Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

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alfred007
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Bethreze wrote:Ok so just giving the latest iteration of the cambalance mod a go and I'm defiantly of the opinion that the new factory shouldn't be triggering till you go up the hill
I think this is too late. That would give you the opportunity to play nearly the complete level without activating the factory. Triggering from the very beginning of the level could be too soon so I suggest activating the factory as soon you can call reinforcements. You wouldn't move forward before your first reinforcements came in and your first units could fight the newly produced scavengers. This would also my answer my question where to define the assembly for the new factory. The western one would then make more sense so that you just have to fight one group with four scavengers after the other, instead of one with eight scavengers which could be too much at once. For your idea of reinforcements coming from off-screen Berserk Cyborg implemented a way that NP reinforcements are coming from the north path in the current script for alpha 05 but did not activate it.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

nearo wrote:Oh, I didn't know that the modifiers were changed for mp.
Now it is a bit offtopic, but it would be a good idea to make a database for the campaign.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. The modifiers for mp are untouched by us. We changed the modifiers for the campaign.
And yes it would be a good idea to make a database for the campaign. But just after we finished the new balancing because you would have otherwise to change the database too often and you have to find someone to make the work. Good luck ;)
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

You told us when, but I'm asking for the "how"
Errr say what now I'm not following? As far as I'm concerned the balance of the mortar if fine as is and I recon that staggering the damage upgrades would be enough but if they still prove a bit to strong then we could always reduce there modifiers a little or slightly reduce there base damage, but personally I don’t think this is necessary.
No, it's not. My use proved the opposite.
That’s a matter of perspective, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
I wrote that you can use them for relatively short range, so why do you argue with the missing long range? With the same argument, you could say ripple rockets are obsolete because you can't use them for short range. It's clear that you can't use them as long as the counter batteries of the collective or nexus are working. But after you destroyed the enemy artillery with howitzers or ripple rockets you can use them. And in the two levels I called there are no counter batteries. Even If you don't see any benefit of pepperpots for the way you play the game, I see a benefit for the way I play the game and I also see benefits for other ways to play the game
Well I would think that would be obvious they are to weak to be useful again anything but cyborgs, and trying to attack enemy bases with them is suicide since they will get crushed by the computers counter battery fire, now while in some cases you may be able to knock out there counter battery tower most of the time you can't because most of the time the only way to get to there counter battery towers is to use vtols which for most of beta you don't have, or your other option is to try a suicide run and hope you get there counter battery tower before they get your units, so like I have already said when you take this into account pepper pots are more or less useless save for a few neesh uses, and therefore you should probably get them earlier when they are actually going to be of some tangible benefit.
And you argue about pepperpots only from your position. You contradict yourself.
Not really, because you cant deny that from a fire power perspective they are to weak to be meaningfully useful against anything other then cyborgs because the collective units are to heavily armoured now you can try and use them against enemy tanks and in enough numbers you might be able to kill them in a reasonably timely fashion, but you need a stupid amount of numbers to do so.

And from a range perspective, you can't deny that while enemy sensor and counter battery towers are up you can't use pepper pots for there primary function which is to destroy enemy structures because the fire from the enemies ripple rockets and the like will flatten your pepperpots, because you are being out ranged and most of the time you can't get to there towers to shut down there artillery fire, because typically there tower will be placed beyond the range of your weapons so the only 2 ways to get to them is with vtols or via a suicide run, now obviously this will vary by level, because each level is set up differently and on some levels there towers are not as hard to get to but when you look at it from that perspective you see that actually I have a valid point even if you don’t necessarily agree with it, and its because of this that pepper pots are rarely used, and if the idea here is to make all weapons useful then it makes sense to give them to the player earlier when they will be meaningfully useful, I guess ultimately this is just one of them points on which we will have to agree to disagree.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by nearo »

alfred007 wrote:
nearo wrote:Oh, I didn't know that the modifiers were changed for mp.
Now it is a bit offtopic, but it would be a good idea to make a database for the campaign.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. The modifiers for mp are untouched by us. We changed the modifiers for the campaign.
And yes it would be a good idea to make a database for the campaign. But just after we finished the new balancing because you would have otherwise to change the database too often and you have to find someone to make the work. Good luck ;)
You misunderstood me. I believed that the modifiers found here apply for both MP and cam and originally they were the same in 1.10.
And I was talking about the original campaign when I mentioned the database, however if this cam balance will be the default setting for campaign play in future releases it is clear that you don't want to make an outdated database now.
(I suppose you started balancing the campaign in 3.2.x, so I'm playing with the original 1.10 values in 2.3.9).
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Bethrezen wrote:That’s a matter of perspective, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
To stop this not really helpful discussion, I agree to disagree with you on this one ;)
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

