Supreme Commander Demo released!

Pint0 Xtreme · Post by **Pint0 Xtreme** » 2007-02-21 03:50pm

The subcommanders used to blow up with a much more forceful explosion. Players would adopt a subcommander suiciding bombing tactic that was annoying and difficult to counter. It was cheap, effective and efficient. Thank god they toned it down.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-02-21 04:55pm

Pint0 Xtreme wrote:The subcommanders used to blow up with a much more forceful explosion. Players would adopt a subcommander suiciding bombing tactic that was annoying and difficult to counter. It was cheap, effective and efficient. Thank god they toned it down.

That must be what I'm remembering from my first few Beta games. It's good that they toned it down, but really it's not enough, and they should do the same to commanders. Obviously, I won't rest until it's removed entirely by way of modding, and I suspect that would make it much harder to find a game, but such is life.

As far as resources go, I'm trying to think of a good way to balance out the economy of the game. Right now my largest problem is that micro on the tactical level is significantly reduced, only to now increase the micro on the economy level. You spend most of the game managing your economy with brief time-outs to fight once you've set up enough automation. The sim-city aspect needs to be toned down. Condensing the following into two seperate buildings should do the trick:
All levels mass miner
All levels mass maker
All levels power generation
Power storage
Mass storage
Geotherm plant

One building would be the building you make that's not tied to a specific location on the map. These would have lower total outputs than the location specific buildings. You could upgrade them to be better mass producers, better energy producers, or keep them roughly equivilant. Similar upgrades would be available for location specific buildings, but they would generate higher values. You might have to split up the location specific buildings just so geotherm and mass spots could still be used without modding all the maps.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2007-02-24 06:34pm

Commander explosion has also been turned down in the latest patch I believe, to prevent people comm-bombing to force a draw.

Also I haven't tested this but I've figured out how to get support commanders to automatically rebuild destroyed structures. If you do the assist command (typical right-click command on buildings) on a bunch of structures, they get put under the SCU's list of 'rebuild' structures.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-02-24 07:05pm

Well, I'm currently tooling around in the blueprints to adjust the buildings and units to my specifications, all I really need at this point is some sort of modification to change what can be built by the various constructors.

Removing the commander nuke is easy enough, as is toning it down. All I need is just this one thing and I can start work immediately.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-02-24 07:56pm

Shinova wrote:Commander explosion has also been turned down in the latest patch I believe, to prevent people comm-bombing to force a draw.

Do you mean post-release patch? That's pretty funny - an obvious broken feature that would be used to cheese up games, but it survived the beta and then got patched. What's that about closed beta communities?

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-02-24 08:17pm

Stark wrote:
Shinova wrote:Commander explosion has also been turned down in the latest patch I believe, to prevent people comm-bombing to force a draw.
Do you mean post-release patch? That's pretty funny - an obvious broken feature that would be used to cheese up games, but it survived the beta and then got patched. What's that about closed beta communities?

You're not being very clear here. Are you trying to suggest that closed betas are better than open betas?

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2007-02-24 09:29pm

Stark wrote:Do you mean post-release patch? That's pretty funny - an obvious broken feature that would be used to cheese up games, but it survived the beta and then got patched. What's that about closed beta communities?

It's a game balance/mechanic exploit, not a broken feature. It's sort of like spamming assault terminators or PSM in DoW Winter Assault. It's extremely annoying but not technically broken. (Comm-bombing actually isn't all that annoying actually. It'd take a lot of luck and resources to successfully comm-bomb the other player's comm. And especially moreso in supcom, where you can cloak your comm or protect it with 50,000 HP shielding and such.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-02-24 09:45pm

Uraniun235 wrote:You're not being very clear here. Are you trying to suggest that closed betas are better than open betas?

I'm suggesting closed betas have a higher tolerance for 'workarounds' and house rules etc than the masses. While the beta testers clearly didn't think it com-bombing was that bad - probably because they agreed not to do it - in the 'real world' outside their closed beta it's going to be used all the time, as long as it remains effective, and thinking otherwise is just blinkered.

Shinova wrote:It's a game balance/mechanic exploit, not a broken feature. It's sort of like spamming assault terminators or PSM in DoW Winter Assault. It's extremely annoying but not technically broken. (Comm-bombing actually isn't all that annoying actually. It'd take a lot of luck and resources to successfully comm-bomb the other player's comm. And especially moreso in supcom, where you can cloak your comm or protect it with 50,000 HP shielding and such.

See? High tolerance for exploits. If Shinova was in the closed beta, I doubt he would have considered this a flaw worth patching - which, clearly, regular people do.

Exploits not being 'broken'? I'm just not sure what to say. Houserules and workaraounds are retarded - if the game lets me do something, I'm going to do it, no matter how much pub server idiots whinge about 'unfair' or 'cheese' or whatever. In this case I'm not sure if SupCom allows 'play after com death' like TA, which would determine weather this is annoying or FUCKING annoying. If something is detrimental to the game, it should be removed, rather than CounterStrike-esque 'don't use that gun it is teh n00b cann0n' rubbish.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-02-24 09:55pm

As stated before, SupCom has four game modes, the only one that ends on commander death is Assassination.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-02-24 11:39pm

Hotfoot wrote:As stated before, SupCom has four game modes, the only one that ends on commander death is Assassination.

