More rebalancing!

[Zarel]

I thought to research Cyborg dense composite alloys, you first needed the get vehicle dense composite alloys (and as a result, you also needed to research certain bodies)

Has it always been that way? or was that part of the changes going to 2.1 from 1.10 stats?

Always been that way. I think the only 2.1 research tree change was to make lancer impossible to find.

Although I really shouldn't be talking; I made pulse laser impossible to find.

[No, 0 lines of missile weapons that are strong against cyborgs. There is a missile line specialized against every kind of target except cyborgs. I am only talking about missiles right now.

Why should missiles be so diverse?

Well that is a good reason to make cyborgs available immediately or modify MG or towers stats or place on the tech tree, but I don't see how it relates to missiles.

It was just a side rant.

Well how about changing it less then by only removing the "MK" upgrades? So for each weapon line you have one range upgrade, one refire upgrade, one damage upgrade and one refire upgrade. That is one upgrade per category instead of three, that reduces research from 12 upgrades to 4 upgrades per weapon, while preserving the strategic decision making behind choosing which kinds of upgrade you want to buy for which individual technology.

Still too much.

Has that always been the case or did cyborgs become stronger than light vehicles after the commercial release?

You're right, this does sound like something Troman would do.

But nope, it's always been like this.

MG Viper Wheels: 216
Machinegunner (1.10): 351
Machinegunner (2.1): 371

[Deus Siddis]

Always been that way. I think the only 2.1 research tree change was to make lancer impossible to find.

Although I really shouldn't be talking; I made pulse laser impossible to find.

[Lancer To Pulse Laser]: I leave you as you left me. . . buried aliiive. . . buried aliiive . . .

Why should missiles be so diverse?

Four reasons:

1) Because missiles (when taken as a group) already are almost exactly that diverse, they are just lacking a solution for cyborgs.

2) Missiles primarily fill the role of skirmishers- they can outrange most or all direct fire weapons but don't have the incredible mass of artillery weapons, so unlike artillery they can "shoot and scoot". There is no reason why said skirmishing tactics should work on everything except cyborgs.

3) You said you wanted to create a wider gap between AT Missile lines and Cannons/Gauss. This helps that along by making missiles as a group less AT-centric in the first place.

4) Pod rockets look cool and are fun to use, but quickly become mostly obsoleted by later AT missiles because they both compete for the same turf (tank killing).

Still too much.

Micro management it is then. . .

You're right, this does sound like something Troman would do.

But nope, it's always been like this.

MG Viper Wheels: 216
Machinegunner (1.10): 351
Machinegunner (2.1): 371

Strange, perhaps cyborgs were not as imbalanced as people thought.

It really makes me wonder what was the intended "role" of cyborgs that pumpkin had envisioned. Just light tanks with a different armor type that can be loaded into a later game transport aircraft?

[whippersnapper]

Still too much.

Micro management it is then. . .

- Haha... no disrespect intended but I gotta laugh. xD

- Basically, R.I.P. deeper MP battle field maneuver with greater command and control for the sake of a bloated research switch-tasking design. ....Actually I should be more precise. The research mechanic was designed for Campaign and it works just fine in that game mode (I explain why in BP's Hardcore Campaign thread - it also passes muster in SKI mode with all AIs but the latest BP) but it needed to be modified for MP mode and not simply transferred whole-hog, unaltered, like it was...... There are many things designed for Campaign Mode which cannot simply be dropped into MP as is. Though in all fairness, Pumpkin was still working out MP mode when they were iced permanently from developing WZ game play mechanics any further.....

- Seriously, in the name of enduring fun, there are objective methods to decide the greater values and trade-offs involved here. The science is called Cognitive Task Analysis and it can, and has been, applied to game MP to help pinpoint clearly qualitative metrics from outta the raw mass data of MP gaming. .

- regards, whipper
.

[3drts]

On the topic of what works in campaign may not work in multi.....

Sometimes I wonder if Pumpkin may not have been that far off when they limited MP to T1 tech - no endless upgrading and researching.

But it did leave a little too much out... It should have allowed for at least Howitzers (if not GS and HS), mortars are simply too short ranged to really be artillery.

