Unifying commander levels

[Zarel]

Hey, this is a quick proposal:

Currently, units assigned to a commander have effective experience levels of:

MAX(level, commanderLevel+1) in skirmish, and
MAX(level, commanderLevel) in campaign

I'd like to change these both to:

MAX(level+1, commanderLevel)

This ensures that there's always a reason to attach a unit to a commander, without otherwise changing balance.

I'm also planning on making commanders gain levels twice as fast in campaign (so they match current MP). That makes them take 1024 experience to reach hero status (compare 512 for a normal unit, 1024 for an MP commander, and 2048 for a current campaign commander).

Previously, hero commanders were practically never seen, so this should alleviate that somewhat.

[Terminator]

I think this changes would make CMDs popular in Campaign, but not in MP. Cause in MP not mahc units lives so long, to reach anykind of level. Anyway its better than nothing

May I remind you to look here.

[Rman Virgil]

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Here too :

Commander Command Improvements -- What ? Details ?

- RV
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[Zarel]

Yes, I will indeed implement those long-term improvements into 3.0, but these are just some quick changes for 2.3. You can use that thread for additional changes, but I'd like this thread to be about whether or not my current proposal is a good idea or not.

[Olrox]

Yes, I will indeed implement those long-term improvements into 3.0, but these are just some quick changes for 2.3. You can use that thread for additional changes, but I'd like this thread to be about whether or not my current proposal is a good idea or not.

I think that "better than nothing" is really rough to say, but it slightly alleviates things. My ignorance about those unit effective levels when attached to commanders can ensure that this won't make me (or most people, I think) use more commanders at all. Really, I didn't even know about that and, pretty frankly, I don't think makes logical sense to tweak commanders this way. But again, it very slightly alleviates things for commanders, so yeah, I may regret but I vote yes. It's like having to choose between an empty plate and a plate with a grain of rice on it, to solve your hunger. I choose the grain of rice, because I'll have to wait long before a decent meal.

But when I could have a decent meal I may not want a grain of rice on it, anyway. I won't explain this metaphora here, it's pretty obvious already.

~Olrox

[guciomir]

I'm also planning on making commanders gain levels twice as fast in campaign (so they match current MP). That makes them take 1024 experience to reach hero status (compare 512 for a normal unit, 1024 for an MP commander, and 2048 for a current campaign commander).

This is the only thing I don't like. In campaign experience is growing rapidly and the tresholds are reached very fast. Making commanders gain levels twice as fast will result in the army of heroes vs new paradigm.

I think this should be dealt somehow. Commanders gain experience in campaign much too fast. There is no problem with having 2-4 commanders in the field and every one scores hundreds of kills. Once the treshold is reached, recycle commander and build the hero tank. Create new commander with 0 kills and do the process once again. Soon, your army will consist of tons of heroes and no commander will be necessary. Such kind of leverage is not a good thing.

I'd say commanders should not be able to be recycled into tanks OR they expierence counter should be adjusted when they got recycled (divised by some constant dependable on the rank).

[Zarel]

I think that "better than nothing" is really rough to say, but it slightly alleviates things.

The point isn't to alleviate anything, the point is to fix a bug relating to commander experience calculation:

• My impression is that commanders used campaign level calculations to calculate its unit limit in the Commanders screen, but skirmish level calculations to calculate its unit limit when you selected a certain number of units and clicked on it (So you could get commanders with 8/6 assigned).

Unifying commander levels is just the easiest way to fix that bug, so we're really just arguing if they should be simplified to the skirmish experience progression (8,16,32...) or the campaign experience progression (16,32,64...)

This is the only thing I don't like. In campaign experience is growing rapidly and the tresholds are reached very fast. Making commanders gain levels twice as fast will result in the army of heroes vs new paradigm.

See, by "twice as fast", I mean "everything has half the experience requirements". It's not twice as fast as in you level up twice as often.

All that will happen is that your commander will have 1 more level than it would before - i.e. if it were Professional when it entered NP, it would be Veteran now, not Hero.

i.e. the old requirements were (16,32,64,128...) new ones are (8,16,32,64...)

You also have to realize that, combined with the "minimum bonus 1" change, the experience progression is exactly the same - it still takes exactly 5 attached tanks before the commander will gain experience fast enough to give a bonus to its assigned units based on its own level.

I'd say commanders should not be able to be recycled into tanks OR they expierence counter should be adjusted when they got recycled (divised by some constant dependable on the rank).

"Not be able to be recycled into tanks" is too much...

"Experience counter should be adjusted" might work, but then what if you change a different tank into a commander? Giving it more experience could be a bit frustrating...

[Zarel]

Some other stuff:

For a commander's level to ever provide any sort of bonus, in the current campaign, it takes 5 units assigned. For a commander's level to consistently provide any sort of bonus, it takes 8 units assigned.

(Compare 3 and 4 respectively, for current multiplayer.)

With these changes, that will change to 5 and 8 respectively, for both multiplayer and campaign.

