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Allies Overhaul Mod

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2018 6:09 am
by Orb
N/a "I love edited arties. Way more dynamic"

Frenzy "Nice"

ZxGannon "I'm going to switch to Allies"

Not convinced? Check out these awesome replays:
https://www.gamereplays.org/openra/repl ... &id=329408

ZxGannon vs ArticSea. Germany mirror with plenty of Chronosphere action!

https://www.gamereplays.org/openra/repl ... &id=329409

Smitty vs Anjew. Can Safety Smitty finally put to rest the Master's player who just won't let go?

https://www.gamereplays.org/openra/repl ... &id=329402

Gatekeeper vs AMHOL. After this match I feel he should rename himself to LightTankKeeper.

https://www.gamereplays.org/openra/repl ... &id=329410

Admiral Mo vs Blackened. Mo playing Soviets!?!?!?!

https://www.gamereplays.org/openra/repl ... &id=329411

Frenzy vs Admiral Mo. This match is all over the place!

Hello everyone. When I first started playing openRA I was an Allies main. But the main gameplay loop of Arty:Hind:AA gun drove me away from the faction. I'm here to fix that and make the faction more fun, dynamic, and engaging to play as. I am the mysterious person (or not so mysterious person) Smitty mentioned in his last playtest update.
That said, I don't mind the testing of an overhaul that restructures Allies away from the arty/AAgun/Hind/pillbox core that attempts to shoot the moon and fix everthing.
I've enlisted help for making such a playtest, and I believe he'll begin testing soon. If this test....

a) fixes the problems of stale play with AvA,
b) Keeps it to where Allies aren't being steamrolled by Soviets,
c) Isn't so controversial that I can't get it through review,

.... I can see myself agreeing with and implementing an overhaul.
That's right! This isn't just some crazy project side project I'm doing for fun. If all goes according to plan, this mod will most likely get merged into the base game. So it's a serious project with serious goals.

With that in mind, I'll be hosting a "FREE MONEY" tournament in the upcoming weeks. Now that I've finished initial testing, I need players to get "good" at the mod so I can really see if anything is broken. I do need casters and streamers, so contact me if you're interested! It'll be a one or two day weekend event, probably starting around 11am EST. And yes, there will be cash prizes.

Now, onto the the purpose of this thread. The following post I'll keep updated with patch notes and the like. If you're replying, DO NOT post new ideas. I am past the idea stage. I am not implementing AA Migs or moving Hinds to Soviets. I want replays and impressions from gameplay. I am very open to feedback right now, and I will obviously give more weight to well thought out opinions. Any sort of rambling I'll probably just ignore.

Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2018 6:10 am
by Orb
MAPS

https://resource.openra.net/maps/27032/
Race Tracks
https://resource.openra.net/maps/27031/
Pitfight
https://resource.openra.net/maps/27033/
Badger Hills
https://resource.openra.net/maps/27034/
Doublestep(2v2)
https://resource.openra.net/maps/27035/
Frozen Headland (2v2)
https://resource.openra.net/maps/27030/
Warwind (Classic)
https://resource.openra.net/maps/27029/
Sidestep (Classic)

Patch Rararara (v8 )
GPS changes were overall received well. Some mentioned it felt a little quick so I upped the cooldown from 4:00 -> 4:30.

I decided to go back to the Hind this patch since I nerfed it into the ground. Repeated play has shown that it's just a little too weak, so I gave it a 20% damage boost (-20% ammo). It now 2 shots infantry instead of 3 shots.

While the new Chronosphere is fun, I've had an ickling of a feeling it's a little OP. Now that GPS comes up quicker Allies has quite the power spike at T3. I removed the cooldown reduction on the Chrono, though the shift time reduction is still there.

Arty once again received another rework. Cost is up to 900 again (I'm still debating this one constantly), and now damage is more consistent. (Due to the way I set up the AOE before sometimes you'd kill no infantry and then sometimes you'd kill a whole bunch).

