Removing kill bounties from RA

Discussion about the game and its default mods.
User avatar
AoAGeneral1
Posts: 597
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 6:11 pm

Post by AoAGeneral1 »

Removing the bounty system actually promotes IMO more emphasis on saving your units. (Some units anyways. A star ranked Mammoth is still awesome.)

Heres a list of bounty numbers tested with AMHOL:

Minigunner - 10$
Minigunner 1 stripe - 12$
Minigunner 2 stripe - 25$
Minigunner star rank - 50$

To the most expensive:

Mammoth Tank - 200$
Mammoth Tank 1 stripe - 250$
Mammoth Tank star rank - 1000$

(Some of the stripe ranks were skipped)

Light tank - 75$
Light tank 1 stripe - 87$

The bounties tested here has the potential to give much more massive earnings. Since infantry blobs are a thing in RA and the damage dealers they are getting most of the vets. Pillboxes killing infantry extremely well which nets them mass amounts of money. Let alone as mentioned by AMHOL the pillboxes vet inside the structure at a cost of 100$. (Instead of its garrisoned worth of 500$). So killing a dog vets the unit inside the pillbox.

This is the major problem. Fixing the vet issue with the pillbox is a start but the base crawling will continue with the bounty system because killing units with 1-2 stripes is well worth it. In itself killing tanks at worth 85$ at a 850$ cost gives a lot.

However! Fixing this also promotes another issue as Tanya in a pillbox if the vet is worth off the pillbox mechanic of 500 would promote Tanya even faster. AMHOL also pointed this out. So an idea could be to do 1200 + 500 = 1700 worth of vet value to gain a vet.

OMnom
Posts: 255
Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2016 4:04 am

Post by OMnom »

AoAGeneral1 wrote: Removing the bounty system actually promotes IMO more emphasis on saving your units. (Some units anyways. A star ranked Mammoth is still awesome.)
...eh? The logic here is not apparent to me, nor does it seem like it is sound logic.

Regardless, I'm going to leave this thread alone until I find some time to test this out for myself.

SirCake
Posts: 393
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2016 5:40 pm

Post by SirCake »

Realy, the kill bounty doesn't have so much impact. See this quick calculation:

One harvester returns 500c in about 17 seconds. That makes 29c a second.
An army of 20 rifle, 5 rockets and 3 med tanks costs 6050c which converts (with 10% bounty) to 605c.
That means, even if you are killing one of those armies losslessly every minute, you will get a bonus of of only 10c/sec. A third of a harvester... so come on... even a single oil derrick has more impact on income. You are imagining things.

Only a reckless commander feeding troops constantly into defenses without any gain will loose because of kill bounty (and he should loose).

User avatar
AoAGeneral1
Posts: 597
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 6:11 pm

Post by AoAGeneral1 »

@Omnom:

Because losing a Mammoth tank with stripes gives the enemy more income. It also has a major side effect with spies.

@SirCake:

It adds up. You just spoke that it gives roughly 605c. Add that in with the harv dump which goes to 1105c. Close to a cost of one tesla coil or a pillbox. Since pillbox structures are used for base pushing it pushes more so on this.

In regards to only a reckless commander feeding troops AKA base crawling defenses with arty pushes. Its why they are used to prevent unit losses.

Something else to consider, there has been some debate about a ranked unit is ment to be worth so killing these units provides a worth bounty. Meaning its ment to be profit for the value it killed.

So does this mean you are giving the enemy extra money if a spy infiltrates a barracks? The striped infantry didn't kill anything. They are automatically now giving extra income unless they manage to do damage. (Which doesn't happen vs pillbox spam or base crawling arty.)

User avatar
JuiceBox
Posts: 169
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 12:10 pm
Location: Liverpool

Post by JuiceBox »

IF the cash bounty is such a snowball effect this inturn should mean that every game winner should also always win the combat tab too right ?

This is not the case. I have witnessed many many games from a spectator and a player where the player wins the game but loses in the combat tab drastically. This should not be possible if your theory is sound.

I don't like the way this is all been dragged about. If you guys went away collected data and came back with undeniable evidence (not theory and opinion) that the cash bounty is a terrible thing am pretty sure people would listen. The way it is at the moment we have a stable cash bounty system that up unto last week no one ever batted an eyelid to. Now I feel I have to defend in depth or I am just causing Agro.

