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    Command & Conquer Balance Update and Quickmatch Ladder / Community Content

    July 23, 2020

    Command & Conquer Balance Update and Quickmatch Ladder / Community Content

    Balance Update and Quickmatch Ladder / Community Content

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 09:08 AM PDT

    Fellow Command & Conquer fans,

    Thank you for all your feedback over the past week regarding the top balance issues we've been discussing. In this post I'm going to break down our evaluation of the feedback, and outline other exciting changes coming to the next patch. Let's get started.

    First, our teams have been reading all the comments on the balance thread from last Friday, and based on those perspectives we've made some adjustments to the game. And to provide the community an early preview of these changes, we actually just updated the Beta Patch version on Steam with a first pass at those balance changes. Below are the key changes you'll see in the new version:

    • The Nod Cargo Plane delivery time has been normalized
      • There was overwhelming support for this change in the thread. The time has been normalized to 4 seconds on Normal speed in this version, but we are likely going to increase this to 5 or 6 seconds based on our own playtesting. Please try this out in Skirmish or LAN and let us know how it feels. (Note, the plane will now sometimes spawn in the middle of the map to accommodate this behavior. We initially had it with the Cargo Plane speed increased, and just looked kinda ridiculous…)
    • The Weapons Factory health has been increased
      • There was also strong support for this change, with the suggested health numbers ranging quite broadly. We decided to start with a 30% health increase, and are looking for feedback if this feels meaningful enough to make the desired impact.
    • The Naval structures have been removed from the victory condition
      • There was unanimous support for this change, and this has now been implemented. The game should end if a player only has Naval structures remaining (Or only an MCV in a Transport).
    • To address the TD Engineer / APC issue, the APC now has the Repair Facility as a pre-requisite to build
      • This was the topic that garnered the most activity, and it was a healthy discussion in the thread. Based on our observations, over 50% of the community who commented voted in the direction of changing the APC to be attached to the Repair Facility. So we decided to go with that approach, and would be eager to hear how this changes the Engineer / APC rush dynamic. Obviously it won't be as easy to judge this until it's available in formal Quickmatch, but any early reactions to build order, etc. would be helpful.
    • Harvester improvements
      • In the June patch we made some changes to the Harvester logic, which caused some unintended ripple effects. We've aimed to address a few key items in this patch:
        • The docking priority should now be properly overridden with a docking command
        • The Harvester should no longer freeze for several seconds in this docking procedure
        • In Red Alert, the Harvester should better prioritize Gems if they're in the an adjacent cell
      • Please try these new behaviors in Skirmish and let us know if the Harvester is getting closer to your expectations
    • AI in LAN Mode
      • Over the past week we've made improvements on getting AI to be compatible with LAN mode. If you're able to try LAN with other players, please add some AI and let us know how it's performing for you.

    Of note, the first four bullets can be enabled / disabled via a new "Modern Balance" checkbox in the Rules section of Skirmish and Multiplayer game lobbies. This option will eventually be set to ON for Quickmatch. One caveat, in the Beta Patch there's a bug where the "Modern Balance" changes don't work with Custom Maps, which we'll aim to fix for the official release.

    And in case you missed my note on accessing the Beta Patch version of the game, please refer to my previous post here:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/commandandconquer/comments/hrrh2y/remaster_update_and_july_beta_patch/

    The next topic to discuss is our Quickmatch map pool. We understand this has been a more challenging part of the legacy content, and the legacy maps have not provided the best foundation for competitive play. But we have some positive news to share on this front. Over the past month we've been able to collaborate with the community and our legal teams, and have worked out a process for incorporating community created content into the official game. This means the selected content will become part of the official install / update for the game, and allow the content to be used with the servers for our online / Quickmatch systems. Each piece of content is being approved by the creator(s) themselves for this purpose, in order to ensure the creators are supportive of this use and receive credit for their contribution.

