What should be the modifier for insane difficulty?

[alfred007]

In 3.2.3 we have three difficulties easy, normal and hard. In the new master is a forth difficulty called insane is added. For these new difficulties is a modifier implementet that has an influence in "mission timers, power levels and anything in general that can be fairly changed in regards to difficulty" to say it in the words of Berserk Cyborg which is the main programmer of the changes. A modifier of 0.75 means for example that the timer of a 1 h mission is cut to 45 minutes. And also enemy factories works faster.

At the moment Bethrezen and I have a discussion about what the modifier for hard and insane difficulty should be. You can read the beginning of the discussion in the following thread. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12714

First it was 0.75 and 0.5 and after a few stages of testing it was changed to 0.85 and 0.75. After ending testing alpha mission in master 57f41f0 it is changed to 0.75 and 0.67. Bethrezen says it is too hard, I say it should be a real tough competition. So I openend this thread to invite all players to be part of this discussion and also to motivate other player to test the new master so we can find a solution that is ok for many people. You can find the latest master at http://buildbot.wz2100.net/files/

[alfred007]

With regards to balancing you have to not only consider how you play the level but also how someone else might play the level, take Alpha 08 for example I can actually complete that level with only 7 lance 2 repair units and a commander and I can do it within the initial 22 minutes time limit I don’t have to go anywhere near the second LZ if I don’t want to although I usually do so I have time to do the research having said that the only reason I'm able to do that is because I know what I'm doing it would be unreasonable to expect other people to be able to do the same even if I explained the strategy to them.

which is why I advocate the changes that I do because I'm not only looking at what I'm capable of doing I'm also considering what other people can do, as well as what the original intention was.

In my view you have the different difficulties for that. A new player can use easy to become familiar with the game and the competitions. Then he can train his skills in normal and hard and at the end with insane. A new difficulty like insane would make no sense, if everybody could play it from the very beginning of playing warzone.

[Bethrezen]

Bethrezen says it is too hard, I say it should be a real tough competition.

In my view you have the different difficulties for that. A new player can use easy to become familiar with the game and the competitions. Then he can train his skills in normal and hard and at the end with insane. A new difficulty like insane would make no sense, if everybody could play it from the very beginning of playing warzone.

not quite, i have no issue with the game being challenging it is insane difficulty we are talking about after all I'm just of the opinion that there are better ways to go about it than simply setting some arbitrary time limit with no consideration to the needs of the player.

Setting some arbitrary modifier for the time limit like 0.75 for all the levels is not a good way to go about things its much better to tune each level on a range according to the players needs at that point in the game, which is why you will quiet often find me saying that xyz level needs another 5 / 10 / 15 minuets typically followed by a reason such as i don't have enough time to conduct research, i don't have enough time to upgrade units, i don't have enough time to sweep the whole map and go for the total annihilation victory condition (killing all units and structures) etc.

granted a lot of the levels did have to much time so it needed to be reduced but you should still have enough time to do what you need to do without rushing while at the same time not having excessive amounts of extra time as it was previously.

I'm of the opinion that setting some arbitrary time limit doesn't make the game more challenging all it does is forces the player to rush and before NPC units where made stronger you could see this by using the toggle time cheat to take the time limit our of the equation.

if you enjoy a time attack mode style of play more power to ya but personally i don't I'd much rather play at a pace that suits me but still have the computer put up a decent fight, think Command and Conquer / Dawn of War on hard mode or M.A.X against 3 on God mode opponents with the turn timer switched off

sure you could have tight time limits and weak opponents but where is the fun in that I'd much rather fight against a strong opponent and not have to worry about time limits at all.

Alpha 12 is a case and point you could remove the time limit from that stage altogether with the way it was set up in the last master and it would continue to be a really tough challenging because trying to fight your way through an avalanche of units from 6 factory is not easy especially when there armour, firepower and production rates have all been increased, in accordance with the difficulty level as you are no doubt aware after trying to take on that level in the last master your self.

