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 Post subject: first move advantage is bad design
PostPosted: Sat Jul 10, 2004 5:47 pm 
sorry it just is.
don't use the chess comparison. playing white there is a TINY advantage that only two evenly matched grand masters care about.

In massive assault the first deploy/attack advantage of reds on the demo world is huge! Only very mis-matched abilities can over-come it. As a result playing the AI is kind of pointless.. the time one must invest to improve over the AI to the point where you can consistently overcome the red advantage is just NOT FUN.

yet getting to know the game before getting creamed by a human player is very important psychologically. Lastly, even when playing humans, half the results on close quartered maps will be fairly meaningless unless you care and understand margin of victory. What a waste of time!

I'm sure that many new recruits to M.A are turned off by this, and don't even realize why. They play the AI on easy and lose.. wondering why they are always on the back foot. If you get past that, and read the topics, and play as the other side, you crush the AI, and also learn little. If you notice the inbuilt bias you become, like me, bitter and twisted and just don't want to touch the game again.

Sorry I just find this mistake to be huge in a 100% non-random strategy game. If there was SUPPOSED to be a red advantage, the game should proclaim it loud and clear up front and not hide the fact. If it was an unhappy accident I have to wonder about the IQ of the designers.

Last whine: the voice prompts are just awful. The accent is not even james bond movie cute, it is pathetic and grating after just a few hours. How much can it cost to re-record the prompts cleanly?


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PostPosted: Sat Jul 10, 2004 6:12 pm 
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Sea Wolf
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If they're so terrible, just turn them off. It doesn't take a genius to see that there's an audio settings menu that just might have a way to change it.

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PostPosted: Sat Jul 10, 2004 6:21 pm 
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Sea Wolf
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Part of the problem is that she was trying NOT to speak with an accent, if I remember correctly. I saw that info in an old post somewhere. Just turn the voice off in the menu. Too easy.

Back on topic, somebody has to go first, so they picked one. PL(red) is aggresive at the start, and FNU(green) must play defense. It's really only an issue on the small maps, and even then only if there's a huge level of difference in skill between players. If the guy playing PL is better, he'll smash the opponent quickly. You learn to deal with it. Part of the strategy when playing FNU is how to overcome the odds, especially if you have non-adjacent secret allies. If the FNU player is better, then he knows how to deploy to cancel the PL advantage. Emerald is a horrible map in my opinion. Only good for the Mentors to beat a few skills into the rookies, other than that, it's too small and confined to use any strategy. It's all about bashing the opponent's skull in as fast as you can, rather than using some transport magic to hit him from every direction at once. God, I'm starting to ramble on and on. Look, if you don't like the game, just leave, you won't be missed. If you are looking to learn how to play a most excellent game, then hook up with the Mentors or look for me in the chat. I won't play, since I do not play Emerald anymore, but I can discuss tactics or we can chat about the various abilities of the units.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Jul 11, 2004 3:36 am 
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P.L. Marshal
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LOL...what? again?this question was discussed throughly in like a dozen threads on this forum...
it was there
http://massiveassault.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=265
and there
http://massiveassault.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=417
and there
http://massiveassault.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=523
and there
http://massiveassault.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=359
and there
http://massiveassault.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1304

and also in other places which i dont remember
why all those n00bs always post new threads instead of just reading the old ones about same stuff?if they just lazy to read forum so why we should not be lazy to type in same old explanations?

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Jul 11, 2004 7:57 am 
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Sea Wolf
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While I agree that on a small map the PL advantage is fairly large, there are plenty of discussions on it, and you might want to suggest alternatives.

However, the AI hardly takes advantage of going first. It plays with a very slow setup of LAVs and Mortars, not at all suited to a first move advantage. I've posted a topic in the Tips & Tricks forum called "HOWTO: Beat the AI" which includes replays of me beating the AI on every map, with both sides, first time, every time. I've also got a thread in the Replays forum which records my online games. My first every game was against mrakobes, a fairly good player, on Emerald as the FNU. I overcame that to put myself in the winning position. Yep, you're at a disadvantage, but it's rare that you die on turn one.

However, I would like to see a better system.

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