Scripting demo release candidate

[sado1]

Speaking is faster, but writing can reach wider audience. Thats exactly why we usually had a Teamspeak discussion and posted its results to forums later. Some people from TS failed to understand for quite some time that it's not enough, and you actually need to write down what we discussed about as well, to show our way of thinking, to write down the arguments. Well... I feel that I will not succeed to explain why I think of TS as a superior way of communicating about "difficult matters" (where there's many people with many opinions), and why I'd prefer the devs to join us once in a while. Maybe because we feel left out (since devs refuse to come to TS), AND ignored at the same time (because our way of communicating doesn't always translate well to the forums, where they take their feedback from?).

(I saw Lewin at the release day on Teamspeak, not sure if that's just an exception or if he'll try to be there once in a while)

[Leeuwgie]

I think you are both right. Written text on forums in general is very usefull for reasons Anti explained. On the other hand it's way better to have a real conversation on for instance TS. Don't overlook that here on the forum people are sometimes misunderstood when they post something, I've seen it happen alot.

About the new RC, I've tested it only once in singleplayer (because they say the servers are not stable atm) so I can't give decent back-up yet. But I think the possibility to make it a standard to build a woodcutter/quarry after a school is a good thing. As a mapmaker I personaly don't like to prebuild a school or inn on the map so the first 10 minutes of gameplay are very uninteresting and slow if you need to go for the normal build, like for instance on Golden Cliffs or Across the Desert. Placing your sawmill on Cliffs within 10 mins is considered pretty fast actually. Still I think it should be a decision for the mapmaker how he wants it to be played. Don't overlook that on both Cliffs and Across stone is very limited so if players build an extra woodcutter (+ road) they could be out of stone. I'm not talking about players who played this map many times but people who are new to this game of course. Maybe there are also maps where space is limited and mapmakers don't want players to waste their space on growing trees in the middle of their base. I think the best solution is what Jeronimo suggested, just start by building a school (you would be suprised to see how many (new) players in the public release build a woodcutter (if possible) even before a school), which won't only slow down his own gameplay but is also probably not of much use for his teammates when the pt is over. So imo it's better (on maps without the unlock) to make it standard to start with the school only (and not the inn) and then after the school is built the possibility to build an inn or quarry (without the unlock of the woodcutter).

[Pizzaisgood]

So first i think the discussion about the communication in teamspeak and forum and about which is better really doesn´t belong here, this topic is about the scripting demo release candidate and not about any problems with communication.

And second i still want to get an answer why mapmakers shouldn´t get the decision about speeding up the earlygame in their maps or let it be the old way. For sure its nice for some maps to speed up the earlygame but for some maps it shouldn´t
be like that so really : Why all mapmakers should be forced to just have this one buildorder at start ? Maybe consider that some mapmakers want to have the old buildorder in their map. Should you just ignore the wish of those mapmakers?

[Jeronimo]

So imo it's better (on maps without the unlock) to make it standard to start with the school only (and not the inn) and then after the school is built the possibility to build an inn or quarry (without the unlock of the woodcutter).

Thanks for support Leeuwgie. I hope Developers give this alternative a try.

As for Pizza, I respect your point of view. I know what you mean. But "only Quarry" change makes game only 2-3 minutes faster.
The intention has been always to improve the original game... this time as if never had been super slow at beginning.

What about a Golden Cliff little rework (like -5 timber)? or something similar to reupdate the difficulty, sort of what was done respect the food change in several maps. This little unblock I suggested has far less impact that the "serfs with less condition".

Again, IMO not neccesary, too much for a simple 2 minutes advantage, because means only +2/3 buildings during PT.
All in all, the happy hour building, will be happier...

[Pizzaisgood]

I never talked about the game being faster and that that isnt good or something. Those maps who are affected are getting easier!!! and thats the bad thing. Those maps are supposed to be challenging and with this changes those arent that challenging anymore. I think you shouldn´t change those maps to fit the new style but just let them be the old way, it would be just the easiest way. And im pretty sure koczis12 doesn´t want to change his map again to suit the new changes because it was really built for the old order. And once again golden cliffs is just an example.

