RA2: the community in review.

[System32]

Okay, okay, this thread is useless. The whole reason I have it here is to promote a discussion into the direction we are going in, and to encourage as many niches in RA2land as possible.

Disclaimer: I'm not an older veteran, but I'm a listener. I may be wrong here.

To start with: Building today, and how it got there.

RA2 has several factors that have the effect of making RA2 building the way it is. I'm talking to the bigest and most obvious of them.

AI, Arenas, Culture.

AI.

AI is pretty basic. the main tactic is to shove whatever is nearest and keep on shoving until a timer pops up. This works, because all stock AI never had tactics like driving backwards when something gets under them, or attacking from the sides. The main reason I see for this is the fact the arena hazards never were a threat (I'll deal with this next), they are always off (I'll tackle this later, too) and Online play was broken (Discussed here.). Only in recent years thanks to modders have more and more advanced AI tactics showed up. For a personal example, I tried to create a Popup specific AI using an AI suited to popups and an AI that makes bots flank foes before attacking. I failed, but it is a prime example of some of the variation within RA2 AI in the modern day.

AI is more effective than man. There are rarely small mistakes, hesitations and ingenious tactics such as dancing around a hazard or going for a wheel over the main bot. In RA2, the AI usually charges blindly, and everything usually supports that.

Additionally, the judge "AI" (Or mechanics for judging robots in fights) is simple, and chooses a simple factor to seperate winners from losers: Damage. Flipping an opponent out isn't as highly regarded as outright killing them. There have been steps to counter this, as one 2011 tournament has recently used non damage based judging.

Arenas.

Arenas are made by modders of the community, and by proxy the culture or RA2 decides the arenas, creating an echo chamber. Thus, the arenas in RA2 (or the popular ones) are usually flat, rectangular, have no hazards or weak ones and might have a wall to flip out opponents. The BBEANS arena has a hazard in the center to change that, and a set of flippers to prevent the "pinning" mechanic that occurs frequently which gives some types of bot an edge over another.

This is one of the few exeptions to the rule, as some deaths caused by arena hazards are seen as unfair and cheap. Even the BBEANS arena's blade is weaker than it could be, to prevent "unfair" losses. The fact that the bots are put under the care of AI and as such leave the builders feeling subconciously that their bots are "vulnerable" encourages this sort of arena.

The only way for more hazardous arenas is for the community to lighten up over tournaments and thus losses from arena hazards and other threats not related to the direct opponent.

Culture.

RA2 is a primarily online game nowadays, with little to offer in singleplayer. All the challenge is made by the community and as such there is a competitive feel that is everywhere. This feel makes loss worse than it usually is from an outside observer, and as such arenas and tournaments are made in a way where any unfair losses due to luck are removed.

This feel drives away some light-hearted builders, and changes the rest due to peer pressure. (I don't have anything else to put here, exept that if we took stuff like tournaments a little less to heart we might have a better game, from the varied and entertainment stadpoint. Keep in mind that was subjective, and the "No items, fox only, final destination" style gameplay may be more entertaining to some.)
 

tl;dr: Just read it, moron. I don't have time for idiocy.

[System32]

I'm posting here incase I need to put something near the first post.

[J]

Culture.

RA2 is a primarily online game nowadays, with little to offer in singleplayer. All the challenge is made by the community and as such there is a competitive feel that is everywhere. This feel makes loss worse than it usually is from an outside observer, and as such arenas and tournaments are made in a way where any unfair losses due to luck are removed.

This feel drives away some light-hearted builders, and changes the rest due to peer pressure. (I don't have anything else to put here, exept that if we took stuff like tournaments a little less to heart we might have a better game, from the varied and entertainment stadpoint. Keep in mind that was subjective, and the "No items, fox only, final destination" style gameplay may be more entertaining to some.)

Yep, same concept as every other game out there.
Spikes - Players who are "serious-gamers" and play to win, and build robots with a competetive edge that nets them a strong robot.
Scrubs - Players who "play for game" and don't care if they win or lose, they just wanted to be part of the action and enjoyed themselves in the process.

[russian roulette]

Well worded, and right to the point as well. I think you should also mention what makes Good Builders, well Good Builders, since now this community now has a nostalgic real life building example that is also taken in sort of high regard as well as aesthetics, proof of concepts, and complete weapon spam.

[Jack Daniels]

This feel drives away some light-hearted builders, and changes the rest due to peer pressure. (I don't have anything else to put here, exept that if we took stuff like tournaments a little less to heart we might have a better game, from the varied and entertainment stadpoint. Keep in mind that was subjective, and the "No items, fox only, final destination" style gameplay may be more entertaining to some.)
 

