Balancing Balance

The place to discuss balance changes for future versions of the game.
(Master releases & 3.X)
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Alpha93
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by Alpha93 »

crab_ wrote:VTOL is set of different weapons e.g. VTOL Cannons totally useless while VTOL bombs are pretty usable.
Say that again when a unit gets nuked in 2-3 hits of VTOL HPV cannon or VTOL needle/rail gun.
Multiply that by 10 VTOL and you get a squad capable of decimating a 15-tank team in no time with the 15 tanks being unable to retaliate.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by crab_ »

Alpha93 wrote:
crab_ wrote:VTOL is set of different weapons e.g. VTOL Cannons totally useless while VTOL bombs are pretty usable.
Say that again when a unit gets nuked in 2-3 hits of VTOL HPV cannon or VTOL needle/rail gun.
Multiply that by 10 VTOL and you get a squad capable of decimating a 15-tank team in no time with the 15 tanks being unable to retaliate.
Alpha, are you sure?
Lets see.
VTOL HPC Cannon - 350 damage per shot (research time 18:00)
Python half-tracks Medum Cannon: 2100 Hit Points and 44 armor.
VTOL HPV Cannon have ALL ROUNDER damage modifier => 115% damage to half-tracks
350*1,15 - 44 = 358
VTOL HPV Cannon has 4 shots.
358*4 = 1432 damage per reload.

10 VTOL with HPC Cannon have total 358*4*10 =14320 damage
15 tanks Python Med.Cannon Half-tracks have 31350 hit points.
15 tanks Python Lancer Half-track have 20460 hit points

So you are wrong, 15 HPV Vtols cannot kill 15 land tanks.
Note: lancer cyborgs can kill you vtols easily because Lancer tanks usually move with lancer borgs.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by Rommel »

Alpha93 wrote:It's a question that has been leaving me wondering for as long as I started gaming: if you're no good at something and you don't get better despite how hard you try, why keep bothering?
Sorry to take this a bit off topic, but I just had to say that this kind of statement is dangerous - it kind of implies that nothing is worth doing unless you are good at it. This is just plain wrong and reeks of elitism. I am a mediocre player of WZ at best, sometimes I win, sometimes I lose - while it is nice to win, it is not the main reason I play, the main reason I play WZ is because it is fun.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by Alpha93 »

Mine is more like a philosophy along the lines "Stop bothering if it doesn't produce results". If you don't improve, why don't you ask for help from somebody who knows? Most of the MP players don't even know what IRC is though.
Saying that learning to playing decently and the watching the results isn't satisfying is as much of a dangerous statement as mine, imho.
@crab_: no time doesn't imply you're not going to reload. And HPV reload for VTOLs is fairly fast. Probably takes 30 seconds to hit, reload then hit again. I've never bothered to check the reloading speeds, but I know it's fast enough to allow the use of HPV cannons (or cannons in general) as ground attack aircraft.
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Re: Balancing Balance

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vexed wrote: I am strongly contemplating removing the limits option in MP games (not skirmish), to enable all games to have the full ambiance that Warzone offers, and not limit it, thus skewing balance attempts that have been made in the past, and in the future.
So let me get this right, you want to remove a configuration feature because people use it in a way which you personally don't like? Some people "like" to disable VTOL, etc - some people don't... so what? Why not get over it and let people play the game the way they want without getting all dictator about it. I just can't understand the reasoning behind this statement sorry... why not just put a disclaimer there saying "this game is balanced for default settings, we are not responsible for balance issues if the settings are changed". Why not do this instead of removing a feature that contributors spent considerable time and effort implementing.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by Rommel »

Alpha93 wrote:Saying that learning to playing decently and the watching the results isn't satisfying is as much of a dangerous statement as mine, imho.
I didn't say that.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by Alpha93 »

You didn't, but I felt it was implied. If that was not the case, I'll excuse myself.
Regarding the disabled feature, imho the LasSat is the only thing that is rightfully disabled, as it's more a nuisance than everything else.
@crab: is that the basic damage for the HPV cannon? Because a APFSDS upgraded HPV cannon hits WAY harder than 70 on the ground version and 140 on VTOL one.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by Rommel »

Alpha93 wrote:You didn't, but I felt it was implied. If that was not the case, I'll excuse myself.
Regarding the disabled feature, imho the LasSat is the only thing that is rightfully disabled, as it's more a nuisance than everything else.
I most certainly didn't mean to imply that, half the fun for me is in the learning :)
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by crab_ »

Alpha93 wrote: @crab_: no time doesn't imply you're not going to reload. And HPV reload for VTOLs is fairly fast. Probably takes 30 seconds to hit, reload then hit again. I've never bothered to check the reloading speeds, but I know it's fast enough to allow the use of HPV cannons (or cannons in general) as ground attack aircraft.
One of great disadvantages of VTOL cannons - slow rate of fire.
VTOL Cannons require certain time to shot their ammo on enemy.
Few AA-weapon can easily kill your VTOL Cannons.
e.g. if you attack army of cannons mixed with machineguns you will lose 1-2 attacking VTOl-unit each attack.