[Jeronimo]

Pizza, I like you.
But really, how insignificatly easier can "unblocking Quarry after School" be?

I have been repeating as parrot also... that 55 PT is an option to increase difficulty, or -5 timber/-5 stones, author's reupdate to keep the so defended "difficulty" of Golden Cliffs.

I think at the end... many maps gets benefited, and only some get perjudicated (if you keep ALL other factors equal).
My 2 suggestions to make a map difficult are lower PT or map update -> less trees/resources.

Skipping the Inn, and calculating when is the right moment to build it up, adds an extra calculation to base building.
And that's what make this change interesting... Only Quarry, and after School... come on guys! Not crazy.

[Lewin]

As I said in the RC email, we would like to receive feedback through the forum. This means the feedback is recorded so we can refer to it later, and publicly accessible so anybody can comment on it at any time. I'm not saying that real time TeamSpeak discussions aren't a good way to discuss ideas, but we would prefer it if you have those discussions on TeamSpeak, then come and post the result and arguments for it here. Maybe you could arrange for one person to take notes during the discussion and post them on the forum?

Being upset that we don't stop by TeamSpeak for a chat is like one player being upset that we don't call him up on Skype to ask for his opinion on the game. We've said many times that the forums are our preferred way to receive feedback and have discussions, so I'm not sure why people are still surprised and indignant that we're not often on TeamSpeak. Someone said they feel left out because we don't come on TeamSpeak. How are you left out? We give you an equal opportunity to give us feedback as every other player, and we even told you how we'd prefer you to give us feedback.

Reading some of the messages here it seems that certain people feel like the KaM Remake devs owe them a great debt and should come chasing after them to get their valuable feedback. Well that's not how it works. You come to us when you have feedback.

During r4279 testing I never reveived any questions and was never asked to help with some particular issues. Not to mention that all of testers including me were active.

When we send out and RC and say something like "Post feedback on the forum", I assumed that implied the question "What do you think of the changes? Post your reply to this question on the forum". Should I write that in the email next time?

Tips when giving us feedback: Post it politely and constructively. Accusing us of ruining the game and trying to get our attention by saying stuff along the lines of "I'm going to play any more until you fix this" doesn't help at all in your arguments, and just makes us take you less seriously. Talking in an accusative tone, (as if we're trying to make the game bad or not going on TeamSpeak just to upset everyone) or talking indignantly also doesn't make us feel like taking your statements seriously.

Examples of good feedback I've seen include The Dark Lord and Leeuwgie. When I read their posts I am left feeling like "This person has well-thought-out arguments and posted their feedback constructively." I actually feel like I would actually like to take the time to have a 1 on 1 conversation with them (or in a group) to explore their ideas further (on the other hand the tone of the players who are demanding us to come on TeamSpeak don't make me feel like having a 1 on 1 conversation with them at all). If you post more constructively and less accusative/negative then we're far more interested in your feedback. Note that I mostly disagree with The Dark Lord and Leeuwgie's opinions on the building unlocks, but I still find their feedback constructive and I would like to learn more about their opinions.


Regarding the actual discussion of building unlocks:
- if the problem is that it makes maps too easy them maps can be modified to have less timber, stone, food, etc.
- if the problem is that players build too much before peacetime then you can play with 5 or 10 minutes less peacetime
- if the problem is that new players get confused and run out of wood/stone or forget to build an inn, that's a serious problem which needs to be considered

The goal of these changes is to make the early part of the game faster and less dull. We get a lot of complaints from people who say stuff like "I love KaM but it takes too long to play a game. I have to set aside 2 hours every time I want to play. Often I find myself just waiting for stuff to be built before I order the next thing." Allowing faster gamespeeds will help but the problem is that after you build the sawmill you need to pay more attention, it's only the part of the game before the sawmill which is slow and less interesting. And you can only speed up the game to a certain point, I find 2x is as fast as I'm comfortable with. Obviously we're not going to have an option for "gamespeed before sawmill" so people can play that part of the game at 10x speed and the rest at normal, so unlocking buildings a bit faster seemed like a good solution. It allows you to build more things at once early on and get the sawmill faster, thus cutting out an uninteresting time of the game where things progress slowly and you end up waiting around a lot.

