I got AotS today and so far I am impressed.
Here are a few things I would like to see in the game and that I think would make it even more epic.
1. Different win scenarios other than just collecting points. Ideas that come to mind are: Complete elimination, control all points on the map. and produce so many of whatever unit.
2. Map tracking: Have it so that we know which map we have beat the AI at and at what difficulty level.
3. Achievements: Steam Achievements and in game achievements, like beat a map in less than 10 minutes or something similar.
4. Have units gain rank thereby giving them slightly better abilities (maybe even have the player choose which abilities), One way to keep track of this is unit decals.
5. Damage effects: Meaning that units smoke and'or shoot sparks when they get badly damaged.
6. Guard commands and retreat when faced with certain defeat command. Setting a rally point for the retreating units would be awesome. This could also be used to pull enemy units into a trap.....
7 A rally command. Where you could designate certain units to respond to quick key button and they all rally at a certain predetermined point.
More to come......
I love this idea!
T3s are going to have upgrades on them at some point. For normal troops there is the more general upgrades unlocked in research.
On T3s the models do actually look a little worse when damaged, but yeah the damaged states could probably be improved on I think.
Yeah, Guard would be good and so would retreat. Because of the slowdown mechanic, when engaged in combat retreats are all but impossible at the moment. It's frustrating.
I like this too, so if the enemy get deep in your territory instead of clicking all around the scrambling for all your units you can hit one button and they all assemble at the point you have designated.
The whole slow down thing is not seen in any similar RTS as far as I know. Even CoH which has a suppression mechanic allows the player to hit retreat and back out real fast. But that mechanic would be crazy in a game like this with its scale and unit numbers. I noticed a lot of the devs worked on Civ4 and 5 which have area of control (forget the proper term) for units just like many tbs games. I am guessing the influence is coming from them/that. It works in tbs but tbs and rts are totally different beasts.
It would be great if the Devs could really go into the decision for the 25% speed for combat. I really hope it is still up in the air. I could see why one person compared it to gratuitous space battles. You literally cannot retreat, it's crazy.
I hate sounding harsh but I really hope this gets looked at again.
I would like to see a hotkey to select all visible units. This would be useful for both attack and retreat.
Retreat is an essential command when used in tactical situations. Historically retreat has helped commanders turn the tide of battle. Retreat does not have to be slow, and in fact some units may even move slightly faster, unless the retreating units are returning fire as they are retreating. It has kind of irritated me over the years that no RTS game really has this.
A hotkey to select all visible units is a great idea also as MnMShow mentioned above.
Which reminds me, is this game missing the standard "Select all same units across the board/onscreen" shortcut or am I just an idiot and missed the obvious?
Quoting Madmaxneo, reply 5 Retreat is an essential command when used in tactical situations.
Retreat is an essential command when used in tactical situations.
yup
Double clicking on a unit will select all of that type on the screen.
Yeah I know that one and it doesn't always work like it should, besides it is not easy to double click aicraft. I was looking for a keyboard shortcut. In some games if you hit "E" it selects every unit of that type on screen and if you hit "E" twice rapidly then it selects all same units on the entire map.
Fair enough man, just trying to share something which is similar which you might not have known about. If I knew of a button I would have told you.
I agree, a button for the job would be useful the the reasons you give.
It is all good. It is hard to tell the slightly experienced RTS gamers from the noobs. The double click function is one of the most common commands across just about all RTS games.
Having the ability to set key bindings would be awesome. They could program more commands into the system with the possibility to bind them to specific keys. I have a K95 keyboard and being able to use those 18 programmable keys would be awesome. Then again my G13 is technically easier to use than those keys, but I barely use that these days.
They mention in one of their blogs somewhere that this is not a rehash of your favorite RTS and they do not want suggestions to make it that way. But there are so many good ideas in other RTS games that would be awesome if implemented into this game.
Yes @Tiktoc I second this! The whole thing is just EXPLOIT GALORE here's an example :
Images removed for space sake.
