Resource sharing rework (anti-commie)

[cerulean fern]

why bother with 8v8 if you hate all the team aspects

[modest geyser]

Have addressed this issues with guilds over time.
If you play a pickup game .. all your arguments are valid.

If you want to play a competative game "get on voice. listen; you dont have to speak".
but to be competative you probably need to attend clan meetings; scrimmages; do the 5 man raids to get the gear and experience for 40 man raids etc...

This is 'teamwork'
Teamwork is OP

[solar cedar]

I don't - not at all. There are other aspects of 8v8 that are appealing besides connecting with people. You can still feel like part of a team even without talking too much.

[untold estuary]

You can also just zoom out and look what other players are doing and decide what to do.

[cerulean fern]

but is it fair to call others that utilized more of the tools at their disposal boring than?

arent u boring? xD

[modest geyser]

We don't talk about that.
IF everyone knows; soon the devs will remove it. Zoom OP

[solar cedar]

I'm glad you bring that up. That's somewhat my point from the beginning. If we aim for a broad player base (including all the casuals) I believe that my take reflects the opinion of a lot of casual players. I could be wrong. But enjoying the benefits of commie seems to be a high-level player view.

[cerulean fern]

zoom level rebalancing tweakdef inc xD

[solar cedar]

my gfs tell me I'm not

[cerulean fern]

some of the biggest commie haters are the highest skilled 8v8 player bunch

[solar cedar]

So, they're even among those :D. Maybe it's those who want this game to flourish.

[cerulean fern]

everyone currently has his own nuanced opinion

[untold estuary]

I am not surprised that high os players dislike commie strats. If you don't get the right teammember to commie with, u just lose the game.

[cerulean fern]

its a really challanging subject

for example raikoh who is against commie also stated that on shared lanes making only 1 lab for 2 players is perfectly sensible and acceptable. or thats how I read it at least

[untold estuary]

Its also questionable how much skill expression you have, if you end up with players just giving wind turbines and mexes to other players.

And that would be the best option that low os players have. (If you really want to win)

Probably just leaving the game would be even more OP.

[solar cedar]

You could bring in the example of League of Legends. There you have no commie but you certainly have A LOT of teamplay. Good teamplay imho. I'm sure we despise that game but there are also a few things we can learn from it.

[cerulean fern]

lol had a bunch of commie like issues from what I heard

we discussed all of this 10 times over

pls reread some of the threads at least if interested in debating this subject

[solar cedar]

I'm sure thath would be the most effective play in a lot of cases - which is bad game design.

[modest geyser]

For the bulk of more casual players "a bit of communism" is "good teamwork" and probably improves the game and allows better team cohesity.
Since the average OS is <20 and 90% of players are probably under 30OS.
The bulk of them I would imagine are seeing other players complain about it.

THe percentage of high rank; active and elite players on Discord .. skews perception to a disproportionately small subset of players

If its the top players complaining about;
as an example RAikoh is like top 0.5%

matchmaking and parties needed
It's an issue of how matches are "balanced" and a shortcoming of what OS actually means and is used for.

[untold estuary]

Some maps are also designed like this way. If you end up on a spot with nearly no mexes, there is no way you can do something useful with them. So giving them to some other player is just the best choice.

[elfin spear]

There's literally an ocassional happenstance where a player would drop out randomly, and then top OS players takes over and uses the gained eco to stomp

[cerulean fern]

best choice is to coop a single lab and share the units built from it equally

its a strategy that is difficult to execute correctly

[untold estuary]

Just put a low os player on that spot (or even start somewhere else with the commander) and the low os player just leaves the game.

[cerulean fern]

fucking hell again with this

[untold estuary]

That is way more OP than letting the low OS player get the mexes and build a lab by himself.

[solar cedar]

and now try to explain this to a casual player from China in 90 seconds beforehand and execute it successfully - that's where the problem lies.

[cerulean fern]

stop conflating matchmaking issues with commie issues!

[untold estuary]

Its just reality.

[cerulean fern]

not the same issue!

[untold estuary]

Sure it is, because the commie strats make OS differences even more meaningful.

[cerulean fern]

u cant balance commie based on these examples because you will get it wrong !

u need to balance everything with op players in mind only to have a chance at getting it right

because all the noobs will learn it eventually

[untold estuary]

It would be even a good thing to have low OS player into your team for your commie strat. They just get the work were they can't do anything wrong and you get overall a better team of players that have actually to do something.

[solar cedar]

You'd actually be successful in cimbing OS by having a well written text explaining commie that you can copy in your teams chat before the start of every game. And that is just wrong und unfun.

[cerulean fern]

yeah effort getting rewarded vs brainless autopilot execution is so unfun

[solar cedar]

But the entry barrier... and will this be a fun experience? Yes, with your approach you can balance high level play and have interesting strats. "you have to communicate with your random team before every game for optimal play" will drive away many players.

[solar cedar]

That's a fine opinion. And mine is different - this is not what I want when opening BAR. It's a communication game then.

