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How to make sea cool

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Recently I was thinking about the reasons of sea battles beings sux and land battle being so awesome. And I found that sea is boring not because it is unbalance, but mainly because there are so few water units while land have a HUGE diversity. You should make a choose among hovers, ampbs and ships, but hovers and ampbs are kind of connection between water and land. To compare how it is boring just image that you are playing on TitanDuel and the only factories you can build are lv, jumps and spiders. Lv, jumps and spiders are well balanced, but lv would usually win (Godde is exception, because he can win anything using fleas). Therefore, zk need at least 2 pure water factories. For example, ships and subs or light ships and heavy ship or all of these facs mixed in any combinations.
+1 / -0
10 years ago
A heavy ship fac and/or a sub fac would be awesome. Right now, the ship fac does not really interact with land very well/at all. A heavy ship fac could kill two birds with one stone, by having more arty oriented/support type units as well as increasing sea variety. If This thread is not immediatly shot down with fire, I would be glad to help brainstorm a few units.
+0 / -0
10 years ago
CAranksanyc
quote:
Right now, the ship fac does not really interact with land very well/at al

Well. I think the main problem is not in interacting between sea and land. There are hovers and ampbs which are made for sea-land interactions. Ships only can help to control coast line, so hovers/ampbs can prepare.
The main problem is ship "monoculture" in the sea.
+1 / -0

10 years ago
Imagine you are playing Titan Duel and the only factory you can build is LV or Tank.

...

So. Yeah. Three factories is fine. That's not why people don't like sea. Frankly I don't really understand why they don't like it, I've played some blue comet 1v1's under the new sea and the old sea and they were about as fun as regular comet games. Which are almost light vehicle exclusively.
+1 / -3
10 years ago
AUrankAdminSaktoth
But LV and Tanks are two pure flat land facs, while hovers and ampbs are not a pure water facs. Lv and Tanks are fun. Cloaks and Shields are fun. Jumps and spiders are fun. All these factories have similar "main field" (I mean lv and tanks are used mainly for flat land and jumps and spiders for very hilly places), but ships can be used only and only in the water while hovers and ampbs can be used on/in both land and the water.
My point is that:
lv and tanks are cool
lv and spiders are not cool
lv and ampbs are not cool ether
therefore ships and ampbs are not cool, but ships and other ships are cool.
+1 / -0

10 years ago
Many flat maps have been entirely vehicle for ages, tanks is a new thing. Comet Catcher was fine, Blue Comet should be too.
+0 / -0


10 years ago
It's not factory count, it's always been lack of an actual counter structure, especially when ships fought other factories.

This part is significantly better now i think.

Then, there's that the constant blurblurblurb of torpedoes, their muffled glugbrb explosions and unconvincing visual effects (same splash on sea bottom, in thick, or on surface...) all get tiring rather fast.
+4 / -0
10 years ago
quote:
Many flat maps have been entirely vehicle for ages, tanks is a new thing. Comet Catcher was fine, Blue Comet should be too.

But on flat map you also can make cloaks and shields which are relevant too. So in team games you can see a lot of different facs.

quote:
Then, there's that the constant blurblurblurb of torpedoes, their muffled glugbrb explosions and unconvincing visual effects (same splash on sea bottom, in thick, or on surface...) all get tiring rather fast.

Yes. Sea battle are kind of slow without fast pew-pew.
Actually, water is like super flat map, so there can be some analogy with lv.
+0 / -0

10 years ago
On a large sized flat map like Comet Catcher 2v2 or Titan 1v1, Light Vehicles and maybe Planes were the only truly viable choice until recently, when we buffed Tank into usefulness.

A lot of people not only played this style, but sought it out in preference to others.
+0 / -0

10 years ago
I agree that units are less diverse than on land. This could be an area for improvement, or something entirely different could be done.

Sea is just another surface/layer, with none of the interesting liquid properties that could make sea a little bit different than land.

Sea has no current, no unit drifts. No weapon is using liquid physics properties (dispersion). No weapon is using liquid phase transitions; no weapon vaporizing water to provide a new kind of cloak, in Zero-K, no weapon is freezing water locally to immobilize units without disarming them (the opposite of disarm). Water does not interact with EMP weapons in any way. Sea does not interfere with radar operation.
+1 / -0
quote:
Water does not interact with EMP weapons

Hm...

Let's make the DRP EMP shell stun everything in the water if it hits water! Imagine the tactical depth this would add to the game!

On a serious note, it would be good to have the water itself play a part in naval warfare. The problem is that water is handled by the engine so implementation could be hard.
+0 / -0

10 years ago
Your notions on what would be the 'physical' properties of water are based on fluff rather than on rich simulation: An immobilize has nothing to do with water necessarily, Placeholder already does it.

Anyway sea both inteferes with radar and does have it's own kind of cloak, all submerged units operate with a kind of cloak and radar immunity.

All these suggestions do not answer the question of what sea is not fun but comet catcher vehicle mirror matches are.
+0 / -0

10 years ago
If by "fluff" you mean narrative, yes it is fluff.
I'm not expecting the engine to provide gamedevs with fluid simulation physics. The space between "we don't care about realism" and "it is fluff" seems very narrow.

Placeholder already does it. On land. Skuttle, ticks, roaches? On land. Jumping units? On land. Puppies? Land only. I do not need to continue. The fact that sea units are bland without exciting/exceptional features is no fluff. It is reality. Maybe it is part of why players do not like sea games. Bad balance was a real problem... but maybe fixing the balance is not enough to excite users (I don't know if it was fixed, I haven't yet tested it).
+3 / -0

10 years ago
Vehicle mirror matchup on comet catcher is fun.

How many times do I have to keep saying this.
+1 / -0
10 years ago
quote:
Vehicle mirror matchup on comet catcher is fun.

How many times do I have to keep saying this.

You should play a few lv only battles on comet catcher with every person who disagree with you. :)
+1 / -0

10 years ago
quote:
Vehicle mirror matchup on comet catcher is fun.
How many times do I have to keep saying this.


Yeah, you know best what fun is ♪
♪ Please dictate us what is fun!
+5 / -0
How about giving land units more involvement in sea battles?
Merge surboard with another ship, and keep that ship's cost unchanged, then each time you produce that ship, you get a free transport/weapon platform, it would be a waste if you don't use that function.

Similar method could also be used for promoting air drops (by making reaper or something else a light transport), some land maps would be less fac limited if air drops become more useful.
+0 / -0

10 years ago
The land units involved in sea battles are called hovercraft and amph.
+0 / -0

10 years ago
also. surfboard + ground unit.
+0 / -0
quote:
also. surfboard + ground unit.

This is an useless mix. It makes cheap units much more expensive (like glavies) and heavy units useless, as surfboard takes damage before transported unit. So if u put reaper on it, reaper will die as soon as surfboard is killed.
I think we need to divine ships fac into subs fac and surface ships fac.
+1 / -0
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