No-rush periods considered harmful
The imminent patch will include a no-rush option that prevents players from expanding outside of a small area of the map for a given number of minutes. It’s basically a code-level enforcement of the no-rush disclaimers that many players today like playing with. And it’s a terrible, terrible idea.
Much of the fun of Supreme Commander comes from the dynamic tension of balancing your economy and your war machine, and the necessary intel to figure out what route your opponent is taking. The early game battles are the most fun and frenetic because they use the largest number of units. Higher tech units are simply too expensive (and take too long to build) to be used in the same kinds of numbers. Take away the early game battling and everyone just has to sit and play SimCity for awhile, which is only fun the first few times.
Did you know that, in the absence of having to worry about military affairs, you can build a tech 3 reactor and a tech 3 mass fabricator inside of eleven minutes? Of course it will never happen in a real game because in a real game you need to spend resources on combat units, but then again, no-rush games aren’t real games. I’ve had the misfortune of playing some no-rush games. They weren’t fun. I utterly stomped my opponents within a few minutes of the no-rush period ending because they didn’t know how to do exponential ramp-up and I did (see this example of a 15 minute no-rush match on Four Corners). These players would have better chances in early game dynamic battles where expansion and control of resources is essential (and much more strategic). SimCity just isn’t a fun game archetype to emulate in Supreme Commander.
So I’m partially disappointed in the patch because it is turning this silly no-rush voluntary game mechanic into an involuntary one that, I’m estimating, over half of custom games will end up using. It’s already hard enough trying to find a good custom game — you have to weed out the ones on ridiculous-sized maps, the ones that aren’t set to assassination, and the ones that have double resources mod turned on (blech). Now I have to avoid a flood of no-rush games as well? No thanks!
This no-rush game mechanic is just going to create an even larger gulf between competitive (ranked) play and casual (custom) play. If it keeps up at this rate, we’ll soon find ourselves in the position where custom players are playing a completely different game (arguably, no-rush already is), and will have no chance whatsoever in real games where all of the crutches (supremacy, double resources, and no-rush) are not available to them. So please, when the patch comes out, don’t host any no-rush games. They aren’t fun and they contribute to the problem of players not knowing how to play the actual real game.
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May 13th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Never played such a game but everyone has his/her style, you can’t just force people to go out and start battling it out from the first minute nor can you suspect that they would ever want to. Most folks just don’t play that way in RTS games and I think it’s good that GPG tries to cater to everyone, not only to the small percentage of players that try to play SupCom as it was “meant” to be played.
As long as the choice is there and GPG doesn’t incorporate it into possible future ladder/galactic war stuff, it’s okay for me.
May 13th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
I agree that no rush games teach bad habits to noobs, but they also encourage them to play more frequently, because for many people the learning curve in SupCom is just too daunting, and ranked is to intimidating. Since many people desire no rush games, and they are impossible for the players to implement themselves, I believe that it is a good thing the GPG has chosen to implement it.
IMO not being able to weed through custom games to find the one you want is a problem with GPG net, not the game options.
May 13th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Top reasons why No-Rush is not SupCom:
First of all there’s no such thing as a rush in SupCom because anything your enemy can do, you can counter. It’s all about learning how to scout properly so you aren’t caught with your pants down because you failed to gather intel on your opponent’s actions.
Second, preventing people from attacking for X number of minutes really only creates a “sim city” feel where you are building a superbase and it becomes a battle of turtles.
Third, it’s no longer SupCom because instead of a realtime strategy game it’s now a two-step game using SupCom forces: Step 1: Place all your stuff. Step 2: Roll the dice to see if you or your opponent did a better job placing things.
Since you’ve artificially stopped the ability to combat each other when it is most effective, you remove the basic aspects of RTS gaming including the need for situational awareness and the need to account for attempts by the enemy to stall or spoil your development progress.
But I’m really glad GPG decided to add this into the game instead of any of a plethora of other requests with more merit and support from the community. ;P
May 13th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I can understand how a casual player wouldn’t be interested in the extremely early on combat–killing the first engineers, etc. However, the prebuilt buildings feature (which I’ve never tried, I like the default settings fine) seems like it would accomplish this without the ridiculous no-rush mandate. If you MUST have the no-rush feature, 15 minutes is ridiculously long. Even with frantic T1 combat going on, you often see T3 before 15 minutes. Seems like a 3-5 minute no-rush would be more reasonable, though I still agree the game is fine as it is.
