Empires 2.23 Released

Discussion in 'News' started by Kylegar, Mar 14, 2009.

  1. Roflcopter Rego

    Roflcopter Rego Member

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    Well, I went on the IRC and did some speakings.
    Barracks cost is now a problem, although so was barracks spam. So after mild rage it was decided that the best thing to do would be to increase starting res on maps, so that initially you can get that ground, but can't dig in stupidly with rax spam, unless you seriously sacrifice tanks.

    Lone gren ninjas are really gay, and shouldn't be able to 8 mine the cv. However, tank rush style ninjas require planning and teamwork, which is what empires is all about. but as it is, you can't damage the CV enough, it takes many minutes. If this is possible, reducing mine to CV damage would be the best fix. otherwise something like they esplode on contact (so you know as soon as they try to kill yers) as opposed to movement.

    MKIIs are not a good idea what with the LT/AFV imbalance as it is. AFV absolutely must be smaller, there is no way you can really attempt to balance the game without this. also, when in tank combat it is generally accepted that cannons overheat you way too much. either they should do much less heat, or missiles do a little more to fire and have almost no affect upon impact. If you don't have the resources to make the AFV smaller (although I think you do, P yo A is doing it, vess has designs) then you have to remove MKIIs. Which is a shame, because they are quite nice. after this you can consider things like moving it to adv chassis or giving it a separate tech to balance, as now it's hard to comment.

    And the last issue, reactive. There is no reason for it to be more powerful. either a) lower it's health considerably or b) lower health a bit (still the best armour though) and give it a lot more time to research with no other benefits, as in make it the equivalent to Adv. coolant.
     
  2. HaschteWas

    HaschteWas Member

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    About the "new" map you added...
    emp_coast is a nice map, and it was properly compiled in its beta versions where I had about ~60 fps averaged (i got a very old pc...).
    Now i updated to 2.23 and i got ~20 fps on it.
    WTF? I went to console and found that in RED color spamming over and over:


    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/orexCluster2B.mdl' checksum -719038615 should be -2013755202
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/orexCluster2A.mdl' checksum -746805410 should be 986153331
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178
    Error Vertex File for 'Common/props_foliage/trees/tree_orex.mdl' checksum -659957163 should be -1001926178

    I think you guys never checked if the "new" version of coast runs properly.
    But well, maybe you only forgot about the fact that some ppl already got a beta version of that map, and maybe the model files for those versions are not compatible to "new" version.
    Thats why i removed all files in the Common/props_foliage/trees/ folder concerning that problem and re executed the patch installer.
    But that doesnt help @ all although all missing files were repalced with the ones contained in 2.23 updater. But then i realized that it is not my job as user to play around with any source files of the game.
    Hope that problem which was introduced by devs will be fixed by them.
    Right now coast is unplayable for me. And imagine i didnt even join a fucking team to find a bug that pisses me off.
     
  3. dizzyone

    dizzyone I've been drinking, heavily

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    It's actually version b5 of emp_coast, the same one that ran as a custom on nachos. Seems like the error is being caused by the updated trees.
     
  4. zenarion

    zenarion Member

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    I like 2.23
     
  5. RoboTek

    RoboTek Member

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    I agree save one thing. I believe the problem between LT and AFV is one that can be solved by adopting proper weapon balance. Realistically an AFV is better at certain things because it has better armor and weight. LTs only have their size and missiles going for them. This would be fine, but vehicles are too hard to kill now (meaning they can ram you up and unload), and cannons just don't do the job well enough.

    After looking at the numbers, per unit weight, reactive has the best general health in the game besides composite. Yes, it weighs more, but this just means it is possible to achieve a high-weight turtle of a vehicle AND place less plates while still being equivalent to other armors at full use.
     
  6. Aquillion

    Aquillion Member

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    I love the opt-in thing. And a new official map was sorely needed.

    But I do have to say... the MkIIs, while a cool idea in theory, have really hurt balance. The problem with the MkIIs is that, by letting BE use their lights even more, it makes the light-vs-meds problem even worse. All that this does is let NF skip their meds; it doesn't help BE at all, because they're obviously going to want to go for a medium.

    I have a simple solution: If you want a rank of tanks between lights/AFVs and mediums, then make the MkIIs use the Medium model rather than the light/AFV model. That's more balanced towards BE, and can make up for the light/AFV imbalance.

    Reactive just seems like it was over-buffed by mistake. I thought it was well-balanced before -- it's an easy-to-get armor, in a very popular and useful place on the tech tree. The cost for this was that it was overweight, expensive per-plate, and not that great to justify those weaknesses.