If we make the MAX(level+1, commanderLevel) change but not the "halve experience requirements" change, however, it will change to 9 and 16 respectively, for both multiplayer and campaign. I think that's a bit too much, and is why I don't want to stay with the campaign progression.

[guciomir]

"Experience counter should be adjusted" might work, but then what if you change a different tank into a commander? Giving it more experience could be a bit frustrating...

Some scenarios:

Note: I don't remember the number of the max units assigned right now, so lets assume that for fresh commander this number is 5.

1 commander with 5 fresh tanks (5 out of 5 units assigned), every tanks scores a kill and one of them kills one extra unit, commander has 6 kills counted. We recycle the commander, new tank has 1 kill (6 divided by 5 and rounded down). Now we recycle the new tank and create a commander. Since the tank had 1 kill, 1 gets multiplied by 5 and the experience counter for the commander is 5.

It technically works but is not elegant I think. Your opinion?


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Another try:
When unit assigned to commander scores a kill, commander experience is raised by 1/max number of units assigned.

So we have 1 commander with 5 fresh tanks just like the above. When a tank scores a hit, commander experience is raised by 0.2 (because it is 1/5). When we recycle tanks and commanders there would be no need to use any adjustment factor, but to simple round the number.

It technically works and in my opinion is quite elegant. Your opinion?

[Zarel]

1 commander with 5 fresh tanks (5 out of 5 units assigned), every tanks scores a kill and one of them kills one extra unit, commander has 6 kills counted. We recycle the commander, new tank has 1 kill (6 divided by 5 and rounded down). Now we recycle the new tank and create a commander. Since the tank had 1 kill, 1 gets multiplied by 5 and the experience counter for the commander is 5.

It technically works but is not elegant I think. Your opinion?

That's the naïve method, but it makes it too easy to get multiple commanders with a whole lot of experience.

Better to keep the experience the way it is. A commander should be extremely high level if recycled for a normal unit.

Another try:
When unit assigned to commander scores a kill, commander experience is raised by 1/max number of units assigned.

So we have 1 commander with 5 fresh tanks just like the above. When a tank scores a hit, commander experience is raised by 0.2 (because it is 1/5). When we recycle tanks and commanders there would be no need to use any adjustment factor, but to simple round the number.

It technically works and in my opinion is quite elegant. Your opinion?

It has the same problems as above: Makes it too easy to get multiple commanders with a whole lot of experience.

[sautedman]

Hey, this is a quick proposal:

Currently, units assigned to a commander have effective experience levels of:

MAX(level, commanderLevel+1) in skirmish, and
MAX(level, commanderLevel) in campaign

I'd like to change these both to:

MAX(level+1, commanderLevel)

This ensures that there's always a reason to attach a unit to a commander, without otherwise changing balance.

I'm also planning on making commanders gain levels twice as fast in campaign (so they match current MP). That makes them take 1024 experience to reach hero status (compare 512 for a normal unit, 1024 for an MP commander, and 2048 for a current campaign commander).

Previously, hero commanders were practically never seen, so this should alleviate that somewhat.

Quick point of clarification ... what does your XYZ(abc, def) notation mean?

[Zarel]

Quick point of clarification ... what does your XYZ(abc, def) notation mean?

MAX(level+1, commanderLevel) means "the maximum of level+1 and commanderLevel", in other words, "whichever is higher".

[zimboptoo]

I'd like to change these both to:

MAX(level+1, commanderLevel)

This ensures that there's always a reason to attach a unit to a commander, without otherwise changing balance.

Hero units wouldn't have a reason to attach to a commander, no matter what the level of the commander is. Unless there was some mysterious n+1 rank introduced that gave better bonuses than hero but couldn't actually be achieved except by hero units attached to a commander.

Honestly, it's too bad that the disconnect between skirmish and campaign is causing such a problem, because it really makes a lot of sense to give them different balances. By the middle of the campaign a conservative player should have plenty of high-ranked units, making the commanders only really useful for the group firing bonus and logistical features. I, like many people, tend to use commanders (and sensors, incidentally) to accrue double experience for each kill (one for the unit, one for the commander), rotating them out as necessary. Whereas in skirmish, where units get killed fairly regularly, a high rank commander is a lot more valuable.

Ultimately, I approve of your plan, although I'd be interested to hear how you're planning on dealing with hero units assigned to a commander.

[Zarel]

Hero units wouldn't have a reason to attach to a commander, no matter what the level of the commander is. Unless there was some mysterious n+1 rank introduced that gave better bonuses than hero but couldn't actually be achieved except by hero units attached to a commander.

There is. In fact, you've been able to get it since 1.10: Just attach any unit to a hero commander in multiplayer.

I mean, just look at the chart: http://guide.wz2100.net/experience

[zimboptoo]

I mean, just look at the chart: http://guide.wz2100.net/experience

That was pretty slick. If I hadn't looked at that chart just last night I probably would have gone for it.