Day 4 - Tech to dome + $600/800 pillbox changes.
Very fruitful day of playtesting, with Smitty and Klaas helping out a bunch with the new maps. Also collected a bunch of casual gamers playing against each other, with a 2v2 match featuring an additional SD edit. Overall, generally positive reception to the play test maps, with more playtesting to come.
I've attached the replays from today, and I'll do a recap after some more playtesting. I highly suggest you guys to check out the matches between myself, Klaas, and Smitty and to post your opinions of those games here. The maps are available from my previous post.
MCV Balance Playtesting
this is coming from the guy who abuses them the most
- Attachments
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- Radar PB playtest.rar
- (1.66 MiB) Downloaded 230 times
One possibilty here-- increase the price of an mcv to maybe 3000 and slightly decrease the cost of tanks. Either that or make a radar a little cheaper.
My thought here, is that you don't want to spend your money investing in expansion, if a tank army will just roll through you at the stage when you are just placing it down; or get hit by artillery and air.
I'm guessing you could make a difference to early expansion this way but that may not be the same as dealing with base pushing being OP for some people's taste.
My thought here, is that you don't want to spend your money investing in expansion, if a tank army will just roll through you at the stage when you are just placing it down; or get hit by artillery and air.
I'm guessing you could make a difference to early expansion this way but that may not be the same as dealing with base pushing being OP for some people's taste.
I really don't know about all this. The current game is producing really competitive matches and are enjoyable to watch. I think this is getting wayyyy over complicated.
MCV -i see no issue with the MCV's at all. Every faction has the same choice to produce MCV's at the same speeds and quantity. It's completely upto the player and how he wishes to play. If said style of play is proving a better strategy than previous then that is just the cycle of life. Old strategies make way for the new, that is how it's always been in games. Its not unfair / unbalanced if every faction has the same advantages.
Now that being said everyone is now talking about base defences. Over a long period of time players have come to the conclusion that base defence spamming is proving a winning strategy. This didn't happen over night it's evolved to its current state. This is just a natural evolution of a game . A player picks up on a stronger play style and the rest slowly follow. So we are at a cross roads, 'A' keep it as it is or 'B' nerf this strategy. I am all for B but not by tampering so much with the current game.
As FiveAces has said pill boxes are just simply out preforming relative to cost. Increase price / build time lower HP. Taking base defence build tab away is a step backwards.
My ideas
limiting the number of barracks you can build to 6 as this seems to be the favoured base push building.
My problem with the base push is that it happens so fast you cannot react to it. even if you bump into a small army with a solo MCV you can deploy and drop a pill so fast it dosnt matter. Slow down the MCV's deployment animation to 10 seconds. Base pushes will then have to be accompanied by a sizeable force to protect any counter attack.
Base pushing. As said before strategies come from evolution it just so happens we are now at a point that it has been fine tuned into a powerful resource unfortunately you will never get rid of it, it has happened and it is here it is part of the game. The counter to a base push is fighting fire with fire. If this play style is proving so overwhelming then use it yourself. You then have two opposing stragies of equal strength. The result of the conflict is in favour of the better player using that strategy just as every other conflict in the game.
The most common mistake I have seen trying to defend a base push is dropping you own defences into an already established enemy defence area. Give up some ground and deploy your defences further back retaining the advantage. You wouldn't stream 1 inf at a time into a pack of 10 gunners that's suicide. Use the same logic building your defences.
MCV -i see no issue with the MCV's at all. Every faction has the same choice to produce MCV's at the same speeds and quantity. It's completely upto the player and how he wishes to play. If said style of play is proving a better strategy than previous then that is just the cycle of life. Old strategies make way for the new, that is how it's always been in games. Its not unfair / unbalanced if every faction has the same advantages.
Now that being said everyone is now talking about base defences. Over a long period of time players have come to the conclusion that base defence spamming is proving a winning strategy. This didn't happen over night it's evolved to its current state. This is just a natural evolution of a game . A player picks up on a stronger play style and the rest slowly follow. So we are at a cross roads, 'A' keep it as it is or 'B' nerf this strategy. I am all for B but not by tampering so much with the current game.
As FiveAces has said pill boxes are just simply out preforming relative to cost. Increase price / build time lower HP. Taking base defence build tab away is a step backwards.
