User talk:LionsPhil/QuestRTS
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18:34 <%Driblis-Workanbold> Cyrals vs. Cutebolds: The Boringest War ... 18:34 < Toastline> :o why would that be the boringest war? ... 18:35 <%Driblis-Workanbold> 'cause cyrals aren't particularly violent and neither are cutebolds 18:35 < Toastline> Cutebolds seem pretty violent with the raiding and stuff 18:35 < LionsPhil> Cutebolds are a race in my crazy academic design-exercise-only-this-will-never-get-made ideas. 18:35 < Colour> Make Cjopazedraw first 18:36 < LionsPhil> If you think Age of Empires, in the top-tier age they're CBSF, so pretty brutal. In all previous ages they're absolutely useless. So you're relying on stealth and distribution to survive until you can scrabble together to reach that. 18:36 < LionsPhil> Gameplay dynamics which support appropriate roleplaying. 18:36 < LionsPhil> (And of course other races want to stamp on said bolds while they're weak.) 18:38 < TestPattern> >while they're weak 18:38 < TestPattern> So... all the time? 18:38 < LionsPhil> Before they learn how to build mechs and megatanks. 18:38 < TestPattern> But you'd never get around to coding that part. 18:38 < TestPattern> It'd be sticks and stones forever. 18:38 < TestPattern> And maybe there'd be a sergal with a gun 18:38 < LionsPhil> Of course. I'd never get around to coding any of this :V 18:39 < LionsPhil> I'm pretty resigned to it being a design exercise for the hell of it because it's not a one-man job and I'm not a one-man wonder indie dev anyway. 18:40 < LionsPhil> But hey mulling over how it could be made to work is fun anyway. 18:40 < TestPattern> It gets tricky when things are explicitly unbalanced at different times in the game. 18:40 < TestPattern> It happens sometimes anyway (like D&D pre-4th ed) 18:42 <%Driblis-Workanbold> yeah 18:42 < LionsPhil> Yeah. And, to be honest, I'm not of the strong religious belief that every faction need be exactly balanced. Tournament players are not worth pandering to, and races being handicapped roles is OK for people playing for fun. 18:42 < TestPattern> Yeah, true. 18:42 <%Driblis-Workanbold> kobolds being worthless in teh beginning means that they'll just get their noses stomped 18:42 < Colour> Different strengths at different times? 18:42 < Colour> I doubt it 18:42 <%Driblis-Workanbold> Freaking sergal players always dusty rushing 18:43 < LionsPhil> Unless you're doing factions that are mostly recolours of eachother (e.g. TA) even dominant strategy-esque faction isn't necessarily a problem if they're different counters to eachother. 18:43 < TestPattern> I wanted to run a quest that was a fake RTS, but I couldn't think of what the sides would be. 18:43 < Colour> If they're weak in the beginning they can survive in other ways 18:43 < LionsPhil> Driblis-Workanbold: Yup! Sergals are most relatively powerful early-on. 18:43 <%Driblis-Workanbold> I basically thought about running a TBS sort of quest 18:43 < Colour> I want to do that knda quest someday too 18:43 < LionsPhil> They've got to harrass everyone or they'll get stomped in the endgame~ 18:43 <%Driblis-Workanbold> but i don't have the head for numbers that ed_pastry does 18:43 <%Driblis-Workanbold> and i'm a shitty writer and artist 18:43 <%Driblis-Workanbold> and i have little confidence~ 18:43 < LionsPhil> Ed_Pastry doesn't have the head for numbers needed to run The Icon ;) 18:43 < TestPattern> Yeah, that 18:43 < Colour> Thinking of sides is easy. Just make it some kind of fantasy thing with different cultures based on real life 18:44 < TestPattern> You can probably do it simpler than that. 18:44 < LionsPhil> Also yeah the Cutebold faction is designed to be tough to eradicate. They don't have a central valuable HQ building or anything 18:44 < LionsPhil> They can spread out, survive losses, and cower in the corners. 