Tactical locations and their endless sprouting.

[silktrader]

This thread belongs to the "Feedback" section, once it has gathered somebody's attention.

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I would love to hear about one aspect I see as "bugged". Here goes a boring recounting of events:

I was playing versus [LO]NaNoXiD on "River Crossing". I held a victory location while he held none, but as a consequence I was fighting not to let his tactical point start churning out units.

We were about three minutes into the game when I managed to win what I thought might be a decisive battle around his tactical point.

I then attacked his tactical point with melee, assault, ranged and my dreamlord. The tower seemed to crumble down and was then rebuilt right away, requiring me to again try to take it down. This cycle lasted more than five times.

The player did in fact cancel a tactical point upgrade right before I was able to destroy it. He upgraded it right away so that its every hit point was restored, without him needing tactical points to do so: as they are given back when an upgrade is cancelled. Again, this process was repeated more than five times after which I decided to "go back to base".

To attack the tactical point my melee squads were actually adjacent to the spot. It was suggested that I walk over the tactical point, right after the player cancelled the upgrade, to hinder the player from upgrading it right away. Sadly, I feel that is a rather intricate way to achieve what would seem obvious: prevent the player from upgrading a non productive tactical point when enemy troops are adjacent. One might also suggest that tactical points in their upgrading process should not start over with full hitpoints but slowly build towards that amount.

[Keeks]

Doing the same, and see no issue with that.

If you do this, mostly you just want to stall your opponent till your forces arrives. Saves some TP.

If you have way bigger, you dont really need to care about TL, and just rush the SH. Also, TL when being upgraded dont produce any units, so its harmless. And its just your decision to keep attacking it.

When doing this against massive army its pretty demanding on your attention, and you wont be able to micro any of your army properly. If its used just to stay in the match, you dont need to care. More your army to DL spawn position, and wait for VP (on 1 VL map its usually 250 or 350 VP to win, so not that long time).

So - what is your point for this topic? That you were forced to wait few more minutes to win against Nano? Not a big deal imo.

[silktrader]

If you do this, mostly you just want to stall your opponent till your forces arrives. Saves some TP.

You are actually able to keep the tactical location from being taken at all, especially if your adversary is hit by some lag.

If you have way bigger, you dont really need to care about TL, and just rush the SH. Also, TL when being upgraded dont produce any units, so its harmless. And its just your decision to keep attacking it.

Forget about eventual victory or loss: it's the mechanic that puzzles me. One is able to prevent a tactical location from being taken over by simply cancelling and ordering an upgrade, repeatedly.
As I wrote, it was particularly striking and relevant as I played in "River Crossing", where there was only one tactical location in the whole map.

So - what is your point for this topic? That you were forced to wait few more minutes to win against Nano? Not a big deal imo.

Sorry, I failed to convey the message. I mentioned both the point of the topic: "I would love to hear about one aspect I see as bugged" and something about the end result: "Again, this process was repeated more than five times after which I decided to 'go back to base'".

[Necrullz]

Erm..NEVER hit back to base?!!

Just keep a few forces there to keep knocking it down, and then use the rest to attack his SH/VL, after you saw him do it the 2nd time you should have just split your forces, kept pressure on the TL and on his incoming forces, while yes, this IS annoying, no matter what changes are brought about someone will find a way to abuse it

[Keeks]

You are actually able to keep the tactical location from being taken at all, especially if your adversary is hit by some lag.

Yep, you're able to keep the TL this way, but it does no good for you.

Forget about eventual victory or loss: it's the mechanic that puzzles me. One is able to prevent a tactical location from being taken over by simply cancelling and ordering an upgrade, repeatedly.
As I wrote, it was particularly striking and relevant as I played in "River Crossing", where there was only one tactical location in the whole map.

Once again, yes, you're able to stall that TL by this way, but what gain you have from that if you do that with no army to clear the area around the TL? Non-build TL produces very few TPs and also is not able to spawn any unit. So you can start caring about other things, let the TL finish, and kill it then.

Sorry, I failed to convey the message. I mentioned both the point of the topic: "I would love to hear about one aspect I see as bugged" and something about the end result: "Again, this process was repeated more than five times after which I decided to 'go back to base'".

Bugged? Not really, I think it works as intended. If you feel it doesnt work correctly, just post about it. I dont call summons bugged even that I dont agree with how they works.

And repeated more than five times - once again, why didnt you let the TL to finish? You'd kill it in no time then, and if Nano keeps to cycle it, just kill his SH and wait for victory. It is actually a STALLING tactics, gives you no boost at all, just some more time...

[silktrader]

Bugged? Not really, I think it works as intended. If you feel it doesnt work correctly, just post about it.