My ideas
limiting the number of barracks you can build to 6 as this seems to be the favoured base push building.
My problem with the base push is that it happens so fast you cannot react to it. even if you bump into a small army with a solo MCV you can deploy and drop a pill so fast it dosnt matter. Slow down the MCV's deployment animation to 10 seconds. Base pushes will then have to be accompanied by a sizeable force to protect any counter attack.
Base pushing. As said before strategies come from evolution it just so happens we are now at a point that it has been fine tuned into a powerful resource unfortunately you will never get rid of it, it has happened and it is here it is part of the game. The counter to a base push is fighting fire with fire. If this play style is proving so overwhelming then use it yourself. You then have two opposing stragies of equal strength. The result of the conflict is in favour of the better player using that strategy just as every other conflict in the game.
The most common mistake I have seen trying to defend a base push is dropping you own defences into an already established enemy defence area. Give up some ground and deploy your defences further back retaining the advantage. You wouldn't stream 1 inf at a time into a pack of 10 gunners that's suicide. Use the same logic building your defences.
zinc, please stop suggesting changes to other structures, mechanics, and units right now. I know there are a lot of good ideas out there that might work, but I'm taking things 1 step at a time. Right now, I'm focusing on how the radar dome edit fares when you raise the price changes of static defense to games with just more expensive pillboxes. -- no barracks hp, no MCV changes, no single tabs, etc. If you don't like how I'm doing my balance testing, then you're more than welcome to go do your own. Many of these suggestions are also often posted without addressing the points I made in the OP, which is derailing the thread and making it difficult for me to explain to people what my change is doing.zinc wrote: ↑One possibilty here-- increase the price of an mcv to maybe 3000 and slightly decrease the cost of tanks. Either that or make a radar a little cheaper.
My thought here, is that you don't want to spend your money investing in expansion, if a tank army will just roll through you at the stage when you are just placing it down; or get hit by artillery and air.
I'm guessing you could make a difference to early expansion this way but that may not be the same as dealing with base pushing being OP for some people's taste.
All I ask is that you keep an open mind to my changes. I'm comparing my changes to pure pillbox price increases, so we'll know shortly if my proposal of moving the tech buildings to the defense tab is superfluous or not.JuiceBox wrote: ↑I really don't know about all this. The current game is producing really competitive matches and are enjoyable to watch. I think this is getting wayyyy over complicated.
First off, the changes are not aimed at balancing between factions; it has nothing to do with allied/soviets.JuiceBox wrote: ↑ MCV -i see no issue with the MCV's at all. Every faction has the same choice to produce MCV's at the same speeds and quantity. It's completely upto the player and how he wishes to play. If said style of play is proving a better strategy than previous then that is just the cycle of life. Old strategies make way for the new, that is how it's always been in games. Its not unfair / unbalanced if every faction has the same advantages.
Base pushing isn't simply the "better" strategy -- it's an absolute necessity. What players can get away with, and have been getting away with, is just spamming T1 units, base defenses, and MCVS while getting good eco. What I am trying to accomplish by moving the radar dome to the defense tab , to reiterate for the umpteenth time, is to make T1 units, T2/T3 units , and MCVs possible without sacrificing eco. By moving the tech to the defense tab, I'm hoping to create 1) incentive to not build base defenses by adding opportunity cost to them and 2) a different way to win the game that does not involve base pushing excessively.
TAKING OUT THE BASE DEFENSE TAB IS NOT MY IDEA. YOU'RE REFERENCING A SUGGESTION THAT DERAILED THE CRAP OUT OF MY THREAD.JuiceBox wrote: ↑
Now that being said everyone is now talking about base defences. Over a long period of time players have come to the conclusion that base defence spamming is proving a winning strategy. This didn't happen over night it's evolved to its current state. This is just a natural evolution of a game . A player picks up on a stronger play style and the rest slowly follow. So we are at a cross roads, 'A' keep it as it is or 'B' nerf this strategy. I am all for B but not by tampering so much with the current game.
