AchromicWhite

Didn't see this post until now. Yeah, I've lost my cool with a couple of people before. But you're right. It becomes difficult when the same mistakes are made over, though. I think, I judge people a lot on how they treat each other, too; which makes it harder to forgive when I see people ripping into others over little or nothing. Things to work on within myself, I guess. I hope we can find a way through all of messes that have happened, because I've seen this community be really positive, and it's not only valuable to those in it now, but also to anyone arriving.

Can I request for this post to be pinned? Is that a thing I can do? I just think it's not only a comprehensive post, but a good place to discuss design of maps. This area was of course, meant to be a place to upload maps to, but I thought that this was the best place to put this post. I think it can be helpful to new and old mappers alike.

Use the find function to find it on this on the first post : The latest version of C&C: Classic Revolution 18/02/2013: It doesn't work well against the computer, because the resources are designed totally differently. Make sure you choose one of the CR maps. (I think they're at the bottom of the list of maps).

Thing is, I can click infantry just fine on the resolution of 1024x768, especially now that my mouse is more consistent in it's movements. But it's a MASSIVE help to see more on the map, for sure. Maybe true that battles can come down to micro, but losing a single battle by a little is far less of an issue than a runby that took out production/flyers on pads etc. And, with the highest res, you can simply never be caught out like that. The other thing, is that if low res IS better, then we have the same problem that some people are at an advantage, while others are at a disadvantage. The only way to be fair is to set it the same for all players. On the issue of speed; we basically want it to be as fast as it can go, while still being able to micro. On the issue of money; I have no idea how the game will play with less than 10,000. I know my most common build is 3 refs before either orca or factory. Both require a lot of money, so IDK how that'll change. Let's take 3 refs before factory vs 1 ref before strip buggy push. The excess money left over is spent on infantry to defend the factroy etc. If it survives the rush, you're ahead. If that's no longer possible, we lose a whole tier of economic openings. We then can only choose between 1 ref or 2, as the nod units are mostly capped by build time, rather than price. Regarding apache cheese in particular; it's quite beatable if you can read the build. Denying scouting is obviously important... but most that I've seen do this build actually move their harvester to do the scouting, as it can just drive past defending infantry... thing is, it's a give away. As soon as you see it, you cancel the factory, start rocket production and build more barracks around the con. If they DO choose to use infantry, then it's a gamble. The one cheese that bugs me is quick APC + Engi, because even if it fails, it can crush infantry and force defences to be built. In this way, it's efficient enough that a failure can be just fine. (There's no hard counter, even if you scout it). But it is what it is. The main reason I'd like to see the money kept at 10,000 is that it's what's been used for so long, at the highest end of play. I have no idea the ways that it'll ultimately change the meta (for better or for worse) if that's changed.

Yeah, I think that's spot on. Everyone seems to pretty much agree on that. X3M also stated the idea of also having intervals of 1000 credits you could choose from (but all below 10,000) for credits.... but I'm personally of the mind of just making it 10,000. Just so that it's setting a simple standard to play by. Also, No separate helipad. OR we could choose to have it be on, but it should be chosen to be one or the other. Certainly, but in the WWchat days, it wasn't even an option. It was added to CnCNet to literally replace another option that they had... because the other option literally broke the AI of the units during your match if said setting was switched on.

Yeah, it'd still be competitive, for sure. When I play people on high res, I can usually tell the difference, though... as you can never sneak anything past them. It does hinder their micro slightly, but IMO not enough that the trade off is equal. Which is why I mention this.

Yeah, I think the C&C Gold res would be better. It's what WWchat was played on, of course. And yeah, Dos Res is actually just like... you can see about 3 refineries, lol.

I made an extended version of iron valley. I never got it going... I still have it, but would need to fiddle with it to get it going. Obviously, because I don't play D2K much at all, I have little reason to.

I miss Myg Myg needs to come back and play games... I remember packs of orcas blowing up my con in FFA on blistering xD I think I had a different nick back then, maybe Lemu.

Well it's in ccconfig which is at least accessible through cncnet. Couldn't CnCNet auto change the resolution on launch? I'd think that wouldn't be too hard to do.

Ahh, I see. That is interesting. See, another one that I thought of was locking the resolution. Like, take it back to C&C gold. The resolution does indeed play a big part... not saying it has to be that way, but this is the sort of stuff we have to look at when making this type of mode. Wouldn't mind your thoughts on it. And yeah, I'm aware that there are advantages AND disadvantages, but IMO the advantages out weigh the disadvantages, as long as the resolution doesn't make the game so tiny that you can't control individual units.

The picture you sent through looks like it's a screen shot from another editor. If you go into your C&C95 folder, you'll see another folder called XCC (I think it's still stock in the download) and there's an .exe in there called "XCC editor". That's the one I use. But my point was mocking it up in paint, first. I go over this in the first part of my map design thread. It's easier to move around some pixels in paint etc, than it is to remake whole parts of a map in the editor. Then, once your happy with it, just transfer the idea over. Rivers are a bit trickier with that technique, but you can still kinda make it work.

Yeah, this is where using paint to mock up the map can really speed up the design process, so that you can move everything around easy, and then when you're happy, just go ahead and slap it together in XCCeditor.

