Smarter Target Acquisition

[Renegade]

While I agree with the sentiment, I do think you have to separate rhetoric from intent, here.
What you are doing is, essentially, building a straw man; I admit that, due to Olaf's original phrasing, said straw man is, to a certain extent, justified, but I am also pretty sure Olaf doesn't actually want to re-order targeting based on opponent classes, but was actually using "I'd like my tanks to fire at other tanks before firing at dogs" as a simple/humorous way to express "I would like my units to pick the optimal target first".

And that is quite a different thing.

So yes, if you take Olaf's statement literally, then his suggestion would be of questionable quality. If you think about the more specific suggestion, however, things look quite differently:
I believe all players would happily get behind a general change of "units now attack the units they are most effective against first", especially because that wouldn't look at something as simple as unit classes only, but take everything from verses, immunity, range and applying bonuses into account.
You can't tell me you honestly believe players will collectively be unhappy about all of their units suddenly being less stupid.

Similarly, you misconstrued Olaf's comment that "They'd have to adapt" as a general "screw the others, I want it my way" remark, when, in actuality, said remark was quite obviously made in the narrow context of tactically-challenged n00bs on XWIS. Again, a straw man argument.


I acknowledge that textual communication poses certain challenges, and I admit that it's everyone's own responsibility to ensure he is communicating clearly, however, one can expect a certain amount of goodwill and common sense from the reader.
Therefore, I would appreciate it if you read twice before getting your torch and pitchfork next time.


I would also like to point out that Ares has a number of universally applying changes beyond the kennel hack removal, such as Secret Lab Boon Weighting/Too Many Secret Labs, Hijackers are reimbursed when a unit is grinded, Unit Instances Not Counting Towards BuildLimit and others. Point being, while we usually do offer a way for the modder to decide which way he wants it, there are multiple precedents for universally applied changes, and you can construct debates about each of them. Ultimately, it's a question of "how likely is it there are people who'd want the old behavior?".
And it's not very likely there would be people going "Heyyy! How dare you make my units smarter without asking me?! I liked them wasting their effort and letting the enemy destroy me!!".


So yeah. Feel free to discuss the merits of a general targeting optimization and whether it should be optional or not, but please don't clutch to the clear simplification of "tanks must shoot on tanks first". It's an image. A symbol. An example. Nothing more. Nothing worth fighting over.


(Also note that this is currently nothing but a "Would it be possible..." discussion, and there is no promise any of this will ever be implemented by anyone. Just sayin'.)