37 replies to this topic

[pedrofirzen]

It's been a while since I played a good old RTS since nowadays Strategy games have been pretty much dominated by FPS in the PC market, and my curiosity has sparked a lot for this game.

My question is, what type of buildings can the commander build? It's been showed a little how the commander is going to give commands, control the army units in the game and support champions with their special abilities. What about the buildings? I know that commanders will be able to build towers, will they be able to build walls and gates to avoid the rushing of the enemy or the towers will be strong enough to defend against the enemy army? What about repairs on buildings and all that RTS goodies that we normally see in RTS's?

Edited by pedrofirzen, 30 April 2012 - 05:55 PM.

[Jeru_Sorrin]

Really we don't know much more than what you've already pointed out. However I think that will resemble quite a bit like RTS in the aspects that you talk about. Also I don't think walls are a great idea in stratedgy terms. Why? Because there are heroes and heroes usually have a ton of damage doing abilities and can take down inert walls easily. It would be better if the commander built more towers then to wall off a area.

Also welcome to the forums good sir

Edited by Jeru_Sorrin, 30 April 2012 - 07:42 PM.

[MonsterMetroid]

I cant imagine there being walls or gates in this game unless the towers are really underpowered simply because can you imagine having to take out a wall that in tower range before you can take down a tower? 0_0

[BlackenedScar]

the only thing im worried about is leavers. they wont be able to abuse walls much even if they have them turtling a whole game. they wont win im sure you need to expand at some point. and im sure theres unit that specialize in taking out walls like every other game. but it could be more like Star Craft thou without walls.  but then building need to be able to take a beating. but not to much lol.

[pedrofirzen]

Jeru_Sorrin, on 30 April 2012 - 07:41 PM, said:

Really we don't know much more than what you've already pointed out. However I think that will resemble quite a bit like RTS in the aspects that you talk about. Also I don't think walls are a great idea in stratedgy terms. Why? Because there are heroes and heroes usually have a ton of damage doing abilities and can take down inert walls easily. It would be better if the commander built more towers then to wall off a area.

Also welcome to the forums good sir

Thank you for the friendly welcome

But wouldn't towers become too weak in mid and end game? I supose that having champions and units will make most defensive buildings useless, but what I see in most MOBA games is that theres a point in the game that towers don't do anything because heroes become too powerful. I really hope that there's something in Sins that it will avoid that, maybe tower upgrades, my worry is that people will just avoid the towers, making them entirely useless, unless the commander put's them in a really good spot.

[pedrofirzen]

MonsterMetroid, on 30 April 2012 - 07:58 PM, said:

I cant imagine there being walls or gates in this game unless the towers are really underpowered simply because can you imagine having to take out a wall that in tower range before you can take down a tower? 0_0

Yes it is common in RTS's to have to take down the wall before the towers. And since heroes become stronger doing that would be no trouble at all and it seems catapults will be available so it's just a matter of using them or not in terms of balance. Well at the end of it, it will depend how the towers will be in the game, if they aren't upgradable then they will become useless really quickly through the game.

Edited by pedrofirzen, 01 May 2012 - 02:28 AM.

[pedrofirzen]

BlackenedScar, on 30 April 2012 - 10:55 PM, said:

the only thing im worried about is leavers. they wont be able to abuse walls much even if they have them turtling a whole game. they wont win im sure you need to expand at some point. and im sure theres unit that specialize in taking out walls like every other game. but it could be more like Star Craft thou without walls.  but then building need to be able to take a beating. but not to much lol.

Well if they are going to do like Starcraft, then the defensive buildings will have to be pretty strong, sure there are counters and using certain units can destroy them easily, but using the right combination breaking through defenses will be tough, and that's were heroes come in.

Edited by pedrofirzen, 01 May 2012 - 02:25 AM.

[murdeoc]

i dont know about defensive structures like that, but i do remember in one of the video's the commander said something about not being able to build archers because he hadnt build an archery yet (he continued on by simply cheating some archers into the game anyway). so that will at least be a kind of building that needs to be build and i would assume this means you also need a barracks for ground troops and another structure for cavalry and perhaps another for catapults.
also i saw him build a kind of tower attached to his main castle, what this was (the archery?) and if that is the only way to build structures i dont know.

[Jeru_Sorrin]

pedrofirzen, on 01 May 2012 - 02:14 AM, said:

Thank you for the friendly welcome

But wouldn't towers become too weak in mid and end game? I supose that having champions and units will make most defensive buildings useless, but what I see in most MOBA games is that theres a point in the game that towers don't do anything because heroes become too powerful. I really hope that there's something in Sins that it will avoid that, maybe tower upgrades, my worry is that people will just avoid the towers, making them entirely useless, unless the commander put's them in a really good spot.