When quitting from the replay viewer, the shown statistics are not for the human player. Maybe the last selected?

Thanks for the report I've added it to the bugs list.

[Pizzaisgood]

I have been repeating as parrot also... that 55 PT is an option to increase difficulty, or -5 timber/-5 stones, author's reupdate to keep the so defended "difficulty" of Golden Cliffs.

Well first changing the pt has nothing to do with the dificulty of building because it only affects the army after pt. And changing the resources isn´t that easy because it needs careful rebalancing of resources to have the original dificulty of the map again. So now every mapmaker should sit down and rebalance all his maps to fix the balancing? Problems like imbalanced location will also occur on maps like border rivers , because there you have the time until you built your sawmill to build roads towards the far away located resources (locs with low distances to resources also have to wait for their sawmill to be able to build mines). Now you haven´t the time to get there as early as other locs with closer resources and they will be able to build their mines way earlier because the other loc with far away located resources will still have to build the roads.

Why all mapmakers should be forced to just have this one buildorder at start ? Maybe consider that some mapmakers want to have the old buildorder in their map. Should you just ignore the wish of those mapmakers?

I want to ask this question again because i have the feeling that noone really answered directly to this question.

[Lewin]

I have been repeating as parrot also... that 55 PT is an option to increase difficulty, or -5 timber/-5 stones, author's reupdate to keep the so defended "difficulty" of Golden Cliffs.

Well first changing the pt has nothing to do with the dificulty of building because it only affects the army after pt. And changing the resources isn´t that easy because it needs careful rebalancing of resources to have the original dificulty of the map again. So now every mapmaker should sit down and rebalance all his maps to fix the balancing? Problems like imbalanced location will also occur on maps like border rivers , because there you have the time until you built your sawmill to build roads towards the far away located resources (locs with low distances to resources also have to wait for their sawmill to be able to build mines). Now you haven´t the time to get there as early as other locs with closer resources and they will be able to build their mines way earlier because the other loc with far away located resources will still have to build the roads.

Why all mapmakers should be forced to just have this one buildorder at start ? Maybe consider that some mapmakers want to have the old buildorder in their map. Should you just ignore the wish of those mapmakers?

I want to ask this question again because i have the feeling that noone really answered directly to this question.

The new building unlock order is intended to be a global change that affects the entire game, singleplayer and multiplayer. Allowing each map author to change it would be like allowing each map author to turn on/off the shield bonus defence in order to make their map balanced (or because they don't like the change). When we change the game, map authors might have to update their maps. That's just how it goes. It was the same with for changes to unit hunger, market costs, shields bonus, etc. and yet nobody says we should undo those changes. We're not going to remove new features from the game just because map authors might have to rebalance their maps a bit to compensate for the changes, that's a ridiculous suggestion. We keep the game up to date, map authors keep their maps up to date. What's wrong with that?

Map authors can still change the unlocking, for example To's maps still have the quarry and woodcutter unlocked at the start, other maps you have to build the school first (so To's maps still allow a faster game start than others because you can get the sawmill after just 1 building, rather than 2). So there's still room for customisation. You could even unlock the sawmill at the start to allow players to rush for gold/iron before getting woodcutters/stonemasons properly set up. Or unlock farms at the start to encourage people to use horses. Or unlock gold/iron/coal mines at the start. There's lot of possibilities for customising your map by unlocking certain buildings.

