Balance 3.1. Is possibly to fix before 3.2?

[crab_]

See i made excel
MG Damage calc:

MG Damage.xlsx

(10.41 KiB) Downloaded 165 times

Accuracy have not taken into account

[NoQ]

So we're having ~10% HP nerf (~20% in early game), ~10% ROF nerf (in late game only), and ~20% damage nerf against slow tanks. Would this be enough for taming MGs?

[crab_]

So we're having ~10% HP nerf (~20% in early game), ~10% ROF nerf (in late game only), and ~20% damage nerf against slow tanks. Would this be enough for taming MGs?

I think it should be enough.
20% of damage is well noticeable.
You also reduced damage to base structures and defenses.

NoQ
What i want to see in your variant of balance patch
1) Remove transmutation FlashLight to PulseLaser
2) Nerf Thermite and Plasmite bombs
(increase build time, and decrease damage)
3) Make sensor available from start (as we discussed time ago)

[NoQ]

1. done, 2. done, 3. maybe next time?

• balance-3-1-1-v3.patch

  (30.53 KiB) Downloaded 202 times

Spoiler:

• Nerf machineguns. Reduce role of machineguns as meat shields.
  • Twin Machinegun, VTOL Twin Machinegun, Bunker Twin Machinegun:
    • Hit Points 125->75.
  • Heavy Machinegun, VTOL Heavy Machinegun, Bunker Heavy Machinegun:
    • Hit Points 150->75.
  • Assault Gun, VTOL Assault Gun, Bunker Assault Gun:
    • Hit Points 250->125.
  • Twin Assault Gun:
    • Hit Points 300->125.
  • Modifiers:
    • vs. Halftracks: 60->50.
    • vs. Tracks: 50->40.
    • vs. Medium structures: 80->65.
    • vs. Hard structures: 50->40.
    • vs. Bunkers: 75->50.
  • Upgrades:
    • First ROF Upgrade 17->20.
    • Second ROF Upgrade 34->38.
    • Third ROF Upgrade 50->46.
  • Burn damage:
    • Unconditional burn damage 15/sec->0/sec.
• Buff cannons, in order to match them up with rockets.
  • Light cannon, VTOL Light cannon:
    • Hit Points 200->250.
    • Research Points 2400->1800.
  • Assault cannon:
    • Damage 35->40, Splash 25->35.
• Nerf flamers. Don't let flamer hovers chase other hovers.
  • Flamer:
    • Price 40->60.
    • Incendiary Damage 28->22.
  • Flamer Cyborg:
    • Incendiary Damage 22->20.
  • Inferno:
    • Price 110->130.
    • Weight 500->5000.
    • Incendiary Damage 32->28.
  • Plasmite:
    • Price 130->160.
    • Weight 750->5000.
    • Incendiary Damage 50->40.
  • Incendiary Mortar:
    • Incendiary Radius 192->128.
  • Incendiary Howitzer:
    • Incendiary Radius 256->192.
    • Incendiary Damage 32->28.
  • Thermite Bomb:
    • Incendiary Damage 120->70.
    • Build Points 1000->1500.
  • Plasmite Bomb:
    • Incendiary Damage 140->100.
    • Build Points 1000->2000.
• Nerf hovers.
  • Hover propulsion:
    • Price 100->150.
    • Hit Points 150->100.
• Nerf transports.
  • Cyborg transports:
    • Weapon HMG->MG.
• Move lasers earlier.
  • Flashlight:
    • Pre-requisites: NSRB Mk2->NSRB Mk1.
    • Don't auto-upgrade to Pulse Laser.

[crab_]

1. done, 2. done, 3. maybe next time?

I'm afraid next time will be 3.2, but in 3.1 balance was shifted and i have not any clue how make balance in 3.2
So that's why my patch have long change log. I waited long time and now we have chance to change something being based on resuls of playtesting.


So i can say your patch contains minimal list of changes.
Not sure, but i see cannons are still slightly underpowered in early game, not sure.
And cannon are slightly overpowered when Heavy Cannon and Twin AC Cannon reached.

