Less metal. Cmon!

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 27 Oct 2005, 09:51

For the record, I think it is a massive balancing flaw if it is a choice between "30 mins till krog" or "60 mins till krog".

The Krogoth is a superweapon, and should only appear in extreme circumstances. Not only that; but it is a strategy that some people may go for, and some people might not. It shouldn't be okay, it is now the late game, you have to build a Krogoth. It should be: Okay, your opponent has gone for strategy X (lets say, heavy defenses), and your strategy (say slow expansion) is having trouble cracking their tough nest. In this instance, you think your forces can take a reinforcement reduction for a while as you funnel costs into a Krogoth to smash through their defenses. You have other options available to you, such as continuing with your current strategy, using some decoy strategies, going for long range artillery, etc, etc.

The Krogoth should never be "the endgame unit". It should be an option available to people, should they wish to use it. Not only that, but it is the ultimate unit in TA, being the only unit that has its own plant. Building a Krogoth should be a massive risk in terms of a late game decision; even when the metal content of a map is relatively high.

Apologies for the slightly off topic post; I felt it was still vaguely relevant because it seems people are taking the metal content of a map the wrong way.

It shouldn't be "raiding first 20% of game, tanks middle 40%, berthas late 20%, krogoths last 20%", and then the time (ie: 30 minutes until you reach the final 80% of the game, or 60 minutes) to reach those stages determined by the metal content of the map. The metal content of the map should completely alter the strategy of the map. A metal heavy map should see greater emphasis on armies and defenses, while a metal light map should see a careful expansion and players squabbling over every last metal patch.
Indeed, maps themselves should be different enough that a strategy that works on one map shouldn't be simply transferable to another one. Krogs & Annihilators should only appear on easily defensible maps where you struggle to crack the heavy posts (or conversely, need something big to plug up that hole), not on every map with enough metal to allow you to build one.

chrono · Post by **chrono** » 31 Oct 2005, 10:52

I do believe thta map makers design their maps for sertain purposes. If you don't like metal maps stop whining and make some maps ur self. Besides theres plenty of maps with little metal.

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 31 Oct 2005, 11:36

chrono wrote:I do believe thta map makers design their maps for sertain purposes. If you don't like metal maps stop whining and make some maps ur self. Besides theres plenty of maps with little metal.

The ammout of metal a map has can equate to poor gameplay, and that has nothing to do with preferance. Most maps the biggest detriment to gameplay is simply the ammout of metal the mapper put into it. If a mapper wants to make maps that other people don't want to play then that's up to them, but if the goal is to make popular maps then it can't hurt to have a standard system that is easy for mappers to test against and follow.

Good players don't like metal maps, they nueter too much of the skill requirements in the game.

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 31 Oct 2005, 13:10

exactly!
@ mapmakers try to keep patches about 2 m on average, or if going for a metally map (everywhere has metal) make it have a high mex radius and only give 1-1.5 m per mex

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 31 Oct 2005, 14:12

Min3mat wrote:exactly!
@ mapmakers try to keep patches about 2 m on average, or if going for a metally map (everywhere has metal) make it have a high mex radius and only give 1-1.5 m per mex

Not perfect but a good guideline for standard metal setups. If you intend on spamming the whole map with metal spots like on starfish island you need to keep the metal down way lower, like < 1.5. If you are keeping the patches really sparse then you can have higher metal incomes.

Decide on how many players you are building your map for first thing. Each player should get roughly 20-30 metal from small mex within thier "territory" Obviously a map like comet catchers isn't going to play well with 2 players; it's not like we're expecting universal balance for all player ammounts, but try to keep within the 20-30 metal territory ranges for your optimum player ammounts. The larger the territory size the closer to 30 you should push, also for traditional TA metal style maps add a +4 or so to the max, because players getting moho will have to reclaim before they can drop them, lowering the total metal they would be getting compared to the standard spring wide radius mex system.

The figures are probably pretty rusty as I haven't played recently, but the standard document should look something like that...

Wannes · Post by **Wannes** » 31 Oct 2005, 15:04

what do you think is the ideal metal income per player on 2vs2 (meaning when each player took 1/4 of all metal patches I usually try to keep it around 30 usually 26 donno zhy it allways is this number : )

but yes indeed metal maps are no fun

I never played a game with diminished metalmaker income
how much worse does the income from moho metalmaker become?

Post by SJ » 31 Oct 2005, 15:26

I think you can go lower than that Wannes, many popular TA maps like GOW,GPP had about 10-20 metal per team (GOW was like 7-8 metal per team + some stones). Some others like PD had a bit more but then the metal is so spread out that its hard to keep 1/4 of the map extracted.

PauloMorfeo · Post by **PauloMorfeo** » 05 Nov 2005, 22:36

SJ wrote:I think you can go lower than that Wannes, many popular TA maps like GOW,GPP had about 10-20 metal per team (GOW was like 7-8 metal per team + some stones). Some others like PD had a bit more but then the metal is so spread out that its hard to keep 1/4 of the map extracted.