    With that in mind, our first attempt of this initiative is aimed at updating the Quickmatch map pool with some of the more balanced community maps. The changes below are not guaranteed, but is our first proposal for the next round of map adjustments:

    Tiberian Dawn:

    • Remove "Eye of the Storm" from QM pool
    • Remove "Nowhere to Hide" from QM pool
    • Remove "Tiberium Garden" from QM pool
    • Remove "Four Corners" from QM pool
    • Remove "Red Sands" from QM pool
    • Remove "Monkey in the Middle" from QM pool
    • Adjust "One Pass Fits All" (Make top left vs bottom left, and top right vs bottom right only viable QM spawn options)
    • Keep "Green Acres" as is
    • Add "Elevation" community map by AchromicWhite & Lovehandles
    • Add "Quarry" community map by AchromicWhite & Lovehandles
    • Add "Heavy Metal" community map by FeRReT666 & Lovehandles
    • Add "Electric Avenue" community map by FeRReT666 & Lovehandles
    • Add "Canyon Pursuit" community map by AchromicWhite

    Red Alert:

    • Remove "Things to Come" from QM pool
    • Remove "Shallow Grave" from QM pool
    • Remove "Arena Valley Extreme" from QM pool
    • Remove "Bullseye" from QM pool
    • Add "Path Beyond" back to QM pool (But only top left spawn vs bottom right spawn)
    • Add "Tournament Arena" community map by [UF] freezy
    • Add "Tournament Ore Rift" community map by [UF] ^^ZxGanon^^
    • Add "(WHT) Canyon" community map by AchromicWhite & FeRReT666

    As always, we are eager to hear feedback on these proposed map changes. However, if you have any feedback, especially on the community maps, I strongly request you keep the feedback healthy and professional. There will be zero tolerance for any of the content creators being treated disrespectfully, and doing so would make community initiatives like this less likely in the future. I want to thank the content creators for contributing their work and helping to make the Remastered Collection a better experience for all players.

    And finally, with these upcoming balance and map pool changes, we wanted to give everyone a heads up that we're preparing to reset the Quickmatch ladder. This will likely happen in early August, and is hopefully enough time for people to make a final push during this season.

    Please let us know if you have any feedback on the items above, in case we can make any final adjustments before the patch gets finalized. Thanks for all your ongoing support.

    Cheers,

    Jim

    Jimtern

    submitted by /u/EA_Jimtern
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    Command and Conquer in a nutshell

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 04:50 AM PDT

    Real Time Strategy game i am working on inspired by command and conquer

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 03:41 AM PDT

    Can someone make a list of the US military units insignias used by the allies in the first two Red Alert ? (Including expansion packs) The first insgnia I'm showing here is from the 63rd Infantry Division by Gen. Carville

    Posted: 22 Jul 2020 07:06 PM PDT

    How come nobody has made custom campaign maps on workshop?

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 04:41 AM PDT

    One of the things I was most excited for with mod support was custom campaigns but there's as far as I'm aware none still on steam workshop? Is it not possible with current tools to create them? If so are they working on making a tool to create such things? I feel like if you aren't into multiplayer the games lifespan is limited which is annoying considering some would look to play it on and off for months and years

    submitted by /u/RRJStudioo
    [link] [comments]

    Tick Tank Reconceiving - Some Upgrades

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 10:25 AM PDT

    Commander! You've rained on my glorious parade!

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 04:40 PM PDT

    Brotherhood of nod airsoft team

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 04:36 PM PDT

    I am looking for conscripts in my area to join the brotherhood of nod team. We will have a c&c nod theme and will be somewhat competitive. Join the brotherhood today. Southern California area. Comment if you are interested

    submitted by /u/just-tryna-be-funny
    [link] [comments]

    C&C TD map design and how it affects gameplay

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 04:22 PM PDT

    C&C TD map design and how it affects gameplay

    Preface

    Hey everyone,

    Since maps are one of the bigger topics being discussed I thought I would write this to help build a better understanding of what makes maps work and what breaks them. There are a couple of major factors as listed below that one should consider when creating or selecting maps.

    Gameplay & playstyle

    This is a remastered version of a game that has drawn people from many corners of RTS and the C&C universe and thus the community is quite split on what type of game they want the remastered to be. Concerns about nostalgia as opposed to competitive play is certainly a factor but I will focus my comments solely on the competitive side of things because there are still divides present, that might not be as apparent at first glance.

    The major schisms in wishes for game play and play styles can be simplified into how games revolve around a varying degree of base building vs army usage and how prevalent each of these categories is to winning the game. Because the maps dictate which play styles and subsequently which strategies can be used and I think it´s important to have a map pool that is diverse and include a broad representation of multiple styles.