On Cyborgs being stronger than mg viper wheels.... their weapon is lower firepower though, right?

Maginegunner does less DPS than a mg viper wheels? and likewise for the other weapons?

Still, it bugged me that you basically need the Retaliation body with an appropriate weapon to ensure your vehicle can beat a cyborg, even if its weapon is most effective against the propulsion used on the vehicle.

I had initially thought cyborgs were below light tanks on the "food chain", but really its something more like: non-nexus light bodies < cyborgs < medium bodies < heavy bodies

Since they didn't originally plan for the cyborg transport, or mechanics/engineers, its not clear what role pumpkin intended for cyborgs....

Am I correct in assuming they are cost effective against up to medium bodies with equally advanced weapon tech?

Initially they may have been intended to be effective, but not versatile - no artillery, no sensor capabilities, no "systems" of any type (repair, command, truck, etc), very limited AA (only about 20 scourge cyborgs could down a light VTOL).
Then we got grenadiers, mechanics, engineers, transports, and supers, making them about as versatile as vehicles...
Now if rockets do 100% against VTOL, scourge cyborgs will be a very good AA defense....
I don't really know what their *point* is now, or how it differs from vehicles

bah, I'm going to have to try a game soon and focus on cyborgs, I'm too ignorant on issues related to them.

[zydonk]

What a busy topic!

Can I just insert another farthing's worth? I had this argument with Troman and I would like to make it again as concisely as possible.

WZ was created by a group of talented people who had a vision of what they wanted. I played with the original 1.10 game for years and got used to all its quirks. I still say that the original game is best suited to Pumpkin's original intentions. The core game should be left pretty well as Pumpkin left it, and any rebalances should be supplied in the form of mods.

Now, what I hope Zarel is doing is getting back to that original disposition. But a lot of what I'm reading here seems to have little to do with WZ itself and more to do with the kind of game individual players want to be comfortable with. As such, the modifications sought have little or nothing to do with fairness or rewarding play, but more to do with fitting WZ to the comfort zones of people who may never have engaged with the WZ vanilla. I mean, if the only thing you want is to get a game over as quickly as possible, with the only proviso that you are the winner, then perhaps you should find a game that better suits you (and I'm sure there are many; you're not in a minority, after all).

When I started playing computer games, we were advised to give the AI time to set itself up, say twenty minutes. I always let the AI attack first - of course, AI on AI is not so considerate, but that can be corrected with good map design - so I know then that there is a reasonable balance of forces to begin with. If mp is all about just winning - rather than playing to win - then it seems that I have been missing nothing.

Zarel: happy to hear you're rebalancing the standard. My point about being dull should have been better nuanced. It's like a work of art: there comes a point when it is finished, even if there are still some rough bits. Clean up the rough bits and what was a creation becomes something banal. I think WZ is a work of art: don't make it too smooth (too fair).

cheers

[ThomasCarstein]

WZ was created by a group of talented people who had a vision of what they wanted. I played with the original 1.10 game for years and got used to all its quirks. I still say that the original game is best suited to Pumpkin's original intentions. The core game should be left pretty well as Pumpkin left it, and any rebalances should be supplied in the form of mods.
...
But a lot of what I'm reading here seems to have little to do with WZ itself and more to do with the kind of game individual players want to be comfortable with. As such, the modifications sought have little or nothing to do with fairness or rewarding play, but more to do with fitting WZ to the comfort zones of people who may never have engaged with the WZ vanilla.
...
If mp is all about just winning - rather than playing to win - then it seems that I have been missing nothing.
...
I think WZ is a work of art: don't make it too smooth (too fair).

Very well said, i agree with you. I played most of Warzone back when it was still 1.10 and even earlier, so I'd say that I'm also in the "vanilla players" group Anyway, you wrote what was also on my mind in earlier posts, so kudos, i can't add anything else.

