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I read this in the topic at the bottom of this page, but instead fo bumping it I thought I'd just make a topic about it, as it's unrelated to the title.

You will find this later on in this topic. All posts before that are moved from the older, not related topic, to this one.

As for speed... I really hate rushing. When I play a game, I want to play the game, not have a match of who can click faster. There is more to it, I know, but you get the point.
For me, the speed should be somewhere in between rushing and building a complete empire.

I think rushing has its place, but it shouldn't define the game afterwards.  Ultimately, I feel some form of rushing should be mandatory.  Rushing for the win should almost never be the case, but rushing to limit your opponent's development should be almost assumed.

To get around the rush discussion, an issue that will always split communities in two sides, I propose we offer an optional rush protection.

Players would be confined to a set area with radius x for y minutes. x and y would be options at the start of the game, just like mapselection etc. Setting them to 0 would disable the protection. Probably not flawless, but the details could be worked out later.

Solinx

The problem I have with that setup is that it just delays what is a rush to later in the game.  Ultimately, the fact remains that the problem with rushing is inexperienced players getting trounced by well timed build orders the moment hostilities open.  How does delaying hostilities change matters?  If anything, it allows more time for a good build order to get ahead.  I don't think this will solve the problem.  It will just mean it will be tier 2 or tier 3 units beating the crap out of you when the game officially starts, rather than tier 1 units.

I think the problem (and solution) lies within the gaming community itself.  New players just don't have the resources to learn the game generic skills that experienced players take with them from title to title.  They don't have the techniques to overcoming pressure games, or understanding how to limit their opponent's development themselves.  In my position at RTSC, I hope to open a game generic strategy section to help players new to the genre, or those who never were able to pick it up successfully, learn these skills and hold their own at a respectable level of play.  I don't think the full appreciation of the development throughout a single RTS match (even the fast arcade ones) can be appreciated without approaching the early game conflict as well as the late.  The key is to balance it so that the early game only decides the match when it really is horribly lopsided.

The problem I have with that setup is that it just delays what is a rush to later in the game.  Ultimately, the fact remains that the problem with rushing is inexperienced players getting trounced by well timed build orders the moment hostilities open.  How does delaying hostilities change matters?  If anything, it allows more time for a good build order to get ahead.  I don't think this will solve the problem.  It will just mean it will be tier 2 or tier 3 units beating the crap out of you when the game officially starts, rather than tier 1 units.

Agreed, the pro can still beat the rookie as soon as the timer would disappear, I strongly doubt that can or should be avoided in any way. The goal of the timer is to allow players who start slow, to get their things sorted. Also, with BFME, you are pratically forced to follow through the same build cycle every game. Giving a player a time of safety will open up the possibility of more variation in the early game.

Even if it means that the opponent arrives at your door with tier 2 or 3 units, that could still be a reason for the protection to be made available. With BFME 2, you always have the same units in a rush, a limited set of effective rushing strategies and a limited number of defensive actions. With the timer, there can be more variation in rushing. Also, because of the irregular timing, rushing will be harder. It will be harder to time a good strategy, making it harder to make it effective.

I think the problem (and solution) lies within the gaming community itself.  New players just don't have the resources to learn the game generic skills that experienced players take with them from title to title.  They don't have the techniques to overcoming pressure games, or understanding how to limit their opponent's development themselves.  In my position at RTSC, I hope to open a game generic strategy section to help players new to the genre, or those who never were able to pick it up successfully, learn these skills and hold their own at a respectable level of play.  I don't think the full appreciation of the development throughout a single RTS match (even the fast arcade ones) can be appreciated without approaching the early game conflict as well as the late.  The key is to balance it so that the early game only decides the match when it really is horribly lopsided.

The problem lies with the gaming community, that is true. Part of it comes from inexperience, like you say, and your idea to educate these newbies is a good one, only that isn't the only part of it. Some people just don't like rushing, myself included. Alright, it's nice from time to time, but in general, I prefer a game to last longer than 15 minutes. You can argue that it's part of the game, but that won't make people like it better, no matter if you are right or wrong. Keep in mind that the protection I suggested is optional. There will be enough people who agree with you and won't use it, but there will also be people who would like to use it. It's one of the things that divide communities in two, and I doubt there will be an easy agreement in the near future, or any agreement at all for that manner.