It is not for me to have to defend the cash bounty system! It is up to you to come at us with evidence and facts that it's a terrible system not the other way around. So please go do some more tests

In addition
If the results come back that removing the bounty system has no real affect on the game this shouldn't be an indication that the removal is a success and should be implemented. A result that only shows greater improvement to game play should ever be implemented if it doesn't show this then what's the point? I cannot see it having any effect other than slowing the game down.
"I love the smell of JuiceBoxes in the morning"
LT. COL. Bill Kilgore
Apocalypse Now

User avatar
AoAGeneral1
Posts: 597
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 6:11 pm

Post by AoAGeneral1 »

https://www.twitch.tv/zxganon_

Theres your test analysis. Check the vods and watch them closely.

Im well aware that evidence and data is needed. However, they are posted up above with listed bounty cash labeled on earnings. So im not sure what you are getting at exactly if you aren't reading the above.

There is also https://gist.github.com/kyrylo/71b286f2 ... 2af5b008eb that you can try and check out

Otherwise you can go to the OpenRA Resource page and download maps labeled (No bounty kills) as further testing. All the tools are there.

Not fully understanding your combat tab explanation as the games ive witnessed without bounties has been correct thus far. (IE: when I lost had 37k kills 48k in losses.)

This has been dragged around for a little over a year actually. Ive been mentioning about the system for a very long time and only recently its sprung up because players are abusing the base crawling. IE: Ganon and Omnomnom. Tech builds are not viable due to expenses with the bounty vs base crawling.

User avatar
JuiceBox
Posts: 169
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 12:10 pm
Location: Liverpool

Post by JuiceBox »

Am sorry a biased twitch TV channel and a list of maps Is not evidence. It's not for me to test your theory it's up to you to prove it! Omnom compiled countless hours of testing I would encourage you to do the same. At present you are defending a theory without evidence. Whilst I am defending something that's tried and proven.

What I am saying you have gone into this half cocked. If you ran all your tests and compiled your data and presented a case you would get a better response.

In regards to the combat tab. if kill bounty has such a snow ball effect how can anyone win with a negative combat tab and how can anyone ever pull off a comeback? Both happen currently with kill bounty.

I don't understand what the hell is going on. Never once have I witnessed somebody say 'fucking kill bounty is op'. This is the first time I have seen anyone have beef over it. And the majority of your responses are all for the kill bounty. So I ask what is your actual goal when the majority are defending the kill bounty ? Fair enough if everyone has been complaining about it for the last year but this is not the case.

I also would like to question it from a balance perspective. How is it unbalanced if both players benefit? The kill bounty rewards both players equally so what is the problem.

From a base pushing perspective this will achieve nothing. Removing kill bounty is not going to stop me dropping a base on your eco lines.

Also in your tests what is it you are actually testing? What are your parameters? What is the goal? RA will obviously play without kill bounty so producing countless games will provide nothing without parameters? What is the positive effect you are trying to achieve??
"I love the smell of JuiceBoxes in the morning"
LT. COL. Bill Kilgore
Apocalypse Now

User avatar
AoAGeneral1
Posts: 597
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 6:11 pm

Post by AoAGeneral1 »

Biased or not its analysis data. You can choose to read the data yourself or disregard it. Often times I go through twitch channels of both casual players and high competitive players to see their points of views on the game and how they discern its play styles. Otherwise, all the data is listed.

I sent you a pm.

klaas
Posts: 208
Joined: Wed Feb 06, 2013 9:38 am

Post by klaas »

AoAGeneral1 wrote: https://www.twitch.tv/zxganon_

Theres your test analysis. Check the vods and watch them closely.
This is a video of someone playing TD. I'm not sure how you would think this is an analysis, but the jury isn't convinced yet.

Maybe you could take a single game out of RAGL and make a case the bounty system influenced it in a bad way?

User avatar
JuiceBox
Posts: 169
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 12:10 pm
Location: Liverpool

Post by JuiceBox »

klaas wrote: Maybe you could take a single game out of RAGL and make a case the bounty system influenced it in a bad way?
Great idea! why stop at that.