[elio]

Now, what I hope Zarel is doing is getting back to that original disposition. But a lot of what I'm reading here seems to have little to do with WZ itself and more to do with the kind of game individual players want to be comfortable with. As such, the modifications sought have little or nothing to do with fairness or rewarding play, but more to do with fitting WZ to the comfort zones of people who may never have engaged with the WZ vanilla.

i think the rebalance is going in the right direction.
in 1.10 lancer was THE multi-purpose weapon.. used for everything: defence, on main battle tanks, attack opponents base, air defence/support/attack. bah
i'm not that nostalgic so i would prefer to improve warzone and specialise weapons instead of just leave it as it has been for ten years now. i am here to improve it not to glorify it. imho more useful (specialised!) weapons allow more decisions and dynamics in game play.

I think WZ is a work of art: don't make it too smooth (too fair).

imho a lot more tactical thinking is needed when the opponent chooses from a pool of different strategies. for example: not just pop out python cannon tracks and throw them on the opponent. instead use a group of python cannon tracks for main battle, then behind some anti air vehicles. nearby some repair units. then followed by three groups of hellstorms: 1. group assigned to a sensor for punctual targeting, 2. group assigned to a CB to kill the opponents artillery and 3. group assigned to a commander to aid his main battle tanks.
- now that's art - in my opinion

regards

[whippersnapper]

.

- Just so that it be clear - I think Zarel's work is overall a great boon to the game and the community of MP gamers.
(though we obviously don't always agree - he is doing the work and it is a first class effort which I respect..)

- If WZ creators had wanted WZ to remain immutable they would never have made it open-source... among many
other acts and statements..

- I wish Pumpkin's bbs at MPlayer had been preserved because, with all due respect, the INTENTIONS ascribed
to WZ Creators about WZ 2100s state and future are pure fabrications and do not in any way represent where
they were coming from - their PoV and philosophy on developing WZ.

- I had the good fortune to communicate with a handful of WZ Creators for years - certainly at their bbs where I was
Admin-Mod but also on IRC and in countless of emails clear through my handling of the source release directly with Alex McLean.

- Yes... WZ is a work of art but it was also a commercial product that WZ Creators EXPLICITLY wanted to evolve for years to come and
when they were barred from spear-heading that development themselves they gave the community their explicit permission and blessing
to take up that evolution (not to mention the deep changes that were made between Retail and v.1.10 that were directly a result of changes requested and detailed by the original community). They made those statements public at their BBs and they also gave it as well first in email covenants with the NEWST group along with a developer CD worth of stuff they sent me direct from England which was specifically intended to facilitate our making changes to WZ and making new tools to do it. Our 6 year quest to get the source liberated was in partnership with WZ Creators and was with the clear intent to make changes to WZ we could not without the source..

- That is the real history and intent of WZ Creators - to have changes to WZ be on-going as, and I quote Nick Cooke, "a living product"
What those changes would be, WZ Creators made clear, would be up to the peeps working on WZ and not regulated in any way by what may
have been had they continued the development themselves.

- Everybody is entitled to their opinion and I respect most of what has been expressed herein - the only exception is in matters of history that this post addresses... especially in ascribing intentions to WZ Creators that are just not supported by the facts, what actually happened and was said - over and over.

- Maybe someday Alex M., Jim B., Nick C., Alex L. or any one of the original Pumpkin team will stop by this BB and you can hear it direct from the horses mouth, so to speak. I would much prefer that to this.

- regards, whipper.
.

[Zarel]

Can I just insert another farthing's worth? I had this argument with Troman and I would like to make it again as concisely as possible.

Eheh. I was on your side in your complaints at Troman, but only because he never succeeded at his stated purpose of making all weapons balanced. Sure, he balanced... mortars. And to a lesser extent, flamers and cannons. But MGs, lancers, howitzers, rockets, missiles, and railguns, all of which were at least moderately useful in 1.10, had become effectively useless.

Here's Troman back in a really old topic:

• Let me offer a different one: The main focus is to make sure that all game components are well balanced, sorry for the tautology. Which implies that there are no uber-weapons, which in turn implies that the player will have to show some skills, come up with a strategy to counter its opponent strategy.
• What I don't like is when 95% of all games are won with the same weapon.

Oh, Troman, "no uber-weapons"? I don't think you realize what you did to bombard. u_u

• 1) It clearly improves the gameplay and WZ fans like it

As far as I know, the only people who like it have never played 1.10, and didn't know lancer existed. And that was in the early stages, when people didn't realize how powerful mortars were; now they do nothing but spam mortars, which has turned me off from ever playing 2.1.

