Q2 - If you could change one way the original games behave, what would it be, and why?

[Grant 401]

CnCNet Question:

Quote

If you could change one way the original games behave, what would it be, and why?

 

• How to up-vote or down-vote on replies - Read here
• Questions will automatically close after 2 weeks.
• Questions are about Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert since the latest announcement - Read here
• Note: Unless question topics are tagged by an EA tag, this question is not from EA and is from CnCNet.

Please understand if your post does not contribute to the question at hand, your post will be removed. If you'd like to discuss matters with other people's ideas, please move it to Discord or start a new thread. If you agree or disagree with another user, simply up-vote or down-vote their answer. If you'd like to give a reason as to why you agree or disagree, edit your post and mention them there. I'll be limiting one post per person. Let's focus and keep it on topic!
-Ferret

[Mortisanti 2]

Unit pathing. If anything, I think it takes away from the pace of the game(s) when you're waiting for your army to cross a river, for instance; granted that's where some micro-management comes into play, I suppose. I still feel it can be improved on if they decide to change it.

[MN_Chief 164]

TL;DR

• South-advantage needs to be fixed
• More options for micro-management
• Building/unit queues and rally points for production structures
• Attack Move commands

Little things like south-advantage need to go. For example, a unit that is the from the south will actually get a range bonus, mostly because of the nature of where the projectile leaves the unit, I speculate.

As for the question at hand, I would implement more controls options for control groups. For example...

If I have a group of units selected, and I want to add to my current selection, I'd simply hold <Shift> and box a set of unselected units. Now these selected units are one selection. Currently, you have to either hold <Shift> and then click them individually, or add them to a control group that you've created with <Shift+X> then <Ctrl+X>.

Another thing I liked about later games (Tiberian Sun, for example) is that I could select a specific unit type that I've selected with <T>. Let's say I want to select all of my Grenadiers on my screen. I'd select a Grenadier, and press <T>. Now every single Grenadier in my vision is selected. This is a good way to organize armies, and makes it much smoother.

Jumping from position to position, in terms of your camera location. Maybe I would like to jump to control group 1. At the moment, it's <Alt+1>. Maybe having something simple like double tapping <1> brings me to that control group. It makes multi-tasking much easier.

Lastly, I would say building/unit queues are a definite yes. The game is definitely more enjoyable when you're actually fighting your opponent, microing against them, and just overall focusing on the battle at hand. Rally points for production structures are definitely welcome as well.

I'll reiterate this. I think it would be wise to have some sort of option where these quality-of-life changes can be toggled on and off, whether that be in some sort of game menu option, or even in the lobby before the game starts.

One more thing as well before I forget, sometimes I just wanna YOLO into their army. Attack Move command, done and done. Also, units should target structures on their own rather than needing manual targeting. Maybe find a happy medium with whether or not they should prioritize certain units, defensive structures, etc.

Vouches

@Mortisanti
I'd definitely vouch for Mortisanti's idea about path-finding. Worded perfectly.
@X3M
Although I do think squishing is inherently a part of C&C, I do believe greatly that it is a gimmick that should not be in any RTS whatsoever. There are rule-sets for RA1 that have this "feature" removed entirely. RA1's current balance state is not healthy in any way, especially for the longevity of the remaster post-release. Yes there will be sales, but once people start to realize how the game is truly played in its current state, they will be quick to depart. Now that's solely my opinion. Obviously balance changes with the spirit of a remaster in mind, is not appropriate. There are ways around this, for example, a simple toggle button to either turn on or off these balance changes.

[AndrewFord 33]

There hasn't been much answers from the competitive RA players, so I'll be the first one. (i'm arguably the best RA player on here)

Build queues: optional. Competitive players understand and appreciate the skill required to produce units manually. Casual players can play with build queues.

A way to fix truck path finding going top left: Select the Ore Truck and have a hotkey that allows you to change the direction of that specific truck.

Deploy Hotkey: deploying stuff like mine layers, APCs and transports are tedious

MiG: Don't miss idle vehicles anymore, fix dealing less than full damage to them.

Remove south advantage

Keep Q-move, and tanking fights for Red Alert 1.

Allow walls to be built similar to RA2, or just remove them.

Increase map size

Rework standard maps to be fair.

Iron Curtain and Chronosphere able to grab a 3x3 square of units.

Aftermath optional, just as in RA1

Ore Trucks unselectable by E (full screen select) or drag-selecting as to not accidently move trucks into combat.

Remove formation exploit and infinite range exploit with infantry.

Remove RNG where different infantry pop out of construction yards when dying or selling, (sometimes no engineers may pop out or sometimes 3 will). This is game breaking in base defense.

