Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-22T15:40:56+02:00

OK, well, I have been using this even if you lot have not. Against AIs (I know, I know, but my Internet is buggered) I am noticing a very real difference. The transition to T2 is now more a little more forgiving than it was, and you no longer just get crushed completely by swarms of T1, as your T2 can keep up with your own T1s. It looks good to me.

Statistics: Posted by IceDreamer — 22 Sep 2012, 15:40

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-21T15:53:44+02:00

Then we need to beg PilOt to put these changes into the Balance Mod... We also need to get a list of people willing to use it when asked.

Also, the code for my changes to the Mavor is coming along nicely, so it looks like I might be able to power that unit up too soon enough.

Statistics: Posted by IceDreamer — 21 Sep 2012, 15:53

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-19T17:36:00+02:00

The problem is that incremental changes require the most testing. We won't get quantity of testing until its featured. Pm me any time if you want to try it and if I'm on and available I will accept.

Statistics: Posted by Softly — 19 Sep 2012, 17:36

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-19T16:50:29+02:00

ShadowKnight wrote:
Clearly you aren't very interested guys, not one person has DLed that mod yet. Who cares if it isn't official yet, pair up and play ffs.

Welcome to the harsh world of Ze_Pilot trying to have real testing occur, and replays of tests to gather data!
Even as a featured mod, you'll have a hard time finding goodwilled players ready to test for several games. So outside of a featured mod, you need friends to test it with you, in 1v1 and 2v2 games.

I think the mod is interesting and very worth testing, even though I'm not sure it's necessary to reduce 3599 speed if you touch the units HP (except for the Sera chicken bot). My personal problem is not of interest but that I am not available to play the game these days, not just this mod, but any FA game.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 19 Sep 2012, 16:50

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-19T16:13:39+02:00

Clearly you aren't very interested guys, not one person has DLed that mod yet. Who cares if it isn't official yet, pair up and play ffs.

Statistics: Posted by IceDreamer — 19 Sep 2012, 16:13

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-19T10:36:57+02:00

Anaryl wrote:
because official changes will now occur less frequently and more regularly so that players have time to adapt.

which is it sorry?

If I understood well, the ladder seasons will give the pace for official changes.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 19 Sep 2012, 10:36

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-19T07:33:04+02:00

If I understood correctly what Pilot said, the next ladder season may add a limited number of balance tweaks (I'm mostly thinking about the changes Vehicle posted a while back), because official changes will now occur less frequently and more regularly so that players have time to adapt.

Concurrently, at some point, he will reopen the balance testing featured mod, so that while a ladder season takes place with a given official version, testers can test different tweaks to prepare the next version, that will become official when the next ladder season will take place.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 19 Sep 2012, 07:33

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-18T23:34:53+02:00

Veta, it's been done, tested, and rejected, as it didn't provide a satisfactory game experience. Engineer assisting is a fantastic mechanic and must be kept. All that should happen is a slight incentive to produce higher tech Engineers or higher tech Factories over tech 1 Engineers, and the answer is not as obvious as simply adjusting buildcosts. You should still be able to concentrate buildpower because you need that Percival NOW, but something needs to happen to make it more efficient in the long run to build multiple Factories.

Personally, I have become rather attached to the idea that the solution may well be in adjusting the HP of these units. Reducing the HP of tech 1 Engineers and Factories and increasing the HP of the higher tech equivalents may create the decision: Do I want more efficient buildpower? Do I want my buildpower to survive incoming raids? If that can be made relevant, it may counter some of the spam.

Its easier if it gets integrated into a balance testing mod

That way it auto downloads for others, and more people will play it. It needs testing from as many as possible.

It isn't going to happen, I don't think. PilOt has said that the testing mod is now going to be offline for a while until people have got used to the current balance. This is merely a few interested individuals investigating possible solutions to perceived problems brought forwards by members of the community.

Statistics: Posted by IceDreamer — 18 Sep 2012, 23:34

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-18T22:39:11+02:00

I think it would make a lot of sense if Engineers were good at building structures (but also had a secondary purpose as inefficient but convenient "hurry up" build power) and Factories were good at building Factory units. Right now Factories, T2 Engineers, T3 Engineers and most other units that construct anything are all less efficient for mass than T1 engineers and so they're only used for their blueprints. They lay down the structure or unit or whatever and then T1 Engineers are the primary build power. Is it me or does that seem incredibly non-intuitive for an "Engineer" unit? I think either Engineers and T2/T3 Factories should be renamed or Factories and T2/T3 Engies should be given at least build power that is on par with T1 Engineers for cost. Vanilla SupCom actually did the latter to a degree but they ultimately cut it from FA.