I didn't talk to Troman about my issues with his rebalancing when I had the chance. These days, I really wish I did. :/

WZ was created by a group of talented people who had a vision of what they wanted. I played with the original 1.10 game for years and got used to all its quirks. I still say that the original game is best suited to Pumpkin's original intentions. The core game should be left pretty well as Pumpkin left it, and any rebalances should be supplied in the form of mods.

Now, what I hope Zarel is doing is getting back to that original disposition.

I am indeed getting closer to 1.10 than Troman was, by far. But as whippersnapper stated (moderately eloquently, for once ), Pumpkin never intended for the game to be immutable. I remember playing 1.00. I probably have played more hours in 1.00 than either 1.10, 2.1, or Rebalance, simply because I was a little kid back then and had more free time. 1.00 was a vastly different game than 1.10. Even not counting the addition of T2 and T3, there have been many things added: TAG, TAC, Stormy, Plasma Cannon, Fortresses, Engineer/Mechanic, Transport, incendiary artillery...

But a lot of what I'm reading here seems to have little to do with WZ itself and more to do with the kind of game individual players want to be comfortable with. As such, the modifications sought have little or nothing to do with fairness or rewarding play, but more to do with fitting WZ to the comfort zones of people who may never have engaged with the WZ vanilla. I mean, if the only thing you want is to get a game over as quickly as possible, with the only proviso that you are the winner, then perhaps you should find a game that better suits you (and I'm sure there are many; you're not in a minority, after all).

When I started playing computer games, we were advised to give the AI time to set itself up, say twenty minutes. I always let the AI attack first - of course, AI on AI is not so considerate, but that can be corrected with good map design - so I know then that there is a reasonable balance of forces to begin with. If mp is all about just winning - rather than playing to win - then it seems that I have been missing nothing.

Not really. Like I said, my changes are meant to make the game better for everyone - that includes both rushers and turtles. Please bring up individual objections so I know which changes you dislike.

Zarel: happy to hear you're rebalancing the standard. My point about being dull should have been better nuanced. It's like a work of art: there comes a point when it is finished, even if there are still some rough bits. Clean up the rough bits and what was a creation becomes something banal. I think WZ is a work of art: don't make it too smooth (too fair).

Regardless of whether or not a work of art can ever be finished, if it can, that day is not anytime soon.

[Deus Siddis]

Why should missiles be so diverse?

Four reasons:

1) Because missiles (when taken as a group) already are almost exactly that diverse, they are just lacking a solution for cyborgs.

2) Missiles primarily fill the role of skirmishers- they can outrange most or all direct fire weapons but don't have the incredible mass of artillery weapons, so unlike artillery they can "shoot and scoot". There is no reason why said skirmishing tactics should work on everything except cyborgs.

3) You said you wanted to create a wider gap between AT Missile lines and Cannons/Gauss. This helps that along by making missiles as a group less AT-centric in the first place.

4) Pod rockets look cool and are fun to use, but quickly become mostly obsoleted by later AT missiles because they both compete for the same turf (tank killing).

Eheh. I was on your side in your complaints at Troman, but only because he never succeeded at his stated purpose of making all weapons balanced. Sure, he balanced... mortars. And to a lesser extent, flamers and cannons. But MGs, lancers, howitzers, rockets, missiles, and railguns, all of which were at least moderately useful in 1.10, had become effectively useless.

I didn't agree with every choice Troman made, but I think we should still give him alot more credit for what he did for the game's balance. Before him the game had countless unused weapons and was dominated by just a few actually useful weapons, and now it is starting to feel like a solidly balanced RTS. To me, only the early on AT missile lines seem to have become less balanced (by getting too much of a bust).

Imo, it seems like it would be more contructive to spend more time in the future getting to work on the weapons that are or have become less useful, and of course T3 techs and vtols that remain untouched and really need the balancing effort, than to keep reverting his changes back toward 1.10.

[3drts]

I (think?) I agree with what he just said.

Put T3 techs back to what they used to be, and instead focus on balancing the T-1 and to a lesser extent, the T-2 techs.

