Accuracy straw poll

The place to discuss balance changes for future versions of the game.
(Master releases & 3.X)

Which accuracy system do you want?

Random to-hit roll, no physics
0
No votes
Gaussian to-hit roll, no physics
7
28%
Physics-based only, no random roll
8
32%
Projectiles always hit (the Starcraft option)
3
12%
Do not change anything / I do not understand this poll / No opinion
7
28%
 
Total votes: 25

raycast
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by raycast »

Thinking about it some more, you could easily modify this patch to take the maximum weapon range into account instead of the magic constant 5. However, i don't think we should treat the accuracy to be always specified at maximum range, and then scale down linearly. Then close shots would always be super accurate for long ranged weapons.

Note that these things are not as easy as "if it says 90% accuracy, it should be 90% chance to do damage". Because that does not say how far off it is if it misses. Which is exactly what we are talking about here. The current code is maybe too literal on these numbers. If accuracy is 90%, then 90% will be bulls eye on target, and 10% will be bulls eye one tile off.
Which is why I came up with above code. With this code, 90% accuracy says: at a distance of 5 tiles, 90% are on target enough to call it a hit, and 10% are too far off to call it a hit.

If you want things such as flamer damage and blast radius, you need to talk about "almost hits", too. A shot may be off, but still do a lot of damage.

If you want realistic artillery shots, you have to talk about time, too. IMHO, we should be talking about accuracy in aiming at the desired destination, not at the accuracy of the bullet actually hitting the target 10+ seconds later.
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by raycast »

Iluvalar wrote:There will ALWAYS be in the game a player that is 25% stronger than the other because his units are on the good tile (say 5 tile distance vs 6 tile distance).
No, I don't think this applies here.

The tile distances I've given are for illustration; these are *NOT* thresholds. Distances in WZ are actually computed at a resolution of 128 steps per tile.

The values I've been giving are quantiles of a continuous distribution. So there is everything inbetween. There will be shots that are 1/128 tile off. There are (slightly fewer) that are 2/128 tiles off. And so on. What I'm using is literally "target + distance * (random^2)" plus some scaling factors to compute where the shot is aimed at (it may or may not arrive!). Plus, these are randoms for each shot, so one shot may be dead on target, the next one might miss baaadly. Unless one player controls the random number generator, he should not have an advantage beyond the desired weapon/upgrade differences.

It will however break some of your computations. If unit A has 30% accuracy and unit B has 60% accuracy, two units of type A may not necessarily be able to deal more damage than unit B. And that is okay. Someone with higher accuracy will usually still do smaller errors when NOT hitting. 1 explosion 1 tile off is certainly more damaging than 2 explosions 2 tiles off.
Deus Siddis
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by Deus Siddis »

Iluvalar wrote: Realistic angular deviation accuracy. I litteraly spent hours of my time, trying to explain why it would be a fail backed with graphs and maths.
Your graphs and mathematical explanation of one effect on one aspect of balance, did not prove physics simulation would be a "total fail." You won't consider how other aspects can be changed to compensate as need be.

Like when you said this just now:

"Investing more time than the opponent in positioning would guarantee a victory, forcing both side to invest more and more time into it until most of the effort in the game (after basic base building) will go into manoeuvring."

Why do you assume that the unit AI can't be made to deal with any of the distance based positioning for you? It already has the feature for managing attack range.

And it seems like you have also failed to consider the importance of the game not telling such transparent lies to the player with its accuracy model. Having a unit's cone of fire visibly widen as a unit gets closer is an obvious and ridiculous looking lie that fools no one but does confuse the workings of the game to the player.
NoQ said we should go on a private talks with people that proved they know something about balance. To reward him you launched a public poll instead.
That suggestion is no good because balance isn't the only consideration when improving a game and the same goes for this issue.
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NoQ
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by NoQ »

Iluvalar wrote:The worst problem occur when you cross the line where one of the 2 weapons have 100% accuracy.
Well, he does vary miss radius randomly. I thought it instantly takes care of this issue (accuracy becomes a continuous function of distance and never actually reaches 100%).
Per
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by Per »

It is interesting that nobody wants the old 1.10 accuracy model back (ie the first poll alternative).

I think a reasonable compromise solution could be that all short- to medium-range weapons automatically hit, while long-range weapons use physics-based accuracy, with target prediction and random scatter inaccuracy as optional flags that can be added on to artillery-type weapons. (I would love to have a button that could switch artillery between accurate but slow shooting and rapid but inaccurate shooting modes. It would be a nice game mechanic.)

It would require a re-balancing of every weapon, reducing damage and preferably range as well, though.
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by NoQ »

It would require a re-balancing of every weapon, reducing damage and preferably range as well, though.
I'm quite scared of it, by the way. Not sure how it'd go, but it may take years of broken gameplay to reach at least the current state again after this sort of heavy rebalance.
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by Per »

Per wrote:Didn't fire concentration got overpowered from overkill detection code...? Normally fire concentration is balanced by the overkill of directing all units to fire on the same unit, but our units may be too smart for that.
Overkill detection code apparently is turned off when you order units to attack something. That is good.
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by Deus Siddis »

Per wrote: I think a reasonable compromise solution could be that all short- to medium-range weapons automatically hit,
With that though, all such weapons shoot 'magic bullets' that turn in mid air to follow a moving target. And you take accuracy completely out of the situation which isn't a desirable thing either.
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by Per »

Deus Siddis wrote:With that though, all such weapons shoot 'magic bullets' that turn in mid air to follow a moving target. And you take accuracy completely out of the situation which isn't a desirable thing either.
Short- and medium-range projectiles move far too fast over far too short distance for that to be visibly obvious. Have you not tried other RTS games that do this? I think it is more common than not.
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by Deus Siddis »

Per wrote: Short- and medium-range projectiles move far too fast over far too short distance for that to be visibly obvious. Have you not tried other RTS games that do this? I think it is more common than not.
It might not be obvious in every situation but it is definitely noticeable. I find that the RTS games that do it that way are a lot less immersive as a result.

