Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-24T19:34:54+02:00

mead wrote:
Could you maybe link to that / copy it? I can't seem to find it, but maybe I'm just too tired.

http://faforever.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1721&sid=d18231d1495f03bf19099db5aa8ca594

mead wrote:
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. What malus/bonus? Correct me if I'm wrong: You're saying a phantom's income should no longer be his own eco plus a bonus calculated as a percentage of combined innocent's income. Instead you want the phantom income to be some sort of weighted average of all innocents and all phantoms?

Not exactly. In the current version , the phantoms earn 100% of their own production + 20%(+-) of the inno's ressources

In my example of formula , phantoms would earn 40% of their own production + 60% of the inno's ressources. (there is no average here)
I sayed "malus" because they loose 60% of their initial production when they are assigned as phantoms.

Statistics: Posted by Harpagon — 24 Oct 2012, 19:34

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-24T07:12:55+02:00

I gave some ideas in an other post to have a little bit more deception. Ok it complicates the rules but less than your formula ^^

Could you maybe link to that / copy it? I can't seem to find it, but maybe I'm just too tired.

They dont have interest to hide in the current version. And I mean, if the mark price is very high, we could imagine the pala giving extra mass to other innos or things like that.. I have tested in phantom N when I was phantom and it worked prety wel (and if it is a pala giving them ress, they wont say anything so this should work even better).

And that sort of thing is something we intend to encourage.

Except with a t1 sera arty spam, this is very hard to pass through a wall of pds, shields, t2 arties, and tml, escpecialy if the others innos clean the phantom's air.

T1 arty spam is a nice way to cripple noobs quickly, and a good gimmick for raiding even against better players, but it is by no means a way to win in high-skill games. Once someone has a shield and a few t2 pds, t1 art are good for little more than destroying unprotected, outlying mexes or naval facs, or as support for higher-tier units.
Regarding general balance, I still think that having 4 innos opposed by 2 phantoms results in in a phantom win almost every time, assuming the phantoms do not fight among each other and break / attack early. Innos desperately need a buff even with the changed veterancy.

Well, I have one, which solve many problems I think.. I am afraid to be off topic but here it is :
Make the teams dependant from each others by making the importance of the phantom bonus bigger. For example the total income for a phantom should be : 0,4*phantom own production + 0,6*innos production or something like that. There would be a malus and a bonus.. (and delete the extra storages to avoid having phantoms poping a very early t4 from nowhere).

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. What malus/bonus? Correct me if I'm wrong: You're saying a phantom's income should no longer be his own eco plus a bonus calculated as a percentage of combined innocent's income. Instead you want the phantom income to be some sort of weighted average of all innocents and all phantoms?

Statistics: Posted by mead — 24 Oct 2012, 07:12

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-24T01:41:04+02:00

mead wrote:
it is Duck's idea how to deal with the fact that currently, there is no intrigue or deception involved in good paladin play - it is virtually always best to reveal oneself early (and that's a bit boring). Do you have alternative suggestions how to change that without complicating the game?

I gave some ideas in an other post to have a little bit more deception. Ok it complicates the rules but less than your formula ^^

mead wrote:
There are quite a few people who could make a good guess about me being paladin. There are fewer who as Phantoms could kill me when I am paladin.

But you are an exception !

mead wrote:
I've never seen a paladin hiding (his increased eco) deliberately. If he does, it might be difficult to tell, but then the phantoms have a significant advantage already. No need for marking if the paladin willingly gimps himself.

They dont have interest to hide in the current version. And I mean, if the mark price is very high, we could imagine the pala giving extra mass to other innos or things like that.. I have tested in phantom N when I was phantom and it worked prety wel (and if it is a pala giving them ress, they wont say anything so this should work even better).

mead wrote:
Assuming Duck chooses to implement the cost formula mentioned in one of my previous posts, It is.

Ok, I did not read it into details.

mead wrote:
This is where our experience differs. From what I've seen, it is virtually impossible to hold against a Phantom of equal (high) skill without either paladin bonus or significant support from other innocents. In the decisive phase of the game between minutes 15-30, a phantom can kill an innocent a lot faster than 3 normal innocents can kill a phantom.

Except with a t1 sera arty spam, this is very hard to pass through a wall of pds, shields, t2 arties, and tml, escpecialy if the others innos clean the phantom's air. And I did not say it has to be 1v1 + 1v3 during the whole game. The innos can def during the first period.

mead wrote:
And these other ways are?