Too true on the tower bit. Eventually the tower will become less useful to useless however I think that's actually good because it already acheived its two purposes. The purposes were to make a "safer" area for your units and to make the enemy hesitate in early, mid, and even late game to evaluate the situation and decide to attack or wait for more units.

Also on the subject of tower placement I think that there will be chokepoints on the maps. In the one we've seen so far every main base had a ramp that units could go up or down on hence the area is a raised plateau and making that ramp entrance a great place to put towers nearby. Also on that same map there were several places where there were corridors of unit travel that forced units to take that path or chose other paths. There also would be a good place to "claim" with towers to lessen the amount of room the enemy has. Also it tells you when the other team is making a push because it will warn you about that (usually in other games they do this so I wouldn't be surpised if it were true in this game too).

[Zid]

Walls would be... pretty odd for an average MOBA player.

Now that we're talking about commander buildings, how are they going to be built (Maybe just the default "Send workers here to be occupied")? And will ground control be a part of base building?

I at least imagine ground control might be necessary so there would be less RTS cheesing.

[IanD967]

Zid, on 03 May 2012 - 12:11 PM, said:

I at least imagine ground control might be necessary so there would be less RTS cheesing.

You mean like the Undead in Warcraft 3? they had to desecrate the land before they could build on it and were completly unable to build on un-desecrated land which stopped them from building mini-bases all over from the start

[ShangCung]

role commander is similar to playing warcraft while the rest in champion similar to play dota

its my think

[Zid]

IanD967, on 04 May 2012 - 09:03 AM, said:

You mean like the Undead in Warcraft 3? they had to desecrate the land before they could build on it and were completly unable to build on un-desecrated land which stopped them from building mini-bases all over from the start

Yes, like that. Another example would be psi fields or creep in Starcraft.

But this is assuming expanding would be simpler in SoaDA.

[Destroyers]

Walls would be helpful to defend an area near resources as well as towers, but there needs to be a good way to counter so no one can just turtle.  If they did have walls it would be nice to see an anti-wall hero that can break through easy with a special move.

[Jeru_Sorrin]

just get some dashers or ad carrys to take care of the walls. Also I think it would be better idea for a commander to use towers to defend resources because in the end towers give more bang for their buck.

[IanD967]

With walls and towers though there isnt anything to stop the commanders from literally walling in the enemy team inside their own main base which would make the game significantly one sided.

[Jeru_Sorrin]

That is a good point, however it is also possible to stop that as well. Just have your commander tech up to the anti-building units and get your heroes together and have the combination of the two take out the buildings and push it back to a reasonable distance or as far as one can. Honestly to help make that tatic less effective one could have the tower and wall buildings give more gold than they're worth to give the other team more of an advantage.

[IanD967]

Oh yes they could do that but I mean the people who would do that but then create MORE towers and walls behind them and just dont bother winning it and instead focus on just keeping them in the base until they get bored.


edit: VERY IMPORTANT article has just been posted by Micheal in the News section:

"
The primary way Sins of a Dark Age separates itself from the competition is its player Commander. Five players on each team play heroes in a traditional MOBA fashion, while one person per team plays Sins as an RTS. Last time we saw Sins the Commander had to do typical RTS actions like build bases, harvest resources, and construct units, but all that’s been completely reworked. Now Commanders don’t build bases at all, and instead start off with a pre-made town. Resources aren’t harvested from the earth, but are earned by killing enemies and capturing resource nodes scattered throughout the map.

With the removal of base building, the way you bring units to the battlefield has also been changed. Instead of the usual system of building a chain of buildings to unlock better units, the Commander constructs a catalog of abilities they want to take into battle. Then once they’re in the field they upgrade certain technologies in order to make their desired abilities purchasable. For instance you might be an aggressive commander who wants to do a lot of fighting, so you would build out your catalog with a number of abilities that summon units, focusing on upgrading your military technologies. A more support-focused commander would focus on abilities that allow them to cast spells, participating in hero battles by dropping buffs and damage dealing spells into the fray."

Edited by IanD967, 09 May 2012 - 11:53 AM.

[murdeoc]

that (second) bit of article worries me because i would be the kind of commander that would like to build units and fight with them.

if the game is balanced it means that a commander who goes for full support and has the team to back him up will be able to put me and my minions to a stop at some point. that point. that is the moment the game will turn towards my enemy because they have had the privilege of killing my units and they have gained more gold and xp then my team because they havent build any extra units... so maybe building units as a commander in early game will be stupid or counterproductive?

this is my fear for now.

[IanD967]

It's is possible that it would be counter-productive but it doesn't mean you have to send your units to to the front line straight away, coulden't you send them into the jungle to search for more resources?

Even so you could also build support units to help your allies who are doing the fighting while you can focus on healing and protecting them as much as possible