Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

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MIH-XTC
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by MIH-XTC »

uhg, I just had the idea of adding 3 plasmite bomb upgrades to increase incendiary range, time and damage, thus extending the bomb upgrades through the later part of the tech tree.

This damn mod is a never ending project...
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by MIH-XTC »

MIH-XTC wrote:uhg, I just had the idea of adding 3 plasmite bomb upgrades to increase incendiary range, time and damage, thus extending the bomb upgrades through the later part of the tech tree.

This damn mod is a never ending project...
Done. Disregard color formatting

Image


Any thoughts yet on using these stats for the next release?

There aren't enough people to test modded stat changes, let alone 3.2.
Attachments
Stats Editor.zip
Stats Editor showing latest changes
(1.4 MiB) Downloaded 209 times
10c-EB-Sample.wz
Added 3 plasmite bomb upgrades
(77.24 KiB) Downloaded 219 times
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by MIH-XTC »

Here is the list of changes I made to research prerequisites with an explanation of why it was changed

Image
Per
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by Per »

MIH-XTC wrote:Any thoughts yet on using these stats for the next release?
I'm thinking we could include this mod with the next official release, and mention it in the release changelog, to see if that makes more people test it and report their opinions.
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Berg
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by Berg »

The changes you made to power production will change the way every map is played to the extent of not being warzone maps.

I have to say this as having oil well with MG protection in early game takes away the ability of capturing oil wells by low level units.

As it is now its just a mod but including in in game makes it part of warzone and per if you have not played it i suggest you do.

It is a good mod and a lot of work has gone into it but its not playing like warzone should it is removing the need to balance your tactics to meet with defence attack and research and power management.

Also making medium oil production the same as high oil used to be makes production on high too much if you want a map to have maximum oil make a new map.

And don’t try and use data that has no proof in fact to justify the changes! I've been there already.

Test the changes please I have...

I do suggest that stats changes before adding choppers and guarded oil well and a extra high oil production level are worth looking at.
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by Per »

Berg wrote:As it is now its just a mod but including in in game makes it part of warzone
To be clear (if I wasn't), I meant distributing it along with the official release, to make it more easily available, not replacing the official rules with it.

I'm not sure how much this would help, though.
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Berg
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by Berg »

Per wrote:to make it more easily available
The mod has been tested for errors and is available in addons.
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by MIH-XTC »

Berg wrote: The changes you made to power production will change the way every map is played to the extent of not being warzone maps.

That is nonsense. If you want to retain 3.1.5 power settings then simply set the medium power setting instead of high power and you get the ~same game… but according to your statement this would "not be warzone”?

What :?: :?: :?: :?:

Technically speaking, since research costs ~25% more, which many people agreed to increase the costs, it’s not possible to retain the exact same feel of power in 3.1.5 but it’s very close.
Berg wrote: Also making medium oil production the same as high oil used to be makes production on high too much
I really regret playing towers 2v2 with you using this mod on high power settings because now it’s stuck in your head that I made some crazy changes to the power settings. I should have known you were going to complain about high power being too much power, despite it being a 16 oil map.

Let me try to explain this again using different words.

If you're looking at the power settings in the skirmish menu, all I did was shift the power settings one place “to the left”

3.1.5 Power Settings --> 3.2 Power Settings:

Low power --> removed
Medium power --> Low power
High power --> Medium power
*new* Higher power --> High power

Simply based off the observation that all players use the high power setting by default and most players play 30 – 40 oil maps.

Do you know why players do not play the stock maps that come with Warzone and why they choose to play 30 – 40 oil maps instead? Why do you think nobody plays maps other than flat maps with all the oils in their base?

It’s because there isn’t enough power per derrick to sustain interesting gameplay on low oil maps and players want more power. That’s the whole point of shifting the power schema so that low oil maps have enough power to actually make the game interesting. It has nothing to do with some imaginary high oil fantasy you think I have.

Uhg, I’m frustrated as to why you can’t grasp the logic behind the changes to power. If a player wants more power on a certain map you’re suggesting that players add more derricks to the map. Dude, that’s what players have been doing for the past 15 years... how do you think we ended up with a bunch of maps with 40 oils?

Instead of adding derricks, we should just increase the amount of power per derrick. If you think it’s too much power then use the low power setting. If the low power setting is still not enough then follow your own advice and remove some derricks from the map, I’m sure you won’t have any problem finding low oil maps but you wouldn’t have any idea of that because you only play one map, towers.