May 13th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Options are just that….. options. If you want a custom game to your liking, host it yourself. If you want to play a no-rush game, now the option can be code-enforced. I think that people who are still losing in no-rush games will get the point that they’re not losing because of a rush, it’s because they don’t know how to play the game. For this I encourage this crutch to be added to drive home the point that rush or no rush, a better-skilled player can still beat a less-skilled player.
Now, will the ‘no-rush’ gameplay type draw in similar skilled individuals? Most likely many of the no-rush proponents use the concept as a crutch since they feel they’re losing due to early ‘unfair’ rushing. All in all I feel that this is a step forward in the overall game, not a step back. Adding options for all play-styles isn’t a bad thing, they’re just options that some will use and others will shun.
Now all of that said, I don’t won’t be using the no-rush feature. I think that it dumbs down the game and doesn’t even accomplish what many no-rush players think that it will: Give them the edge above a ‘cheap rusher’. Where as I won’t use this playstyle, I don’t see anything wrong with an enforceable setting that others can use if they like playing Simcity first before going to battle.
May 13th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
I won’t play no rush games. I already avoid them and I will continue to do so. I will also continue to avoid 1vs1 on maps larger than 10×10 and 2vs2 on maps larger than 20×20. Too bad there’s no easy way of seeing if a custom game is in res x 2, I hate it when I start playing and I notice that this mod is on.
My favorite games are 2vs2 on 5×5 maps.
I still think that this new feature (no rush) is a good thing, people have been asking for it, so good for them. I just hope they’ll realize it sucks and won’t play that kind of games too often. I would hate to see half of the custom games using that rule (I just started gpgnet, no custom game is using that rule, hope it continues after gpg release the patch :) ).
May 13th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
People always say “choice is good” but it isn’t. Good developers maintain the integrity of the game design. I was involved in a Half Life mod for a while (The Specialists) and they always argued that if you let the players play the game any way they want it’d be a disaster. If most of the servers in an FPS game have custom AMX mods running on them, with different gravity properties, or permanent powerups there’s no consistency from game to game. It doesn’t bother new players but it drives all the existing ones because they get frustrated or bored.
If you give the average player the option to play a cop-out, simlified version of SC with less strategy, and less surprises he’ll pick it every time. It’s human nature to go for the easy option. GPG need to stick to their vision of the game. They’re the game designers. Not the people hosting custom games.
May 13th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Laurent: The problem is that, out of all the things GPG could have spent time on to make the game better, they gave in to newbie desires and added a silly no-rush feature that basically ruins gameplay. SupCom was not designed with a no-rush period in mind. It doesn’t play well with one. Newbies should be getting better at the game the way it is, not successfully requesting that the game be dumbed down for them. I agree with everything Molloy said.
May 13th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
And yes, I absolutely hated all of the Half-Life 1&2 mods servers that had stupid modifications like modified gravity. Most of the maps just didn’t function at all properly with reduced gravity. For instance, on 2-forts in TFC, reduced gravity meant anyone could just jump up onto the second level balconies. It was stupid, stupid, stupid. Many things in games shouldn’t be messed around with, including gameplay parameters in FPSes and RTSes alike.
May 13th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Quite frankly I’m bemused as to why people have got so upset by the introduction of this “no-rush” option into SupCom. Yes, it may well create a divide between competitive and casual players, but in reality that is probably a good thing to have. While some of us don’t enjoy playing “SimCity” and building a large economy, so members of the community do. And while some of us enjoy a tough competitive match, some of the community do not enjoy being walked over inside of 10/15 minutes and not getting to build anything particularly “fun”.
I’m glad GPG have introduced this as a built in feature because it stops all the harassers out there who join no-rush games and just ignore the house rules and attack early. If people want to play no-rush games where they get to build an economy, tech up and get some expiermentals than let them play, with their rules. For those of you who don’t want to play no-rush games, don’t join their games.
This game isn’t soley about ranked, competitive play. It’s about having fun, and if more people will get enjoyment from a no-rush mode then I’m all for it.
May 13th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Molloy: well said.
May 13th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
I probably won’t play no-rush games but it will be a very welcome addition to many people. I don’t see why people get so upset for this new feature.
Molloy, they aren’t changing or putting different stats/cost to units, they are putting another way to play the game, like assassination or the others.
Cyde Weys, as one GPG employee post in the official forum not all programmers/employees can do the same work. He put the example of having A,B,C employees but this patch/work can only be done by A, so instead of having B and C doing nothing the put to implement thins like the no-rush feature.