Sometimes I don't understand you, Keeks. Isn't posting about it what I just did.

And repeated more than five times - once again, why didnt you let the TL to finish? You'd kill it in no time then, and if Nano keeps to cycle it, just kill his SH and wait for victory. It is actually a STALLING tactics, gives you no boost at all, just some more time...

You have to understand the perspective of the player who first witnesses this behaviour: it doesn't look like the tactical location is 'upgraded', when you attack it and it's up you expect it to be destroyed but it immediately goes up again. It is only after I enquired about it in the general chat that I found out, thanks to Melor, that it was being upgraded and the upgrade cancelled right before it was destroyed (to be repeated again). So I wasn't aware of this issue when I first noticed it.

[ForzaA]

Bugged? Not really, I think it works as intended.

Come now, surely it can't be *intended* - though perhaps the damage is not so great as the report suggests, but that's not the same as intended.

..Keeping a tactical location out of an enemy's hands with NO commitment* of resources doesn't strike you as in the least bugged?

*that is, there's a single upfront cost, that needs never be spent again, and there is nothing an oponent can do to actually make you LOSE the investment (such as killing a unit)

[ND Romberg]

Not really intended, no, and it's a pretty silly mechanic in my opinion. I'm thinking of lowering the initial HP to somehing pretty low (50-100 or so) and make it count up towards the final HP value (there's already code for that).

With the exception of this kind of tactics, is there ever any reason to cancel the first upgrade?

[Necrullz]

Well, not any REAL reason during a battle I can think of...but possibly if you and your opponent agree to terms before or during the match and that you would like to have a fight where no tactical locations are used..then you could cancel the upgrade, can be useful for testing things in unranked etc.

Though I think the downside in this case outweighs the benefits! (Cause you and your opponent, in the above example COULD just not capture them in the first place )

[Keeks]

Not really intended, no, and it's a pretty silly mechanic in my opinion. I'm thinking of lowering the initial HP to somehing pretty low (50-100 or so) and make it count up towards the final HP value (there's already code for that).

With the exception of this kind of tactics, is there ever any reason to cancel the first upgrade?

Intended behaviour is that you can cel = you get your TP back, and you can start building something right again.
I must say I dont agree on starting on very low HP, as it would hurt economic gameplay (spawning minimum units before first castle upgrade) because you'd have to have comparable force to defend against TP rush (especially on small maps). I'd say that starting on some part of HP (like 50% of max HP) and building upwards to max could be better, and if you want to prevent this tactics, then adding a reuse on TL building would definitely help (about double of building duration, so my guess would be about 1 minute).

And yes, the only reason to cancel the first upgrade is to preserve accumulated TP a little longer, as losing all TP and TP generation of that TL can cost you the game.


Actually (and this is a little offtopic here), having a reuse of double the building time on everything that can be built in SH/TL would be nice way to put diversity and more tactics in PVP matches instead of spamming.

[Lightcaster]

I agree with lowering the HP value. This IS a valid mechanic in RTS games though. (Refer to Starcraft II... they use this method to block the enemy from getting Gas in the early game a lot)

[Nedom Wolven]

starting with full hp might be silly, but being able to do the upgrade cancel trick and prevent players from pulling it off is part of higher tier pvp. Might have interesting effects on the PvP as a whole if tacticals start with low hp, as keeks already mentioned.

[prophious]

best solution may be, setting the Tp of a destroyed Tactical location to zero, even if you have over 9000 TP in it

[Keeks]

best solution may be, setting the Tp of a destroyed Tactical location to zero, even if you have over 9000 TP in it

Well, that is how it works for ages already, and thats the reason why the cancelling occurs - to preserve the points. Also if you were thinking about losing TP on cancel, its really not wise idea. in PvP every TP counts, and sometimes you want to cancel just to preserve the points before your army comes in (even that you wont be able to start upgrade right away, it will be strategic option)

[ND Romberg]

I'm not sure it should be prevented but I think it needs to be associated with some kind of cost/investment (in addition to the attention required to actually do it). My main problem with it is really the combination of high starting HP (low risk), no cost and (slow, but still) accumulating TP. I think balancing at least one of these with some kind of investment, cost or delay would be enough. Going back to the Starcraft II example, if I remember correctly, the buildings do start with low HP that increases gradually and you need to do something (depending on race) with a worker unit at least to initiate the building process. From what I could find on the net you also only get back 75% of the cost when canceling buildings.

The advantage of the HP change is that the code is already there and changing the HP is just a matter of changing a couple of DB values.

[prophious]

could be that the "in progress of building" hp should be low(35%-75%, maybe), could also be done as another trait line for temple of conquest, increase the "in progress of building" hp by 5% per trait..... eh... just an idea