Allying an enemy trying to capture your base won't cause their engineers to repair your base rather than capturing it. (in team games only)

Make cruisers/missile-subs unable to auto-attack other boats while idle.

Make gems worth 200/400/600 per square depending on the 3 layers rather than 150/350/550. This fixes a bug where you don't always get the same total money from a gem field, if you return full loads.

Change win conditions to prevent stalling with unreachable units.

Improve AI.

On 11/19/2018 at 8:03 PM, chem said:

 

1) = No stupid tesla creep attack overpowering the game and the strategy, so force aftermath settings or no mcv until after the tech centre or only a 2-3 build speed boost to multiple conyards or no buildings build speed boost.

 

 

First off u dont play RA. Second off, Tesla Creeping is only viable in the late game. And attacking with tesla requires micro (shift+selecting and manual targetting other buildings). Third, base crawling only works on custom maps. Oh and fourth, base crawling exists in literally ANY RTS that allows immobile base building. RA is just a fast paced game.

On 11/19/2018 at 8:03 PM, chem said:

I think red alert 1 needs an overall change in balance, many units are not used and it plays in a broken glitchy way, I think the only ones that don't want it rebalanced have a high level of skill at the broken part of the game,

Now i'll agree, the useless units are complete useless. Majority of things that deal  damage are usable in some way or form. Some stuff could include buffs though.

BUFF

Medics, Dogs, Artillery, Rangers, Mobile Gap Generators, Radar Jammers, Gunboats, Flame Throwers, Mammoth Tanks. All Air units at dealing damage to units. Submarines. Infantry rockets more accurate, and will perfectly hit idle units. Improve or remove fake buildings.

[ore_truck 106]

For Tiberian Dawn: allow multiple units to enter a transport with a single command (like in Red Alert), instead of ordering them individually.

And if it's possible for the engine, make walls,sandbags, fence easier to build like in RA2 system.

6 hours ago, fir3w0rx said:

I'd like the technician's potato gun to be upgraded

I like this one. I'm aware techy's are intended to be useless units for the lols, but would be funnier if it could kill someone and humiliate your opponent. They even pose zero threat to an engineer that's unarmed. I'm not saying it should be more powerful than 1/2 of a minigunner's attack, but at least I would like to see some damage contribution from them, like if they 1v1 a rocket soldier techy;s should still lose but drop the bazooka's health by half.

Edited November 19, 2018 by ore_truck

[Nevo 0]

Building placement, it is so annoying when your forced to place your buildings next to eachother.

[X3M 224]

1 Thing to mention. Then have others up or down vote your 1 thing is a good idea.

Rework Squishing

That's it, rework the squishing. That is what the vote is for.
I feel that the balance needs some work on regarding squishing. It is so far the biggest thorn in my eye's for both TD as RA.

The rest of here are merely suggestions on how to do it, any of them might do:
- Either make squishing tanks slower when having to deal with multiple infantry in number or health. Thus only slower when they truly start running over infantry.
- Or make them more expensive in terms of their speed. Speed is the ROF for squishing in most early RTS games.
- Or let the tank gain damage from it because of exploding weapons under the tracks. With rocket soldiers doing the most damage of course.

 

As one reply to one of the other posts.

I second the placement. It has to be worked on too. This one got from me an upvote so that I don't have to post it myself.
As of how to rework the placement on structures. I think 2 cells in between for both TD as RA. This allows for cliff jumping.
And if players disagree. How about also applying a penalty on the number of cells? +50 for 1 cell, +100 for 2 cells?
 

Edit:

I also feel that Ravage has a possible answer to Mortisanti.

Edited November 18, 2018 by X3M
Connecting dots

[fir3w0rx 436]

I refuse to answer questions 2 and 3 because they aren't officially asked by EA (no EA tags)

On a serious note, I'd like the technician's potato gun to be upgraded to... I don't know... literally anything else! Even a butter knife is more harmful! In saying that though, if this will actually be a remaster with optional things, then the remaster shouldn't be touched except for audio, visuals and more fps, and for the options... the more the sweeter.

 

[hgjcool 4]

1.The original construction speed and operation mode should not be changed too much, mainly to improve the functions and shortcomings, and try to ensure the original flavor.

2.Optimize network to war communication, reduce lag.

3.Supports the game recording function  and saves the video files for battle, which is smaller than the video recording on the screen now.

4.Like unit formation (ctrl+ 1,2,3...) To increase the building formation function and achieve several Tesla attacks at one times.

5.Support for more people network warfare, such as 8 vs 8.

6.Map editing function is more troublesome. It will be much faster to support the automatic generation of terrain from Google map screenshots and then map editing.