They really need a "spoiler" option to hide images and such on this forum....
That is a great reason why we need a good retreat command or a better chase AI or even a guard command so units will stay and guard a certain area.
the only way to have fair and macro-focused gameplay is for units not to have different speeds according to combat or commands issued.
They could implement an option to include tactical commands or not. This would add another level of game play to what can be the most epic RTS ever made.
The question is how to make it an epic RTS game. Most RTS replicate each other with different irritations
AotS is headed in that direction with the scale of the battles going on. If they can mix that style of game play with some tactical commands and a few other things AotS would be an epic RTS.
One of the things I have wished for since C&C Generals: Zero Hour was the idea of world spanning campaigns. Where you would have a few places to establish bases and build things up then have to send out battle groups to make more bases to eventually control the entire planet. You would have to take resources from each base to support the bases on the fringe but still maintain their defenses along with maintaining the area they control. I also liked the way Battle for Middle Earth did it where units could gain rank and continue to follow you throughout the game.
Stuff like that would this game epic to me, what would make it epic to you?
being unconstrained completely, no constraints in battle time, no micro constraints (Logistics I'm looking at you), no constraints in unit mobility (small passes on maps I'm looking at you). playing with a massively interactive community that must cooperate to vanquish each other in very large groups for fun and then can group again how they want. the game being balanced and fun to play. that's obviously the most primordial. it's seems like it's easy and tossed aside so easily in favor of other factors but the reality is : so many people get it wrong and it makes and breaks an RTS game.
I am not much of a multiplayer kind of person as I prefer single player games. In multiplayer to many people either get butt hurt about something or they tend to brag. I very much prefer the single player campaigns and skirmishes. It is more fun for me and if I loose I can learn how to play better by playing the same scenario. Also I like being able to quit in a flash if I need to or put the game on pause which happens more often than not. So the part about "playing with massively interactive community that must cooperate to vanquish each other in very large groups for fun" would't work for me.
A newer RTS game that has some elements of an epic RTS is Grey Goo. It is actually a pretty fun game with loads of maps and 3 very different factions. Each faction is very different in the way it builds and uses it's resources. There is even one faction whose home base is always mobile. Grey Goo has the best distinction between factions than any other RTS game I have played to date. If you haven't you should check it out and so should the devs for AOTS, in fact I hope they look at other games like Grey Goo, C&C (in particular Zero Hour), World in Conflict and a few of the other RTS games that are not in the list of games that inspired AOTS.
I also agree that combat slowdown has to go because there have been too many times where my forces get slaughtered by base defenses while they are crawling away.
Also, I think there are a couple of mechanics related to unit movement that could add a lot to the game. I'd like to see a "get in formation" button that would make units move to a location and form up in a logical sense (artillery in back, protect the dreadnaught, etc.). Also, there should be options for the type of formation you want to make. Sometimes you want a wider or narrower formation, or maybe convex/concave. Maybe make options to tune the formation for attack/defense. Any new units that join the metagroup would find a place in the formation. Additionally, there could be an option to break formation while maintaining the metagroup. Units in formation would move at the speed of the slowest unit in order to maintain formation and units not in formation would move as quickly as possible. It could also be possible to modify the shape of the formation in combat so that your units can continue facing the enemy and firing while moving around (I'm thinking I could make my metagroup more concave to flank an enemy or come together more if the enemy is about to break through my front line somewhere). Maybe there could be an option to make units move more quickly but have reduced armor (or slower but have increased armor). Obviously, this would be an ambitious system to code (well) but it would be really cool and if done right it would add a lot of strategy while reducing micro.
I think that the maps have too many narrow passages as well. It really limits the practical size of an army, especially when units don't move efficiently through constrictions. Obviously, narrow passages should exist but I'd also like to be able to have grand battles with huge front lines. There should be maps with few constrictions as well as maps with many constrictions.