May 13th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Cyde Weys, i completly agree with you. Even if i’m a noob and it’s difficult for me to counter a Heavy rush, I think dealing with rush is part of game learning. So even if it’s still hard for me to win, i will never play/host a no rush game. I could understand if this no-rush feature was implemented as a mod. But to me it should not be a standard feature. Last but not least, it’s so enjoyable to be able to counter a heavy rush and maintain at the same time your economy safe then restart offensive ! don’t touch my Supcom !
May 13th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
The main gripe I have with it is that it “confirms” for new players that the main reason they lose is because they get rushed, not because of, you know, bad build orders, bad scouting, not enough factories, wasting mass, and so on and so forth. You can’t get better at the game if you can’t get yourself to look past “Oh man I lost because that guy rushed me all these people do is rush rush rush”. But yet all too many players are stuck right there and will never get past it, and this no rush addition is only going to make that worse.
May 13th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
I predict that, within a month, there is going to be a whining post on the official forums because some poor noob went into ranked play, asked for or expected a no-rush period, and then was promptly trounced by an early attack. Even if you don’t have any false expectations, if all you’re used to is no-rush, you’re not going to have any idea of how to defend yourself early on from attacks (nor will you be able to make those attacks yourself), and you will be forever incapable of doing well in ranked play.
May 13th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
The worst part about the new no-rush option is that you can’t even scout your opponent’s base. This is rediculous. It basically turns the game into CNC3, ie. a guessing game. You may as well roll a 3 sided dice. No more intelligence/counter intelligence that goes into deciding what type of army to build.
Also, on a lot of the maps, the no-rush circle does not extend into the water, so you can’t even build a navy if you wanted to.
May 13th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Em seriously calm down. All newbies going into ranked play are going to be set for a rude awakening. It’s a learning curve akin to K2. There will be enough general chaos on the forums when the patch is released to drown all that whining out.
More people will play online because they see no-rush as SupCom with training wheels. They don’t realise that no-rush just means good players are better and weak players are crushed at the X+5 minute mark (where X is the no-rush timer). However once they get a taste of online play and how much more fun it is than playing the computer they will stay. If they get so pissed at having their asses kicked that they immediately leave in a huff then perhaps it was better that they don’t pollute the ladder.
If it gets even a few hundred people to try online play that wouldn’t have otherwise then it’s a good thing. Custom games are completely hit and miss atm anyway and I don’t think this is going to make it much/any worse.
May 13th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Edswor: As far as I’m concerned the Supremacy (or whatever it’s called, Commander Continues in TA) is a broken rulset and shouldn’t be allowed in multiplayer. TA Spring was absolutely ruined by the predominance of large team games with Comm Continues. A team of 3 players would just build tanks for 5 minutes, then one would walk his commander into the enemies front line at around this point. They’d throw all their tanks through the gap and that’d be it. Three free nukes at 5 mins isn’t counterable, unless you do the same thing at 4 minutes. It was complete bollocks.
If you ask me lots of maps shouldn’t be allowed in Custom games. Field of Isis should be only 1vs1. Ditto Four Clovers and that huge map where you start on high hills with narrow tracks running down to a gulley where it’s pretty much impossible to field any kind of large attack except air and nukes.
When they allow Custom Maps things are going to get alot worse. You look at TA and 90% of game ended up being on Great Divide 2.. an incredibly dull, reptitive map where everything happened the same way. One of my clan mates and I worked out a really elaborate cooperative strategy to win ground wars (no air, nukes, blah, blah) with a fast Bertha. We got one up in 8 minutes. Then we got it down to 7.30. Eventually we got it down to 7.15. Nobody could touch us. Then they started banning berthas in ground wars as well. We’d got exceptionally bored of it at that stage anyway so we didn’t care.
TA Spring had the same thing with Speed Metal (high resources, very hard to attack) and Altored Divide (not that bad in 1vs1, absolutely dreadful in 4vs4).
The wonderful thing about ranked play is the developers control things. They keep it fair and balanced as they can manage. Removing the water maps was a good example. The fact is the more control you give over to the custom people, and modders, and noobs the more repetitive and predictable the game gets.
Splash Damage are bringing out Enemy Territory: Quake Wars soon and they were explaining that the game had to be locked at 24 players. Everybody whined that it should be 64 like Battlefield. But they designed the maps to work with 24. Battlefield has to have lots of different flags all over the place to keep people dispersed. They wanted to have good 12 aside matches rather than 10 different 3 and 4 player skirmishes. That’s good game design.
