No-rush option deemed a failure?
We had a bit of a fight break out here on SupComTalk when no-rush periods were first announced by GPG in the v3251 patch notes. Between our two posts on the subject we had over 100 comments on the pressing issue of the day. Luckily, it all turns out to have been for naught. Yes, no-rush did end up becoming an in-game option. But thankfully nobody is using it.
I don’t want to rehash the old argument too much other than to say that no-rush fundamentally altered the game balance for the worse. Rather than having a long sustained battle where players must continually balance economy development with military development, no-rush turns the game into two separate play segments: in one, the players enjoy a calm game of SimCity, and then once the timer runs out, the match can be decided pretty quickly if one player didn’t play SimCity well enough. It takes away the ability to scout your opponents (which is very important!), as well as the ability to impede your opponents’ economic development in the beginning of the game, which is of course a very strong and valid strategy.
I predicted no-rush as being a sort of doomsday option for multiplayer gameplay, which would fragment the community into two separate groups playing rather different games. It was already hard enough to find a decent game; now imagine if half of all hosted games are undesirable because of a silly no-rush setting. But this doomsday scenario never came. Simply, nobody is using no-rush. Immediately following the patch a few hosts used it, but ever since then, I haven’t had to leave a single multiplayer lobby because it was turned on. I’ve only even seen one person using the option in the past two weeks, and everybody else in there quickly objected to it, and the host turned it off. So while I am disappointed that GPG put the time into developing this option that is never used, I would rather the development time be wasted than for it to be used at all.
I’m also proud of the community for sticking with the game the way it was meant to be played. Just Say No to No-Rush.
June 17th, 2007 at 2:23 am
I agree — better no one plays it than half of all custom games getting bastardized by it. ^___^ I’m sure it only took one or two games of getting hammered with a Soul Ripper as soon as the timer was done before people started realizing it was a dumb idea. People have been saying they could get them up in 16-19 minutes. D:
June 17th, 2007 at 5:22 am
But is it wasted development effort? Lots of people were asking for it; they got given it; they discovered they didn’t like it, and dropped it.
Sometimes, the best way to convince people that the shiny thing they’re asking for isn’t actually that shiny is to give them one - A couple of no-fun games will persuade people that no rush isn’t much cop far quicker and far more effectively than any number of internet essays.
June 17th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Not that I even tried it (or cared about it), but I think it would have been a success except for the no scouting rule. To me, it sounds like they added the option but deliberately broke it. During peacetime, spying is a lot easier. They should have made it have no fog of war until the timer ran out.
Another cool option (but a different game altogether) would have been to have a “bidding” war on intelligence/counterintelligence. Something like spend energy/mass on intelligence and counterintelligence every 30 seconds. If you spend more on intelligence than your opponent on counterintelligence, you learn stuff about your opponent.
June 17th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
lol, it gave me a headache trying to read the last sentence. :P
June 18th, 2007 at 4:23 am
I joined a few custom games Saturday and a number of people were infact using the no-rush option. So it is being used, remember its a game for everyone not just the elites.
I even tried one out since it was on Battle Isles 2, quite wierd not being able to move outside the zone for 10 minutes!
June 18th, 2007 at 6:24 am
I’m very surprised to hear that good taste has prevailed.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:54 am
1 - Hate to be an “I told you so.” It would not, in any way noticeable, fragment the community.
2 - Just because custom games aren’t ‘advertising it’, doesn’t mean people aren’t playing it on GPGNet, as Deman pointed out.
3 - Most of the ‘custom’ games my friends and I play are via IP direct, not via GPGNet; and yes, we do use
no rush sometimes just to throw in a curve ball. It’s kind of like playing Spades and bidding blind. You try to guess at what your opponent(s) are doing, then see how fast you can adjust once the ‘gun goes off’. I find the first 5 minutes (we only ever do a 5 min no-rush) to be 2x more stressful than a regular game.
June 18th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Told them so.
But such games ARE played. So it’s okay it’s in there. So many people were whining about it - all the whining about rushing is now ENTIRELY gone. That’s a good thing.
June 18th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Sorry for double post: I had to leave two games because I found out they were No Rush 20 once I was inside. Never played No Rush, ever.
June 18th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I still don’t see how this effects your gameplay so much. You can establish plenty of resources inside the no-rush area, and that area doesn’t stop your radar from working, so you can still scout your enemy, in a way. I mean, I can see that it would effect gameplay, but if the dev team put it in the game, that’s also The Way It’s Meant To Be Played, isn’t it? Isn’t kind of heavy handed to say “I don’t like this, so you’re playing the game wrong if you use it!”?
June 18th, 2007 at 11:30 am
I’ve seen only 3 no-rush games since it was released. didn’t affect me at all. Majority of the games don’t use it.