Spring RTS Engine

Thoughts?

I couldn't stand it at first, now I think of it as something that's only twice as good or so as Starcraft 2. ... I'm being too hard on it, maybe three times as good. Still bloody diarrhea though.

The research speed should have diminishing returns past 4 or so, at the very least... beyond a certain point you're just selecting research at random because RP are so cheap and you've got more important things to worry about.

The simplification of the resource model is good and bad, but undeniably helps the game get off to a faster start, and the much simpler build tree also has some pretty good positive effects (in addition to the negative ones).

Still very simple though, and a bit too fast-paced for critical thinking in many situations. Everything but experimentals are throwaways... not to say this wasn't often the case in TA, SC, FA, and AA as well for that matter.

Overall though I think too many core TA/SC things were whittled away too much. Static defenses for one, variety of weapon types and ranges probably being the next worst thing. There's not a linear progression of technology, more just focusing on finally breaking through a critical line and then it's game over no matter what.

And in that sense, the game itself feels rather linear, there's only one or two ways to approach a situation, the most effective of which is to simply throw wave after wave of increasingly large throwaway units at a problem and hope it goes away.

The final stake through SC2's heart is all the extra micro though. Micromanagement should be reserved for only the most rare situations in a large-scale wargame - like the "Hunker" ability on ACUs or teleportation. Not ever in a situation where if you're distracted and you forget to activate an ability, you're at a massive disadvantage, such as is the case with the Magneto structure or the artillery short-range toggle, or the many other examples. Reeks of Starcraft-style "micromanagement wins the day" gameplay, which IMHO defeats the purpose of a "strategy" game. It's strategy challenge, not a dexterity challenge.

If TA was a 9/10, SC a 7/10, FA an 8/10, SC2's probably like a 5.5 or 6. Worth the price on sale for ~$10 but certainly no more than that.

And "Cybranasaurus Rex"? Seriously? That's a -0.5 off the score right there.

after wasting my money on supreme 1 im not even going to touch 2.

You should really give FA a go, it's a tremendous improvement. Still some things I don't care for but game balance and gameplay itself is a lot closer to how I hoped SupCom might've been in the first place. One huge example is that the infinite metal maker economy has been nerfed.

Pls do not bash starcraft 2


its a nice and average game, it takes a while to get used to, and certainly the first was better than the second, but not a bad game.

Do not call it a bad game, call it unfinished yes, but not bad.

Supreme commander Forged aliance is a diferent game from the first, FA is actualy a very good game.

Supreme Commander 2 only becomed decent after the latest patches, but still i dont recomend it, its unfinished and unworthy to be released as a playable game. (it has great stuff) but its way to unfinished, unbalanced and to mutch linear.

Supreme commander 2 main developer said the same, ill quote (ofc it was with diferent words)
"if you want to make a good game you should not sell it, and certainly you should not be limited by time constrains".

Supcom FA was better balance wise but the gameplay was still shitty.
Air had shit control.pathing and the group formation and contorl was shit and the constant 0.5 sec lag was also shit.
Control and feel wise it was horrible,probably one of the worst ever IMO.
The gameplay in the vanilla was shit but was somewhat improved in FA.

@Caydr
The fact they are called startegy games is irrelevent and is just semantics.
When one writes real time startegy game everyone knows what it means there is no need to suddenly claim the name does not fit the subject, what matters is the pop definition and both supcom TA and SC/SC2 are within it.
You want pure startegy play turn based games....
Micro is never bad as long as its fun and is well structured, both in TA in SC and any other game for that matter.
These are real time games and are not meant to be played liek chess, accept that.

To describe in detail everything wrong with supcom2's gameplay would require twice as many words as I can be bothered with, so I won't.

I will however say this:

Steam store page: About the game wrote:A deep and powerful story - element adds a personal, human aspect to a storyline previously focused on warring factions and the politics that fuel them

This is the biggest lie in gaming history since John Romero claimed he would make us his bitches.

Also, whoever thought up the names for the Aeon units needs to be made permanently unemployed.

KingRaptor wrote:This is the biggest lie in gaming history since John Romero claimed he would make us his bitches.

yet john romero became a bitch

One of these is male.. and one is female, pick one only.

Honestly I have not played supcom 2 yet. I need to get around to playing it. I think a big part of what keeps making me lose interest is that the damn units are all so same-same. just didn't feel very interesting add to it that they dropped the transforming gimmick from the aeon in supcom1 I had very little interest in supcom2 but honestly the cybrainsaurus thing has me interested in supcom2.

