Balancing Balance

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

Post by Berg »

All of this topic revolves around oil or the lack of oil.
This has nothing to do with balance and more to do with map editing.
If its just map oil distribution make your own maps.
I do know many like low oil settings on low oil map to increase the tactics needed to win.
For example you have to limit the amount of structures to get the most value for the power available.
Again this is nothing to do with balance.
By lifting the amount of power with a higher multiplier in the power settings is just like adding more oil wells per base
as you said some games have 60 oil per base so remedy this by lifting the game oil well limits.
So save a lot of heart ache for the rest of the community that dont want games ending in who can spam the most tanks from the most factories.
Don't assume everyone wants to play this way.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by MIH-XTC »

Berg wrote:All of this topic revolves around oil or the lack of oil.
This has nothing to do with balance and more to do with map editing.
If its just map oil distribution make your own maps.
The connection isn’t so obvious but oil has a lot to do with balance, even though it affects everything uniformly.
Berg wrote: I do know many like low oil settings on low oil map to increase the tactics needed to win.


For example you have to limit the amount of structures to get the most value for the power available.
Again this is nothing to do with balance.
Nobody plays low power setting on top of maps with already low oil. We’ve been through this before, I think what you mean to say is the high power setting on low oil maps. Low power on low oil maps is absolutely dreadful game play and the balance is way too simple.

Consider for example a 10 minute low oil game.

With low power setting we might accumulate lets say 1,000 power
With high power setting we might accumulate 1,800 power.

At 1,000 power there’s no strategy at all, we can only do so many different things. We’ll probably end up with 10 tanks and 10 research upgrades. The other person will probably end up with the same ~10 research upgrades and maybe like 11 tanks. And you know who wins? The person with 11 tanks, because 11 is bigger than 10. And that’s the simple minded type of game we get with low power and low oil.

At 1,000 power we’re not even playing against other people, we're playing against the limitations of the map and settings. We can just go in single player and figure out what’s the best way to spend 1,000 power in the first 10 minutes. We don't need the other person to be present to figure out what to do.

Now if there was 4,000 power in that same 10 minute time window on the same map, a whole lot more stuff can potentially happen. There's more strategy since the game is evolving faster and there are more decisions to be made.

Do you see how more oil changes balance?

Consider theoretically if there was only 100 power accumulated in the first 10 minutes. We can only make 1 unit…. The less power there is, the less strategy is involved and the more obvious it is what needs to be done. This is why players don't play stock maps.

Berg wrote: By lifting the amount of power with a higher multiplier in the power settings is just like adding more oil wells per base
as you said some games have 60 oil per base so remedy this by lifting the game oil well limits.
So save a lot of heart ache for the rest of the community that dont want games ending in who can spam the most tanks from the most factories.
Don't assume everyone wants to play this way.
Theoretically speaking, what I’m suggesting is equivalent to removing the low power setting in favor of an extra high power setting on low oil maps only. Increasing the amount of power per derrick doesn’t really have any affect on maps with many oils since players always use the default high power setting. We can just use the medium or low power settings to retain the current game play or use 30 oils instead of 40. Medium power should also become the new default.

If you think about how the power settings work, we can retain all the current game play and create a new high power option for low oil maps at the same time. That’s the intent.
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Berg
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by Berg »

MIH-XTC wrote:Nobody plays low power setting on top of maps with already low oil. We’ve been through this before,I think what you mean to say is the high power setting on low oil maps. Low power on low oil maps is absolutely dreadful game play and the balance is way too simple.
I do.
I know what I mean to say.
Please don’t assume everyone wants to play your way its wrong in so many ways.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by MIH-XTC »

Berg wrote:
MIH-XTC wrote:Nobody plays low power setting on top of maps with already low oil. We’ve been through this before,I think what you mean to say is the high power setting on low oil maps. Low power on low oil maps is absolutely dreadful game play and the balance is way too simple.
I do.
I know what I mean to say.
Please don’t assume everyone wants to play your way its wrong in so many ways.
It's not an assumption, it's based on the observation that the vast majority of all WZ games use the high power setting.

Players want more power on all maps but the power settings are already maxed out.

The solution is to raise the amount of power per derrick which is equivalent to "shifting" all of the power settings.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by Quenton »

MIH-XTC wrote: Players want more power on all maps but the power settings are already maxed out.

The solution is to raise the amount of power per derrick which is equivalent to "shifting" all of the power settings.
no
If you want arcade game then turn off power
if you want strategy game then learn how to use power
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by MIH-XTC »

Quenton wrote:
MIH-XTC wrote: Players want more power on all maps but the power settings are already maxed out.

