Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - Beta New game pace: how are you feeling it?

I like the slower pace but I wish the inbattle research had not been taken out. It added a layer of strategy and tactics to choosing where and how to use research points. You could adapt on the fly to an enemy, or surprise them with a new ability mid battle.

Perhaps a middle ground could be reached, inbattle research available, but not as powerful as research from the campaign map. Also, costs (both in time and recruits) could be larger.

Really enjoying the game so far, glad I bought in, can't wait for the single player campaign.

It's a heck of a lot more fun at this pace, I still can't use any of the unit micro but I have time to spend in dragon form and I feel as though using abilities isn't outside the realms of possibility. Since upgrades have been moved to map research using non active units with non active abilities feels much more viable as a tactic.

I'd still like the dragon to be more resilient and effective but this model feels a lot better.

I'm actually very glad they took research out of the rts mode, it felt at odds with the campaign. Obviously it very much belongs in regular skirmish modes, but it undermined research you earned during the campaign map sections.

Yes, I agree that it seems logical to remove it from campaign mode.
1) I now have to think more about researching updates vs units on the campaign map (at least early on)
2) It's strange to be able to research all those updates in RTS, only to have them vanish at the end of the battle.

Skirmish of course is different.

I think it's better, but still not perfect.

Good points :
- begin with 20 recruits (not having to wait to build the fist structure)
- Dragon more resistant
- feels more like a strategic game
- Zeppelin works fine
- Hunters are better (they die quickly).

Equilibrium problems :
- the jeep has well been made squichy, but I don't see the drawback of tanks now... To kill it, you have to use artillery or balloon ... (Warlock is pretty ineffective)... So, it takes time to build, but artillery too... And it takes more damage, is less weak and destroy large amount of infantry.

I have reflected a bit on the difficulty before vs after the patch, and I think what is lacking so far is the AI effectively using abilities.

E.g. the priests have the ability to paralyze enemy units for a while, which is very effective against tightly clustered groups, yet the AI does not seem to use it.
Having the AI use debuffs and AoE effects against you more often should make the battles more dynamic, difficult and interesting than the faster pace we had earlier.

I think that unit hit points need to be increased, as to allow for longer battles and more opportunity to use newly researched abilities, etc. As the OP stated, the new speed right now just allows for longer down time...

Has that changed? What AI difficulty are you using?

They used to use their abilities quite effectively before the patch, I remember being surprised the first time I tried the Default AI, as my units were paralyzed, turned into beetles and charmed.

In the most recent match against the AI, I saw the AI Teleporting fresh Hunters in to join the already massive fleet crushing my base.

I'm using medium AI at the moment, but all I've seen (or noticed) is the protection spell of the priests, so far.
Maybe it's time to change the difficulty...

After playing a few matches (most of which crashed), I have more thoughts.

It is true that the start of a match feels really, really slow, especially if you start with only slow units. It does feel like it takes ages to get an economy set up as you slowly build Recruitment Centers and dole out your few resources flowing in cautiously. I might not have figured out the ideal balance between when to hoard money to build Recruitment Centers and when to start building another production facility yet (to get Hunters so I can capture more things).

But once you have an economy and funds, the pace is unquestioningly better, you have time to plan a strategy and method for attack, and micro feels more useful and more feasible.

The Dragon is also much better. I think I'm starting to get the hang of dodging rockets.

I think I just had some of the most epic battles I would get from a Default AI skirmish. In the campaign map itself, there were only two "blocs" left - me (Red) and the Yellow Warlords. Managed to naval take their capital with a ton of forces... the very next turn, the Yellow AI proceeded to fill in every inch of its former capital with all its units.

