Starting builds not capping mexes - Page 2

Starting builds not capping mexes

A dynamic game undergoing constant development and refinement, that attempts to balance playability with fresh and innovative features.

Moderator: Content Developer

luckywaldo7
Posts: 1398
Joined: 17 Sep 2008, 04:36

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by luckywaldo7 »

Basically what the problem with communism: the mex (+protection) is an investment. For each mex, only 1 person makes the investment but everyone benefits. Now what often happens is that the better players are left to make more mexes, so they are required to put in much more of an investment, but they recieve the same payoff or less (continued protection!) then the players who don't invest, the newbs. The result of which is that newbs have a much larger chunk of the net resource gain (returns - investment).

Now uette's line of thinking behind this is that newbs should take the mexes, so as to give the pros the larger chunk of resources. Because newbs are still bad at taking mexes, he just gives up making any mexes at all, to force the larger net resource gain to himself.
Every system has flaws.
True, but it is just frustrating to me that the current system, more often than not, leads to much shorter, less fun games because of the way it hugely nerfs the ability of good players to make up for bad ones.

I have said it many many times recently, the team that wins is the team with fewer newbs.
SirMaverick
Posts: 834
Joined: 19 May 2009, 21:10

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by SirMaverick »

luckywaldo7 wrote:Basically what the problem with communism: the mex (+protection) is an investment. For each mex, only 1 person makes the investment but everyone benefits. Now what often happens is that the better players are left to make more mexes, so they are required to put in much more of an investment, but they recieve the same payoff or less (continued protection!) then the players who don't invest, the newbs. The result of which is that newbs have a much larger chunk of the net resource gain (returns - investment).
Same for energy. If only one builds energy he does the investment but whole team benefits (sharing e before overdrive).
Other situation: I'm at front, getting attacked by 2 players, my allies are far away. I will hold out so that my allies can gather and fight back - probably after I lost my stuff. This is also an investment only 1 player did - but the whole team benefits.
As long as you still think in personal net benefit and ROI etc. you don't play a team game.
Now uette's line of thinking behind this is that newbs should take the mexes, so as to give the pros the larger chunk of resources. Because newbs are still bad at taking mexes, he just gives up making any mexes at all, to force the larger net resource gain to himself.
If by not taking mexes you take the time to teach them, well this might work if they are willing to learn. Else you just punish the whole team (including yourself) because mex are taken later.
Btw: "larger chunk of resources" - who are the ones at front reclaiming? The newbs or the pros? And you still care for 70m of a mex?

That's all either a non issue or egoistic (!= team game) thinking.
Every system has flaws.
True, but it is just frustrating to me that the current system, more often than not, leads to much shorter, less fun games because of the way it hugely nerfs the ability of good players to make up for bad ones.
Well, yes. The result of the emphasis on team work is that the the role of the bad player is buffed and in consequence the role of the good one nerfed. Otherwise there would be no emphasis.
User avatar
Baracus
Posts: 33
Joined: 29 Sep 2009, 18:19

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by Baracus »

First of all about the egg game, i was kind of fed up with asking over and over again to please Cbalance, instead of balance, so massacre and I could play togheter, this is what clantags are for.

still after asking constantly for cbalance, people would still non-clanbalance the game, which kinda blew the fun for us. I decided to do eggs, and see how it worked out.

about the mexes, sometimes instead of building 3 mex, you can build some more units that can give you the advantage on the battlefield so you can control the first bit of reclaim easier, which is ofcourse what you want.

massacre and I have played a series of 2v2, 2v3 even with one player focussing purely on eco, while the other focusses on units + micro, this seemed to work very well, and we out forced + out eco'd our opponents constantly even in a 2v3.

we have also tried to rush transes in a 2v2, without building any mexes, killed enemy commander with initial boost (defenses) get the reclaim, and win the game without building a single mex, this even worked against your top-players like skasi.

if you create a mod where this type of gameplay works, do not blame any players.

