Author Topic: Supreme Commander 2  (Read 19442 times)

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Offline Ransom

  • M. Night Russel
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The speed has nothing to do with the consternation. The issues are the smaller scale, busted resource system, and diminished focus on long-term tactics.

Haven't played too much Forged Alliance
That hasn't stopped you from making sweeping generalisations about it. FA is only slow in singleplayer. But even then I liked the slow-burn nature, thanks.

Improvement isn't really the word - that's like saying the console Baldur's Gate games were improvements on the PC series. They appeal to different audiences. That's clear enough considering most everyone who likes SupCom 2 didn't play the original.

For the record, I also found Sins of a Solar Empire intolerably boring.

 

Offline mxlm

  • 29
The speed has nothing to do with the consternation. The issues are the smaller scale, busted resource system, and diminished focus on long-term tactics.
I would have thought the speed was linked to those three issues. No?

Not the part where engineers can't assist in construction, as that's due to an as-yet ineradicable bug which made assistance free.

Quote
That hasn't stopped you from making sweeping generalisations about it. FA is only slow in singleplayer. But even then I liked the slow-burn nature, thanks.

Well, fair enough on the first, but I'm not seeing the strategic depth in singleplayer. Build a bunch of T2 pd and T3 SAMs and shields and your stuff doesn't die. Build a bunch of experimentals and maybe some T3s if you feel like it and all of their stuff does die--although the commander builds fast enough to alleviate some of my problems with the pacing. Maybe some of the later missions will throw something different at me.

For the second, well. I have enough multiplayer games on my plate that I'm unlikely to ever get around to FA multi, at least until I get bored of L4D2, which will be never. Unless one of you kids wants to show a douchetastic noob the ropes, but even then.

Quote
Improvement isn't really the word - that's like saying the console Baldur's Gate games were improvements on the PC series. They appeal to different audiences. That's clear enough considering most everyone who likes SupCom 2 didn't play the original.

True. I was shocked when my first game of DoWII took, like, eight minutes. And then, after it started pitting me against people of roughly equivalent skill, I realized I really liked the fact that I could play three to six games in an hour. I totally switched teams at that point, and so the different pacings of SC2 and 1? Yeah, the latter appeals to me a lot more these days.

I wonder how I'd feel if I fired up CivIV again. hmm.
I will ask that you explain yourself. Please do so with the clear understanding that I may decide I am angry enough to destroy all of you and raze this sickening mausoleum of fraud down to the naked rock it stands on.

 

Offline Ransom

  • M. Night Russel
  • 210
  • It will not wait.
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I would have thought the speed was linked to those three issues. No?
I don't think so. Certainly I don't have a problem with the idea of a faster pace. If that was the intention behind those changes, I think they were misguided. The new resource system doesn't move any faster than the old one, it's just bland and weirdly implemented. Scale is a matter of variation in unit sizes and power; the spectrum is far less interesting in SupCom 2.

And you don't need hour-long games for long-term tactics. I'm talking about things like resource management and pre-planning. The original was deeply macro-oriented, but the sequel brought in a lot of micro-management (research, building upgrades, etc) which made for a very different style of gameplay. At the same time, this reversed many efforts in the first game which were aimed at reducing the genre's finickiness.

Don't get me wrong: I like streamlining. But I don't feel that's what SupCom 2 did. It is, philosophically, almost completely opposed to the original.

Well, fair enough on the first, but I'm not seeing the strategic depth in singleplayer. Build a bunch of T2 pd and T3 SAMs and shields and your stuff doesn't die. Build a bunch of experimentals and maybe some T3s if you feel like it and all of their stuff does die--although the commander builds fast enough to alleviate some of my problems with the pacing. Maybe some of the later missions will throw something different at me.
That's my point, though. The AI is terrible. If you really can't stomach digging into the multiplayer, there are downloadable AIs which will definitely give you a work out, although even then I never really appreciated the systems at play until I won my first ranked match (which lasted about fifteen minutes, mind you). Like most strategy games, it doesn't shine without challenge.

 

Offline mxlm

  • 29
Righto. I'd just note that the intention behind the design changes can be more or less sussed out in a couple posts from a GPG employee over on Qt3.
I will ask that you explain yourself. Please do so with the clear understanding that I may decide I am angry enough to destroy all of you and raze this sickening mausoleum of fraud down to the naked rock it stands on.

 

Offline General Battuta

  • Poe's Law In Action
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Whatever the intent was, the result was a fantastically stupid game compared to the first one. One of my biggest complaints was the change from a delta-based, flow-dependent economy to a simple lump-sum one.