GPG have had the good sense to put limits on the number of players on maps. But they ought to make them more stringent, or remove and redesign the ones that are badly balanced in favour of the turtler. As I explained above god help us when the custom maps come in, because once that happens you’ll be hard pushed to find anything worth playing. Maybe they can create an ‘idiot’ lobby and then make another one that’s by invitation only. :)
May 13th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
I find this topic amusing. I can take or leave rush and/or no-rush games. Intellectually, I prefer no-rush games because they correspond a *little* closer to reality. Usually, 2 nations don’t go to war having to bootstrap their entire economy and military from scratch. There is *always* some economy in place and usually some military. There are usually some bases (turtling). TA/SC’s mechanic is totally artificial. Granted, the idea of a commander teleporting in and then having to build a civ from scratch is a mostly clever way to explain why this occurs but even so, it is totally artificial in that why in the hell would the nations teleport in commanders at the *exact* same moment? In reality, one side would have teleported in weeks/months/years before and would kick the other side’s ass if they tried to invade.
So, if some people want to rush or some people want to not rush, that is their choice. I will enjoy the game irregardless. This idea that good players rush or rushing ruins the gameplay is nonsense. SC’s *designed* game mechanics dictate that rushing is the strategy that has to be played in *ranked* games. Nothing more, nothing less. GPG could have easily designed SC from scratch that ranked games were always non-rushing. In which case, if they wanted to add rushing later on, we would be having non-rushers complaining about sullying the purity of SC’s non-rush game mechanic.
So Live and Let Live. If, in a custom game, someone wants to play something different, let them. Move along. You don’t have to play.
May 13th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
MajorMinor you have wrote what I wanted to write, but with better words (except the first parragraph because I don’t like to compare games with it’s real counterpart ;) ).
May 13th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
MajorMinor: I think the main thing that most people would be upset about isn’t the fact that there will now be a lot of custom games that force people to play a certain way, but rather that the competition level of the entire game will go down. Basically, we can count on a lot of new players to use the no-rush option when they start playing online, in which case it will take them a long time to ever become competitive in this game. If the no-rush option becomes predominant, then you will never see anybody new hit top 100 in the ladder. A lot of people play this game for the joy of the competition, not to see the special effects and big bases.
Introducing this option may basically cut the level of competition off at exactly where it is now, which I believe is not high enough to be satisfatory.
May 13th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
RDon: Very well said. This is more of a noob concession than anything else, and it will not serve to elevate the overall level of play. We need to bring noobs into the fold of playing well, not giving them their own little irrelevant game types.
May 13th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
I think you might be being a little harsh. At least it could bring more peopel to the game. I personally like playing no rush games, by only every once in a while, when my friends and I play together.
May 13th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
This is simple in my mind – If people want to play No Rush Games, let them. If that’s what makes them happy, why stop it? No one is forcing you to play the no rush games, even if it will become harder to find a good custom game.
May 13th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Saying that this new “feature” would bring more people to the game isn’t really a plus, because it would bring more of the wrong type of people (i.e. the ones that won’t be competing competitively.) As many people have mentioned, this is not what most of us envisioned when we heard of Supreme Commander’s release. The matches that incorporate No-Rush are just plain slow-paced – boring to play, boring to watch. In fact the only reason I watched the replay CydeWeys posted was because I knew he’d stomp them at the end, and that made it all worth it (it was like a big bully jumping on kid’s sand castles after they just made them all pretty.) If people want to tech up quickly, play on bigger maps where you are less likely to get rushed. Removing the fast-paced tier-1 action would cripple what makes this game so amazing. Seriously, these no rush games do not take advantage of the game as a whole, since many players won’t even build t1 and t2 offensive units. I really think it’s a bad idea.
May 13th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Sub: We aren’t saying people shouldn’t be allowed to play them, we’re just expressing why we think the new option is a bad idea. It’s not like our opinions will change the addition of this feature.
P.S. sorry about the few word choice errors on my previous post “competing competitively” = playing competitively.
May 13th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
who cares, its a feature that woulda taken a work experience kid half a day to implement and the rest of the day to test. Providing more choice (not less) and catering to everyone is what makes a game with mass appeal.
Dont like it? dont play it. Oh and if it hurts some people in ranked play, then they wouldnt have been that great an opponent anyway.
May 13th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Let them play the way they want.
No need to make such a hoo-ha about an option that was highly requested by a large section of the playerbase.
“Noobs” are people too. If this is what they want, GPG has a responsibility as a for profit company and a contractually bound entity to make the best product possible for the most users. If there are so many “noobs” that most custom games on GPGnet are no rush games, then it sounds like this feature is EXACTLY what the playerbase is demanding.
May 13th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
zordon:
Again, we are not worried about players who are not able to cope with the style of ranked play after playing tons of no-rush games. We are worried about a very large change in the community itself which will in effect stop the growth of the competitive community. Could you imagine what would have happened to the Starcraft community if three months after release there were no games to join other than ones that forced a 5 minute no-rush period? The game would have died in a year.