[untold estuary]

Also you end up with some randomness. What if some of the teammembers don't want to do the commie strat. Is it then the best choice just to vote kick them out, so you can win the game?

I don't think it would be a fun experience to kick people to be able to win the game.

[cerulean fern]

i make certian assumptions when making my comments, like: in the future playerbase will be bigger, there will be matchmaking

a full stack party with vc will dominate a party of randoms in counter strike

[untold estuary]

So you end up with more random players and can still party up with some friends and crush all the players who don't do the commie.

[cerulean fern]

conuterstrike can afford to divert parties to be matched with other parties

due to playerbase size

make changes that are futureproof

[untold estuary]

Still you could end up with players you know (even without party) and just do commie strats (or the other team does it) and it would be 100% a win or lose

Depending if you have the players to do commie with or the other team.

I don't think its fun if you just lose a game even if you are an insane good player because the other team has 2 players just giving mexes and wind turbines to another player.

For the players doing the strat, it can for sure be fun. For some people just crushing other players is fun. For them communism is for sure something good, so they can do it against random players and have fun crushing them and win to 100% if the other team doesn't do the same.

[solar cedar]

If you want to have a fun experience for most of the players and have the same set of rules for all players you'll have to target 8v8 for 8 random guys (probably male) being thrown in a team. Some of them will want to commie, some of them will not. Some don't even know how it works. Commie then is a source of frustration. No commie instead enables them all to play a game and express their skill.

[untold estuary]

Its also questionable how many people would even play the game if they end up in lobbies where they are just asked to give all the resources to other players.

I think if I ended up in a situation like that, I wouldn't continue to play the game. It would be just like not playing the game at all. When I started playing the game, I just wanted to have my own base, build my own eco and do attacks together with the teammates. If I were to end up in a situation where I just have to build mexes and wind turbines and share them to teammembers, it would be way too boring for me.

[cerulean fern]

that would not be the game we are used to playing, I have yet to see an eco who microes all the units he produces himself

[untold estuary]

If its fighting units, it would be a great thing to see. Then you don't have low OS eco player but it would actually make sense to place a higher OS player there.

[solar cedar]

Noone's talking about all or nothing. Some sharing is fun. But yea, hopefully it wouldn't be the game we are used to play because some aspects of it show to have flaws.

[cerulean fern]

ok but i want it understood than that you are arguing for a diffirent game and not even what we currently have

[solar cedar]

of course! It is one aspect of the game that we'd want to be improved.

[untold estuary]

Its not even about banning communism completely, but just to have options to be able to play without it.

[chilly kraken]

If I had a dollar for every time someone conflated teamwork with slider drag/rainbow con turret/give your base away gaming....I'd be rich. It's a bad game loop and shouldn't be optimal to give your base away.

[cerulean fern]

all of these are suboptimal strats compared to sharing apm efficiently

[solar cedar]

It is still a negative side effect of commie that is real

[elfin spear]

You'd say eco more likely to give away T3s rather than controlling them himself? I'm confused

[cerulean fern]

only in the context of current caveman meta

[untold estuary]

In my opinion both options should exists. If someone wants to play commie, he should be able to, but there should also settings exists, which allow to play without it.

So everyone knows what kind of game he joins and everyone can decide what to play.

[solar cedar]

So, yes, I agree it drives away new/mediocre players. Which is excatly the problem. Let me be more precise: it is one part of the problem. Even in high-level play it is only opinion based if this is more fun. For casuals it certainly isn't.

[elfin spear]

I believe its actually rare for eco to give away any combat units at all, because eco scaling can be mostly automated, so there's no reason to delegate micro to anybody else

[untold estuary]

In my opinion there could be even added a mode like full commie mode, where nobody has his own resources and everything is shared by default and nobody owns anything.

If people like to play it, more power to them. As long as not everyone is directly or indirectly forced to play it.

[cerulean fern]

eco tends to have to play every lane so its objecitevly often most efficient to give the units to the player that can incorporate them into his composition while you maybe micro some units on other lanes

[chilly kraken]

This is true imho

[elfin spear]

It maybe more objectively efficient, but its not a common sight. At least it seem more likely for eco to coordinate pushes with these players, rather than giving it up for them to figure out.

[cerulean fern]

also please show me a guy that can manage early eco, deliver cons to ppl with trans while micromanaging an early slinger

maybe 2 ppl alive can do that

[solar cedar]

But we're not talking about removing thath completely. That's why there have been a few sensible suggestions how to adjust commie.

[elfin spear]

I did that a few times, but I just see Slingers rather lacking (just as I saw them 2 years ago). Still possible if you sequence actions ahead of time.

[cerulean fern]

oops you failed to dodge 3 rockets from t1 bots I guess your slinger is rip xD

[elfin spear]

you can set mexes to be built, transport to unload and return and have a good window to skirmish

[cerulean fern]

lets not fantasize xD

if the slinger is not shooting nonstop its not getting veterancy and your strat failed

[untold estuary]

It would make the eco spot to a really difficult spot to play with way more skill expression.

