DFD: 563 vs. 338, 345 vs. 227

[Renegade]

DFD: Daily Feature Deathmatch

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The Cruel Fight For Implementation

This is a Daily Feature Deathmatch post. If you are unfamiliar with the background of this event, please read the announcement, the adjustment and the schedule.

Fight 1

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[0000563] Ability to Show/Hide Campaigns vs. [0000338] Charge-thing

Fight 2

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[0000345] VerteranAt= and EliteAt= Tags vs. [0000227] Enhance the multiplayer/skirmish menu to allow more complex game mode selections

After the fight is over, two of these issues will be suspended, while the other two move on to the next round.
Remember that the coders will not take part in the discussion, so make your arguments complete, concise and convincing - when it's over, it's over.

Part of that is clearly marking what outcome you support for which issue.
There should be no ambiguity in the issue you're talking about, and it should be clear what outcome you support. Feel free to put your stance in bold, and use simple terminology like "kill #69" or "I want #42 to survive".
This use of simple terminology should be part of a larger argumentation - if this is all your post consists of, it will be ignored. We are interested in argumentations and details to consider, not votes.

A decision will be made either way, a lack of discussion will not cause all issues to live.

Be friendly, be civil, be logical.
You are allowed to try to deconstruct the arguments of those arguing against your candidate, but remember that they don't make the call - there is really no point in getting personal.

The discussion should be contained in this thread, argumentations elsewhere will be ignored, but you are allowed to transfer and adapt points made elsewhere in the past.

We want a good, clean fight.
Let's get it on!

These fights are largely automatically generated - if an issue turns out to be unfit for combat, it will be disqualified and the opponent will go into the queue.

[Beowulf]

Kill #338. It's kinda bland. But #563... that could be put to good use, especially for those mods who don't have a campaign, don't want a campaign or want extensive campaigns.

While I would like to see #227, I just don't see how feasible it is. It's a great concept and I really like it, but implementation would probably be a bitch. That is... unless DCoder, Ren or AlexB knows something that I don't... I'll go with #345 on the merit it's a lot more feasible than #227. That, and I kinda like the idea for higher tier units.

[Nighthawk]

For fight one:
Given that I'm the submitter of issue 563, it should be a foregone conclusion which I'm going to argue in support of, but anyway. May as well be objective about this.
Simply, #563 would let the modder create unlockable missions. These could be used as an end-of-campaign surprise or reward for players, something to give a sense of accomplishment or even as a reason for players to finish the campaign. Additionally, as one commenter in the tracker issue said, it could be used as an alternative method of mission progression. Coupled with the campaign list, you could have each individual mission as its own "campaign", with the previous one having to be finished to be unlocked, at which point players could choose individual missions to play from the list at their leisure.

The "Charge-thing" request. I can see its merits. Though I'm assuming this is for something other than buildings, as SHP buildings can already do this (Tesla Coil and Prism Tower for one), and if it weren't up against my own issue, I'd probably go along with it. However, I personally wouldn't see much of a use for delayed-fire weapons outside of structures anyway. Now that I think about it, such an effect could possibly be worked around (albeit horribly hackishly) using gattling logic, with the first gattling weapon being a non-damaging weapon with the charging animation, followed by the actual weapon.

Thus, my stance is support #563, kill #338.


For fight two:
I'm finding this one a little difficult - both issues have pros and cons to them. Going with the Veteran/EliteAt, I think this would be quite a good idea as it would let modders individually control when their unit can be promoted. If something like Rock/NarmPatch's unit-changing-on-promotion logic were ever implemented, such a tag as this could come in handy. Even then, in mods where the elite version of a unit has an upgraded weapon, such a tag could be used quite well to help balance it. That said, I think there might need to be more advantages to having veteran/elite units than merely weapons for these tags to be widely used, but those would be for other DFDs to decide.

I like the idea of the second issue, however it does sound quite complex to me, and makes me think of a multitude of questions as it is. How do you control what each radio button does? What if I don't have Team Alliance / Minor Super / whatever in my mod? What if my mod doesn't use cloaking units? How would such a system react to additional StealthTypes being introduced (which I think is on the cards somewhere in these DFDs)? What if the Assault packs and support for them isn't incorporated into your mod? Basically, I see this request as being too complicated to use, and too limiting, given that there's no guarantee modders will keep/use any of the options it presents.

Thus, my stance is support #345, kill #227.

Edit: I've had a few more thoughts on #227. If it were combined with something like the INI inclusion logic, so that each button can control the inclusion of content in a certain INI, I could even be persuaded to flip my stance. However, I can also see more issues with this. Firstly, how do you control what takes priority? Say one INI changes the GI's strength to X, and another changes it to Y. If you activate both radio buttons, what takes priority? Also, the size of the menu interface would need to be taken into account. In Skirmish, there's plenty of space to play around with, yes. However, hop over to LAN or Multiplayer, and that chat window gets lobbed out in front of everything, drastically reducing the available space. If #227 were to be implemented, something would need to be figured out there.

[MRMIdAS]

[0000563] Unlockable campaigns is a good feature and gets my vote.

[0000227] extra buttons you enhance skirmish is a good idea, especially major/minor supers.

[Renegade]

Administrative Notice:

Given that there have been no new posts in the past three days, it is assumed this discussion is finished; we will proceed to consider the arguments.

[AlexB]

Fight 1
Expanding the campaign list feature would be a good thing to prevent gamers from playing missions they haven't reached yet and still have them select every mission already unlocked. This feature requires the campaign list to be there, as one poster pointed out a month after it has been implemented.

The charge thing is just a graphical gimmick. It hasn't gathered any supporters in more than two years. Show/hide campaigns.

Fight 2
I see many problems with the modular way of multiplayer modes as described by 227. What if I disable cloaked units and supers together with some more of the proposed check boxes? Most likely, other units and buildings have to be altered also. But how does one define that some check boxes interact with each other and that special files must be parsed as consequence thereof? Parsing yet another set of files files like MP_ASSAULTSUPER.INI, MP_ASSAULTSUPERCLOAK.INI would not help to reduce anything, it would make creating INIs more complicated. Not supporting such interactions would lead to a rather basic system.

Using some other value than cost for veterancy isn't a real game changer, but it is possible to implement two new tags defaulting to cost, one used to in case a unit is promoted, one in case it is destroyed. I'd vote for the Veterancy changes.

[Renegade]

Fight 1

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In spirit, I'm in support of the charge anim, mainly because it actually serves an ingame purpose and would be easier to implement than the unlockable campaigns, but as Alex correctly pointed out, in two years, even after being put in the spotlight here, that request hasn't gained a single supporter, and implementing a feature no one wants would be a waste of time.

Kill: #338
Support: #563

Fight 2

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I share Nighthawk's concerns regarding the selectable INI content. The only way I could imagine this is a multi-select list of all MP*.INIs in the folder, allowing the player to choose which INIs to apply. But even that would only solve the interface problem, not the logical/parsing problems.

I do think #345 is stupid, but it's the lesser of two evils.

Kill: #227
Support: #345


Since Alex voted the same, this is the result.