Solinx

Players would be confined to a set area with radius x for y minutes. x and y would be options at the start of the game, just like mapselection etc. Setting them to 0 would disable the protection. Probably not flawless, but the details could be worked out later.

i can't say i like this system, it's too artificial. rather, the gameplay should be so that rushing is simply, as darvin often says, a good way of weakening your opponent, but not decisive for the outcome of the game. this could also be done with something like long initial build times for unit producing buildings

Alright, it was just an idea. 2 votes vs 1, so I stand down.

Solinx

BFME2's gameplay is conceptually flawed.  Fundamentally, every strategy has a cost, an incentive, and a risk.  To balance a strategy at the game design level, it must have appropriate strengths and weaknesses.  The problem in BFME2 was that harassment had a huge incentive, next to no risk, and very little cost.  Hard rushing had relatively little cost, a very nice incentive, and a fairly low risk.  This MIGHT have been ok, but defence had a rather steep cost, a low incentive, and a high risk.  In other words, only offensive strategies were valid.  As a result, the game boiled down to who could kill the other faster.  Sometimes defence could be mounted, but most defensive strategies just had too high of a cost and achieved too little even in the best case scenario.

so i guess we'll just leave the game balance to you   

I read this in the topic at the bottom of this page, but instead fo bumping it I thought I'd just make a topic about it, as it's unrelated to the title.

Solinx, Darvin and 2playgames were discussing what has been done before. It was called "Peace time", or "pt" for short. It was used in Cossacks, since the Cossacks community hated (HATED) rushing. So they made up this honor system (Which was followed 99% of the time believe it or not), and they would stick something like "45 pt" in the title. What it meant was no one was allowed to fight for 45 minutes. Upon breaking this rule of conduct you weer promptly screamed at.

Yes, you'd think 45 minute treaties is a long time but 1 hour was frequent, and I think I even play an hour and a half match once. The matches were naturally very long... Hours actually. Anyway, Cossacks had a sequel, and they called it America's Army. It was like Cossacks, but spiffed up and a few hundred years in the future. Anyway, the developers saw this "pt" and integrated it into AA.

What they did was divide the map into equal sections, and there were visible lines on the map and mini-map. Crossing these lines while "pt" was still in affect (You set the amount of minutes it was active before the match started) would make the unit that crossed it do no damage, and die instantly to any attack made on it. This was extremely effective.

I know Darvin's argument: A good player will just rush later and defeat a bad player. But then you could argue that the good player should just be announced the winner without playing.

It is boring for a newbie to die within the first 5 minutes. Also, the newbie won’t learn this way, and will probably stop playing the game. And think of it this way: Rushing works against newer players because they like to build up their economy first (I always like to play as a late-gamer, thus is why I get stomped in multiplayer RTS’ because I refuse to rush). So the rusher has 10 units, and the newbie has none. He dies, every time.

With, say, 15 minutes to build up, he can get his foundation down, and a decent amount of units.  Will he have as much as the rusher? No, but it might be a match-up of 100 v 50, which is a much better fight. And if he can survive the rush, then they can continue playing the game. Will the newbie win? NO! He’s new. The more experienced player always wins. But that isn’t the point, the lesser experienced player still has fun (because he actually got to try and fight), and the more experienced player not only got to fight, but also won.

Win-win. I know some people don’t want to play with a “pt”. That’s why it’s optional. So I ask you guys to reconsider this, because believe me: I’ve seen it done and boy is it a good idea.

By the way, Darvin, you would love America’s Army. Huge battles, I’m talking 1,000’s, with cool effects and realism. It’s a lot of my inspiration for this game.

like i have said in the other topic, i personally find this too artificial. the game mechanics should provide a natural way of making instant rushes ineffective (or at least a great risk only for experienced player), and not letting them decide the game outcome

like i have said in the other topic, i personally find this too artificial. the game mechanics should provide a natural way of making instant rushes ineffective (or at least a great risk only for experienced player), and not letting them decide the game outcome

A natural balance would be preferred, but still, we should keep this option open. It may be artificial, but if it's effective and if it's wished for by enough people to have a commercial developer incorporate it into a game, it shouldn't be ignored.

Like CoolDawg, I'll repeat myself again that any anti rush mechanism should be optional.

There are in general terms two sort of gamers, the sort that wants intensive, fast pased games, but there is also a group who do not want that, but rather have a rather slow start and fight battles with fully fledged armies.