18:45 < LionsPhil> Sacrificing a colony to let others escape, letting the attacker think they've got you there. 18:45 < LionsPhil> Five minutes later the bolds flood back out of the trees and rebuild their mud huts :3c 18:45 < TestPattern> Is it one of those things where if one person advances the tech, everyone advances? 18:46 < LionsPhil> I wasn't thinking that, no. 18:46 <%Driblis-Workanbold> haha cutebolds sound like an awesome reace to play 18:46 < TestPattern> (Cuz when that happens nobody has any incentive to push it forwards) 18:46 <%Driblis-Workanbold> run around like jackasses, hiding with your shitty useless camps all over the map 18:46 < TestPattern> The issue there is that the kobolds need to actually have an economy to advance, then. 18:46 <%Driblis-Workanbold> i was considering briefly a Bitequest RTS 18:46 < LionsPhil> Hide-and-see with sergals~ 18:46 <%Driblis-Workanbold> but mostly with the blockheads being an annoying neutral faction 18:47 <%Driblis-Workanbold> that just sorta camped near battlefields and built random garbage everywhere 18:47 < LionsPhil> Yeah, I haven't really gone into resources in detail, other than there are some, and you scrabble them from the map like in AoE or whatnot. 18:47 <%Driblis-Workanbold> slowing down movement and making everyone angry 18:47 < LionsPhil> And they have physical representation, like in Settlers. 18:47 < LionsPhil> (So that you can lose them to raids) 18:47 < LionsPhil> (Else the Sergal attacks would be utterly meaningless) 18:48 < TestPattern> Raids usually are meaningless in RTSes 18:48 < TestPattern> Wonder why 18:48 < TestPattern> I mean, in terms of actually stealing things 18:49 < TestPattern> In things like Total Annihilation (not on metal maps) or AoE, being able to kill off resourcing helps. 18:49 < LionsPhil> A lot of things are meaningless in RTSes. Something I /do/ want to tackle is one with zone control and a stab at supply lines, since those are usually handled so weakly. But that's really off on a tangent. 18:49 <%Driblis-Workanbold> ugh TA 18:49 <%Driblis-Workanbold> the commander exploding in TA made me so angry 18:49 <%Driblis-Workanbold> but i did enjoy the game 18:49 * LionsPhil flies an Atlas into Driblis' base, picks up his commander, then dances over his anti-air guns~ 18:49 < LionsPhil> Best troll tactic. 18:49 <%Driblis-Workanbold> LionsPhil: supply lines /sorta/ existed in Company of Heroes 18:50 < TestPattern> Supply lines would be really tricky to balance. 18:50 < TestPattern> Way too easy to make it either so plentiful that it's meaningless or so rare that everyone's failing constantly. 18:51 < LionsPhil> I'm thinking more along the lines of attrition for isolated units. 18:51 < LionsPhil> Which ties into the zone control thing, since that gives you a useful, high-level quantization of when exactly something is or is not cut off from base. 18:51 < LionsPhil> Did the enemy disconnect the zone your attack force is in from the zones connected to your base yes/no 18:52 < LionsPhil> Anything that encourages more than select-all, click on opposing army :/ 18:52 < TestPattern> So we're looking at like, hearts of iron? 18:52 < floatRand> Cute things exploding~ 18:52 < LionsPhil> Afraid I've not played that 18:52 < TestPattern> The smallest unit is a division 18:52 * Colour doesn't like Hearts of Iron 18:52 < Colour> I like to see my battles 18:53 < LionsPhil> Oh, is that one of the hex-grid hardcore TBS types? 18:53 < TestPattern> http://cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/galleries/display/67/67924.jpg 18:53 < TestPattern> It's real time 18:53 < LionsPhil> Cool 18:54 < LionsPhil> It may well cover the same ideas, but it's at a different scale. Anyway this is a huge tangent unless people really want to hear me waffling about semi-formed ideas.
