Suggestions for next release

from AshesoftheSingularity Forums

After buying and playing AotS just now I've some suggestions:

- more unit types

- individual movements (like in sins)

- trying to get some diversity between the factions (like in Sins or SupCom) so it's not just a Blue vs Red story

- the 'arrange units' button gets hidden pretty fast after and can't click it

- show idle engineers  

- maybe thinking about some kind of Uber-Unit? t4? army crasher?

- i really hope that you can buy much more units in the final game. right now the unit cap is pretty low - more like starcraft than sins or SupCom

- as much as I like naval units the whole hover thing makes them pretty useless so I'm torn about that. maybe submerged units as an addition like Anno 2070?

- let alone the building cap of buildings (pls raise that) they use up a lot of space. my whole base was almost only logistic things in the end

- i hope the next version contains an annihilation mode. I'm really against a victory by points

- i'd suggest to split up the defense, not just one deff against everything. also pls small and 'weak' defenses and then the strong ones (comparison: SupCom <-> SupCom2). If you just have one def that will inevitably be too weak to do anything against late-game armies

- shields? some kind of pls? would support longer parties

that's it for now

 

--- I know it's just pre-Alpha and a lot of features aren't yet in the game but just if you haven't thought about some of those points ---

 

Kind regards

75,109 views 20 replies
Reply #1 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

wasn't sure where to post it.
And about Hover engines NOT being able to hover on water? Sorry but that is ridiculous. Even WIG Effect Crafts are used on both terrains let alone the normal air-cushion vehicles or one using turbines. It's not like this is an unknown concept or PseudoScience. I'd really like to hear/read the explaination for it. (Just look at SupCom: Aeon had a slight advantage on water maps because of their hover tanks. and this: https://stardock.cachefly.net/www_ashesofthesingularity_com-assets/game/gameplay/Prometheus_Web_lowres.jpg looks like turbines or repulsion engines.... and looks slightly like a mix between the hiigaran battlecruiser (homeworld) and the SHIELD Helicarrier)

I don't want to bash the game, it has some great aspects. But there has to be some basic logic otherwise it will get ridiculed (Like AoE 2 catapults getting convert to christianity for instance.)

Reply #2 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

The game requires impassible terrain. Right now some is mountains, and some is water. Perhaps they could use canyons instead, but if all maps are just canyons and mountains, the maps are going to look boring. I'd rather non-realistic non-water hovercraft than boring maps.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting tatsujb, reply 4


Quoting eviator,
reply 3

The game requires impassible terrain. Right now some is mountains, and some is water. Perhaps they could use canyons instead, but if all maps are just canyons and mountains, the maps are going to look boring. I'd rather non-realistic non-water hovercraft than boring maps.

yeah, just like you'd rather not realize that game mechanics > cosmetics

You defend this for the sole reason of cosmetics : "at least the impassable terrain will be different once in a while"

while we have such arguments as "it's interesting to have units that are both water capable and not and in different ways too. the end result your WHOLE army will have to go around a mountain but A PART of your army will be able to take a shortcut when it comes across a strip of water. Some troops will engage there. hover units might fire depth charges at amphibious tanks while they fire back torpedoes while some of those hovers will only be equipped to deal with units ABOVE water and some of those amphimbs may only be equipped to deal with units UNDER water. VARIETY!

Mountains and lakes are no longer solely cosmetic but a part of the strategy. As Strategy IS and always HAS BEEN in real life."

which IMO your argument defeats itself more than anything "we'll loose terrain variety if hover can go on water!" on the contrary my friend, on the contrary. There will be a HUGE incentive to put more different types since they will result in different strategies. 

hence more cosmetics, hence win-win for you.

What are you talking about, my entire argument was gameplay-based, namely impassable terrain! Cosmetics only trumped the realism argument. L2read

Reply #4 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting tatsujb, reply 7


I've re-read both your and my argument and it still looks like you're hitting yourself to me. 

Well I guess there's nothing I can do about you misunderstanding my point. I mean my first sentence was about as clear and concise as you can get.

to be clear : 

there will be less boring maps if hovers can go over water and units that make contact with the ground are added (or if t3 hovers can't go over water or somthing of the sort, but i really prefer the idea of varying the unit types.)

I'll leave that to the game designers to decide.

Reply #5 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Double post

Reply #6 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Great feedback.  It's fine to post here too.  It'll be in early access in a few weeks and we're taking founder feedback very seriously.

Re zoom out level:

 

This is the current zoom out level. Beyond this we have some sort of abstracted view of the world.

Re Idle engineers.  Coming

Re annihilation mode. We plan to have the victory counter be optional (on by default)

Re unit caps. We don't really have a unit cap per se.  But the maps you have in the alpha are very very small and have relatively few resources.

