Should ants be temporary?

General discussion about Game Play

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Kuth
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Postby Kuth » Thu Sep 25, 2008 9:34 pm

With a timer, you can just ignore than anthill and it will go away. A minor menace in the scope of things. Increasing it to four or five minutes while keeping everything else the same does not solve the problem. Since most gametypes run to five or ten minutes, why pretend to call it a 'fix' when random chance might deliver you a solution before the time limit expires?

It might be two minutes into the five minute game that an anthill appears. If anthills have a lifespan of four or five minutes, how can you call this a solution to the problem that they are hard to destroy?

In Chris' proposal, one would need to focus on taking out the anthill to destroy it. This is like an egg drop, where to get rid of it, one needs to focus his/her forces to destroy it.

Chris' proposal, I feel, keeps the Anthill as a dangerous and bad power up to have in your backyard while not being completely immune to player actions against it. As it is now, only a powerup and random chance can deal with the anthill. Chris' proposal allows Multiwinians to deal with the problem on their own, without praying for them to throw grenades.

This, I think, is what the player base is asking for: Some way to destroy the ants without praying for a powerup. If anthills are dependent on ants for 'life', then I think it's an adequate solution.
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Postby The GoldFish » Thu Sep 25, 2008 9:38 pm

nerf has never meant removing a feature from a game o_O

No one I know recognises the term as removing a feature from a game...

I've played WoW and CoH, as well as a few other MMOs for an elongated period of time, and I've never seen anyone use nerf to mean remove a feature from the game.

edit - also, Chris' proposal is perculiar for a simple reason; it's a WAY AROUND actually letting you attack an ant hill with DGs. Why can't you just attack the ant hill with DGs? That's what I don't understand - I can only assume that it's because then it would be too easy to destroy the vulnreble hive, so it's a method of balencing the ability for DGs to destroy the next, although the mechanism is a bit perculiar.
Last edited by The GoldFish on Thu Sep 25, 2008 9:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Kuth » Thu Sep 25, 2008 9:44 pm

AS I understand it, "Nerf" means something like turning Real guns into Nerf guns. It's a gross reduction in damage/capability that's often used in a negative context.
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Postby Duckmeister » Thu Sep 25, 2008 9:45 pm

I agree with the ingenuity of Chris' proposal, but I disagree that a timer is not another, if not an addable solution. This is the problem with most arguments, whenever someone says this solution could be right, the other person thinks that person is really saying that everything else is wrong.

First of all, I've played quite a few games of MW, and I've never once played a 5 minute game.
Second, ants are still a huge gamebreaker if you still have to directly focus a majority of your forces to destroy it. Watch as you are immediately picked out as a defenseless target by all the other players because you are stuck dealing with your ant hills.
Third, it's also pretty much random chance to risk having the losses of attacking the anthill replenishing the losses the anthill suffers by your attack. If you attack it enough to deplenish the hill by 30, whats to say you wouldn't have taken 30 losses by then, replenishing the hill, making the whole effort a rat race.

Adding a timer will allow the battle to actually be able to subside without the player being rushed by more than the ant front. 4 or 5 minutes is enough to let player be able to defend his other positions, THEN deal with the ants, and if the attack on the hill fails, or if he is attacked on another front, he has the confidence to put his presense(sp?) on another front.
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Postby The GoldFish » Thu Sep 25, 2008 9:50 pm

Well, maybe after a few minutes of being ignored, the hive should explode...

and all remaining ants grow wings and take to the skies to harrass multiwinians around the map

o_o

edit - I should add, the MAIN REASON to adjust the ants/soul ratio is simple. Once an ant population reaches a certain level, it becomes nearly impossible to use lasers to kill the ants, because you can often only kill so many every second, and those that you do kill will die very close to the centre of the hive; you need to prevent at most 1/3rd of those souls getting back to the hive or nothing will happen. This was the same issue had with spam and ants in Darwinia - if you didn't sneak in from the getgo and destroy the hive, all that happened was you made life harder for yourself.
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Postby Kuth » Fri Sep 26, 2008 4:17 am

I've played both five and ten minute maps. I still argue that the timer is a useless and transparent 'fix' to the problem if nothing else is changed. In five minute games, a 4-5 minute timer might as well just have no timer at all, as it'll last the rest of the game. Chris' fix offers a good enough solution for the 5-minute players, since one can form up a formation quickly and mow down the 15 or so ants that emerge, ending the problem. Anyone ignoring it suffers the consequences of a giant anthill.