I totally agree.  Since I fall into the category of "Light Hearted builder" I watch this pretty closely as new tournaments are announced.  Yoda's "Our replicas are Different" Tournament is a prime example of builders having fun while competing.  Also, the replica tournaments fall into that category (mostly) as well.  Badnik's current "Blades of Fury" tournament has me interested... however the rules give people quite a bit of slack to make a powerful bot.  He is the judge to which bots are accepted, but I feel that several people will try to push the envelope in order to win the tournament.

I don't fault them for that though, people like to win. It is a great feeling. Some, are more competitive than others.  When you are dealing with a forum based off of people in a core age group less than 20 years old, competitiveness is inevitable really.  Younger people cherish the gratification of winning.  Whereas, when you get older you find that winning isn't everything and sometimes it is far more gratifying to chill out and just have fun.  But, that wisdom comes with time.  It isn't something that you can cram down a persons throat.

Great writeup Sys32.  *+respect*

[Trovaner]

I understand that you are giving the most general case as possible but here are just a few unmentioned exceptions/notes/solutions.

AI is pretty basic. the main tactic is to shove whatever is nearest and keep on shoving until a timer pops up. This works, because all stock AI never had tactics like driving backwards when something gets under them, or attacking from the sides.

There actually hasn't been very many additions to the AI tactics over the years. The biggest and most universal addition was Click's Ram and modified Charge tactics.
The engage tactic is by far, the most used tactic in today's AI.py files. It basically keeps moving towards the opponent until the opponent is with its radius (which is unfortunately also used for hazard and wall avoidance).
The shove tactic tries to push the opponent into neighboring hazards. Underused as a result of hazards being off and the requirement of a map file.
The charge tactic backs up for ramming purposes when it isn't moving very fast. Click modded this to be smarter (ex. not backing into opponent).
The original stock AI actually came with a flanking tactic named reorient but it was only used by chopper.py (a hammer AI) and it wasn't very advanced.

Additionally, the judge "AI" (Or mechanics for judging robots in fights) is simple, and chooses a simple factor to seperate winners from losers: Damage. Flipping an opponent out isn't as highly regarded as outright killing them. There have been steps to counter this, as one 2011 tournament has recently used non damage based judging.

We could add something to give exponentially more points the higher the bot is thrown but there would be some serious balance issues.

[System32]

If anything I'd ask to see points taken away from being hit by hazards.
 

[R0B0SH4RK]

I'm unsure what argument you're trying to make with the original post. Is it merely a chronicle in your view of how the RA2 community has been shaped by various factors? It seems rather encyclopedia-like to me. However, if your goal is to foster discussion on how the community handles RA2 in the future, then I'll gladly make a contribution:


In my view, RA2 online is and has always been an arms race at its core. It's simply the nature of the game. I mean, the whole point of RA2 is to build the most vicious machine that you can and systematically dismantle your opposition with it, both in the single player game and online. Hence, using J's definitions, we're all "spikes" to some degree by merely playing the game. Because of this, we've always been trying to make the best machine out there within the parameters we've outlined for ourselves. This is where we've begun to run into problems.

Waaaaaaaaay back when, the pioneers of both Stock and DSL felt it necessary to lay down some guidelines to preserve the sanctity of the game. In Stock, we had the "you can only build inside the botlab" rule. In DSL, we had the "realistic" rule. Remember, these were postulated years and years ago, back when guys like eFFeeMMe were in their heyday. From my point of view, both of the standards that we have previously held have long become antiquated. Hax mode allows you to do things inside the botlab that were once impossible, making it obvious that the old Stock rule needed (and probably still needs) to be revised. And then, we have DSL.

Since the community migrated from the official forums to Gametechmods, DSL's evolution and growth in popularity have been enormous. I remember a time when only a few played DSL. In fact, if you look at the competitors in BBEANS 2 and then BBEANS 4, you'll notice three particularly successful bot types that were absent in the former but present in the latter: the popup (Enfilad3), the juggler (Hazardous Contraption) and the flail shell spinner (Iron Spaghetti). All three of these were once primarily Stock designs that migrated to DSL in and around the time of BBEANS 4 due to a sudden surge in popularity. It was at this point that we started to really stretch the realistic rule.