As FiveAces has said pill boxes are just simply out preforming relative to cost. Increase price / build time lower HP. Taking base defence build tab away is a step backwards.
ahem
Again, after I test out a pure cost increase of the pillbox against moving tech to defense tab + the same cost increase of the pillbox, we will see what works and what doesn't
If you are worried that my balance proposal tampers with the integrity of the game in its current state, I assure you, that players at all skill levels are still very much capable of playing my edit the way they play the game in a normal game. So far, the differences between my edit and a normal game haven't significantly impacted the game for casual players and normal players; only the master level games have had a noticable impact. Casual gamers and medium-skill level players haven't taken advantage of the fact that you can get tech and eco at the same time; all of them are insistent on turtling for no reason at all. I have nearly 30 replays to prove this.
Please stop with the suggestions at this moment. I will ask for them later, after I have concluded this phase of testing. Refer to what I said to zinc.JuiceBox wrote: ↑
My ideas
limiting the number of barracks you can build to 6 as this seems to be the favoured base push building.
My problem with the base push is that it happens so fast you cannot react to it. even if you bump into a small army with a solo MCV you can deploy and drop a pill so fast it dosnt matter. Slow down the MCV's deployment animation to 10 seconds. Base pushes will then have to be accompanied by a sizeable force to protect any counter attack.
If players are forced to play in a way that they do not want to play, then they're not going to play the game anymore. Likewise, if a player is constantly running into a style of play that they do not like to face, then they're also not going to play the game anymore. This is exacerbated by the fact that base pushing is the only way to play the game right now. You're wrongly assuming that players are accepting and willing to copy the excessive base pushing that I do.JuiceBox wrote: ↑ Base pushing. As said before strategies come from evolution it just so happens we are now at a point that it has been fine tuned into a powerful resource unfortunately you will never get rid of it, it has happened and it is here it is part of the game. The counter to a base push is fighting fire with fire. If this play style is proving so overwhelming then use it yourself. You then have two opposing stragies of equal strength. The result of the conflict is in favour of the better player using that strategy just as every other conflict in the game.
This is a player dependent variable that I cannot control. The best I can do is to test my edit on players of all skill levels.JuiceBox wrote: ↑
The most common mistake I have seen trying to defend a base push is dropping you own defences into an already established enemy defence area. Give up some ground and deploy your defences further back retaining the advantage. You wouldn't stream 1 inf at a time into a pack of 10 gunners that's suicide. Use the same logic building your defences.
If you think the thread is being derailed I apologize. I will stop any further suggestions in this thread.
But let me directly respond to something you said in your OP or second post I think. You said something like if you nerf the mcv then it will make it harder for the teching player to expand, and I'm not sure that this follows. Of course it will take them even longer to produce a second and third mcv, but it depends on whether the tech has given them a sort of map control well enough by comparison. If you have troops, artillery, helis for vision, you might be able to wreck an early expanders plans. That is, if early expansion was more difficult.
But let me directly respond to something you said in your OP or second post I think. You said something like if you nerf the mcv then it will make it harder for the teching player to expand, and I'm not sure that this follows. Of course it will take them even longer to produce a second and third mcv, but it depends on whether the tech has given them a sort of map control well enough by comparison. If you have troops, artillery, helis for vision, you might be able to wreck an early expanders plans. That is, if early expansion was more difficult.
I CBA going into a massive debate about the game and doing all your fancy quotations. So I'll keep it quite simple.
I wouldn't be happy with your game changes.
Putting down anyone who doesn't agree with what you propose is childish. Get off your high horse
If you wanna be a self appointed yahoo game tester that's fine but just remember YOU DONT SPEAK FOR US ALL.
GL with your testing
I wouldn't be happy with your game changes.
Putting down anyone who doesn't agree with what you propose is childish. Get off your high horse
If you wanna be a self appointed yahoo game tester that's fine but just remember YOU DONT SPEAK FOR US ALL.
GL with your testing
How do you know you wouldn't be happy if you didn't try the changes?
I did try them, and I think they don't make the game feel any different. I actually think they could be beneficial for the game, making strategies more diverse. And yes, I do think it's a bit silly many RAGL masters players never bother to build a radar dome, even when games take +10 minutes.
I did try them, and I think they don't make the game feel any different. I actually think they could be beneficial for the game, making strategies more diverse. And yes, I do think it's a bit silly many RAGL masters players never bother to build a radar dome, even when games take +10 minutes.