You know, better use of your HPV VTOL is attack oil resources and base buildings. It is more safer and bothers enemy more.
I've tried to use VTOL cannon in several games and i see them as underpowered. And i do not remember games when other players used VTOL Cannons...

I tested reload time of VTOL Cobra HPV Cannon on Sk_Rush T2 (small map)
Reload time - 1 minute and 5 seconds = 23 damage per second (this is twice lesser than DPS of land HPV Cannon)
Then i cheated "research all" and in this case reload time became 30 seconds.
On larger maps reload time will more.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by anonim17465 »

I can offer "simple game mod", where are maximum 4 factories, 2 cyborg factories, 0-1 VTOL factory, no LasSat, no concrete walls.
That's the heaven for bad strategs players, that's what they want. I'm not going to play in such mod, but I saw a lot of people, who want all of this, because they don't want to think about it.

But in big games I would like to see no limits, instead I want to pay some energy for buildings upkeep. So, 20 factories would be possible, but expensive.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by Iluvalar »

Per wrote:
crab_ wrote:Enemies can make hundreds VTOLs silently and destroy all your stuff in one attack.
That should not be possible if the other player spends equal amount of resources on land attacks. Then he should be forced to use the VTOLs he builds to defend, or lose. And then his strategy is revealed.

Note that I say 'should'. I do not know if this is the case now.
It's a concept flaw in those "high oil" maps. They have nothing to defend in between. No groud to control at all. And they have excess of money in such a way they are forced to build defence to manage to spend everything they can.

Actually, if vtol was on, they would be forced to spend on vtol since they could.
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Re: Balancing Balance

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lol Flamers are op
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by MIH-XTC »

After studying stats and 3.1.5 game play for a long time I think all balance problems stem from the fact that each derrick needs to produce more power. Specifically, the number of powerPoints for each generator needs to go from 55 --> to something like 100 or 110.

In general, this number effects the overall pace of the game or how fast things progress.

95%+ of all multiplayer games currently use the high power setting and the low power setting is rarely used. This means the range of available power settings needs to be shifted. Ideally the current high power setting would become medium power.

We can still preserve the current power settings by re-calibrating the power settings in rules.js


This is the reason why all stock maps failed to gain any traction among the multiplayer community and players gravitated towards 40 oil NTW maps.

Maps with 8 - 10 oils per player are generally too slow for fast players and they want more power. The problem is that the high power setting isn't high enough power. The solution is to give derricks more power while retaining current game play with a relevant low power setting.

This is also the reason why battles are cutthroat, sensitive and unforgiving. For example in a T1 no base game if you have 13 tanks and your opponent has 16 then the game can easily end within seconds of an attack. The reason is because derricks don't produce power fast enough to replenish your army while your opponent is pushing. It's very difficult to come back after small imbalances in army size.


With a bunch of extra power in the game, research should become more expensive. Research needs to become more expensive relative to the cost of a unit. A research upgrade for 400 power that affects all of your units is far more valuable than one unit that costs 400 power. Some research upgrades need to cost more relative to others too. Weapons and all weapon upgrades should be increased uniformly. Things like bodies, research upgrades, power upgrades etc.... should go up considerably because all players will need these things.


The cost of base structures needs to go up as well. This essentially effects how fast a base is constructed. One problem with current stats is that base building is generally not ongoing throughout a game. It's more like a task that is completed once and the rest of the game consists of attacking. It's because base buildings are so cheap relative to units that players can afford to construct a fully maxed out base early in the game.

Another problem with power in current game play is that the best strategy at any given time doesn't change fast enough. In other words, there are long periods of time where a given strategy or weapon is best. This gives the impression that some things are overpowered when the real problem is that counter strategies aren't changing fast enough. With more power in the game research goes faster and the best strategy is changing more frequently. In contrast, with lower power the game changes slower and the time range for the best strategies are longer.

That's all I can think of for now in regards to balance problems stemming from derricks not giving enough power.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by NoQ »