I'd feel a whole lot better if I knew that I could do something about the anthill immediately, rather than throw up my hands in hopelessness and try to cope with the situation. A timer, again, does nothing to relieve this feeling of hopelessness. Besides, if the enemy comes in to try to take my point, they'll have to deal with the ants too. If they go out of their way to steal my points (in games other than domination) it means less Darwinians elsewhere completing objectives.
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Postby MrBunsy » Fri Sep 26, 2008 9:03 am

Kuth wrote:I'd feel a whole lot better if I knew that I could do something about the anthill immediately,
Once or twice, I have managed to get my darwinians to throw grenades at the hill, but it only worked when (I think) no ants had come out yet. I don't know if something could be done to improve that? They could possible become a little more like eggs - you have a few seconds to grenade them before they hatch.
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Postby Kuth » Fri Sep 26, 2008 9:06 am

That's still random though, you have to hope that the 'winians are smart enough to throw a grenade at the nest. Usually they aren't, and it's random chance that delivers you from the ant nests.
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Postby MrBunsy » Fri Sep 26, 2008 10:35 am

Only as random as blowing up eggs, or defeating a formation.
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Postby Phelanpt » Fri Sep 26, 2008 1:38 pm

Actually, they throw more grenades against the eggs and formations, so it's not quite the same.
I haven't been able to play much lately, so haven't been able to try to destroy an anthill with mws again, but from what I remember, even when I did, it took some time.
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Postby stonberg » Fri Sep 26, 2008 4:39 pm

It was particularly with Ant Nests in mind that I made the suggestion in the 'Future' forum re: targeted attacking for the MWs. Do lasers not damage the Ant Nests at present by the way?
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Postby MarvintheParanoidAndroid » Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:17 pm

stonberg wrote:It was particularly with Ant Nests in mind that I made the suggestion in the 'Future' forum re: targeted attacking for the MWs. Do lasers not damage the Ant Nests at present by the way?

Indeed they do not. Explosives are needed to deal with the nests.
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Postby Duckmeister » Fri Sep 26, 2008 7:01 pm

Kuth wrote:I've played both five and ten minute maps. I still argue that the timer is a useless and transparent 'fix' to the problem if nothing else is changed. In five minute games, a 4-5 minute timer might as well just have no timer at all, as it'll last the rest of the game. Chris' fix offers a good enough solution for the 5-minute players, since one can form up a formation quickly and mow down the 15 or so ants that emerge, ending the problem. Anyone ignoring it suffers the consequences of a giant anthill.

I'd feel a whole lot better if I knew that I could do something about the anthill immediately, rather than throw up my hands in hopelessness and try to cope with the situation. A timer, again, does nothing to relieve this feeling of hopelessness. Besides, if the enemy comes in to try to take my point, they'll have to deal with the ants too. If they go out of their way to steal my points (in games other than domination) it means less Darwinians elsewhere completing objectives.


I still argue that the timer is a useless and transparent 'fix' to the problem if nothing else is changed.


Did you even read my post? I agree completely with Chris's proposal, I just think that adding a timer would be even more beneficial.

Besides, if the enemy comes in to try to take my point, they'll have to deal with the ants too


Yes, exactly my point.

I suggest you please go back and read my post in full, please. In fact, I'll put it right here for your convenience.

I agree with the ingenuity of Chris' proposal, but I disagree that a timer is not another, if not an addable solution. This is the problem with most arguments, whenever someone says this solution could be right, the other person thinks that person is really saying that everything else is wrong.

First of all, I've played quite a few games of MW, and I've never once played a 5 minute game.
Second, ants are still a huge gamebreaker if you still have to directly focus a majority of your forces to destroy it. Watch as you are immediately picked out as a defenseless target by all the other players because you are stuck dealing with your ant hills.
Third, it's also pretty much random chance to risk having the losses of attacking the anthill replenishing the losses the anthill suffers by your attack. If you attack it enough to deplenish the hill by 30, whats to say you wouldn't have taken 30 losses by then, replenishing the hill, making the whole effort a rat race.

Adding a timer will allow the battle to actually be able to subside without the player being rushed by more than the ant front. 4 or 5 minutes is enough to let player be able to defend his other positions, THEN deal with the ants, and if the attack on the hill fails, or if he is attacked on another front, he has the confidence to put his presense(sp?) on another front.
Come to the light side! We may not have cookies, but at least we win!
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Postby stonberg » Mon Sep 29, 2008 12:10 pm

MarvintheParanoidAndroid wrote:
stonberg wrote:Do lasers not damage the Ant Nests at present by the way?

Indeed they do not. Explosives are needed to deal with the nests.


Ah, thx for the reply.
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Postby tigermaster » Mon Sep 29, 2008 5:30 pm

also other creatures are a bit annoying expecially if it happens the first few minutes when you do not have enough multiwinians, they all should have less hit points or a timelimit (or being attackable by multiwinians, lasers and grenades)

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