Ekko_Tek

This same player was also identified with obvious screenshots showing cheats going on in a thread on the Steam forums. Really pathetic that people do this - at least SD takes a no warnings ban-hammer approach and is upgrading anti-cheat features for the game. I doubt we'll be seeing this person in ranked for long.

Without replays and observer mode a tournament at this point is going to be hamstrung. I'm looking forward to the official end of season 1 tournament though - that should be good.

[quote who="Mered4" reply="7" id="3629569"] Lol. Frogboy, one of the keys to good rapid expansion is to have factories sending a steady stream of units to every corner of the map. Adding weird raiding units with no counters won't help things. Players need to learn how to to defend against rapid expansion and fight on multiple fronts. Changing thenmeta too fast won't give them time to practice. [/quote] I'm sure the raiding units would have

I love the Instigator and Sapper ideas. Less keen on the Flea just because Hermes are already fast enough to essentially ignore neutral creeps and go to your base if you want a unit to do that.

Sounds good - assuming Substrate will get some tricks of their own...

I saw this game yesterday on his broadcast (unless he also faced him again today). The fact of the matter is that fast expanding is the only way to play 1v1 competitively and has been for some time now. It is what provides the income in order to then outtech and outproduce the opponent. It is built into the game design itself with each successive sector providing more income. Incursion used to be a way to punish early mass T1 expansion but it was also a way to just end the game since you coul

[quote who="eviator" reply="1" id="3626828"] I think at some point they are just going to have to set the difficulty levels and let the users figure out how to push their skills to progress up the difficulty chain. [/quote] Pretty much this. Experienced RTS players from other games will have no trouble facing off vs. Normal AI once they understand how Ashes works. For players newer to the RTS genre, Beginner and Easy are there already even if it may take some time to develop

[quote who="ASADDF" reply="12" id="3626757"] Can i say something? What about not letting or disabling Engineers/Constructors to take regions Only ground armed Units can take Regions, that may be a good idea. What do you guys think? [/quote] The increase in engineer build time from Nexus and increase in time to capture points from 15 sec to 25 sec has already slowed down the early game quite a bit. To not allow engineers to c

Waza - agreed on medics. I'm not sure on your Substrate comments though. You haven't played them at all in ranked so it will be harder to have an equal sense of balance. Their T2 units should be stronger imo because PHC has both a ranged T2 designed to take them out as well as the amazing Sentinel turret. Equally important: unlike Substrate, as PHC you can start producing T2 units before having built a quantum relay so they are able to get out and push faster - especially if coupled w

The reason expanded strategic zoom is useful/necessary/works well in other games is because they tend to be a bit faster paced, units die more quickly, units benefit from being microed independently, and sometimes map size is a factor (Sins maps are bigger, SupCom roughly the same but some are larger, Deserts of Kharak much smaller). In Sins or Homeworld games for example, I'll benefit from using the strategic zoom and icons in order to hotkey specific independent unit types to fo

[quote who="Mered4" reply="17" id="3626059"] Why not be flexible? Ashes isn't about icons - it's about large scale fights on a never before seen level. Give us a modern zoom level so we can all experience the beauty of AOTS. [/quote] Don't you see the irony here? Plus you keep saying you want "strategy" but having a higher level of zoom will not contribute any new level of strategy to the game. How much have you actually played it?

[quote who="Mered4" reply="14" id="3625999"] What the hell do you mean? [/quote] He means it (zoom) would not be awesome in Ashes (this context), and it wouldn't. It's not the kind of pace of game where you need to be zooming out and shuffling icons around. It would not add anything useful to the game other than further abstracting and removing you from the action. Even on 3v3 maps the current zoom out is more than enough to give you a proper view and the spacebar ta

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="4" id="3625959"]Because it was OP. I did extensive balance testing. A single Mauler can still take out 3 Artemsis's on its own as well as kill a Nemesis. Compare the Mauler to other units. Also, look at the Mauler recharge rate.[/quote] I'm honestly not trying to be annoying and have not played the new patch yet but was this testing with whole armies? I have no doubt it can still take out 3 Artemis or a Nemesis in a vacuum but with

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="2" id="3625945"] Mauler damage is 1/4 what it was. [/quote] OK, as needed - but why also reduce its health by 75% plus reduce its shields by 33%? Mauler HP decreased from 200 to 50 Mauler shields decreased from 900 to 600

Any chance of getting a quick summary of Mauler re-balance? Seems like a lot of drastic changes on paper (200 to 50 health?). I count 7 nerfs to it in this changelog. I thought the issue was that its weapon damage was being applied 4x instead of 1. Was there any testing of how it performs now in its role?

Is this something new from one of the recent patches or did no one ever notice before? One can kill a dread in seconds?

[quote who="Generalkyle7" reply="3" id="3624160"] i dont like getting versed against rank 1 players who have been playing for 4 months, i think its unfair. [/quote] What's unfair? You're rank 3; there's only 6 players separating you on the ladder. Seems like normal matchmaking to me.

Thanks for clarifying

[quote who="Andre_B" reply="5" id="3623354"] Quoting ASADDF, reply 3 Quoting Andre_B, reply 2 I play 100% substrate, and

Players as in humans or also including AI still?

[quote who="Mellified_Man" reply="14" id="3623500"] People don't sit in the queue long enough to get matched so players miss each other. [/quote] Right now it seems that ~4 minutes is the max the search allows before it just pairs you with an AI bot to fight. I'd be happy to search for 10 minutes if it meant a greater chance of finding a human opponent. I had a bunch of custom games last night vs. good players and the game really comes alive with interesting tactics

[quote who="obiwantoby" reply="28" id="3623425"] Quoting CDM1500, reply 26 I think the game needs more endgame stuff. It feels like there's supposed to be one more level above dreadnoughts, or at least some alternative strategies besides adjusting the stream of armies. At the moment a bombing run is about the only card

Agreed, re: nostalgia and rose-tinted glasses I'm glad you're making Ashes and trying to push RTS forward and doing your part to re-invigorate it. Minor quibble: Your list of 2016 RTS options though is lacking the top 2: Starcraft 2 and Company of Heroes 2 - these are the only 2 RTS games that can be said to have a large and active community of players. I don't think it's a coincidence that they are also very MP focused, but that's my bias showing m

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="1" id="3623141"] We plan to add an option to let players have more precision in matchmaking (i.e. that it'll wait forever if necessary). However, bear in mind, that in ranked, it will not place a rank 3 player against say a rank 7 player no matter what. [/quote] Being able to see the # of other players searching would help. Telling players when their search is expanding into wider ranks (both higher and lower) would h

Him replying to himself with alt accounts is pretty classic, in an ignore list kind of way that is.