    Now it is great enough to mostly justify those weaknesses, and I don't see how that was necessary. Reactive's selling point is that it's right next to 3-Phase + Rails / Guided + Turret upgrades, so you can roll out a whole bunch of useful stuff quickly. But it's supposed to be the weak point of rushing via the Electrical Engineering tree, in the same way that biodiesel is the (relative) weakpoint of the bio tree.

    (And, of course, it synergies badly with the MKii problems -- Electrical Engineering has a great weapon for the new NF MKii, while the only cannon in the tree is 3-slot. That means more powerful reactive makes NF MKii EE rushes deadly, without giving NF an easy way to defend against them...)
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2009
  7. dizzyone

    dizzyone I've been drinking, heavily

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    Reactive was buffed in the light of it being a bad armor in mid and end game. It being buffed simaltaniously with the addition of MK's and the general buff in armor, might not have been the grandest of ideas, rather unfortunate if anything, but the fact still remains the hype is based around reactive being fitted onto light tanks and not necessarily it's characteristics.
     
  8. Satanchild666

    Satanchild666 Banned

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    In the next version (either 2.4 or 3.0) can we you make sure emp_money is no longer official?
     
  9. Aquillion

    Aquillion Member

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    Not every armor needs to be that great in the mid to end game, though. Reactive saw plenty of use, which is the important thing... it gave comms focusing on EE a tactical choice between getting quick-and-dirty 'decent enough' armor now (and hoping they can replace it later, wasting time overall in exchange for early speed), or going for a better armor in another tree at the cost of slowing down their rush to a good tank.


    Also, equaling out Plain with other armors a bit was a long-needed change... but it's only half of a solution, which is causing some of the other problems players are seeing (like complaints of infantry being too weak now.) The reason why it needed to be done IMHO was because early-game weapons, infantry weapons, and turret weapons were hard to balance with such a weak starting armor.

    But now, infantry weapons, ML turrets (esp. level 1s and 2s), and starting tank weapons probably need to be buffed to match this increase. (Of course, if you do that, structures will suddenly be easy to kill early game, which may be bad or good... and if you buff structures to fix that, deconstruction and seismics will be nerfed...)

    Alternatively you could just reduce all armor health by a certain percentage; this will keep armor a bit more equal, but without the way tanks are almost impossible for infantry to kill now. But that will make them more vulnerable to late-game tank weapons...

    Well, uh, good luck!
     
  10. Sirex

    Sirex Member

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    This is exactly what is needed to be done!
     
  11. Roflcopter Rego

    Roflcopter Rego Member

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    why would these make buildings more easy to destroy? RPG does hardly any damage to buildings, as do lvl 1 MLs. And mortar is fine now, just leave it alone.
     
  12. LordDz

    LordDz Capitan Rainbow Flowers

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    Why? It's server owners that set's the maplist that they want to play, people shouldn't have to download an old map.
     
  13. dizzyone

    dizzyone I've been drinking, heavily

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    No you're right, reactive is geared towards low tier and works best on lights and mediums. The changes are not suggesting otherwise, the mistake made here is that when you add up the changes made, reactive seems to be getting the biggest slice.

    Infantry vs tanks will be addressed in the upcoming versions. As well as structure health.
     
  14. Aquillion

    Aquillion Member

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    I have updated an old 2.1 tech tree I found on the Wiki for the new version's research costs and times: Here.

    Note that these numbers are straight from the script files. The in-game interface may still lie about some things (I know it did in the past.)
     
  15. Emp_Recruit

    Emp_Recruit Member

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    I've held back my criticism of 2.0 releases as growing pains but this is weak.

    ----------------------
    Empires 2.23 Changes

    Added: Experimental game events, for plugin support.
    Added: MKII chassis; they are 2 new experimental variations on the BE AFV and NF Light Tank, modified to fit bigger weaponry. Available by researching "Upgraded Chassis".
    The game already favors NF so heavily and this gets added? It makes no sense. I can understand at the start of 2.0 it was hard to account for balance but this clearly favors NF. In the thread pretty much every tester expressed this was a terrible idea without some way to fix LT/AFV balance.


    Modified: Barracks now cost 400 resources.
    The problem with barracks is how quickly they are built 95% of the time not the cost. Its the fact 1 engineer with repair upgrade can build it in the enemy base in roughly 20 seconds. With these huge 20 player games with the resource modifier even at 400 res its pretty much still the same cost as 200 in 10v10. Just like making APC spawns research able it doesn't really fix the problem that APCs can still spawn an infinite number of people and race past most lines of defense.
    Modified: Damage drain suffered by sabotaged buildings is now 20 per interval (used to be 4).
    Modified: slight increase in the squad point range.
    Modified: squad arty and squad revive costs doubled (8 and 10 respectively).
    Doubling? Thats so extreme why not start at 1.5x costs? The only fun thing left in the game is working together as squads and really its generally either you are working close together as a squad and getting squad points or your entire squad is spread across the entire map and an increase in range isn't really going to help that much.
    Modified: the research tree has been rebalanced, time and cost of many items have been changed.
    Modified: Removed Improved Detonators research inside Electrical Engineering branch, it didn't do anything.