Yeah, I've talked a bit about adding extra structures like that before. The other thing about, say, an extra adv PP etc, is that it not only skips price, but also means that you can build it by only taking up production time in your barracks/hand... that is, you can make an engineer and capture it while you're making another structure in the con yard. It's not BAD to have them, but remember that it means you've taken away the option of choosing one tech or another, because you've told players to get an early, and cheap, extra structure. Now, maybe you WANT to hurt diversity, maybe the point is to have early tech, but it's important to note that you actually have put that in. It can be a bit like over doing tiberium, in that way. By giving it freely, you remove it as a factor of the game. In this way, adding extra things that a player has, can often remove features of the game. Makes sense if you think about it... if you both start with 5 factories, then no one's making factories. If you start with 999999 credits, no one's making refineries. If you mod the game to make power plants have more power, then no one's making power plants. etc

100% fair. I almost forgot what topic this was.

Making bigger maps is not as easy at is sounds. Don't think it hasn't been looked at by people like Nyer. If it was easy, that one would already be done, same with AI. On the note of balance changes, the big issue is that small changes can totally change the meta in unforeseen ways. You can end up with a totally different game, very fast. The only change I'd maybe like to see on that note would be to move the MLRS and the Chem Warrior to comm centre tech. Not because I think it'd balance the game, but because it'd be nice to see the units be used. They pretty much not accessible as it stands.

Yeah, that's actually the idea that I had for start poss for a 6 player map, you could turn it 90degrees, too. Either should work, but most of trying to make it fair will come down to how you do the cliff work IMO. Thing with massive maps like that, is that it's really hard to make them fair, I think Blis is the best one to go off of.

Dude, that looks sick.

Oh hey, was this the person I played? Welcome to the forum. Feel free to have a look around. For future posts regarding C&C95 in particular, note that there is a C&C95 specific section. There's maps for both multiplayer and single player that you can find there, too. Some of the missions are really hard, haha. So just watch out for that.

Oh, I see you don't use XCCeditor. I actually find it much easier than this editor that you're currently using. Have a fiddle. I like the map though, looks neat. And reasonably fair, too.

Good reply. And yeah, the deletion of threads by chem and pence is what it is. IDK if I really agree on deleting them all, but it'd become a mess. I guess whomever did it felt that they simply didn't have another way to deal with it. Can I ask why you think there should be 3 extra set modes (other than a fully customisable game)? -Why not just the one mode? -Why have multiple game speeds? (if someone wanted to practise on slower speed, they could do that with a custom, the same way you might practice a build order, etc) I get that there should maybe be more than one, especially regarding money; but I'm further confused as to why we'd change the game speed. As I said above, we really need a standard as to what it looks like. Am happy to see why your mind went to that, though. I agree with what you say about 1v1s and 2v2s. I'd like to see the 1v1 mode supported first, as we have more than enough maps to not only fill a good pool, but even to rotate maps in and out to keep it fresh. Regarding maps: The first thing is to make a written list of attributes that each map should have. So that it's not a popularity contest. That's really important, because popularity does not select the best maps for high end competition, in fact, it has a tendency to select maps that are easier to mass units on; a sort of, artificial stability, which hurts evolving meta-games. I agree that we need to start building a pool of maps, though.

^^^ **Didn't mean to hit reply to that comment. Can't figure out how to delete the quote** Anyway. I got the day off of work today, ANZAC day. Headed down to the dawn service, too. Bit tired, but worth it. I spent much of the rest of the day chilling out and playing some of my fav game of all time; good ol' C&C. I played some FFAs, teams, and 1v1s. Had fun. I also played some people that were trying to learn 1v1 matches. Two of these stood out to me, one was someone I'd played before, he's been here for a while now, the other was a new guy from South Korea. The South Korean guy was learning fast, reading what I wrote to him. It doesn't surprise me, there's a decent chance he's come from a culture of RTS games. But I did notice that he was setting up with 20,000 each game. Not understanding that this was 2x the intended amount for MAXIMUM money by the designers... not to mention what we ourselves know about cranking up the money. The other guy's been here for a bit, he's playing on Manu's injustice of all, or another version of it. 15000 start cash. Note: he had the game set to 2 players ONLY, he was specifically looking for a 1v1. No opportunity to scout and once again playing with really too much money for a 1v1. Both of these players were struggling to play this game, and the thing is, without some sort of standard to what a typical 1v1 looks like, they have NO idea what they should even be practising. That's a shame, because where as our older players got the opportunity to learn within a standard, the new client relies on you already knowing what you should be practising IF you want to play that. (Which, obviously they DON'T know... and why should they take my word for it, who am I?) Immediately, this thread, and many other things that I'd said about mapping etc came to mind. I specifically got a reply from Funky about a Ladder, which is: Could try to get the ladder up if there is demand. I agree with this, because, why the heck should the CnCNet team make something for bugger all players? So great, if we want something like that, get more people into that play style... but we can't, because the ground work for typical 1v1 doesn't exist, and the longer that's left, the more that a pool of players who don't know how to set that up, become the new standard (so NO standard). And as a result, we just slowly lose 1v1. Maybe not gone gone, but for SURE we get fewer players into it, especially new people who are very well be interested in it. And that's the real down side to waiting around on this. So I'm sorry to necro this thread, but can we discuss this and actually get a ball rolling here?

Over to you what category you want to make (FFA 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 etc), but I think once you start getting a lot of players, balance somewhat diminishes. This isn't always a bad thing, however, as Chem points out, that can be fun and for many is more fun than a well balanced 1v1. There maybe are ways to help balance maps with more players, but it's not something I understand very well. Even other RTS games seem to have less and less complexity in maps that are specifically designed for more players. I think the max sized maps for C&C1 also holds that back. I agree with what Chem says about making some chokes, BUT you can always have just enough terrain for the bases and then make skirmishing areas very open (desert like).

Not sure about TibSun, but TD has some tutorials. I promise it's a great game, too! Good metagame, good mix of viable units.

I enjoy the matches more than banter, really. So when matches have less to offer I find it boring.