Future Direction: I didn't lower hind anti-light but upped the damage. One hind can kill an undeployed MCV. Might need to tweak there.

Patch Sonar Pulse (v7)
This is the last major patch I plan to do in the near future. I feel confident enough now to adjust GPS.

GPS is now on a 4:30 cooldown, lasts 16 seconds upon activation, and does not have a global countdown timer. Unfortunately most of GPS is hardcoded, so Unano helped me out with a workaround. Tech center spawns a building (silo) when activated, which generates the GPS. The building self destructs after 16 seconds, and then you lose the GPS. If the enemy kills the building or you sell it beforehand, you lose the GPS early, so place it safely!

In other news I also tweaked the MT/Arty relationship some more. First I redid the damage values on MT. Damage is 4500 now (which is -6% from previously, still about +12.5% better than before). Arty lost 1000 health (17500 -> 16500) so they still die to the same # of MT shots. Most importantly, Arty received a 33% damage boost vs none (30 -> 40), so now they do decent damage to infantry. They simply weren't performing well before.

Future Direction: GPS tweaks for sure. Does it last too long? Is the cooldown too short? It's hard to get a feel for these things in debug. Also, I might take a look at hinds again as Lorry has suggested. I've got a few ideas.

Patch Notes v6
An unofficial patch. This was played during N/a's streamed domination tournament. I didn't have enough time to write a post and I felt there was enough testing from the stream to push us to v7.

I reverted the Ranger cost/health changes. Nobody seemed to like the change and it's honestly not an important one.

I reduced arty cost to 800 again. This was mainly because I reduced the health last patch.

Mechanic husk capture health reduced from 50->40%. It was a little too powerful before.


Main Changes

My objective was to nerf the traditional advantages of Allies (Hinds, AAguns, Artillery) and move these advantages somewhere else. I wanted to emphasize mobility so I buffed the tank force. This synergies well with Allied mid-late game tech, such as mechanics, radar jammers, and the Chronosphere.

Below you'll find a simple change log and a detailed one. I highly recommend reading the simple change log and just diving into the game, to get a feel for it before reading the hard numbers.
LT: Cost 850, +HP, +Vision, +Heavy Damage, -Light Damage
MT: Cost 1000, +HP, +Damage
Arty: Cost 900, +Health, +Accuracy, +Turn Rate, -Reload Speed, -Projectile Speed, -Damage vs Inf/Light
Hind: -Damage, +Ammo, +Light Damage
AA Gun: -1 Range, -Damage
Turret: Power -30
Helipad: Power -20
Ranger: +Transport
Chronosphere: Shift Time -20%
Medic: -Speed
Mechanic: Cost 650, -Speed, +50% Repair, 40% health husk capture
Camo Pillbox: Cost 800
Spies: Cost 400
GPS: Temporary Ability. Place the ability somewhere safe!
-----------Detailed Change Log-------------------
Light Tank: Cost 850 (+150), HP 22000 -> 26600, Vision 5c0 -> 6c0, Light 116 -> 75, Heavy 48 -> 58

The first unit I worked on was the Light Tank. By increasing it's cost I was able to feel more free to buff it. It now has the same cost as the APC. It now takes 6 rocket shots instead of 5 to kill, and has the same vision as a flak truck. Early tests showed it ended games too quickly with fast MCV kills, so I heavily nerfed the light damage.

Medium Tank: Cost 1000 (+150), HP 45000 -> 50000, Damage 4000 -> 4500

The noodle tank as I like to call it, MT's always felt weak compared to Heavy Tanks. They could tank rifle fire or crush but that was about it. I upped the cost to make it like a medium-heavy tank and increased the damage/health proportionately.

Arty: Cost 900 (+100), HP 10000 -> 16500, Turn Speed 2 -> 4, Inaccuracy 1c938 -> 0c614, Bullet Speed 204 -> 170, None 90 -> 40, Light 60 -> 45, and a ton of Falloff adjustment

Artillery is a tricky beast to tackle, and I will assuredly need to tweak the numbers further. I have basically turned it into a rapid fire V2. Shots on direct hit will kill infantry and heavily damage surrounding infantry, rather than killing everything like before.

