a side note here related to this topic: the developers seem to be given a lot of support to script writers and those people are also players who clearly have a large friends group of other players, so it should be noted that while they don't seem to want to bend or change the rules for regular players, the leeway they have given script writers has bled down to the regular players/friends of theirs that have obviously taken over the game to a point they have no more real competition. So, don't you think it's time to rebalance the game for players not associated with this group of people? you gave them unfettered access to this games innerworkings to such a point they have mastered the unchanging economic aspect of this game, they have the overall majority of cooperating players in every single server and its quickly depleting the competition and killing this game.
Now, unless the whole point of allowing script writers to gain every advantage possible for themselves and their "friends" over regular players is in fact to diminish competition for them and slowly put the game to pasture, i have to suggest making a change in the economy structure to throw off the pros or at least make it more viable for the joes to keep pace, because we can clearly see in t56 how far apart the 2 top teams are from everyone else, this game is supposed to be about teams and diplomacy but advantages with scripts has made it more of a get on the winning side or die sort of thing. there are no real teams here anymore and it's just the one community full of scriptwriters and their friends that have taken over every server pretty much. Maybe I'm wrong about them, likely not but hey its worth mentioning because you never know when a developer might see this and say, "hey you know what this guy could be right, making a script free server may be a fun thing to try." or they could do a little better of a job keeping everyone around the same size for a longer period of time.
This may seem like another project bashing post but I know the project group is much too large to contain with the diminishing player base we are left with, half of the draw players had towards joining project in the first place came with those scripts and the likelihood of immediate dominance on a server and I know everyone wants to win but there's gunna come a time when nobody wants to play against them anymore not saying the last WCS wasn't one of those times but with what I've seen lately it's getting worse with each server. FA no morale servers are project servers exclusively now, there is no team or group of players other than those who participated in project that will win that server type and I would put money on it... I know your only opening those to keep those players happy but that won't last long when nobody wants to play against them anymore. but you take away the advantages they have maybe.
I have suggested a script free world in the past to the developers and we've seen the result - no change.
I don't know how easy it would be to change something that broke all scripts as the base calls would still be the same - look at how the recent changes broke scripts and within weeks the majority of popular ones were working again.
Original decisions on making the game able to use scripts was taken a very long time ago - I don't know if it was Phenomic or EA who made the decision although EA will have had an input. Sadly, many of the scripts contain features that make the game playable and which should have been in the original design brief but weren't. Copyright and intellectual property rights now inhibit the developers from including some of these features, as I understand it.
I am not an employee of EA/Envision. The views expressed are my own!
I've been playing this since cb1 started, not long after cb2 was started, Flunik developed the first combat simulator and various other tools, which I did not use until it was included into the game and i still don't use 3rd party materials. The real reason they allowed the use of any scripts at all was because of how useful and proficient it was to simulate combat therefore many players said they would not even play this if the sim was not available. that's also one of the reasons why nobody can beat project, not many people are aware of the finer attack mechanics such as unit stacking, defender trapping, advanced luring techniques and rock paper scissors matchups. they follow economic suggestions from scripts completely eliminating any kind of base building diversity. going along with computer generated upgrade suggestions means that the game basically plays itself. Now allowing people to master unchanging economic formulas using scripts is causing immense rifts in player proficiency as there's too much of a separation between those using all the available scripts and casual players to the point that 'real' competition cannot exist. pvp is no longer viable due to scripts that show online, offline status regardless of the account being in an alliance.
my 2 cents:
taking away scripts from this game will only be bad in the end...
software involving community addons are the best kind and the ones that survive longest...
ex.:
MS Windows
MS Office
Adobe
browser addons
WinAmp
Total Commander
TGT Soft StyleXP
mIRC
open source projects...
and why would anyone think that a top player would become totally handicapped without userscripts?
You may be right about software in general - games..... you don't list one although you probably could.
I don't think anyone thinks a good player will be totally handicapped without user scripts, but it does level the field initially. The alternative to no scripts is that every single one is made available. Some, as you are probably aware, do things in-game that are specifically not allowed but detecting them has proved to be particularly difficult to the level that would require action (ie banning the player).
I am not an employee of EA/Envision. The views expressed are my own!
my 2 cents:
taking away scripts from this game will only be bad in the end...
software involving community addons are the best kind and the ones that survive longest...
ex.:
MS Windows
MS Office
Adobe
browser addons
WinAmp
Total Commander
TGT Soft StyleXP
mIRC
open source projects...
and why would anyone think that a top player would become totally handicapped without userscripts?
Replies
Now, unless the whole point of allowing script writers to gain every advantage possible for themselves and their "friends" over regular players is in fact to diminish competition for them and slowly put the game to pasture, i have to suggest making a change in the economy structure to throw off the pros or at least make it more viable for the joes to keep pace, because we can clearly see in t56 how far apart the 2 top teams are from everyone else, this game is supposed to be about teams and diplomacy but advantages with scripts has made it more of a get on the winning side or die sort of thing. there are no real teams here anymore and it's just the one community full of scriptwriters and their friends that have taken over every server pretty much. Maybe I'm wrong about them, likely not but hey its worth mentioning because you never know when a developer might see this and say, "hey you know what this guy could be right, making a script free server may be a fun thing to try." or they could do a little better of a job keeping everyone around the same size for a longer period of time.
This may seem like another project bashing post but I know the project group is much too large to contain with the diminishing player base we are left with, half of the draw players had towards joining project in the first place came with those scripts and the likelihood of immediate dominance on a server and I know everyone wants to win but there's gunna come a time when nobody wants to play against them anymore not saying the last WCS wasn't one of those times but with what I've seen lately it's getting worse with each server. FA no morale servers are project servers exclusively now, there is no team or group of players other than those who participated in project that will win that server type and I would put money on it... I know your only opening those to keep those players happy but that won't last long when nobody wants to play against them anymore. but you take away the advantages they have maybe.
I don't know how easy it would be to change something that broke all scripts as the base calls would still be the same - look at how the recent changes broke scripts and within weeks the majority of popular ones were working again.
Original decisions on making the game able to use scripts was taken a very long time ago - I don't know if it was Phenomic or EA who made the decision although EA will have had an input. Sadly, many of the scripts contain features that make the game playable and which should have been in the original design brief but weren't. Copyright and intellectual property rights now inhibit the developers from including some of these features, as I understand it.
taking away scripts from this game will only be bad in the end...
software involving community addons are the best kind and the ones that survive longest...
ex.:
and why would anyone think that a top player would become totally handicapped without userscripts?
take away the bicycle... we'll walk
https://youtu.be/cUcMZFgpqMY?t=401
I don't think anyone thinks a good player will be totally handicapped without user scripts, but it does level the field initially. The alternative to no scripts is that every single one is made available. Some, as you are probably aware, do things in-game that are specifically not allowed but detecting them has proved to be particularly difficult to the level that would require action (ie banning the player).
yes please walk with me