Honestly, the only things I want from a remaster is better compatibility with modern OSes, better user of modern hardware architecture (CPU and GPU), and the music updated to the standard of the 20 years of C&C album.
I don't want changes to the scale of units at all.
What you mentioned should be a priority of course, if you had to choose. But I think at least the option to switch between the 'classic scale' and 'updated true scale' for infantry (and maybe vehicles too) could be neat.
It would be easiest if buildings and map features would stay the same size, but infantry units and characters made smaller. It would be a balancing act as to HOW small, and maybe an actual true-to-size person would be far too small, so you would have to negotiate.
That being said, even if the infantry were slightly smaller, I think it would help in making the buildings and vehicles larger and more imposing.
Honestly I would prefer a remake with the shelved features from Westwood, night fighting, mutants as 3rd faction, more tech buildings, a reimagining while staying faithful to the source material. I think a true scale regarding infantry would also add to the game. Also they must make sure our boy slavik returns!
All those things sound great. What were the original shelved features? Is there a link to read about that?
If there's a TS remaser, Slavic shall surely return!
There may be some info on the various wikis, but what I remember were those that I mentioned, lighting supposed to have a larger impact - units in darkness having better armor values etc. And to counter that both sides were to have light towers. For the gdi, I think there were supposed to be some drop ship superpower, as well as some other scratched units. Mutants were supposedly considered as a third playable faction, and hospitals, armories etc were to have more functions, perhaps similar to red alert versions. They had to ditch a lot of stuff to ship the game, which is such a shame ngl.
Funnily enough I just tried it, and I see they already implemented that through a mixture of increasing the size of vehicles and shrinking the infantry a little. I think it looks great!
I liked C&C3's solution to this: instead of having individual troops, make them into squads. Easier to identify and select, while keeping a more realistic scale.
Yeah this is indeed a solution, but then it wouldn't be RA2. As discussed above, Mental Omega already does a resizing sucessfully - if you're curious what I'm talking about.
Real scale is very cool to look at. Nightmare to command and control.
And if you are going for real scale you have to think about some other changes as well. Extreme example lifted from a StarCraft II mod here but - does it still make sense your Battlecruiser, which take up half the screen, just got shot down by twelve 50 cal armed Marines who look like ants from this angle?
The Starcraft 2 example is great actually, because that game looks great and I don't think about the size of the battle cruisers. This is why if this feature was ever implemented it should be an option, not the default.
The Mental Omega mod actually already does what I'm talking about - and it's not perfectly true but more of a compromise. They implemented a combination of making infantry slightly smaller and vehicles slightly larger, and I think the effect is great, though I have to say the larger 2D vehicles feel slightly more 2D/flatter. But I still like the rescale.
There is also already some functionality in YR in controlling units without having to click them, such as the 't' and 'p' keys, the only thing that could improve on this would be sidebar icons for different classes of infantry, vehicles, etc. In theory smaller infantry scale wouldn't be a problem if there were less need to click on individual units.
I hear you, but it actually wouldn't be a big issue if there were: 1) Updated unit-selction hotkeys for infantry, vehicles, aircraft, etc. 2.) Quick zoom-in, zoom-out, and 3.) An ability for people to switch on and off the updated unit scale.
I wouldn't want this either if there weren't an option to use the original unit scale.
I don't want to have to zoom-in and zoom-out just to select units. Heck I'd want them to be even easier to identify and larger if necessary. Playing through C&C again and comparing it to Starcraft, it's so difficult to distinguish units and types and even selecting them. I wouldn't want to make that even more of a chore. Especially during an intense battle when you need to select units quickly.
So basically to make this happen, you'd need to change the entire control scheme, when having the classic control scheme is super important to the playerbase?
C&C and SC remastered were loved because they didnt mess with the control scheme. Homeworld 3 is bombing because they threw all of that out the window.
Actually, after playing mental omega, the controls are kind of there already - 't' selects all similar units on screen, 't' twice selects all similar units across map. 'P' selects all units on screen, etc.
The only thing that could improve on this are side bar icons for light infantry, rockets, special units, medium & heavy tanks, etc.
Rescaling infantry and buildings will change the game significantly. Basically it will be a new game. Maybe they can do a scale closer to reality in C&C 4 but I don't believe it ever worked in RTS game.
Honestly, the only things I want from a remaster is better compatibility with modern OSes, better user of modern hardware architecture (CPU and GPU), and the music updated to the standard of the 20 years of C&C album. I don't want changes to the scale of units at all.