19:15 < Colour> LionsPhil make a game with Tezakians and Cutebolds and empires 19:15 < Colour> And REAL TIME BATTLES 19:15 < LionsPhil> And hookers and blackjack 19:15 < Colour> Yup 19:15 <%Driblis-Workanbold> the units have to take cover dynamically and full 3d 19:15 < Colour> Both located in the tavern 19:15 <%Driblis-Workanbold> terrain destruction 19:16 <%Driblis-Workanbold> advancement from late bronze to mechas and tanks 19:16 < Colour> They have to automatically find nearby cover and go on the RIGHT SIDE OF IT according to the enemy 19:16 <%Driblis-Workanbold> get on it LP geez 19:16 < LionsPhil> No more room in the plans for more races so sorry~ 19:16 < Colour> Also they can climb over sandbags and low walls 19:16 < LionsPhil> Each gets a gameplay role and there are none left I can think of 19:16 < TestPattern> Only sergals and cutebolds 19:16 < TestPattern> Only 19:16 < Colour> Tezakians have an awesome gameplay role though 19:17 < TestPattern> And only 3 units are implemented 19:17 < Colour> They have numbers 19:17 < TestPattern> It's not so much an RTS as it is a rape simulator. 19:17 < Colour> So many birds 19:17 < LionsPhil> Uh, lessee here: 'bolds, Sergals (or Gnolls, it's kind of interchangable), Dwarves (or Lohrkes), Splinter, Hat'kal/Lazurek, Scellor. 19:17 < LionsPhil> And none of them are "generalists" because fuck generalists. 19:17 <%Sharah> CAN LOVE BLOOM ON THE BATTLEFIELD 19:17 < LionsPhil> There's all kinds of /candidates/ in quests but not ones that I think translate to fun game dynamics. 19:18 < LionsPhil> (The Alliance [Qal/Shirm/Delter] and Astranians are somewhat obvious omissions from WAAAR quests.) 19:18 <%Driblis-Workanbold> put generalist humans in there 19:18 <%Sharah> splinter 19:18 < Colour> Who's the guy with the huge army of crap people? 19:19 < LionsPhil> I did contemplate Astrainians as a micro-heavy role given what LonelyWorld was saying about their short-term shields, but I think that'd be a fun-killer for everyone else 19:19 < LionsPhil> And I hate micro-heavy races 19:20 <%Driblis-Workanbold> >Micro 19:20 <%Driblis-Workanbold> >Astranian 19:20 <%Driblis-Workanbold> I GET IT 19:20 < LionsPhil> :3c 19:20 * Colour doesn't like micro 19:20 < LionsPhil> "I beat you because I drank ten cans of Red Bull and am jittering on the mouse like a pnumatic drill" 19:24 <%Sharah> my problem with micro is that i get so into it i neglect my base and other things 19:24 < Colour> I like sorting out a base and turtling because yaay awesome base 19:24 < LionsPhil> You'd like Dwarves, then :V 19:25 < Colour> Dwarves are too slow and sit in the same place. 19:25 < LionsPhil> Or Splinter. There's some overlap. 19:25 < Colour> I like to expand with little settlements sometimes 19:25 < LionsPhil> Splinter are the hedgehogging faction. 19:25 < Colour> A small fort or something nearby covering resources 19:26 < LionsPhil> Rolling defensive line, whereas the Dwarves are classic [turtle] sit-in-one-place-and-build-a-magma-cannon. 19:26 < Colour> Pretty much 19:26 <%Sharah> I like to set up defences at the nearest tect bildings ASAP 19:26 <%Sharah> tech* 19:26 < Colour> If there's a huge amount of resources somewhere I build as much defense as my real base there.
03:12 < LionsPhil> Decided to stick the notes up. The worst that can happen is that some people on the Internet think I'm dumb. http://www1.tgchan.org/wiki/User:LionsPhil/QuestRTS 03:13 < LionsPhil> Also drawing a little pixelbold running for its life was an amusing way to spend a few minutes. 03:13 < LionsPhil> Har. 03:13 < TestPattern> Yeah, I saw that. It was cute 03:14 < TestPattern> I had a late lunch imagining what the alert sound for "dropship full of tozol mercenaries" would be. 03:14 <%Sharah> that warehouse thing reminds me of blitzkreg 03:14 < Squeegy> Haha test 03:14 < LionsPhil> At least one other person watches the recent changes on the wiki then :V 03:14 < TestPattern> Not all the time, but yes. 03:14 < Squeegy> Just copy the Starcraft nuke alert 03:15 < Squeegy> NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED 03:15 < TestPattern> I was thinking it'd be like something a tozol would say. 03:15 < TestPattern> For maximum OH SHIT SON 03:15 <%Sharah> in that you had unlimited warehouses but had to use trucks to get stuff 03:15 < LionsPhil> They arrive straddling them, Dr Strangelove style 03:15 < Squeegy> Any Starcraft players would instantly get the same sense of dread 03:15 < TestPattern> Like "To the everlasting glory of the infantry!" 03:15 < TestPattern> (oh shit son!) 03:15 < LionsPhil> haha 03:15 <%Sharah> and to get more convenit ammo you had to capture more ammo dumps 03:16 <%Sharah> with my luck my tozzle dropship will land in a spot infested with dipomat snipers 03:17 < TestPattern> Nah, maximum irony would be it getting nuked. 