Sonar_Taxlaw

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="24" id="3646076"] However, please spare me any nonsense about how somehow that 2.57% would really be 40% if we just had had replays in at release or some other nonsense. The reality is, outside a handful of well known strategy games, MP is very niche. It is something we'll have to build up over time. Nurture it. But anyone suggesting that we should have diverted resources away from a higher player count to replays is not going

[quote who="Ekko_Tek" reply="21" id="3646052"] It is possible some people were put off or waiting on larger map sizes with larger numbers of players - maybe with groups of friends - but for public custom games, it is true that even 2v2s filled quite slowly. Personally I'd much rather have replays and any RTS claiming to take its MP seriously needs replays at launch imo. I have Steam friends who gave up on the game until replays are put in. That's really my only criticism of how t

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="5" id="3645849"] We're definitely doing a lot for multiplayer too. But yes, it does mean we've been budgeting engineering time on features that will benefit both. For example, the expansion is set to allow 16 players to play, even in multiplayer (though we still have to stress test this). So that's cool for MP players still but also for single player gamers who want to have a massive 4X game like experience. However, that engineering time came at t

[quote quoting="post"] Despite Ashes having a pretty lively multiplayer community, over 95% of the player base only plays single player. [/quote] This is totally bizarre to me. I don't know where to begin. I don't know why I expect people to make sensible use of their leisure time. To the devs I will say that you might be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by focusing on this stat: when you pumped last second time/personnel/ and

Quick question: are there any visual differences between the DirectX 11 and 12 versions of the game? By that I mean, do the versions look different at all, regardless of all the neat technical wizardry/asynch compute stuff that dx12 is capable of? Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere and or for boring you with my ignorance on this subject.

[quote who="Nojar" reply="5" id="3642421"] I share your concern about adding micro. However, I don't think formations would necessary lead to that kind of counter-counter micro situation. The units move so slowly that a formation change would actually take a while, and while reforming some units wouldn't be effective in the combat. In most cases changing formation during a battle probably wouldn't be beneficial, it would be more about setting up beforehand.<br

I think all of these ideas are legitimate and, if implemented correctly, could make combat a great deal more enjoyable. The only one I would be concerned about is formations; basically, setting certain formations would provoke counter formations from your opponent, which in turn would probably drive you to counter their counter in a vicious cycle, and handling all that could be more micro-intensive than the game seems intended to be. I think I've said it elsewhere in this fo

Hey, glad to hear i don't sound like a raving mad man, haha. I really enjoy talking about this game and have a problem condensing my thoughts, so I'm glad to hear some of the things I post are actually received. I totally agree with turtling actually not being terribly viable, discouraged, and yah, dealing with turtles is never really as agitating as it can be in many of my favorite games in the genre. That said, I feel like something about the game's design encourag

Is it just me or does this unit look like someone took the Seraphim Experimental Bomber from Forged Alliance and made it float instead of fly. The similarities look almost intentional....which is fine because that bomber was slick looking.

As a mid level player, i think the most common pitfall I see players falling into is over prioritizing the beefing up of their resource production. Basically, they build every extractor, amplifier, and refinery they can at the first available opportunity. What they seem to be unaware of is that they are paying for long term gain with a short term loss; by upgrading your production you are not producing as many units as you could (in the short term) and if your opponent has put less into his a

You are right, replays won't address this issue, at least not directly....but the changes you are proposing will address the issue in a way that kind of goes around the problem and, more likely than not, will introduce new problems into the mix. I mean, I don't know how much fun it is to best someone who is better than you when their hand is tied behind their back. So I have noticed that most of my favorite strategy games like Company of Heroes and Sup Com

Suggestions like this just remind me how very painfully this game needs replays. Honestly, I know that implementing replays on a game with this many units must pose a challenge, but without replays, people are left in relative darkness as to how to improve/what they did wrong. It is acceptable if an rts doesn't ship with replays, but it desperately needs one within a month or 2 of launching. Besides helping players to learn the game, it is also a great way to

Chess is relevant, but only to a point. The appeal of multiplayer gaming is making choices and often the first choice you make (at least with an RTS) is your faction. There's more too it than allowing choice, when you pick a faction it appeals for any number of reasons: sometimes you are making a fashion choice, sometimes you are picking in a particular way because you know the style suits your hard-wired playstyle, sometimes you want to learn something new/play the game from

