Feedback/bugs 1.11

Feedback/bugs 1.11

Azaremoth's epic game about bones, undead, demons and magic set in a futuristic environment.

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Godde
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Joined: 29 Mar 2010, 17:54

Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by Godde »

Played a bunch of games with Pintle and others. Was pretty fun.
Got to know The Cursed quite alot better from multiplayer.
Here is my little strategy review of early game.

Balance:
Marines and snipers shooting through friendlies really helps them deal with ghouls and defend the base. I thought this would make them really strong and spammable but Cursed gunners don't have a firing arc and longer range so they can kite marines pretty effectively.
The question is how empire should deal with gunners before they get any vehicles. Since they only got 1 sniper from start they seem to have a hard time to deal enough damage while being mobile enough.
Maybe Imperials ability to take mexes faster can make up for that. Making and running a mex cost 130(50 for the mex and 80 for half an energy building). The Cursed have to build an obelisk in range of the mexspots in order build mexes there which cost additional resources. Although one might argue that Cursed can make up for it by having cheap factories/buildpower(100metal necromancer 8 buildpower, 400m barracks 10 buildpower) and being able to build units right on the front with necromancers.
Teching as cursed doesn't seem that necessary since gunners and bone beasts do pretty well.
Ghouls seems useful as raiders, area denial and for overrunning heavier stuff if there aren't too many marines around.
Imperial Transports seems quite good to use to outmanouver Cursed gunners as ghouls do quite bad against marines.

Bugs:
Necromancers can be a little bit buggy not building the next unit in the line drawn. Summoner stance makes it possible to avoid this problem.
Some widget seems to try making obelisks repair units out of buildrange.
Seer radar covarage follows the ground. Might be the engine though. Noticed it in other mods aswell.
The slope tolerance of infantry is lower than KBOTs in OTA mods. This caused a little confusion on DesertTriad as they couldn't get down from one of the starting hills.

Request:Include buildrange widget so that the Cursed can see how far their obelisk reach when they place their starting position.
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azaremoth
Cursed Developer
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Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by azaremoth »

Thank you for the intense feed-back! You have discovered a nice balance issue there - that is the kind of feed-back I need! :-)

How about that:
Marine: +10%hp, +20% dmg
Gunner: -17%hp, range -15% (350, marine has 300), reload-time +13%, costs cheaper: 190 m/e =>170 m/e

Bugs: I don't know if I can do anything about the necromancers and the radar detection ranges but I'll fix the other stuff. 8)
Godde
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Joined: 29 Mar 2010, 17:54

Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by Godde »

The gunner changes seems about right but the cursed player have to make a concave while the marines can just form into a ball and run straight in and have several lines firing through eachother so I don't think a marine change seems that neccessary considering how good they do against ghouls. +10%hp, +20% dmg basically makes marines 30% better in combat which is alot.

If the Cursed player is forced to make a concave and skirmish just in order to prevent the several lines of marines firing at once the pressure is on the cursed player in order to make cost with his gunners against marines.

Marines can currently kill unmicroed gunners for cost.
Though call...
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azaremoth
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Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by azaremoth »

Another option would be to make gunners able to shoot through allied units (no collidefriendly) or removing that ability from the marines.
Godde
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Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by Godde »

Having some units being able fire through eachother while others can't is propably a little bit confusing. Although it opens to other ways of balancing units. I can only think of s44 having small arms fire passing through friendlies while large calibre shells don't which is a rule that isn't too hard to remember. I don't know what weapons that go through friendlies in The Cursed.
Now having spells being able to pass through friendlies wouldn't really be that objectional but human rifle bullets?

Making marines unable to fire through friendlies would make ghouls better against marines as they would not be able to focus fire at the ghouls that easily. The other marines or even buildings would obscure the Line of Fire for the marines.

Currently I can't make 15 ghouls(1500 cost), defeat 10 clumped up marines(1500 cost) even with a good spread. If you look at Starcraft where Zerglings can defeat all other early units providing they get a good spread while they are also faster than all other early units is an interesting comparison. The reason that Zerglings are balanced in Starcraft is because the map design prohibits the Zerglings from getting that good spread. Having chokepoints to the main base for example.

Should ghouls be able to beat marines for cost?
With 20 ghouls I almost killed the marines for cost. 4 Surviving ghouls. Thats 33% more spent for ghouls but considering that the ghouls are alot faster they can outmanouver the marines so maybe thats a good balance since you can't decide over the maps that are played.
Godde
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Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by Godde »

On another note. I don't think that many players will notice what weapons fires through friendlies and which ones that doesn't. It is more likely to be unnoticed while it develops to a feeling of how units work.
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azaremoth
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Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by azaremoth »

Imho ghouls should be able to beat marines curtly on cost if the marines don't have a superior position, like a hill or some kind of bottleneck like a ramp or a small pass and the ghouls have used the jump ability to approach the marines.

That is the plan: I'll make all ranged units ingame (except the skeletal mages) unable to shoot through allies. This will make it easier for new players to get used to the game. It will be a change for the worse for the marines. I'll check if they need a damage/hp boost to be a match to ghouls then.
Godde
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Joined: 29 Mar 2010, 17:54

Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by Godde »

How are hills gonna be an advantage if the ghouls can jump ontop of it? Requires abit more micro and accurucy to jump up the hill I guess but thats not much of a disadvantage compared to flat terrain.
Emperial flamethrowers doesn't seem that good at antiswarm. Their flames usually only hit one target and they get focus fired when you use them against gunners.
I have J bound to "jump". Works in zero-K but not in Cursed so I haven't gotten to use jump commands that effeciently. What is the command named?
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azaremoth
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Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by azaremoth »

The commands are: CMD_GHOULJUMP for the Ghouls and CMD_JUMP for the imperial Pyros.