03:17 < LionsPhil> The Tozols basically /are/ a nuke, just fluffed differently. 03:17 < LionsPhil> (I guess Splinter would have actual nukes.) 03:17 < TestPattern> I figured they'd be rarer than nukes. 03:17 < LionsPhil> Or, rather, they're a strategy game nuke, which is to say a big bomb :B 03:18 <%Sharah> no, tozols are c&c3 commandos before people knew how to counter them 03:18 < TestPattern> Nukes in RTSes are kinda weaksauce unless it's TA or something. 03:18 < LionsPhil> TBH I don't know how on Earth the special events would work. 03:18 < TestPattern> ...and in TA, your bases are generally immense 03:18 < TestPattern> Easy. Have a resource which is useful only for that. 03:18 < TestPattern> The rarest resource. 03:18 < TestPattern> Make it so you can generate it in esoteric ways. 03:18 < LionsPhil> Mmm. 03:19 <%Sharah> like the relics in DoW? 03:19 < TestPattern> Like build a trade post and sell stupendous amounts of things on the interstellar black market. 03:19 < LionsPhil> I suppose I have vague inclings of them being like C&C:Generals powers, but with more to them than just time. 03:19 < LionsPhil> That's not a bad idea, Test. 03:19 < TestPattern> (This is how it works in TQ verse. Interstellar currency is a jewel beyond price for your average low grade planet-bound mooks) 03:19 < TestPattern> And then you can spend it on space mercenaries or doobies. 03:20 < LionsPhil> Best choice. 03:20 < LionsPhil> "Hmm...Tozols...or Doobies...Tozols...or Doobies..." 03:20 < TestPattern> dancing_tozol.gif 03:20 < Toastline> Doobzols! 03:20 <@Fredrick> oh god 03:20 <%Sharah> tozols riding doobies 03:20 <@Fredrick> if someone took the time to rotoscope that MC Hammer dancing gif 03:20 <@Fredrick> tozol 03:20 < LionsPhil> *press button on space vending machine for tozols* 03:20 <@Fredrick> that'd be amazing 03:20 < LionsPhil> *dispenses jabberwocks* 03:20 < LionsPhil> FFFFFFFFF- 03:20 <@Fredrick> but that thing must be like a million frames 03:21 < Squeegy> Fredrick I have this dancing guy in a white robe and black belt 03:21 <%Sharah> aaaaaaaaaaaaa 03:21 < LionsPhil> The main problem with rotoscoping something to a Tozol would be mapping the legs across. 03:21 < TestPattern> Every unit would need an uncontrollable dance gif. 03:21 < LionsPhil> haha ... 03:23 < Dylan16807> yes dances for everyone 03:23 < Dylan16807> everyone 03:23 < TestPattern> Well, if the doobie ability is to make everone dance, then everyone must dance. 03:23 < TestPattern> Including the tanks. 03:23 < LionsPhil> popping_a_wheelie.gif 03:23 < TestPattern> Bouncing on the hydraulics 03:23 < LionsPhil> haha 03:23 < TestPattern> Or teetering left and right like a tank with a terror drone in RA2 03:23 <%Sharah> have a dance button like RA2's cheer command 03:24 < LionsPhil> Cheer command was great 03:24 < Dylan16807> or for the most ridiculous option, tank does a quick transform to bipedal, dances, transforms back ... 03:25 <%Sharah> Cutebolds + GLA? 03:25 <%Sharah> =* 03:25 < LionsPhil> Eh, not quite. GLA still had a big expensive construction yard building. 03:25 <%Sharah> yeah, but you didn't need it 03:26 < LionsPhil> You did if you wanted to use your generals abilities 03:26 <%Sharah> I guess 03:27 < LionsPhil> You could come back from building workers at their supply depots but GLA are still pretty locked to base sites, whereas the idea for bolds is that they really spread out like a vapour. 03:27 < TestPattern> You'd need big, rich maps, like AoE2 or something. 03:27 < LionsPhil> So cutebolds = real-world terrorists, rather than the game ones that bunch up and you can use game nukes on, I guess. ... 03:35 <%Sharah> I wonder how you make mobile base without doing something dumb like c&c 4 03:36 < LionsPhil> I did like, in theory, that C&C 4 tried to sort out being eliminated and bored early on with the whole team/respawns thing. 03:37 <%Sharah> I like how world in conflict handled the no base thing 03:37 < LionsPhil> I think that's about the only good thing I have to say about it. (I don't have /that/ much bad from bailing out of C&C once Westwood lost the reigns. C&C3 demo was dire.) 03:38 <%Sharah> even if it caused silly things like the US having the abilty to quickly airlift dozens of M1 tanks 03:39 <%Sharah> or sending 3 B52's after some hill out in the middle of nowhere 03:39 < LionsPhil> WoC is another I haven't played since demos are deeeeead and I've also been in a cave. :/ 03:41 <%Sharah> well, if you have time to waste I guess you can watch some of the LP of it http://lparchive.org/World-in-Conflict/
- Gaining specials: buy them with a resource derived from huge amounts of the harvestable resources (e.g. interstellar black market).
