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

The game is definitely slower now. What is your feelings about this new game speed?

I personally do not like it because it forces more downtime while my army is being rebuilt. In the end the battles are resolved the same way, it's just the regrouping phase that has been extended.

That covers army creation speed, as for actual game speed...well projectiles are not just a blur when in dragon form, which is an improvement, and you get more time to do the safety dance around warlock's storms. Most projectiles are homing so that extra split second to move your units away is barely noticeable.

I think the slower pace is caused by a few new bugs (I sure hope they are bugs). for me at least, I have to click and drag to select a construction site. I click on an individual unit or structure, it selects ALL of the same type of structure or unit that I have on the map. You used to be able to gain a boost in recruits, even if the pop is depleted each time you capture a construction site. Now the only source of recruits are recruiting citadels and the number of recruits you receive has been reduced.

I do prefer that they kept the recruit boosts from capturing sites, It encourages expansion and without that the only reason to expand would be for the recruiting citadel. The war forge and factory are useful for building an army quickly, but just one structure builds pretty fast. I find that (against A.I at least) I usually just capture the sites just to keep the enemy from getting the recruiting center within the area.

And one more thing, the only thing an a.i opponent had control of was a couple of recruiting citadels, the A.I usually would surrender at that time but this time they never surrendered so I had to take extra steps to officially win. I did feel like they surrendered too soon a couple times before, but with this new update they surrender WAY late.

Definitely a few new things to fix, hopefully they fix that really soon.

And another thing, I really hope they manage to get the A.I to use Their dragon as well. without it even the insane difficulty a.i is still really easy.

Personally I like the slower speed, I think it gives a more "even" experience and emphasizes starting units a bit more.
Also keep in mind that they mentioned that the faster old combat speed will stay an option in the menu.

You do have a point, but one thing to note is that in the campaign mode, getting 10 free recruits per construction site made starting out with more Hunters than your opponent powerful - much more so if you didn't have any. It's probably better to not have one unit be quite so influential to the economy.

To quote myself from the patch thread:

A great improvement so far, I've been able to micro my units and take advantage of dragon mode to far greater effect with the new pacing.

I've only had the chance to play a little bit, but I think the pace is much, much better. It is true that the start of a match is quite slow, as there are little funds to build units or structures, and free recruits for capturing construction sites are gone, but if the free construction site points were left in, it might have been unbalanced in favour of more Hunters entering the battle at the start.

Micro feels much more reasonable to do now, and I've even tried using some of the Dragon buff skills. I like the greatly reduced cooldowns, they make both the Dragon and units feel much more useful.

For me, it's definitely an improvement.

I think it is much easier than before for beginners to take in hand the game.

I am such a beginner, and before the new pace, It was too fast to understand what happened:
I didn't know what recruits to buy, the time to think and the ennemy was already attacking me with an army (easy AI). So it was just building a lot of every units and sending them into the battle without understanding anything. I think the new pace allow more reflexion and lower the needs of jerks.

So far I played several hours against hard AIs (who were also allies) in the previous and the new versions of the beta. I am still divided on the change.

Pros:
1) More time for decisions.
2) Dragon is finally useful.

Cons:
1) Less Micro/Macro. I was really engaged when I was defending several fronts against allied AIs... and it felt interesting and challenging.
2) There is now even less balance - Dragon vs Macro/Micro. It was one of the points of the game. You could not spend a lot of time as a dragon without hurting yourself in terms of macro. Now you can easily spend a lot of "free" time as a dragon, since you are waiting on units, especially at the start of the game. I suspect that a person with a lot of dragon skills can just destroy opponents at the start of RTS mode, but I have not played against people/ only AIs.
3) AIs flaws are more visible and I am not really surprised by its actions, since I see them a mile away.

I really can't say if I like the change or not.

I don't have that problem. A single left click selects 1 unit/building, while double clicking selects all of that type; with construction sites, a single or double click selects only that platform.

That seemed to be a glitch that happened the first time I booted the game up after getting the update, It stopped after I rebooted the game so THAT isn't a problem any more.

Now about the pace after playing a few matches I see the benefits a little better. so if they take the bonuses away or give them back I'm fine either way.

I'm with him. The current pace is fun because as many people say they are new or adapting to it, but on the long run it seems to hurt the game. I know you're still deciding who to cater to, so it's just a choice.

If you go for the hardcore...well, DC will never be the game at Dreamhack so it's not really your audience. You can hook most of them with easy(ish) and let them stay for modded-in balance patches, worked for other games.