Hind: Ammo: 24 -> 40, Damage 2500 -> 1500, Light 72 -> 108

When I halved the damage randomly initially I was rather surprised with how well it matched with how I wanted it to perform. The idea here is that hinds will still do the same total damage, but take more time to do it. This means you can close with rocket infantry and kill the hind. I buffed the light damage because Allies had a really difficult time with chronotanks.

AA Gun: Range 10c0 -> 9c0, Damage 1200 -> 900

With the hind nerfed and artillery HP buffed, I felt free to nerf the notorious AA gun. It still blasts things out of the sky, but now you can escape with your yak if you're quick on the trigger finger.

Turret: Power 40 -> 30

A minor buff. I always felt the turret cost an absurd amount of power. Also with better Allied tanks I figured Allies would need better deterrents. (Change received Mo seal of approval)

Helipad: Power 10 -> 20

Airfields cost 20 power, so why don't helipads? I also did this to do an additional nerf to hinds.

Ranger: Max Weight 1->2

Smitty is putting this in his playtest, so I see no reason not to include it.

Chronosphere (and German): Shift Time 500 -> 400

Ideally the Chronosphere should have close to the same utility value as the Iron Curtain. The shift time is a buff because often times your units will finish their job and sit around, waiting to be killed until they get shifted back. You're more likely to retain your units with the shorter shift time.

Medic: Speed 56 -> 50

Medics often suicide because they end up at the front of your army. With this change they have the speed of a mammoth tank, and often end up nice and safe at the back of your army.

Mechanic: Cost 650 (+150), Speed 56 -> 50, Repair -2000 -> -3000, Capture Husk Health 25% -> 40%

Mechanic got the same speed treatment as the medic. The cost increase is because I increased the cost of medium tanks, and didn't want to increase the value of the husk capture. Additionally the cost increase freed me up to boost their repair speed.

Camo Pillbox: Cost 800 (+100)

Camo's are a buggy unit. They have multiple targeting bugs relating to artillery and you can't scout them with planes. This just encourages campy play and frustration. At 800 cost this pushes them into niche play, where they belong.

Spies: Cost 400 (-100)

This was suggested by a player and I don't see any reason not to. Spies are an interesting unit that should see more use. I also did this so it was closer in cost to the British Spy (British spy cost unchanged).

GPS: Cooldown 4:30, Duration 22s

GPS has for a long time received as much critique as the arty/AA gun shenanigans. I've changed it so that it works much like a super spy plane. You get GPS earlier than usual, but it only lasts 16 seconds. Since it's GPS, it doesn't show what the units/structures are, so spy plane still has an important uses (such as scouting nukes). Since GPS is hardcoded Unano had to help me with a workaround. When using the GPS ability you spawn a building that generates GPS. The building self-destructs after 22s. If you lose the building early you lose the GPS early, so place it safe!

Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 8:14 pm
by lawANDorder
If I might say one little tiny thing, it could maybe be appropriate to add some team maps to your map pool if the aim is to include the balance changes in the standard RA mod, just to give casual players and people who can not play the game at the level you guys do in 1v1 but also have fun playing it a chance to try it out.

Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 8:29 pm
by CatGirls420
Thanks, maybe if you use some more of my ideas, theyll get recognized. People loved the artillery I made (that you did a while after i did) and many other things that you did which i did first.

If you guys just tried CG420 maps, youd have all your answers. Or play them, since obviously some mappers/modders are, when 90% of "their ideas" are actually my ideas and changes, that have slowly introduced to the base game ever since I started making mod maps. 90%. Almost exactly what i did or similar. Right, but "oh catgirls is trash he has no idea what hes doing".

Lol, seems more like people just dont like how I do things better. I mean, if I was so bad, I wouldnt have people copying/ripping off almost all of my ideas, and some of mine wouldnt be in the current release, now would they?