[cerulean fern]

it would make the slinger strat dead

[untold estuary]

and sure people will be able to do that, you kinda see how insane fast players are in sc2

Its just a matter of time until players get more skilled

[cerulean fern]

executing that is way above the mechanical cap most players will ever reach

[elfin spear]

You can do it better than anyone here if you bother to try. Again, you just need to plan for it.

[cerulean fern]

there is no planning out or automating an eco build or its gonna be a really bad eco build

[elfin spear]

well you're making T2 cons and your own T2 mexes at that same time, and delivering cons to players. There's notable time gaps between necessary adjustments.

Now, if you see you "have to" fast slinger to save a front that is folding, that most likely will cause you to lose all the marbles over trying to make it work.

[cerulean fern]

if you dont have a guy that can dedicate a lot of attention to the slinger you just build units that are simpler to micro like recluse or something

hence slinger strat would be dead with no share, which is just 1 example of what could be lost

my feeling is that this version of the game would get very repetetive and very boring very fast

[elfin spear]

I think you're oversimplifying the case unnecessarily. The game works on the expression of skill, and on the variety of units and options they provide. The 1v1 may become repetitive over time, but that not primarily due to the lack of sharing and commie plays, but due to the lack of strategic wiggle room, that narrows you down to a set action sequence that keeps you in the game.

[cerulean fern]

i...agree with the way you rephrased it

[elfin spear]

So even if you throw away sharing entirely, at least in team games there's a broad variety of options players have through cooperation and delegation of duty

[cerulean fern]

there is another thing I wanna point out

[elfin spear]

And sharing itself isn't the culprit, but there's extents in which lack of any limitations to it, to the point you can just give away everything to another player instantly, does lead to some rather dubious plays, that have no counter-play, simply because you cannot anticipate all the possibilities if there's no reasonable limitations present.

[cerulean fern]

well yeah the weak strats ppl use are the culprit to suffering autoloses but whatever

explain to me why

all the noobs hate the maps that have the most individualistic play than

if all of the above stated is true

why do all the noobs run away from flats and tartar the moment they see it

which are the 2 maps where no help will be coming and its all up to you

[solar cedar]

Imho they run away from Flats or Tartar because those are the maps where you need the most map awareness and are vulnerably to leaks - which players with good micro can utilize. That's much more stressful than playing Glitters and placing a few towers.

[cerulean fern]

yeah but its the closest to 8 1v1's bar gets

[solar cedar]

I don't think that's related to lack of teamplay or lack of commie there.

[elfin spear]

That's what you may ask them yourself. I would not say all the noobs are like that, but there's a subset of players who cannot handle the fast pase of early game that is thrown into them.

It has nothing to do with how "weak" conventional strats are, but how weak new players are in conditions of BAR dynamics and overall drought of RTS range for the last decade or so.

So those people whine and vail to be given a backline position, which they're not any better at anyway, but its a level of the immediate stress they can handle.

[cerulean fern]

majority of real casual gamers I talk to cant fucking wait to give me their base tbh xD

they pester me to do it nonstop xD

[elfin spear]

Then I don't need to explain anything to you. You already know.

[solar cedar]

If that's your experience, it's clear why you also like commie. 😉

[elfin spear]

Now imagine those same people on the front which they barely learned how to manage somehow, and they have a commie T2 unit pounding them at 4 minutes.

[cerulean fern]

my current position in general is: commie probably needs some kind of limits put on it but its impossible to determine what becasue a meta was never allowed to evolve around it so we base everything on guessing

[modest geyser]

if that comment is related to a "lack of commie on flats" ?

then I'd think that where all lanes are requiring units and players to focus their attention on the tactics for those units - it's a definite hit on commie.
commie works in part because players are 'safe' and also because they don't need those resource dedicated into something else. resources need to be available to commie with.

the best players with awesome APM might be able to cover their lane with 2 grunts and a rover; but for most they simply need the resources for units

[elfin spear]

My current position is that the game needs some kind of limits so that the meta would never evolve around commie to begin with. At very least, players should not be able to share anything beyond what they're actually produced. Sharing the resources that they've been given at the beginning one way or the other should be prohibited.

Anything on top of that probably can be argued to be legit teamplay.

[solar cedar]

Maybe we missunderstood eachothere there. I meant the reason newbies avoid Flats or Tartar (as voncomet suggested) is not because they don't like it that there is less commie but becasue of the more stressful nature of the game on open maps.

[modest geyser]

The original resources are spent by lab, 2 solar and some windmills
That's usually done by the 2 min mark.

That initial 1000m is not special.
8 players means the rate of expansion to mexes and the growth of base income is faster
At best if you somehow 'limited' that 1000 metal you' minimally delay anything

[elfin spear]

Yeah, and so anything that your mexes have mined and power plants have generates is fair game. The most cancerous form of commie is using the initial 1000m to combine it with another 1000m to build a T2 labwhen its not intended to be ever seen.