Balance is hard to find, and even when it is found, it's only the question of how long it will take a player to unbalance it. An artificial anti rush option isn't fool proof either, but it does open an additional option, an option that can be ignored or used. Dislike it as you may, there is a market for this. as proven with Cossacks.

Solinx

My arguement against it in the other thread was that all it does is delay when a rush is.  A player with a good BO and fast micro is still going to kick a lesser player's @$$ the moment the game starts; the difference is he'll do so with tier 2 units rather than the tier 1 variety.  Moreover, some players may select a "peace time" setting explicitly for giving their build order an advantage. 

I actually believe having too many settings reduces the fun factor of games by giving specialist strategies an edge, and punishing those who don't play to win on a specific setting.  An example would be "unholy alliance" on Red Alert 2.  It sounded great at first; start with one MCV for every faction.  The problem was that the only valid strategy was to sell 2 of the three and rush with your superior starting cash -_-

A player with a good BO and fast micro is still going to kick a lesser player's @$$ the moment the game starts

My question is: What defines a lesser player?

You are right to say that a player who knows a good build order and has a fast micro, will win the game. The thing is that nothing, short of letting the other side cheat, is going to make that any different. And it should not be any different. When a player is that good, he earns to win.

The issue is to increase the chances among matches that are played by less than perfect players. Having an anti rush option allows for different games. There are other players, players who start slow, being fodder for rushers, but totally own when they get the time to create an army. There are also players who own at rushing, but won't be able to handle anything passed that point. As well as all players in between.

With BFME, and a great many games, rushing is pretty much the only option. If you can't rush, you might as well not play. What the anti rushing option would be for is to give players who don't excel in rushing the opportunity to play a game in the manner they are good at. Not being fond of rushing myself, I have long ago stopped playing online much. It could be that I was just unlucky, but I rarely met someone in an online match who didn't rush, or try to. That could either mean that everyone really loves rushing, which I somehow doubt, or that I'm not the only one who has given up.

Having different strenghts don't make someone a lesser player, it makes him a player with another playing style, a style that isn't supported by BFME, a style that doesn't focus on rushing.

The more forces there are on the field, the more there is to gain from good use of combinations, the more combinations are possible, the more dynamic the game will become, the harder it will be to maintain good micro. That takes another kind of skill than rushing with the first units you can build as fast as possible.

A player who can keep up the speed throughout the whole anti rushing delay, will still has to prepare for a larger range of possible opposing forces. A player that can keep up the speed, has a good micro and reacts well to what the opponent shows about his forces, will likely own the game, unless the opposing player shares these skills, as would be pretty much unavoidable anyway, considering that he clearly is the better player.

Edit:
Having taken another look at your post:

the difference is he'll do so with tier 2 units rather than the tier 1 variety.  Moreover, some players may select a "peace time" setting explicitly for giving their build order an advantage.

Without peace time, there would be one group of players that can always use their preferred build order, the rest just has to put up with it. With peace time indicated, you can either play the game, or not play the game: A choice, which is more than in games as BFME.

I actually believe having too many settings reduces the fun factor of games by giving specialist strategies an edge, and punishing those who don't play to win on a specific setting.

Agreed, to many of these options would create to specific strategies, which is something we should keep in mind, but this is an option that concerns mainstream strategies. Increasing the number of viable main playstyles from 1 to 3 or 4 would be a good step, but we mustn't take it too far.

An example would be "unholy alliance" on Red Alert 2.  It sounded great at first; start with one MCV for every faction.  The problem was that the only valid strategy was to sell 2 of the three and rush with your superior starting cash -_-

In my opinion this shows that there can indeed be bad options, but I strongly doubt this applies to anti rush protection. It doesn't give the player any more resources instantly and without effort, he has to gain them himself in the peace time given to him.

A last minute idea against specialised build orders:
Instead of a set time, the peace time would be selectable in ranges, with at least 5 minutes between min and max values.
The announcement that peace is lifted would somewhere in between the chosen values. That would give some randomisation and make it harder to use a specialised build order. Naturally, players would soon aim at the lowest value, but it would create some uncertainty during the random time, giving both parties time to make a few last minute changes according to the opposing army combinations.
Optional, at the minimum value, there could be given a first warning that the peace can be lifted any minute.

The perfect players would know how to use this too, but it would again be a skill to learn for them. However little these things may seem, they all take skill and timing, which all make it harder to play a perfect game, so in effect, there will likely be more gradation between the top layer of the gamers too.

Solinx