Well, I have one, which solve many problems I think.. I am afraid to be off topic but here it is :
Make the teams dependant from each others by making the importance of the phantom bonus bigger. For example the total income for a phantom should be : 0,4*phantom own production + 0,6*innos production or something like that. There would be a malus and a bonus.. (and delete the extra storages to avoid having phantoms poping a very early t4 from nowhere).

Pros :
When the innos are weak, the phantoms have low ress
when the innos are good , the phantoms have high ress
This formule is very easy to be understood and modified
Situation would never be completly hopeless for the innos or the phantoms.
Phantoms could attack in late game !
Phantoms could rush with very early units which are never used nowadays without fearing as much that the other phantom tech up and let him take the damages. (Backstab would not be as much disgusting as they are now).
The innos could kill each other without meaning they are sure to die against phant.
and many others !

cons :
I guess you will find them ^^

Statistics: Posted by Harpagon — 24 Oct 2012, 01:41

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-24T00:54:36+02:00

Harpagon wrote:
If it takes the importance expected, it should be mentioned in the chat. Also they can afford it with their bonus (and then waste it).

Well, if they are just sitting on a t4's worth of mass (or more), it's pretty much wasted already. And the marking isn't supposed to be such an important thing really - it is Duck's idea how to deal with the fact that currently, there is no intrigue or deception involved in good paladin play - it is virtually always best to reveal oneself early (and that's a bit boring). Do you have alternative suggestions how to change that without complicating the game?

mead wrote:
Then there are those who are good as observing / guessing, but not so great at the actual game mechanics. For that kind of phantom, the marker represents a good chance to stand up against a paladin they would normally lose against.

There are quite a few people who could make a good guess about me being paladin. There are fewer who as Phantoms could kill me when I am paladin.

Does that kind of player exist ?^^ It is pretty hard to see the difference between a good inno and a pala especialy if the pala tries to hide.

I've never seen a paladin hiding (his increased eco) deliberately. If he does, it might be difficult to tell, but then the phantoms have a significant advantage already. No need for marking if the paladin willingly gimps himself.

The price should be really high to compensate..

Assuming Duck chooses to implement the cost formula mentioned in one of my previous posts, It is.

To summerize without examinating every situations. I think more you complicate the game/rules , more the noobs and beginners will feel lost and more they will penalyse the team they play in.

This is definetely a valid concern. As mentioned above, if you have suggestions to do this differently, please share them.

But in a game with 6 equaly skilled players, they dont (1 can hold during a lot of time while the 3 others focus on one phantom).

This is where our experience differs. From what I've seen, it is virtually impossible to hold against a Phantom of equal (high) skill without either paladin bonus or significant support from other innocents. In the decisive phase of the game between minutes 15-30, a phantom can kill an innocent a lot faster than 3 normal innocents can kill a phantom.

So, now the vet is fixed (or not but it is better) I think the super inno is not so great when there are other ways to rebalance the mod to have (more) interesting games even with assymetric teams..

And these other ways are?

Edit : Sorry to contradict you again but I am not enthousiastic with the volunteer thing for the only reason noobs never want to be phantoms.. I think you should better try it before release , you will probably get very unbalanced games with this function. (Can be good as an option turned off by default).

I'm certainly not averse to testing before release. I don't think it will have such dire consequences though - after all, it would be better if noobs aren't chosen as phantoms.

Statistics: Posted by mead — 24 Oct 2012, 00:54

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-23T22:38:56+02:00

mead wrote:
I would assume a noob phantom won't even know what the button is for, and / or won't be able to afford the significant upfront cost.

If it takes the importance expected, it should be mentioned in the chat. Also they can afford it with their bonus (and then waste it).

mead wrote:
Then there are those who are good as observing / guessing, but not so great at the actual game mechanics. For that kind of phantom, the marker represents a good chance to stand up against a paladin they would normally lose against.

Does that kind of player exist ?^^ It is pretty hard to see the difference between a good inno and a pala especialy if the pala tries to hide. But ok, in this very case, it can help to rebalance (1/1000 game I would say).

mead wrote:
And a noob paladin is even less of a problem for the marking system because if he is such a noob, why would a phantom bother marking him?

I sayed "noob", not "big noob". The price should be really high to compensate..