It takes T1 Factories about 5-10 seconds to produce T1 units. It should take T2 Factories about 100-300% as long to produce T2 units. Likewise it should take T3 factories around 300-900% as long to produce T3 units. Making T3 factories on par with T1 engies for build power would also go a long way to making multiple T2/T3 Facs viable, regardless of what tier units you're actually building (because T2/T3 facs would be very good at producing T1/T2 and therefore good infrastructure).

Statistics: Posted by Veta — 18 Sep 2012, 22:39

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-18T22:16:45+02:00

I think a little bit of an mod would be to be able to rally engineers INTO factories. for example.

You now have a swarm of units next to the factory with more engineers is faster production.

But. If you would make an mod which wil do: you make an engineer and you want to assist a factory with that engineer. The engineer dissapears when assisting the factory and can NEVER be taken back. The factory's production times are now a equally lower by the amount of building speed increasement before this mod.

This will greatly improve game performance in the late game where there are a lot of T1 units because now it is just one factory being edited in it's building speeds.

Any comments? (maybe wrong topic to place this?)

Statistics: Posted by Emptyless — 18 Sep 2012, 22:16

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-18T21:50:59+02:00

Its easier if it gets integrated into a balance testing mod

That way it auto downloads for others, and more people will play it. It needs testing from as many as possible.

Statistics: Posted by Softly — 18 Sep 2012, 21:50

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-18T21:45:25+02:00

I posted a mod with the required changes a few posts back. Well come on you skinny-men-in-suits, get to work!

Statistics: Posted by IceDreamer — 18 Sep 2012, 21:45

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-18T21:44:29+02:00

DilliDalli wrote:
ShadowKnight wrote:However, the way they ARE currently being used in the vast majority of cases is a set up and spam, lazy, forgettable, no-maintenance game-plan. Wait a while, do some other stuff, drag select a hundred odd units, right click somewhere the other side of the enemy base.

I never find this happening on my side of a game. Your units require lots more babysitting to get the best out of them. Meantime you are sorting your eco, building and organising air attacks, as well as scouting, watching them for attacks and thinking of new ways to be nasty to the opponent.

Perhaps you are the exception, but I've seen it from everyone from TAG players to general scrubs. Yes, your units require a huge amount of micro to get the best out of them, but the fact is that when spammed in the numbers that they are, you don't NEED the best of them to win!

Yes, I recognise that the player is doing all those other things, but that is no excuse for combat being made up of two clicks. In my ideal world I would like to see T1 units used in diverse groups of 10-20 units each, with at least a good half-dozen groups on the move at once, darting in an out carrying out raids on structures and units, harassing and ambushing enemy armies from the sides, and generally doing what small, irritating units do in other RTS games. Within each group the units are largely autonomous, but for example you will need to zoom in and micro to take those tanks out with your LABs, or to make that PD safe to move in a little further. I believe this was the original ideas of T1 by the designers, as this is what is was in Vanilla.

Statistics: Posted by IceDreamer — 18 Sep 2012, 21:44

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-18T21:34:45+02:00

ShadowKnight wrote:
However, the way they ARE currently being used in the vast majority of cases is a set up and spam, lazy, forgettable, no-maintenance game-plan. Wait a while, do some other stuff, drag select a hundred odd units, right click somewhere the other side of the enemy base.

I never find this happening on my side of a game. Your units require lots more babysitting to get the best out of them. Meantime you are sorting your eco, building and organising air attacks, as well as scouting, watching them for attacks and thinking of new ways to be nasty to the opponent.

Statistics: Posted by Softly — 18 Sep 2012, 21:34

Re: Pointless yet essential balance discussion and testing

2012-09-18T19:43:47+02:00

DilliDalli wrote:
I think the Ilshavoh needs more of a health nerf given its high dps, range, and RoF.

Otherwise I'd happily test these changes.

Also even at t1 land you don't just build 2 types of units, and there is plenty of strategy that still occurs even with only two types of units depending on the exact unit mix and the map. Draughts only has two types of "unit" but thats still an intellectual challenge.

Increasing the HP nerf to -4% would knock it down to 2400HP. Sound good?

In some games, yes, two units can make for deep Strategy, and I think they can be in SupCom. However, the way they ARE currently being used in the vast majority of cases is a set up and spam, lazy, forgettable, no-maintenance game-plan. Wait a while, do some other stuff, drag select a hundred odd units, right click somewhere the other side of the enemy base. This is not Strategy, this is laziness, and the fact that it is happening, and is more effective AND easier than other Strategies, is wrong.

EDIT:

Statistics: Posted by IceDreamer — 18 Sep 2012, 19:43