Pug Idea - Vintage style gameplay pug

Discussion in 'Events' started by Trickster, Sep 9, 2016.

  1. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

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    I've been batting this idea around between a couple of people for over a month now and I'd really like to try it out. I haven't spoken to any server owners about getting hosting for it but I'm hoping that won't be an issue. I did write out a post like this before but it ended up being a million words long, so I'll try to keep this succinct.

    As I've posted a few times, I think the emphasis on vehicle/research balance is really unimportant compared to larger economy based changes that have occurred within the game over the past 8 years or so, with them having changed gameplay a lot more than any amount of small script changes can do. Put simply, there are a lot more vehicles in the game now due to higher resources, plus the game is a lot faster as a result of both that and the change I made years ago removing research cost.

    I'd like tor try a pug with some of these changes reversed, so we can make a judgement on whether the gameplay is better or worse. A pug setting is ideal because doing it on a pub server will result in people just camping the VF while the vehicle limit is maxxed. It took a long time for us to get rid of this behaviour before so I don't expect it to happen over the course of a couple of rounds again. Plans are:

    1) Disable Wages: This added a great deal of resources into the game. I thoroughly believe wages goes against the whole principle of a true RTS/FPS, but that's actually irrelevant in this instance. We just need to get wages lower.

    2) Raise player multiplier threshold: One of my first acts as a lead developer was to get the messed up player multiplier fixed, as it was imbalancing many maps. I don't want to waste time explaining it in depth, but the long and short of it is that maps with refineries that had varying output (Mvalley, Dam 4x, North and A4/E4 refs 2x, main base 1x) became very unbalanced the more players were in the game, due to the way the resources were being raised as the player count went up. I got this fixed so everything stayed in proportion as it should do, but this also added a load more resources into the game. Raising the threshold much higher should counteract this to some extent.

    3) Research costs: Again this was on me. I felt this would negate the slippery slope effect where one team got ahead on research and won the game because of it. While it definitely addressed that, it also got us in a situation where dropping a radar ASAP and never stopping research meant you could expect Heavies on the field between the 20 and 25 minute mark, vs the 40-45 minute mark we had before. I can't really re-add research costs serverside as it'll cause a mismatch with scripts when commanders come to research. I may add in a specific change to Heavies (3k res?) and just tell the commanders they need 3000 resources to research it, but that's only a hacky workaround for the sake of this pug.

    4) Lower Salvaging: This was added kind of later on. I'm not sure exactly what the salvage percentages are but if I can lower them in the scripts without causing ingame mismatches, I'd like to. As I said, it was added as I was on my way out of the door so I don't know how it's dictated in the scripts atm, but I reckon this should be something we can do.

    5) Lower Vehicle limit: If all else fails, a vehicle limit will at least forcibly provide the gameplay test we want. I'm thinking either 10 or 12 vehicles regardless of how many players attend the pug. It's unfortunate that jeeps and such still count towards this number, but for the sake of testing we'll just have to hope players in the pug listen to their commander about building vehicles. Without wages it shouldn't be too hard to deal with as restricting the VF will allow the commander to control the team's vehicle flow.

    I should really have been more brief with this but like I said, I'm shitty at making things concise.

    The aim of these changes is to:

    Extend the Early and Mid parts of the game, while delaying the start of the lategame (Heavies).
    Put a greater emphasis on infantry throughout the game.
    Put a greater emphasis on commander resource management.
    Make vehicles actually matter more
    - When there are fewer and you have less resources, each one matters a great deal more, meaning you have to think about playing around your team more. Vehicles then need support of other vehicles or infantry, as running off solo with a vehicle and losing it is way more costly.

    Anyway, point is, are people interested in a pug along these lines? I expect their may be issues with numbers for a round or 2 while it gets fine tuned (too many resources, too few) so it'll need people to be patient.
     
    Tama and Neoony like this.
  2. Paradox

    Paradox I am a gigantic asshole who loses people's hard wo

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    All I heard was PUG.
     
  3. Xyaminou

    Xyaminou Member

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    I have been waiting for this!
     
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2016
  4. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    Sure sounds fun.
     
  5. blizzerd

    blizzerd Member

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    im so down to this......................

    get HSM to command also, and get some other old as fuck vets in it.
     
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  6. Donald Trump

    Donald Trump Member

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    This is what I have been arguing for.
     
  7. Avatarix

    Avatarix Member

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    >removing recycling
    not fun
     
  8. Neoony

    Neoony Member

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    Absolutely.
    Iam in even though I dont know the date yet :P

    This would literally test most of the things I would want from current empires, which would make it much more tactical and make things and actions matter more IMO.
    Current empires just spams resources and vehicles, which makes them so much less valuable, enjoyable and they matter much less.

    And even though there were issues with research costing money, what I like about it, is that research has another point of affection, which makes the game more interconnected.
    This would be ok if you could restrict some amount of resources for research.
    Still worth trying though.

    Most of those are the biggest issues I think the current empires has. And the negative game enjoyability which come from those issues is quite noticable IMO.

    If you can make all those changes just serverside, then that would be awesome for population.

    So Iam totally in for this. >:)

    Who said "remove recycling"?
    Or where did you take that from? lol
     
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2016
  9. Avatarix

    Avatarix Member

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    there it is
    PUG when
     
  10. Neoony

    Neoony Member

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    "remove" ????

    since when does "lower" means "remove"?

    Or according to your understanding, is Trickster also planning to "remove" vehicles then? (or rather the vehicle limit)

    xD
     
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2016
  11. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

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    I actually like vehicle salvaging, but I need to actually check the percentages first. To be honest it might not need touching because if there are less vehicles on the field, there will be less to actually salvage. I certainly wouldn't remove it, but it might need tweaking. It's probably the lowest affecting factor compared with resource rate, wages and free research.
     
  12. Avatarix

    Avatarix Member

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    uh okay, i understood that it wasn't when you were around so this would get removed or something
    kudos
     
  13. Donald Trump

    Donald Trump Member

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    Could some sort of countering system be re-introduced?
     
  14. Xyaminou

    Xyaminou Member

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    Right now you get over 50% of the initial cost of the tank, it's too much.

    No counters without scouting/spying on the enemy team! read what I wrote here.
     
  15. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

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    Yeah that's really high, I thought it was 20-25%.

    Also, these settings I want to change for the test are almost purely economy based. It has absolutely nothing to do with current research, vehicle or infantry weapon balance. I personally think all of that aspect of balance is well done at the moment. People put way too much weight on research and vehicle customisation as dictating how the game will play out, but it actually so much less influence on the game than anyone realises in my opinion. It will probably matter a great deal more in the scenario of this type of event because it'll likely make vehicle usage more about quality rather than the quantity we have in the stock game.
     
  16. A-z-K

    A-z-K Member

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    I'll play your hipster pug. lemme just dig out my beige Pentium PC.
     
  17. blizzerd

    blizzerd Member

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    We know, donald... we know.

    make empiresmod great again
     
  18. complete_

    complete_ lamer

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    add another one: change cv heat time to 0
     
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  19. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    i really miss com-wrestling. wrestling sonecha in mvalley north ... oh the memories :.sigh:
     
  20. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

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    Yeah like, as fun as these things were, they weren't good for the game at all. A lot of games ended in the first 60 seconds because of 2 people dicking about. It's one change I would not like to see reverted, it was done for the good of the game. The changes above aren't about "going back to the good old days", they're about trying to replicate a setup where infantry felt more important and the game didn't feel so short.
     

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