[modest geyser]

I've always seen the issue with the open maps and lack of backline/bottlenecks as players being less welcoming of maps where the mistakes and loses of another lane a long way away causing a loss ..

the high OS lobbies; you kind of know that the players in every lane at least have a clue.
without that; those seperate lanes really do emphasises the weakest player as the weakest link - so why play with that increased risk of 'loss' due to no fault of your own

[cerulean fern]

you still need like 10 solars which is 1500m

if you ever tried a commie strat you would know

commie does not conjure metal and energy magically xD

[elfin spear]

The simplest example would be a one T1 coop. If one player is using his metal to make the lab, and another spends it on additional units from that lab, you get a whole lot of extra units practically from the fact that initial resources are misused in an accessible way. If you cannot share that 1000 initial metal, you can dedicate it for stronger eco or some other usage, but the commie play itself is not possible.

[cerulean fern]

to everyone that at least wants to get a little feel for commie here is a short guide how to test: go skirmish vs inactive ai, set starting resources and starting bank from 1k to 2k, once you get into the game before readying type /cheat than type /give corcom or /give armcom, than execute a build order while using pause to think about it

[modest geyser]

add up the metal required for a t2 lab; 200 e/sec, some con bots and the buildpower to build and reclaim a t1 lab.
as a single player your can it much faster in a team game with overflow. before another player even helps.

without overlfow in a skirmish 4mins is damn fast.
and leaves you with almost no E economy to run your t2 mexes -> just get T2 out to the team

in a team game; you might not want to hand out t2 that fast.
Which the team can barely afford to run their mexes they don't have the energy eocnomy yet either (if they've been making units and keeping the front safe)

So while 'rushing' a single tzar is a powerful strategy; there is a risk in it.
if its killed by a d-gun and the enemy eco'd a bit you might be in a worse position. at least spybots went away now.

God forbid the enemy team sent a bombing running on your geo or somehow rushed a flagship after

[elfin spear]

Yeah, so by rushing the Tzar, you're making it a question of "can Tzar kill several people before he's D-Gunned". That's the entire match right there

[cerulean fern]

another thing ppl are missing: its harder to micro AND slider game at the same time AND coordinate 2 build orders into 1 at the same time than just doing your normal thing

[modest geyser]

I think you have something specific in mind.

I was looking at pure greed on Eco due to a reddit post
You need 3090 metal at t1 income to get a t2 lab.

That was going for 30 winimlls; sacrifcing a commander. The goal was "fast AFUS"

but that is including the 1000 starting metal.
another player can build their own mexes; solars and then just walk next to your T2 lab to assist building it and then assisting making units

They don't need to "give" any of that initial 1000 metal to anyone else.
I'm not sure why you're hung up on 1000 starting metal

At the beginning of the game for some times it's the 300 BP a 2nd commander has.

[cerulean fern]

you need to pay attention to your commie ally's resource bars at all times while watching your own

[elfin spear]

1000m, 1000e, Comm with its BP and energy gen - its all essentially the initial resources. The distinction is between what you're given and what you have earned.

[modest geyser]

the enemy team could send 6 commanders foward with all T1 units. very risky.

i watched a replay; eco went 1 fusion -> marauders.
should we ban marauders? at that timing they are utterly broken.

The problem here is like most balance threads they are heavily influenced by Isthmus or Glitters

and that is more an arguement about the optmised to hell meta for a single map.
there will alway sbe a meta 'best'. and the nature of it being optmized-to-hell is that by human nature that will be the 'best' way to win.

[cerulean fern]

agree stanis

i learned to tell who is a supreme player or glitter player just by the type of arguments they make regarding communism xD

the 2 are very diffirent and look at it very diffirently

[elfin spear]

The could, but would they? Would not you cover the Tzar with Comms as well, prevening it form being D-Gunned? Would you not have your own T1s?

Again, you're disregarding the fact, that its a play that wraps the match into a single question around the survival of few units, that pull curtains on that match one way or the other.

[cerulean fern]

kinnda like a canon rush in starcraft? should they remove it?

yoau described cheeze

[elfin spear]

Is it something achieved by a cooperation of several players? Or is it something that a player can attempt against another player?

[cerulean fern]

no its about its all or nothing nature

[modest geyser]

But that is now Meta.
"Could they" "would they"
go read the now closed "remove flaghship" thread.

if flagship is so OP .. why is every game not aiming for and winning with a flagship
or every play about "preventing enemy winning sea"

if they can win with tzar and commie .. why is the flagship even an issue ? game should be oer by 11 minutes

all of this is in part meta. unit balance of something established is tweaking a value +/- 10% to adjust gameplay somewhat.

communism is essentially into two categories.

"their teamplay was better than ours" which is an issue for more casual palyers; in pickup games and groups where the weakest link causes a problem. in this scenarion "you have to communism to win" is seen as bad. it hits ranking. it limits gameplay options ..

its also one of competative play. but this is where anti-communism seems very weird to me.
optimized builds are to my mind the best and greatest aspect of a team game and team play.
you expect the 4 minute tzar in the sigma-cup 5v5 tournament finals.

and I'm firmly in the second opinion there; communism is the ultimate form of optimzation of the game rules.
i want to see it quicker; bigger; faster and im impressed when players especially on otherwise random teams or casuals pull it off

[elfin spear]

I have actively participated in the flagship thread.