Poor balance early in the game is much more apparent than poor balance late in the game.

Games are decided before T-3 almost all of the time anyway (or at least lasers, rail guns, and missiles).

A parallel to Homeworld 2 - some say the battlecruiser was too powerful/unbalanced - but as a late game "weapon", it didn't matter too much - you could get every other ship available long before the BC (the same was true of HW 1's Heavy Cruiser, but the BC was just so much more powerful than the HC of HW 1) - the consensus was if you allowed your opponent enough time to get a BC, you deserve to loose.
(Of course, there were large team maps with radiation clouds in the middle, discouraging early rushes - and those always degenerated into a race to see who could field the most battlecruisers)

If your opponent gets Gauss cannons long before you can, maybe you should loose, rather than lowering the Gauss cannon firepower. The only rebalance I would do to Gauss, would be a buff- increase its projectile velocity to just a little slower than the lasers (assuming you set the lasers to near the max velocity) - especially now collision detection is used to determine if it "hit".
Do gauss weapons do splash? Cannons do right? I would be in favor of reducing the rail weapon line's splash damage to 0 or nearly 0.

[Deus Siddis]

I (think?) I agree with what he just said.

Put T3 techs back to what they used to be, and instead focus on balancing the T-1 and to a lesser extent, the T-2 techs.

No that is basically the opposite of what I said.

And T3 has never changed much at all, Troman left T3 and vtols alone for a later rebalance because there was already so much to do in the first two tiers of ground units.

If your opponent gets Gauss cannons long before you can, maybe you should loose, rather than lowering the Gauss cannon firepower.

Rebalance of T3 mostly means balancing T3 weapons versus each other, less so the other tiers. Though some of the T1-2 rebalancing might require buffs for T3 weapons to keep them more advanced.

The only rebalance I would do to Gauss, would be a buff- increase its projectile velocity to just a little slower than the lasers (assuming you set the lasers to near the max velocity) - especially now collision detection is used to determine if it "hit".

This I can agree with wholeheartedly, rail gun projectiles are extremely slow currently, they should be extremely fast.

[Zarel]

And T3 has never changed much at all, Troman left T3 and vtols alone for a later rebalance because there was already so much to do in the first two tiers of ground units.

...dude, I don't think you've realized, but I've done a lot of rebalancing since Troman left. Again, I've already rebalanced T3 weapons. There's a reason this thread is called "More rebalancing!" and not "Rebalancing!"

Have you even heard of my balance work? o_O

Here are some things I've already changed:
-> A few ideas
-> Rebalancing!

How many times do I have to say... T3 weapons are already more advanced. Have you even tried looking at the changelog and weapon stats for the Rebalance?

[Zarel]

1) Because missiles (when taken as a group) already are almost exactly that diverse, they are just lacking a solution for cyborgs.

They are not meant to be an "all purpose" subclass. No class is intended to do that.

2) Missiles primarily fill the role of skirmishers- they can outrange most or all direct fire weapons but don't have the incredible mass of artillery weapons, so unlike artillery they can "shoot and scoot". There is no reason why said skirmishing tactics should work on everything except cyborgs.

There is no reason why said skirmishing tactics should work on cyborgs. Cyborgs are a lot faster and more flexible than other units, and so can dodge more easily. The only way you'd be able to hit one is with a barrage of a whole bunch of mini-rockets, which is what the MRL is, and the MRL is a pretty good anti-cyborg weapon.

3) You said you wanted to create a wider gap between AT Missile lines and Cannons/Gauss. This helps that along by making missiles as a group less AT-centric in the first place.

Right now, they're different in:

Rockets: Very effective against tanks
Cannons: Effective against tanks

Rockets: Ineffective against walls
Cannons: Effective against walls

Rockets: Long range
Cannons: Medium range

Rockets: Very low HP
Cannons: Very high HP

Rockets: Light
Cannons: Heavy

4) Pod rockets look cool and are fun to use, but quickly become mostly obsoleted by later AT missiles because they both compete for the same turf (tank killing).

Mini-pods were effectively never used in 1.10. They're also effectively never used in 2.1. But I see them used all the time in Rebalance. Because they're actually useful in Rebalance.

