Tech-tree suggestions (mine and yours)

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devastator
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Tech-tree suggestions (mine and yours)

Post by devastator »

The main issue with warzone which makes its' balance so arguable is that all the matches are automaticaly mirror matches, which is considered boring in most strategies (most of them contain different races). The idea behind this is to fix the lack of conceptional differences with numerous possibilities of upgrading your... everything - from unit parts to structure copabilities. So the tech tree needs some HUGE fixes to somehow grant equal benefits for all the branches.
Let's take a look on curent situation. Machingun, minipod, cannon, flamer.
mg: availability, cheapness, amazing possibilities of being upgraded. These 3 qualities are too much. Ok, so being a 1st weapon availeble means mg are suposed to serve as an early game preasure for agressevily oriented players. Or for cleaning up those trucks from getting your oils etc. They are quite bad at dealing damage to structures though. I can accept cheapness and availability, but posibilities of being upgraded? Simply, mg is THE ONLY way to go. Making them is your only starting weapon and the fastest path to advanced weapons. Not only you apply preasure, but you are also always on track with the events in the game. Simple mg towers are even capable of dealing with some bug VTOL units, it is just... laughable.
Also mg towers.. they are veeeery strong against mg bullets which also means tower rush cannot be cleaned with 4 times as more units of same weapon type. 10 mg units cost way more then 2 mg towers and they still loose in battle against towers. Laughable again.. So THIS might lead to a thought that defences are balancing the situation, making mg spam countered with some correct plays with defence. Not at all. Units can move and towers can't. You can not protect yourself from preasure with anything except for same mg spam. And we will discuss it further. Warzone machanics make it useless to make defences. The traps are useless, they should be availeble as a 1st upgrade to be used in 1% pf cases at least.. concrete. The main problem with it that you have to build it block by block. Takes time.. too much to give no effect. I believe that if we put a truck on the one side of our upcoming wall and the other on on the opposite side and let players to create a wall of any lenght between 2 trucks just limiting this with condition of both start and finish of the wall being built close to your structures (with some certain maximum lenght to avoid abuses) this will be a mechanich fixing the situation a bit.
So why aren't mg prioritised at other games or let me say.. at real life? Cause they become useless. And warzone, quite awesome with its' conception of growing, quite misses that with curent balance. If we make concrete upgrade, unit armor upgrade and structure armor upgrade available imidiately after engineering and providing high resistance from basic mg bullets up to twin-maching gun and mg mk4* upgrade, this might fix the situation. This neither means that mg will become useless neither that engineering will be prioritised over machingun. This will give reasons for going tech early or going preasure only. Early mg SHOULD serve as oil advantage atempts ONLY. I've just suggested one of the possible and easiest ways of fixing situation - early armor upgrades. Well, if you imagine a picture of mg units going around the oils which are protected with concrete from all sides and not being able to enter oponent base cause of some wall, though the oponent having no combat units himself - sounds quite warzone-like and reminds campaing, doesn't it? Also some basic concrete-constructions should be availeble for trucks, at least to suround oils from all sides in one click, a must have mechanic I think.

I went too far talking of mg.. but let's finish the thought. Minipods: disadvantage at availability, damage output, acuracy, cost, bulding time to mg. Hilarious, isn't it? Though it has bigger range, better damage output with higher counts. So with 10 minipods you can snipe 10 machinguns at 45% of cases, though half-track already make it almost impossible. Minipods might be used to snowball against your oponent, they nicely clean early units, but relying on them gives more then enough time for your oponent to get something better then early units also gaining economical advantage. Minipods are cleaning structures way better then mg.. but not good enough at all. Yes, they are just a way to get launchers, anti wheeled unit oriented weapon, so it should at least have.. some use, shouldn't it? This would be quite sensible to make machingun bad against cyborgs and minipods good against them.. the situaton now is opposite.. for no sensible reason. Minipods should be good against cyborgs and amazing at destroying structures. You know, warzone t1 really lacks any benefits from atacking oponent's base. You don't really get his money, don't get his upgrades or any upgrades at all (not literally but still) and you quite don't kill any sctructures until you double or tripple the size of his army, which is pretty difficult to achieve at always-mirror-match game. So making minipods a situation weapon against cyborgs and a valuable benefit-guarantee for barbarian atacks on enemie base... when you beat oponent defences and only have 4 untis left when 2 of them are minipods and kill his 2 labs.. this would make sense. And it's really easy to make this, I believe. This would also fix the situation with cyborgs. Cyborgs used to be useful only against minipods.. this is painful to watch such an amazing game at such stupid situation.. when a useless tehc is only good against other useless tech... cyborgs were also quite resistant to cannons, but this doesn't change much.

