I'm sorry we like the most effective STRATEGIES? Or is it not strategy to use the most effective unit? Or should we only use the counter unit that isn't all around good enough and if the original counter unit is countered it does nothing to it, whereas many LRMS can kill at least some of their counter unit because they're just better all around, they won't win on a 1-1 ratio for fleet cap/cost, but they'll still kill some. As a whole the LRM is still the most effective unit, it's just not as good as it was. The rest of the changes just fuck RACE BALANCE not UNIT balance which is what your dumb ass is crying about. I'm sorry, but you're just too goddamn stupid to possibly know what you're talking about, I'm almost convinced you must be a troll, no one could ever be so dumb, right? God I can't stand people like you

Cliff notes: "The LRM is the most overpowered unit so of COURSE I'm going to abuse the shit out of it just to win. Who gives a fuck if it's universally recognized as completely lame? I dont' care if the other guy is new and learning, or they're just looking for a slow, casual game. Not me. The game sucks, all I want is to win WIN WIN!

PS: The best is when me and my friends join a random FFA and stack the teams behind the scenes to laughably crush everyone else in an effortless victory."

[quote]
Chess:-simple game that has a very refined balance to it-will likely to still be played in 100's of years-is a turn based game-can immediately see what the opponent is doingSins:-fun video game, despite being currently imbalanced.-will probably not still be played in 100's of years-is an RTS (You can beat your chest with your RT4X marketing lingo all you want; it's still an RTS)-cannot immediately see what he opponent is doing until you scout themComparing sins to chess is comparing apples to oranges.
quote]

I think you meant to say apples to skyscrapers. Cause they're not even in the same realm of existence

Agreed,
The new patch has SCREWED the strategy of every Vasari player, and BEEFED every strategy of the TEC players.

Not only does this make it bad for vasari players, but it makes the whole game drugged down. Now, if you want to win, you HAVE to play TEC. Before, decent players could play any race and do fine. Now... TEC or lose. It's crap. If all I want is to win, then all I'll do is play TEC. Before, if I wanted to win, it wouldnt matter what race I played, i'd still win.

Right so we enjoy a challenge based on player skill not race imbalance so our "fun" is wrong.

Guess what, this does hurt balance, you're entitled to your opinion. But simple math and my own experience says for a fact that your opinion is wrong.

Almost all the bitching before this patch was noobs complaining about single player, or getting stomped by someone with more experience. Swing and a miss again.

Another crack about my opinion which is supported by experience and math. The vasari can no longer stand up to the TEC. Any equal or close to equal players the TEC player will beat the vasari player. This is not balance.

So I'm a pervert because I enjoy a hard fought battle? And I don't enjoy it when I lose? I didn't realize you knew me, my personality, and my reactions, from a few forum posts. Good generalizations dumbass. So lets discuss this one further. A: I haven't lost a single game since the patch, I played once with vasari and beat an inexperienced player, barely. Even though I'd had much more experience, was much better at micro, and had a vastly superior build order. Ask anyone who has played a couple games with me, they might not like me, but almost all of them respect my skill if not my personality. The rest of the games I went TEC except for one I screwed around as advent just for shits and giggles so to speak, won that game because of my team mates, I actually contribuited very little compared to my TEC allies. Though they both look up to my skill and try to learn from me to progress themselves as players, their race just allowed them to do more.

Oh and all clans exploit and cheat, and grief? Nice gross generalization again. I didn't realize that, everyone I've met seems to be really cool, enjoys the game, and discuss it afterwards about what they could have done better, and what went wrong. Analyzing the data to become better. I've yet to hear anyone get "Angry" over losing. And the only people who i've seen ragequit have been new players that can't handle being told how to improve their build order and frankly that their "Way of playing the game" is inefficent, they can't handle me explaining, usually quite politely that if they'd do something different they'd be much better players and more helpful to their team.

We just did an in house 3v3, and we all had great fun, my side won, we talked about it for a bit, had a few laughs about the couple of mistakes on both sides, like we let an antorauk catch 13lades capital as it was jumping out, with phase hull, lost it early. And how I starslow jumped out, with a PJI there, spent forever doing it, then I screwed up and jumped out too when he said he'd be coming back in, then I came back again and we still won that battle in the end. Definately could have gone better though.