Supcom is crap, starcraft (2) is at least 1000^10000^10000^10000x better.

I thought it wasn't completely terrible as a game. At least they are trying to learn some stuff from Starcraft, even if it was all the wrong lessons, like shrinking the game to a smaller scale but still having a bunch of fairly generic units.

I would much prefer if Starcraft tried to learn something from Supcom, although that is never going to happen.

A particular damper for me was how badly the game ran. I don't have a great laptop but I can run Starcraft on medium settings, I can run ZK 8v8, but Supcom2 at the very lowest settings was still very laggy, even with almost nothing on screen, and still looked a lot worse then Starcraft and ZK.

I dont think anyone expected supcom 2 to be a good game.

at lan parties people all fight over whether supcom 1 or 2 is to be played where I live. Eventually we all play dota as the sup 1 and sup2 players glare at one another.

smoth wrote:at lan parties people all fight over whether supcom 1 or 2 is to be played where I live. Eventually we all play dota as the sup 1 and sup2 players glare at one another.

and how is the weather in fairyland? do the unicorns bite much?

To be fair, they intended SupCom 2 to be a much faster-playing game, and in that way it succeeds tremendously while still keeping some of the TA-ish stuff alive. It's just taken to too much of an extreme. It's one of those games where you look at it and say "change this one simple thing and it will be twice as good", but it'll never happen.

Then again, they did allow bankrupt queues, so maybe anything's possible.

luckywaldo7 wrote: I would much prefer if Starcraft tried to learn something from Supcom, although that is never going to happen.

That could be an incredible mashup. The balance and fast-paced style of SC with elements of the UI, unit variety, and map design from TA/Supcom.


But yeah, will never happen.

Well, SC2 did learn a few things from the TA family - didn't they get rid of the stupid 12-unit selection limit? And the units seem to have removed some of the painful gameplay that came from the move-stop-attack behavior that produced the extreme kiting micro-intensive kiting that dominated the first game.

Pxtl wrote:Well, SC2 did learn a few things from the TA family - didn't they get rid of the stupid 12-unit selection limit? And the units seem to have removed some of the painful gameplay that came from the move-stop-attack behavior that produced the extreme kiting micro-intensive kiting that dominated the first game.

The first is true, the second in theory is true, but in practice they preserved that mechanic for most units. Even in SC1 technically they didn't need that in the game, it was an intentional decision. The tank could fire while fully moving, and a few other units as well.

@SwiftSpear - either way, when I watch the pro-games, I actually get to see melee units instead of an endless mass of kiting ranged units. They've obviously tweaked the balance *somehow* to fix this massive problem from SC1. I don't think I ever saw a single Firebat on TeamLiquid, Zealots were pretty darned rare, and Zerglings were only used for building demolitions or killing workers. Nobody could use melee units against ranged units because of the constant fire-retreat-during-cooldown-fire.

Got it for $3.75, and it's definitely worth it at that price. Blows SC1 straight out of the water. Gameplay is faster, smoother, simpler, and makes more sense. It's dumbed down, but it's a lot better than SC1's bore. I'd still play ZK or KP or GRTS over it any day, but it's worth a look, if you've got a few hours to kill.

I like StarCraft2, lets jsut get that out in the open. I thought that the original game was a massive snoozefest and hated it, however, I do like sc2. It's entertaining and it's easy to get a game. I play it quite a lot.

The dirty little secret though is that I would rather play evo or gundam at any given time, as both games are more fun imo. The main reason I play sc2 so much is that it has a big playerbase, so quickmatching is a fast process.

Pxtl wrote:@SwiftSpear - either way, when I watch the pro-games, I actually get to see melee units instead of an endless mass of kiting ranged units. They've obviously tweaked the balance *somehow* to fix this massive problem from SC1. I don't think I ever saw a single Firebat on TeamLiquid, Zealots were pretty darned rare, and Zerglings were only used for building demolitions or killing workers. Nobody could use melee units against ranged units because of the constant fire-retreat-during-cooldown-fire.

I think it's all still true, although zealots get their charge attack in late game now, which is more effective for stopping kites than a generic speed boost was. Melee units are still more a staple of the early game than the late game, because in the late game the big ball of death can oneshot anything before it even gets an ability to break into the ranks.

By the by, you would always SEE zealots and zerglings and stuff in starcraft 1, but no, they weren't used too much as frontline forces, that is MOSTLY still the case in starcraft 2, if you want to use your zerglings or zealots effectively for cost on the front line against their actual army, you have to have some sort of positional advantage, like dark swarm in SC1, fungal growth in SC2, or psystorm.