Lancer is still far back. It's perfectly acceptable for newer weapons to make older weapons obsolete. Where lancer is now, you generally get a lot of use out of mini-pods before you can upgrade to lancers, and that makes sense.

I didn't agree with every choice Troman made, but I think we should still give him alot more credit for what he did for the game's balance. Before him the game had countless unused weapons and was dominated by just a few actually useful weapons, and now it is starting to feel like a solidly balanced RTS. To me, only the early on AT missile lines seem to have become less balanced (by getting too much of a bust).

Imo, it seems like it would be more contructive to spend more time in the future getting to work on the weapons that are or have become less useful, and of course T3 techs and vtols that remain untouched and really need the balancing effort, than to keep reverting his changes back toward 1.10.

That's exactly what Rebalance does. VTOLs have had some balancing work done, and T3 techs are universally useful again. Have you been paying attention to Rebalance at all?

The problem with Troman's rebalancing is that by tripling, quadrupling, and 30x'ing "weak" weapons, and halving strong weapons, it made the old powerful weapons extremely weak and unusable. Rebalance generally makes most things "halfway" between 1.10 and 2.1, so that they're all balanced.

Here are all the weapons useful in 1.10 (excluding AA):
MG. HMG. MRL. Lancer. TK. MC. HC. HPV. Scourge. Rail. Gauss. PL. Hellstorm. Archie. TAG.

Here are all the weapons useful in 2.1:
Flamer. LC. MC. HC. PL. Bombard. Ripple.

Here are all the weapons useful in Rebalance:
MG. HMG. Flamer. Minipod. MRL. Lancer. TK. LC. MC. HC. HPV. Scourge. Rail. Gauss. PL. Bombard. Pepperpot. Hellstorm. Ripple. Archie. TAG. TAC.

First thing you'll notice: Other than cannons and PL, none of the weapons useful in 1.10 are useful in 2.1. Only one T3 weapon is useful in 2.1. Only one T2 weapon is useful in 2.1. This is why I dislike Troman's balancing.
Second thing you'll notice: All of the useful weapons in 1.10 are useful in Rebalance. All of the useful weapons in 2.1 are useful in Rebalance. Some weapons that have been useless in both (Minipod, TAC, Pepperpot) have become useful.

[Deus Siddis]

Have you even heard of my balance work? o_O

Here are some things I've already changed:
-> A few ideas
-> Rebalancing!

If you look at those two threads you are linking to, you will see that I gave specific feedback on your plans brought up within them, so yes, I have heard of it. I just didn't get the impression that there were enough changes between them to balance out T3 and vtols yet, but admittedly that was just an impression.

My point was that T1-2 minus vtols, has already gone all the way into a stable release and plays well. I thought it would take about as long for you to get T3 and vtols to that level, given that you are doing this in your free hours.

They are not meant to be an "all purpose" subclass. No class is intended to do that.

The diversity already inherent in this subclass seems to point to the contrary. And keep in mind we are still just talking about diversity over a family of weapons (not a single uber weapon iow) and only in the damage reduction system, not range, refire, weight or all the other things that make missiles unique and specialized versus the other weapons types.

There is no reason why said skirmishing tactics should work on cyborgs. Cyborgs are a lot faster and more flexible than other units, and so can dodge more easily. The only way you'd be able to hit one is with a barrage of a whole bunch of mini-rockets, which is what the MRL is, and the MRL is a pretty good anti-cyborg weapon.

Actually, I don't think there is a reason skirmishing should not work on cyborgs. Cyborgs seem only moderately quick and no more flexible than other units. MRL is an indirect fire weapon in the artillery family, that's like calling a platform with a howitzer a main battle tank.

Right now, they're different in:

I know, and like I said, this would just be one more thing to help them be a little more different.

Lancer is still far back. It's perfectly acceptable for newer weapons to make older weapons obsolete. Where lancer is now, you generally get a lot of use out of mini-pods before you can upgrade to lancers, and that makes sense.

It does when the weapons are in the same line for the most part. But pod rockets have a very different look, feel and operation from lancers and their replacements. That's my fourth reason for giving them their own line as a primarily anti-cyborg direct fire missile for skirmishing and fire support.