Flagship doesn't have prevalent presence like an early T2. Losing both seas is devastating. Losing all ground is pretty much a wrap.
Also, Flagship is a T3 that comes in T2 timing, not a T2 coming at T1 timing.

The simple reason every game is not aiming at winning the sea is because it is not necessary - if the sea is won early, its already a huge advantage. A player who does it do not have to rely on others, hence why its one of the most one-sided debate in favor of the unit being overpowered and/or underpriced for what it is capable of on any map where naval play has relevance, relative to similarly priced T3 units. It doesn't break the balance because you can commie it with metal donations and battery plays. It breaks the balance simply because it exists.

[cerulean fern]

bottom line for me is: not using all the tools avalible to you to win goes against competetive spirit

[modest geyser]

Perhaps it deserves to be in the extra units because .. the way I see it is I believe how the extra unit pack is more intended.

The unit is inherentely imbalanced with the impact it can have. but both teams had the same and equal opportunity to make it and build it.
they also had the same and equal opportunity to engage in more or less co-operative teamplay.

[elfin spear]

Bottom line from me is: games have rules for making the game more fun, and there can be a lack of rules that makes moves possible that detract from it. Just because a given rule doesn't exist, doesn't mean it would be bad if it has.

So its rather weird to come to a thread discussing the prospect and potential benefit of new rules and argue that people should just exploit lack thereof to their hearts content because fuck you noobs who too stupid to game the system.

[modest geyser]

I agree.
"you cna share resources"
"you can give each other units"

seems like fun.

"but only on tuesday. when you ahve earned over 60% of the net returns from taxation on the enrgy income of the lowest ranked player unless offset by the third lab"
.. that is an absurd example but if you need too many "IFS" i question the 'fun' of the rule.

turn sharing off.
turn sharing on.
these ideas of taxes and it being OK in certain ways and trying to capture that .. no.

[solar cedar]

I totally agree with that statement. But I think it shouldn't be an available tool. In AoE 2 they allowed units to doge arrows if you just microed them all the time - so pro players would spend a significant amount of apm doing that. Is it a fun mechanic? Debatable. Is getting your casual players in a team to commie with you a fun mechanic? Debatable. I think it is not, others think it is.

[elfin spear]

You can share resources if you have actually produced them with your economy or through combat reclaim.
You can give each-other units, but you cannot help someone build units with resources given for you explicitly to make your own shit.

That's it.

If you do not see an immediate problem with such a setup, then you don't need to debate me on any more extreme measure, because I probably won't agree with them either.

Anything beyond that is highly debatable and likely detrimental to one aspect of the existing gameplay or another.

[modest geyser]

I'm trying to work out what you would need to track in game to identify those clauses such that it could be managed.

if you have a resource donations it would seem easiest to disbale that for the first 60 seconds.
assuming they've made stuff their initial 1000m will be spent.

then i'm stuck on the following scenario,

so air player can charge 2 winmills for a transport ?
they were given 2 windmills (energy) to make shit
that's ok to give a transport back.

its ok if you make 10 windmills and a turret all on your own.
then you can use that turret to assist a friendly lab ?

that's still communism and doesnt break either of your rules.
i dont see where it 'fixes' the communism at all

[zinc breach]

Some scenarios have been hidden intentionally. There's a new bug in the engine that causes most of them to crash so we decided to hide them until it's fixed.

[elfin spear]

Well you have built those windmills, spent resources on them and put them on the field. You can give them. But you can't just give 80 metal immediately to a player that you didn't even mined yet.

You can build a conturret and use it to assist a friendly lab, but if you haven't mined enough metal to pay for the assist, the turret will stagger as if it has no metal to add into what its asissting.

[cerulean fern]

getting donated solar collectors is the fastest way to reach almost anything with commie

the player gifting solars can stay on low metal income and dump his bank into donated solars

you could simply design a strat that is calculated for the solar producer to have exactly the right amount of metal to build them

with no need to share any of it via slider

he did alot more by sharing the solars and the bp associated with building them

this allows the player building for example a t2 lab to skip all energy production

and just cap maxes and boost labs

again...if you tried any of this yourself you would know

[elfin spear]

Seriously, I have no fucking clue what you're trying to prove to me.

[solar cedar]

I think he's saying that it isn't only the starting resources that can be a problem with commie. (I might be wrong though)

[cerulean fern]

well yeah I'm saying that your timing on commie t2 lab would not even have to be delayed even if you could not send any metal via slider

because donating solars is incredibly strong

[elfin spear]

By pouring all that metal instead into the least effective method of power generation?