Your counter argument in IRC was that you always use the low power setting and that you wanted it back. I think the vast majority of MP players would disagree with you and would favor a new higher power setting in place of the current low power setting.
Berg wrote: I have to say this as having oil well with MG protection in early game takes away the ability of capturing oil wells by low level units.
It only takes three wheel mg tanks to kill a guarded oil derrick…
Guarded oil derrick costs 50 compared to 25 for normal derrick, takes 150 to build instead of 100 for normal and requires guarded MG tower. Taking everything into consideration, the effectiveness of a guarded MG derrick is hardly more than a normal oil derrick with an MG tower next to it. This wasn’t my idea, it was brought up several times in old balance threads. I implemented it because I thought it was a good way to reduce the sensitive nature of low oil rush games. It’s likely to extend games beyond making a simple mistake in low oil rush games.

Berg wrote: As it is now its just a mod but including in in game makes it part of warzone and per if you have not played it i suggest you do.

At this point, with the number of changes I made, I hardly consider this a mod because it’s about 75% objective fixes and 25% subjective modifications.

Keep in mind that pumpkin studios never had a chance to make any revisions to the stats so just because something is not part of the original WZ doesn’t mean it was intended to be that way. Things are the way they are because nobody could anticipate what WZ gameplay would exactly be like before it was released and once WZ was released, they never had a chance to “change”/*fix* anything. Things have been stuck like this for 15 years because nobody has fixed them. You have to know where to draw the line between clinging on to originality and absurdity.

For example, do you consider the engine upgrades making units move faster a modification or a fix?

I’m pretty sure that’s what was intended when they created “engine upgrades”. Otherwise, you might as well replace the pretty looking engine icon with a big red X because functionally speaking that’s what it currently amounts to. In this sense, this is not a modification, it’s something that is broke and it remains broke until someone fixes it. You can say that the values of the turret weights and engine outputs are subject to the author’s interpretation but if you study the stats you’ll find that any attempts to make units move at different speeds within reason will result in the ~same weight/engine values that I have.

Would you interpret these changes differently if I opened a ticket for each area of change and attached stat files addressing each individually?

The only thing I can see players not liking is the slow nature of T1 no base due to initially nerfed unit speed and construction rates. However trucks take 23 seconds to produce instead of 30 so players will have more trucks to manage keeping them occupied.

The entire purpose of widening the beginning of the tech tree, increasing research costs, adding additional upgrades and slowing the base building is to make it much more difficult for players/teams to obtain flawless research, thus creating variation between research strategies. As it stands right now, it’s way too easy for a 2 player team to flawlessly research all of the relevant items needed in the research tree with 10 research centers. In most games, both teams almost always research the same things, the only difference is in the transitions. There’s no strategy in “what” to research, the only strategy is to whichever team can have the most seamless transition from one upgrade to the next. That’s no fun, that’s not how WZ was meant to be.
Berg wrote: It is a good mod and a lot of work has gone into it but its not playing like warzone should it is removing the need to balance your tactics to meet with defence attack and research and power management.
Please elaborate. What is unbalanced about defense, research, power and droids?
  • * There are many more practical droid designs now. Light bodies have speed advantages.
    * Defenses have more HP’s, range and damage
    * The amount of power is the exact same depending on setting you choose,
    * There are more research upgrades to choose from and research costs more meaning players must put more consideration into their research decisions
Berg wrote: And don’t try and use data that has no proof in fact to justify the changes!

I've been there already.
That’s not the case at all. I think the case is more like you don’t know how to interpret the data so you just ignore it.

Berg wrote: I do suggest that stats changes before adding choppers and guarded oil well and a extra high oil production level are worth looking at.
I originally had no plans for enable helicopter but since someone already loaded it into 3.2 and did all of the hard work to implement it, all I did was flip the switch and enable it.

So let’s answer the question here and now. Are we going to use helicopters in WZ, yes or no? If the answer is yes, I think the stats and arrival time I have for helicopter is pretty good. If the answer is no then so be it, it doesn’t matter to me, although I think the idea of a helicopter propulsion is a great addition.

On a side note, helicopters would have extremely nice behavior and could potentially be very relevant if their turrets were allowed to rotate 360 degrees (removed hardcoded value) but only on helicopters, not VTOL’s. The difficulty with that is that both VTOL’s and Helicopters belong to the “Lift” propulsion so they can’t be modified independently.