I think this is too late. That would give you the opportunity to play nearly the complete level without activating the factory. Triggering from the very beginning of the level could be too soon so I suggest activating the factory as soon you can call reinforcements. You wouldn't move forward before your first reinforcements came in and your first units could fight the newly produced scavengers. This would also my answer my question where to define the assembly for the new factory. The western one would then make more sense so that you just have to fight one group with four scavengers after the other, instead of one with eight scavengers which could be too much at once. For your idea of reinforcements coming from off-screen Berserk Cyborg implemented a way that NP reinforcements are coming from the north path in the current script for alpha 05 but did not activate it.
One small problem that’s how it is now, and it doesn't work, my way you can crack on with the opening stages of the level exactly as before and it's only when you attack the new paradigm that things get …… interesting.

The other thing is that my way also makes more sense from a plot perspective as well because think about what you get told in the briefing, HQ has detected some anomalous signals send a scouting party to investigate, so the start of alpha 05 is a scouting mission not a combat mission, yes the missions ends as a combat mission but the combat only really starts when we engage the new paradigm, so it makes sense that the second base wouldn't activate till the new paradigm base does unless you go looking for a fight that is.

Ultimately the idea here is to give the player something to do for 20 minuets while you are waiting for your research to finish, because in an unmodded game it doesn't take long to take down the new paradigm base and then you are left with nothing to do for 20 minutes while doing your research, by not having the second base activate, and by not having reinforcements arrive till you attack the new paradigm base it keeps them out of the way for the initial scouting phase of the mission but means that you still have something to do while you are waiting on your research.

Now of course we could always just scrap the new base and simply have reinforcement's come in from off screen, the effect would be the same since they wouldn’t start arriving till after you attack the new paradigm, either works fine.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

nearo wrote:(I suppose you started balancing the campaign in 3.2.x, so I'm playing with the original 1.10 values in 2.3.9).
That's right.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Bethrezen wrote:The other thing is that my way also makes more sense from a plot perspective as well because think about what you get told in the briefing, HQ has detected some anomalous signals send a scouting party to investigate, so the start of alpha 05 is a scouting mission not a combat mission, yes the missions ends as a combat mission but the combat only really starts when we engage the new paradigm, so it makes sense that the second base wouldn't activate will the new paradigm base does unless you go looking for a fight that is.
When you entering the hill that activates your reinforcements you also attack the scavengers. From that point, it makes sense that both scavenger factories get activated and the scavengers attack you. At the moment one problem with the second scavenger factory is that no assembly is defined so they stand one tile southeast of the factory. From there they have the order to compromise your LZ as the produced units in the other factory but they get blocked by the already existing garrison. If we define an assembly at the western exit of the new base you would have one scavenger group coming from the western side of the hill in the middle and one coming from the eastern side of the hill in the middle compromising your LZ. And if you want to be really mean we can activate the NP reinforcements from the north path as soon as the NP get attacked by the player. If these reinforcements would make the level too tough for easy and normal difficulty we can leave this for hard and insane difficulty.

Based on your two ideas I'm making some calculations at the moment (yes I know, the truth is in the game and not in math) to make some useful suggestions. Hopefully, I can introduce them tomorrow.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

You misunderstood me. I believed that the modifiers found here apply for both MP and cam and originally they were the same in 1.10.
And I was talking about the original campaign when I mentioned the database, however if this cam balance will be the default setting for campaign play in future releases it is clear that you don't want to make an outdated database now.
(I suppose you started balancing the campaign in 3.2.x, so I'm playing with the original 1.10 values in 2.3.9).
to be fair we also look at the balance of the older versions as well, but in a lot of cases even in older version of the game the balance of many weapons was broken, and some where underpowered some where overpowered so we are aiming to fix that.

we want all weapons to be useful and we don't want players picking a given weapon just because its overpowered and does more damage then anything else we want people to pick weapons based on there play style or based on what is most appropriate for the given level.

for example on Beta 01 in the past I'd default to using lancers since they where my strongest weapons, but if heavy cannons are also just as strong then that gives me a choice, lancers are faster yes but they cant take as much of a pounding where cannons can take more of a pounding but they are slower moving, so on a level like beta one where you are facing a lot of resistance then you may choose to use cannons instead since they are more durable and less likely to get killed.

as far as changing weapon default purpose for the most part they will be remaining the same except in circumstance where it makes sense to change them cannons are one such exception previously cannons had almost no effect on structures but they should because clearly cannons are able to fire rounds that would be effective against structures, so therefore we changed it.