I hope this explains some of it, sorry about the egg game, as said before i didnt really feel like playing, but eggs are so nice to micro ;)
SirMaverick
Posts: 834
Joined: 19 May 2009, 21:10

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by SirMaverick »

Baracus wrote:if you create a mod where this type of gameplay works, do not blame any players.
You just showed how good team work works.

cbalance has the problem that it puts good trained players against a bunch of random players. This is always a problem when there is just 1 clan in a game.
luckywaldo7
Posts: 1398
Joined: 17 Sep 2008, 04:36

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by luckywaldo7 »

SirMaverick wrote:As long as you still think in personal net benefit and ROI etc. you don't play a team game.
SirMaverick, you completely forget that not everyone's contribution based on resource is equal. Pros are going to use resources much more effectively than newbs, so it is FOR THE GOOD OF THE TEAM that pros get more.
SirMaverick wrote:you take the time to teach them
You can't teach somebody to want to win.
SirMaverick wrote:Btw: "larger chunk of resources" - who are the ones at front reclaiming? The newbs or the pros? And you still care for 70m of a mex?
RECLAIM ISN'T FREE! You need to invest resources in cons and defending those cons, which pros have less of.
SirMaverick wrote:Well, yes. The result of the emphasis on team work is that the the role of the bad player is buffed and in consequence the role of the good one nerfed. Otherwise there would be no emphasis.
Huh what? And why do you possibly think that is a good thing!? Decreasing the pro's ability to make up for bad players means most games turn into nubstomps. How is that desireable?



The flaw of communism is that it requires teamwork, which cannot be expected in random pickup games, even if it theoretically works great in clan games.
User avatar
Carpenter
Posts: 216
Joined: 10 Jul 2009, 16:07

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by Carpenter »

Ok luckywaldo, you opening your deepest emotions about uette's gameplay here is just.. foolish? :D

First of all, it is an investment to build cons, yes, but they will pay themselves back when reclaiming shit on the field, so eventually a little metal/energy loss will turn into a victory. Besides, every mod has its flaws as somebody just stated and there's nothing _you_ can do about it, alone. Up to devs and host admins if they want to rule out the noobs, besides, winning a game with a way or another is great and wonderful, isn't it? Seriously, stop bawwing.
Edible
Posts: 72
Joined: 09 Feb 2008, 01:46

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by Edible »

Baracus wrote:First of all about the egg game, i was kind of fed up with asking over and over again to please Cbalance, instead of balance, so massacre and I could play togheter, this is what clantags are for.

still after asking constantly for cbalance, people would still non-clanbalance the game, which kinda blew the fun for us. I decided to do eggs, and see how it worked out.
Doing stupid stuff because you didnt get your way in options is borderline trolling and somewhat banworthy. CBalance was giving us really shonky teams, that whole day (I think something is broken in balance now, but thats for another thread).
Baracus wrote: about the mexes, sometimes instead of building 3 mex, you can build some more units that can give you the advantage on the battlefield so you can control the first bit of reclaim easier, which is ofcourse what you want.
A. You didnt make any cons or make any real effort to go for reclaim, and B. your rush died way in their side of the map, we had no chance to get the reclaim from those fights.
Baracus wrote: massacre and I have played a series of 2v2, 2v3 even with one player focussing purely on eco, while the other focusses on units + micro, this seemed to work very well, and we out forced + out eco'd our opponents constantly even in a 2v3.
It does work fairly well with you two working together, but basically anything works with two players co-operating. Just because it works with him and great teamwork doesnt make it any less of a stupid idea without him.
Baracus wrote: we have also tried to rush transes in a 2v2, without building any mexes, killed enemy commander with initial boost (defenses) get the reclaim, and win the game without building a single mex, this even worked against your top-players like skasi.
See above.
Baracus wrote: if you create a mod where this type of gameplay works, do not blame any players.
It only sometimes works, and when it fails it ruins your team for the game. Its essentially a massive gamble that often works, but is pretty irritating for your team if it fails.
Baracus wrote: I hope this explains some of it, sorry about the egg game, as said before i didnt really feel like playing, but eggs are so nice to micro ;)
I would ask at the least that you tell your team before game start, and get the mexes after the initial rush, I had to bring cons down to your base at about 4 mins in, which is pretty appalling.
luckywaldo7
Posts: 1398
Joined: 17 Sep 2008, 04:36

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by luckywaldo7 »

I think you misunderstand a bit, Carpender.

