Massive Assault
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Your thoughts on Fog of War?
http://www.massiveassault.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=494		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  Maestro [ Mon Feb 16, 2004 5:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Your thoughts on Fog of War?
This game is very reminescent of an old favorite of mine that I still have on my hard drive: Empire Deluxe.

One of the things that was implemented there but not in MA is the "Fog of War" where you cannot see anything outside of your strike zone so to speak.

What are your thoughts on the possibility of implementing it as a possible optional feature in the future? I do not know how the AI was developed, so that would definately have to be a major factor in the possibility of including it later. Nobody would want the the AI to react to movement that is technically beyond its vision.
Author:  Magistr Honna [ Tue Feb 17, 2004 7:09 am ]
Post subject: 
MA is about thinking and estimating,not guessing and expecting.Fog of war is not suited for it`s concept.
Author:  Rogs [ Tue Feb 17, 2004 7:10 am ]
Post subject: 
I think fog of war would make it a totally diffrent game, so adding fog of war as a option sounds good but I still want to have it as it is.
Author:  Mrakobes [ Tue Feb 17, 2004 8:17 am ]
Post subject: 
this idea already was being discussed here
http://massiveassault.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=277
without meaningful result - since there is no way to implement fog of war in current MA
as i said - you can imagine that in sci-fi environment there ere enough spy-sattelites in orbit and they watch everything what moves on planet.
Author:  licker [ Wed Feb 18, 2004 11:40 am ]
Post subject: 
FoG would be interesting, but I'm not sure how it would be implemented, especailly for the SP game and any additional requirements for the AI (which has enough trouble as it is...) Not to turn this into an MP vs. SP thread ;)

Here's an idea though, perhaps in an expansion/MA2 there should be some new units, and some new capabilities for those units. One new unit (or capability) could be 'Active Jamming' (prolly a better name, but...) which would create a localized FoG for a 1-3 hex diameter around the unit. You could then counter with 'Scout' or 'Seeker' capabilities to counter that effect. These capabilities wouldn't even have to be in the form of new units, they could be additions to existing units, so that you could build a Missile Launcher with AJ, or an Ambhibian with Scouting...

All in all MA is an excellent game, and it does what it sets out to do very well, none the less, there is nothing wrong with thinking or wanting more content and more choices, so long as those choices don't take MA too far astray from its original framework.
Author:  licker [ Thu Feb 19, 2004 12:21 pm ]
Post subject: 
A small clarification to my past post...

The localized FoG effect need not truely be FoG, as in the units could still be visable, just untargetable unless the attacking unit is adjacent, or the 'scout' effect (now its better to call the effects ECM and ECCM) overlaps the appropriate units. This would allow for screening from missile launchers, bombers, bots and morters (and the navel units as well). It wouldn't create any problems with the 'rewind' issue either, if you rewind your scout all the affected fire would be rewound as well...

Other ideas for support type units would be a shield unit that decreases damage to adjacent units (even enemy?) by one, however the minimum damage would always be one. An inhibitor unit which would locally decrease movement by one in an affected area (for units from both sides).

From the look of things I'm thinking in a more defensive way, oh well, so be it :)
Author:  Icarus [ Thu Feb 19, 2004 11:24 pm ]
Post subject: 
FYI, you can just hit 'edit post' in the future instead of making another one.
Author:  Mrakobes [ Fri Feb 20, 2004 6:59 am ]
Post subject: 
2 Licker - i dont think those units you offer will ever be implemented...they will make combat planning much more difficult and disbalance the game...
Author:  licker [ Mon Feb 23, 2004 11:24 am ]
Post subject: 
Heh, well I know I could have edited, but hey, its not like this forum gets that much traffic anyway... ;)

As to unbalancing the game... well you have more insight into that than I do, however, I don't see it as an imbalance, I see it as a shift to more defensive oriented games. That's not neccessarilly a good thing, but I suppose that depends on your PoV.

I'm sure there are offensive counters that could be implemented as well. Something that does double damage against 'specialty' units for example could make short work of these types of strategies. Anyway, just pulling things off the top of my head, for as much as I enjoy MA I can't resist thinking of ways to make it 'better' (subjectively obviously ;) )
Author:  Icarus [ Mon Feb 23, 2004 12:01 pm ]
Post subject: 
A shift to more defensive-oriented games would only mean that games are longer.

And considering that games can already, on the smallest maps, take anywhere from 1 to 2 hours (always one hour at the least), Fow is not good. I've heard the big big maps can take up to 8 hours, but Im not sure if thats just exaggeration on the reviewers' parts.