May 13th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Jotto:
It is not true that most custom games on GPGnet are no rush games. But if this feature is implemented, then new players will jump on it, get used to it, enjoy the big units and SimCity style play, and then end up playing nothing but no-rush games. And I emphasize again, that the growth of the competitive SupCom community will stop.
May 13th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
RDon:
No, thats silly.
The ranked type of people will play ranked games, the more relaxed sort of player (the kind that will find “simcity” and “big units” quite enjoyable, and if thats their favorite part of the game so be it) will play relaxed custom games, perhaps with the no rush feature on.
There will be new players in both camps.
20 minutes no rush doesn’t mean instant nuke for many of these people. It means crowd of T2 often, with maybe a little bit of T3 if they are “good”. Thats not to say they suck at the game, its to say economy isn’t their strong point. Different strokes for different folks.
I don’t understand why you all can’t just let these people have their fun, they don’t interfere with your fun.
May 13th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
I think an increase in the number of no-rush games will be good in the short run but bad in the long run. Yes, the noobs will get their playstyle, and it will make them happier. But the game was not designed to be twenty minutes of SimCity and then a few minutes of battle. It’s not really fun that way. If this becomes the predominant custom game archetype (which looks somewhat likely), it will have huge ramifications on the game. SimCity just gets boring after awhile, no matter who you are. Those people will then move on and the community will shrink. But if they’re playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played, and not some bizarre Frankenstein version of it, they’ll have more fun with it over long periods of time, they’ll stick with it longer, and they might recommend it to more of their friends.
Remember, kids like eating candy and they would eat it all day if you let them, but you don’t, because it’s not good for them. Same kind of thing here.
May 13th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
“But the game was not designed to be twenty minutes of SimCity and then a few minutes of battle.” Clearly the devs don’t agree.
“It’s not really fun that way. ” Clearly the “noobs” don’t agree.
“If this becomes the predominant custom game archetype (which looks somewhat likely), it will have huge ramifications on the game.” Thats quite the prediction.
“SimCity just gets boring after awhile, no matter who you are. ” Odd that it spawned one of the most successful series in video game history then. A series full of sequels.
“Those people will then move on and the community will shrink.” Lets chain them to their desks and force them to play a game style they don’t like instead.
“But if they’re playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played, and not some bizarre Frankenstein version of it, they’ll have more fun with it over long periods of time, they’ll stick with it longer, and they might recommend it to more of their friends.”
Or they could be huge fans of longer games, and have left games like the oh so famous CnC and Warcraft series and the “amazingly realistic” Company of Heroes because those games were always short, and based on rushes. No way that could possibly ever happen, even though thats why I bought SupCom. And no, I don’t plan to play no rush, I play ranked which won’t use no rush rules ever.
“Remember, kids like eating candy and they would eat it all day if you let them, but you don’t, because it’s not good for them. Same kind of thing here.” Remember, kids like dogs, but some dogs have rabies, so we avoid all dogs.
(I hope that rabies comment was random enough for you all, with all the delusions of grandeur and holier than thou attitudes going around here, I really am unsure about you people’s ability to recognize sarcasm.)
May 13th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Jotto:
Imagine I am a new player that starts playing SupCom online. I have two options: the first option is to jump right into ranked games and likely get my ass handed to me many times (especially if I’m is used to the campaign or skirmish style of play) which is of course no fun, and I’m here to have fun, right? So I stops playing ranked games. The second option is to jump right into custom games, and wow, what a difference, everyone just lets me build up my huge army for 20 minutes, and then I send my monkeylords at him for 20 seconds. Good game, let’s play again. Hey, you know what? I’ve played a good number of custom games, so let me try ranked. Oops, now I have no idea what I’m doing. I will never play ranked again.
So, where exactly are these new competitive players coming from again?
Maybe we should aknowledge the fact that the SupCom community is rather small compared to other RTS games out there, CNC3, WC3, etc. If we had a gigantic community, I wouldn’t care if this feature was implemented, because there would still be a huge number of competitive players. Right now, the most competitive players are a very small group.
May 13th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
“The second option is to jump right into custom games, and wow, what a difference, everyone just lets me build up my huge army for 20 minutes, and then I send my monkeylords at him for 20 seconds.” What kind of player gets their ass handed to them in ranked, but is also able to build monkeylords plural in twenty minutes with a limited section of the map? If they can learn that in custom games, they sure as hell have figured out economy well enough to CRUSH in ranked if they take a little bit of time to learn initial build orders and such. And if they aren’t willing to learn initial build orders they’ll never play custom games without the no rush option anyway, and not implementing it only drives them off.