Overall, your gross generalizations and "experiences" have been with the ultra competitive crowd that do only play to win, and stomp other players. But the majority of clans play for the competition, we've been doing everything we can to encourage other clans to get some good players and get some good matches against us. But we're at the point where we have to divide ourselves and play against one another to get good games.

You have no idea who we are, and your gross generalizing sterotypes have no goddamn place here, get the hell out of my thread. This wasn't meant to be an argument, this thread was posted to so frog and the other devs could understand our valid issues. Balance was ruined, and we want it fixed. Untill then whatever, we'll all just play as TEC, so much more enjoying all three of them.

THIS!

Uranium I love what you are trying to say, at the same time however, I think the whole black market was flawed to begin with. It is the whole "invisible bottemless pit man who has all the things we need"

I think we're getting a little side tracked here.

We just want the game to be balanced. Balance is good for both competitive and non-competitive. When the balance is skewed, the "win at all cost" players will abuse that strategy over and over. That's bad for all parties.

However, don't get that confused with competitive gaming. I'm competitive, but won't take advantage of exploits and things. I won't feel happy unless myself and my opponent are on an equal playing field. The only time I'll use an exploit, is to prove it's there or to prove how game breaking it is.

So I'm not dumb enough to use an ineffective strategy, sorry? I'm not going to handicap myself just to give a noob a chance, most noobs I ask in the lobby if they're new. Every time I see someone with less than 10 games, I ask them, are you new to the game if you are you shouldn't play against me, you will not win, and I don't really want to just stomp you, I won't learn anything, and you won't, nor will it be a challenge. No fun to be had there.

Fuck off with your sterotypes, you have no idea who I am, or the people in my clan are. We do not play like that.

As a side note, quite the amusing analogy! Well done sir. Certainly made me chuckle.

I played 2 games in 1.03. OVerall I feel the game pace slowed down A LOT. Which sucks balls :/ Even on fast/fast seems so slow because i cant manipulate my resource pool as well as before. IT only goes ONE WAY now. I did sell metal once it hit over 1k, cause what could I do with all that metal? But I got maybe 1300 credits

The same people who are arguing that we're all ultra competitive hacking and exploiting assholes, are probably the ones that cry about LRM, a unit imbalance. When this patch ruins race balance not fixes unit balance.

And on your second point exactly, what's the point of a victory when the odds are stacked? We routinely play 3v4 3v5 against pubs to try and get a challenge, to get the thrill of a hard fought battle if we can't get an even player matchup with just in clan members.

It's worthless if there was no challenge, no fun at all. I want to win because of my individual skill and no other reason. I've actually suggested to most people that I've played with since 1.03 that went vasari, to not do so. A couple listened, a couple didn't. The ones that didn't I'm sure regretted not taking my advice.

Competitive gaming is generally helpful to a community when the developers are sound of mind and the public relations exploits it properly.

In the end, competitive gaming is about fair play and a dedicated fan base therefore, companies cater to them more often than not because the casual player will usually enjoy the game regardless of the changes especially if all factions become balanced.

If IC/Stardock/Whatever monitors the games played online, most of them will be ones where it is in a fairly competitive environment ( Free for all and team games are fairly ruthless ), another argument in favor of competitive gaming.

There is also the following games that have been enhanced by competitive gaming: Warcraft series, all MMOs, Starcraft series, Dawn of War series, Chess/Go (Handicap system and Ko rule for infinite exchanges), and a lot more.

Competitive gamers aren't as U-235 described them to be, certainly there are immature ones and certainly there are mature ones. There is actually very little poor sportsmanship in the upper tiers especially since they are televised and people will have poor opinions of other people regardless of where you go.

It is an obvious fact that humans enjoy competing on various levels, be it in games , economics, or politics - jackassery extends on all levels but they are not the rule, in a matter of fact the rule is this: Where you find people, you will find a diverse community given that the sample size is large (meaning 5k+ people in most cases for gaming).

The true competitive player generally plays because being engaged in a dynamic struggle and coming out on top is a more interesting challenge than playing against a static AI.

An interesting note is this: A true competitive player rarely posts on the forums, in a matter of fact the casuals do it more so simply because they know that someone is monitoring the games , they are first and foremost concerned about the competition not to whine about imba - the results of tournaments speak for themselves. However, some do post simply because it is in their nature to and some are more vocal than others. The same applies for casuals as well.