Re naval/water.  That won't appear until the Tides of war Expansion (significantly post release) as we want to really indulge ourselves on the naval combat. (pure water worlds with their own mechanics)

Re terrain: The hover units can't hover over water. They are channeling gravity to push against the ground.   The flying units can go over mountains and basins.  That doesn't mean we won't have special units later that can also go over water but can't, for instance, climb plateaus (the hover units can go up the plateaus).  But that won't be in the base game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reply #7 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Re terrain: The hover units can't hover over water. They are channeling gravity to push against the ground.   The flying units can go over mountains and basins.  That doesn't mean we won't have special units later that can also go over water but can't, for instance, climb plateaus (the hover units can go up the plateaus).  But that won't be in the base game.

 

Nice explaination. That's what I want. You maybe should add that to some of the general explainations (maybe with the information that water isn't dense enough for it) so others won't confuse it with regular turbines. Have searched for such an explaination on the Homepage and forums, didn't find it yet.

Additional ideas: 

Maybe make the amount of ressources (power, unit cap, income) adjustable so either like in Sins "income speed" or like in SupCom the "x2 resource mod" So players can fiddle around a bit. I think that wouldn't cause a lot of programming work. 


Will you support split screen? that way you can watch the whole map on one monitor with the abstract mode and zoom to the hotspots on the other monitor.

Any plans about splitting up the tech tiers? Like engineers factories?

Please make the radar a bit more subtle/transparent. The grid looks a bit too intense. (but the overall idea with the cyan highlights is great!)

 

About additional units, what this game really needs:

- transport units (for sneak attacks)

- some kind of T4 / Titans

- more air

- shield building ( i almost always won by simply rushing to the enemy base with ~ 3 T3's + small units and destroying the seed)

 

what would be nice:

- shield units

- customable T3's (example: Star Trek Armada 2: Fleet Operations Mod http://www.fleetops.net/ -> customable Borg Cubes)

- gunships

 

 

what I would like not to see:

- SupCom-like artillery (capable of shooting over huge distances making it overpowered in lategame where you can build higher numbers)

- Nukes (personal preference, it was always some kind of gamebreaker for me but most players love the nukes so you rather not listen to me)

 

 

A feature I haven't seen yet in such a game and which I would love would be including 'accesible water areas' with 1. lava (no naval units + occasional eruptions), 2. acid lakes (as lava but lower damage), 3. hot water geysir (high damage in a small area).

That way you could give players on certain maps the option for a short but very dangerous route to the enemy.

I guess that would be a lot of work but i'm just throwing ideas around. This game has just so much potential

Reply #8 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Great questions. Thanks!

Re Transport units.  We had one early but it didn't work well with the way the maps play out.  We've shelved it post release so that we can rethink how they will work.

What we may end up doing instead is turn our flying transport unit into a unit that can call in reinforcements that teleport in.  But this has to be done very carefully.  On paper, it's all fun.  But when you're trying to wage a planetary wide battle where we want strategy to be the defining skill and not APM we have to be careful about how we handle this.

 

Re T4s.  We have post-release plans for Juggernauts.  The T3s are basically Titans now.  

 

Re Air.  What kind of air would you like to see?

 

Re Shields. The Substrate are all about shields

 

Re gunships / brawlers.  We loved the brawler.  During the upcoming wider beta, we'll be watching how people play the game and come up with things we want to add from there.

Re Long range artillery. NO big berthas. No nukes.  We do want to have global abilities. We'll be talking a lot more about that soon.

Reply #9 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Being able to toggle on/off the grids on the mini-map. Strategically i know they are vital but hey are also very messy. It would be nice to have the option of just seeing the terrain. Perhaps a middle option to turn the lines semi-transparent.

Reply #10 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting tatsujb, reply 14


why not Also a game mode with "entity" ?

 

entity is basically you. Normally you stay safely within the confines of the seed but later on in the game you can build a mobile unit from the seed for you to step out of it in.

Nice idea. You could either use something like the SupCom 2 Cybran ACU ability (emergency exit) or simply that in late game you can 'leave' the seed behind. If not, you make a similar mistake as 'Universe at War' by being to static with their bases. (Remember: In Sins you also were able to change your homeplanet and it made the game much more dynamic on long term.

 

Quoting Frogboy, reply 13

Re T4s.  We have post-release plans for Juggernauts.  The T3s are basically Titans now.  


 I viewed them (let me use the Sins 'lense') as capitals and not as titans. But I'm fine with that.
 
Quoting tatsujb, reply 14

Quoting Frogboy, reply 13
 Re Shields. The Substrate are all about shields
cool! only them? bubble shields as well?
 
Bubble shield or some other kind of area shield (like the C&C Tiberian Sun 'Firewall') would be really nice. At the moment the game is a lot about dealing damage and offensive power and not much with defense (Shields, missile defense, flares, radar scrambler, emp, whatever)
 
Quoting tatsujb, reply 14

Quoting Frogboy, reply 13
 

Re Air.  What kind of air would you like to see?

Important air. One that if you didn't make any of and your opponent did you lose the game. Air that's potent enough to kill the seed at t2 or t3.
 