These players can’t handle ranked games, you all seem to acknowledge that. Have you at all considered that maybe the reason they head for games with names like “no rush 20 minutes, noobs only” is that they can’t handle custom games either? The no rush rules give them a chance to learn.
Oh and the new competitive players are coming from the same place I did, right out of the campaigns and into ranked, winning games just fine.
May 14th, 2007 at 12:40 am
Jotto:
Holy crap, it was just an example. If you want something more accurate:
“The second option is to jump right into custom games, and wow, what a difference, everyone just lets me build up my huge army for 20 minutes, and then I send my boradswords at him for 20 seconds.”
With this option, there will be a decrease in competitive playing in this game. If you think it will go up, then you’re not thinking right.
I will say one thing as a plus though: if *somehow* this option is successful (and obvioulsy the newer players will love it, I’m worried about the long term of this game) then GPG will be hailed for a long time for implementing the option. You’ll hear all about it down the road when people talk about revolutionary features in RTS.
I still think it will hurt this community.
May 14th, 2007 at 12:41 am
I can’t edit posts.
I mentioned this earlier, but the no-rush option doesn’t even let you send scout planes away from your base.
This is just plain teaching new players how to play RTS badly.
May 14th, 2007 at 2:18 am
If a no-rush player can’t build an effective economy in a no-rush game, they will lose just as soundly as they would have in a ranked game. At least no-rush games will put direct emphasis on maximizing your economy. Call it the “learning how to build your economy mode”. Once they have that figured out, they would probably make decent ranked players. You people are making a lot of fuss about imagined doomsday scenarios. I’m sick and tired of all the whining.
May 14th, 2007 at 2:37 am
CovertJaguar: If you are sick and tired of the “whining” then don’t read the thread any more. People are here to post their opinions on this new option… that is, after all, what Supreme Commander Talk is all about isn’t it?
May 14th, 2007 at 3:30 am
I think the first reason because you don’t want the no-rush feature is because you think you won’t get enough competitiveness in ranked games.
I’m sure that the actual 1000 top people won’t play that type of game and we will get good games and fun games and competitive games.
Also people that have fun with no-rush games will get that too.
May 14th, 2007 at 4:09 am
Guys, SupCom is looking to be heading in the same direction of UT2004. This is not a good thing. I know some of you cannot see otherwise because you have no experience with such things, but this no-rush easy mode is likely not the solution to any problems with the game. A no-rush rule is really a short-term solution to a long-term issue, and as such it will slowly hurt the community rather than help it, even if initially it appears to help a lot.
UT2004 saw this happen to it about two years ago when a custom gametype came around called Team Arena Master (TAM). TAM gets rid of all the strategy in UT2004 in order to make the game more accessible to new and bad players. No more do you have to work for weapons, map control, positional advantages, powerups, support from your teammates, etc., because TAM does it all for you. TAM is easy mode for UT2004 like no-rush is easy mode for SupCom. TAM was brought around with the thought that because full-fledged TDM was so inaccessible to the average player, TAM would be a bridge between the two, allowing players to eventually migrate into TDM.
This still hasn’t happened some two years later. Instead, the community, which was already splintered and broken all to hell for various other reasons, was rifted yet again because easy mode players learned their easy mode tactics and thus ended up completely unfit to play anything else. A person trained on easy mode has absolutely no chance against a person trained on normal UT2004. Easy mode players ended up with overinflated egos and an inability to do anything but play easy mode. They actually convinced themselves that easy mode required more skill than the stock, competitive gametypes.
My point is this: easy mode in SupCom probably won’t help anyone. Sure, some bad players will be able to build stuff and they may even get good at easy mode, but beyond that, what else can they possibly do? Without playing the regular game they aren’t a part of the community, per se, but an extra piece attached to it. Yes, easy mode will bring in a few more players initially, but as others have stated, it won’t help out anyone else, be it those looking for ranked games or custom games that don’t suck because of mods, easy mode, or terrible players. Easy mode players will forever remain easy mode players, and that is the ultimate problem. If they can’t learn the real game, when easy mode gets boring they will just get slaughtered and frustrated when they try to venture outside of their easy mode crutch.
Frustration is the number one cause of people quitting a game permanently. Do you think people deserted UT2004 because of graphics or tough computer requirements? Hell no. They quit because the game is highly unfriendly to bad and new players. When TAM came around it was supposed to be a solution, but instead now all that’s left in UT2004 is easy mode players in their own subcommunity and everyone else is left with table scraps – no new competition and a distinct lack of good games.