There is only one bug with this mod, albeit a small one in comparison to the benefits gained. Scav droids are stuck with nerfed sensor ranges of 1.5 tiles. Scav structures use the babaSensor so they are not affected but scav droids use the default sensor which starts off initially nerfed by 75% but returns to normal after the sensor turret. Since scavs don’t research, their droids are stuck with this sensor range.

Another tl;dr post but I'm forced to have to explain this. It would be so much easier if I didn't have to justify this stuff.
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by MIH-XTC »

If you do decide to use these stats with next release, please use attached version. The attachment above is missing the 3 howitzer range upgrades
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EB.wz
(43.87 KiB) Downloaded 206 times
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Berg
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by Berg »

MIH-XTC wrote: I really regret playing towers 2v2 with you using this mod on high power settings because now it’s stuck in your head that I made some crazy changes to the power settings. I should have known you were going to complain about high power being too much power, despite it being a 16 oil map.
You are 'A typical' contributor I believe your worked hard on your mod but when some one criticises your work you get abusive please allow others there right to have opinions.

I gave you my opinion in irc you called me a lair so you instantly abused me again I give my opinion please just live with the fact I have played your mod and also tested it for errors many times as you keep changing it so I think you can allow me the right to have a opinion on it.

Thank you
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by montetank »

MIH-XTC wrote: Simply based off the observation that all players use the high power setting by default and most players play 30 – 40 oil maps.
O_o Maybe online-players. 95% of all players are offline-players. Just look at the number of map-downloads in the addon-section.
In case the WZ-game ends in a draw , the game winner will be determined by penalty shoot-out.
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by MIH-XTC »

Image
Image
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EB.wz
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by MIH-XTC »

There aren't anymore upgrades I can add to the tech tree now, everything that is upgradeable has an upgrade.

Image

Image

Some things I tried creating upgrades for but wasn't successful without modifying source

Repair rates for repair units are not upgradeable (auto-repair02 in screenshot doesn't work)
https://github.com/Warzone2100/warzone2 ... .cpp#L4694

Cybog factory production cannot be upgraded independent of tank factory (please create subclass filter so I can create cyborg factory upgrades)

Flightspeed isn't upgradeable.

If you want to make more things upgradeable from source code then it's super easy to create the upgrades but there's nothing left to upgrade at the moment. I added a total of 53 items into the tech tree.

28 range upgrades
6 cyborg engine upgrades
3 plasmite bomb upgrades
3 EMP upgrades
1 Incendiary Missile Array
1 Twin MG bunker
1 Guarded Oil Derrick
1 Plasma Launcher
1 Laser Accuracy
1 Helicopter Propulsion
7 Additional base upgrades at end of tech tree
Attachments
EB.wz
(44.58 KiB) Downloaded 200 times
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by MIH-XTC »

I need to change some things in stats.cpp, statsdef.h and the QT scripts to implement the below.
What's the best way to submit that to you?

Make cyborg factory upgrades independent of tank factory. Requires new structure subclass.
Make flightSpeed upgradeable
Make Turret/Body weight's upgradeable
Make Helicopter turrets rotateable and shoot-on-sight (like ground units). Requires new subclass of VTOL
Make Droid repair rates upgradeable
Make Cyborg weapons a separate subclass
Make numAttackRuns upgradeable
Make Turret rotation upgradeable
Make Propulsion attributes upgradeable


Getting really fancy...
Make WeaponSlot upgradeable from 1 to 2. I want to have a cyborg upgrade that flips this flag and allows a weapon on each arm.

The only thing I'm not sure how to do is the graphics, the current weapons would need to be flipped to the other arm.

Getting cyborg to appear on design menu with only cyborg weapons selectable (like VTOL) is not a problem.

This is where I'm currently at with new items added to the tech tree, all of these use existing icons.
Image

I made the cyborg engine, factory upgrade and armor upgrades completely independent of the tank counterparts.
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EB.wz
(44.78 KiB) Downloaded 201 times
Cyp
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Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Post by Cyp »

MIH-XTC wrote:I need to change some things in stats.cpp, statsdef.h and the QT scripts to implement the below.
What's the best way to submit that to you?

The best way would probably be making a ticket with a patch, or at least a link to your repository, if you have/make one. Or something like that.
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