    Base building encompasses where you build your base, how your layout is for both resource mining and safety and how far out on the map you extend. Base building has three key points as to why you would do it.

    Improved mining

    Refineries mine significantly quicker if they are close to the tiberium patches than if they aren´t (shocking). The larger the field the longer this "advantage" exists and I will talk more about the number of active mining refineries a bit later.

    Because tiberium fields eventually deplete it´s essential to build towards new ones before you run out. The bigger the tiberium fields the less incentive there is to focus on acquiring new ones rather than building units.

    ​

    Ineffecient refineries.

    Amazing refineries.

    Map control

    Having friendly structures in a location quite simply increases the strength of your defense in that particular area. Buildings can absorb shots, create chokes and allow for defensive structures or production facilities to be nearby.

    ​

    A location with no base building aiding in map control.

    ​

    A fortified location with significantly improved defense over the previous scenario.

    ​

    Points of Interest

    Maps often have some point of interest(s) that allows for better rotation on the map, controls vital tiberium fields or offers advantageous terrain during battles. Because having structures in an area makes it more defensible, it is possible to transform key parts of the map into strong points if you can manage to build there first. The most common way to look for these locations is to figure out along which lines a potential split map scenario would occur and then subsequently check if any piece of terrain lets one player control an additional tiberium field over the opponent with relative ease. These points on the map then become vital areas to eventually build to.

    ​

    A natural splitmap scenario with red spawning top left and blue spawning bottom right.

    ​

    Red invades blue´s part of the map and creates a point of interest at the teal X.

    ​

    Red has successfully invaded blue´s territory and created a winning late game position controlling the additional teal tiberium field.

    Army usage is quite literally using your army and implies doing something impactful with it. The bigger the army size, the more room to manoeuvre and the bigger the number of angles of attack there is, the greater the army usage and vice versa. The more defensive buildings (towers and barracks) are spread throughout the map the less relative power armies have.

    If the points of interest are unreachable with base building because the players can´t put down refineries somewhat continuously on their way there, the map becomes overwhelmingly about army rather than base building because you can´t achieve one of the key objectives of base building.

    ​

    The center field on this map has a very small amount of tiberium and is highly vulnerable so mining from it is dubious at best. Red has built her initial refineries in the corner but has nowhere else to get tiberium from, and thus the only option left is to build units and attack. Blue on the other hand is within reach of the bottom right tiberium field and can continue base building, or build units. Both options remain available.

    An important point is that these two concepts of base building and army capabilities have great effect on one another and the more a map emphasizes one category, the less strength the other one has.

    ​

    How do map features affect base building and army usage?

    This section goes over some of the main artefacts we can put on a map and how they influence the previously mentioned concepts.

    Tiberium amount, density & spacing

    C&C is unique in it´s base building concept because you can only build close to where you have structures and only one building at a time. This is what adds a significant element of strategic depth to the game and in my opinion a big part of what makes it great. This does however enforce some constraints open map design and how the map layouts are done. A player needs enough tiberium to generate a surplus of money big enough to expand to the next location with tiberium while also having enough money to produce at least some units. This means that there is a minimum amount of money in a starting location that is required for the game to develop beyond rushes. Currently in the games that feel fluent, the tiberium field size that is worth a single ref is somewhere between 13k-16k. A general benchmark for the starting area tiberium field density for the game to play well is enough so that a player can support 2.5 refs or a tiny bit more. What I mean by 2.5 ref is that ideally you have to build slightly further than your initial pp, rax, ref, ref in order to place an optimal third refinery. This additional distance is typically 3-5 tiles in the current maps. The reason why 2.5 is often better than simply 2 or 3 is that the game has a small rock-paper-scissor dynamic where 1 ref < 2 ref < 3 ref < 1 ref, You should ideally be 1 ref ahead of your opponent but if you attempt to be 2 refs ahead you don´t have enough defense and the game can be equalized by your opponent by attacking and dealing damage to you. If you can place your 3 refineries off your starting structures the timings in the game makes it a little too easy to defend, invalidating the "1 ref < 2 ref < 3 ref < 1 ref" dynamic. In that scenario a higher amount of refs is almost universally better than building units quicker, which removes some strategic depth from the game since you now only have one option available our of the 3.