To summerize without examinating every situations. I think more you complicate the game/rules , more the noobs and beginners will feel lost and more they will penalyse the team they play in. It is aldready enough frustrating to have inno allies who camp when both phantoms are known or the other phantom who attack you with the innos...

mead wrote:
Why do you think the paladin needs a nerf? Could you elaborate?

Well I cant proove anything, this is just my opinion. I think pala was good as an emergency implemantation to buff the innos who needed it during the OP vet period.
Now, it gives better statistics because innos have an higher probability to get a big noob in their side, then they need more often a buff. But in a game with 6 equaly skilled players, they dont (1 can hold during a lot of time while the 3 others focus on one phantom). So ok it balances most of the games (when innos have weaker players) but it unbalances the 2 others situations (innos having stronger players or balanced teams).
So, now the vet is fixed (or not but it is better) I think the super inno is not so great when there are other ways to rebalance the mod to have (more) interesting games even with assymetric teams..

Edit : Sorry to contradict you again but I am not enthousiastic with the volunteer thing for the only reason noobs never want to be phantoms.. I think you should better try it before release , you will probably get very unbalanced games with this function. (Can be good as an option turned off by default).

Statistics: Posted by Harpagon — 23 Oct 2012, 22:38

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-23T19:58:18+02:00

Harpagon wrote:
A noob phantom will waste his marks(or his ress) and make phantoms more vulnerable and a noob pala will be quite obvious for a good phantom(t3 pgen with t1 mexes or things like that..).

I would assume a noob phantom won't even know what the button is for, and / or won't be able to afford the significant upfront cost. Then there are those who are good as observing / guessing, but not so great at the actual game mechanics. For that kind of phantom, the marker represents a good chance to stand up against a paladin they would normally lose against. And a noob paladin is even less of a problem for the marking system because if he is such a noob, why would a phantom bother marking him? A good phantom wouldn't bother wasting a significant amount of resources on reducing someone's bonus who is not a threat in the first place.

However, I think the pala need a nerf and the initial idea of the phantom marks (without penalty) can be a way to do it (but not the best).

Why do you think the paladin needs a nerf? Could you elaborate? Also, fyi, there are already lobby settings that allow to change the bonus percentage that the paladin receives. Personally, I find games with the default setting of 45% to be pretty well balanced.

I've finished implementation of a basic volunteering system. Voting for phantom number is now at 6 minutes, and one minute after that, everyone gets a chance to "volunteer" to be Phantom. Volunteers cannot be certain that they will be phantoms, but their chances increase significantly (unless everyone volunteers, of course). It seems to work well enough, but I would like to test it with others if possible (AI doesn't vote ).
I've also done some work on obfuscating the bonus display. Simply introducing random fluctuations did not work well, because with the set refresh rate of 10Hz it became impossible to read. So what I did was set the refresh time to once every 5 seconds, and in addition to that there is "noise" in a normal (gaussian) distribution added to the bonus numbers. This has the benefit that the displayed numbers are typically reasonably close to their actual values, but large enough discrepancies can and will still happen occasionally. Tl;dr this will make it impossible to "misuse" the bonus numbers, while still keeping their utility as information about the player's own economy. Note however that so far I've only changed the display for the bonus numbers, not the total eco display in the normal UI - not sure how to access that.

Statistics: Posted by mead — 23 Oct 2012, 19:58

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-23T13:36:44+02:00

I think most of the phantom games'ends are determinated at 8 mins and this feature will just increase this effect. A noob phantom will waste his marks(or his ress) and make phantoms more vulnerable and a noob pala will be quite obvious for a good phantom(t3 pgen with t1 mexes or things like that..).
However, I think the pala need a nerf and the initial idea of the phantom marks (without penalty) can be a way to do it (but not the best).

Statistics: Posted by Harpagon — 23 Oct 2012, 13:36

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-21T18:41:42+02:00

Just a status update after extensive discussion over FAF lobby:

1. We could use
c=(20000+200000*arctan(0.05*x))*y

to calculate the cost of using the marker.
2. Introducing random fluctuations to display of bonus numbers
3. lower priority: make a "volunteer to be phantom" feature

Statistics: Posted by mead — 21 Oct 2012, 18:41

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-21T15:03:36+02:00

Counter suggestion...