I wonder if the same amount of time and attention has gone into analysing the base push and how to counter it? We seem verry eager to change the game on a fundamental level before exploring ALLL possibilities to a counter. I put it to omnom to try and knock all these masters off Thier pedestal and win the masters division with this so called 'ultimate game play' before we all say ' ok this is now an issue let's change the game'
As I see it you have the choice of focusing on your eco or tech. Choosing the right time to transcend is a pivotal moment in a game and a CHOICE when to do so. By putting the radar dome in the defence tab your removing this important choice from the game.
When I play soviets I hate having to choose between flack trucks and heavy tanks so hey let's move flack trucks to the inf tab so I can produce both.
When a chess grand master comes up with a new line that changes the way people play chess. The community dosnt go well to counter this the knight should now be able to move as a bishop too. NO they suck it up! go away re analyse and come up with a counter!
'How would you know you wouldn't be happy if you didn't try the changes?' - the same way I know I wouldn't like dog shit on my ice cream instead of chocolate sauce.
As I see it you have the choice of focusing on your eco or tech. Choosing the right time to transcend is a pivotal moment in a game and a CHOICE when to do so. By putting the radar dome in the defence tab your removing this important choice from the game.
When I play soviets I hate having to choose between flack trucks and heavy tanks so hey let's move flack trucks to the inf tab so I can produce both.
When a chess grand master comes up with a new line that changes the way people play chess. The community dosnt go well to counter this the knight should now be able to move as a bishop too. NO they suck it up! go away re analyse and come up with a counter!
'How would you know you wouldn't be happy if you didn't try the changes?' - the same way I know I wouldn't like dog shit on my ice cream instead of chocolate sauce.
Opportunity cost is "Do I make A first or do I make B first." If you spam pillboxes, you wont have time to build tech. My goal is to give people another option to win games by ways that don't involve spamming defenses.zinc wrote: ↑By the way, I couldn't really follow your explanation of the intended benefits. Whether that's your writing style or my reading ability... Maybe other people were fine understanding it.
Also, to refer to your previous post, I will be testing out everything that everyone has said in this thread eventually. I'm just going to do it 1 at a time, not all at once. So don't worry, your suggestions are not going unheard =)
You can post em in this thread in a rar file, or I think there is a site you can upload them to. Posting them here is preferred.lucassss wrote: ↑omnom - I want to help with testing this. Let's say I play matches with this map, is there somewhere where can I send the replays?
All i'm asking is that you keep an open mind. Thats it.JuiceBox wrote: ↑I CBA going into a massive debate about the game and doing all your fancy quotations. So I'll keep it quite simple.
I wouldn't be happy with your game changes.
Putting down anyone who doesn't agree with what you propose is childish. Get off your high horse
If you wanna be a self appointed yahoo game tester that's fine but just remember YOU DONT SPEAK FOR US ALL.
GL with your testing
I'm not putting anyone down. I'm asking people to give me time to test stuff out, and to stop with the suggestions until I can finish testing.
No, i don't speak for you all, and I never said i spoke for anyone else other than myself. I am just trying to convince people to listen to what I have to say.
It's good that you will be testing out other ideas, because of course, we don't just need to know if X is a solution. We need to know X is a solution and it works better than other possible solutions.
In that case, yes, either change the game or at least make it a lobby game option for the pro players to use.
In that case, yes, either change the game or at least make it a lobby game option for the pro players to use.
I also dislike moving tech buildings into a different tab.
Different people have different opinions on what's good game balance. To me it's quite important to have different viable openings - games could quickly become boring if all players do same build order each time. Optimally I would like to see both quick service depot and quick radar dome viable. For the first few minutes of the game we already see different openings being viable - double refinery and quick war factory can both work. Heck, we have even seen viable triple refinery before war factory. To me all different build orders don't have to be perfectly balanced - I think it's alright for some openings to be "better in a vacuum" if some build orders are good in certain maps or for a niche strategy. As an example, I will mention Gatekeeper's game in RAGL S2, R07 against FiveAces where he went for quick radar dome into 3 Airfields and Yaks (before service depot). I assume his idea was to snipe FiveAces' first expand in order to make it pay off. In the end Gatekeeper wasn't able to do so and ended up losing to FiveAces.