In the end though, balance is a necessity for all gamers both competitive and casuals alike. Walking that line is difficult, but it must be done.


On a separate note, every game has build orders including sports. Adaptation and style comes after the basic necessities are established.

In conclusion, competitive gaming doesn't kill, it's the dev decisions in harnessing that energy that kill the games. Like any resource, it can be exploited in a positive fashion or a negative fashion.

On that note, keep it civil. Debate with clarity and provide sound arguments. Please avoid the common fallacies.

So, if I understand correctly, you can now buy an unbounded amount of metal+crystal @ 300, and sell an unbounded amount of metal+crystal to the market @ 100? And while crashes and booms and fluctuations change this, this behavior is generally the default?

And if I understand correctly, this means that TEC players with lots of trade ports are going to be throwing credits at the market like candy for metal and crystal, whereas Vasari will be hard-pressed to get much money from their neutral extractors and refineries?

. . . well, I guess that means the Vasari have only one option left to them:

put metal and crystal up for sale on the black market.

That way, when the TEC player burns a good chunk of his money getting metal and crystal, that money--ripe off the Trade ports--goes straight into your coffers . . . and you'll get 300 per 100 metal or crystal, no?

So with more metal and crystal being bought, the black market might now actually be another avenue where players might directly interact.

HAH! I find you amusing, at the very least.

QFT

Here's a little story by the Monk   


World in Conflict: Oh! the Humanity!

(An example of "the competitive scene ruining a great game")

I played that game daily beginning with release-day (September 17th?), until sometime in late November.

I had the very fist dedicated server up for WiC (mostly because no one else knew how to host..hehe   ) and happily hosted most nights, until the incessant patching began.

Version history of WiC as seen by me:

Version 1.0 (release-day) - Everything worked, even AI on dedicated servers, no crashing for me ever! Balanced beautifully.

Patch 1 - AI on dedicated servers crash the server everytime. Seems to be "laggy" now, and balance begins to feel "off".

Patch 2 - AI still crashing servers, and now connection-loss begins to rear it's ugly head. Some balancing changes of patch 1 reversed too far the other way now.

Patch 3 - AI still crashing all servers, now servers crash sometimes even without AI...hmmm. Balancing re-worked and some unit-drop limitations introduced etc.

Patch 4 - Servers crashing so often now no one realizes that the AI "still crashes" servers. Balancing is now way out of wack in order to combat "point-farming" etc. (some units nerfed almost into uselessness)

Patch 5 - I installed, looked over at my dedi-box, watched the server crash.... un-installed WiC and never looked back.

note: this is my experience as remembered with the WiC patches/versions, not to be confused with that of a "real competitive player"


I still check back to the WiC forums (almost daily) as I have a "networking help" sticky to keep an eye on (I still help people with WiC-hosting eventhough the game hasn't been on my comp since late November 2007)

Check the forums sometime. The "competitive element" ruined WiC pub-play. How exactly is up for debate (I personally think it was a combo of "balancing requests" and "server options" that are highly noob-unfriendly). Hell, maybe I should have played the game more, than simply helping people "see/connect-to/host Servers"...  

I guess I will have my memories...


the Monk

You can't put it up for 200% anymore, so you'll get 300 max per. Not to mention that while you're waiting for that money you're not building anything or increasing your income. I know if I waited for actual player bought stuff especially early game, where vasari need to sell, I'd be SOL. My econ would fall further behind them. Every minute I wait for them to buy is a minute I don't have that extra extractor or that extra level of infastructure or that extra trade port, or those extra couple ships and I lose a planet and have to retreat.

Those people play to win, it was a misuse of the word on my part in that situation to be sure, they do not play for the fight, they do play for the win at the end. We are not like that. I'm not here to argue symantics, I'm here to express my experience and my mathamatical analysis of the patch so that the game might be more evenly tuned. If all I wanted to do was win I'd just keep it like this and only play tec and convince noobs that the other races were better! But guess what I don't. Swing and a miss, sir.

No. As I already pointed out, competitive gameplay is almost always completely counter to yay-team gameplay. Both Natural Selection and Tribes 2 were games that originally had an extremely heavy focus on group-tactics and tactical teamwork. Both were dogged by the 'competitive' scene who complained about "SKILLZ" and wanted the game changed in a manner that not only removed a reliance on others, but allowed themselves the individualism to carry their team to a win, for themselves, because prior to the changes, it was harder for them to be at the top of the scoreboard.