Only for random guesses among 4 Innocents

Good point. I've tweaked the penalty formula and come up with:

penalty percentage = alive paladins/(alive paladins + alive innocents) * paladin bonus

Since the number of innocents and paladins varies depending on the map and the lobby options, this tweak was needed anyway. With this formula, the penalty increases as the odds of guessing wrong decrease. I suppose I should also have suggested that once the last regular innocent dies, all marking be disabled.

However, the vast majority of games have bad players in them who any half-competent Phantom can easily steamroll within minutes of breaking. This leaves a very typical scenario of 2 Phantoms versus 2 Innocents and a Paladin.

As you know, the Paladin assignment is not based on skill. Just because one player looks like he's ahead of the others doesn't mean he's the Paladin. He may just be more skilled then the rest of the innocent players. In the scenario you've described, the players will have likely, broken alliances, so the Phantoms will not be able to closely watch build behavior. So unless the Paladin does something to make himself obvious, I don't really see how the Phantom would have much better than a 1/3 chance. With the tweaked formula I've suggested, the penalty scales appropriately.

The more serious issue is that the Phantom with the mark can just wait until one or more innocents are dead

The Phantom bonus is based on the innocent player's income. So, as the number of innocents decreases, so does the Phantom (and Paladin) bonus. The later the Phantom waits in the game to use a mark, the less real effect it will have. By that point, the Paladin mass bonus would probably be less than the income of two T3 mexes.

It appears that at least some of the disagreement is based on a misunderstanding. When I proposed cost/penalties for using the mark, I meant there should EITHER be a significant upfront cost (30k or whatever) OR a severe bonus penalty for guessing wrong - not both.

Yeah, I thought you meant both.

What does your code do if there are multiple Paladins? It should remove the bonus only for the one marked, not the others?

Only the marked Phantom is affected.

Statistics: Posted by Duck_42 — 21 Oct 2012, 15:03

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-21T13:14:14+02:00

Does that sound reasonable or do we still have a difference of opinion?

It appears that at least some of the disagreement is based on a misunderstanding. When I proposed cost/penalties for using the mark, I meant there should EITHER be a significant upfront cost (30k or whatever) OR a severe bonus penalty for guessing wrong - not both.

I'm not entirely sure which of the two I like better. The problem with a simple upfront cost is asymmetry - you pay a fixed amount, but the paladin effectively loses resources for the entire rest of the game. That is a little problematic, but only a little.

The more serious issue is that the Phantom with the mark can just wait until one or more innocents are dead, drastically increasing the chances of getting the guess right (and you CAN often tell who the paladin is easily enough, the same way you can spot a Phantom). This needs to be adressed, or it will damage the current balance. In 1.7, the game usually ends with a Phantom loss if no innocent has died by the 30 minute mark. However, the vast majority of games have bad players in them who any half-competent Phantom can easily steamroll within minutes of breaking. This leaves a very typical scenario of 2 Phantoms versus 2 Innocents and a Paladin. While the Phantoms should and do have the advantage here, it is still winnable for the Innocents, but usually only because of the Paladin. However, at this point in the game, it is usually easy enough to tell who the Paladin is; additionally, at least one if not both Phantoms will be on the offensive and will be able to afford a 30k mark cost easily. Thus this 30k mass investment will be game-decisive.

What I therefore propose is a fixed upfront cost that scales with both game time and the remaining number of non-Phantom players. For example the cost (displayed in UI when hovering over the marker button) cost be around 20k at 15 min, 30k at 20 min, and eventually approach a limit of about 100k for 1hour+ / only one or two innos remaining.
This adresses the mentioned problems: It scales, and it is never free. If you approve of this, I'm confident I can find a simple enough function to approximate the scaling behaviour. I still maintain that marks should be single-use only; if you really want multiple uses, it needs to scale with that too (heavily).

Statistically, that should exactly offset the "guessing" factor.

Only for random guesses among 4 Innocents. That is not how it will happen. I' myself would have about a 50% chance of getting it right in the early stages of the game, with that chance increasing drastically as the game progresses. We MUST NOT turn the marker into a Phantom side buff. Which is why I favor an upfront cost, because by definition any free use of the marker will damage balance.

PS: What does your code do if there are multiple Paladins? It should remove the bonus only for the one marked, not the others?

Edit: On a somewhat unrelated note, I believe it is time to address a certain trick (you know what I mean). Some people have taken to frequently spamming it in chat, and it is time we fix it. Should be easy enough; pm me here on in FAF so we can talk about it, please.