[Krom]

Why all mapmakers should be forced to just have this one buildorder at start ? Maybe consider that some mapmakers want to have the old buildorder in their map. Should you just ignore the wish of those mapmakers?

I want to ask this question again because i have the feeling that noone really answered directly to this question.

Because we do want to improve the game (speedup the slow start) but we don't want sacrifice it for 1% of the maps that relied on old build order.

I still haven't seen detailed description how new build order breaks the map difficulty? You can skip Inn and Quarry to save some wood to be able to build more early woodcutters that will bring you more wood? Or how?

[Jeronimo]

Explanation for Krom: Your "Inn resources", become 2 woodcutters in minute 7, then you get mini boom around 20-25 mins (when usually is at 30-35 mins in old build order). This extra timber are more vital houses sooner.. and for 60 PT it becomes more units, and surely 100% finished tower defenses.

The all in all point... as Pizza and other veterans think, is that the map became easier... for building and defending.
Still every complain sounds a bit exagerated IMO. Like the end of what?

As concern to Mapmakers in general... seriously they can adapt the initial raw materials, or Host can set less PT.
But the boring 5 first minutes of game from Old order, will dissapear. That is a fact, KaM evolves.

Serfs/Recruits with less condition remember? Everyone happy -> game more difficult.
Faster economy set up? Not so happy -> game building easier, but more competitive = difficult.

My last recommendation is to try semi old-new order with only unlock Quarry (not Woodcutter yet -> 1 more customizing available).
You know this might calm the nerves, and is just 2 mins Woodcutter delay. Hey, I can live with that

[Lewin]

This extra timber are more vital houses sooner.. and for 60 PT it becomes more units, and surely 100% finished tower defenses.

The all in all point... as Pizza and other veterans think, is that the map became easier... for building and defending.

Then play with less peacetime and it won't be a problem

[kamil]

Why i can't play 1 vs 1 (player vs computer) horseshoes map? (not only this) - I can't choose computer loc.

[Jeronimo]

This extra timber are more vital houses sooner.. and for 60 PT it becomes more units, and surely 100% finished tower defenses.

The all in all point... as Pizza and other veterans think, is that the map became easier... for building and defending.

Then play with less peacetime and it won't be a problem

Yes, I repeated that like 4 times...

But well, they dont understand, or dont want to... that the old old order is not longer acceptable for a competitive RTS.
I don't play the evil part here, I just see this a positive change for Game Design in general, beyond our humans mapmakers preferences.

Game Design.

Please consider my middle point solution at least -> semi "old-new order" (quarry).
And bring peace to developers and veterans both.

[Siegfried]

I recommend to take all his recommendations into consideration as he is one of the most inteligent and reasonable players around.

I guess, this kind of argumentation will never die out. But the devs don't rely on people, they rely on the persuasive power of the provided points (someone noticed the alliteration here? )
They have thought about your arguments as you see in their replies.

The testing of previous RC has finished and no one requested to summarize the work. May I know why?

Please understand that testing is one of the most frustrating jobs in software development. It looks so easy because you don't need deep insight into the development (which is not entirely true, but ok). But in the end we have to realize that - and I repeat myself here - we don't have any decisive power. They make the work, they get to make the decisions. If we want changes, we are urged to go to the forums and explain why we want this. And we have seen in very many cases that they actually do what we want. Just recently think about +1 shield, or builder rush etc.

And bring peace to developers and veterans both.

I have to disagree here. Most ideas become better when they are challenged in a hard way, so both sides have to go deeper into their arguments. So please don't stop fighting over ideas! But this is no excuse for not being polite. So stay nice!


But back to the topic:
I want to raise one question to Lewin and Krom:
from the last 'stable' build to RC you chose to implement 2 speedups at the same time: the overall speed control and the faster house unlocking. If the reason for the house unlocking was just to speedup early game, then this is covered by the overall speed control. I see the point with the dullness of the first minutes, but if this time is reduced to 50% it is more or less insignificant imho. Is there another argument for the unlocking?