Where's The Epic?

Why does Supreme Commander look so much better than Zero-K?

... okay, wait, wait. I don't mean the AAA-level of polish in the graphics. I know why they have that and we don't. Money. Duh. That's not what I'm talking about.

Kapsi posted this but you can find SupCom videos all over youtube, and what they have is what I hear about in ZK and Spring but rarely actually ever SEE in ZK and Spring: MASSIVE SCALE.

Or rather, the appearance of massive scale.

I've seen ZK games with 1500 units, which really is insanely massive. And those games are utter clusterfucks, frantic chaotic orgies of destruction, which you can really appreciate when you zoom out to watch the icons swarm around and fight. But when you zoom in... everything look so... plain. Empty. Sparse. Boring. There's action all around but if you don't already know the game you won't appreciate what's going on because it looks like handfuls of ants running around on a football field. It should look like what it is: HUGE ARMIES OF GIANT ROBOTS. But it doesn't.

I see two culprits, although I'm sure there are others: spatial density and force composition.

In ZK, engagement ranges are large relative to the size of units. This includes weapon ranges and AOE effects. As a consequence, units have a lot of open space between them and the enemy (since they don't need to get close) and between each other (since they need to spread out to avoid AOE). Empty space equals ants equals not epic.

Second, even if the units were closely packed, there just aren't a lot of them. A squad of a dozen units is devastating at any weight class. Basically, no matter what you're attacking, you're going to make about a dozen of whatever unit is right for the current stage of the game and then go wipe out whatever undersized squads or single units or small defense outposts you can find. Nobody throws fifty Glaives at a Goliath; they'll spend the metal on five Jacks instead.

I'm not saying these are problems. ZK gameplay is awesome and is carefully crafted around the parameters which produce these results. I'm just saying it doesn't look awesome, and I'm pondering why.

Heck, look at StarCraft. Even in that cramped fishbowl view when a swarm of Zerg hit a swarm of Marines it looks like, well, a couple of swarms hitting each other. It looks like a fight. A brawl. Close contact and big numbers make it look impressive.

Why don't we have that?

It seems like attempts at "epic" scale end up just creating icon wars. Why go to the effort of making beautiful models when 90% of the time we're going to be looking at the unit's icon?

quote: In ZK, engagement ranges are large relative to the size of units. This includes weapon ranges and AOE effects. As a consequence, units have a lot of open space between them and the enemy (since they don't need to get close) and between each other (since they need to spread out to avoid AOE). Empty space equals ants equals not epic.

Really? I'd say the problem is the exact opposite: ZK unit ranges are positively tiny relative to their sizes, specifically compared to SupCom or some other Spring games like S44 or NOTA. As a result, most everything looks like a low-level brawl, tactical (as opposed to strategic). They're also relatively fast, giving the illusion of a smaller battlefield.

I'd surmise that empty space implies massive scale far more than it does the reverse: a country or world map is always less crowded than a city one.

For a really good illustration of this, consider the Total War games.

quote: Second, even if the units were closely packed, there just aren't a lot of them.

Yeah, this is really one that really comes across in that SupCom2 video. In ZK, if at any point you have a dozen units lying around, you're going to send them off to do something if you have any idea how to play the game. In that video, it appears as if the players have accumulated units over a considerable period of time, then marched them forward together in a box formation, in the style of RL pre-modern battles.

Part of it is the ratio of the time it takes units to kill each other and the time it takes to replace them. Most ZK armies will shred each other in a small fraction of the time it takes to create them if you just run them into each other.

This, along with the fact that units have counters, makes it a very bad idea to just throw your units at the enemy regardless of which units are being used. Most units can't just pile up at the front taking pot-shots at each other. Unless there's a ridiculous shield network on both sides, chances are one side will get flattened within a minute if all the units try to stay in range.