Statistics: Posted by mead — 21 Oct 2012, 13:14

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-21T08:07:18+02:00

The phantom would use it only if he is almost certain about the paladin's identity, which is the entire point of this change.

True, I don't wan't the Phantoms to abuse it. Still, I don't want to discourage its use to a point that it is never used (even when a Phantom is reasonably sure who the Paladin is). The Phantoms don't have any real way to tell for certain who the Paladin is. So, using a Paladin Mark with the penalties you've described would, in most cases, be statistical suicide.

For example, if it cost me 30k mass to use a mark (say I use it 25 minutes in), it's going to take around 7 minutes before I break even and actually see any real benefit from using the mark(assuming a Phantom income of around +150 mass/sec and paladin bonus of 45%). When you couple that with the crippling penalty for guessing wrong (and all marks will be guesses), it becomes a button that, as a Phantom, I'd never touch (regardless of who claims to being Paladin).

The point was to keep Paladins from playing a one dimensional, "hey everybody, I'm the Paladin" type of game. There supposed to get more resources, but it's supposed to be a blessing and a curse.

All I see at this point that's really necessary is to offset the incentive that Phantoms have to take a free guess. I'd really like to aim for a net zero here. So, the best thing I can think of is something along the lines of reducing the Phantom bonus income by 25% * the Paladin bonus (i.e. 25% * 45% = 16.875%) for an incorrect guess. Basically, 25% of what the Paladin would have lost if the Phantom had guessed correctly. Statistically, that should exactly offset the "guessing" factor.

Does that sound reasonable or do we still have a difference of opinion?

Statistics: Posted by Duck_42 — 21 Oct 2012, 08:07

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-20T20:46:37+02:00

Duck_42 wrote:
1. The upfront cost might be reasonable. Still if we're going to a pay per guess model, it almost seems like the Phantoms should then be allowed to guess at will (as long as they have the resources).

No, because a fixed upfront cost does not scale with the progression of the game. 30k mass is a massive investment at 16 minutes into the game, a significant but by no means crippling expense at 25 minutes, and increasingly spammable past 30 minutes. Thats why guessing at will does not work well with a fixed cost.

2. Revealing the Phantom means these things are completely useless until after the player has revealed themselves as a Phantom. I intentionally left out names in my the mark messages so that no one would know for sure who marked who. Including the names takes away a big part of the intrigue and mystery.

Frankly I don't see the issue here. Considering the upfront price, the marker only becomes usable at typical phantom self-reveal times anyways. But fine, if the mystery is so important to you, we can discard this idea.

3. Penalizing the Phantom by nearly half of his Phantom income for an incorrect mark means that no reasonable Phantom will ever use a mark. That's way too much of a risk.

Not accurate. But the phantom would use it only if he is almost certain about the paladin's identity, which is the entire point of this change.

This would give the innocents (non-paladins) a huge incentive to actively deceive Phantoms in an attempt to get them to mark the wrong player.

Exactly. This is a desirable outcome. You said yourself that you want intrigue and mystery. Just being left to wonder "who marked just now?" is neither mystery nor intrigue.

As an innocent, if I can get a Phantom to mark me early in the game, the odds of the Phantoms winning go to practically zero (unless the other Phantom just happens to be really, really good).

So with all that in mind, if you were a Phantom would you ever use one of these things?

Yes, carefully. "Lol lemme use it on some random guy" is shit gameplay and should not be encouraged.

I agree some balancing will probably be necessary, but I don't want to make the cost so extreme as to render this feature useless.

None of my proposed additions render it useless.

So, I suggest we try the mod out as is and go from there. I think we'll both get a better idea of how much balancing is needed after we play it a bit.

Not even necessary. We know the balancing of 1.7 with standard settings for paladin. It is good. We also know the balance of earlier versions without paladin. It was bad. With 1.8 in its present form, about a third to one half of all games will be artificially returned to pre-1.7 balance. It seems obvious that this is not a good outcome.

Statistics: Posted by mead — 20 Oct 2012, 20:46

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-20T16:38:52+02:00

a) an upfront cost of 30.000 mass and 300.000 energy. An investment equivalent to an average t4 feels adequate. There is no refund if the marker guess is correct. Using the marker comes with a UI message visible to all: "Player xxx marked yyy" (substitute player names), and xxx being revealed as Phantom in the UI.

b) alternatively, as described above, if the guess is wrong, the phantom bonus is reduced massively by subtracting the paladin bonus percentage from it. Using the marker comes with a UI message visible to all: "Player xxx marked yyy" (substitute player names), and xxx being revealed as Phantom in the UI.

