CNC Zero Hour

As long as the final product of the patch is not forced on everyone through an autodownloader it´s a big no from me.

This patch must be accepted by most of the community and then it must be forced downloaded, or else you have successfully devided the Community into 2 groups (again).

It´s either everyone or noone.

What do you mean with 2 groups again? When was it ever split apart? 1.05, 1.06 never found main adoption due major core design issues.

There is still a legitimate reason to retain original patch access: To watch old replays.

But yes, given that a new game patch improves the game a lot, should give zero incentive to players to use the latest original patch over the improved game patch. The core expectation is that players prefer better balance between factions, less game bugs and better performance.

I think this would be a great idea, but would split the community unless its a forced patch by Gentool. Just have gentool automatically download the latest versions of the patch, and then even if the patch needs updating, it can do that without us having to manually update it. (Also maybe make gentool auto-update to newer versions?)

Regarding the gameplay changes, I think only formations and how units move would be an acceptable change. I don't think you'll ever get all the experts/pros to agree on balancing issues, and some would decide to continue playing on the old patch, which would really split the community. So no balancing changes, just slight gameplay changes to make units move better, fix the bugs & issues, and that's it. Modifying it with it further would probably lead to some people quitting/splitting the community.

Has to be somewhat forced by GenTool.

I would be happy thst all thoughts of the latest round find their way to the balance of 1.04.

i nulled vote because i am not sure anymore.

sometimes i hate the balance, like when you get a china vs tox in a final decider for a challenge or whatever.

then I tried to install Kane's Wrath the other week and the amount of rubbish you have to go through and all the hassle to get the game working and then finding out which patch people use was a huge ball ache. Then you look through the KW (GR.org) replay section and see the different versions and that the game is pretty much dead. Also I think you'd have issues watching back old zh replays.

in the end, i think it would be the last big blow for killing the game finally, due to splitting community. It would definitely be a big blow, the only question is how big.

I think it should be forced, but doesn't deny access of the original version, basically to give an option in gentool to choose wether you want to return to the original patch and make the default choice be the balance patch

Yeah there certainly is problem if community cannot decide on how they want to proceed and end up with two or more custom patches and deviate further. With one definite community patch I certainly forecast some initial issues too, especially in the casual gamer community, however, within competitive community it should adapt relatively quickly and within casual community it should trickle down over the course of a few weeks. You would have the patch news posted across forums/discords/youtubes/facebooks, and the rest would come naturally in private chats and mouth to mouth, as more and more left over people (Non-GenTool users) find rooms with mismatching versions and the requirement to adapt to the majority.

I suspect distribution and adoption is not as big of an issue as we like to naturally fear, IF properly planned for and executed. GenPatcher Tool is of great importance here as well, because with this tool player can get Zero Hour ready to play with a click of a button. Most players need to use this anyway after performing a fresh install on their Windows 10.

For that however, we need a very good product first, which we do not yet have.

Obviously I support the idea as I started it all with Jundiyy.

From the get go it was most important for us that this patch doesn't change the 1.04 gameplay. Right now, the biggest changes are the cooldown timers of SW's and genpowers, noone can dispute some obvious improvements are made here (potentially could be improved further).

Whilst further changes in Beta 3 are already very minimalistic, we've already seen meta changes since 2020. For example it has gotten more clear that Paladins are actually very strong support units that can change games (same for Stealth Fighters). These probably need to be rolled back (to some degree or completely) and maybe some other things aswell.

But even if we roll back most of the balance changes, I think the patch is still worth it for just fixing bugs alone. Other neat features for example would be including RB for network games.

Keep in mind Beta 3 is more of a testing environment anyway, it's completely subject to change and all based on testing and user input.

Anyways, the distribution and stuff needs to be executed very well indeed. We don't want this to backfire in any way.

This post has been edited by -ExiLe`: Aug 22 2021, 14:17 PM

If not forced, it will die soon just like 1.05a, 1.05b and 1.06 did

If this is not forced it will either die within days or split the community like we have seen in KW. Their community is totally fucked since then and basically dead. We either have to do this 100% or skip it completely.

Force it

Reason why KW is dead is because most KW players could not accept one of their players getting a ban in 2015. Ever since then they have considered their moral obligation to rebel and sabotage GR/C&C Online events/tournaments and attack, libel, slander and insult GR/Revora staff as a way of standing up for and defending their "hero of the community". It was simply impossible to be a KW GR staff member since you'd be shat at no matter what you did so one after another people left KW staff and the end result is what you see today.

The different patches per se are not the reason KW is dead. It's that they are used (denied to GR) as a tool of making GR obsolete, which again is just a way of retaliation.

Assuming there is no chronic anti GR/Revora sentiment in ZH the danger of community patches in minimal. My 2 cents.

This post has been edited by eXs.bikefan: Aug 22 2021, 17:18 PM

As most Pros see the balance quite screwed on 1.04, acceptance is not a big deal.

Excal told us what we can change.

I thinthink a few pros like him are enough to evaluate the balance, eventually a few other changes as price and time. It all is present just now and need to be implemented.
Bugfixes are important, bit need more in depth ini coding, but I am sure there are some coders who can help outside.

We already saw SW and China getting boost snd AF getting some more expensive units and everything aligns better together.

ReLaX

if you do it you have to force the download via gentool. if a majority agrees with that approach i think it might be a pretty good idea. if not you shouldn´t do it.

age of empires 2 community was in a similar situation and the patches worked well in the end, but the community was bigger and growing when they started doing patches if i´m not mistaken.

is there a chance you might be able to fix not only things like balance, but also annoying things like missmatches, connectivity issues when trying to start a game etc?

..

I dont see any necessity to patch 1.04 nor do I see any advantage in it. In challenges we play rdm reverse, use vetos or simply choose armies. I like the imba mus in zh when I play ffgs. The army balance is also heavily dependent on the map. For instance usas arent that strong on sand serpent vs china armies. Those little changes made in 1.04+ wont ever balance the really unfair mus like air vs any other usa anyway. High risk to piss people off that love zh how it is and low reward imo. The people who still play 1.04 do it because they love the game.

Funniest reason ever

as long as zero hour staff doesn´t exclude fargo i think we´ll be fine

It was never aimed to fix hard unbalanced mus.
All China vs GLA and USA have been improoved, which is the most important thing if you ask me. Will produce mzch better and also longer games.