Page 6 of 8

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 26 May 2011, 20:42
by Manmax
Yeah, I really hope Mr Bob will carry through the units replacement, it would be nice to change the mod name at the same time, as Mr Bob suggested.

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 26 May 2011, 21:33
by Pxtl
Wombat wrote:
ack of E makes your mex stop -> unexpected, hinders building up E-producers -> noob-trap
i have never seen mexes that doesnt produce m coz of lack of e... dunno how badly u would have to estall :D
*any* estall will have that effect to a certain extent.

Remember, Spring's e-system doesn't have a priority sort. Energy is added and subtracted from the pool in random order.

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 01:22
by Hobo Joe
Very informative statistics bimbim, really shows that despite the horrible clog of oversized BA games, that there's a lot of 1v1 still played. The new batch of devs really needs to take that into account, and also the fact that one of the appealing aspects of BA is that it's practically the same gameplay it was 3 years ago, with only very minor changes. I'm not necessarily opposed to big sweeping changes that address core problems, however I like the consistancy I get with BA and don't really want that to go away, at least not without very careful review of A) what the changes are targeted at and B) how significantly they change gameplay.

I would be very in favor of creating a branch much like AA -> BA since it seems you want to make big balance changes, and in light of the upcoming graphical overhaul from Bob's models. Seems like the logical next step.

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 02:11
by Nixa
Those statistics are highly misrepresented. Not only does it not represent the majority of players (because 1v1 only requires 2 players) but it includes pw games of friends that have no intention of playing a 1v1 in a competitive way. Over the last 24 hours I would estimate 1 in 6 (sample selection of 4 observations) have been a competitive 1v1.

I think even the 1v1 community don't disagree that there are very little competitive 1v1's being played.

And yes, ideally BA (the name) should be left at 7.31 and a new name selected.

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 02:15
by Johannes
Then again 8v8 is never ever competitive. :P

And the lower graph includes player amounts.

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 03:17
by Hobo Joe
Nixa wrote:Those statistics are highly misrepresented. Not only does it not represent the majority of players (because 1v1 only requires 2 players) but it includes pw games of friends that have no intention of playing a 1v1 in a competitive way. Over the last 24 hours I would estimate 1 in 6 (sample selection of 4 observations) have been a competitive 1v1.

I think even the 1v1 community don't disagree that there are very little competitive 1v1's being played.

And yes, ideally BA (the name) should be left at 7.31 and a new name selected.
So? 8v8 players don't care when something isn't perfectly balanced. It's a noob porc fest and everyone who plays it is aware of that, and everything is a lazy porc or a lazy spam and skill and fine unit balance don't play any significant role(That's not to say a skilled person can't join and dominate, they do). But people who play 1v1's DO care, and yes plenty of people do play 1v1's, there was another graph that showed player counts not game counts.

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 04:48
by Nixa
Well I don't know about the others but personally would be in favour of balancing more for smaller games than larger. Simple fact that would require a massive overhaul of the game anyway like you said - it is super broken. In any case larger games have the largest player base by far so they should at least take some priority now.

Like I said, the ability to change BA early on to prevent the ability of 8v8+ to become viable would probably have lead to a larger community now. It didn't happen, so we are stuck with this reality.

And a large portion of my BA life has been 1v1 (though i had no changes in 7.42)

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 05:34
by Baracus
@gota, people love lots of units, and lots of choice, please dont turn ba into SA where you removed all the fun of choice. and stop just posting hate threads into a BA discussion, we know you dislike BA, (and fyi BA doesnt like you very much either :D)

also, ive seen a lot of t2 in 1v1 lately.

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 08:19
by Wombat
Gota wrote:To make BA a truly awesome game make it look like SA.

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 09:41
by Kixu
Had some games on this and its epic! Couple of bugs need fixing asap though.

The adversity to the balance changes is a reflection on how stagnant the community has become that overpowered stratagies are considered inherent to game play. I can tell most of those complaining haven't tried it as most the complaints are over such obtuse points. And there seems to be two camps of condradicting complaints; old players claiming its being dumbed down for large games instead of refined for small, new players claiming its being made too hard by denial of easy tactics.

With regard to people saying balance changes are made for DSD, it simply isn't the case. The key thing to keep in mind is that different game types merely bring out different aspects of the game and highlight specific circumstances. Just because a certain situation was rare in one game type, and seemed okay, did not mean units were perfectly balanced.

Take the HLT change as an example. They were not over powered in small games because it was rare to see them in front of nano's, and as the playing area is larger they are easier to flank. Stumpys and raiders, the HLTs general counter are spammed because they have the speed and health to raid as well. These units which require more micro than missile trucks are now needed in larger games as well as small. A HLT standing alone without rep is now not such a valid tactic, and the environment for the unit has changed. I quite like their specific role as long range defence , best augmented by better damage dealing structures/units as a defencive line.