I feel kind of both ways about this one. I usually have more fun with PHC vs PHC matches, and I readily admit that I don't know substrate as well, and I'm sure that is a factor. Yet, there are countervailing factors. As opposed to StarCraft and it's ilk, this is a relatively small budget game. Consequently, I think from the ground up Stardock made fewer allowances for balances when they were building the factions, and are less able to cope with the data

[quote who="Freyja_Bjorn" reply="5" id="3640866"] We won't worry too much about apm but all games really go back to how quick you are. [/quote] I agree with this point, and you can't have an RTS that completely does away with the advantages that come with performing certain actions quickly..... None the less, the 60 second mark for creeps to spawn is something that rewards esoteric map and production knowledge. Memorizing how to get to points

Agreed. Have played multiple games where my opponents score was 2 or 3 times mine and I ended up trouncing them. Not that score needs to represent progress towards victory, but yah, it's free, artifical recon that makes the game feel unnecessarily "gamey." The score system seems like it can lead many a player down a blind alley.

Well, I am getting a bit salty, not because we disagree about the game so much as we disagree about what I am saying! [quote who="Freyja_Bjorn" reply="7" id="3640869"] i just don't think you can suggest altering a design of a game based on peoples wishes or wants that the game was another. [/quote] You will kindly note I said the pretty much the same thing in OP: "I have read Frogboy describe the great aspects of Ashes, and one of the things he men

[quote who="Freyja_Bjorn" reply="3" id="3640857"] But what the game is about doesn't matter [/quote] Freyja, what are you smoking? If what the game was about didn't matter, maybe we should have quick-time events to determine how you get the opening points. That way, we could see who was the best (at clicking buttons really fast) and that would separate the good from the best. And then you go on to talk about design philosophy of ranked

So, your whole point seems to be "get gud". I agree that I am not very good, but uhhhh neither is like 98% of the other people who play the game so yah, I don't think it should be designed around the top tier (unless the development likes going bankrupt) As insightful as your input is, it really isn't contributing to how the game's developmenent should progress. Apparently, you are really good at this somewhat unfinished game with a low skill ceiling, congra

So I whole heartedly disagree that combat is as good in this game as in other Rtss. To be fair, a lot of that has to do with the size of the forces involved and making the game so that combat is fun or that their are meaningful decisions is probably really very difficult. Combat isn't bad now, but it mostly boils down to throw stuff at other stuff and decide what upgrades are best. I don't really know about resetting enemy targeting, but, on the face of it

Perhaps I misspoke or you misunderstood: I don't think the think the behavior of my competitors is indicative of a design flaw per se (more a design philosophy), and, if you look at my post, I do qualify that my experiences are well, my experiences and obviously highly subjective and prone to all the selection bias/cognitive biases people have in general, lol. What i am saying is that it is, perhaps, indicative of this game's identity crisis/ the community divisions that are o

So I have played a fairly good number of ranked games, am something like rank 5 or 6 now, and have noticed a somewhat worrisome tendency among the vast majority of people I have played against. In a word, they are playing an entirely different game than I am (not literally, of course); my opponents are usually strictly trying to out eco me without seeming to give a thought to territory adjacency or combat (beyond mass production and just quick teching). In the (roughly) 30 games I have played

I agree. What is really the worst aspect of this is that it is totally counter to what is probably the game's main design consideration: make the game about strategy and not micro. Games can be won and lost on how you move and cap with engineers in the first 60 seconds, and that runs totally counter to what the game is about. I think giving players a "free" point is the way to go (although I wouldn't doubt that there this will cause some sort of complication that I

Well, I think the main thing that is turning off new players is this game's similarity to Supreme Commander and appearance that this game is, at present, a less complete and complex version of that (although I think you are all painfully aware of that). How do you deal with that? Well, I think there is probably no slam dunk answer. I think you can maybe do a more rigorous job of publicizing the fact that there is still a lot of work going on with the game, but I doubt that w

No sane person should place Company of Heroes 2 so high. I quite like Ashes, but it doesn't deserve this ranking (yet).