95%+ of all multiplayer games currently use the high power setting and the low power setting is rarely used. This means the range of available power settings needs to be shifted.
Dunno, people would just play NTW with more power. Also it doesn't fix the desire to play flat maps (such desire exists and is very strong because otherwise flat NTW maps would have been replaced by beautiful high-oil maps ages ago).
Maps with 8 - 10 oils per player are generally too slow for fast players and they want more power.
Strongly disagree. Startup 1x1 games often take 5-10 minutes and involves a lot of action, compared to normal NTW games that take 20-30 minutes and involve a lot of boring 5-of-everything base building.
This is also the reason why battles are cutthroat, sensitive and unforgiving. For example in a T1 no base game if you have 13 tanks and your opponent has 16 then the game can easily end within seconds of an attack. The reason is because derricks don't produce power fast enough to replenish your army while your opponent is pushing. It's very difficult to come back after small imbalances in army size.
I agree with that partially. With decent terrain and carefully measured defined rush distance, the weaker side would have defender's advantage (better concave and larger portion of units in combat) that would prevent the stronger side from attacking. At most, the stronger side would be able to capture some derricks, but it won't be able to go for an instant kill, unless advantage is enormous. That's pretty much the role of homeground advantage in RTS games - to make sure games are less random and more advantage is required to win. In NTW advancing your army through the map doesn't give you any advantage, as you're not capturing oils, and the further you advance the longer the tail of catching-up units you have compared to the defender, which promotes longer and less random games and it's a good thing, though having more terrain would have helped.

So we could improve upon that even further by putting more oils in the well-defended base and less oils in the open. I believe that's a great thing to do and the classic oil distribution is flawed. Probably by doubling the amount of oil in the main base and halving the amount of oil on the map we could get much more attractive classic-map matchmaking.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by MIH-XTC »

MIH-XTC wrote:95%+ of all multiplayer games currently use the high power setting and the low power setting is rarely used. This means the range of available power settings needs to be shifted.
NoQ wrote:Dunno, people would just play NTW with more power.
That should be okay, there are some people who currently like 60 oil NTW (not me) and the new high power setting would be somewhere equivalent to that. But if some players don’t like that then they should have the option to play how high power currently is using the medium power setting. This is mostly about the high power setting giving more power on low oil maps.
NoQ wrote: Also it doesn't fix the desire to play flat maps (such desire exists and is very strong because otherwise flat NTW maps would have been replaced by beautiful high-oil maps ages ago).
That’s a good point, I haven’t given any thought into why flat maps are played. I’ve only considered the number of derricks. I just realized I've been conflating the two.

MIH-XTC wrote:Maps with 8 - 10 oils per player are generally too slow for fast players and they want more power.
NoQ wrote:Strongly disagree. Startup 1x1 games often take 5-10 minutes and involves a lot of action, compared to normal NTW games that take 20-30 minutes and involve a lot of boring 5-of-everything base building.
By “slow” I mean the rate of research progression, not the amount of time lapsed. You’re right, startup 1x1 games take 5-10 minutes but the problem is that not much stuff can potentially happen in that time period because there isn’t much power. We can only research so many things in certain orders in the first 10 minutes. For good players, they will quickly figure out what’s optimal. After playing the same map for ~5 times it starts to become obvious what the best strategy is. If there was more power though, more things can potentially happen and there’s more strategy involved. There’s also more units involved. I guess a better word to use is evolve. I don’t think game play on 8-10 oil maps evolves fast enough for it to be interesting.
MIH-XTC wrote:This is also the reason why battles are cutthroat, sensitive and unforgiving. For example in a T1 no base game if you have 13 tanks and your opponent has 16 then the game can easily end within seconds of an attack. The reason is because derricks don't produce power fast enough to replenish your army while your opponent is pushing. It's very difficult to come back after small imbalances in army size.
NoQ wrote:I agree with that partially. With decent terrain and carefully measured defined rush distance, the weaker side would have defender's advantage (better concave and larger portion of units in combat) that would prevent the stronger side from attacking. At most, the stronger side would be able to capture some derricks, but it won't be able to go for an instant kill, unless advantage is enormous. That's pretty much the role of homeground advantage in RTS games - to make sure games are less random and more advantage is required to win. In NTW advancing your army through the map doesn't give you any advantage, as you're not capturing oils, and the further you advance the longer the tail of catching-up units you have compared to the defender, which promotes longer and less random games and it's a good thing, though having more terrain would have helped.
I think in low oil games home ground advantage isn’t as much as it should be because things don’t evolve that fast. Not much is going to change in the amount of time it takes to travel across the map. Maybe like 2 extra units and a research upgrade. This is a generalization.
NoQ wrote: So we could improve upon that even further by putting more oils in the well-defended base and less oils in the open. I believe that's a great thing to do and the classic oil distribution is flawed. Probably by doubling the amount of oil in the main base and halving the amount of oil on the map we could get much more attractive classic-map matchmaking.
Yea I highly agree that the classical oil distribution does not work. This is especially true because the value of derricks at present moment are cheap. If a tank costs 70 power and it takes 1 derrick like 90 seconds to produce that power, it's not really worth spending a couple of tanks defending the derrick. It might be 3 minutes before I get my investment back and the game could be over by that time. In other words, forget the oils in the middle of the map, they’re not worth defending or pursuing. I like maps with oils spread out in the bases and on the perimeter. I'm not sure how to best create incentives for capturing oils around in the middle of the map.
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