It doesnt matter which system is easier to understand from a blank-slate point of view.

SCom2's economy is easier to understand because it's more similar to other RTS games.

(whereas SCFA's economy is elegant and perfectly easy to understand for anyone who has played TA. But sadly not everyone has played TA.)

If one was so inclined you could ignore the repeat build button and play SCom2 like Starcraft or whatever. (queue up units constantly as your money comes in).

You obviously don't work in software design. If the system is overly complex you will have a low adoption rate. This is already well known about supreme commander, so it's not even a point of contention.



Apples and oranges. Don't be silly.



In your opinion.

I disagree as far as what is being argued here. I do agree that it is worse only because it has reduced strategic elements of the game, such as being able to kill someones power to remove their shields etc.



There is nothing wrong with a game being complex, there is something wrong with a game being unnecessarily complex when it doesn't add to the game. Supcom1 economy was unnecessarily complex, unfortunately they probably went over the top in simplifying it with supcom2.

There is nothing wrong with a streaming economy or a non-streaming economy, or both - neither are better than the other and neither is inherently more complex than the other, it all comes down to how it is implemented.

At the end of the day, in my opinion (this thread is only about opinions, don't think otherwise):
- Supcom1 economy was better because it added strategic elements
- Supcom2 economy is better because it removes unnecessary complexity

So, Supcom 3 just needs to find the middle ground

It matters to sales though, and sales are important so the developers can eat, and so that you can see more games you enjoy from the developers.

Pkc, nothing you say here is fact. All opinion, and therefore no more or less valid than ayone elses. You think it's worse, I think it's better. I can enjoy both FA and Supcom 2 because they are different from one another. And believe it or not the "dim witted lazy fools" are the ones who buy games. The hardcore crowd doesn't contribute all that much to sales in games that lack a subscription model.

you know, i did.
looked up gpgnet.
it has only 60k total users logged in,
http://gpgnet.gaspowered.com/scStats/Le ... tegory=1v1
this represents people who played online at least once i think.
tagged few players, i got "This player does not currently have any ranked games logged with GPGnet.", so no all the players listed there play ranked.

do not know how you found out there are 40k ranked, whatever, this is still irrelevant.
steam stats say about 30% players ever play MP in SupCom2.
i don't have that number for SupCom1, so i could only assume it is close to that.
for that number to be lower, it has to have far more interesting campaign which is not the case. or more dull MP, which is you won't agree on.
anyway, estimations say SupCom1 combined with SC:FA has 200k copies sold in 3 years.
Supcom2 already sold over 200k copies in 3 months.

so i would still need to see actual sales statistics, if you still believe i'm wrong

you're missing the point. im not talking from a business perspective or popularity perspective. im talking about a gameplay perspective. obviously things that require a little more from the user will have an impact on understanding/acceptance/popularity.

my point was that just because something had a higher adoption rate, is not sufficient evidence it is better. not to mention the fact that nobody yet has established a higher adoption rate at all.



its not really, just a matter of degrees. your argument, least in the bit i quoted, boils down to 'it is simpler, therefore better, and/or more people like it therefore its better". but those things (simpler, more popular) by themselves don't really mean anything.



i would say a vast majority of anyone who has ever posted on the topic here. im fine with the argument that forums are not necessarily representative. but even CT's inner nerd a little.



well, i am just talking specifically about deficit spending. i am not making an entire commentary on the changes in the eco generally. there was obvious unnecessary complexity in vanilla, and some, though much less, in FA. but i disagree that deficit spending was either too complex, or unnecessary. and i definitely understand the business decisions that face devs today and i dont blame them for making the decisions they do.



for sure. i think that argument boils down to whether you think a game of supcom's scale is better suited by pay up front or not.



it would be nice.

1. i know there were 40,000 people who played at least 1 game because i checked the ladder out at the time. i understand the figures are not perfectly analogues, but until you get exact numbers from a reputable source (which you'll never get) then its as good a yardstick as any.

2. vanilla sold 1 million copies (this figure may or may not include FA, the comment from CT is ambiguous).

edit: oh and 3. i certainly hope supcom 2 has sold more than 200K since release.

allright, found these figures, then that link is actually saying 60k ranked, with few players bugged.
but SupCom2 still has 3 years in front of it.

I know this topic is old, but I haven't ranted about it since before I played so hopefully this will be my last.