I'll admit, the realistic rule has always been "if you can build it in real life, it's okay," but that was before people started building gut rippers and flail spinners in DSL. Sure, you can still build these bots in real life, but would they work? Of course not. Your IRL opponents would laugh at you should you slide underneath them and begin tickling their underbelly or gently caressing their flanks with your spinner. When applying the realistic rule on recent bots, we've all been focusing solely on the form of the bot, but not the function. Shouldn't a rule dictating how to build a bot apply to both? Of course it should, because we've ended up with a plethora of bot types that are so comically unrealistic in terms of how they work that we've all completely lost sight of a) the purpose of this rule and b) what "realistic" actually means!

We can all Google the meaning of "realistic," so I'll only address issue a) here. The purpose of the realistic rule wasn't to prevent DSL from becoming Stock, like I've seen some people assert. It was to encourage building life-like robots, like RA2 had originally promised us, and by proxy would have the effect of preventing another Stock-like glitch fest. If the sole purpose of the realistic rule was to avoid another Stock, then why bother to encourage realism? Why not just ban stacking? Surely, this would be much simpler had they wanted to accomplish only the avoidance of Stock, but the denizens of DSL chose in very specific terms the "realistic" rule.

The "arms race" mentality at the core of RA2 has kept us pushing the boundaries of the realistic rule for years now. This rule is old, and in desperate need of being either ammended, updated or replaced, yet for some reason, we keep drinking the Kool-Aid and telling ourselves that our latest killer machines are realistic, just so they can keep being accepted in our showcases and winning in tournaments. DSL building is clearly not going to change, but a line in the sand needs to be drawn somewhere. S32 had a good idea recently, about a "DSL Standard" in place of "realism." Basically, nothing changes with how we build in DSL, only the words we use to classify it. Of course, we'll also need to update the language surrounding the realistic rule, and maybe even keep an official set of guidelines somewhere, but that's a different discussion that I don't really want to get into at 12:33 at night. Perhaps a bit later, since this is a far better place than Urjak's showcase to do it (@Urjak: sorry by the way, it must seem like I'm constantly picking on you, or at least trying to. I'm really not and I have huge respect for your skill as one of the top DSL builders).

But it's time to stop kidding ourselves guys, we're not building realistic bots anymore. We're merely building bots without stacking.

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You wanted discussion? You now have a discussion. Go crazy :P

[System32]

Is it merely a chronicle in your view of how the RA2 community has been shaped by various factors? It seems rather encyclopedia-like to me. However, if your goal is to foster discussion on how the community handles RA2 in the future

Bingo and bingo. These are my personal thoughts and observations, and I thought it would be interesting to see what others thought.
 
I do think the idea of having a small set of basic "Standards" for stock, DSL and future mods might be interesting. I'll flesh these up later.

[JoeBlo]

I tried to make a set of standards for Backlash and majority shot them down..

Funny enough it was based around the claimed "IRL building" and now thats the only thing people make tournaments for these days..

[Urjak]

(@Urjak: sorry by the way, it must seem like I'm constantly picking on you, or at least trying to. I'm really not and I have huge respect for your skill as one of the top DSL builders).

Hey, it's all cool. I for one am glad my bot seems to have invoked some great discussion. :)

I tried to make a set of standards for Backlash and majority shot them down..

Odd... I don't think I think I remember that. What were said standards going to be?

[JoeBlo]

Class specific parts.. to encourage more IRL type building and also allow classes to be balanced separately so one single class didn't become the sole building standard.

I even had some people telling me what the Backlash standards were at one point 

[Urjak]

Class specific parts.. to encourage more IRL type building and also allow classes to be balanced separately so one single class didn't become the sole building standard.

That doesn't sound too bad; at least it is an original take on the whole idea of bot types.

[Stagfish]

But that would make everyones bots look relatively the same, removing a lot of originality.

[JoeBlo]

^ good impression of one of the many people that never read what I put in the thread ^

robots are only as generic as the builder..

You would have been able to make that type of robot anyway you normally would.. just parts would be balenced, designed and favored to that bot type..

[Stagfish]

So I can make a flipper with a saw on the rear?
 
EDIT: And I have read your post, you want class specific parts.

[JoeBlo]

So I can make a flipper with a saw on the rear?

You sure cant, Backlash is a Spinner mod..

[Stagfish]

Then why have class-specific parts when there is only one class and its sub-classes?

[Vertigo]

Class specific parts.. to encourage more IRL type building and also allow classes to be balanced separately so one single class didn't become the sole building standard.

I thought it was quite a good idea actually

[Urjak]

Then why have class-specific parts when there is only one class and its sub-classes?

Umm... HS, VS, FS, SS, Sawbot, Juggler, TS. I think there are several classes of spinner.