[cerulean fern]

lol xD

solars give you more energy faster

for more metal

[elfin spear]

Like, I cannot possibly equate just giving the guy 900 metal instantly with giving him 6 solar collectors over time

[cerulean fern]

and metal is the one thing you have in abundance with commie, major bottlenecks are bp and e

imo all commie will be better if you boost with solars

[cerulean fern]

you absolutely can

op commie timings are a combination of sharing bp, metal and energy

so giving solars is infact drastically better than donating metal that the other commander could not possibly use or even bank

[elfin spear]

the cases where he can in fact use that metal is those I have most of a problem with

[cerulean fern]

you dont know what you are talking about

[elfin spear]

I don't know what you're talking about, that for sure. I digress, got a work to do.

[cerulean fern]

to simplify: by donating a solar you have shared metal, bp and energy generation

instead of just sharing metal

obviously this is way better if your aim is for example to make the fastest possible t2 lab

[daring jay]

yes because commie is a meta strategy

commie isn't making a particular unit it's just pooling resources to get ageo/amex/t2/t3/ or what ever play faster

actually if commie meta develops a lot of the meme commie strats won't be viable

the reason why meme commie strats are viable is because commie gets a power level boost

so funny shit can still work. but commie nuke should have no chance against commie air or commie t2

[cerulean fern]

i'm not sure if you can make that prediction with certianty but maybe

[daring jay]

i say commie gets a power level boost because even the simple act of upgrading t2 mexes and getting t2 con is a lot better with coop

commie is much better. you can get t2 con probably by 3:00 or earlier with two techers cooperating

[cerulean fern]

its iffy, i'm not sure I would even call that a good strategy

t2 mex takes 2 min to pay off

by min 5 enemy is gonna be swarming your front with t1 units

and you still havent done anything to keep them back

and there is pressure on you to keep them back becasue you are down a player

[daring jay]

it depends what the game state is

it's quite likely that making t2 units is better

but there is the option, esp if map is bigger / front is secure / mex value is good

[cerulean fern]

a smart man told me that 2k dmg early on is alot better than 20k dmg a bit later

I think I agree

[daring jay]

t2 mex takes 100 sec to pay back

depends on the mex value. since you get 50metal back from the t1 extractor

[cerulean fern]

I default to thinking about glitters numbers and mexes are weaker there xD

i think thats how I got 120 sec

[daring jay]

fair fair

[old notch]

can you send me a screenshot of me saying that?

[old notch]

i was thinking about this
i dont think this is much of a flaw since the goal was to slow down t2 pooling to a manageable degree and to make eco coop more involved.
this whole dance of building and then selling BPs to players will slow it down considerably imho since now Techer cant just get all-the-resources-of-the-whole-team-just-like-that anymore he now has to build BPs and sell it to the right teammates
doubt Techer will be able to sell it to Front since they will be metal starved fighting while the Techer was trying to get his BP for sale up
on str8s geo will probs be the only selling to eco and as such only getting help from eco player only
as for the Front selling BP to Tech is that really a good deal? Exponential nature of this game suggests that its more efficient for front to suffer alone for a bit while Techer reaches t2
say they do it anyway and double eco the opponent Front. they will still have to do the dance of wind trading (remember my proposal includes e cost for selling as well) its still gonna be fast since front wont have to build wind by himself anymore but its quite involved and requires timing coordination from both players
and then what? techer will have to continue feeding front more and more eco to do it most efficiently front has to send all his spoils of war somehow to back if all is done correctly and i imagine this is hard to do what will happen under the most efficient scenario is that back will pmuch manage all eco matters of the front while front solely focuses on microing
how is this any different from normal play today?

[zinc breach]

Some scenarios have been hidden intentionally. There's a new bug in the engine that causes most of them to crash so we decided to hide them until it's fixed.

[low briar]

Imo commie just creates bad gameplay in normal matches. Its ok in a tournament but when one team is just 8 randoms beating the enemy team who has a duo doing commie shit is almost impossible

[rose imp]

Even in a tournament its still too dominant, its the only play

[low briar]

Yes but at least its viable for both teams since they propably both use voice coms and have practised together

While one team having this advantage is unfair

[velvet ruin]

thats not even the issue with it imo, it neglects aspects of rts for the ones doing it.

one player is playing simcity, the other is playing a moba with like 1-4 t2 units, and if theres another they're just afk and this is apparently what gets you high rating in an 'rts' title

[warm oriole]

Yeah, I'd rather see every player play with their own base and units, and the winner is decided by coordination of attacks and strategies, not by who commies better

Tourneys would be so much more interesting imo. Less cheese like 2 min jags, but way more fun and exciting

[light grove]

Honestly i think, considering split community, there should be an ultimate modoption where all is allowed (like now) and another with absolutely NO sharing whatsoever

Everything else just poses a question of "what about this?"

It starts with t2 cons and ends with winds, gifted snipers etc..