For most people thats a big chunk of time :/

Other RTS games (StarCraft, C&C, WarCraft 3) usually have games that last from 10 minutes to an hour and a half (and only then between the most skilled people, or two crappy people :P)

So, I view anything that makes a long game longer as a bad thing.
Author:  Icarus [ Mon Feb 23, 2004 12:02 pm ]
Post subject: 
A shift to more defensive-oriented games would only mean that games are longer.

And considering that games can already, on the smallest maps, take anywhere from 1 to 2 hours (always one hour at the least), Fow is not good. I've heard the big big maps can take up to 8 hours, but Im not sure if thats just exaggeration on the reviewers' parts.

For most people thats a big chunk of time :/

Other RTS games (StarCraft, C&C, WarCraft 3) usually have games that last from 10 minutes to an hour and a half (and only then between the most skilled people, or two crappy people :P)

So, I view anything that makes a long game longer as a bad thing.
Author:  licker [ Mon Feb 23, 2004 12:49 pm ]
Post subject: 
I truely understand where you are coming from Icarus, however, I would think that it is possible to add more variety to the game (even if it has a defenseive orientation) without neccessarilly making the game longer. These units would certainly not be cheap, as a result using them would mean that the player would be getting fewer offensive units in that theater, thus allowing for his opponent to adjust his strategy. The more resources you spend on defense, the more you allow your opponent to spend on offense as he no longer has to face the same level of threat. What I'm envisioning are specialty units that are fairly expensive so that they don't just show up everywhere, yet that can provide a specific boost to a limited area when needed. There is and should always be a risk/reward value to asses for the use of any unit (or group of units), I'd just like to see more inputs into that calculation, thats all :)
Author:  Mrakobes [ Mon Feb 23, 2004 1:00 pm ]
Post subject: 
2 Icarus - 8 hours for large map is an exaggeration.In hotseat mode i had longest game on NewParadize lasting slightly more that 4 hours.In online mode it's probably abit longer but the time can be distributed during the whole week or more...
Author:  Icarus [ Mon Feb 23, 2004 3:20 pm ]
Post subject: 
Right, I understand that games can be saved and continued at a later time, right? Thats a crucial feature to this game, if you ask me.

But still, 4 hours for one game is still a lot.

Oh, and about a couple of the suggestions you made before:

The shield unit would most likely get used all the time if it were that powerful. Thus, LAVs would become the powerhouse unit in conjunction with the shield, because you'd be better off taking 2 LAVs over a mortar or a tank.
Normally 1 tank = 2 LAVs in terms of damage, but that wouldn't be the case.

The other side effect would be that everyone would use a lot more missile launchers to counter Shields... and then missile launchers to counter the missile launchers that counter the shields... see where Im going with this?
It would render useless many of the units in the game, and we'd have a missile-fest, especially if missile launchers couldnt kill missile launchers in one hit because of shields.

The localized FoW sounds like an interesting idea. Reminds me of the mobile Gap generators in Red Alert 1.

But that raises some questions that need answering: How does one counter that?
How far can a normal unit see? Does it change because of terrain? Can some units see farther than others?
Depending on that, the only counter would be to throw Transports at them so you could see what the hell they even have there in a single turn.
This creates a lot of variability that will just plain frustrate most people... a 3 square FoW could hold so much... 3 missile launchers and 5 tanks, and they'd never even know.
It would require a transport in massive force to counter it.


When it comes to FoW, I think this is one of the big areas Massive Assault has in common with Chess:
You can see everything and plan accordingly.
And chess doesn't need any FoW generators to be a good game :p
Author:  utka [ Mon Feb 23, 2004 6:42 pm ]
Post subject: 
I'd agree with an earlier post that says that in the 23rd century, spy satellites and detection technology would be so good, fog of war just wouldn't make sense.

Making it available through an on/off switch is an interesting idea, but it would make it harder to find people to play against. Like most online games, you'd end up with those who love Fog and those who hate it, and you'd spend a considerable amount of time trying to match up with someone.

Also, FoW tends to put players on the defensive. I've been in other non-MA games where players absolutely refused to move away from their bases because they couldn't see where the enemy was, so there players were forced to play the aggressor to rout the other guy to action.

I see in the thread people are also talking about new units. This is something I go back and forth on. I loved Total Annihilation, which had dozens and dozens of unit types. But what you found was each player just played the same specific types of units once they found a winning combo, and the game got stale online after a bit of time. You'd have the air forces vs the ground pounders and it would come down to who could save up for the uber-unit of their unit types. I know, I did it...once I had the mobile nuke launcher, nobody's borders were safe, but I had to do it since it was my only hope of survival!
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