Handicaps

[NoQ]

After the AI difficulties have been reimplemented into discrete EASY/MEDIUM/HARD/INSANE, i have a feeling that power hadnicup is still necessary as an independent parameter. Some other games do that.

• 2x power bonus for an INSANE AI may either be too much if the AI plays well or not enough if the AI is weak. It's very tempting to allow players tweak this parameter according to their skills.
• Give handicaps to human players, allowing interesting noob vs. pro games without making special maps for this.
• Finally, allowing ~10x (maybe actually ~5x) power handicap eliminates the need to make high oil maps.

[aubergine]

It could get confusing in conjunction with the game power level. A 2x handicap on low power vs 2x on high power would give very different results.

Maybe if the power level is shown for each player, so when setting handicap you can see what the player's (AI or human) power production per second is based on the handicap applied to the game power level?

INSANE AIs would default to 2x, but could be changed. Where would the sliders go?

Maybe we could have something like this:

power-tweak.png

Clicking on the power region below player/AI name shows the slider, as you drag it the power amount in green text changes, so you get immediate visual feedback.

The slider is essentially used to set the "power modifier", the green text shows powerType * power modifier.

[aubergine]

Alternatively, show green power bar below player names.

power-bars.png

Click and drag in the bar area to set the amount of power. You get immediate visual feedback about the amount of power one player generates in relation to other players.

Note, for example, that the insane nexus has had it's power nerfed and is actually getting less power than both the medium nexus and the human player.

100% of bar = powerType * 5, 0% of power bar = 200.

Thus, if powerType is changed, the bars still show the same ratios between players. You can boost a players base power generation by 5 times, or drop them down to a minimum of 200. The 'power modifier' is calculated accordingly and applied to the player.

[NoQ]

It could get confusing in conjunction with the game power level.

Yeah, and eliminate game power level! (:

[aubergine]

I'm not sure if eliminating game power level is such a great idea. I think it's still useful as it sets the base power generation per second per derrick prior to any modifiers or upgrades.

I imagine that power level is used in so many places that it would be difficult to just remove it (I'm useless at C++ so can't determine if this is the case).

If the powerType was removed, then powerModifier would also need updating, and that is bound to get tricky as even more code is then affected (I think the campaign difficulty has an affect on power modifier as well?). Also, there are even specific cheat codes that affect the powerModifier IIRC.

You'd basically have to remove powerType and powerModifier from the game, and instead have something like a per-player powerLevel, with the green bars allowing powerLevel to be set to a value between say 100 and 3000?

It will make it hard for game host to macroscopically increase overall power rate of the game. They'd have to adjust each player individually.

Maybe drag the power bar and all players bars adjust by same amount, or hold down shift while dragging to adjust that specific player? (or hold down shift to adjust all players by same amount)

Also, I guess there could be confusion with some users thinking the bars are setting starting power...

[Per]

It would be trivial to remove the power level...

As for a power setting for each player, Starcraft 2 has that, and it is probably the only setting I've never seen any player use nor heard of or seen any player use.

There is also the problem of overloading the GUI visually. We need to keep things lean.

What I would not mind: Changing power level setting to have more steps. Adding another difficulty level to differentiate the cheating, or adding cheating to 'Hard' as well to accomplish the same.

[aubergine]

At the very least it would be nice if the restriction on allowed powerType values could be removed (can't remember where I saw it, but in the C++ it ensures that powerType must be either 400, 700 or 1000, and defaults to 1000 if it's any other value). I think it was in challenge.ini code or something like that?

As for making powerType UI in game-setup more granular, not sure anyone would use that. What NoQ is suggesting is a way of changing the balance between players. So you could have 3 easy nullbots but give one of them more power generation.

[aubergine]

The more I think about it, the more I would like to keep both powerType and powerModifier. There are all sorts of uses for that combination of features, particularly in challenges and campaigns.

Maybe once we get the ability to mod the GUI someone could add an 'advanced settings' button that would display the power bars, etc., so power users can still get in there and use some of the more fiddly stuff, whereas most people will just use normal interface?

[Cyp]

After the AI difficulties have been reimplemented into discrete EASY/MEDIUM/HARD/INSANE, i have a feeling that power handicap is still necessary as an independent parameter. Some other games do that.

• 2x power bonus for an INSANE AI may either be too much if the AI plays well or not enough if the AI is weak. It's very tempting to allow players tweak this parameter according to their skills.
• Give handicaps to human players, allowing interesting noob vs. pro games without making special maps for this.
• Finally, allowing ~10x (maybe actually ~5x) power handicap eliminates the need to make high oil maps.

Now that there exist AIs (NullBot) which don't play like a 100% newbie's first game, I agree AI difficulty level should be completely separate from cheating level. (/me doesn't like bots that cheat, there should be a way to make the bot actually try to win, but without cheating...)

[NoQ]

Btw, some open-source games already have this (including glest (separate script/difficulty/moneycheat for AI players only) and wesnoth (separate script/powercheat for ais and moneycheat for all players)).

[aubergine]

@Cyp: Currently only INSANE difficulty gets cheats applied.

[aubergine]

What if the power level options were changed to:

customPower.png

(actually, it would be better to put custom option last, but I can't be bothered to update the graphic again heh)

So there are three options:

1. Custom power levels
2. Normal power levels (powerLevel = 700 for all players)
3. High power levels (powerLevel = 1000 for all players)

When option 1 is selected, the power bars are shown under player names and the game host can set powerLevel between 100 and 3000 on a player by player basis:



(Alternatively, the custom button could just toggle display of power bars. So you could turn power bars on and click either of the other two options and you'd see the power bars update, but could at any time customise them.)

The JS API would need updating:

* powerType changed so its value is either POWER_CUSTOM, POWER_NORMAL or POWER_HIGH
* new powerLevel global added which is the actual numeric power level for the player associated with the script
* powerLevel property added to playerData objects, so script can determine what powerLevel other players are on (useful for campaigns and challenges)

(Scripts can detect the change in API by seeing if powerType < 400, or check the presence of powerLevel global, in which case it's the new version)

Also, <mapname>.ini and <challenge>.ini would need updating to accommodate the change.

This way, users who want extra control can get it, but for everyone else there's the super-simple normal/high buttons to use.