Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

[alfred007]

And when I'm at it, here is the script of Alpha 04 with the changes I suggested in my last post.

[Bethrezen]

Ok so just had a go at Alpha 1 & 2 and they seem fine now with the slight reduction in damage of the MG towers, also had a go at alpha 03 and has no issues and was able to do a full clear of the map and get back to the LZ with about 2 minutes on the clock, on insane using 4 flamers and 4 twin machine-guns and 2 mobile repair units.

With regards to alfreds proposed changes while it would probably be fine to make the units on alpha 3 a little stronger since they only have a few of them I'm not sure how this would play out on alpha 04 and I suspect that giving the scav's heavy machine-guns and all 3 damage upgrades on alpha 4 could well prove a little to much although since they only have 2 factories on alpha 04 it might be ok since you wouldn’t get swarmed by as many units so I think it's at least worth a go to see how things play out.

Although given how lightly armoured viper units are I can see this being problematic especially if you are using flamers to help you get past there turrets faster, maybe be less so if you are using heavy machine-guns since they are more heavily armoured, although if we are trying to encourage players to use the right weapon for the job then we probably shouldn't be encouraging players to use only heavy machine-guns to do alpha 04, although we wont know till we try it.

[Berserk Cyborg]

With regards to alfreds proposed changes while it would probably be fine to make the units on alpha 3 a little stronger since they only have a few of them I'm not sure how this would play out on alpha 04 and I suspect that giving the scav's heavy machine-guns and all 3 damage upgrades on alpha 4 could well prove a little to much although since they only have 2 factories on alpha 04 it might be ok since you wouldn’t get swarmed by as many units so I think it's at least worth a go to see how things play out.

Although given how lightly armoured viper units are I can see this being problematic especially if you are using flamers to help you get past there turrets faster, maybe be less so if you are using heavy machine-guns since they are more heavily armoured, although if we are trying to encourage players to use the right weapon for the job then we probably shouldn't be encouraging players to use only heavy machine-guns to do alpha 04, although we wont know till we try it.

Here is the mod with alfred007's changes minus the third MG damage upgrade on Alpha 4. Let me know what you think.

camBalance.wz

[Bethrezen]

Question what did Alfred change on alpha 02 ? did he speed up the scav's spawn rate or increase there damage or something, because something seems off and they are killing my units way to quickly even with 4 mobile repair units I don't seem to be able to keep up with the incoming damage, not sure what's been changed but this seems more difficult some how ? and to be honest I'd be inclined to leave alpha 02 the way it was.

[alfred007]

Question what did Alfred change on alpha 02 ? did he speed up the scav's spawn rate or something because this seems more difficult some how ? and to be honest I'd be inclined to leave alpha 02 the way it was.

The only thing that I changed in alpha 02 is replacing the already on the map existing scavengers with standard machine gun by scavengers with twin machine gun. The factory throttles are untouched.

[Bethrezen]

Humm... Strange ??

I didn't have this much trouble at the start of alpha 02 previously, I'm not sure what it is but something seems off, because as i already mentioned even with 4 mobile repair units i don't seem to be able to keep up with the incoming damage.

[Berserk Cyborg]

How about when removing the upgraded map templates? Alpha 1/2 have two scavenger players, 6 and 7, and alfred007 replaced player 6's templates in the last mod which consists of the first scavengers base area. Maybe that is why it seemed harder.

camBalance.wz

[alfred007]

Humm... Strange ??

I didn't have this much trouble at the start of alpha 02 previously, I'm not sure what it is but something seems off, because as i already mentioned even with 4 mobile repair units i don't seem to be able to keep up with the incoming damage.

What about using more repair units? In alpha 02 I send a squad with 16 mg tanks and 16 repair units south and I never had any serious problems.

And if it's still too hard with replacing scavenger player 6 we could replace scavenger player 7 instead.

[Bethrezen]

What about using more repair units? In alpha 02 I send a squad with 16 mg tanks and 16 repair units south and I never had any serious problems.

