A problem with research

Empires has always suffered this, ever since as far as I remember. But its the problem of scale. When something is researched, it makes something in the game better. For example, you research another armor type, and you get armor that can take more rocket hits. That is a great concept and is a staple of any RTS games. The problem is though, the improvements that come from upgrades are too much.

You upgrade to Regen armor, and the HP doubles (or triples, I am not sure how it is in the latest version) and gets regenerative ability. This is the easiest upgrade to get. The issue with that huge jump is that it makes handheld rocket weaponry useless against it. This led to the developers adding an upgraded RPG to counter. Only issue is, now the smaller vehicles are death traps, and are useless into mid to late games. This affect is amplified 6 times when heavy tanks are researched. Now it is impossible for a good player to take down a heavy tank unless he is also in a heavy tank with comparable research. If the team is behind, they have to have more players per tank, and not just 2 or 3, but like 5 or 6. Depending on the server that could be 25% of the whole team.

To not have research basically is to instantly game looser. Not having research should make the game harder, but not impossible to win.

Another side effect of this is rage quitters. People leave the loosing side when the going gets tough. There is a reason for this: they know that chance of winning is impossible. Every person who has played empires longer than a day knows that if the other team has research and your team doesn't your chances are very very slim that your going to win. It doesn't matter how good you are, you still wont win it. It doesn't make the game FUN to be on the loosing team. Why do you think so many people hang out in spectator scoping out the team? They don't want to be on a team that gets raped because their team was a little behind on research, or skill, or both.

One major screw up in when in this game, usually costs the whole game. There is no way to rebound, so it goes down to taking out their CV before you are crushed under the enemies boot.

This same concept applies to weapons. HE is extremely powerful to the regular cannon, plus it has a huge splash radius. Unless your comatose, you will rape anyone who is shooting back at you with a regular cannon, regardless of skill level. Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing like being in a super tank and annihilating everything, but what if your on the other side of it? you would get frustrated that your rockets don't even dent the armor on that heavy tank.

So the game play results in rushing up the tech tree as fast as possible, every time. Any other game play styles (like turtleing) does not work at all. Research has almost surpassed getting resources in importance (and the only reason it hasnt is because you need resources to research).

Research should come in the form of small improvements over time, give you that edge over your enemy. Not take over the fight and win it for you.

This extreme separation between being a winner and a loser is also what scares off the new players. There is no middle ground, your either going to get crushed in every way possible, or going to be able to kill everyone with ease. It is usually the former, because they are new, and they will likely be grouped up with more newbies. Anyone would get frustrated and leave the mod if they loose every time they play.

The research needs to be made for gradual improvements over time, that will make the game more welcoming to other people, it will also remove unnecessary upgrades in the game that are like band aids to the root of the problem (RPG upgrade). Plus a score of other fixes to the game. The issue here is it will be hard to make changes because the l33t tanker guy will bitch about how is precious heavy tank was "nerfed". But I ask you, if your so good, why do you need 6 composite plates of armor? I would say that the only reason your good is because your indestructible. Anyone can be good if they are damned near impossible to kill them.

I can go on forever at how changing the research will fix other problems and open up new types of tactics, but I am done now.

 

I think research should take much longer than it does to increase the strategy necessary in any certain research path. It would also prolong the match, which is a good thing. Like thinking about ethel merman during sex so you can go an hour and half.

 

This does make sense,
I could easily see regen having the same hp as standard, but with the extra bonus of regen.
Absorbent being basicly the same as standard, but with the bonus against fast moving shells.
Reflective, standard with a bonus against things that hit on the angle.
Comp, standard, but much lighter.

Weapons might be more complicated.

There is the risk of causing endless stalemates.

 

Or you know we could balance the game with other new mechanic instead of nerfing the ones we got?
Thining outside the box :p.

I support the suggestion to make research take longer to make different research path have more effect. But keeping their now in game power.

I also support to balance the problem with more game mechanics, not nerf stick.
Examples:
*Add infantry research station, this will open up a separate infantry tree to upgrade infantry with, thus if you are having troubles with enemy tank advantage you upgrade RPG and mines and sticy bombs or something like that, maybe an upgrade that gives your engineer free lvl2/3 missile turrets.

*Add doctrines, enemy got tank advantage? Use infantry/defence doctrine.

*Add more RPG upgrades.

*Give different cannons and missiles different damage to different targets. Not the current system that is only based on damage, speed of projectile and splash range.

*Give medium and light tank/AFV bonuses so they become viable later on in the game.

See the organise thread in the suggestions section.
Besides RTS game do have this, one research changing gameplay totally, like company of heroes, that game is legendary for it quick rushes with certain units.

 

Wait what? Standard welded plate armour equal in health per plate to composite advanced armour?
No i think research should add a good amount of health. Seeing as this armour will probably carry the team throughout the whole game, and that no one will be using paper armour so their is no reason to balance against paper armour.

 

Sure, balanced for weight and cost, it wouldn't be so bad

 

NERF != BALANCE
why is it when a suggestion like this comes up, first thing people think about it taking a shit on the stuff we have now. Rather than making regen, reflect, and absorbant worse, wouldn't it be better just to make plain better?

 

nope. cause the first tier is ballence with infantry

 

Infantry aren't nerfed compared to tank weapons and armor. In fact, they are almost always better than tank weapons and armor. The problem here is the RoF.

an upgraded rocket does 150 damage. That's like getting hit with 2 HE shells. Now, if that upgrade slightly decreased the reload time or made it so that you could fire 2 rockets without reloading (longer reload time though), that would also help balance infantry upgrades compared to tank upgrades.