7.Support more fonts, release multi language version

[chem 233]

For TD

1) A GDI weapons factory not made of paper (a unique way to balance but not a good way imo)

a) no right speed advantage

b) no south advantage

c) bigger maps

d) more players possible  in a game at least 10

e) remove max unit glitch and crash, make max limit HUGE

For RA1

1) = No stupid tesla creep attack overpowering the game and the strategy, so force aftermath settings or no mcv until after the tech centre or only a 2-3 build speed boost to multiple conyards or no buildings build speed boost. Also a possible solution is to have a build zone like in RA3 so you cant build outside a circle around the mcv.  The whole tesla creep way of playing with v2's wasn't intended and feels stupid and wrong, you don't attack with that which was meant to defend and not move. I think red alert 1 needs an overall change in balance, many units are not used and it plays in a broken glitchy way, I think the only ones that don't want it rebalanced have a high level of skill at the broken part of the game, if they really soul search I think they would agree its no good, and they don't really like it as much, but  they like winning with their built up skills and so for the wrong reasons they dont want it to change.

 

Edit so a rebalance for RA1 rework squishing but ALLOW SQUISHING, RA1 made a rule for no squishing and despite making that rule and probably trying it they still removed it. There's definitely a problem with troops being an extreme side note in RA1  so granted there's an issue there, but  there are better ways to address this issue than to remove something fun and realistic. In the older battlefield games tanks couldn't run over a picket fence and this annoyed alot of players because of the huge stark disconnect from realism that irked alot of players I feel it would be the same way in ra1.  I recommend lower mini gunner cost and perhaps troop cost /increased troop (and underused units) potency for balance to re-engage that under used part of ra1. Now we have faster computers and hopefully the unit max limit glitch will be removed we can see big armies, big troop use and death/carnage in the remaster like the reality of WW2, there was alot of death and troop use.  Also more troops would balance the tesla creeping too perhaps especially when you can que build the troops, so that que thing we all voted for will change the dynamic wo us even realising it.

Edited November 21, 2018 by chem
Merged into one post

[cn2mc 188]

Talking about TD here. If I have to name just one thing, it would be more unit control. What more unit control amounts to in my mind: 

- Fully selectable and controllable units. My main issue is that currently you can't select air units in flight unless you have them in a team, and you have no way of targeting enemy air units with any precision, or targeting them at all with AA-capable aircraft of your own (no way to put aircraft on guard mode).

- Having a button/click combination that makes men go prone, just like we can now double-click them away to make them stand up, would be nice. Maybe also a 'cease fire' key, which prevents units from firing on their own at all (like stealth tanks and commandos). These should be easy and C&C-like commands. F.ex alt+double click to send men crawling somewhere, alt+s or double-s for 'cease fire' as an imperative version of the regular stop command, etc.

- I would not mind having Q-move in TD. If the original stats and balance are kept, the tanks would still not be as OP as they are in RA. Same goes for the loading of transports without having to send units in one by one. You can and should still micro that if you need men to come out in a certain order.

- Some units just don't work exactly right mechanically. APCs bug out and refuse to unload if they're under fire, bikes, which should be crushable, are notoriously hard to crush and it mostly, if ever, happens by pure chance, units with secondary weapons and/or burst capability will behave in weird ways, etc. 

- The option to turn off structures from the power grid, as in TS, perhaps. 

Instead of more control, I was considering writing about the crucial bugs like South advantage, but then I remembered I already posted about those in the first thread. Hope that didn't get lost in all the spam there.

EDIT: Of course, I forgot to mention the wonderful additions cncnet has already made to unit control, which need to be in, like the remappable hotkeys and the brand new hotkeys for sell and repair. 

Edited November 21, 2018 by cn2mc

[RaVaGe 583]

Modern RTS controls such found in C&C Red Alert 2 & Yuri's Revenge.

I mean waypoints, rally points, control groups with double tap to centre screen on group, keyboard shortcuts for deploying, attack moving, etc.

Edited November 17, 2018 by RaVaGe

[Kampfkekskrieger 14]

If I see the RA1 games, its just a hazzle to build tesla coils, power plants and big tank armys with all the needed micro. (And lets add the point on the allied forces to counter this with even more numberous weaker tanks and turrets)

Its still good enough, but for this we have the old RA1.

1. With a remastered game, I would improve the building/turret control, - again, to be controllable in groups, and better automatic behavior. You would still have a speed contest to absolve, but this would include MORE turrets and MORE tessla coils, which you can place in a timeframe of few seconds, until you touch the limits of what a gamers mouse can do.

Another thing I have discovered is:

2. The APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) behavior should be smooth: With a mechanic like in Act of War/Act of Aggression, I want to select a crop/crowd of infantry, and APCs in one selection, and with a single load in command, I want ALL infantry to load into their each next accessible vehicle, taking care of the available troops/capacity, with eventual surpluses in troops/carriers being kept.