Certainly tweaking time limits is one lever that you can use but it is by no means the best lever why do you think most games don't use time limits ?

my opinion ? because time limits are not a good method of balancing.

[alfred007]

Setting some arbitrary modifier for the time limit like 0.75 for all the levels is not a good way to go about things its much better to tune each level on a range according to the players needs at that point in the game, which is why you will quiet often find me saying that xyz level needs another 5 / 10 / 15 minuets typically followed by a reason such as i don't have enough time to conduct research, i don't have enough time to upgrade units, i don't have enough time to sweep the whole map and go for the total annihilation victory condition (killing all units and structures) etc.

That's a good point. On the other hands the difference between the difficulties are less time/slower power gain for the player while enemies produce faster and get more power. That means on normal your enemy is not weaker, you just have more time to fight him. And with not enough time for all resarch you want to do you have to make a decision what to research first and what later. You have to think about priorities and maybe a different strategy. And at the end, nobody is forced to play on insane. If you want to have enough time for all the researches and upgrades you can still play on normal.

I understand why you are not satisfied with the changes, even though I am different opinion. If you have any ideas about other changes for insane difficulty just tell it Berserk Cyborg. I am sure that he is listening and we can talk about it like we talk about the time modifier. Everything can, nothing must.

[Bethrezen]

If you have any ideas about other changes for insane difficulty just tell it Berserk Cyborg. I am sure that he is listening and we can talk about it like we talk about the time modifier. Everything can, nothing must.

I already did

while I'm on the subject of making things tougher on Insane instead of meddling with timers might it not be a better idea to:

a.) make the computers units deal more damage
b.) make the computers units take less damage
c.) make the computer have more units
d.) make the computer produce units faster
e.) make the compute able to bring in reinforcements in from off screen

you can see Berserk Cyborg response here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12714&sid=7763a53dc ... 30#p137205

Why do you think the New Paradigm units were made tougher on insane because they were to weak at least until about half way though Alpha at any rate, so now that has been fixed and starting from about Alpha 05 the New Paradigm got some basic research bonuses applied to make them tougher, and make them deal more damage.

its also why the Computer gets increased production rates on there factories because having more enemy units to deal with makes the level tougher to get through especially if those units have themselves been made tougher to kill and made deal more damage, the most dramatic example of this being Alpha 12.

On the other hands the difference between the difficulties are less time/slower power gain for the player while enemies produce faster and get more power. That means on normal your enemy is not weaker, you just have more time to fight him.

As i understand it that is in fact not correct the strength of the enemy scales with difficulty level so on lower difficulties the computer is actually weaker there units deal less damage, and there units take more damage, the production rates on there factories are slower, not sure about power levels but i would assume that the computer would also get less power on lower difficulties, there units also possible have less health on lower difficulties although again I'm not sure about that but it would make sense.

so you see you don't just have more time to do the levels, on lower difficulties.

[Eugen]

I think cutting time limits is a bad idea which can only spoil gaming experience.

A better idea would be to:
- enhance enemy production of units
- make enemy units tougher (Scorpion instead of Bug, Mantis instead of Scorpion, etc)

[alfred007]

I think cutting time limits is a bad idea which can only spoil gaming experience.

Did you play the latest master version where it is implemented? If not, do it and tell me after this experience what you think about.

A better idea would be to:
- enhance enemy production of units
- make enemy units tougher (Scorpion instead of Bug, Mantis instead of Scorpion, etc)

The enemy production is made faster in insane difficulty in the current master version. And what should we take instead of Mantis to make the NP units tougher?

[Forgon]

I think cutting time limits is a bad idea which can only spoil gaming experience.[...]

I disagree.
Even with the campaign difficulty set to "Insane", I find that I have far too much time to defeat the enemy, which has a downside: I must artificially delay my victory in order to research all collected artifacts and modernize my army (not to get more oil, of I have always more than enough).

[Berg]

Eugen wrote: ↑
Sat Sep 29, 2018 5:25 pm
I think cutting time limits is a bad idea which can only spoil gaming experience.[...]