The games that are most popular in the competitive circuit are those with the most pathetic elements of teamwork or much cognitive thought at all. Team deathmatch does not teamwork make, on that note.

Yes, T2 and NS were games that were changed 'for the clans' in a way that promoted individual "skill" (implying that a cohesive team isn't skill?) while degrading the game for the SIGNIFICANTLY larger 'casual' player base.

Ultimately, any competitive scene ends up wanting the game to be just like the last game they played, or wants the game to be changed in a way that works for THEM, not to find a game that THEY work towards. The FPS circuit ends up being about twitch-reflexes and headshots, the RTS circuit about who can click the fastest cookie-cutter outline.



How ironic.

Wow, so much antagonism.

I must admit I never liked the black market anyway and am about to try patch 1.03 tonight, maybe it will be worse for non-TEC like has been said. I do worry about the TEC being over powered but it is probably too early to tell, even for self proclaimed experts.

Uh, we focus on team games and teamwork more than anything... our training games are all team vs team... Our strategic forum involves strategys that rely on the synergy of play styles and races (the latter now debunked for the most part, sadly). We're not in it for personal glory, we're in it to win as a team. We're not all FPS junkies and Bnet kiddies here. Stop the fucking sterotyping. We want overall game balance not the ability to stomp noobs, our ability to stomp on noobs became even better now. We've got a two in three chance of auto winning the game because of races now. Not to mention this patch didn't fix the unit balance at all but as I've stated at least 5 times but you've ignored, only fucked the race balance. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about, just spouting your propoganda, I guess you got beat by one of these "mad gamerz" and can't handle it, and now misconstrue anyone who uses the word "competitive" as the same ilk. We're not all like that. You're no better than a Bigot. Stop posting, thanks.

ROFL. Uranium is some kind of expert on the competitive gaming industry? Because one of the most popular and competitive games out there is counter-strike, which at no point can 'one man pull the team'. And if one player DOES pull the team, then the enemy sucks and so does the team he's on. That game is a PURE TEAM/SKILL game. A combination of the two. Much like what Sins was before 1.03. WoW? Get an arena team with just 1 good player? Good luck. A balance of everyone working together with strategy and skill.

Before 1.03 (yes, im a competitive Sins clan player), a good TEC could give a good Vasari a run for their money in a 1v1. Overall, Vasari was the best 1v1 race to be. But in a 3v3 or a 4v4, it almost didn't matter which race each player was. As long as their teamwork and coordination was good, they could beat the crap out of any combination of the other races. Each player has their own style and race to play. Now, if you don't have a good TEC (or two) player on your team, then you're going to get stomped. Not to mention... I shudder the thought of playing against a full team of TEC unless my team has all TEC as well.

TEC or Die. The new Sins motto.

And yes, it's completely ironic that I want to win because of my skill and not imbalances. That I want to win against a challenging opponent instead of some noob still learning the game, that doesn't even build a capital ship at the start.

So again, it's totally ironic that I want a challenging victory based on skill not the race I choose at the start.

... Do you know what the definition of irony is? Your post suggests otherwise.

Counterstrike and Dota are both highly competitive games that after a certain point, your skill level basically plateaus and it's teamwork that carries you forward for the win. Both games are very popular, so I beg to differ with your statement.

Why is everyone arguing about competitive gaming, or casual or blah blah blah? good grief, I think all that the author of the thread was trying to say was that, after this market type stuff, that its hard for the vasuri, as a race, to keep up with another.

As a vasari race player, i usually would sell metal, in order to get that few credits i needed, or sell crystals, or sell metal and use that to buy crystal, I would buy and sell until i was completly depleted and maximising the use of my economy. Now i cannot do that, Vasari dont make that many credits, and usually have alot of left over resources, but since the whole market change, I cannot get that push that I needed to overtake my enemies. TEC, on the other hand, get credits faster than the other races, so they can turn those into the resources they need. I cannot.

After reading all these, I see people arguing about different unit stats, whether you are competitive or not, and this and that. I dont think its about unit balance, but about maximizing your economy, for w/e reason you are going to use your resource for.

I am casual, but I would like to win the matches I play, and ill do w/e I can, now After patch it is harder for me to keep up, w/e strategy you use, everything you do requires resources, and vasari are alot harder to play as now.

Thanks.