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C&C 4 Developer Q&A - First Round of Questions

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We have had a bit of drought of new Command & Conquer 4 information since the events of CommandCom last month. Things are starting to pick up now with some new information in the form of the first batch of Command & Conquer 4 Developer Q&A's being answered on the Official C&C Forums. Here's a few of them.

 

Can the support Crawler create any land units?

Yes, support has ground vehicles, including tanks. Their tanks tend to have special abilities which improve the quality of nearby allies. They can, of course, hold their own as well, but are that much more effective when supporting an ally.

 

Does the population cap change depending on how many players are in a match?

Depending on the mode, yes. There are several ways to play C&C4 which allow you to play with a large numbers of units, such as Custom Match and Campaign. Currently, in a 1v1 match, a player has access to 250 command points, which is equivalent to around 50 tanks, or 80+ light units, and 50 structures. As you can imagine, holding a battlefield with a force that large will test even the best micromanagers’ abilities.

 

Are there any mechanisms to stop spawn camping?

Quite a few. My favorite is the ability to deploy on top of anyone in your deploy zone. Your crawler will land right on top of them as GDI, or burrow up from beneath them as Nod, totally destroying anything in the vicinity. Your deploy zone is also outfitted with defenses for those pesky folks who want to sit just out of range. There are a few other mechanics which also play into this, but they’re still under wraps for the moment

Click here to read the rest. And make sure your post your questions to be answered in future instalments of "Ask A Developer".

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Pff, no spawn camping. But that is the best part of any game with spawning. :P

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Reading through the comments at the forums, I find myself agreeing with the majority of the comments about self-destructing crawlers in order to swap to a different version... support/defence/offence etc.

 

While a destroyed crawler would give a natural opportunity to switch, and the different scenarios on cost/benefits of crawler killed by overwhleming foce/and the kamakazi suicide run... some sort of neater option for swapping crawlers should be available that fits in with the fiction/canon.

 

ie. a carryall - picking up the gdi crawler and taking off-screen or the nod crawler going back underground.

 

If I understand the team is looking at cost/benefit of a crawler death based on the commandcomm feedback, which is probably good (who doesn't want to feel some satisfaction when you kill an enemy mcv) I think a 3rd option for crawler swap should definitely be looked that doesn't involve killing your mcv.

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Your crawler will land right on top of them as GDI, or burrow up from beneath them as Nod, totally destroying anything in the vicinity.

 

I'm relieved to hear on this part. I'll have to wait to see some live ingame demo.

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Pff, no spawn camping. But that is the best part of any game with spawning. :P
Psh, we'll figure out a way to do it regardless :P

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Another alternative to the swapping crawlers, was to turn them into quasi-transformers... ie. deploy/animate from one type to another with appropriate cool-down times.

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Another alternative to the swapping crawlers, was to turn them into quasi-transformers... ie. deploy/animate from one type to another with appropriate cool-down times.

I like that idea, but I also think you should be able to keep all your units when switching. I think there is strategy to be had by building Offensive, then swapping to Support, or some other such maneuver. Taking that away kind of degenerates the fun value of being able to change mid-game. If you can't create new tactics for yourself by combining your own units, people will eventually discover their best class and rarely use another.

If I was playing as the Black Hand and was permitted to become the Marked of Kane during my battle, I would not expect all my Mantises to explode spontaneously, I'd expect to be able to use them for air defense to back up my Enlightened.

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That would take away from the team factor, though.

I considered that, but I would still prefer being able to keep my units from one class to another. Teammates, assuming they aren't incompetent idiots, can go with a different arrangement that when combined with my own can prove even more effective. What if Support tanks and a Support crawler are more of a nuisance than help to my Offense tanks and Offense crawler, but Support tanks with an Offense crawler is great with my Offense tanks and Defense crawler?

Forced teamwork is for young children, if I want to take on three noobs at once, I shouldn't be required to bring two noobs with me.

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Another point I forgot to make is the dynamic Control points mentioned.

 

Meaning in a 5v5 you had maybe only 10 units each, but in a 1v1 you had up to 50 units each.

I was thinking it was ironic, that here we have a game with apparently 80+ units, but we could use a handful at a time... so for lag purposes I don't mind the lower CP for MP matches.

 

(I think your teamwork thoughts Nmenth... about flexibility).

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I considered that, but I would still prefer being able to keep my units from one class to another. Teammates, assuming they aren't incompetent idiots, can go with a different arrangement that when combined with my own can prove even more effective. What if Support tanks and a Support crawler are more of a nuisance than help to my Offense tanks and Offense crawler, but Support tanks with an Offense crawler is great with my Offense tanks and Defense crawler?

Forced teamwork is for young children, if I want to take on three noobs at once, I shouldn't be required to bring two noobs with me.

 

You'll be happy to hear then what Mr. Feasel recently posted at the off. forums:

 

In the current iteration of the game, you do not lose any class units when you change classes, a part of our push to focus on class-changing fluidity. We're finding that it's a lot of fun to be able to create a mixed force and dramatically improves the strategic options available to a player. There are drawbacks, of course, and benefits to sticking with a single class, we'll talk about these more in upcoming blogs and Q&A sessions.

 

 

 

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You'll be happy to hear then what Mr. Feasel recently posted at the off. forums:

In the current iteration of the game, you do not lose any class units when you change classes, a part of our push to focus on class-changing fluidity. We're finding that it's a lot of fun to be able to create a mixed force and dramatically improves the strategic options available to a player. There are drawbacks, of course, and benefits to sticking with a single class, we'll talk about these more in upcoming blogs and Q&A sessions.

Ah, indeed, this pleases me. I hope they do not change it again before release...

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You'll be happy to hear then what Mr. Feasel recently posted at the off. forums:

In the current iteration of the game, you do not lose any class units when you change classes, a part of our push to focus on class-changing fluidity. We're finding that it's a lot of fun to be able to create a mixed force and dramatically improves the strategic options available to a player. There are drawbacks, of course, and benefits to sticking with a single class, we'll talk about these more in upcoming blogs and Q&A sessions.

This sounds much better!

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