Warzone 2100 wish list - all can contribute_part 2

[Zarel]

* IMO, Pumpkin's Machine Gun Tech curve is grossly antiquated and more constricted to fantasy than 21st century MG tech.

* Much like there is NO Borg weap reflective of an AT-4, it is a far fetched base assumption requiring much suspension of disbelief if you have any passing familiarity with DARPA or Military Tech from 1990 to the present. Also, I am NOT suggesting WZ be more SIM or slavishly copy RL but rather that this falls in the same category as a finer balance and more fun game play.

* Here's an illustration-example of actual Machine Gun Tech and advancement that provides lots of info in brief.............

- Rman.

Well, we have to have some semblance of balance. Warzone already makes research upgrade weapons by way more than other RTSes do - notice how cannons do 725% as much damage as they do when you first get them, by the time they're fully upgraded. Compare to, say, Starcraft, where it's more like 120% as much damage.

Having a new weapon to be superior to an old weapon by factors of hundreds is feasible in the real world, but it severely breaks game balance.

[fisk0]

I can't say that I have that much of a problem with that machine guns are too weak late in the game. But I'd like there to be a "upgrade obsolete designs" function like in a few TBS games, like Civilization/FreeCiv and such, where you can choose to upgrade old types of units to new for a fee. I think this should/could be done in the unit design window, if you edit a design and add a stronger weapon, you could have a button to "Upgrade obsolete units" which would could the price difference or maybe 50% of the cost of building the unit from scratch, it would also be instant (or close to instant, units might have to go to the closest repair facility or factory to upgrade, but there should only be a time delay for the upgrade if the player does not have enough power).
Of course, there could always be some machine gun upgrades later in the game to make the weapon not entirely useless (perhaps, just like someone proposed earlier, having some armour piercing upgrades so that the bullets can pass through some lighter vehicles armour, as well as cyborgs, but it should not be anywhere close to the strenght of T3 weapons.

[Rman Virgil]

Having a new weapon to be superior to an old weapon by factors of hundreds is feasible in the real world, but it severely breaks game balance.

* Your absolutely right that is a vital design consideration and I would never suggest such a move for introducing a new weap or such a tech advance integration to the Pumpkin canon.

* However I do not think we have to go back to Civil War Gatling gun tech (1862) when we start off with 20th century tank tech at T1. That's pure nonsense, IMO.

* I love Blizzard for continuously working on STar Craft balance for well nigh 12 years now.. (if I recall correctly they released another balancing patch in 2008..) At the same time they keep their balancing methodology for all their games a closely guarded secret..

* However when I think balance I do not think SC.

* I've been a big fan of "Brawlers" from way back - from the coin operated vid games heyday. My favorite being the "Virtua Fighter" series. "VF" is exquisitely balanced between all special abilities, combat styles and over well 500 combo-combat moves.... the complexity of balance is staggering.... but none the less exquisite and.... this is the real kicker... you don't have to study a 200 page manual to learn.... the whole thing can assimilated thru play and intuition that transcends verbiage or text explications. To me that is a staggering and awesome achievment in GPM design balance....

- Rman

[Zarel]

I can't say that I have that much of a problem with that machine guns are too weak late in the game. But I'd like there to be a "upgrade obsolete designs" function like in a few TBS games, like Civilization/FreeCiv and such, where you can choose to upgrade old types of units to new for a fee. I think this should/could be done in the unit design window, if you edit a design and add a stronger weapon, you could have a button to "Upgrade obsolete units" which would could the price difference or maybe 50% of the cost of building the unit from scratch, it would also be instant (or close to instant, units might have to go to the closest repair facility or factory to upgrade, but there should only be a time delay for the upgrade if the player does not have enough power).

You can recycle old units and get back 50% of the cost of building, then build new units (which will have the same experience). It's not instantaneous, but it shouldn't be.

Of course, there could always be some machine gun upgrades later in the game to make the weapon not entirely useless (perhaps, just like someone proposed earlier, having some armour piercing upgrades so that the bullets can pass through some lighter vehicles armour, as well as cyborgs, but it should not be anywhere close to the strenght of T3 weapons.

Twin assault guns are T3 weapons. I'm upgrading their damage in my rebalancing. Armor piercing doesn't really make sense for light weapons like machineguns - it's something you think of on heavy weapons like missiles and rail guns.

Quick trivia question: Which weapon upgrade has "APFSDS" in its name, and what does it stand for?

[doom3r]

Quick trivia question: Which weapon upgrade has "APFSDS" in its name, and what does it stand for?

APFSDS is a cannon upgrade, researchable after HEAT shells and before heavy cannon.
APFSDS stays for armor piercing, fin stabilized, discarding sabot.

....what's this trivia for?

[Chojun]

Yeah, I remember Virtua Fighter. My friend had it on his Sega Saturn Fun game.

I think part of the problem with Warzone is the planned obsolescence of the weapons in the game.

The problem, though, is that unit armor, thermal armor, speed, etc is gradually improved through research, but weapons increase in power almost exponentially.

If anyone isn't convinced then take a look at this graph and tell me it isn't broken (here it is, as promised).

Weapon damage graph

weaponDamage.gif (6.08 KiB) Viewed 7613 times

Needs fixing. I don't have a graph for it at the moment but unit armor (and wall/structure armor) increases linearly through the tech levels. This graph that you're looking at here is the prime reason why Warzone is not balanced.

[doom3r]

Following a graphic would be a good idea to redesign weapons damage value.
But I like the enormous power growth from weap 76 to the end is pretty realistic, with those ultra-futuristic weapons like plasma, laser and mass driver finally unlocked the power would really grow that much.

Armors would be pretty useless in front of those weapons, like medieval armors against first gunpowder weapons.

Indeed you can't change the whole mechanic of the game and make different units type not based on tanks for T3, and in reality too that change would require an enormous investment of time and energy to find a way to face those ultra-powered weapons.
So what I'm going to say is that the final grow is somewhat realistic to me, as well as a lack of good defences. I would say that in those times the factions got to T3 they still have to readapt their units and tacticts to the newer-type war: they would need to leave their armors, or find a better one.

The wrong part in the graphic is the growth between 50 and 76.
Damage would need to be at least in a continuous growth, without any major "pause" which would slow down any game by not giving any big improvement; maybe that's because there are too many researches not directly involving firepower at that tech stage (sensors, power upgrades, research upgrades) which need to be unlocked in order to proceed in firepower growth: that means those researches should be better organised and not all placed in the same place in the techtree.

This graphic says a lot, and I say we should first create a graphic of what we want the damage growth to be before we start balancing instead of working on direct weapon-vs-weapon confrontation.

[coolkid]

about the acheivments i was talking more about like how it is done on steam like dod portal tf2 etc.

[Zarel]

I think part of the problem with Warzone is the planned obsolescence of the weapons in the game.

The problem, though, is that unit armor, thermal armor, speed, etc is gradually improved through research, but weapons increase in power almost exponentially.

If anyone isn't convinced then take a look at this graph and tell me it isn't broken (here it is, as promised).

weaponDamage.gif

Needs fixing. I don't have a graph for it at the moment but unit armor (and wall/structure armor) increases linearly through the tech levels. This graph that you're looking at here is the prime reason why Warzone is not balanced.

Well, that just means that two turtlers won't be stuck and unable to take each other out.

And "weapon damage" isn't very specific. Is that the weapon damage after each upgrade? As I mentioned in another thread, it's not so much that weapon damage increases too quickly, but that after not very long, the only feasible weapons to have are cannons and flamers.