Lastly, I'd like to be able to include engineers in a metagroup and have an option for them to automatically build resource collectors. I feel like micromanaging a fleet of engineers as I rapidly take over territories in early game doesn't add to the game mechanics and really penalized low APM players, since it's pretty obvious that I want to build more collectors as fast as I can. But I think it should still be necessary to dispatch engineers because there's some strategy in where/how many you send and the enemy can target your engineers to slow you down.
That's all for now! What do you guys think?
All great ideas, I am now wondering if any of the devs are listening.
When I have a massive force heading to an area and the dreadnoughts are a primary part of the blitzkrieg it irritates me that I have to stop the rest of the force to await the dreadnoughts to catch up.
I kind of liked the idea of engineers not being able to be selected when grouping a massive army. But it would be nice if I could have the option to decide to group them or not, and then have them automatically build the extractors that are needed.
I agree that this is great. At some point they might have to add a limit to how long or how many times the game can be paused though as there are some people who might maliciously abuse it. I.e. Pause the game and then walk away. Not cool but a possibility nonetheless.
Alternatively a kick player option. We would need to know who paused the game though, something I hope we get to see regardless of the rules behind pausing.
I agree that this is great. At some point they might have to add a limit to how long or how many times the game can be paused though as there are some people who might maliciously abuse it. I.e. Pause the game and then walk away. Not cool but a possibility nonetheless.Alternatively a kick player option. We would need to know who paused the game though, something I hope we get to see regardless of the rules behind pausing.
IMHO I don't agree because I have seen first hand in game server management certain teams or group players would do this to certain innocent players who either cant play well or the one being bullied.
The Devs need to serious consider this b4 implementing and how it will be used. The Quitting function should not discriminate players in multiplayer option of the game
When someone pauses the game in a multi player game it frustrates me to no matter the reason for it. I don't like it when I get interrupted when I am in the middle of doing something. I can believe that others feel this way to which is a reason for me to avoid multiplayer. It seems that I barely have moments where I am not interrupted enough here at home to enjoy a long term game....lol.
Regardless I discovered last night that the dreadnoughts can build their own units, and apparently they follow them at the dreadnoughts speed. This changes my opinion on this, it is a great idea!... plus they can build medic units that heal the whole formation.....
Is that working for you? I have been unable to make this work so I thought it was not fully implemented.
Well it seems to work. I found out when playing the huge 5 player map with 4 AI's. It was taking forever to beat the bad guys so I started looking for way to give me an advantage. The first time I did it I didn't realize I was on the dreadnought when I clicked to build some bombers and some medics. Later I realized that particular dreadnought was surviving much longer that I expected it to. I was also trying to group all my bombers into one massive formation and every time I clicked on certain ones my dreadnought would get selected and so would a few other units. That is also when I realized they were all moving together instead of leaving the dreadnoughts behind. So I would say it is working pretty good so far. Though I think there is a limit as to how many units any particular ship may have.
Yes it works. T2 units can do it too. Queueing units this way creates a kind of build order queue that gets filled on demand by available factories. The new units automatically become part of the battle group upon spawning, catch up to the dreadnought, then get into formation to do their duty. Pretty awesome way to keep your groups stocked with units. Ideally the empire tree would do a better job of making it obvious how many of each unit is already in the group so we can quickly determine which reinforcements we want to request.
Here are things that need work. It will queue units at factories on the other side of the map. Not so good if you tend to make forward bases all over like I do. Also if the unit gets queued in a factory already on a repeat queue, the factory queue will retain that unit request in its queue indefinitely and subsequent units spawn ungrouped and not really wanted.
Interesting I think I did this by accident and didn't realise
I'm going to tease a bit:
SupCom wasn't unconstrined. First, it had a unit limit. Ashes doesn't. Second, you had to endlessly build energy. In fact, the FIRST thing you build are a couple of energy producers.
In Ashes, you have logistics which are basically the same thing. Except, of course, we don't hard code limit the # of units.
It would be nice if they could. I noticed that sometimes the support units show up pretty fast and sometimes I can go through half the game with nothing showing up.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