The Ghouls have a very straight "jumping curve" what causes some limits to the places ghouls can jump to. It is only very useful on flat terrain or for jumping at the rim of hills/cliffs.
Godde
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Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by Godde »

azaremoth wrote:The commands are: CMD_GHOULJUMP for the Ghouls and CMD_JUMP for the imperial Pyros.
Good to know.

In order to gain Line of Fire, on the ground below, the marines have to stand at the rim of the hill/cliff where the ghouls can jump up to, don't they?
Flamethrowers on the other can't lob their fire over the edges of cliffs and hills which is pretty useful although situational and terrain dependant.
Godde
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Joined: 29 Mar 2010, 17:54

Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by Godde »

Godde wrote: I have J bound to "jump". Works in zero-K.
I don't have J bound to jump. Its zero-k that does it.
Do you need a widget or gadget to make it be bound to a key?
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azaremoth
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Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by azaremoth »

Godde wrote:
Godde wrote: I have J bound to "jump". Works in zero-K.
I don't have J bound to jump. Its zero-k that does it.
Do you need a widget or gadget to make it be bound to a key?
There is a widget that controls the drawing of the arc and the other UI stuff. In ZK this widget includes a hotkey binding. I'll update the widget. Until to the next release you can bind the key manually :-)
Godde
Posts: 268
Joined: 29 Mar 2010, 17:54

Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by Godde »

azaremoth wrote:
Godde wrote:
Godde wrote: I have J bound to "jump". Works in zero-K.
I don't have J bound to jump. Its zero-k that does it.
Do you need a widget or gadget to make it be bound to a key?
There is a widget that controls the drawing of the arc and the other UI stuff. In ZK this widget includes a hotkey binding. I'll update the widget. Until to the next release you can bind the key manually :-)

"bind j CMD_JUMP" and "bind j CMD_GHOULJUMP" doesn't work. If I remember correctly there is something about the keybindings using different command names then the engine callins or something like that.
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FLOZi
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
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Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by FLOZi »

It uses the 'action' attribute of the cmd description.
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azaremoth
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Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by azaremoth »

Actually this should work and works for me:

Code: Select all

/unbind j
/bind j jump


This makes the ghouls and the Pyros jump on "J".
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CarRepairer
Cursed Zero-K Developer
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Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by CarRepairer »

Make sure you get the latest version of epic menu. Players can bind hotkeys directly in the game.
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azaremoth
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Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by azaremoth »

At least in the SVN I am always up to date :wink:
Godde
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Joined: 29 Mar 2010, 17:54

Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by Godde »

"bind j jump" works in uikeys.txt in The Cursed 1.11 aswell. :oops:
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knorke
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Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by knorke »

yoyoyo played this a bit as well.
Only 4 or 5 "real" games though, all other games turned out to be debug sessions with random noob problems.

The two 1v1 games I played:
http://replays.adune.nl/?3136
http://replays.adune.nl/?3137
Those were pretty fun imo.

Also played some 2v2's but can not find the replays right now, imo they were not as much fun though, maybe map was too big or w/e.
So matches on small maps are really cool, not yet sure about other setups.

Overall I did not expect this to play so good. Previous games ie against Picasso showed a bit of the potential but fps lags shadowed it. Now I'd say it is really nice!

random stuff:
You should decide what kind of maps you want Cursed to be played on (make a map list or something) otherwise balance discussion like the marines VS ghouls make no sense really.

Vehicles can cross deeper water then infantry. ie on Isis Delta infantry can not cross the river but vehicles can. Might be interessting on some maps, annoying on others.

Imperial con can not be picked up by drop ships. One might expect them to be transportable because they are the size of infantry.

No way for Imperials to transport vehicles might be problematic on some maps.

Cool pigs are cool.

No more fps lag problems, hooray.

One noob did not figure out for a whole 40 minutes game how to build combat units with the Cursed faction. Not sure if he was just stupid or if it needs more "hints."

One player (i think deadnightwarrior) had no mouse pointer or something.

Noticed when watching a replay that resizing windowed mode fucks up the UI. Probally happens during playing as well.

Bunker is more expensive then turret? Maybe should be other way around.
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azaremoth
Cursed Developer
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Re: Feedback/bugs 1.11

Post by azaremoth »

knorke wrote:Those were pretty fun imo.
Hehe - yeah - these are realy thrilling. Especially the Isis delta one - I thought about five times: now it is over (the first time when pintles ghouls were sneaking through the water to the backdoor of your base) and then the whole game turned.
knorke wrote:Vehicles can cross deeper water then infantry. ie on Isis Delta infantry can not cross the river but vehicles can. Might be interessting on some maps, annoying on others.
Yeah - the infantry should be able to get the chin wet.
knorke wrote:Imperial con can not be picked up by drop ships. One might expect them to be transportable because they are the size of infantry.
I'll change that.
knorke wrote:Bunker is more expensive then turret? Maybe should be other way around.
Placed on a hot-spot a bunker is extremely useful (after having placed some marines and bazooka guys in there). I don't know if it is good to make them cheaper.

Some other things I noticed in the replays:
- the meteor strom (witches) is too powerful
- blocked barracks: might be caused by the unit mover script - I'll do some tests there
- complaints about the marines guns: I'll make them 3x faster and 3x weaker
- imperial scout aircraft are quite useless - I'll make them as useful as flying marines

The cursed lvl.1 anti-air is quite weak against bombers. The crawlers will eat bombers for breakfast but are lvl.2 cursed unit. Should the defender towers stronger against air?

Cursed lvl.1 skeletons (except the bone beast) can walk under water. There is actually no way for imperial lvl.1 units to get them out there. I think about giving torpedos to the scout gunship or the bomber...
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