Plus I think this argument can work both ways... If it doesn't look that different to take accuracy out of the equation with fast moving shots, then wouldn't simulating those same shots result in few deviations from 100% accuracy? Because then even if only in 10% of situations, simulation leads to true misses, the player's suspension of disbelief would never be broken by seeing shots do "buggy" things from time to time.
Per
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by Per »

Deus Siddis wrote:Plus I think this argument can work both ways... If it doesn't look that different to take accuracy out of the equation with fast moving shots, then wouldn't simulating those same shots result in few deviations from 100% accuracy? Because then even if only in 10% of situations, simulation leads to true misses, the player's suspension of disbelief would never be broken by seeing shots do "buggy" things from time to time.
Probably. I guess I could add some code to calculate a droid's average hit ratio, then we could find out with some tests...
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by Iluvalar »

raycast wrote:
Iluvalar wrote:There will ALWAYS be in the game a player that is 25% stronger than the other because his units are on the good tile (say 5 tile distance vs 6 tile distance).
No, I don't think this applies here.

The tile distances I've given are for illustration; these are *NOT* thresholds. Distances in WZ are actually computed at a resolution of 128 steps per tile.

The values I've been giving are quantiles of a continuous distribution. So there is everything inbetween. There will be shots that are 1/128 tile off. There are (slightly fewer) that are 2/128 tiles off. And so on. What I'm using is literally "target + distance * (random^2)" plus some scaling factors to compute where the shot is aimed at (it may or may not arrive!). Plus, these are randoms for each shot, so one shot may be dead on target, the next one might miss baaadly. Unless one player controls the random number generator, he should not have an advantage beyond the desired weapon/upgrade differences.

It will however break some of your computations. If unit A has 30% accuracy and unit B has 60% accuracy, two units of type A may not necessarily be able to deal more damage than unit B. And that is okay. Someone with higher accuracy will usually still do smaller errors when NOT hitting. 1 explosion 1 tile off is certainly more damaging than 2 explosions 2 tiles off.
You dont understand the problem. Even with a gaussian distribution, if you hit 60% of time at 7 tile distance, you will hit pretty much all of your shots at 5 tile. There will be no advantage into moving closer. However, while you are capped at 100%, an enemy that have a 40% accuracy could still advance up to 4 tiles before he cap at 100% as well (even rouglhty 99% because of gaussian, that's not the point here). If you are at 5 tile or more your accuracy give you a bonus of 150%. Which is counted into the balance and compensated by one way or another, so both weapon are even. But if your enemy come closer you lose that advantage in a small gap of about 1 tile. And the balance there must consider an accuracy of 100% on both side ! It can't be both true and balanced at the same time.

You say it gonna be smooth, yeah but only between the tile 5 and the tile 4. We can't balance the whole game expecting all fight happen at exactly 4.5 tile of distance XD .

Deus siddis, that would require the AI to move at the same speed and in the same direction than the opponent. Unless you say you want all your army to move back when someone attack and leave your base undefended, that's not an option.
NoQ wrote:but it may take years of broken gameplay to reach at least the current state again after this sort of heavy rebalance.
Or more. Until you see someone credible that come with a detailed plan on how he could do this, don't assume someone can. Dont assume it's even possible. I don't think it is in warzone.
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by Originway »

if the weapon is most effective at long range then what is the problem that it sucks at low range or point blank range?
if a short range weapon is fired at long range then of course is will miss almost all the time
that is how it should be and that is why the 100% physics base model works just fine
the ai just has to move the unit into best optimal range before it fires if you set it to difficult and it would use random range if set to easy
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by Deus Siddis »

Per wrote:
Deus Siddis wrote:Plus I think this argument can work both ways... If it doesn't look that different to take accuracy out of the equation with fast moving shots, then wouldn't simulating those same shots result in few deviations from 100% accuracy? Because then even if only in 10% of situations, simulation leads to true misses, the player's suspension of disbelief would never be broken by seeing shots do "buggy" things from time to time.
Probably. I guess I could add some code to calculate a droid's average hit ratio, then we could find out with some tests...
If the answer turns out to be roughly yes then I think we are voting for the same thing here--

* Simulated shots with no accuracy deviation for direct fire weapons.
* Simulated shots with accuracy deviation for indirect fire weapons.
Iluvalar wrote:
NoQ wrote:but it may take years of broken gameplay to reach at least the current state again after this sort of heavy rebalance.
Or more. Until you see someone credible...
It's not like stable releases would need to feature the change until the rebalance had reached a certain level of quality. And it's not like a major refactoring that buries a project by tying up the developers' time that is needed to work on bugs and features. Instead a rebalance effort mostly ties up the time of players, which are a hell of a lot more common.
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Re: Accuracy straw poll

Post by Iluvalar »

It's not a matter of how much "time" we have. It's about the possibility of solving the problem.

The accuracy/distance function won't be continuous. There will be NO solution to your problem. No matter how much hard we want it. No matter how much people work on it. Keep neglecting facts lol.
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