I'd just like to see bigger differences in unit sizes maybe? See that Krogoth thing in OP video, looks epic.
Or those tanks:

The Goliaths here command respect.

zk units have absolutley no range compared to sup com... hell even ZK bertha cans shoot more then 6000elmos far, and its the most expensive arty you guys have

if you want epic, set global range mult to 3 and global sight mult to 2
there you go instant epic battles (once people learn to use units again)

These people are, to use the technical term 'fucking around'. You can make a video of Zero-K with 140 Berthas, or Annis, or Behemoths, or Starlights, or DRP's or Zeniths or Catapaults or Tremors. Imagine 140 Tremors.

One thing the first video does accurately convey is that in Supcom you do just march your units in in large blocks (To call them 'formations' would be insulting the term). We designed Zero-K deliberately to have micro so fine you can dodge projectiles, that you can enfilade or block an enemies line of fire with obstacles, that the facing, acceleration and turret facing of every unit matters. We want the world that Zero-K units interact in to be a rich, physical, tangible environment because Spring really offers that. We also chose to have battles be raw and intense, from the first minute of the game. So that the moment a unit leaves your factory, it goes straight to the front line and starts fighting. I remember my first few games of CA when it's design really came together. I remember how, as opposed to BA, the guns never stopped firing. From minute 2 onward, there was the constant sound of weapons fire pounding out of my speakers. After several games of constant action, I remember the first time I heard the guns fall silent in the middle of a game in a long time. It was eerie. I was sweating, my heart was racing, and the guns had finally gone silent... then they started up again. After no more than a 10-20 minute game I felt like I had played through an epic grand scale war from light raiding through to massive air raids, artillery bombardment and mech assaults. I knew then that we were making exactly the right kind of game.

Non-stop action, shorter game durations and a focus on unit micro do not lend themselves to having massive uncontrollable armies or giant balls of map-ranged artillery. If you scroll the camera around and look across a field of an 8v8 battle with planes flying overhead and artillery pounding the ground and defenses firing into raiders as they sweep around a commander, it feels pretty damn epic to me though.

If what you really want is sitting around making eco and huge armies and super weapons? I suggest you try FFA, especially on larger maps, the army sizes you get are insane (Try winning with Ravager spam, on a large flat map you will have HUGE armies of them), and the game usually ends with saturation-nukes and multiple superweapons.

Connetable:

quote: I understand that this is not the subject of the thread

Actually, it kinda is. I'm interested in learning more about the differences between these games, how the gameplay affects the visual appearance, what the trade-offs are, etc.

Everyone's comments so far have been great.

I'll add another data point: EvolutionRTS. One big difference pops out between Evo and ZK: Evo units are fragile and cheap. As a result, you end up with large swarms that blast each other apart, with the survivor having a handful of units left to move the line of scrimmage forward a bit before the next set of swarms collide. This is exactly how Forb wants it. He even added population caps recently and is exuberant about how it's making the game even more true to his vision.

But the other thing that stands out is that Evo battles have a type of visual appeal that ZK lacks. The battles have tons of units, there's tons of weapons fire, tons of stuff gets blown up, and all the explosions are really pretty. There's even an instant-reclaim mechanic which quickly sweeps up all the wreckage leaving a pretty battlefield ready for the next clash (it even instantly turns the wreckage into more swarmable units on the spot).

That's pretty cool.

And I'm not saying ZK should change to be more like that, not at all. I'm still just pondering the differences.

As much as Evo looks shiny and would look good in trailers, it is not that fun to play for me. The gameplay is really fast and the damage bonuses make the game incredibly RPS based. Maybe it is just me, but I have not found that there is much skill to the game.

ZK had a specific idea in mind with its system, and it has achieved that idea with flying colors. Really, it's near-perfect, so far. I do sometimes miss the absolutely INSANE scale of battles like on Supreme Commander and NotA, but I do NOT miss the constant teching from one level to another, OVER and OVER and OVER again!! RAGH!

If there is anything to be improved about ZK, in my opinion, it would be the continuing improvement of unit models, and the addition of even more new and exciting tactical options (balance notwithstanding). The formula is great as it is, overall.