No need to play test maps.

Plenty of games replays archived with players that have no bias to analyse. Surly you will find the evidence you need with this method
"I love the smell of JuiceBoxes in the morning"
LT. COL. Bill Kilgore
Apocalypse Now

User avatar
Sleipnir
Posts: 878
Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2002 11:52 pm
Contact:

Post by Sleipnir »

JuiceBox, please calm down. These kind of anagonistic and unconstructive responses are not adding value to the discussion, and are contrary to the forum's straightforward behaviour guidelines. Consider this as an official warning.

User avatar
JuiceBox
Posts: 169
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 12:10 pm
Location: Liverpool

Post by JuiceBox »

I don't understand how that is unconstructive?
Klass has just stumbled upon a good idea and I have simply expanded upon it?

Maybe the time for you to intervene was when anjew called me an autistic chin dribbler just saying
"I love the smell of JuiceBoxes in the morning"
LT. COL. Bill Kilgore
Apocalypse Now

User avatar
Sleipnir
Posts: 878
Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2002 11:52 pm
Contact:

Post by Sleipnir »

Yes, that was a time to intervene, and I did. You may notice that the original set of unreasonable posts were removed and replaced with a request for the community to be polite. I have also discussed the topic with anjew.

We have been light on forum moderation before now because the community has generally acted like reasonable adults. This has changed recently, with people using bad behaviour to try and shut down discussions that they don't like.
This behaviour will no longer be tolerated, and so if it doesn't improve then the offenders should expect restrictions on their ability to post until it does.

User avatar
JuiceBox
Posts: 169
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 12:10 pm
Location: Liverpool

Post by JuiceBox »

Warning noted

As I have been given an invitation by AoA to play test maps with him I'll take that as a formal invitation to the project.

First
we need to define our goal what is it? What are we trying to achieve?

Second
What are we comparing our data to? What data are we comparing ?

Goal
I think the first thing to do is set out what we are trying to accomplish I don't know what the idea behind it is so I would need someone to comment on this

Comparing data
To do this I would suggest picking two popular maps and compile an average from replays. I am thinking maybe the following.

Average game time
Average assets overall
Average battles on the map
Average size of armies 1st battle 2nd battle and so on.
Average float after battles
Average time between battles
% of winners that win the first battle
And so on

After you have this data it's then time to test the maps without the kill bounty and compare

If anyone else can think of something to compare feel free to comment.

Simply just playing a mod without kill bounty is pointless unless we have something to compare it to as I haven't seen any plan I took the liberty to outline a quick draft. If this has nothing to do with what you are testing am sorry and feel free to correct me
"I love the smell of JuiceBoxes in the morning"
LT. COL. Bill Kilgore
Apocalypse Now

User avatar
avalach21
Posts: 214
Joined: Mon Aug 10, 2015 8:01 pm

Post by avalach21 »

Why are bounties in the game at all?

1. They were not in the original game.

2. It makes no logical sense ? If you blow up a vehicle or kill someone in war, they don't suddenly turn into money. As comparison, I do like the idea of mechanics reclaiming destroyed vehicles as that makes some amount of logical sense.

3. From what I recall, later entries in the C&C series didn't implement this function.

I see the combination of all these points as a major reason to not have the bounty system. There would have to be a strong argument to deviate from the original source IMO.

The arguments I have all seen thus far are not compelling. If anything it promotes base walking and turtling, which are fine strategies in themselves (IMO), but people seem to complain about their overuse - So therefore, there is no reason to put in an illogical system that was not present in the original game or any of its sequels to further encourage these play styles.

Any "lack of money" argument to me is silly. You know what my answer is? Build an extra ore truck. Build an extra refinery. Build another base expansion. Capture some oil derricks if available. That is how you get money in C&C and that's how it always was. If there's still not enough money available somehow, that can be tweaked in ore regeneration rates and or how much each load of ore dropped off is worth (I don't even think these tweaks would be necessary, but would be better options and more true to C&C than a "bounty system").

Finally, as has been mentioned, it only enhances the snowball effect, causing people who are winning to gain even further advantages making it more difficult to mount a comeback, so in my opinion, it decreases the competitive quality of matches.

Post Reply