"Artillery is a tricky beast to tackle, and I will assuredly need to tweak the numbers further. I have basically turned it into a rapid fire V2. Shots on direct hit will kill infantry and heavily damage surrounding infantry, rather than killing everything like before. " pretty much word for word what i say about my artillery.

Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:13 pm
by WhoCares
I think you mean that pchote and all westwood studio have rippen off your ideas and created (open) red alert. Everybody know that Nerevaril is the mind behind C&C series.

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2018 12:00 am
by Blackened
I wanted to share some thoughts on this outside of the game.
LT: Cost 850, +HP, +Vision, +Heavy Damage, -Light Damage
I'm mostly okay with this though I do have my reservations about it.
MT: Cost 1000, +HP, +Damage
Same as above.
Arty: Cost 900, +Health, +Accuracy, +Turn Rate, -Reload Speed, -Projectile Speed, -Damage vs Inf/Light
Pretty ambivalent towards this though leaning slightly towards against. Even with the hp reduction so that Yaks can 1 strafe an artillery you've made these even more powerful than before. Sure their infantry killing ability is reduced but they are so much more effective everywhere else. I know you've always hated how much effort it takes artillery to kill defenses but these changes bring artillery much closer to TD artillery but with more health and that is pretty scary.
Hind: -Damage, +Ammo, +Light Damage
This one is a toss up. On one hand it is a pretty big nerf to hinds. Halving the damage is obviously a huge nerf to sniping buildings. When you add in the fact that adding more air units causes bad congestion it gets worse. Additionally you buffed light damage but its actually worse dps wise than before. While 1 Hind can now kill an undeployed mcv outright or 4 flaks (compared to leaving an undeployed mcv at 30% hp and 2.5 flaks before) it takes longer to do so which is important when something is trying to kill off Hinds. You're going to lose a lot more trying to do the same job as before. I can't imagine the pain of trying to prevent a tech center from launching GPS. On the other hand it creates separation between Allies and Soviets while incentivizing Tier 3 as more rewarding (Something I feel RA seriously lacks)
AA Gun: -1 Range, -Damage
Don't have much to say about this other than I believe smitty tested similar things and decided against it. You have other changes though that might make it work here.
Turret: Power -30
This one I agree with.
Helipad: Power -20
Also okay with this one.
Ranger: Cost 400, -Health
I don't even know if they need a hp drop. anything besides lone infantry can effectively counter rangers.
Chronosphere: Charge 1:30, Shift Time -20%
Haven't seen this in action yet so no idea.
Medic: -Speed
Something something TD infantry....
Mechanic: Cost 650, -Speed, +50% Repair, 50% health husk capture
The above but repair speed seems like it'd be OP. Like the health capture increase though.
Camo Pillbox: Cost 800
probably okay with this.

I'm not sure if the trend of increasing prices is good or bad but I find it a little concerning. Late games are really going to stall out when you need to build such expensive units. So maps are going to need more money/more mines to compensate which also effects early/mid game. again not sure if that's a bad or good thing. In a similar vein the power creep going on with tanks that seems to happen with every release.

Making allied vs allied less staticy is nice but at the sacrifice overall faction uniqueness isn't a good idea.

NEED MORE GAMES TO TEST :)

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2018 1:17 am
by Orb
lawANDorder wrote: If I might say one little tiny thing, it could maybe be appropriate to add some team maps to your map pool if the aim is to include the balance changes in the standard RA mod, just to give casual players and people who can not play the game at the level you guys do in 1v1 but also have fun playing it a chance to try it out.
Next version will have my favorite 2vs2 OTT maps. I'm keeping the # of maps low so it's easier to test. You make a good point though, I'm just taking it slow.