And I mean all of its units. 9 fighters, 14 Hunters, 7 Armors, 6 artilleries, 1 grenadier, 6 bomber balloons, 3 Shamans, 2 Zeps and 1 Juggernaut plus 9 unnecessary transports

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/631911119459754873/B730612B6FE52BA94C9C79D2B954D5929C48AB42/

With this amount of forces, the AI made no to time in wasting to rush me as soon as skirmish started. Quite a lot? My laptop was screeching to a halt from all those units on the map

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/631911119459757583/6190DBB3515BFB6D814E57403ACB24A42D107788/

alas I couldn't get a decent snapshot of the major battle that followed, but here's another "out of the battlezone" bug - 2 crucial zeppelins of mine that could have turned the tide on the battlefield had they actually been able to move there

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/631911119459759526/7859CD3E245AF7AE4F56F1BE6B566BBA155C02C7/

As it stands, all my ground units except some artilleries got wiped out in the Gotterdammerung, and even then the artilleries got whittled down by Yellow's reinforcements until only 1 was left

The only thing that saved this game from being a total loss was the fact that I was the only power left with 15+ balloons and fighters, constantly bombing every concentration of Yellow units, factories and defenses they tried to build. It was the closest thing I would ever get to that Woofles' hypothetical stalemate game

It was pretty bad enough that I was forced to zip around the map in Dragon Mode to kill off Yellow AirMechs and tanks trying to capture new points while they constantly rebuild stuff on the ones they already owned

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/631911119459762263/24A6E6F774B2601B96DCFB49D619ED722DA7EE85/


Eventually had a pretty good roll going even though for some reason I couldn't get enough support to build new units or nukes whatsoever... then comp gave up with a Memory Management BSOD. Cheeky computer rascals.

Best post of the week.

I've definitely had some major battles like that, but I usually let the Imperial army roll the dice on them, because at the moment, I think having only player dragons makes v AI very 1 sided. I play vs insane and I still win on a 20% chance if I intervene in RTS. Maybe I'm just that good, but I doubt that.

I had a chance to play against people for once (well, not for long because all the matches desynched), and adding enemy Dragons into the mix definitely changes things up a lot. The slower pace - even with the 110 build times for Battle Forge units allows for the Dragon to be deployed too early, letting the Dragon user steamroll a player before they have the chance to do much at all. The Dragon can disrupt the critical early-game economy quite dramatically.

The change of getting 4 Recruits per RC "payday", and the initial starting amount of 10 recruits in Skirmish mode is an unfortunate combination, because it means that a player has to wait for 2 complete "paydays" before they can do anything at all. A Battle Forge costs 15, and after 1 (which seems to take a while), they only have 14, so they have to wait another really long seeming time just to get started.

I'm sure people will object, but the Dragon spawn cooldown doesn't seem slow enough in the Skirmish mode. It's better in the Campaign because you already start with units.

Also in Skirmish, you should start with 11 Recruits, not 10, to cut back on the needlessly long initial waiting around period.

the new pacing is far better, allows for far greater micro management if you want it, and you aren't having to panic right from the start.

loving the new patch and update

Yeah, I was waiting to post, but, the new pace is far better :

- I've got the sounds
- The game is improved, you don't wait too much, you enjoy the show...


Still, their is the bug I reported on making an infantry move, the first order works fine, but on the second order, it's legs doesn't move...

Keep doing like that, it's shape takes the right form.

My 2 cents on the amount of starting recruits since that has been mentioned here and there.

I like starting with less recruits than it costs to make the first structure. This enables a player to take a few seconds to get their bearings, click on the build site, and get ready to click the build forge button so everyone start's at the same pace. This also enables slightly slower computers to shake off their early lag from loading a level. I hate RTSs that force players into a mad dash in the early game clicks to get production up and running. Even SC2 figured this out and now enables auto rally for the opening production rush so the computer controls it so everyone is on equal opening playing ground.

Note that it takes a whopping 10 seconds to start into construction to generate the 5 recruits needed. A minimal modicum of patience is advisable. It doesn't slow it down enough to hurt anything, and it give a bit of breathing room.

Hmmm... in a LAN skirmish, it doesn't feel like it takes too long, but in the multiplayer it did. Maybe because of lag? Or maybe the host set the gamespeed to slow instead of normal.