Conturrets are probably the biggest impact of soft coop

[forest zenith]

well you'd need to go further than just no sharing to stop things like reserving reclaim, geos, donating mex spots

[light grove]

I'm actually surprised there isnt more conturret griefing by gifting 1 to funnel their resource jnto you

[light grove]

Thats just normal rts gameplay. In every game you can decide to leave a resource to teammate and not mine it

[forest zenith]

not in every game... there's no incentive to reserve mexes in zk for example

[light grove]

But like, in age of empires, starcraft.. etc, you can just leave an expansion to better player. I feel like this is so rudementary strategy it shouldnt be tweaked

Its a slippery slope. Cant even reclaim unit you didnt last hit? Where does it stop

[forest zenith]

it's kind of a bigger problem in bar because of how the economy works, reaching t2 threshold and exponential scaling

[daring jay]

If you let ally take it it takes longer cause mex is farther away

[old notch]

what split? the split is: one side has no idea what even is being discussed the other is role-playing as IRS

but i am in favour of sharing removal it seems like the simplest solution that still preserves eco coop possibilities

[light grove]

If you commie in high lvl lobbies, you will experience the split. Some players like it, some hate it. All know what it is about there

[daring jay]

a player has to walk to take the mexes, and it's scoutable. maps can be made so that players mexes aren't super close to other allys. a huge part of commie is sharing the income and E from the commander, initial 1000 metal, and all the E that a 300bp commander can make

[forest zenith]

this is not new information to me 🤔

[daring jay]

and you can target that player's mexes

and they can't just get donated resources without tax. it makes targeted bombing and raiding alot more potent

im saying that reserving mexes/geo isn't a critical problem

[untold estuary]

I wouldn't mix things together. Tournament without commie could have different rules (harder ones) than a normal game with random people without commie.

Disallowing all sharing would have probably not the best impact on a map like Glitters, where you have an eco spot. I don't want to see people in a mixed OP lobby to rush for a t2 lab in an impossible position to just get a t2 con or that it is only about rushing for t2 like you see on rotato maps with 1v1 lanes.

Also it raises the question what do you do if someone leaves or loses all his constructors. If you can't take his stuff and he has a lot of mexes, it is pretty much gg. If it is possible to take his stuff but you can't share constructors to him then he is forced to leave the game.

It would also disallow teamplay what I would consider positive teamplay. For example that the air player gets a constructor from another player (armada). Also that the air player can give a transporter to a player. Another example would be that someone can play armada and can get a cortex constructor in lategame that he can build cortex t3 units.

[daring jay]

yeah that's why I added sell t2 con only

selling t2 has a useful gameplay impact like letting more players get to t2 eco faster, esp frontliners

it also doubles as a way to get someone back in the game or faction switch, albeit not so effeciently

getting a con to switch factions early is not completely a positive thing for the game
it makes faction choices less meaningful in larger team games. If a player is forced to play their race at least until t2 con sharing, then it means that their toolset than their teammates

[untold estuary]

The problem about that is that you need the ability to share someone resources to be able to buy a t2 con.
Things like the unit market don't work because it is too different to the main game and it needs way too much attention from the players. The eco player isn't able to send the t2 con to a player and to queue things up. Also its adds the problem that some players don't know how to buy a t2 con with unit market. It can even happen that someone buys multiple t2 cons which will confuse the eco player. The eco player can think everyone got a t2 con but in the end just some players bought multiple t2 cons.

So buying a unit without the ability to share resources makes it very complicated and probably impossible to really play with random teams.

The easiest way to "buy" a t2 con is to just share some metal and then the eco player can queue up the t2 mexes and give the t2 con to you then send it with a transporter to you.

[daring jay]

it pops up on the screen

when someone puts a t2 con for sale it shows a popup window where you can buy with 1 click
it's not so bad

[daring jay]

the problem with sharing metal

is that there's no way to enforce that the metal gets spent on t2 con

and the team that shares more metal to their techer is advantaged

[untold estuary]

Still you need to pay a lot of attention and then queue the mexes up. Transporting it with a transporter (by the eco player) is nearly impossible. It add so much overhead that shouldn't be needed.

[untold estuary]

My suggestion some time ago was that you can share resources but the other player (that should get the resources) only gets them if he shares a unit to you. So by limiting the sharing to t2 cons, the eco position would still work and it couldn't get abused.

[daring jay]

you just click buy, and then area mex your mexes
2 actions

[untold estuary]

I often don't have that time.

[daring jay]

you should prioritize which actions are the most important
you don't have to spend 20 actions over microing your units

[untold estuary]

Its not that easy btw. What if you have enough metal, then you have to look multiple times, maybe even stop your unit production. Or what if you want to click the button but somebody was just a millisecond faster than you. Then you end up trying to move a t2 con that belongs to another player.

The biggest problem would be that you then also need a transporter yourself to be able to move the t2 con to you, otherwise you wait for 1 minute that the t2 con walks to your mexes.

[untold estuary]

Its not about micro but attention. If a lot happens at the frontline, I can't just look away.

[daring jay]

you look away from the front all the time
when you get bombed, when you get leak
i mean yes you have to actively click buy now but I don't see a better alternative

the reason why queues have to be dropped is how assist construction orders are prevented

otherwise I could order your t2 to boost my lab, then give it to you

if such an order isn't dropped then you can inadvertetly have resource transfer

[untold estuary]

I explained a possible alternative.

[untold estuary]

It could check if it is an assist order or not.