 

No it is the lack of infantry upgrade that is the problem. An armour cost like 600 Res and 5 minutes to research, then an AFV cost like 300 Res.

A grenadier with an RPG costs one ticet.
You see the problem?

What we need are a seperate infantry research tree so commander have to chose between vehicle research and infantry, and have the ability to priority to upgrade infantry anti armour weapons. Like for instant the RPG. But other infantry upgrades including equipment bonuses and anit-personal upgrades should of course be available, seperate for each class. More examples could be researching lvl2/3 turrets for all engineers, or improved sticky bombs, or improved explosive grandes, armour penetrating rounds for HMG, etc etc.

Right now a commander must sacrifice his armour research even more to get better RPG, and that is something wich is proven to be very disliked and not used and not game winning.

Becouse if the commander needs to spend 500 Res and like 3 min to upgrade RPG WHILE at the same time can make vehicle upgrades we got our self a much more balanced game, sence the commander can then chose to upgrade infantry AT ability to counter armour, while the enemy commander could then maybe chose to go for even better tanks or upgrade his infantry anti-personal abilitys. Now we got our self a working RTS model.

And we don't got unlimited amounts of resourses so the commander can't dual upgrade all the time with out seriously lacking in resourses, he will need to make some prioritys, like medium tank or laser guided RPG? Expensive artillery tank or cheap mortar upgrade? Extended cannons or cluster hand grenades? Upgrade RPG or build two AFV?
But if he got the resourses and team plays well he have the opertunity to choice both if he got the res.

And guys ask your self, how many RTS have you played were you can only upgrade vehicles?

 

But "you" can upgrade infantry, they do it themselves with their skills.

 

Yeah but the point i was making was that i invest no resourses in infantry, why should they then be on pair with my 2000 resourses spent researching medium tank fully equipt?

With infantry upgrade you get more choices so you get more strategys. Like go heavy anti-tank infantry upgrades in the start, relying on infantry as your mayor AT weapon instead of your own tanks.

Company of heroes is an example in this were you chose between armour or infantry. Do i upgrade Schreks on my german infantry or do i try to get an Stug42 as my anti armour unit, have i resourses for both?

Shit enemy got tanks, need to take a fast sticky bomb upgrade for infantry.

 

you mean "advance stickie bomb"...

 

NOOOO, what about the Early game's sticky galor?!?!

 

What?
<filler>

 

Why do people always act like this? It isn't a MMORPG. You don't have hours and hours of grinding invested in your regen armor. You don't need to have a personal attachment to regen armor. You should be able to take a step back and realize that, in fact, nerfing all the advanced armors or buffing standard armors and then rebalancing weapons for the improved armor are in fact the same damn thing, with the exact same end result -- either way, the advantage of regen armor disappears. (I'm not saying I necessarily favor that specific solution, just using it as an example.)

It's all just juggling numbers in the end. Whether your regen armor is nerfed or the weapons hitting it are buffed is basically unimportant in the long term; what matters is that the devs keep tweaking the numbers until we end up with the desired overall effect. It's ultimately only that desired overall effect that's important -- the power of individual components like regen or absorbent or plain is totally irrelevant except in how they behave as parts of the larger game; increasing or decreasing the numbers associated with those parts are both equally valid ways of fixing problems.

Basically, saying "NUMBERS MUST ONLY GO UP! LOWERING NUMBERS IS BAD!" is stupid.



Anyway, I think the OP underestimating how much this has been improved already. Mediums, say, can beat heavies if they're used right -- I just now was on the winning team in a game where the enemy had heavies long before we did. This is mainly because 3-slot weapons are less overpowering now, in general.

As far as infantry goes... I think that's much improved, too. I'm all for infantry being more useful in the late game, but I'm getting the sense that some people are objecting to the fact that infantry can't beat tanks singlehandedly. Well, honestly... I don't think that that's a good thing to want. Tanks are expensive; they require a detailed strategy to grab and hold res nodes, to research, to roll them out and all that. Infantry should be able to offer useful support in tank-verses-tank combat, and there should be important roles only infantry can play; but typically, a lone infantryman with no support who encounters a medium or heavy should be in trouble. If infantry could fight tanks on equal footing, just about everything in the game besides infantry would be pointless and obsolete.

 

Generally agree with you but i think the point he is making is that nerfs are not liked because they diminish power to things unique things. But i understand what you are saying and agrees.

Here a good thing would be to make medium more specialised on being a Main battle tank with balanced weapons handling speed horsepower, and make heavys more like slow heavy tanks that are better in certain rolls, like heavy assaults and cramped maps, mediums should have an advantage at more open maps.

This is exactly what i mentioned before. And infantry that you have invested nothing in should not be able to beat tanks that got like total 2000 res invested in them.

But my solution is to open up a separate infantry research tree which you can then invest Res in infantry so they can become better.

 

http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=4451&highlight=Infantry+Research+Station

 

Eh... in the long run, though, tanks are still going to cost far more. Just a few heavies are rapidly going to cost as much as all the research you put into them... and if they're destroyed (unlike with research costs), all that res is wasted.

Unless you have some way to invest 1000+ res in an infantry in a way that lets the other team make that investment go poof, gone by killing them, I just don't think infantry capable of fighting tanks on even ground is a workable suggestion. If I invest 1000+ res in buying an expensive tank, the other team has a way to fight back -- they can blow it up and my team is out the 1000+ res. As a result, tanks are valuable and need to be protected. If I invest in infantry research that makes my infantry as strong as tanks, though? Screw that, tanks are worthless now.

I think infantry could use more ways of being useful, sure, but I don't think they should be able to directly fight tanks, because if they could, nobody would ever have any real reason to use tanks at all.