What I dislike about moving radar dome and tech center into different build tab is how it forces everyone to play the same build order. This is especially the case because with Omnom's current test build where service depot is required for building the radar dome. So with these changes, we would see everyone going for more or less same build order. Also, radar dome and tech center being in defense tab is really unintuitive and changes fundamental aspects of the game. I would prefer to nerf MCV spam and base push with different tools.
So here's my proposal. Remove BuildDurationModifier from MCV. It would change MCV build time from 32 seconds to 40 seconds. It would not nerf gameplan of single expand player significantly - by just 8 seconds. However, it would be quite a significant nerf to player spamming 4 MCVs: that would be total of 32 seconds slower build capacity (build time of about two mobile flaks or light tanks).
In addition to removing MCV BuildDurationModifier, I propose adding BuildDurationModifier to Radar Dome and Tech Center and possibly adjusting their price as well. This would keep tech being an expensive investment but faster build time would not put teching player as behind as tech tends to do in current live build. BuildDurationModifier 40 on Radar Dome would make build time about 8 seconds faster than currently. So it would almost allow teching player to build one extra barracks compared to current live build.
Pillbox and Turret price change nerfs feels good. We have plenty of evidence of Omnom's games as well as SoScared's playtest thunderdome games to come into conclusion that allied defensive buildings are still worthwhile to build with higher cost and production time.
Different people have different opinions on what's good game balance. To me it's quite important to have different viable openings - games could quickly become boring if all players do same build order each time. Optimally I would like to see both quick service depot and quick radar dome viable. For the first few minutes of the game we already see different openings being viable - double refinery and quick war factory can both work. Heck, we have even seen viable triple refinery before war factory. To me all different build orders don't have to be perfectly balanced - I think it's alright for some openings to be "better in a vacuum" if some build orders are good in certain maps or for a niche strategy. As an example, I will mention Gatekeeper's game in RAGL S2, R07 against FiveAces where he went for quick radar dome into 3 Airfields and Yaks (before service depot). I assume his idea was to snipe FiveAces' first expand in order to make it pay off. In the end Gatekeeper wasn't able to do so and ended up losing to FiveAces.
What I dislike about moving radar dome and tech center into different build tab is how it forces everyone to play the same build order. This is especially the case because with Omnom's current test build where service depot is required for building the radar dome. So with these changes, we would see everyone going for more or less same build order. Also, radar dome and tech center being in defense tab is really unintuitive and changes fundamental aspects of the game. I would prefer to nerf MCV spam and base push with different tools.
So here's my proposal. Remove BuildDurationModifier from MCV. It would change MCV build time from 32 seconds to 40 seconds. It would not nerf gameplan of single expand player significantly - by just 8 seconds. However, it would be quite a significant nerf to player spamming 4 MCVs: that would be total of 32 seconds slower build capacity (build time of about two mobile flaks or light tanks).
In addition to removing MCV BuildDurationModifier, I propose adding BuildDurationModifier to Radar Dome and Tech Center and possibly adjusting their price as well. This would keep tech being an expensive investment but faster build time would not put teching player as behind as tech tends to do in current live build. BuildDurationModifier 40 on Radar Dome would make build time about 8 seconds faster than currently. So it would almost allow teching player to build one extra barracks compared to current live build.
Pillbox and Turret price change nerfs feels good. We have plenty of evidence of Omnom's games as well as SoScared's playtest thunderdome games to come into conclusion that allied defensive buildings are still worthwhile to build with higher cost and production time.
I forgot to say touch the opportunity cost of defenses.
I think defenses should just be nerfed to the point where it's not always 100% correct to keep spamming them constantly from start of the game to finish. When we reach good spot in terms of defense balance, $ cost of defense becomes the determining factor of their opportunity cost. I dislike how putting tech in radar dome makes teching player unable to build defenses for that period of time. Getting flamer dropped when you're building your Radar Dome sounds like an awful luck-based way to lose a game.
I think defenses should just be nerfed to the point where it's not always 100% correct to keep spamming them constantly from start of the game to finish. When we reach good spot in terms of defense balance, $ cost of defense becomes the determining factor of their opportunity cost. I dislike how putting tech in radar dome makes teching player unable to build defenses for that period of time. Getting flamer dropped when you're building your Radar Dome sounds like an awful luck-based way to lose a game.