I disagree.
Even with the campaign difficulty set to "Insane", I find that I have far too much time to defeat the enemy, which has a downside: I must artificially delay my victory in order to research all collected artifacts and modernize my army (not to get more oil, of I have always more than enough).

I think some players are faster than others SO basing the time needed on a better players needs is not logical.

[alfred007]

wrote:I think cutting time limits is a bad idea which can only spoil gaming experience.[...]

I disagree.
Even with the campaign difficulty set to "Insane", I find that I have far too much time to defeat the enemy, which has a downside: I must artificially delay my victory in order to research all collected artifacts and modernize my army (not to get more oil, of I have always more than enough).

I think some players are faster than others SO basing the time needed on a better players needs is not logical.

We are talking here about insane difficulty. And this difficulty is especially for better players.

[Berg]

wrote:I think cutting time limits is a bad idea which can only spoil gaming experience.[...]

I disagree.
Even with the campaign difficulty set to "Insane", I find that I have far too much time to defeat the enemy, which has a downside: I must artificially delay my victory in order to research all collected artifacts and modernize my army (not to get more oil, of I have always more than enough).

I think some players are faster than others SO basing the time needed on a better players needs is not logical.

We are talking here about insane difficulty. And this difficulty is especially for better players.

This was about time not the difficulty see quote

wrote:I think cutting time limits is a bad idea which can only spoil gaming experience.[...]

If its too easy to do in the time allowed make it harder.

[alfred007]

@Berg

Take a look at the name of this thread. We are talking about the modifier for insane difficulty. And only for insane difficulty. That means the post of Eugen belongs to the cut timer for insane difficulty. It is not planned to cut the timer for easy or normal difficulty.

[Berg]

For a topic that has nothing to do with time it sure is discussed a lot all the way through.

[alfred007]

For a topic that has nothing to do with time it sure is discussed a lot all the way through.

A modifier of 0.75 means for example that the timer of a 1 h mission is cut to 45 minutes. And also enemy factories works faster.

As you can see in my very first post of this thread the modifier is also modifying the timer of the levels. And as far as I Eugen understand belongs his post to this fact. Maybe I'm wrong and misunderstood Eugen but only Eugen can make this clear.

[Bethrezen]

For a topic that has nothing to do with time it sure is discussed a lot all the way through.

True enough but that’s because one of the things that is affected by difficulty is the amount of time you have to complete a given level, now of course judging how much you should increase or reduce the timer for a given level is subjective because different players have different play styles and will handle the challenges presented by a given the level in different ways but I find that if you play the same level several different times several different ways making a note of how long it took to do the level each time and then take an average of those times then that will usually provide a reasonable baseline as to how much or how little time a given level actually needs and of course the more people you have doing this the better data you have and the more accurately you can tune the timers.

Yes insane is meant for experience players but even among experience players the level of experience will vary from player to player and yes some players are faster than others so the speed at which they can complete a given level will also very depending on there play style but as is the case with all things of this nature you have to balance for the lowers common denominator.

As a general rule i find it's usually better to be slightly less restrictive with the timer, but compensate by making the enemy tougher, for example

units produce faster,
units are cheaper to produce,
units harder to kill,
units do more damage,
enemy income production is faster and/or unlimited.

Or you can make the player weaker, for example

player units produce slower,
player units are more expensive
players units deal less damage
players units take more damage
the players income generation is slower

or you can apply a combination of different factors but again you can only really determine this by trying different things until you come to a compromise that keeps the majority of players happy.

now for me personally I'd remove the timer from warzone all together and implement proper AI for the campaign that way playing warzone would be more like playing other RTS games such as Command and Conquer for example the original and still the one of best RTS game there is this would make the levels less scripted and might actually help to improve the campaign game play experience some what

I figure if you follow the C&C formula and you can't really go wrong as long as you don't make stupid mistakes like EA did with C&C 4 Tiberian Twilight which was an abomination