As far as the light cannon goes being equivalent to the heavy machine-gun, you would still be better to choose the heavy machine-gun if facing off against cyborgs because the heavy machine-guns modifier against cyborgs is higher then the light cannons, but if you are facing hordes of light body heavy machine-gun tanks then the light cannon would be better than the heavy machine-gun since the light cannon has a bigger modifier against vehicles then the heavy machine-gun, so you see while the overall performance of the light cannon and heavy machine-guns may be similar when we are finished they will still be stronger against certain types of target and weaker against others.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

When you entering the hill that activates your reinforcements you also attack the scavengers. From that point, it makes sense that both scavenger factories get activated and the scavengers attack you.
there is just one problem with that logic, by that logic i could argue that the new paradigm should activate when you attack the scav's since they are allies but they don't because that's not how the level is structured, which is why i reckon that the new scav base should only activate after activating the new paradigm, because that is in keeping with how the level is structured, the first half is recon, the second half is combat.
When you entering the hill that activates your reinforcements you also attack the scavengers. From that point, it makes sense that both scavenger factories get activated and the scavengers attack you. At the moment one problem with the second scavenger factory is that no assembly is defined so they stand one tile southeast of the factory. From there they have the order to compromise your LZ as the produced units in the other factory but they get blocked by the already existing garrison. If we define an assembly at the western exit of the new base you would have one scavenger group coming from the western side of the hill in the middle and one coming from the eastern side of the hill in the middle compromising your LZ. And if you want to be really mean we can activate the NP reinforcements from the north path as soon as the NP get attacked by the player. If these reinforcements would make the level too tough for easy and normal difficulty we can leave this for hard and insane difficulty.

Based on your two ideas I'm making some calculations at the moment (yes I know, the truth is in the game and not in math) to make some useful suggestions. Hopefully, I can introduce them tomorrow.
to be honest I'm not sure that's a good idea, because constantly having to clear out your LZ gets real old real fast, and certainly i found that to be the case when i gave the latest iteration of the cambalance mod a go earlier, so the better way to go is to hold off activating the second scav base till you activate the new paradigm and then have the the units from the new scav base come down the northern ramp and come and attack you rather going down the western ramp doing an end run around you and going to your LZ, because all that is going to result in is me having to idol around even longer while i bring in a third squad to guard my LZ, which is needlessly tedious and annoying.

its bad enough having the default scav base do that but al least they come past my units so that i don't have to go chasing them around the map.

more over from a plot perspective that also makes more sense since they are supposed to be trying to remove us from there territory, and they told us that we would be punished for attacking them, so it makes sense that the scav's would work with there ally to achieve that aim
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by WZ2100ModsFAn »

Now honestly i don't like how there is a new scav base on alpha 6

correct me if i'm wrong about it being alpha 6
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by Bethrezen »

correct me if I'm wrong about it being alpha 6
it's alpha 5 that we are currently working on, and its here that we have added another base since the level is to easy even on the harder difficulty levels, plus having an extra base means that you have something to do while you wait for your research to finish, of course you could just go and wipe them out and not bother but skipping your research isn't a smart move.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by WZ2100ModsFAn »

there's also a ps1 version of wz

the video is by john god games

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OLqRfxQ_nM[/youtube]

there's a difference between versions pc and ps1

the pc is up to date however the ps1 version is way outdated has never been updated since 98 or 99
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

Bethrezen wrote:there is just one problem with that logic, by that logic i could argue that the new paradigm should activate when you attack the scav's since they are allies but they don't because that's not how the level is structured, which is why i reckon that the new scav base should only activate after activating the new paradigm, because that is in keeping with how the level is structured, the first half is recon, the second half is combat.
I agree that there is a problem with my logic. When we look how the level works we can see that the southern garrison attacks you as soon as the northern scavenger base is destroyed. So I suggest activating the southern factory after the northern scavenger base is destroyed or the player attacks the NP. After the garrison left the southern base there is also no more problem that the produced units in the southern factory can be stuck. So I would also say we define an assembly at the northern exit of the southern base and change their order from CAM_ORDER_COMPROMISE to CAM_ORDER_ATTACK.
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Re: Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

Post by alfred007 »

WZ2100ModsFAn wrote:there's also a ps1 version of wz

the video is by john god games

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OLqRfxQ_nM[/youtube]

there's a difference between versions pc and ps1

the pc is up to date however the ps1 version is way outdated has never been updated since 98 or 99
What do want to say to us with this post? And how should this help us rebalancing the campaign?
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