Why did they choose to ship the demo hard-locked onto that particular game mode? Nobody here seems to like it, and we can't be that much different from the general public. And how many people who DL the demo are going to know that the full version doesn't have this limitation?

It just seems to me like the demo was poorly thought out.

HSRTG · Post by **HSRTG** » 2007-02-24 11:47pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Hotfoot wrote:As stated before, SupCom has four game modes, the only one that ends on commander death is Assassination.
Why did they choose to ship the demo hard-locked onto that particular game mode? Nobody here seems to like it, and we can't be that much different from the general public. And how many people who DL the demo are going to know that the full version doesn't have this limitation?

It just seems to me like the demo was poorly thought out.

I have to point out for fairness's sake that the demo randomly chose game types, I counted two or three, one other being total destruction of everything, another being destruction of (IIRC) unit producing things.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-02-24 11:54pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Hotfoot wrote:As stated before, SupCom has four game modes, the only one that ends on commander death is Assassination.
Why did they choose to ship the demo hard-locked onto that particular game mode? Nobody here seems to like it, and we can't be that much different from the general public. And how many people who DL the demo are going to know that the full version doesn't have this limitation?

It just seems to me like the demo was poorly thought out.

No clue, but I can say that Assassination is NOT the only game mode in the demo, it's just the game mode for easy and medium. If you play on Hard, you don't play assassination. The demo sucked ass, it was an old version, it had one shitty map, and it didn't let you pick anything for the skirmish, but it did have a second game mode, but it wasn't obvious.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2007-02-25 12:03am

Stark wrote:I'm suggesting closed betas have a higher tolerance for 'workarounds' and house rules etc than the masses. While the beta testers clearly didn't think it com-bombing was that bad - probably because they agreed not to do it - in the 'real world' outside their closed beta it's going to be used all the time, as long as it remains effective, and thinking otherwise is just blinkered.

There was a lot they simply didnt have time to fix or change in the beta which was left for after the retail release.

Darth Wong wrote:It just seems to me like the demo was poorly thought out.

It was, THQ really dropped the ball with it.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-02-25 12:07am

Hotfoot wrote:No clue, but I can say that Assassination is NOT the only game mode in the demo, it's just the game mode for easy and medium. If you play on Hard, you don't play assassination. The demo sucked ass, it was an old version, it had one shitty map, and it didn't let you pick anything for the skirmish, but it did have a second game mode, but it wasn't obvious.

If someone played the Medium game (as I did) and discovered that the game ended the moment you killed the ACU, shouldn't they have been concerned that he would say "That's fucking lame" and uninstall the demo, which is what I did?

Of course, another problem with the demo was its incredible lack of information. The README file was useless, the tutorial initially didn't work (and it was a lame website rather than the kind of walkthrough tutorial which is common now in games), and it had so many other problems which everyone here has mentioned.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-02-25 12:14am

Darth Wong wrote:
Hotfoot wrote:As stated before, SupCom has four game modes, the only one that ends on commander death is Assassination.
Why did they choose to ship the demo hard-locked onto that particular game mode? Nobody here seems to like it, and we can't be that much different from the general public. And how many people who DL the demo are going to know that the full version doesn't have this limitation?

It just seems to me like the demo was poorly thought out.

I think the whole goddamn war is poorly thought out. Instead of pumping a fuckin' worthless Supreme Commander through, they should send me through with a SubCommander or a Level 3 engineer for crying out loud. The Supreme Commander is really just about your most useless constructor, all in all. His nano-hose doesn't make up for his Waco, Texas re-enactments.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2007-02-25 02:39am

Not quite that useless. The Cybran commander can be armed with a slightly weaker version of the monkeylord's laser. (quite nasty if combined with his cloak upgrade). The UEF commander can launch short-ranged full-scale nukes, and the Aeon commander can freeze enemies, and all three iirc can have 50,000+ HP shielding. And all three have the overcharge ability, which does 70,000 damage per shot, meaning a cloaked Cybran commander for example can sneak up and one-shot a Monkeylord.

But compared to subcommanders, yes they're not as awesome. Take the Cybran subcommander, for example. Optical cloak AND radar stealth, which means the only way you'll see this thing is within the yellow ring of an omni sensor. Bastard could be right next to your base if you're not observant and you wouldn't know it.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-02-25 02:46am

Covenant wrote:I think the whole goddamn war is poorly thought out. Instead of pumping a fuckin' worthless Supreme Commander through, they should send me through with a SubCommander or a Level 3 engineer for crying out loud.

A support commander I could get behind, he would be able to hold his own, but an L3 engineer would be completely defenseless. The entire point of the Commander being powerful is to deter ultra-early-game rushes (i.e. just building a factory and blowing all your resources on getting a few attack units out the door).