12:03 <%Driblis> lionsphil how's progress on QuestRTS :D 12:03 < LionsPhil> hah 12:04 < LionsPhil> Oh, were you around when I linked the wiki page thing? 12:05 <%Driblis> i saw it~ 12:05 <%Driblis> but i haven't read it yet because too much text ... 12:08 <%Driblis> >dwarves >turtling <3 12:08 <%Driblis> I always enjoy turtling 12:10 <%Driblis> ah but this game is such a pipe dream 12:12 < Cockhole> Your face is a pipe dream. 12:12 < LionsPhil> Cockhole dreams of breaking Driblis' face with a lead pipe :< 12:14 <%Driblis> D: 12:16 <%Driblis> sorta seems like the only species capable of actual offensive attacks are splinter and late-game cutebolds 12:16 <%Driblis> and early sergals i guess 12:17 <%Driblis> lazureks will never be able to leave the woods and will eventually just get overpowered. Dwarvesn can't leave their fort for long and eventually will just get overpowered. 12:17 < LionsPhil> And Dorfs if they go for the surface carrier rather than the magma cannon. 12:17 <%Driblis> maaybe the scellor but they sound fairly micro heavy 12:18 <%Driblis> >Goblins (low-tier; merged into cutebolds) 12:18 <%Driblis> Racist! 12:19 < LionsPhil> Big heavy APC bristling and Lohrke weapons and ready to disgorge angry bearded people~ 12:19 < LionsPhil> So very racist 12:21 < LionsPhil> The Scellor are perhaps a bit micro-y, yeah. They'd certainly need to be a low-population type faction. 12:23 < Cockhole> >Even other specials like Tozols are not immune to their enchanting call. 12:24 < LionsPhil> ><TestPattern> dancing_tozol.gif 12:24 < Cockhole> Stop stealing my jokes you fuckers. 12:24 < LionsPhil> :3c 12:25 <%Driblis> everyone wants to get some scellor action i suppose 12:25 <%Driblis> how odd~ 12:28 < LionsPhil> Well, universally alluring green-skinned-space-babes is kind of their hat. 12:31 < LionsPhil> They probably just approach the cutebolds with hugs. 12:32 <%Driblis> nah they bang right there 12:32 <%Driblis> nose2hoes 12:32 < LionsPhil> And then the cutebolds just stand around stupified for five minutes 12:32 < LionsPhil> "What just happened" 12:34 <%Driblis> poor bolds~ ... 13:43 < LionsPhil> Oh I missed a line of Driblis' feedback. 13:44 < LionsPhil> The idea with the Dwarves offensively is that they're the sit-back-and-throw-nukes type, like turtling in TA/SupComm. 13:45 < LionsPhil> The Hat'kal are going to break your back with assassins as saboteurs then take you on when you're weakened. 13:46 < LionsPhil> Iunno maybe it wouldn't work out right. 13:50 < LionsPhil> Certainly there are race pairings that would not work well against each-other but that's sssort of by design. 13:51 < LionsPhil> For example cutebolds don't have centralisation of power thus no good target for said sneaky-types. 14:06 <%Driblis-Workanbold> it seems like it would be next to impossible to kill a cutebold player 14:21 <%Driblis-Workanbold> Lionsphil: as a casual gamer that sucks at most things i will say that reading your game spec makes me think i'd basically play dorfs or cutebolds on easy and poke around building cities 14:21 <%Driblis-Workanbold> while the lazureks and sergals sound horribly boring to my general playing style :V ... 14:44 < LionsPhil> Yeah, bolds would be a pain to eradicate. :/ 14:45 < LionsPhil> I guess they'd probably lose pretty much all of their stealth when they hit CBSF tech though.
- Some factions are perhaps too limited in direct offensive capability
- Cutebolds need to be possible to eventually eradicate: other races need good high-tech intel, and CSBF-era bolds need to lose stealth
