective; (2 advantages, 1 neutral) Cav = Cav Cav > Skirm Skirm > Musk From player B's perspective (2 advantages, 1 negative) Cav > Skirm Musk > Cav Skirm < Cav Micro is much more of an issue here, as well as naturally the number of cav, musk, skirm that a player has. But at least in theory, it is possible for a 3 unit combination to be defeated by a 2 unit combination. Also important is the type of cav, musk, skirm. For example, if player B (cav+musk+skirm) has really good skirms but crappy musk, he will be even more at a disadvantage because his best unit is being hard countered, and only his worst unit is hard-countering something of the enemy. The point here is that more players do not 'negate' weaknesses. Even if you could play 5000 vs 5000 battles, as I have just explained above, it is 'impossible' to find any combination of units that cannot be countered. There is also a 4th variable, Artillery. Musk + Artillery > Infantry Only Musk + Artillery > Cav + Infantry (Musk > cav, artillery > infantry) This is not dissimilar to coh2 where b4, pathfinders, etc can call in arty and completely screw the counter system. Does a starcraft-esque counter system translate to COH2? It is harder to say. Infantry is split into AI infantry and AT infantry, Tanks are AI and AT tanks, mortars can counter all infantry or none at all. But at least hypothetically speaking, MG > Rifles > Mortars > MG (rifles = any standard stock infantry) AI Infantry > AT infantry > tanks > AI infantry (AI infantry includes mortars, HMG) AT Tanks > AI Tanks > AI Infantry > AT Infantry > AT Tanks AT Infantry = AI tanks (Sherman, ISU152, King Tiger and Scott are all "AI tanks", but quite different in exactly HOW they counter AI. Shreks, zooks, ptrs (lol), AT nades, are all quite different in how exactly they counter tanks. Everything else > AT guns > Tanks <-- this one is similar to aoe3 artillery, where it counteres all infantry Surely with an even more complex and fluid counter system in Coh2, it is even harder to create some mythical perfect army combination that invalidates the counter system in team games? tl;dr RTS team games DO NOT negate the counter system. AOE3 is a prime example The same logic may not necessarily apply to COH2, but the more complex coh2 counter system should be harder to negate than the 'triangle system' in AOE3, which is already impossible to negate. In: Lobby
Thread: attack ground for all mg's19 Feb 2015, 07:14 AM Why are smoke grenades hard counters to mgs anyway? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mortar <-- back in the good old days... In: COH2 Balance
Thread: PSA - USF AA HT vs CAS18 Feb 2015, 21:01 PM USF AA HT? 1. use 35 muni recon towards enemy major 2. plane crash into major In: COH2 Gameplay
Thread: Ostheer - MG42 17 Feb 2015, 21:50 PM I am honestly baffled that there are people who can defend the current mechanic. 1. MG42 in heavy cover 2. RiflemAn (SINGULAR) running across neutral cover to mg42 3. Rifleman throws a grenade at mg42 4. Mg42 loses the gunner 5. Mg42 takes 50 years to change the gunner 6. Rifleman snipes the Gunner over and over again and wipes the squad. NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT 1 MG VS 9382 RIFLEMEN. We don't like how ONE RIFLEMAN SQUAD can run face-first into an mg42 and kill it with a grenade. In: COH2 Balance
Thread: Make War Not Love Free Stuff Question17 Feb 2015, 03:39 AM Can i safely equate played in the event = got the boring snoring achievment? In: Lobby
Thread: What is stopping you from playing 1vs1 games?16 Feb 2015, 06:22 AM I don't play 1v1 for the same reason I don't play hello kitty online. It doesn't interest me. 4v4 games involve teamwork, coordination and more units blowing each other up. In: Lobby
Thread: Make War not Love 2 - The Rematch16 Feb 2015, 06:04 AM So when can I download my close air support commander? In: Lobby
Thread: Brain Teasers Kappa14 Feb 2015, 21:41 PM We don't know what 'twice younger' should be. To me, it sounds like a maths joke along the lines of dividing by half. In: Scrap Yard
Thread: If you were in charge of a Relic developer team....14 Feb 2015, 13:17 PM Jump back to quoted post14 Feb 2015, 08:29 AMCruzz OKW is a badly designed faction because they have no real option except a massive infantry blob, and even that infantry is all equipped exactly the same as they have no differing infantry upgrades either. OKW has an AT gun, like every other faction. If their AT gun is crap, increase its numbers. If volk blobs and Ober blobs make every other OKW unit useless, reduce their numbers and increase other units' numbers. Just twiddling numbers around is not going to change the fact they have no real support weapon play, and their resource income situation coupled with stupidly good AT on their base infantry makes skipping all their lighter vehicles and going straight to heavy vehicles the optimal choice in every game. Everything here can be fixed with numbers No real support weapons: Buff MG34 and Poopchen. Panzershrek OP: Make it cost more/reduce its damage Heavy Vehicles OP: Nerf heavy vehicles Light Vehicles Unnecessary: Reduce effectiveness of non-light vehicles so that light vehicles are relevant From a purely design rather than gameplay point of view it also makes no sense for the late war german faction to have almost no automatic infantry weapons but have massive squads of cheap infantry rivaling the soviets. Game design is not necessarily the same as historical design. If I made a game replacing all of COH2 units with pieces of food (apples, oranges, bananas, pizzas) it would be the exact same game design, but with terrible historical accuracy. Soviets are badly designed because without a (very specific) doctrinal choice they lack both infantry that can do anything in the late game, and vehicles that can do anything in the late game. Far better designed than the massive blobberino of OKW, but that's not high praise. Base infantry sucks: Buff base infantry. Vehicles suck: buff vehicles USF are a version of OKW that doesn't get any heavy tanks to hinge on in exchange for not having the weird resource situation. They too, like OKW, lack meaningful support weapon choices, leading to heavy infantry blobs, and their armor situation quickly deteriorates in the late game due to the high DPS paper armor vehicle selection coupled with the lack of infantry support at that stage of the game. HMG50.cal useless: buff its damage/survivability USF armour sucks: Buff its armour in quotes In: Lobby
Thread: If you were in charge of a Relic developer team....14 Feb 2015, 08:02 AM It is a commonly held game design myth that 'balance' is somehow separate from 'design'. Design: Germany should get a super cool heavy tank! Balance: King tiger has 1 Frontal Armour WTF? How is that a heavy tank? It has 1 Frontal Armour! Because all weapons have 0.01 armour penetration! Design: OKW is a resource starved faction Balance: OKW has 100% resource income WTF? How is that resource starved? Because OKW units cost 30% more. You are in a virtual computer world. Virtual computer worlds are created by NUMBERS. Separating design from balance is like separating space and time - the "fabric" our real world exists in. You can't do it. There is no such thing as a faction that is so poorly designed it is either OP or UP. You cannot have 9.99 Armour Penetration on a unit that is underpowered, but buffing that unit to 9.999 Armour Penetration makes it overpowered. MINOR TWEAKS TO NUMBERS IN A WORLD MADE BY NUMBERS WILL ALWAYS AFFECT BALANCE. Saying that OKW is a poorly designed faction that needs to be reworked, or that Soviet is a poorly designed faction that needs to be reworked is thus simply meaningless. If Obers do too much damage, reduce their damage. If Soviet stock units suck, buff their stock units. If Soviet Call-Ins are OP, nerf their call ins. You CANNOT reach a 'mathematical zugzwang' position where buffing a unit by 0.01 makes it OP, but nerfing it by 0.01 makes it UP. tl;dr "Balance changes" and "design changes" are the same point. add them together. In: Lobby