My frustration is not about uette. I think uette's gameplay is a natural evolution of the communism system (although edible needing to mex his base at 4 min is a bit silly). My frustration comes from every game turning into a nubstomp.
Carpenter wrote:First of all, it is an investment to build cons, yes, but they will pay themselves back when reclaiming shit on the field, so eventually a little metal/energy loss will turn into a victory.
This is CA, cons reclaim metal at the same rate they build metal, so the most cost efficient cons (6 bp / 120 m) require 20 seconds of constant reclaim before you start making any profit of the reclaim.

Its not just wisking it off the field like in BA, its a fight for the reclaim in CA, which is harder with (tada!) fewer resources.

If you have any other comments about CA, please feel free to play the game a couple of times first.
Saktoth
Zero-K Developer
Posts: 2665
Joined: 28 Nov 2006, 13:22

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by Saktoth »

luckywaldo7 wrote:I have said it many many times recently, the team that wins is the team with fewer newbs.
What you are noticing is not the game changing. It is you becoming skilled enough to realize what has always been the truth. When i realized this, back in BA, its like the whole game opened up and became hollow. Team games were about who got the noobs, and now, about who gets the unreliablly ranked players.

This is the point at which you start playing 1v1's if you want a serious game.

Its not 'you cant expect teamwork in pub games', either. Its 'you cant expect teamwork from noobs'. We had a couple of rather good 2v2's last night, with all good players. We had teamwork, cooperation, and everyone held up their side (mostly).
First of all about the egg game, i was kind of fed up with asking over and over again to please Cbalance, instead of balance, so massacre and I could play togheter, this is what clantags are for.

still after asking constantly for cbalance, people would still non-clanbalance the game, which kinda blew the fun for us. I decided to do eggs, and see how it worked out
Well, i forgive you for this, but dont say 'yo its a valid strat dont judge my play dude'. You were annoyed and tried a silly strat. I do this kind of stuff too, like air and gunship rushes, and sometimes something good comes out of it (like BD rush). You admit it wasnt a good strat and you were kinda just trolling: But try to realize that sometimes clans playing together will seriously stack teams. It can be as fun to play against a friend as with them. If you really dont want to play, then vote exit or dont ready. If people dont !cbalance, and you think it will make balanced teams, elect a boss.

Not capping your 3 starting mexes is always a bad idea though. The longest i can imagine going without capping mexes is using your boost to pump out units, then immediately walking to the frontline to push, and making a con (with the sloow factory buildspeed) and capping the mexes with that. But even this is a risky and i would say inferior strategy.

If one player gets pissed and does this, its okay. It becomes a problem if it becomes popular because people think its actually a good strat, or start to think the way lucky said.
User avatar
Baracus
Posts: 33
Joined: 29 Sep 2009, 18:19

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by Baracus »

please introduce an elo sensative clan balance.
User avatar
Licho
Zero-K Developer
Posts: 3803
Joined: 19 May 2006, 19:13

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by Licho »

Baracus wrote:please introduce an elo sensative clan balance.
!cbalance or !cmanage uses elo too.
SirMaverick
Posts: 834
Joined: 19 May 2009, 21:10

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by SirMaverick »

luckywaldo7 wrote:SirMaverick, you completely forget that not everyone's contribution based on resource is equal. Pros are going to use resources much more effectively than newbs, so it is FOR THE GOOD OF THE TEAM that pros get more.
Pros can do more because of more effective resource usage, yes. If noobs gets less they would have less influence, won't see effects of what he is doing.
RECLAIM ISN'T FREE! You need to invest resources in cons and defending those cons, which pros have less of.
Building mex isn't free either. But only you get the income from reclaiming.
Decreasing the pro's ability to make up for bad players means most games turn into nubstomps. How is that desireable?
Team game. If you don't like it remove the noobs and play with pros only. That will be FOR THE GOOD OF THE TEAM because you increase the average skill. But that might reduce you to 1v1 only or small team games as Saktoth said.
luckywaldo7
Posts: 1398
Joined: 17 Sep 2008, 04:36

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by luckywaldo7 »

:<

I'm not against a couple newbs just trying some things out and getting hold of the basics. If they are only on 3 mexes or so I can take up the lost expansion and make up the difference. Unless it is communism.