Samson/slasher nerf has been needed for a long time. It is already the most multirole unit as los/aa/long range damage, never intended to be a damage soaker as well. Just because their slow speed meant they weren't suitable spam for 1v1 games (because they don't raid), did not mean they were well balanced.

The battles are much more fluid now. The hp regen is really awesome for t1, as before mostly units would be used until they died, as pulling out for repair required a large construction force close by to do in a reasonable amount of time. Now its an essential tactic and fun micro. It gives commander a much bigger role, as when it is supporting front line units and has taken heavy damage it only needs to sit out for 2 minutes before rejoining the fight full health. Really keeps the battle flowing rather than waves and pauses.

The regen on t3/flagships will probably need nerfed. A good tactic now is to do *some* damage between attacks to prevent their regen cycle starting.

The metal/energy storage not being tied to the commander is great. Helps people that have been com bombed, and so nerfs com bombing. Helps if your base has been destroyed and you have to rebuild. Before, you had to make a metal storage with 50 capacity, which meant building it near a wreck that was likely near the enemy. Took a while alternating between relcaiming a bit of a wreck and building part of the m storage. Wasn't fun and its not something to be missed. Who reveres a commander for its storage capacity?

The fighter/betha changes mean that ground control is an essential part of gameplay, rather than an optional one. Having to expand to make bertha is just logical, and results in more fighting. The lower flight altitude of bombers means a better chance to shoot them down before they release the bombs. Fighter spam was never a fun tactic, and it slowed the game down to a crawl. Now you push into enemy territory with a ground army before bombing, rather than just sending in 300 fighters with a few clicks. The health of t2 fighters will need buffed. T1 style AA (pulverizer/defender/panther missile etc) shouldn't kill t2 fighters with one hit, just flak and heavy AA I think.

EMP bomber would have been over powered with the necessity to attack with ground units before moving up the fighter screen, as it could emp and fly away without being hit by any mobile ground AA. I think if it had its velocity decreased, altitude lowered and costs increased it would be cool to have back. EMPing waves was fun, and core have drones to do this so keeps factions balanced. (Just so you know, before it was cheaper than t2 bombers, had the largest AOE and velocity of any unit, and could emp a large area of t2 units permamently).

Anti-nuke I think would be fine with just the reduction in energy. Will have to see how adversely effected nukes are, whether they are largely redundant or not. Though nukes require little skill, they are a fun.

The new metal maker gadget is awesome. I think that metal maker economy should be nerfed personally, but not seeing them open/close is a small price to pay for the massive perfomance boost that everyone gets. Combined with flak being more prevailent than overwhelming fighter screens makes for full game speed even after long games.
Mex snap rocks, especially during 1v1 where you have to build/rebuild many mexes.

Summary: 1v1s are better, team games are better. There is no divide and its pretentious to claim so. Those that recycle the 1v1 line seem use it as a vain method to give credence to weak arguements. The optimisations that improve cpu usage massively and new features haven't had anywhere near the praise they deserve. The balance changes will need played to be refined, not whined at for requiring a change of tactics.

Other balance changes I would recommend: Gollies need ROF nerf. Bladewings need max velocity decreased. Panther/croc needs slight increase in energy cost. T2 transports can hold 20 of any unit. Seems kinda silly when they can be AKs or sumos. And they can nap moving sumos. Juggernaught needs its crush attack so it isn't stopped by dragonteeth and small wrecks.

Bugs: Commanders getting EMPed. Naval shipyard seems to make 1 metal. Managed to get -60 capacity on energy converter after self-d on a batch. After making 1 metal maker it had 0/0, with 2 mm it was 60/60.

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 09:42
by Kixu
oops

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 09:55
by Johannes
Kixu wrote:The battles are much more fluid now. The hp regen is really awesome for t1, as before mostly units would be used until they died, as pulling out for repair required a large construction force close by to do in a reasonable amount of time. Now its an essential tactic and fun micro. It gives commander a much bigger role, as when it is supporting front line units and has taken heavy damage it only needs to sit out for 2 minutes before rejoining the fight full health. Really keeps the battle flowing rather than waves and pauses.
For t1 units the difference between old and new hp regen is pretty small. Many even regen slower than they used to now.

Naval shipyard seems to make 1 metal.
Makes 0.5 metal, but it always did that.

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 10:53
by Deadnight Warrior
Being in the dev team, should give me rights to comment some of those changes as well.

After reading several multi-page topics of whining about the new balancing (nothing I haven't expected), I must say that most of them where implemented on a "Niobium doesn't like it how it currently works" base.

No, I'm not spitting into anyone's face, we all tried to sneak our own vision into BA, mine two balance changing commits where reverted as Beherith felt they might change gameplay too much. Those would be commits 28, which made solar panels occupy less space when closed so small units can walk through solar farms, and 86.