 
See, here's the thing about the economy.  It is much easier to infinite queue when you have flow-based resources and know you can support the build costs than having to wait for resources, then queue units whose build costs get  deducted as soon as they are queued.  SupCom1 actually had less micro involved for their building than SupCom2.
17:37:02   Quanto: I want to have sexual intercourse with every space elf in existence
17:37:11   SpardaSon21: even the males?
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[21:51] <@Droid803> I now realize
[21:51] <@Droid803> this will be SLIIIIIGHTLY awkward
[21:51] <@Droid803> as this rich psychic girl will now be tsundere for a loli.
[21:51] <@Droid803> OH WELLL.

See what you're missing in #WoD and #Fsquest?

[07:57:32] <Caiaphas> inspired by HerraTohtori i built a supermaneuverable plane in ksp
[07:57:43] <Caiaphas> i just killed my pilots with a high-g maneuver
[07:58:19] <Caiaphas> apparently people can't take 20 gees for 5 continuous seconds
[08:00:11] <Caiaphas> the plane however performed admirably, and only crashed because it no longer had any guidance systems

 

Offline mxlm

  • 29
Less micro in queuing, perhaps, but lump sum economies are much easier to comprehend than the flow dependent stuff.
I will ask that you explain yourself. Please do so with the clear understanding that I may decide I am angry enough to destroy all of you and raze this sickening mausoleum of fraud down to the naked rock it stands on.

 

Offline General Battuta

  • Poe's Law In Action
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Less micro in queuing, perhaps, but lump sum economies are much easier to comprehend than the flow dependent stuff.

No they aren't!

It's the same actual amount of mathematics.

 

Offline mxlm

  • 29
Perhaps comprehend is the wrong word. Regardless, yes, it's a lot easier to go "I have x money, I can buy y" than it is to balance the inflow/outflow, know when it's appropriate to deficit spend and so on.

Also, am I wrong or does the AI randomly decide what gets priority when you overspend?
I will ask that you explain yourself. Please do so with the clear understanding that I may decide I am angry enough to destroy all of you and raze this sickening mausoleum of fraud down to the naked rock it stands on.

 

Offline Ransom

  • M. Night Russel
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    • Rate of Injury
Nothing gets priority, was my impression. It's divided equally.

 

Offline MR_T3D

  • 29
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SupCom 1 economy:
I am making X per second, spending Y per second
try to keep X>Y.
if I decide to have Y<X, do I have enough resources to not have hampered production?
a quick estimate in the head figures that out, I believe.
It was more involved that I have X resource, what should I spend this amount on...
I liked it.

 

Offline Bobboau

  • Just a MODern kinda guy
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  • 213
actualy you want to keep X as close to Y as possible, and on average Y should be slightly < X.
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actualy you want to keep X as close to Y as possible, and on average Y should be slightly < X.

Yeah, you don't want to waste resources. You get negative points for that, I think.
Sig nuked! New one coming soon!

 
 :bump:

... sorta. Is there a demo available from anywhere other then steam? I figured I'd look into it, seeing as, well, demos are free.
Sig nuked! New one coming soon!

 

Offline General Battuta

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:bump:

... sorta. Is there a demo available from anywhere other then steam? I figured I'd look into it, seeing as, well, demos are free.

Get Steam, play the demo, marvel at how bad it is compared to Forged Alliance.

also, ILLIMINATE

 

Offline mxlm

  • 29
It's a steamworks game. So no, the demo isn't independent of steam.
I will ask that you explain yourself. Please do so with the clear understanding that I may decide I am angry enough to destroy all of you and raze this sickening mausoleum of fraud down to the naked rock it stands on.

 

Offline Thaeris

  • Can take his lumps
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I dislike Steam, and I refuse to stop disliking it. I do in no sense want some blast-it form of DRM following me about for the things I've purchased.
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Everyone else takes normal damage.
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Offline General Battuta

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Go start a Steam thread, then, we're busy trying to play games here.

 

Offline Liberator

  • Poe's Law In Action
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To be fair I used to loathe Steam.

Then I used it to buy DoW2 and the Gold Edition of DoW and it's ok.  Not Great.  And I wish I didn't have to run it to keep up with my campaign progress but it's ok.
So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.

There are only 10 types of people in the world , those that understand binary and those that don't.

 

Offline mxlm

  • 29
Are you sure you're not confusing Steam with GfWL?
I will ask that you explain yourself. Please do so with the clear understanding that I may decide I am angry enough to destroy all of you and raze this sickening mausoleum of fraud down to the naked rock it stands on.