Okay, no. I was not really happy with the T3 strategic Bombers in SupCom. They were very expensive BUT their damage was just too much for a normal unit. Stronger air yes and like land units please at least two different tiers of air. (Just think of it like the T1 fighter being the F-16 Falcon and the T2 fighter being the F-22a Raptor). Same for bombers and I'd love balanced gunships (in SupCom they were a bit too weak and rarely used.) 
 
Quoting Frogboy, reply 13

What we may end up doing instead is turn our flying transport unit into a unit that can call in reinforcements that teleport in.  But this has to be done very carefully.  On paper, it's all fun.  But when you're trying to wage a planetary wide battle where we want strategy to be the defining skill and not APM we have to be careful about how we handle this.
 
Easy solution would be: Teleportation limit: 1. Can't teleport other teleporters 2. can't teleport T3  3. can only teleport X units till it has to reload. 4. make it very expensive
Sure it would need a lot of balancing but gladly you have a big team and still a lot of time. And I guess an awful lot of concepts for strategies and units you haven't released yet. 
Quoting booster101, reply 11

Please make the radar a bit more subtle/transparent. The grid looks a bit too intense. (but the overall idea with the cyan highlights is great!)


How about making it optional to just see the part where units are? And the rest invisible?
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Reply #11 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 13

What we may end up doing instead is turn our flying transport unit into a unit that can call in reinforcements that teleport in.  But this has to be done very carefully.  On paper, it's all fun.  But when you're trying to wage a planetary wide battle where we want strategy to be the defining skill and not APM we have to be careful about how we handle this.

I've got an audiobook on WWII going, and the importance of transportation networks comes up from time to time.  Naturally I thought of AoTS, but I didn't know teleportation was on the table. So: you can only teleport between connected zones.  Whether, when disconnected, reinforcements should teleport to nearest connected zone remains to be seen.  Perhaps the 'transport' is a mobile relay that allows you to treat a zone as controlled for purposes of connection.  So a raid is moving a line of relays into enemy territory so it's possible to quickly move a battle group in, and perhaps out - unless the enemy attacks your relays first to cut off retreat.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

I am not a founder, but if i may suggest something. except obligatory addition of navy, please consider making planes, or at least bombers work the way they work in Command and Conquer games, i mean they should require airfield they need to return to, everytime they drop their payload. Like Century Bombers in Red Alert 3 for example. Dont make it work like SupCom, where they just fly around battlefield in circles ad infinitum and bomb everything, until someone shoots them down... 

i absolutely hated that aspect of SupCom. You had all those fancy Strategic Bombers and they never acted like ones. With all the automation, the way you could set up the transports automatically to pick up your newly produced units and carry them to frontline, the game asked for similar system with bombers - creating bomber wing and setting them into formation to do some old fashioned carpet bombing runs to enemy base and then return back to reload...

If its already implemented that way, consider this irrelevant. Since you basically would not share any new media for non-founder people since the first game reveal, there is no way for me to know.

Reply #13 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Timmaigh, reply 18

I am not a founder, but if i may suggest something. except obligatory addition of navy, please consider making planes, or at least bombers work the way they work in Command and Conquer games, i mean they should require airfield they need to return to, everytime they drop their payload. Like Century Bombers in Red Alert 3 for example. Dont make it work like SupCom, where they just fly around battlefield in circles ad infinitum and bomb everything, until someone shoots them down... 

i absolutely hated that aspect of SupCom. You had all those fancy Strategic Bombers and they never acted like ones. With all the automation, the way you could set up the transports automatically to pick up your newly produced units and carry them to frontline, the game asked for similar system with bombers - creating bomber wing and setting them into formation to do some old fashioned carpet bombing runs to enemy base and then return back to reload...

If its already implemented that way, consider this irrelevant. Since you basically would not share any new media for non-founder people since the first game reveal, there is no way for me to know.

In SupCom the planed had a very limited amount of fuel and after depleting that they were much slower. I dislike the idea of airfield because unlike C&C this game aims to have 1000's of units. The airfields would take up far too much space.

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting booster101, reply 19


Quoting Timmaigh,
reply 18

I am not a founder, but if i may suggest something. except obligatory addition of navy, please consider making planes, or at least bombers work the way they work in Command and Conquer games, i mean they should require airfield they need to return to, everytime they drop their payload. Like Century Bombers in Red Alert 3 for example. Dont make it work like SupCom, where they just fly around battlefield in circles ad infinitum and bomb everything, until someone shoots them down... 

i absolutely hated that aspect of SupCom. You had all those fancy Strategic Bombers and they never acted like ones. With all the automation, the way you could set up the transports automatically to pick up your newly produced units and carry them to frontline, the game asked for similar system with bombers - creating bomber wing and setting them into formation to do some old fashioned carpet bombing runs to enemy base and then return back to reload...

If its already implemented that way, consider this irrelevant. Since you basically would not share any new media for non-founder people since the first game reveal, there is no way for me to know.



In SupCom the planed had a very limited amount of fuel and after depleting that they were much slower. I dislike the idea of airfield because unlike C&C this game aims to have 1000's of units. The airfields would take up far too much space.

 

The game aims to have massive maps as well, unlike CnC. So problem solved.