I'm convinced that after the player reviews of past few days, we'll get into revert wars on the BA repo, as some devs wouldn't want their changes reverted. Personally I wasn't happy about having to revert commit 28, but I did it myself when asked to. TFC has put Beherith in charge for a reason, and that's to determine what should and shouldn't be in release version. Which IMO he didn't do well, but it's his first time being in charge of a project of this magnitude so I say, let's give him time get accustomed with his role. I would really like to see all the whiners manage a team of devs themselves and make changes to a mod that everyone would appreciate, mission impossible.
Kixu wrote:The optimisations that improve cpu usage massively and new features haven't had anywhere near the praise they deserve.
That's the main reason why my conscience is clean about this BA release. I only did the technical part of moding, and left others do the balancing.

About the metal maker control moving to gadgets: since gadgets are simulated locally on every player's computer, this reduces the number of commands sent over the net (as widgets emulate player behaviour and thus generate needless net traffic), reducing lag and demo size. The gadget also controls MMs much more precise than the widget did. The only awkwardness about it that you can't see if your MMs are active or not by looking at them, that's why you have that MM control panel for.

Some of my work's highlights:
  • Added cannon recoil and rocking on waves for all the ships as well as fixed their waterline tags. Ships spawn wake particles proportional to their speed, so less particles when moving slow
  • Replaced wake particle effects with nicer ones (thanks to ZK devs for making them, I appologise for stealing them without giving credits)
  • Adjusted many (~80) collision volumes to match unit/building model and given some more units/buildings dynamic collision volume
  • Cleaned up many (~50) models from degenerated vertices, edges and faces
  • Improved animation on several Kbots (still a WIP) so that their walking animation is in sync with unit's speed (try hillclimbing for a demonstration)
  • Changed KrogCrush attack to KrogKick that only works in sync with leg movement, so when a Krogoth stands still, it doesn't kick small units around itself. I admit that this is a balance change, but it doesn't really affect Krogoth's power.
  • Added autodetection for Quadro based GFX cards to LUPS module
  • Removed unused textures (~70)
tl;dr

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 11:00
by Wombat
deadnight, could u make ships 'animation' more 'visible'? i think 'rocking' and cannon recoil is not that noticeable as in xta (what is bad, coz i like that personally).

i would personally give deadnight a stronger voice, since he managed to move xta out of stone age (i mean gameplay mainly). who knows what could he do with ba, i trust him more than pybs.

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 11:04
by momfreeek
Johannes wrote:For t1 units the difference between old and new hp regen is pretty small. Many even regen slower than they used to now.
I just did a test in 7.31 and it took almost 6 mins for a stumpy and a slasher to regen from 10-100%. Now it would be about 2 mins, right?

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 11:16
by Deadnight Warrior
Wombat wrote:deadnight, could u make ships 'animation' more 'visible'? i think 'rocking' and cannon recoil is not that noticeable as in xta (what is bad, coz i like that personally).
I originally did a copy/paste from XTA, but Niobium commented that it looked too synthetic. So I made them much more realistical than in XTA (at the price of ~80 times more script CPU time, but since unit scripts use only a fraction of total CPU power consumed by Spring, there are no ill side effects). In XTA ship animations are a bit exagerated so that you can nottice them from further away.

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 11:21
by Wombat
oh, riiiiiiight...

well, but still, could u make it 'more' visible?

(btw, spring water is not any realistic, dunno how can u make rocking more realistic :D)

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 11:30
by Johannes
momfreeek wrote:
Johannes wrote:For t1 units the difference between old and new hp regen is pretty small. Many even regen slower than they used to now.
I just did a test in 7.31 and it took almost 6 mins for a stumpy and a slasher to regen from 10-100%. Now it would be about 2 mins, right? (I didn't test)
Hm, I was wrong since I didn't realise that the autoheal kicks now in in 30s instead of 60 like it used to.

The heal rate is much better for stumpy now though, than it used to be, since it's a high hp unit. For most t1 units though that is much less change in it (it's from 5hp for everyone -> 1%*hp, most t1 units have roughly 500 hp). But yep that time at which it kicks in changes everything.

Now that I realise this I'm actually more against this change, choosing to repair should be rewarded properly.

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 11:33
by Wombat
repair should be rewarded
dats what i said !

Re: 7.4X Balance Change Reasoning

Posted: 27 May 2011, 11:36
by momfreeek
Johannes wrote:
momfreeek wrote:
Johannes wrote:For t1 units the difference between old and new hp regen is pretty small. Many even regen slower than they used to now.
I just did a test in 7.31 and it took almost 6 mins for a stumpy and a slasher to regen from 10-100%. Now it would be about 2 mins, right? (I didn't test)
Hm, I was wrong since I didn't realise that the autoheal kicks now in in 30s instead of 60 like it used to.

The heal rate is much better for stumpy now though, than it used to be, since it's a high hp unit. For most t1 units though that is much less change in it (it's from 5hp for everyone -> 1%*hp, most t1 units have roughly 500 hp). But yep that time at which it kicks in changes everything.

Now that I realise this I'm actually more against this change, choosing to repair should be rewarded properly.
why not play the game instead of this theorising that you can't even get right? i mean who cares about autoheal on a jeffy ffs?