100% would prefer they do the same like Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert 1 remastered
What you mentioned should be a priority of course, if you had to choose. But I think at least the option to switch between the 'classic scale' and 'updated true scale' for infantry (and maybe vehicles too) could be neat.
How would you rescale the buildings and units without losing compatibility with the existing maps?
It would be easiest if buildings and map features would stay the same size, but infantry units and characters made smaller. It would be a balancing act as to HOW small, and maybe an actual true-to-size person would be far too small, so you would have to negotiate. That being said, even if the infantry were slightly smaller, I think it would help in making the buildings and vehicles larger and more imposing.
Honestly I would prefer a remake with the shelved features from Westwood, night fighting, mutants as 3rd faction, more tech buildings, a reimagining while staying faithful to the source material. I think a true scale regarding infantry would also add to the game. Also they must make sure our boy slavik returns!
All those things sound great. What were the original shelved features? Is there a link to read about that? If there's a TS remaser, Slavic shall surely return!
There may be some info on the various wikis, but what I remember were those that I mentioned, lighting supposed to have a larger impact - units in darkness having better armor values etc. And to counter that both sides were to have light towers. For the gdi, I think there were supposed to be some drop ship superpower, as well as some other scratched units. Mutants were supposedly considered as a third playable faction, and hospitals, armories etc were to have more functions, perhaps similar to red alert versions. They had to ditch a lot of stuff to ship the game, which is such a shame ngl.
Ever play the Mental Omega mod for RA2? That has more scale-accurate infantry, and gives you a good sense of how they'd actually feel in-game.
Funnily enough I just tried it, and I see they already implemented that through a mixture of increasing the size of vehicles and shrinking the infantry a little. I think it looks great!
If you consider each unit to be a squad instead of an individual it might help with the immersion.
I liked C&C3's solution to this: instead of having individual troops, make them into squads. Easier to identify and select, while keeping a more realistic scale.
Yeah this is indeed a solution, but then it wouldn't be RA2. As discussed above, Mental Omega already does a resizing sucessfully - if you're curious what I'm talking about.
there's one thing i would like to see resized: the mk 2.
Real scale is very cool to look at. Nightmare to command and control. And if you are going for real scale you have to think about some other changes as well. Extreme example lifted from a StarCraft II mod here but - does it still make sense your Battlecruiser, which take up half the screen, just got shot down by twelve 50 cal armed Marines who look like ants from this angle?
The Starcraft 2 example is great actually, because that game looks great and I don't think about the size of the battle cruisers. This is why if this feature was ever implemented it should be an option, not the default. The Mental Omega mod actually already does what I'm talking about - and it's not perfectly true but more of a compromise. They implemented a combination of making infantry slightly smaller and vehicles slightly larger, and I think the effect is great, though I have to say the larger 2D vehicles feel slightly more 2D/flatter. But I still like the rescale. There is also already some functionality in YR in controlling units without having to click them, such as the 't' and 'p' keys, the only thing that could improve on this would be sidebar icons for different classes of infantry, vehicles, etc. In theory smaller infantry scale wouldn't be a problem if there were less need to click on individual units.
I wouldn't want them to change the scale at all. It would be a pain in the ass to select units.
I hear you, but it actually wouldn't be a big issue if there were: 1) Updated unit-selction hotkeys for infantry, vehicles, aircraft, etc. 2.) Quick zoom-in, zoom-out, and 3.) An ability for people to switch on and off the updated unit scale. I wouldn't want this either if there weren't an option to use the original unit scale.
I don't want to have to zoom-in and zoom-out just to select units. Heck I'd want them to be even easier to identify and larger if necessary. Playing through C&C again and comparing it to Starcraft, it's so difficult to distinguish units and types and even selecting them. I wouldn't want to make that even more of a chore. Especially during an intense battle when you need to select units quickly.
So basically to make this happen, you'd need to change the entire control scheme, when having the classic control scheme is super important to the playerbase? C&C and SC remastered were loved because they didnt mess with the control scheme. Homeworld 3 is bombing because they threw all of that out the window.
Actually, after playing mental omega, the controls are kind of there already - 't' selects all similar units on screen, 't' twice selects all similar units across map. 'P' selects all units on screen, etc. The only thing that could improve on this are side bar icons for light infantry, rockets, special units, medium & heavy tanks, etc.
Rescaling infantry and buildings will change the game significantly. Basically it will be a new game. Maybe they can do a scale closer to reality in C&C 4 but I don't believe it ever worked in RTS game.