And if it's still too hard with replacing scavenger player 6 we could replace scavenger player 7 instead.

To be honest I reckon it would be better to not replace there units because the start of alpha 2 was already tricky enough when you take in to account the maps garrison units, the production from 3 factories and the first bases turrets, previously before you switch out there units it was manageable on insane just about if I support my squad of flamers with 4 mobile repair units though you do still need to be careful due to the mobile repair units insufficient range, and command and control issues caused by the meddling with the hold command, which has resulted in an issue where the computer has the annoying habit of overriding the players orders which results in your units moving beyond the mobile repair units range, when they are supposed to be set to hold position.

Alpha 03
Ok so just given alpha 3 a go and the second I collect the artefact I get instantly butchered, and it doesn't seem to matter if I sweep the map first before picking up the artefact or if I just go striate for the artefact the result is always the same, that’s not only mean that’s pure evil, and bordering on completely impossible.

There is no way the scav's can have heavy machine guns and 2 damage upgrades not while the player is still using viper bodies because your units are just not tough enough to stand up to that, and if you engage more then 4 enemies at a time you are dead meat, and even when you are only fighting 4 enemies you still have to be careful unless you want to start loosing units.

So for alpha 03 I'd try scaling that back a bit and try giving the scav's heavy machine-guns and 1 damage upgrade or twin machine-guns and 2 damage upgrades and see how that is and which works better.

How about when removing the upgraded map templates?

what's that ?

[Berserk Cyborg]

Alpha 03
Ok so just given alpha 3 a go and the second I collect the artefact I get instantly butchered, and it doesn't seem to matter if I sweep the map first before picking up the artefact or if I just go striate for the artefact the result is always the same, that’s not only mean that’s pure evil, and bordering on completely impossible.

There is no way the scav's can have heavy machine guns and 2 damage upgrades not while the player is still using viper bodies because your units are just not tough enough to stand up to that, and if you engage more then 4 enemies at a time you are dead meat, and even when you are only fighting 4 enemies you still have to be careful unless you want to start loosing units.

So for alpha 03 I'd try scaling that back a bit and try giving the scav's heavy machine-guns and 1 damage upgrade or twin machine-guns and 2 damage upgrades and see how that is and which works better.

Same fate as me. Got crushed hard, I wanted to see if I was just a bad player or if it was indeed really hard. Scaled them down to twin-MG, except for scavenger people who keep the HMG, and reduced MG damage research down to one. We really can't up the MG damage too much on this mission due to the very nature of 10+ scav vehicles guarding the artifact. Else they'll annihilate the player in less than five seconds.

I did discover a way to beat it previously and it involves a very specific tactic of using flamer tanks to burn the vehicles from atop the cliffs, retreat and repair, and hope the burn effect takes care of them eventually. However, it took too long and still there was high risk in a unit being destroyed.

what's that ?

Meaning the enemy units already on map. I undid it for Alpha 2 so it is all fine now.

camBalance.wz

[Bethrezen]

Same fate as me. Got crushed hard, I wanted to see if I was just a bad player or if it was indeed really hard. Scaled them down to twin-MG, except for scavenger people who keep the HMG, and reduced MG damage research down to one. We really can't up the MG damage too much on this mission due to the very nature of 10+ scav vehicles guarding the artefact. Else they'll annihilate the player in less than five seconds.

I did discover a way to beat it previously and it involves a very specific tactic of using flamer tanks to burn the vehicles from atop the cliffs, retreat and repair, and hope the burn effect takes care of them eventually. However, it took too long and still there was high risk in a unit being destroyed.

The ironic thing is that I was actually able to wipe out everything else on alpha 03 the only real trouble spot was knocking off the units that are guarding the artefact, because they do such heavy damage that I couldn't take more then 4 at one time, I did manage it once although chances are that was pure luck as I wasn't able to replicate it.

I'll take another shot with the updated mod tomorrow and see how I get on.