[crab_]

NoQ: one more change: VTOL Plasmite Bomb have ALL ROUNDER damage modifier, while all other bombs are ARTILLERY ROUND
I think plasmite bomb damage should be changed to ARTILLERY ROUND

How about some fixes to artillery? Ground shaker looks overpowered in team games.

[vexed]

Spoiler:

• Nerf machineguns. Reduce role of machineguns as meat shields.
  • Twin Machinegun, VTOL Twin Machinegun, Bunker Twin Machinegun:
    • Hit Points 125->75.
  • Heavy Machinegun, VTOL Heavy Machinegun, Bunker Heavy Machinegun:
    • Hit Points 150->75.
  • Assault Gun, VTOL Assault Gun, Bunker Assault Gun:
    • Hit Points 250->125.
  • Twin Assault Gun:
    • Hit Points 300->125.
  • Modifiers:
    • vs. Halftracks: 60->50.
    • vs. Tracks: 50->40.
    • vs. Medium structures: 80->65.
    • vs. Hard structures: 50->40.
    • vs. Bunkers: 75->50.
  • Upgrades:
    • First ROF Upgrade 17->20.
    • Second ROF Upgrade 34->38.
    • Third ROF Upgrade 50->46.
  • Burn damage:
    • Unconditional burn damage 15/sec->0/sec.
• Buff cannons, in order to match them up with rockets.
  • Light cannon, VTOL Light cannon:
    • Hit Points 200->250.
    • Research Points 2400->1800.
  • Assault cannon:
    • Damage 35->40, Splash 25->35.
• Nerf flamers. Don't let flamer hovers chase other hovers.
  • Flamer:
    • Price 40->60.
    • Incendiary damage 28->22.
  • Flamer Cyborg:
    • Incendiary damage 22->20.
  • Inferno:
    • Price 110->130.
    • Weight 500->5000.
    • Incendiary damage 32->28.
  • Plasmite:
    • Price 130->160.
    • Weight 750->5000.
    • Incendiary damage 50->40.
  • Incendiary mortar:
    • Incendiary radius 192->128.
  • Incendiary howitzer:
    • Incendiary radius 256->192.
    • Incendiary damage 32->28.
• Nerf hovers.
  • Hover propulsion:
    • Price 100->150.
    • Hit points 150->100.
• Nerf transports.
  • Cyborg transports:
    • Weapon HMG->MG.

How did you come up with the weight on these ?
[*]Inferno: Weight 500->5000.
[*]Plasmite: Weight 750->5000.[/i]
That seems pretty drastic.
For:
Burn damage: Unconditional burn damage 15/sec->0/sec.
Strongly against this.
How will this alter campaign, and all the buffs for thermal armor ? (in that, your basically treating thermal weapons as kinetic now)
The whole point of setting something on fire is to create more damage--since it is on fire now, their thermal armor has failed them. That is one of the reasons to use flame based weapons in the first place!

We have two armor types in WZ, kinetic & thermal, so basically, if the burn damage is removed, then what would the point be to use flame based weapons anyway, and what would the point of thermal armor be ? What would be next, remove VTOL's, since they can cause more damage and get away quicker since they can fly?

The goal isn't to make all weapons the same, it is to have different tactics & weapons based on what is going on.
Flame based stuff should be short range for the most part, except for the bunkers/towers, they would have longer ranges.
Thus, nerf the short range by a avg of 10-15%, and nerf the long range by short -25%(avg) of short for droids (except for structures that have thermal weapons). That means, at long range, thermal based weapons are LESS effective than at short range.

[NoQ]

How did you come up with the weight on these ?

• Inferno: Weight 500->5000.
• Plasmite: Weight 750->5000.

That seems pretty drastic.

This hardly changes much. Halftracked infernos are unaffected unless they're on something slower-smaller than cobra. Hover infernos get their off-road speed decreased from 2.34 to ~1.8, road speed unaffected. Tracked flamers are also affected: python inferno tracks runs at 0.56 off-road, while while light weapon python tracks runs at 0.70.

5000 is a weight of medium cannon. It's the first weapon in game with non-zero weight, defining zero weight by "everything runs at propulsion's max speed limit". We're changing zero weight to "slightly non-zero" weight.