    ​

    Going beyond the starting area the next thing to look at is distance to the next fields. If the distance to the next tiberium field is too great for the money available, the players are mostly forced into building units for a showdown and the game will be decided on the unit set that the player can afford until they mine out their current tiberium. On the contrary if the next available tiberium field is already in range or extremely close, players should mostly continue build refineries over units because the travel distance from their own base to their opponents alongside a defensive advantage of being near their own base makes it hard to punish.

    ​

    C&C TD has a sweet spot for income. On roughly 4 refineries a player can continuously build units and have a small surplus for base building. But if a player has 5 or even 6 mining refineries they suddenly have enough money to build almost everything they want from multiple structures and they become bottle necked on production time rather than money. The players will remain in this state until they begin to deplete some of their tiberium fields.This greatly simplifies some of the decision making on how to spend your money and overall decrease the important of the strategic element of the game.

    ​

    C&C has no attack move and quite poor unit AI. This means that attacking and defeating an opponent with money to still build units is unlikely to impossible. Therefore there is also an upper limit to how much available tiberium there can be in order for the game to play well. If players have a lot of money, fights become less decisive because even if the fight is won or lost there is a lack of the ability to knock them out of a game or even push them off key territory. If I had to make an educated guess I would say that 6 concurrent mining refineries is roughly the upper limit to avoid players with an endless flood or money. As for the total amount of money on the map, it is a bit more flexible but for context most ladder maps are in the range of 70k - 130k. Maps could probably have it´s maximum amount increased by some margin up until the point where the refineries would end up being too close to one another in accordance with my previous points about tiberium spacing.

    A small point to add to this. As the game progresses, tiberium fields that are contested by both players help facilitate a natural conclusion to the game whereas new protected tib fields that can´t be contested often prolongs a decided game needlessly or enables a slow paced stalemate as neither player can favorably attack.

    ​

    After both players safely expanded to their side the only tiberium fields left are in the center of the map and will be contested.

    ​

    After both players expanded and established a border between their forward bases they both have large tiberium fields behind them, meaning that neither player has a real reason to attack.

    Terrain

    Terrains primary function is to increase unit diversity and add an increased skill element to battles. An extreme example is purely open space which heavily favors certain types of units like buggies and Recon bikes over things like tanks and infantry whereas small spaces adds more power to units that are stronger model per model. If a map heavily emphasizes army usage and doesn´t have a lot of terrain you very quickly get pigeon holed into one strategy and one unit set. This isn´t universally a bad thing but something to be very aware of when creating maps. Terrain also adds increased skill differentials to battles and lets different build orders thrive because in a world of no terrain terrain, 5 will always beat 4, but when there´s a bunch of trees in the way and 1995 path finding is on display that isn´t always true anymore. Therefore adding some terrain to open spaces is generally a good idea to enable more play and counter play.

    ​

    A battle in the middle of terrain features where things can easily go wrong, or right depending on point of view.

    ​

    A battle in no terrain where differentiating yourself through micro and positioning is significantly harder to do.

    A final note on terrain is that the more chokes there are, and the narrower they are, the less army matters and the stronger static defense becomes. This means that once an area is fortified it becomes almost unbreakable and players have to look elsewhere. If the map only has a few of these points to split the map evenly between the players you can easily end up in a stalemate, that might last a very long time on high density tiberium maps. Generally speaking the more money players have the less powerful the chokes should be if armies are to have any impact on the game.

    A small choke where attacking with army very quickly becomes untenable. Half the map can safely be mined from behind this area.

    PS. Single chokes that separate half the map, can you not.

    ​

    Base entrances

    Generally speaking a single entrance to your main area of 3 or more refs is too safe and fully open terrain with no chokes within reach is too vulnerable.

    ​

    The red line indicates where the enemy can attack you from. A very difficult base to defend.

    ​

    The red lines indicate where the enemy can attack you from. A very easy base to defend.

    Balance factors

    There are currently a few factors to take into consideration when balancing maps.