[WZ2100ModsFAn]

Is this game meant for people who aren't beginners?

This normal difficulty is harder than the original was.

Do i find this unfair?

No i do not.

I need to correct my grammar.

[Bethrezen]

Is this game meant for people who aren't beginners?

not at all, see in master the damage that the enemy deals along with a few other things like for example the rate at which the computer produces units etc, now scales with difficulty level so this necessitates rebalancing the game especially given the fact that insane is a new difficulty level that didn't exist before, and since this stuff scales playing on a lower difficulty level will mean that the computers units will deal less damage, won't produce as fast, and are not as tough and hard to kill etc.

In order to get the scaling right for the lower difficulty levels we need to establish a base line and are baseline is insane difficulty, and from there we can then work backwards, this also has the benefit of dealing with some historical issues that remain from the original where the scav's where simply to easy to beat even on hard, so yes when we are done the scav's will be tougher than the original but that's precisely the point they are supposed to be because they where to weak in the original.

The idea behind this is to have the scav's strength slowly scale up as the player gets better weapons and equipment so that on the later levels of alpha campaign the scav's will remain a threat to the player instead of becoming a minor annoyance that can be largely ignored, as it was in the original.

Now obviously as we systematically step though this process there are going times when we try things that don't work and need to be reverted, the latest test with giving the scav's heavy machine-guns and 2 damage upgrades on alpha 03 being a prime example upon testing it was found that doing that made the scav's to overpowered and therefore that needs to be scaled back a bit.

Ultimately the idea here is to make the scav's more of a challenge without making them overpowered, of course that's just one part of it, we are adjusting other things as we go as well, like when and where certain upgrades are available and how much of a boost those upgrades give.

for example

on alpha 01 we've moved the artefacts a round a bit, and you no longer get 3 damage upgrades for the machine-gun on the first level instead these damage upgrades have been spread out over the first few levels, to give slightly better progression.

on alpha 02 you no longer get 3 damage upgrades for the flamer back to back again these have been spread out a bit, however we have compensated for this by buffing flamers because they where to weak before so now flamers have roughly equal performance to machine-guns.

We have also adjusted flamers modifiers to make them more effective against structures and less effective against units where machine-guns have the opposite modifiers and are more effective against units and less effective against structures the idea of this is to encourage players to utilise all the weapons at there disposal and use the right weapon for the job, because this is another outstanding issue with the original, due to the way some of the weapons where balance they where largely useless and where never used so this is something else we are aiming to fix.

On Alpha 03 we have added some defences for the scav's as well as making the scav's a little stronger to make the level a little more challenging as it was a little to easy before and simply reducing the timer didn't really do much to make the level more of a challenge.

a lot of the changes are subtle, but it's my hope that when we are done the changes will be well received by players, and will make what is already a decent game even better.

[Bethrezen]

Ok so just given the latest mod a go and I'm wondering if maybe there is another way to make alpha 03 bit more of a challenge.

Now I know that giving the scav's heavy machine-guns and 2 damage upgrades on alpha 3 is way to much and results in you getting annihilated when you try to collect the artefact, and I know we can't really turn up the machine-gun damage to much either at least not for a couple of levels till the player can produce some slightly stronger units, because that makes the scav's to strong and would likely result in the player getting annihilated on alpha 04 and 05

However I'm wondering what do you think about maybe adding a single scav factory on alpha 03 ? we'd need to tinker with the production rate a little because if it's to fast the player will get squashed since you only have 10 units, but if the production rate is sufficiently slow enough it might just provide the boost in challenge that Alfred is looking for without being so overpowering as Alfred preposed changes where, and without skewing the difficulty of the later levels.

[WZ2100ModsFAn]

alright the first part was challenging i've played all the way to i think alpha 04 then i finished.

here's the video i uploaded
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcZcRhSYx1M[/youtube]

also there's a bug in alpha 04 where the scavs are at the corner of the map