So, flamers. Flamers are cheap and their availability is fine. They are not created to be main weapon, just supporting one, quite good to deal with outnumbering enemie and there is a rumour that they make structures less resistant to bullets or incoming damage at all.. this sounds fine to me. This actualy is very interesting. They are anti-bunkers, though useless against basic mg towers and quite good against any concrete.. this is perfect. If you would be forced to use flamers against concrete constructions (buffed as I suggested earlier) this would be awesome. Also, should be challanging if mk2 concrete is resistant to mk1 flamers, and mk2 flamers burn it fast, but mk3 concrete almost immune to mk2 flamers.. this would be just fine for me, and when flamers achieve something like.. termite fire (inferno is quite too much to just treat hardcrete, would be imbalanced) upgrade wich makes any walls useless, this would be interesting, giving different reasons for differeng tech-tree branches. So current sitiation is fine, flamers will just need some rebalances to adapt to all the changes I've suggested below. For example, they are quite too effective against units for now, which makes them a little bit too useful.. also would be fine if the black traps would be immune to fire, giving them something that concrete can't provide. Mindgames, etc... what warzone misses so much!

And the last one, but not the least... cannons. They are strong and if you snowball them, they can deal with mg. They are more reliable then minipods, good against structures and low-level units, as they are themselves. Their armor got buffed which is ok. But... they need buff and some deeper speciality. Basicaly, they might be considered as the next step after machinguns. It's good. If we consider mg as early antiunit only and cannons the next level antiunit only, while the best anti-unit - launcher is abaileble only after not-anti unit minipods.. this sounds balanced!! Simply, what cannons miss now is splash. They get it only with medium cannon and it's a shame. Splash is pretty conceptional if you compare them to real life examples.. But just making them better anti-unit would be quite boring. So I'd suggest to connect this case with unit-components issues. Some armor being at all ways better then some other armor is boring. Yeah, I know bugs are quite resistant to fire and there are more issues.. this is great. I just think that cannons should gain additional resistance to mg, not more basical armor. They should be bad against concrete, even worse. And sould be bad against... well, for example against yellow armor types. And yellow and some nerfed green should be available.. at same time. And probably grounded armor should become independent from VTOL type detail upgrades.. something like that. Cannons are for now medium at everything and that's interesting but leaves no cheap way to deal with them. Certain armor types having resistance and not so late availability should sound fine.

Overall, this would already make the situation interesting. Every unit having specialities, direct counters, so that you will need to combine them or trick your oponent is the way to go, the reason why people like strategies. But still this sounds like T1 games will be always destined to remain t1.. if someday this suggestion, fixed and corrected, will become true, call for me and I will lead you to balance at T2 era as well ;) For now you don't need it, you've got much to do with t1. But let me add that VTOL is useless... comparing to other strategy games, getting conceptionaly different "propulsion" or "state" for your unit.. like invisibility.. should grant rewarding benefits, like free damage dealt to base or forcing to waste efforts and money and time for protection.. VTOLs need too much. Just bulding 5 VTOL pads and 1 VTOL factory doesn't give you anything, you still need numerous upgrades, which will anyway be more helpful on grounded units then on flying ones. Needs a hotfix.

Let me know what do you think and be constructive. Thanks.
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Re: Tech-tree suggestions (mine and yours)

Post by devastator »

And y, science module should be aveilable earlier with such balance.
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Re: Tech-tree suggestions (mine and yours)

Post by devastator »

And in fact I'm totaly right. But developers want to keep it just as nostalgy campaing refreshed. Ask bunker members if you care.. No sense to discuss balance. Never gonna become decent game. Don't really care of your opinion. Cya.
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Re: Tech-tree suggestions (mine and yours)

Post by crab_ »

devastator wrote:And in fact I'm totaly right. But developers want to keep it just as nostalgy campaing refreshed. Ask bunker members if you care.. No sense to discuss balance. Never gonna become decent game. Don't really care of your opinion. Cya.
Wait. What you saying?
I know devs rarely read balance subforum and they rarely trying to understand...
But there is not only devs. Some people here still dream about perfect balance.
But I should warn you: perfect balance is impossible without hundreds of testers :)
devastator wrote:Never gonna become decent game
I believe game can be made decent. It can be made as mod for first-time.
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Re: Tech-tree suggestions (mine and yours)

Post by anonim17465 »