How will this alter campaign, and all the buffs for thermal armor ? (in that, your basically treating thermal weapons as kinetic now)
The whole point of setting something on fire is to create more damage--since it is on fire now, their thermal armor has failed them. That is one of the reasons to use flame based weapons in the first place!

We have two armor types in WZ, kinetic & thermal, so basically, if the burn damage is removed, then what would the point be to use flame based weapons anyway, and what would the point of thermal armor be ? What would be next, remove VTOL's, since they can cause more damage and get away quicker since they can fly?

You're misunderstanding. We do nothing to incendiary damage and thermal armor values. But there is one more sort of hidden-and-never-documented damage: a fixed 15dps whenever unit burns, regardless of weapon damage and thermal armor. We're trying to get rid of it because this value is very significant in early game, skewing flamers to it too much in our opinion.

I didn't think about the campaign though Need to add some check there probably.

Code: Select all

if (game.type == CAMPAIGN)
{
    // ...
}

[crab_]

How did you come up with the weight on these ?
[*]Inferno: Weight 500->5000.
[*]Plasmite: Weight 750->5000.
That seems pretty drastic.

We have some weirdness in calculation of speed.
We have rule: "if design has weight lesser than engine power then increase speed to 1,5 from base value"
Lets see.
Python weigth 2700, engine 20000
Half-tracks weight modifier 400%
Inferno weight 5000

weight = 2700 + 2700*4 + 5000 = 18500
so Inferno Hover Half-Tracks will get speed bonus 50%

But if we increase speed of inferno to 6600 then speed bonus will be removed and speed will be decreased.

See changing speed from 0 to 5000 changes nothing for Python Half-tracks
But when we change from 5000 to 6600 then speed decreased 50%.
Off-road speed falls from 1,17 to 0,78

I suggest remove this speed bonus and revaluate speed of tank designs.

Speed Calc - 3.1.0.xlsx

(78.35 KiB) Downloaded 157 times

We have two armor types in WZ, kinetic & thermal, so basically, if the burn damage is removed, then what would the point be to use flame based weapons anyway, and what would the point of thermal armor be ? What would be next, remove VTOL's, since they can cause more damage and get away quicker since they can fly?

We never dare to remove incendiary damage. This damage is very complex and i can write a book about it

You can simply search in code BURN_DAMAGE and see it is constant
https://github.com/Warzone2100/warzone2 ... tile.h#L42

[crab_]

hidden-and-never-documented damage: a fixed 15dps whenever unit burns, regardless of weapon damage and thermal armor.

This damage affected by armor (as far i rememeber)
So for viper wheels it is (15-4) damage per second and lasts for 10 seconds = 110 additional damage, and this equal to 30% of HP
For scorpion: Max(15-12,15/3) = 5 damage. Only 50 additonal damage and this less noticeable.

I didn't think about the campaign though Need to add some check there probably.

Better do not add additonal checks.
May be campaign balance will be still good with zero burn_damage?

[NoQ]

May be campaign balance will be still good with zero burn_damage?

Well, scavenger flamers should be scary, they should almost one-kill your mg viper wheels, that's quite important. Never used flamers myself in campaign, but probably scavengers may stop burning well without it too.

[crab_]

May be campaign balance will be still good with zero burn_damage?

Well, scavenger flamers should be scary, they should almost one-kill your mg viper wheels, that's quite important. Never used flamers myself in campaign, but probably scavengers may stop burning well without it too.

Then increase damage of scavenger flamers in campaign data.
It is better than add one more weird check

[NoQ]

Need an official reaction on that.
I agree that campaign will get better if late flamers are improved, but it's always "the better the worse" when it comes to going away from the original campaign.

Note that there are also a few well-placed flamer bunkers around the campaign.

[Per]

I think these changes look good. Campaign was never really well balanced, and flamers in particular suck anyway, so as long as the early game visual effect of burning babas that die horribly is retained somehow I am happy.

The only thing I would change is to remove weapons from transport altogether, rather than replacing the weapon with a useless one.

[crab_]

The only thing I would change is to remove weapons from transport altogether, rather than replacing the weapon with a useless one.

I think weapon on Transport is needed to signalize enemy about transport flying around.
Transport weapon prevents silent landing troops at enemy base.
So i think transport should have weapon.