The solution is to raise the amount of power per derrick which is equivalent to "shifting" all of the power settings.

no
If you want arcade game then turn off power
if you want strategy game then learn how to use power
I'm confused on your stance, you say "no" you don't want more power per derrick but then the next statements contradict that.

If you want arcade game then turn off power - Yes this is correct. We can practically say that power is already turned off and current game play is like an arcade.

If you want strategy game then learn how to use power - Yes this is also correct. This is why we need more power because players spend all their power in 10 seconds and then spend the next 2 minutes waiting for the game to do something. More power = more strategy.

I'm sorry to say but any RTS game in which you can go to the bathroom or take a smoke break and not miss anything is totally not RTS.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by andrvaut »

The game has the ability to change it with mods. No need to change the game.
Who needs a big increase in energy with a mod.

It's just necessary that the loading mods work stably.
Now it seems to be, but it does not work at all. #4789

PS. if the modes could return the balance of accuracy from 3.1.5 ...
Last edited by andrvaut on 16 Jul 2018, 17:51, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by MIH-XTC »

andrvaut wrote:The game has the ability to change it with mods. No need to change the game.
Who needs a big increase in energy with a mod.

It's just necessary that the loading mods work stably.
Now it seems to be, but it does not work at all. #4789

PS. if the modes could return the balance of precision from 3.1.5 ...

No because then every time we want high power settings we have to download a new map with a mod in it.

There shouldn't be multiple copies of the same map just to change power settings. That's exactly what the power settings are for but nobody uses the power settings because they are not useful. That's what I'm trying to say... the power settings are not used because they don't offer enough power.

Also 3.1.5 balance is practically the same as 3.2 . The differences are negligible.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by andrvaut »

No because then every time we want high power settings we have to download a new map with a mod in it.

There shouldn't be multiple copies of the same map just to change power settings.
Now yes. When you finish the download of the mod should not be a problem.
Host adds mod to the autoload and all clients will play with this mod.
Also 3.1.5 balance is practically the same as 3.2 . The differences are negligible.
lol
It is impossible to play with missiles.
Fire.
Bullets that stopped killing cyborgs near, but I do not say good basic weapons

I spent a lot of tournament games in both 3.1.5 and 3.2.3. I have reason to believe that in 3.2.3 the balance of the gun / missile / bullet became worse.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by MIH-XTC »

Maybe this is a better way of explaining why derricks need to give more power.

If we increase the amount of power per derrick it will only affect low oil maps on the low power setting and high oil maps on the high power setting. In other words, the two extreme ends of the power spectrum.

All map/power settings in between those two extremes are not affected by derricks by giving more power because we can just use a different power setting.

For example, if we’re playing 30 oil high power and then double the amount of power derricks give, it would be roughly equivalent to using the original low or medium power setting. The original game play can still be preserved despite doubling the amount of power derricks give.

Since most games use high power/high oil and very few games use low power/low oil then we should shift the power spectrum towards giving more power. This is equivalent to saying the current high power setting should become the new “medium” power setting and medium should be the default setting. Get rid of the low power setting in favor of a new high power setting based on the observation that hardly anyone uses the low power setting.

The power settings are broke, they're rarely used.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by andrvaut »

1) The maps were drawn based on the current increment.
Many cards will be too narrow / short with a larger gain.
2) To remove something from the game is bad, even if it is used by a small number of players.
A more successful idea is to replace 3 presets with a flexible change from 0 to 1000.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by MIH-XTC »

andrvaut wrote:1) The maps were drawn based on the current increment.
Many cards will be too narrow / short with a larger gain.
2) To remove something from the game is bad, even if it is used by a small number of players.
A more successful idea is to replace 3 presets with a flexible change from 0 to 1000.

Yes that is actually a really good idea, a slider bar with a multiplier from 0 - 1000 instead of 3 settings.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by andrvaut »

MIH-XTC wrote: Yes that is actually a really good idea, a slider bar with a multiplier from 0 - 1000 instead of 3 settings.
T1-T3 + base can also be replaced with a slider with the number of issued technologies.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by MIH-XTC »

So @devs, I have a feature request.

How hard is it to make a 0-100 slider in QT to replace the power buttons on the hosting menu?

The values of the low, medium and high power buttons are referenced in rules.js as powerType. We could probably just feed that value directly into setPowerModifier and give it a 2x multiplier for a broad range of settings. The current range is 85 - 125 but 20 - 220 might be a good experimental starting point.
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Re: Balancing Balance

Post by pastdue »

MIH-XTC wrote:So @devs, I have a feature request.

How hard is it to make a 0-100 slider in QT to replace the power buttons on the hosting menu?
We're not using Qt anymore.

As for making a slider control, the Structure Limits screen already has a slider. It does, however, take up a good deal of horizontal space, so we'll have to think about how the UI may need to be restructured.
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