im(BA)-FFA with more than 4 players isn't balanced

[SolaEvoli]

IMPORTANT: I talk not about just BA, I talk about:

• Exponential economy games (BA and alike) or games without compensation for lost units (no wrecks settings, Kernel panic, etc)
• FFA with >4 players, especially maps with many choke-points (like Throne)
• Maps where you can't scout your direct opponent because his allies are shielding him against scout attempts without his own effort and where you are not next to the player fighting him (what is easier to scout).

To make FFA with any exponential economy mod balanced, it needs to be:

• limited by available space
• scout-able which is only given with 3 ways to the enemy base - (going around, going through mid, going through a side without porc-wall).
  • 3, because defences are worth 2x units and there is often 1 porc-front, 1 front with high attention or a guarding-neighbour ally/passive-enemy

Because of this I will not play imBA-FFA, even if I can't play at all because it sucks all available players into it like a Black-Hole-(host).

Which basically excludes me many times many days.
But I have no fun in imbalanced exponential economy games that come with big or many teams. I prefer games without luck, or more biased toward skill of unit micro.

Perhaps it is a solution available:

To make imBA-FFA games balanced, players could have a low-radius "scout-nuke"
The "scout-nuke" - higher radius against higher energy production/consumption and slower vs jammed/cloaked buildings make arm-cloaked fusions still good.

It can be either a T2/2.5 building or some sort of commander/unique thing - which decodes data collected from orbital satellites only at a given rate.

It detects the position of energy-producing or consuming buildings. Examples:

• max_detection_distance is equal to the energy production (or a bit higher for wind)
• If jammed, max_detection_distance is multiplied by 2/3 = 4/9 area
• if cloaked, max_detection_distance is multiplied by 2/3 = 4/9 area
• if cloak-jammed, max_detection_distance is multiplied by 2/3 twice = 16/81 or ~1/5 area

The balance against the scouted economy could be:

• Focused on T1 and jammed T2 normal fusions and afus
• Reward building arm cloaked fusion
• Punishing Unjammed economy and "hiding from the opposite enemy behind his own or your neighbours"

What is your opinion on this?

[Floris]

I acknowledge the fact that its too hard in FFA's to know who's where and how much of a threat each opponent is... and generally you cant be bothered with others too much... Once 1 person gets lucky or big and he knows whats he doing its all decided way too quick at times.


Therefore... a week or 2 ago I suggested to introduce some sort of ecostats widget for players. This widget would lag a bit behind on the actual stats and would be a general bar composed of various info. We havent discussed it further yet because we'd other things to do first.


There... so you'll know we've already noticed this and have selected a possible solution... for later.

[Jools]

Is the problem really that people do not have info? In my opinion, scouting is very easy once you do it: scout planes are hard to hit and even when you do, they have usually seen a lot of the eco already. You can also use infiltrators of course.

Maybe the problem is that people are not scouting and just building defences?

In principle, FFA:s are always balanced by the invisible hand: people are supposed to gang against the strongest player to maintain a balance of power. This is how the mainstream realism doctrine has it.

But, you could also put it that instead of ganging against the strongest, you instead invade and destroy the weakest, thereby minimising the costs of acquiring new territories and thereby grow stronger, with the use of his metal and wrecks etc. I think this is the theory.

In practise I've noticed that people don't behave rationally like this. Instead you attack the one who attacked you to 'retaliate', so that he does not attack you again in the future (I think this is the logic of the Israeli government), therefore making sure that a third player can stay alone in one corner and eco and win.

Would more info about eco help? Possibly. But the fault is still the player who does not 'take responsibility for world order' in my opinion.

We've added some info like this already, you have the announcement of "player has taken the lead with x kills" thing. But yeah, you could show more. You could show:
1) player m and e income
2) player firepower
3) control of map

That would give quite a good indication of power...

[Beherith]

What if ecostats just displayed a ranking, without absolute values? Maybe it be done so that you dont know your own standing in the ranking?

One of the reasons that people dont scout is that getting scouted is sometimes a trigger for a retaliatory attack, as people might not want the battle to occur on the enemies terms.

[Jools]

You mean that if there are 4 players playing, it would just display:
1
2
3
4

:)

[albator]

Talking about BA:

Ecoing as much as you can is the best way to win the game. It has somehow always be, but at a different level.

The reason players are only building defence and ecoing is part of the BA mod design. Defence (t1 pop up flam pop up and other t2 defences) are some of the only unit left that are able to counter more unit for far less cost.

The reason this happen is because most of the OP unit were removed. By "OP", I mean that a unit is very good at doing one job. Some exemple:
- a pair of riot cound counter piro spam.
- t2 bomber could penetrate ennemy base even with a lot of ground AA, and destroyed the AFUS (the big eco)
NB: the air nerf done 5 year ago is the milestone of BA becoming an eco fest.
NB2: some reasons the "OP" unit were removed is that it give lot of advantage to player who knows well the game while if unit perform more equilly (like SC hydralisk) it is much more easy for noob to have fun and win by just spamming eco and" BA hydrasik"

If "OP" unit are removed, there are no more incentive to attack: even you do so, you will gain about the same amount of metal of what you have now, but at the same time all the other player will eco and the winner will still get an eco gap with respect to the other.
This does matter for 3 reasons from less to most important:
- even you uncrease you metal quality, you need to keep on increase the energy as well to produce and res unit
- It is much more difficult for the player to kill ther other opponent even they gain terrain control because the eco killer were nerf (banta range nerf, tacktical nuke range nerf, emp missile range nerfed, T2 bomber nerf very very much)
- the player cannot use the "OP" unit to counter efficently the other ennemy unit: this is both mod and engine related)


I doubt implementing a ranking widget will do anything to encourage player to play ffa: descent player already scout and attack the player that are on the other side of the map.

Setting up that kind of widget will encourage mediocre playing, the ffa game play has already being it by that eco porc fest I explained. I still win many ffa but I had to adapt my game play to a porc-eco-fest game play which is far less fun than the old one.

My opinion is: if you want to achieve to kill ffa, implement that widget: it will sure be entertaining but will draw more player away.

[Silentwings]

I think a ranking showing damage dealt, where only the ranking (not value) of your opponents is visible, would be better than eco. Seeing eco sounds like too much info to me.