Overall I "don't mind" the new economy, but there are two things that bug me about it.

The old system just "felt" better. It was easier to balance your income and expenses when you had the numbers right there. +8, -6, and building reserves so that I can assist build that mex once the engineers arrive. Now when my economy crashes, it's just a different type of headache where I'm constantly unpausing factories and "waiting to see" how the new build order will work out.

The other thing is how in SC1, you had obscenely expensive units and structures with obscene build times. There was a natural progression where at the start of the game they were difficult to build, took a lot of commitment to get up and running, but once you did they had a presence on the battlefield equivalent to your investment in them.
Once you get your economy and infrastructure up, they're easier/faster/"cheaper" to build, but since the battle has escalated they play a lesser role. A single spiderbot 10 minutes into the game is a much bigger threat than 5 of them just mixed into your army 40 minutes later.

While rushing major units has this type of effect in any rts, I really - really liked how it was magnified in SC1. It gave the battles this awesome sense of escalation, and since there's such a large discrepancy between a quick 15 minute skirmish and a 50 minute epic stalemate, it made each battle feel very different.
In SC2 (as with most rts'es) I feel the battle "peaks" at a certain point every match, which I think gets bit stale and routine-like after a while.

I guess one way to put it is that battles in SC1 could potentially escalate for an hour or more before the 'peak' (massing the top experimentals, virtually unlimited income, that type of stuff), and I'm completely fine with how you virtually never reach that point in a normal game, since that's what made each game different.

yeah, now if players want to balance out their economies, they need to memorise the resource rates for each unit. I know I can do the mental arithmetic easily, but I was also someone who could do the arithmetic on whether or not I was going to stall my economy in FA.


DING! DING! DING!

we have ourselves a winner. well, almost. Fuzzle here is certainly what I think is the right track. FA's economy problems stemmed from the higher tier units. we all know that T2 units, in general, WTFPWNT T1 units... and that T3 units did likewise to T2. now, to make some semblance of balance, the later units were made very expensive (how many MM's can you buy for a single Percy?) and then late-game economy was buffed so that people could actually construct late stage units in respectable numbers... so of course late-game economy was made expensive enough to no be overpowered.

Sup2 fixed this problem: fixed by nerfing unit costs and performance. unfortunately, they also saw fit to mess with the economy system too.

i think it was boring, you play and you play, and you play, no strategy really works, nothing you do really matters, you amass and amass till someone outnumbers the other side. rarely something like TML could really give significant advantage.
the only thing that really could was "faster to next tier" or outnumber.

and now the game is so fast paced, and what you do has so much weight, if you waste some mass or RPs to build up for wrong strat - you're dead.

of course if you like long and "forgiving" games - supcom2 is not for you

:edit: don't get me wrong, original SupCom is a good game, it just pales in comparison.

This is a bit of a separate issue. There is no reason why they couldn't have an extra button or 3 state repeat button, the third state being to auto-unpause when resources are available.

You press repeat once, it will repeat and pause when resources run out. You press repeat twice (and the icon changes), it will pause when resources run out, but resume when resources become available.

for the people that doesnt give a **** for balance. We went through a 31 pages thread about Cybran land because of starfox being stubborn. I recommend you to either agree with starfox or just ignore him in the good way

1024 x 1024 is the playable map area. The entire map is actually about 5500 x 5500 (mostly water).

After a quick check (busy doing E3 stuff) Seton's and Corvana are the same size.

Use lube next time. And go look up the definition for opinoin . From my side, it was others being stubborn, so touche`. I've haven't seen such an e-tantrum since WoW forums, but I expect that from 14 year olds.

Sorian, as a player, not as a GPG employee, what is your opinion on the new economic model?

I am INSULTED!!!!!!! I am so offended that you wouldn't believe

Do you honestly think he's going to give you a straight answer to this question

Hey, no-one has tried asking him straight out before.

Honestly, as a player, I like it for the most part. the only things I would like to see changed is:

1) Have the cost of units removed when they start construction.
2) The ability to queue engineer build orders.

This would add some complexity, but I don't think it would be overly so.

I have a nice long list of things I would love to see in SupCom 2 (or an expansion). I am slowly pulling those ideas out an giving them to the design team for KnC.



Why wouldn't I?

You're the man sorian!

CUE RUMORS...

If it were biologically possible, I would bear your children, Sorian.


You. Are. The. Man!