Now, UT2004 was kind of fucked from the start as far as getting a nice and full community together is concerned, so perhaps the results of easy mode on SupCom won’t be so drastic. I am, however, not going to assume everything will end up okay, because adding easy mode is the same as rampant nerfing – something that just hurts the game.
Oh, and if anyone wants to see how pr0 I am at UT2004, here’s a quick frag video I threw together a couple weekends ago in attempts to get people to show up to our weekly events again. All the content is from that weekend, only about nine game’s worth of replays, so you can easily tell how pr0 I am (not really). :P
May 14th, 2007 at 4:16 am
The ranked players are afraid that there won’t be a lot of worthwhile new players once the no-rush option is enabled? Ok, then why do you think a new player would have joined ranked play if the no-rush option wouldn’t be available? Right now, there is only the option of getting slayed in your first few games or facing someone who is even worse (which never is quite educative) and after such disappointments why would a new player even try to get a higher ranking again? There are no training programs, the documentation on this game is seriously lacking (three different wiki’s too…) to say the least, there are only replays to watch (for newbies I think it’s still difficult to get the good stuff out of those replays), the community lies scattered between a few fansites and an official forum which just doesn’t form a good starting place nor a great community site and ladders… are just ladders, we need something to spice it up, badly. A lot of people don’t like losing rating points (I recall the stress-article on this site) so they just want to play without pressure, on larger maps and yes, maybe even without the heat you see during the first 20 minutes in a ranked game. Some lads are only talking about what could detract the numbers of ranked players (and once again it’s a wild guess to assume no-rush will cause a big shock imo), not about what could improve those numbers (other than not providing a no-rush option, which doesn’t mean anything if you ask me).
And of course, some folks just like to play no-rush and nothing else, don’t assume they would have ever considered ranked play if there wouldn’t be a no-rush option. They’d just keep creating custom games with “no-rush” in the title then or create their own mods.
May 14th, 2007 at 4:30 am
You complain that this new feature will hurt the long term SupCom community because all the “noobs” will play no-rush games and never play ranked or get bored. What do you think happens at the moment? People who want to play no-rush games normally make a game with the handy hint of “20-minute no rush” or something equally obvious in the title. This feature will allow those players to play the game without being harassed by people who want to play aggressively.
Custom rule sets always exist in games, and this is no different. This mode just allows them to do it in peace.
May 14th, 2007 at 5:29 am
Ryuken:
The new players will start with custom games that are not no-rush games, so that they at least have the chance to learn how to play the game, and losing will not be an issue because it doesn’t count. A handful of custom games against others and watching a few replays of top players will get them well on track to starting out in the ladder. And considering it is so easy to find replays of top players, I think the system right now is great.
The fear (as T2A’ has mentioned) is that the no-rush option will become dominant over regular games in the custom matches, making it much harder for new players to get into the ladder happily.
AdmiralGT:
“You complain that this new feature will hurt the long term SupCom community because all the “noobs” will play no-rush games and never play ranked or get bored.”
Yes, this is exactly it. And what happens right now is not what you are saying. I am looking at the list of custom games right now, and exactly zero of them say no-rush. One of them even says noobs welcome, but says nothing about no-rush. If the option is implemented, then it may be interpreted by some people as encouragement to play no-rush games, in which case there is a very likely possibility that over time it will become the only game mode available in custom games.
Most people are saying here that we should just leave everyone in peace to play the game the way they want. But what about the way I want? I don’t want to play the same small group of people over and over again. I want new players to eventually join the top ranks, which is being made harder to do with this new option.
May 14th, 2007 at 5:36 am
T2A’:
I don’t have much experience with UT2004, I played it a bit against my roomate earlier this year for about a month and never played online, but I’m curious what this easy mode you speak of actually does.
May 14th, 2007 at 8:01 am
RDon:
Well, there is a huge difference between custom games and ranked play. Getting “skilled” there is a start but generally the pace is less frantic in a custom session, even without self-imposed no-rush rules. I am saying that more is needed than just that and the availability of replays. Try to imagine how a new player, not a beta-player, has access to all the possibilities of the game right now. There is some serious work to do in this area, you can’t expect that people sacrifice their time to watch replays or to look at the boring tutorial videos, they want an active, guided approach and better intel than just their own, often flawed, analysis of replays.
And I don’t think all custom game creators will suddenly pick no-rush just because it’s there, not everyone started to pick other options like Annihilation, Supremacy or prebuild stuff too just because they were available.
