Smitty's Spring 2018 Playtest

Playtest B is out

Discussion about the game and its default mods.
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ZxGanon
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Post by ZxGanon »

Materianer wrote: The balances seem to be well overall even if i think the misslesub damage increase is too much, they are already really good since the accuracy has been improved.

I'm a bit unsure about the shoktrooper change they are often a bad investment for players as you mentioned.
If you play well with them they can end a game fast of course but mostly not if the defending player is prepared.
they are hard to use and this is probably more a problem of the ragl szene maybe, in normal mp games they could become irrelevant.

The walls are sometimes used in close base on base battles but that someone is building them outside of the basecircle? That happens maybe in 1 game per month, often done by noobs then who wall they'r base in, so why limit this?
Too many limitations will make the game more and more boring.
ZxGanon wrote: Im happy about every price decrease on Mammoth Tank.

The Chinook is something we have to take in account. That is no joke like the Hind discussion (except if you all agree to rebalance the game and throw years of work out of the window).

With the Mig one I agree because AA Gun is the bain of every aircrafts existence.
You like the soviets eh? They are already stronger than allies since last release.

Its right mammoth seem to underperform a bit, they are often used in a wrong way and are a bit weak for being a mammoth.
Like netnazgul said a bit more armor would be nice and or increase the selfhealing a bit.

About the chinook thing, how do you want to "balance" one of them full of flamers or naders? There seem to be no easy way to do this for me.

How many testgames on the soviet-hinds maps did you do that you think this would throw years of balancework out of the window?
Just asking because most of these maps show a Played: 0 on the resource center.
Missible Subs are shit atm

I have no problems aswell with current shockies but maybe soviet mirrors are broken yes

same opinion with walls

Yes I like Soviets but Im not trying to make them stronger but finally fixing wholes in gameplay that should have been patched ages ago

Yeah Stronger Mammoths sound more sexy

Oh so chinooks would finally see usage you say?

The Hind thing is called common knowledge
Last edited by ZxGanon on Tue Apr 03, 2018 1:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

CatGirls420
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Post by CatGirls420 »

Sorry it seems I got values wrong for my balance changes.......I updated the ruleset here:

https://resource.openra.net/maps/26553/

edit: this link: https://resource.openra.net/maps/26554/

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WhoCares
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Post by WhoCares »

2 things that will make nobody playing that map :

-No Changelog explaining your modifications.
-This map is so bad that makes your mama looks great (it's been a while since a "mama" joke)

CatGirls420
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Post by CatGirls420 »

Lol. Woops. I forgot I only put the changelog in-game to show up. Well, the YAML is nice and clean so all you will see are the changes made. Same thing as a changelog :p

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netnazgul
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Post by netnazgul »

Well, the YAML is nice and clean so all you will see are the changes made. Same thing as a changelog :p
3rd thing that makes nobody playing that map - not understanding that this statement is wrong. I don't know how many times people should transfer this to you - writing a full comprehensible description and *explanation* of every change is a must. No one will bother diving into plaintext YAML cross-references to find what change is where, and there is no reasoning behind changes written in YAML either. "I think this whole rebalance is better, check everything yourself" is basically saying fuck you to everyone ever willing to check that.

Anyway, this is topic derailing, cause the OP is about Smitty's playtest.

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Materianer
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Post by Materianer »

ZxGanon wrote: The Hind thing is called common knowledge
Ah yes i forgott ...
netnazgul wrote: Current situation does not need proofs because it's already proven by practice.
Smitty and catgirls you can delete you playtest maps we know what a change will do without testing.

Sorry for this irony but thats just to laugh at.

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netnazgul
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Post by netnazgul »

Smitty and catgirls you can delete you playtest maps we know what a change will do without testing.

Sorry for this irony but thats just to laugh at.
it's not irony, it's you who didn't understand what exactly I'd written and taking the phrase out of context.
What I meant was the current hind balance was reasoned long ago (I suppose you can try and track the discussion on GH around the time Hind was moved to Allies), and doesn't require anyone to repeatedly state that it's ok because it's ok and approved by players. You can suggest and prove the concept of alternatives (and you do; I don't have anything against it), but asking for proofs on the current balance is nothing more than demagogy and trolling.

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anjew
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Post by anjew »

netnazgul wrote: What I meant was the current hind balance was reasoned long ago (I suppose you can try and track the discussion on GH around the time Hind was moved to Allies)
There is no discussion on Github or IRC regarding the rationale to the change.
"<+Scott`> it was on allies when the ra yaml was first created"

There is more discussion regarding moving hinds back than there was discussion to add hinds to allies. If you go searching for reference to hinds and a faction in any of the official channels you will only find people asking to move Hinds back to Soviets.
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Sleipnir
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Post by Sleipnir »

For reference, the change was made in the commit "Planes, kinda. They don't fly." on 2009-11-02. This was literally the first commit where they were added to OpenRA. At the time, flying units (and most other gameplay systems) didn't work, so they drove around on the ground. Needless to say, balance was not a priority at the time.
Last edited by Sleipnir on Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:32 am, edited 2 times in total.