[daring jay]

when sharing a unit or not
if it's an upgrade order it has to check whether the structure is owned by the new owner, to drop the order

it's possible improvement but i dunno how to implement it

[daring jay]

this would require additional UI to represent that "X player has paid you Y money, in hold"

and how to easily let players pay the correct amount for different t2 cons?

further more, if paying is optional you can have a loophole

where I repeatedly buy from you (you pay), but then you share it back for free

[untold estuary]

Of course it has to be a one time thing. In theory it could store the unit id that it was shared and when sharing its checked if the unit with that id was already shared.

[untold estuary]

I think there is no problem about being optional

[untold estuary]

You could go for some tolerance.

[untold estuary]

Would be nice, but it is not really that much needed if it is just for buying a t2 con.

[daring jay]

what if you share to the wrong person
you can never share it back

[untold estuary]

You can share it back, but won't get the metal.

But it really depends on the implementation. You could even track the amount of resources shared and the amount of resources shared with units and make it not depend on what player gets the t2 con.

That would make it possible that one player could overpay for other people and the eco player would still get the metal.

But overall I think that way makes way less problems than a unit market. Everyone is used to do it that way and for the people paying nothing changes. Even for the eco player it is pretty much the same.

[onyx lodge]

Absolutely u cant. At least in aoe2 and not in sc2 either, at least once you pass like top 20%. Which is what, like 17 os?

[daring jay]

how is it prevented in those games?

in sc2 the cost of an expansion is high, a high rated player needs to afk a lot to even consider 2 or 3 basing fast

in BAR you could do things like make team bases farther away and reduce the amount of safe "leavable" mexes

meaning that if you want to leave mexes for the high os player those are attackable by the enemy team

another factor in reduced sharing/ no sharing is that bombing / raids are a lot stronger

you can't just give someone 20 winds after they got bombed. it will drastically slow down their tech (esp if energy requirements for basic t2 like sheldon/mauser are increased)

[cerulean fern]

playing 1base and letting your teammate double expand is perfectly viable in sc2 teamgames at top 1%, just a diffirent game where you can work around lack of econ alot more

for bar comparison you can build 5 dragons early from a 3 mex economy

but really its a mode that nobody takes serious or is sweating on

so bases are kinnda first come first serve

[daring jay]

the price of building nexus and 16 probes is much more than capping 6 mexes tho

[light grove]

No point comparing in such a way (price wise), its a different game. My point was restricting all resources on player basis is just weird, almost no rts does it. This lack of freedom would be game suicide

[daring jay]

it is, because it's easy for a high os player to take 6 extra mexes
but taking an extra expansion takes a long time

[light grove]

Different game and tempo

[onyx lodge]

It isnt prevented. U can do it.

But especially in aoe2 its virtually useless.

Even for bar, it takes long enough for a op player to manually claim ally mexes for it to not be worth it. And you just give yourself more mexes to upgrade (which already takes a while)

My point is you set your team metal collected as a whole back, so at least it has a drawback. And I doubt this would even be viable unless the os difference is 20-30% or more between the players.

[elder fjord]

I think sharing resources is a great gameplay mechanic, but it, like all the other game play mechanics should scale with the state of the game.

you slowly build up eco from start, and if you focus on it it scales exponentially.

you build enuf combat units or stronger units, and you're able to push forward and take ground.

Sharing is a cool mechanic that allows you to funnel resources to a weak point on the map, or into a specific tactical attack operation. The problem is as some have mention how quickly it accelerates the other aspects of the game either through rapidly ecoing, or rapidly increasing the power of your units. Sharing should start limited and slowly scale somehow. Thus its available to all at start, but is a strategic choice to invest more heavily in.

I suggest tying how fast resources can be shared to how much storage of that resource you have. say .25 - .5% of your metal storage per second, and maybe 2-3% of E storage/s. If you send more than can be instantly given, it disappears from your bank and is slowly released to the target of your share.

This will

1. gate resource sharing behind certain buildings like metal storage, and e storage and potentially make solar, or adv solars little bit of e storage more of a draw.

2. if someone tries to share 1000 metal or energy with someone early on without scaling the ability it will take a significant amount of time, slowing down a potential tech rush.

3. With numbers given it would limit metal sharing to 2.5-5m/s at start of game, and energy to 20-40e/s. though not completely insignificant amount in helping tech rush, it would be a more effective amount to help push out a few extra t1 units early to take space, push scouts, make actual plays in the early game with t1.

as for sharing units, i think self EMP for some duration as another player takes control seems fair

I'm not too sure about sharing BP early.... that one is tougher, cause you are giving up positioning and potential scaling of eco to do it. If it is a major problem perhaps force it to use the targets resources?

[worthy summit]

I had a similar idea before too

Unit sharing is the tricky part, especially because of cases of takes and returns for player DCs

Would need some manual vote !command for giving/taking that bypasses restrictions, so players can pause and take or give back without penalty.

[old notch]

if someone could work on improving the AI we can work with DCs by giving the command to a similarly skilled AI until the player returns/someone takes