I tend to dissagree with you on those points.
1) I think that thanks to the different pacing, micro'ing your units is now easier and makes me use many unit's abilities that I simply ignored before, due to battles relying majorly on quickly producing amny units and sending them to the front.
Having some breathing time also helps with planning and acting instead of spending most time reacting to the faster AI.

2) Before the patch you had to keep your dragon time short, or you would be set back too much due to not keeping up a constant stream of fresh units. I think that de-valued the dragon form too much.
Keep in mind that the dragon can not be used for the first couple of minutes. In that time you can already capture several build sites and build factories on them. You have less to do in the first minutes, but it's not only waiting.

3) The AI has to be improved, yes. OTOH, this was true before as well, so not much change there, maybe with the exception that you can now pay more attention to it.

i personally prefer the faster pace.
What i realy enjoyed about the game before is that essentialy an entire army could get destroyed and rebuilt and this process could happen around 5 times per game, shifting around the focus (what kind of units) of the game quite a bit.

I also thought that it fit better with the dragon gameplay.
Since the pace slowed down, the dragon is ALOT more powerfull since churning out units takes alot longer now.
It also means that you can react very slowly to a change of tactics.
If you have a huge ground army and your enemy starts popping out bombers as a result, switching to fighters takes quite a while.

All in all its also ALOT easier now, alot more predictable and alot less dynamic.
I realy realy liked the battlesystem before because of how much could happen in what little time.
Right now you are going into a very traditional RTS direction which i dont neccesarily like since the RTS part itself lacks the depth of games like starcraft and thus lived, at least in my opinion, on the dynamic tactics you could apply thanks to the high gamespeed and the quick reactions you could pull off.

Now its very sluggish and you dont have the same sense of moment to moment gameplay.


Imo: get the speed to where it was, it was better that way.

Although that doesn't really fit with the idea of the campaign map, now does it?
If you move around only a small fraction of the units you routinely deploy in RTS mode, it seems a bit strange.

And the dragon was simply too weak before, but a stronger factor now.

Of course, that's only my opinion.

But, didn't Larian mention somewhere that the old pace will stay an option in the menu?
If that's the case, both sides get what they want and everyone is happy!

well in general you always end up with loads and loads and units at the end of a battle, unless you realy have overwhelming numbers at your disposal.

So to me its just making a particular "problem" (its not realy a problem, its just weird) a little smaller.

To me the RTS part was made good through its pace because it encourages a very different playstyle to other RTS games and you also would not get locked down too quickly, always giving you the opportunity to come back up after you got defeated.

How much that is the vision for this game is of course debateable. But i like it.
And i think this is one of the biggest strenghts of this game.

The faster gameplay didn't allow for much micro management of the various unit abilities however. The mines were useless, and often spamming a unit type was far more effective than using their abilities. Now actually using Shaman/Warlock CC is a viable alternative to using a few more units, and taking time to keep units alive in a fight via micro makes a huge difference.

The dragon is also far more fun to use now. Before it was good to pop off one or two moves then switch back. That could have just been replaced by some spells honestly.

I find the new pacing leaps and bounds better than it was. I've been playing the skirmish maps and campaign all day and can't get enough since the rebalance.

Also the faster pace before wassn't different from other RTS games It was just reminiscent of older ones like red alert or TA or even supreme commander. But none of those games focused on unit abilities or upgrades, which is the real sticking point for me here. If there were no active abilities the faster gameplay would be great, but the abilities beg for a more thought out and tactical pace.

I think we are bound to get division on micro issue. On one side there are players who prefer slower game, because it allows them to micro. On the other side there are players who prefer fast paced, where the micro was more challenging and hence rewarding.

If I remember correctly, RA/TA/SC relied on resource management and base building. It is not the case here.

In fast paced there was more style. Each player had to find their own balance between macro/micro/dragon. Now anyone will macro, micro and use their dragon. You won't be hurt on one, because you spent to much time on the other. Less choice now, even if it sounds illogical. That said the ability to access all 3, even for a new player, is easier (less challenging) and gives more fun overall.

I've always preferred micro to macro. I can get an okay economy going in Starcraft 2, but not to the level where I could graduate from the lowest ranking in multiplayer.

This game has a lot of upgrades, a good part of the strategic decision making is what upgrades to get first. The previous fast-pace meant that the active ability upgrades were much less important and harder to use, and if the upgrades aren't worth the trouble of using, having them in the game feels like a waste.

The slower pace makes the S in RTS stand for Strategy, instead of Spam.

Wow, I haven't played it with the new pacing (I didn't know that they had done this), but I was just giving my first impressions and stated that I wanted things slowed down.

I'm gonna go fire it up! Excited to see the differences!

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.