I dunno, in the end the point of the game it to have fun, and I say that trying to hold a large area with insufficient funds is not fun for a pro, and having a full share of team responsibility right away is not fun for a newb, but of course these are entirely subjective opinions.
SirMaverick
Posts: 834
Joined: 19 May 2009, 21:10

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by SirMaverick »

luckywaldo7 wrote:I dunno, in the end the point of the game it to have fun, and I say that trying to hold a large area with insufficient funds is not fun for a pro
You don't need noobs to end up in a 3v3 defending 50% or more of front with 1/3 the resources.
luckywaldo7
Posts: 1398
Joined: 17 Sep 2008, 04:36

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by luckywaldo7 »

If I ended up in that situation I would definitely be raging at my teammates for being noobs, no matter who they were :D


In conclusion though you guys are ultimately right, it is a problem with the players and not the game, so I guess I'll try hosting games the oldschool way, manual balancing and all.

Would you guys prefer playing test version instead of stable? I think most pros can use sd/rapid.
123vtemp
Posts: 215
Joined: 20 Mar 2008, 11:02

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by 123vtemp »

@lucky,

If you want want to support as big a player base as possible, use stable.
Stable is more maintainable for more payers.

Decreasing the pro's ability to make up for bad players means most games turn into nubstomps. How is that desireable?
Team game. If you don't like it remove the noobs and play with pros only. That will be FOR THE GOOD OF THE TEAM because you increase the average skill. But that might reduce you to 1v1 only or small team games as Saktoth said.
Saktoth said that it is a pro unbalance that ruins the game. But that is not consistently true. Tho a different mod, BA can prove the point best. 3 Pros vs a pro and a pro with a take frequently get mauled.

1 player using 2x the resources is more powerful in efficiency than 2 players the only thing he lacks is micro time which does not make as big a difference the bigger his eco gets and as fronts merge.

Point being: communism makes it harder for a team with less skill to compete by a long shot. If you want better balanced games you should find a way not to handicap the resources of your good players.
Last edited by 123vtemp on 19 Jul 2010, 01:02, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
JohannesH
Posts: 1793
Joined: 07 Apr 2009, 12:43

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by JohannesH »

So it is bad game design when the more skilled team consistently wins? :D

123vtemp wrote:Saktoth said that it is a pro unbalance that ruins the game. But that is not consistently true. Tho a different mod, BA can prove the point best. 3 Pros vs a pro and a pro with a take frequently get mauled.
Wait are you really saying 3 ppl with 3 coms is usually loses to 2 ppl with 3 coms if everyones same skill in BA? Oo Doesn't make much sense to me, got replays to prove that...? Or did you mean the opposite, well whatever
123vtemp
Posts: 215
Joined: 20 Mar 2008, 11:02

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by 123vtemp »

@ johannes http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... 20#p434920

Why do you want to play a game with no challenge?
Why compete if there is no competition?

Sure there are reasons but they are all poor.
User avatar
aegis
Posts: 2456
Joined: 11 Jul 2007, 17:47

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by aegis »

two pros and a noob vs one uberpro and two noobs

without communism:
team one: the two pros expand, each covers a quarter of the map, while the noob sits around and works with his three mexes - resource distribution is like 45%/45%/10%
team two: the uberpro expands, covers his entire half of the map. the two noobs cap their three starting mexes and sitting around not doing much - resource distribution is like 80%/10%/10%

team two wins because the uberpro was so good.

with communism, same expansion per player:
team one: resource distribution is 33%/33%/33%. the noob spends his 33% on nothing but llts. the pros both send units.
team two: resource distribution is also 33%/33%/33%. both noobs build nothing but llts. the uberpro sends less than half the amount of units he should be able to send for his expansion level.

team one wins, because the person expanding on team two doesn't get to spend the resources he's fighting for on more units, and team one has no problem getting past the 50 llts behind his base.
Edible
Posts: 72
Joined: 09 Feb 2008, 01:46

Re: Starting builds not capping mexes

Post by Edible »

@Aegis, I have to say the uberpro expand and pump nanos/tech is one of the things I like less about other mods, as it encourages players to pump the best player in their team and they tech uberfast and the game isnt a massive amount of fun for anyone. (play nota and watch a team with godde for example)
Post Reply

Return to “Zero-K”