AMHOL
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Post by AMHOL »

Sleipnir wrote: For reference, the change was made in the commit "Planes, kinda. They don't fly." on 2009-09-02. This was before flying was implemented, so they drove around on the ground like other vehicles. Needless to say, balance was not a priority at the time.
Now that, I have to see :lol:

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Materianer
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Post by Materianer »

I don't think that i misunderstood you but if then sorry :oops:

Where did i write thats ok or approved by players?

Also i didn't any demagogy or trolling here i just wanted to say that before people saying things like "setting the Hind for Soviets is infact not possible" they should first try the impossible testmaps i made.

Imo a balanced sov/hind could be done but if theres no will for doing it ...
Too many useless words have been spoken on that topic, i will continue with my daily testgame because its just too much fun to revert now.

Sorry for the OT here i will do some smittybalance testings therefore hehe

CatGirls420
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Post by CatGirls420 »

netnazgul wrote:
Well, the YAML is nice and clean so all you will see are the changes made. Same thing as a changelog :p
"I think this whole rebalance is better, check everything yourself" is basically saying fuck you to everyone ever willing to check that.

Anyway, this is topic derailing, cause the OP is about Smitty's playtest.
You make good points. As I said (If I didn't, I meant to, probably forgot) I'm going to write up a changelog. I don't agree with what I quoted yoiu on though; that's more of a matter of how someone perceives different situations. If I came across in a negative way to you, that wasn't my intent, sorry.

edit: If this isn't an april fools post (I guess not if this is still going, or the comedic content is too rich to have let the joke end by April 2) then I think all options should be explored. Of course the devs have been at this (and community members who contribute) for several years. But, that doesn't mean everything have been explored, or even properly explored.

New ideas, or even old ones that come bundled with a new approach, are worth considering and looking into, because something somewhere might work, and, we might even accidentally make some unexpected, beneficial discoveries.

Personally, I find the game is overall fine. The major issues that should be tackled, IMO, are the unit behavior/pathing issues, the overpowered AA Guns, and over powered rape-level artillery vs infantry.

Other than that, all else is secondary or tertiary, ect.

Great work btw everyone who contributed to the game.

SirCake
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Post by SirCake »

Hey, so since this is still up here are my thoughts on Smittys proposals:
I have to say this is the PT so far I disagree the most with.

Shockies 1) A) get obliterated by one ukranian nuke truck. Get countered by Mammoth tusks, yak crashes, V2 shots, more rifles + 1 tank, IC apc crushes, flame towers and arent too bad either (if placed in their face).
I'm seriously worried that this damage nerf will change the role of the shockie to that one of a sniper unit, which isn't good vs armored vehicles. That isn't the role of a shock trooper imho. Instead icrease the price or build time if you think its still OP pls. In team games the shockie already underperforms, don't make it irrelevant.
Don't be afraid to revert what SoS did, its not the holy grail but a learning process.

Allies OP 2) I precieve differently. Last RAGL me and blackened both changed to allies because they simply perform better than soviet. (Ease of use & power level) Players are frustrated because AA-Gun and arty are such forbidding units [others would say OP AF] (you CANT use any infantry here, you CANT use any planes anywhere remotely near my base).
Arties and Hinds are MUCH better at cleaning up infantry blobs than V2's and yaks , which is really the only thing important in a Infantry centric game.
Some numbers backed up by yaml research and tests: assuming 0 inaccuracy and a tight blob an arty shot kills 5 infantry and reduces 8 more to 1% health. A V2 hit kills 13 infantry straight up. You might wonder if 1% difference matters in an engagement. not at all. Now, arties fire 3 times as fast as v2's which means they put 39 infantry on deaths door in the same time a v2 puts 13 infantry on deaths door. +50$ won't make a dent on this at all.
Same with the Hind: It can kill double the ammount of infantry than a yak with full ammo, while having more HP, ,same price, easy to micro, and 10 less power required on the rearming platform.

Because of that imo allies still need to recieve more nerfs.

walls: nice, why not.

Minelayer lower selection prio is ok, for Hjiackers I would not recommend it. (As a frequent user of Hijakckers myself.). Making something impossible to box select around other units makes it very frustrating to use in combat. Think of a Hijacker APC.

Removing Multiqueue bonus from MCV. NO! This deviates too far from the original game and ruins builds for big team games. The problem is not the multiqueue bonus but the cheapness+ hidden build speed buff of the mcv (Which also significantly deviates from the original). Increase price and build time of the MCV and you will get closer to the original RA while nerfing the MCV in a similar way.

All the other changes I'm mostly ok with, even if grinding teeth against more allies buffs.

Check out Dune2k-Advanced on my moddb page!

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avalach21
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Post by avalach21 »

I really like chrono tanks shooting AA tho, thats super kool

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anjew
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Post by anjew »

Regarding selection changes, I feel that an engineer should have a higher selection priority than harvesters. As it stands you can never box select an engineer as every unit has a higher priority.
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