    Modified: Infantry weapons, for a detailed list see ".../empires/scripts/changelog_infantry_weapons.txt".

    Modified: Vehicles as follows:
    Buffed stock AFV hull health from 150 to 200.
    Increased HP of plain armor.
    Changed costs of a couple armor types.
    Lowered heat to damage mod for CV, from 0.18 to 0.14.
    50.cal HMG, ammo from 75 to 125.
    railgun, lowered weight from 120 to 110.
    Lowered maximum weight of APCs by 40.
    Increased maximum weight of AFV by 30.
    Not enough and I hope cost was lowered to account for this
    Slightly buffed damage modifier for reactive armor.
    Plain armor heat dissipation from 4 to 6, it now dissipates heat at the same rate as the Bio Diesel Engine.
    Doubled CV armor's HP from 30 to 60. Can hopefully be justified by Damage to heat absorbed still being higher than other chassis.
    Why does it even have such high damage to heat in the first place? The only reasoning I heard was it was so comms couldnt' rush and drive around and run people over/blah blah blah which hasn't even been a problem since 1.08 testing. NO ONE DOES THIS! The games are way to big your ass is just going to get stickied or walled or killed by grens. This isn't 1.073 stop trying to balance for it.
    Increased health of all armors by ~20, decreased damage modifier of the CV armor from 0.8 to 0.6.
    Yay now grens are even more useless against tanks.
    Raised Hull Health of Medium and Heavy tanks.
    Increased CV hull Health from 1200 to 1600.



    There are plenty of worthwhile changes that could have gone in like increasing the speed of grens RPGs and buffing the damage a bit. Instead stuff has been added that just breaks the game more and more. I see lots of good features and improvements to the engine being made but gameplay decisions never address the real problems.

    The "oh we are testing stuff out nothing is permanent" thing is fine by me for 2.0 when we were pretty much starting from scratch. But there is no reason to add stuff that is so obviously unfair(MKII). Reactive was one of the most used armors in 2.22 and now its buffed? I see a lot of good changes like upping the CV health so bum rushes with 2-3 LTS(although now 2-3 MKII lts would prob do it) can't end the game so easily. Weapon balance and the new features sound great too but the whole patch is undermined by things like the MKIIs. Balance has always been empires #1 problem and I don't really see why something that so clearly favored the better team was added. You can go along that your just testing and you want to see how it goes ext ext but that's how you lose the player base.

    My two cents I don't really have time to play much if at all with my school commitments but IMO the devs either need to start playing or listening to the people that do. I feel like the game is trying to be balanced with spreadsheets and for 1.073.
     
  16. Mr. Weedy

    Mr. Weedy I will report bugs on the bug tracker

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    These are the very rare moments when I'm friend with simon and agree with him totally.
     
  17. -Mayama-

    -Mayama- MANLY MAN BITCH

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    Making changes and adding the countermesure in like 3 updates later wont help the mod
     
  18. Mashav

    Mashav Member

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    3 Things:
    1. With the increase to all Armour, MLs (specifically my lvl 3s) have been nerfed. Increase all ML damage by a bit and/or increase damage per missle for lvl 2 and 3 (eg +15 to all + another 10 to lvl 2 + 10 lvl 3) (numbers would need to be tweaked)
    2. Raxes should scale with cost to other raxes rather then just cost alot eg. 1 rax next rax costs 200 2-3 300, 3-4 400 etc. (numbers would need to be tweaked)
    3. The update notes for infantry(giving us a place where the changes were) was nice but the "the research tree has been rebalanced, time and cost of many items have been changed" was still lacking details. Next time please also include a more detailed list of what has changed.
    Other then that i haven't played enough to know.
     
  19. The Buttery Lobster

    The Buttery Lobster Drama Queen.

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    As usual, although I may disagree with simon on many other things, when it comes to game balance, he nails it right on the head. Well said simon.
     
  20. mr_quackums

    mr_quackums Member

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    i think most of the complaints could have been avoided if there was some warning about what would be released. i personally did not even know a patch was coming until it was out, and all that has been talked about were general balance tweaks, not a new chasi and altered tank vs infantry and tank vs building dynamics.
     

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