all the matches are automaticaly mirror matches
- In my experience you nearly never meet the same tactic from opponent as your, even just the same units, simply because there are too much ways of doing something (after first 5 minutes...)
Let's take a look on curent situation. Machingun, minipod, cannon, flamer.
Let's have a look on a crab_'s page about damage of all this things, to get a better understanding:
http://warzone2100.info/weapons.php#left-tabs-2
mg is THE ONLY way to go
As you can see from that table, you can get 50% defence agains MG with towers and 60% defence with half-track.
And your MG tower has a heavy machine gun from start, and enemy need to discover it first.
So, at early games defence is stronger than offence, as for me.
Not at all. Units can move and towers can't
That's why you should build towers only in key points, like narrow paths for example. then their potential will be definitely used.
The traps are useless,
Protection from mass-flamethrowers, protectiom for bunkers from flamethrovers(2-3 tiles in front), fast way to block the way..
The main problem with it that you have to build it block by block. Takes time..
I agree that it takes too much time, but it's soo strong... 700 hp for 25$ against about 200hp for tank, that cost about 100$.
and it can allow your towers to shot through it. and their base defence is about 15, what is high enough, to make MG case just 1\3 * 50% = 1\6 and x3 hitpoints. damage. so, with a 25$(okay.. several of them) you can slow down 18 units that cost about 1800$ and kill them with something appropriate, like MG towers, flamethrowers half tracks, etc... Economically that's an advantage. So, even if there are 18 mg units, you can exchange 1 wall at cost of 25$ to a tank that cost 100$. If you have a several MG towers and some close combat guards(flamethrovers?), you can deal with them for quite cheap.
structure armor upgrade available imidiately after engineering and providing high resistance from basic mg bullets
No need. Concrete is protected to a maximum from MG bullets by default because of high narutal defence and 50% MG-to-hard-structures modificator.
Minipods should be good against cyborgs and amazing at destroying structures.
it's not an artilery, it's some kind of small, direct fire missiles, probably something similar to RPG, or bazooka. IRL such missile can contain shaped charge against tanks or shrapnel agains personell. If you need agains personell, take next one, mini rocket array. This one is against tanks.
, though useless against basic mg towers and quite good against any concrete
they are useless against everything that they can't burn. concrete does not burn and is a good thermal isolator =)
How do you think fire can destroy concrete? even iron will melt down much before concrete will.

(Cannons)
interesting but leaves no cheap way to deal with them
According to that table above, there are two main things against cannons (that are mounted on half-trunck or trucks usually)
First one is a cyborgs-artilerrist or lancer(attack in waves), second is a hover with lancer(and attaks in a waves to wait for reload). Bunkers was good before, but now they are somewhat nerfed... And VTOLs of course. But at early games this weapon of mass destruction is wery weak, so people prefere to use MG and stuff. so, normal defences will help most likely. If not, keep some minipod wheels. They are a bit better against cannons than a cannons themself(because of range&speed only)
VTOL is useless..
Next time try to use them with a simplest bombs and attack enemies derricks. every such attack will cost enemy about 100oil in waiting. As well you can attack enemy's builders. they are not well protected, but cost a lot, and will slow him down even more.
That's what VTOLs are for. for deep attacks. that enemy can't prevent. At most expensive targets. Hint: you need just 2 VTOLs with simplest bombs with no more upgrades to destroy a derrick. And you can repeat it every 30 seconds with little risk to you.
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Re: Tech-tree suggestions (mine and yours)

Post by devastator »

Don't you think my suggestion at least fixes early game? I've got plenty of more, but I'd like to know if people would agree with that one. If we gather and everyone in one voice will say "we've invented a balance worth implementing" devs might hear us.
It would also be useful to know how wz multiplayer balance looked like at 1st day of becoming open source to revive the pumpkin conceptions which seem correct.
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Re: Tech-tree suggestions (mine and yours)

Post by crab_ »

I read you long text.
I think this is all about 1vs1 games.
Making T1 balanced and leave T2 is wrong...

Machinegun
Did you tried new 3.1.1 balance? Machineguns are still too strong? They were nerfed by many ways.
So if you say MGs are stroong then see MGs were ~30% stronger in 3.1.0

I agree main problem with machineguns - they are universal and very good upgradeable.
I suggested to make ROF upgrades of MGs appear later..

MG Towers actually it is Heavy Machiinegun Towers.

Note: Machinegun is anti-cyborg weapon. Strong MG => Less cyborgs.
I see warzone as tank game so cyborgs should not appear too often :)
devastator wrote:This would be quite sensible to make machingun bad against cyborgs and minipods good against them
Minipods now is anti-tank weapon. If you make them also anti-cyborg then minipod will become universal and strongest weapon in game.
devastator wrote: You know, warzone t1 really lacks any benefits from atacking oponent's base. You don't really get his money, don't get his upgrades or any upgrades at all (not literally but still) and you quite don't kill any sctructures until you double or tripple the size of his army, which is pretty difficult to achieve at always-mirror-match game.
You can destroy opponent's oil derricks at his base and around and it is quite sufficient to win.
If you reached opponent's base with your army this means you already destoyed all opponent's derricks nearby and you actullau winning game.
devastator wrote: Cyborgs used to be useful only against minipods..
In current 3.1.1 balance cyborgs are quite good agains cannons in early game.
e.g. 10 flamer cyborgs can easily kill 10 light cannon tanks.
devastator wrote: is a rumour that they make structures less resistant to bullets or incoming damage at all..
Incorrect.
devastator wrote: Also, should be challanging if mk2 concrete is resistant to mk1 flamers, and mk2 flamers burn it fast, but mk3 concrete almost immune to mk2 flamers.
Disagree. In this case every second of research progress become valuable. So you can research your mk2 five second earlier and crush enemy defense. This brings more random in game. Game should be about tactics and strategy and not about fast clicks on research.
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Re: Tech-tree suggestions (mine and yours)

Post by NoQ »

Don't really care of your opinion.
Okay...
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Re: Tech-tree suggestions (mine and yours)

Post by devastator »

This doesn't mean you don't need tech tree fixed. You should discuss it with each other based on this variant perhaps..
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