May 14th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Ryuken:
The biggest set back in starting a new strategy game is knowing which build orders are common and what some map specific strategies are. Watching even 5 replays of top players will answer some of these questions. They don’t even have to watch the whole thing, just the first 5-10 minutes so that they know how to get their economy going, then they can start making their own decisions and develop their own play style. And the availability of replay reviews on many sites can help them with the analysis of the replays so that they know what to look for, although at this time, a lot of sites that used to review nearly every replay haven’t done a review in ages.
If I can’t expect people to watch replays or check out strategy forums, then that’s basically saying that I can’t expect them to want to get better. In that case, they probably won’t be playing any ranked games much at all, and if they start playing no-rush custom games instead, then they’re just increasing the percentage of no-rush games available for other new players, some of which may want to put the effor in to get better.
And I think no-rush will have a much larger impact than Annihilation, Supremacy, or prebuilt stuff because it drastically changes the style of the game. In those other three options, nothing really changes in your play style. You still have to scout, expand, manage economy, and build an army, all at the same time. No-rush takes away the first two actions, and makes sure that you never have to do any of these things at the same time. It’s manage economy, directly followed by build an army.
The drastically different play style that no-rush offers is what will draw people in, and the comfort zone that it puts people in for the first 10 minutes or whatever is what will make people stay. A lot of people enjoy seeing pretty bases and huge battles, and they think that this game is fun enough just that way, but they are missing out on the greater fun which is the thrill of managing everything simultaneously and executing a strategy to beat your opponent, not because you guessed what he is building correctly, but because you actually did something intelligent.
May 14th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
RDon: I’ve been agreeing with everything you’re posting. Well said.
May 14th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
RDon: I’d love to have more replay reviews on this site, but the truth is that the burn-out rate on that kind of thing is very high. Both Grokmoo and I have had our fill for a good while. If you feel like you’re up to the task …
May 14th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Cyde Weys:
It’s not just this site. Actually, I’ve never downloaded a replay from here, so I wouldn’t even know.
But I haven’t seen a full point by point review of any replay on GR.org of supcom-live.com in a very long time.
May 15th, 2007 at 2:24 am
RDon: “I don’t have much experience with UT2004, I played it a bit against my roomate earlier this year for about a month and never played online, but I’m curious what this easy mode you speak of actually does.”
It’s a round-based team gametype that takes cues from CS:S (shudder) by having both teams spawn together on separate sides of the map. Additionally, all weapons, health, powerups, and ammo are removed from the map so you don’t have to worry about having to go get anything as everything you need is provided on your spawn. All that’s left is moving, with your team that you spawn with, to find the other team and kill them. Once a team is down everyone respawns with full ammo and armor again and the next round starts. Easy mode.
There’s actually a (somewhat outdated) Wikipedia page on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Arena_Master
This stupid gametype actually brought triggerbotting back into popularity within the UT2004 community since spawning with every weapon makes triggering very effective. The prevalence of cheating in general, whether via wall hacks, radar, aim/triggerbots, etc. increased tenfold after TAM became popular. Fucking easy mode. >:[
May 15th, 2007 at 3:42 am
What is triggerbotting? I’m just going to take a random guess and say that it’s some kind of third party program that pulls the gun’s trigger for you whenever your crosshairs points at a player.
May 15th, 2007 at 6:20 am
RDon:
The question remains; how else would you lure people who love to see the spectacular T3 battles to the online part of the game? You can’t ask of GPG that they would neglect those people since ranked games obviously don’t offer what they are looking for. No-rush mode is a big change to the normal game (though Annihilation/Supremacy are far removed from the behaviour in ranked/Assassination games as well imo) but no-one is forcing people to join these kind of games nor can you assume that every new player will automatically get “infected” with this playstyle or will start to play it exclusively. I think you’re just overestimating the no-rush-only crowd. We’ll see how things turn out.
May 15th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Ryuken:
“how else would you lure people who love to see the spectacular T3 battles to the online part of the game?”
I would show them a replay that reached heavy T3. If they don’t have the game or if I don’t know them personally, the replay could be recoreded into a video. I’ve had many games that went to huge T3 battles. Specifically, I remember a game against Basic on Theta Passage that went for about 45 minutes, and we both ended up with huge T3 armies, we probably ended up producing about 50 T3 bots each.
May 28th, 2007 at 8:34 am
half the people quit when you rush them anyway -_- ill probably play a no rush game if im having a bad day and feel like stomping someone. other than that. i agree it takes away from the balance between military/economy. but its not the end of the world… deal with it i say, DEAL WITH IT
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