As for sending through a unit that can build everything from the get-go, you'd probably want to go one step further and just eliminate the tech tree altogether - i.e. the land factory can build any land unit, etc.

When are you writing the mod to make this happen?

Stark wrote:I'm suggesting closed betas have a higher tolerance for 'workarounds' and house rules etc than the masses. While the beta testers clearly didn't think it com-bombing was that bad - probably because they agreed not to do it - in the 'real world' outside their closed beta it's going to be used all the time, as long as it remains effective, and thinking otherwise is just blinkered.

Oh, I thought by "closed beta" you meant only in-house testing.

Well, it was only natural to expect a closed beta for Supreme Commander to return skewed balance results, because the most motivated and driven participants were going to be the old Total Annihilation fanatics who had long become accustomed to things like the gigantic Commander explosion.

Darth Wong wrote:Why did they choose to ship the demo hard-locked onto that particular game mode? Nobody here seems to like it, and we can't be that much different from the general public.

Lacking a mod/patch that nerfs the Commander explosion, there are plenty out there who prefer Assassination because otherwise there's little disincentive for a player to build an air factory, a transport, and run his Commander over to his enemy's base and self-destruct.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-02-25 02:52am

Uraniun235 wrote:Oh, I thought by "closed beta" you meant only in-house testing.

Well, it was only natural to expect a closed beta for Supreme Commander to return skewed balance results, because the most motivated and driven participants were going to be the old Total Annihilation fanatics who had long become accustomed to things like the gigantic Commander explosion.

Yeah, I agree. I expected an open-beta phase before release, but it never happened. AND I MISSED OUT.

U235 wrote:Lacking a mod/patch that nerfs the Commander explosion, there are plenty out there who prefer Assassination because otherwise there's little disincentive for a player to build an air factory, a transport, and run his Commander over to his enemy's base and self-destruct.

This was the attitude in TA, if I recall. After the first few minutes, the commander isn't that useful, and he's like a free nuke. SupCom does have the upgrades etc to make the commander more useful, but from what I read the subcoms are pretty good themselves.

EDIT - quote tags

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-02-25 03:00am

Darth Wong wrote:If someone played the Medium game (as I did) and discovered that the game ended the moment you killed the ACU, shouldn't they have been concerned that he would say "That's fucking lame" and uninstall the demo, which is what I did?

Of course. Like I said, it sucked ass. It wasn't even close to representing the full game, aside from letting you play with all of the Cybran toys. Of course, the map was so fucking small that anyone with any skill at RTS games could have ended most matches before getting too far past Tech2 stuff.

Of course, another problem with the demo was its incredible lack of information. The README file was useless, the tutorial initially didn't work (and it was a lame website rather than the kind of walkthrough tutorial which is common now in games), and it had so many other problems which everyone here has mentioned.

Yup. The only reason I was able to puzzle it out as much as I did was because I tooled around with the beta enough that I knew at least to some degree what I was doing.

The mod I've been planning is in progress, I hope to have something to show for it by the end of the week. Hopefully it will fix most of the problems we've noticed so far.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-02-25 04:07am

Stark wrote:This was the attitude in TA, if I recall. After the first few minutes, the commander isn't that useful, and he's like a free nuke.

*shrug* The Commander was always the single most powerful construction unit in TA, and was never really eclipsed until you could get a real construction unit swarm going. He certainly became a liability after a certain point, although I'd argue it was later in the game than a few minutes.

And, the Commander came with a pre-installed cloaking device which didn't even suck up that much power if he stayed still (move him and the cloak gobbled up something like 2000 energy!) so it's not like hiding him was a huge burden.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-02-25 04:15am

Really? I thought the cloak was a spring addition. And hiding him underwater was always pretty easy.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-02-25 04:41am

Stark wrote:Really? I thought the cloak was a spring addition. And hiding him underwater was always pretty easy.

Nope. Cloak was there since TA v1.0

In fact... I could be wrong, but I think the Commander was the only unit that could cloak until new units were released (either in the weekly unit downloads or in the Core Contingency expansion pack).

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2007-02-25 04:53am

Well I bought the full version.

It seems a bit unstable, it's crashed out mid mission several times.. and why the fuck is there no auto save feature?

I've checked latest driver versions and all..

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2007-02-25 10:20am

Zac Naloen wrote:Well I bought the full version.

It seems a bit unstable, it's crashed out mid mission several times.. and why the fuck is there no auto save feature?

I've checked latest driver versions and all..

After browsing the GPG forums, it looks like the game has a memory leak, related to the number of units in game. I didn't notice it in the demo, because I've never built that many units in it, and it was a small map, but I'm playing a 40x40 map with seven bots, and it consistently crashes after an hour or so of play. Time to crack open Vista's monitor tools and track this problem down!

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2007-02-25 10:50am

Stark wrote:Yeah, I agree. I expected an open-beta phase before release, but it never happened. AND I MISSED OUT.

So you missed the 50000 public beta keys from fileplanet free to anyone with a free gamespy account?