1. The upfront cost might be reasonable. Still if we're going to a pay per guess model, it almost seems like the Phantoms should then be allowed to guess at will (as long as they have the resources).

2. Revealing the Phantom means these things are completely useless until after the player has revealed themselves as a Phantom. I intentionally left out names in my the mark messages so that no one would know for sure who marked who. Including the names takes away a big part of the intrigue and mystery.

3. Penalizing the Phantom by nearly half of his Phantom income for an incorrect mark means that no reasonable Phantom will ever use a mark. That's way too much of a risk. This would give the innocents (non-paladins) a huge incentive to actively deceive Phantoms in an attempt to get them to mark the wrong player. Also, this would tend to complicate the bonus calculation mechanics considerably.

With both these variants, paladins will still learn not to reveal themselves publicly

Probalbly true. Instead, you'd see the innocents (non paladins) attempting to use the marks as a weapon against the Phantoms. As an innocent, if I can get a Phantom to mark me early in the game, the odds of the Phantoms winning go to practically zero (unless the other Phantom just happens to be really, really good).

Why? Because...

a) It cost him 30k mass, so he's down an EXP (or two).
b) He now has half of his bonus, so he won't be able to build up any better than the real Paladin.
c) Everyone knows who he is and that the marked player is innocent (i.e. not a Paladin and not a Phantom).
d) The real Paladin can now reveal himself (unless there's more than one mark available).

If the innocents don't kill him, the other Phantom almost certainly will. So the cost for a Phantom guessing wrong early is almost certain death. Granted, later in the game the non rescource costs go down a bit, but so does the reward. So with all that in mind, if you were a Phantom would you ever use one of these things?

I agree some balancing will probably be necessary, but I don't want to make the cost so extreme as to render this feature useless. So, I suggest we try the mod out as is and go from there. I think we'll both get a better idea of how much balancing is needed after we play it a bit.

Statistics: Posted by Duck_42 — 20 Oct 2012, 16:38

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-20T13:02:27+02:00

Having thought about this some more, I'm starting to think that even a correct marker guess should come with some sort of drawback. Otherwise it is just overpowered, and phantoms certainly don't need a buff compared to 1.7.
Here are some ideas regarding the cost of the marker use:

a) an upfront cost of 30.000 mass and 300.000 energy. An investment equivalent to an average t4 feels adequate. There is no refund if the marker guess is correct. Using the marker comes with a UI message visible to all: "Player xxx marked yyy" (substitute player names), and xxx being revealed as Phantom in the UI.
b) alternatively, as described above, if the guess is wrong, the phantom bonus is reduced massively by subtracting the paladin bonus percentage from it. Using the marker comes with a UI message visible to all: "Player xxx marked yyy" (substitute player names), and xxx being revealed as Phantom in the UI.

With both these variants, paladins will still learn not to reveal themselves publicly (which is the ONLY problem we want to fix in this release, right?). Because in most cases, neutralizing a paladin is easily worth 30k mass and / or being revealed as phantom, so its not like this makes the marker useless. It just strongly discourages random / uncertain marker use.
Personally, I'm starting to favor variant a), because it stays compatible with RTS philosophy and game design - you pay for something, then you can use it, and if you f*** it up, its your fault for wasting the investment.

Statistics: Posted by mead — 20 Oct 2012, 13:02

Re: Phantom X (v1.8) Update Request

2012-10-20T03:47:15+02:00

Duck_42 wrote:
I've changed the default option to none. That way we can play test it (without all the tedious aspects of downloading a seperate mod).

Thank you.

While we're on the topic, what do you think a reasonable cost is? Keep in mind that any risk to the Phantom should not be so great as to dissuade the reasonable use of a mark. Also, I don't think there should be a penalty if the guess is correct.

A good way to do this would be that a wrong guess should come with a permanent reduction of the Phantom's bonus by the same amount that the paladin's bonus is. So, with standard settings, it would mean a Phantom bonus reduction down to 55% of its previous value (only for the phantom who guessed wrong).

Statistics: Posted by mead — 20 Oct 2012, 03:47