Available is also the Option that I very liked, that a APC drives towards the infantry to pick it up, if a INFANTRY gets an inload command -> it moves the vehicle, too, also with pointing at the example in Act of War/Act of Aggression.

-> In general, this shall be tools, to make infantry usage more competetive, and that due to the fact, that you can control large groups with ease.

PS: The same is also applying for helicopter transports ofc.

Edited November 19, 2018 by Kampfkekskrieger

[Kampfkekskrieger 14]

1.

12 hours ago, Mortisanti said:

Unit pathing. If anything, I think it takes away from the pace of the game(s) when you're waiting for your army to cross a river, for instance; granted that's where some micro-management comes into play, I suppose. I still feel it can be improved on if they decide to change it.

this

2.

7 hours ago, Nevo said:

Building placement, it is so annoying when your forced to place your buildings next to eachother.

I liked the Tiberian-Dawn way the BEST, but I also like the free building: Make both methods valid choices.

Why was it the best? You didnt have Area-of-effect weapons, in a way that spaceful building was neccessary (you had the nuke and the missle launchers, and a bit splash-damage), so you could allow, that those bases had the best aesthetic look, while the C&C generals bases were purely most-efficient collosses, that I liked in other ways, but thats a design question, that I would keep in their C&C-generals /Tiberium universes. You can , but better dont mix that up.

3. Make fences and mine laying in large scale inclusive tower building easy to setup with few clicks for the whole base. (Maybe in a planning way), which can then build up with the coming time. Mine Layers referencing to this post:
https://forums.cncnet.org/topic/9230-command-conquer-remasters-have-been-announced/?page=2
( 1. My biggest wish and issue is the minelayers in RA1, followed by the radar devices by Allies: ...) I would love to use some ECM like vehicles in an effectful intrusive way.

The most important thing is to make those 'useless fences/radar vehicle/mine layers etc' useful and appropriate even in a multiplayer-turnament level environment!

4.

Make building of-buildings faster, like the Shift-click in Act of War or Act of Aggression, so you can fast(ly?) build multiple buildings in a plan way with fast directly followed clicks, changing the building type with a hotkey while placing.

5. The Hotkey system of act of war/Act of Aggression was 100 times better than the way in RA2 and C&C3&Co. : (just an example)

You had y, x, c for basic, advanced, and elite buildings/ For C&C its enough if you have like an 'y' for all buildings, and 'x' for all vehicles, and then you had the x and y (and all other letters) again free for the units to select, because you were in a new level of menu hierarchy. For this you had to select a factory or construction unit ( you can use the click into the side bar as (internally counting as including) a click onto the factory to change the hotkey mode on click upon a picture there.

of course, you can queue up the units, in the way cossacks 3 did: with different shift/strg/alt combinations you got build 1, 5, 10, etc units at one command (cossacks has also 100 and 1000 and infinite, but you have a smaller scale in C&C) (refering to this hotkey list: http://www.cossacks3.com/forum/index.php?threads/all-hotkeys-and-cheats-updated-in-encyclopedia.29026/

• LMC - Gives 1 unit in a queue
  • RMC - Cancel

• Shift + LMC - Gives 5 units in a queue
  • Shift + RMC - Cancel

- etc.

but what I did NOT like was the F1-F9 way and 4 sorts of cartegories to approach like it was in RA2 and C&C 3:
- That was too inconvenient to look for in which cartegory a desired unit was.

---
6.

PLEASE include the rak-Cruizer of Tiberian Dawn into multiplayer, players can map the appropriate maps for them / you dont need extensive map design, just a technical possibility here, even if you place it into water like a building.

7. The Cruisers of the allies, (gun boat / destroyers /cruisers) had to be microed to fire on the hostile fleet by force (ctrl) fire IN FRONT of the desired target Cruiser, as the game denied a direct attack: one of many bugs/gliches to solve

8. A new type of campaign would be great, not only the old exact maps and concepts again, in terms of campaign, because for this we have the old campaign.
BUT: EXTEND the old way of campaign/World view mission selection with non-linear mission order. Even a Mercenaries-type free crusade-campaign would be of very interest, as close to the old campaign style as possible,

-> Players can build their own campaigns in that way, as the Open-RA visuals are widely accessible, but there is only skirmish modding, but not very good for immersive campaigns. Here would be a main selling point of your product, to include.

---

I think its enough for now. I dont intend to do it too long, BUT I think I have valuable advice, so that longer post is worth its content a lot of times!
Take a selection on theese, its YOUR way to success!

I have no Idea how I could make the post shorter or spoiler it usefully. Have a nice read!

Edited November 17, 2018 by Kampfkekskrieger