Could someone add to the wikis concerning map making info on balance?

If no standard gets implemented, people will continue to have too much variations in the amount of resources, mostly adding too much metal.

Mods have units priced assuming that, for example, metal is x harder to get than energy. Maps that don't fit those standards ruin the balance of mods and people will end up complaining that the mod isn't properly balanced.

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 06 Nov 2005, 08:44

The basic rule of thumb is that it's better to put too little metal on a map then too much. Challenging people works better then patronizing them.

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 06 Nov 2005, 16:49

That should be quoted and put at the top of the Wiki maps page.

This 30 metal per team thing is completely unlike TA and not conducive to any real strategic thinking. In TA, losing a metal patch was like... awwwww DAMMMIT now I'm nano-stalled for 5 minutes until I can get something out there!!!

In Spring... hey... it's just a metal patch. I've got 46 others.

AF · Post by AF » 06 Nov 2005, 19:01

mwha, so many people say ti should be added to the wiki when they can add it themselves in 20-30 seconds max.

PauloMorfeo · Post by **PauloMorfeo** » 07 Nov 2005, 01:39

Alantai Firestar wrote:mwha, so many people say ti should be added to the wiki when they can add it themselves in 20-30 seconds max.

If you know how to work with them...
I have no idea how much time it would take me to learn it, if little or much, and i'm affraid i might ruin something.

Maelstrom · Post by **Maelstrom** » 07 Nov 2005, 05:51

Editing the wiki for simpletons:

Choose what you want to do:
1) Make a new page
2) Edit an existing page

If you want to do number 1):
Type the URL of the page you want to create into the address bar.
EG: http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Page_that_dont_exist

If you want to do number 2):
Goto the page you want to edit, either through Links, or a URL.

Then, click the 'Edit this page' link at the bottom.
A page with a text box in the middle of it will appear.
Enter text into this box.
To insert formatting, click the formatting buttons above the text box.
For a guide on formatting, goto: Help:Editing
Click the 'Preview Page' button below the text box to preview the page.
Fix any errors you spot.
Click 'Save page' next to the Preview button.
Your Done!

Dont worry if you stuff things up. It is very easy to fix. Any changes that are made are automatically logged, and we can easily revert to an old version if you totally screw a page up.

*puts this guide in the wiki.*

Zoombie · Post by **Zoombie** » 07 Nov 2005, 06:16

I miss TA's metal system i just realised. It was when i put up insane amounts of defence around them, cause i couldent BARE loseing a single scrap of metal to the enemy...

Map makers, take heed!

AF · Post by AF » 07 Nov 2005, 20:38

imo, the tags in this forum are harder to learn than the wiki. Usually most modifications only require plain text.

PauloMorfeo · Post by **PauloMorfeo** » 08 Nov 2005, 00:14

Thanks for the help, Maelstrom.
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Maps
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/MapsBalance

When making maps, these are the standards for resources:

Metal:
- The amount per normal metal extractor is between 0.7 and 3.0
- The amount of total metal in all patches, when beeing extracted by normal metal extractors, is about 10~20 per player, assuming each player is controling the same amount of map.
Energy:
- The amount of tidal energy is almost always 20
- The amount of solar energy is almost always 20
- The amount of wind, is usually 1(min)~30(max) or some other min~max values that average between 7 and 15
- The amount of geothermals available to each player never goten to have a real standard but most maps have between none up to 3 or more

Feel free to complaint about those numbers. The sooner the better.

Weaver · Post by **Weaver** » 22 Nov 2005, 19:44

Sorry to dig this up, but I had a thought...

Would it be possible to set a max metal per player (total metal available / number of players). As a setting in the lobby, and have the game modify the metal multipler (instead of using the SMD value) at the start to achieve this?

Targ Collective · Post by **Targ Collective** » 23 Nov 2005, 13:18

What we need is a set of custom brushes in the GIMP. These could be used as templates - this brush is a metal spot of W radius and X value, this brush a metal spot of Y radius and Z value. This could also be used for things like mountains, although there would have to be maybe twenty, forty of them to allow enough variety. Custom mountains are better anyway.

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 23 Nov 2005, 13:41

In XTA, wind plants cost roughly 1/3 of a solar. So, with a min wind of 7 an equivilent cost of wind generators can produce much more than solars. This, doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I believe that min wind should be closer to 3 or so.

Targ Collective · Post by **Targ Collective** » 23 Nov 2005, 13:46

They're a lot weaker - a couple of shots from an AK or Peewee will take them down. This balances it out - people tend to go Solar because these plants generate a dependable, constant amount, and can take a battering. Personally it'd take an average generation of 30 to 40 to convince me to go wind.

Spring RTS Engine

Less metal. Cmon!