    • Refineries mine quicker when facing south tib fields. For balanced map design tib fields should preferably be to the right or left of starting refineries or have both players spawn with tib either above or below their refs.
    • Static defense have slightly increased range when firing from south. This makes East-West more balanced than North-South. If a map has an important north vs south point you might want to give north some other minor advantage to offset this.
    • Airstrip delivery time. Since this one is getting patched I won´t talk about it more but many maps were designed to try and counteract this and might do well from a East-West version remake.

    ​

    GDI vs Nod is a quite large separate topic that I purposefully wont go into detail with. But the key things to consider are limiting Nod mobility and ensuring that GDI are either in close proximity and can quickly attack or that they additional tiberium fields beyond their first 4 refineries they can reach with a reasonable amount of effort.

    ​

    Putting it all together

    Finding the right balance of maps for us, the community, depends entirely on which play style we prefer. Do we want smaller or larger economy games? Games heavily favoring base building or army usage? Maps with close proximity between players or giant ones?

    The answer is probably that we want a bit of everything. As long as map makers don´t egregiously break a lot of the fundamentals I´ve talked about I think maps catering to all of the styles can work.

    The better maps in the current ladder pool are quite heavily skewed towards low to medium economy games with base building as a big part of the strategies employed. This is my personal preference, but I´m just one person.

    submitted by /u/Khyira
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    Cabal TTS

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 08:42 AM PDT

    Anyone know if there's a cabal text to speech voice out there? I've been wanting to make an assistant that uses his voice but I can't seem to find any.

    submitted by /u/YhormTheGiant_
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    C&C3 Project Co-Commander Second video - GDI ACTI Mission 04

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 05:46 AM PDT

    a shitpost for Kane

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 08:26 AM PDT

    Literally unlistenable.

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 06:18 AM PDT

    Patch release date?

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 09:19 AM PDT

    Has it been announced yet?

    submitted by /u/Kirball904
    [link] [comments]

    Kirball - 450k ore mined . . . wtf!

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 11:38 AM PDT

    Anybody know how to put the units in GUARD mode? It says G, but tried and no success. The old CC the helicopters would hover in guard mode. Does this one not do that?

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 10:54 AM PDT

    TD question - When its a good time to hop on QP?

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 02:04 AM PDT

    Hello fellow Commanders,

    I'm going to very honest and short as possible.

    I suck at this game, I don't have friends that play to do some 1x1's, I do have what some people call "Ladder Anxiety", and some campaign missions on Hard I couldn't even finish.

    No matter how much I want to click at that Search a opponent, the constant felling of not being ready to go competitive, and not being prepared to QP, plus that anxiety, is what is stooping me.

    I've been training a little some days against Hard AI, while they don't pose such a challenge, on the other hand, for memorizing and training the bindings and map layouts I guess its helping a lot.

    So again, when its a good time to hop on MP? I'm too looking too for people who wants to play some customs.

    submitted by /u/RFCB
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    Replay issues on Zero Hour

    Posted: 23 Jul 2020 05:44 AM PDT

    Hi everyone,

    I was wondering if anyone else here has had this happen to them:

    I bought Zero Hour and pretty much the entire C&C collection from Origin, but I've mostly been playing Zero Hour and challenging myself to take on 3 or 4 Brutal Armies (1v3 or 4).

    Now, whenever I defeat the AI, I save the replay to watch it later. And this is the weird thing:

    It's happened to me, not once, but several times (5 or 6) that the replay is NOT representative of the actual skirmish, meaning that instead of me winning - which is what actually happened - I end up losing in the replay, and my units are just sitting there doing nothing or no units are created, etc. I usually use the Air Force General and create anywhere between 3 or 4 Particle Cannons, which I use whenever they're all charged up. But, in this "faulty" replays, the Particle Cannons are ready to be used showing the blinking timer on the upper right corner of my PC screen and just stay like that until the game is over.

    Is this something you've seen as well? You know, the "replay" not being the actual game you saved, but rather something where the AI seems to do whatever it wants to do with your army?

    I am not saying this happens all the time, but it does happen quite often. I was pretty disappointed when I wasn't able to enjoy and rewatch my miraculous victory against 4 hard GLA armies, because the "replay" made me lose the match.

    This is pretty weird, imo.

    Thanks!

    submitted by /u/Sortilegio10
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    Let’s help Jim with the next C&C game choice. In Which universe you would like to see a new game ( not remastered)

    Posted: 22 Jul 2020 05:35 PM PDT
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