China, A question Options

[XoGamer]

Due to the US redesign in 1.87 and GLA''s redesign in 1.85, is it safe to assume that China might be getting a redesign? For me, China feels the least changed and therefore it feels like it has the blandest gameplay out of all the factions due to it being too close to its original ZH gameplay.

However, it's completely acceptable if you want to keep all those features and redesigns etc. Until 2.0 and don't want to spoil anything.

Thanks.

[Mizo]

I don't understand what's the end goal of this discussion. All am seeing is complains about China's main faction theme which is Quantity over Quality firepower to be a boring playstyle , hence subtly asking/suggesting it to be changed/different to make things 'more interesting'.

Implications of these subtle suggestions would be the complete removal of the horde mechanic to make things "look prettier" , as well as a re-invention of nuclear and napalm weapons to be something completely different ( to what and how is something I have no clue about because what else do you want blazing fire and small-ordinance nuclear explosions that leaves lingering radiation field that mels everything, to do?

China has always been a straight forward faction to play even back in Vanilla generals, were it kept its overwhelming numbers theme while also filling in the bruteforce steamroller role as well via heaviest tanks in the game.

Now Russia exists, and the steamroll role is moved to them. In order to create a diverse set of factions, you have to abuse everything the engine has to offer, and give each of the factions their unique attributes to match the diversity of the original game.

As a result, China was given thr Overwhelming numbers to be their primary theme ( proven perfectly through the mechanic of horde bonus on all units, to encourage you to bulk them in numbers) as well as high area firepower, with some disruptive capabities newly added to the mix. All of these roles will be further exaggerated when the generals are split, being a spammer oriented/firepower oriented/disruptive oriented). Saying that one or two of these playstyles are boring is rather pointless since the point of this is to add diversity in playstyles . Mass Mobilization is a unique rank 1 to General Chen for example, which makes sense given the fact that he is the Mass Army General. All of the nuclear stuff belongs to General Mau who excels in high area firepower, which makes sense as one shot from a nuke cannon would decimate entire army groups.

So really, all this complains stems from the fact that China lacks subversive flare to them ( i.e General Jin units), and would rather revamp the current faction to include more 'interesting yet fitting' stuff. To that I say "hell no.." because the faction is bloated as hell and it'd be pointless to exclude somethings now in favour of this "interesting flare" you all desire, as it gives more balance headaches as well as it being time consuming to implement. So for now, lets be patient and wait.

If these tactics don't interest you, then you are welcome to try different factions since ROTR ( and the soon to be generals) will cover most if not all possible playstyle preferences that a player can endulge upon.

Some people hate and can't stand playing as ECA for example, due to their stail playstyle thst involves playing the waiting game rather than marching forward full gun blazing. Some people dislike slow factions like Russia and prefer a more mobile and dynamic faction such as the likes of GLA nd USA. A good portion of people prefer direct firepower through Russia and China's arsenl of units over the subversive style GLA / the heavy micromanagement nature of USA's units. A few thrive with units that possess high micro potential that can skyrocket their efficiency if played correctly, hence they lean over USA.

This really reminds me of a this talk about wanting ECA to play like Russia in the testing team by improving their units to be more geared towards offensive, and the response to them will always tell them to go play Russia instead.

Stuff are just the way they are for diversity's sake, and will be further expanded upon in 2.0.

As for addressing specific points :

- Horde Bonus is the way it is to apply a faction theme through mechanics rather than outright telling you to spam them in thr tooltips. It's crowded visually, but there isn't really any applicable way to make 'spam' more mechanically influential rather than having the typical " more units = win" that every faction can achieve with cash.

- Abundance of Propeganda is due to bloating. There are 4 sources, 1 of which is stationary while the other 2 ( being overlords and airships, belong to different generals completely) . So really the only core unit right now is the troop crawler that provides it, and in the grand scheme of things that's not as abundant as what you say.

- Battlemaster vs Hoppertanks. Each have their own role. Hoppers are good recon and harass units due to their easiness to horde and speed as well as the spotter ability, while battlemaster scales better due to better survivability and damage when horded. There isn't 1 that's outright superior to the other.

- "Nuclear and Napalm is becoming Banal" , perhaps but then again what else can you do within the limits of the engine that can be applied to Chinese units thst fits within their respective faction/general theme, while not overlapping with others? The confines of Neutron/Conventional airbust/cluster weapons is for ECA, Bio-weapons/High Demolitionis for GLA, Rail/Coil guns , Tesla and thermobaric weapons are covered by Russia, and Lazer, Advanced tactical missile, Cruise missiles and microwave themed weapons are USA's. What else can be done within the game engine that would fit China and properly replace the Nuclear and Napalm weaponry themes? Pretty hard to come up with something creative or more interesting that isn't somehow covered by other factions ( I have not listed everything ofcourse because NDA, but am pretty sure this task is not something one can think off the fly like that). So yes for now we're sticking to Napalm and Nuke weaponary because if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Better to hsve the generic Nuke and Napalm tha having something either too obscure and unfitting for the game design wise , or having something that heavily overlaps with other stuff both visually and mechanically. As of now the mechanical difference between Nukes and any other weapon is that its radiation field melts everything, while the Napalm is the generic burst damage over time.

This post has been edited by Mizo: 28 Mar 2017, 0:43