Blackened:

I don't think increasing the price of tanks/arty will affect late game income scenarios. Soviets have more expensive tanks and same cost arty and this was never brought up before as a concern. From the games I've seen people have had plenty of vehicles late game to make plays with (whether this is because tanks are easier to keep alive or because the price change doesn't make a difference, I'm not sure)

Concerns about reducing faction diversity are valid. However, I think it only seems that way because players are used to the old way of playing. I'm going to hold my breath on this point because I think players are just bad at playing the new Allies, and it'll take awhile for players to come up with new tactics/strategies to make play interesting again. Units such as spies are still criminally underused.

As far as Artillery goes I know I still have a lot of work to do on that unit. The accuracy stat, projectile speed, and fire rate I think are in a good spot. Damage vs infantry seems good as well (though still needs more testing). Speed, Health, and Anti-structure damage will probably need to be adjusted further. The most likely change in the next patch is -20% health.

The reduced infantry speed has been brought up a few times now but I'd like to make it clear: It's a quality of life change. The 10% speed decrease is barely noticeable in most cases and it's just there so that your support infantry tend to end up at the back of your army. TD rocket infantry are much slower than rifles, the comparison isn't even fair. I haven't seen in any games medics get caught out on retreats or getting picked off because they lag too far behind.

Rangers are a tough unit to balance because they can quickly swing into OP territory. Without the health decrease two rangers can kill a flak truck and easily kill small groups of infantry. Would rather not have Nod Buggies in RA. On the other hand if I don't decrease the price I'm afraid they'll be under powered compared to the new light tank. FiveAces dislikes the change as well and I'm definitely open to suggestions. Since I'm merging Smitty's change to give them two transport slots, it might be fine to put them back at 500 cost.

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2018 11:55 am
by Sleipnir
Moved to the Mapping and Modding forum.

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2018 11:43 pm
by Orb
Allies Overhaul v5 is now out in the wild. Check the 2nd post for details.

Posted: Thu May 03, 2018 8:00 am
by maceman
One thing i noticed during the tournament (which might be due to the domination game mode, or the macro heavy style of N/a's maps) is that lots of games were just medium tanks and infantry on the allied side. There wasn't too much in the way of artillery, or tech that I saw.

Posted: Fri May 04, 2018 1:02 am
by Orb
Patch Sonar Pulse (v7) is out in the open now! V6 was showcased on FiveAce's last stream, but I never got around to making a post for it. Check out details on both patches in the 2nd post!

maceman wrote: One thing i noticed during the tournament (which might be due to the domination game mode, or the macro heavy style of N/a's maps) is that lots of games were just medium tanks and infantry on the allied side. There wasn't too much in the way of artillery, or tech that I saw.
I would definitely attribute it to how domination works, but in general I have seen less teching, so the observation isn't wrong. I've adjusted the arty/MT power dynamic this patch, so we'll see how things go.

Posted: Fri May 04, 2018 10:55 am
by eskimo
maceman wrote: One thing i noticed during the tournament (which might be due to the domination game mode, or the macro heavy style of N/a's maps) is that lots of games were just medium tanks and infantry on the allied side. There wasn't too much in the way of artillery, or tech that I saw.
That's how i play allies under the current release, as only a few arties do enough damage to infantry. I think if anything we'll see more arties under Orb's build now due to them being more reliable base pressurers. At least thats how i see them used for myself, as i currently don't arty push much.

Posted: Sun May 06, 2018 12:21 am
by Orb
Patch Rararara (v8 ) is available for download! Here we see some Hind buffs and more tweaks. Check out the 2nd post for deets.

Posted: Sun May 06, 2018 12:39 am
by CatGirls420
" Arty received a 33% damage boost vs none (30 -> 40), so now they do decent damage to infantry. They simply weren't performing well before.
"

You know if you just asked me I could've saved you a lot of trouble. Again, "been there done that". If you want more balanced artillery, just copy my cg420 values, and see how that works. Everyone says its great. Can't hurt to try, right? Especially since my values for artillery are known to work/are balanced.

Re: Allies Overhaul Mod

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2018 7:40 pm
by N/a
BUMP


Whats the word on these changes being implemented in the future? Really important if we are serious about making allies vs allies games a lot better.