Better system for armor/weapon interaction (resists)

Discussion in 'Feedback' started by Nickierv, May 9, 2011.

  1. Nickierv

    Nickierv Member

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    After thinking about this issue for a long time, I would like to see if anyone can see a flaw with this idea.

    Keep in mind that the code for the new system is already in place, so the implementation time is “an afternoon”

    Currently, vehicle armor is balanced using two pairs of values: damage/hp and speed/speed to damage.
    From the standpoint of trying to balance anything, this is just about the worst possible system, as any change to one weapon affecting at least 5 interactions.
    From a player standpoint, the system is confusing: what about mgs? No mention in game of the "speed to damage" modifiers on any of the armor (I may be wrong), some in game information is misleading at best, outright wrong at worst.

    After working with the cannon/missile balance issue, I have come up with a rough definition of each by describing characteristics:
    Cannon: has arc, fast shell, high heat, dumb fire
    Missile: no arc, slow shell, low heat, may be smart
    As there seems to be little to no interest from either the dev team or players in changing the functionality of either cannons or missiles, further balancing seems to be somewhat difficult at best with the current system.

    In response to the issues with the current system, I offer a new system:
    Hp/damage
    individual resist for each weapon.
    Possibility of per chassis or per team chassis of each armor.

    How this might look for players
    Armor #1, 100hp, 20% resist to cannons (50% resist to rail guns)
    Armor #2, 80hp, 25% resist to missiles

    Rail guns 60 damage, (cycle and heat stats as is now) damage type "railgun"
    UML damage 100, type missile
    Homing missile damage 80, type homing missile

    Key points to note for the new system: hp, damage and resist are given in round, easy to calculate numbers, 100, 80, and some on.

    Match damage type with resist type (homing missiles are a type of missile, its logical) and quickly get an estimated survivability:
    50% of 60 damage is 'about' 30, armor #1 will be able to survive 'a bit more than' 3 hits from a rail gun.

    Armor #2 vs homing: 80 dmg - 25% = 60 hp. Tank with 4 plates of armor will be out of armor after 5 hits.

    The good news is that this system can be tweaked to match the current 'balance'.

    This separates weapon balance from weapon handling, makes determining survivability a lot easier and helps lower the learning curve for new players and anyone who doesn’t have a chart for weapon specs.

    As a preemptive response to "omg overly complicated system", take a good look at the current system. Then take a good look at and the patch notes when homing salvo was moved to 3slot with the reason "kills BE tanks too fast" and consider "all BE vehicles get 15% resist to homing salvo".
     
  2. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    apart from that i didnt have time to fully comprehend your post, did you consider that any hard(er) counter doesnt work in a game where the majority of players fully relies on the (imo random) choice of a single person (the commander)?

    i think that is what makes the weapon balance a bit "stale". there is only so little difference, especially with armors - the weapons each handle a bit different by design. but i dont notice (doesnt mean there is no difference how this is archieved) a huge difference, if i put 6plates of this or that armor on my heavy tank. also if you get armor against CNs (fast projectiles) it still sucks versus grens and ml turrets. if you take armor against MLs (slow traveling projectiles) it sucks against CNs wich every tank can use (i overplayed it a bit, infact its barely noticeable now - just look at it, abs is useable now)

    i think the best way out of this would be to detatch the choice from the commanders (random) decision and make every researchable item available all the time (instead of chassis types ofc).
    the most obvious change is that you now suddently are stuck with a two resarch items - namely mechanical engineering and upg.turrets. this ofc would be boring as hell aswell.
    so i propose to research upgrades (the specialities of the researchable items) rather then the items themselfs. say you could buff the regeneration of regenerative armor but not research the armor itself - or you buff the explosion radius of HE cannons and not unlock the weapon. just to name two examples, im sure you can get what im on about ...

    this would allow for hard counters and also have the sideeffect of a huge variety of tanks on the battlefield. you could finally counter this armor with that weapon or the other way round - and its no random decision by a single player anymore, but your own personal choice.

    but i know, it changes too much to be something people would agree with. even if i think my reasoning really is good ... i think this is one of the major fallacies in the basic desing of empires. where they simply took an RTS element an put it ontop of an FPS game instead of weaving it together. everyone should take a part in the RTS element of the game as everyone should take part in the FPS part (this is actually way more prominent, since even the comm usually spends more time in FPS - at least the better ones, be it boomtanking or building ...)

    thanks for reading. when i get home again, im gonna think your post through ;)
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2011
  3. dizzyone

    dizzyone I've been drinking, heavily

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    I'm not sure what your post is saying. If you're saying lets switch to the already implemented resist system. Which was implemented to replace the old balance system. Then the obvious answer would be, yes we should.

    Other than that you're missing out on key points, which is weight, cost, what it counters and where it belongs in research.

    Your post does not seem to add anything to the design of balance on resists, so I'm really not sure what your suggestion is about. The implementation would never be "an afternoon", the programming is less work than the actual balance, that statement makes me really doubt you're aware of what you're dealing with. Neither can the resist system "match" the current balance, one is based on generic modifiers, to other is weapon specific resists.
     
  4. Nickierv

    Nickierv Member

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    Here is the tl:dr version
    Clearly the old system needs to go, and options have been the table for quite a while, so why are we still on the old system?
    Is the lack of change from a flaw or issue that still needs to be worked out, a desire to keep the current system, or something else entirely?

    More to come...
     
  5. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

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    This is all completely possible currently. Just recomment the resists and nullify the speed modifiers.

    Code:
    Vehicle_armor
    {
    	"plainArmor"
    	{
    		"Name"						"Plain Armor"		//name given when selecting weapons
    		"Description"				"Plain armor offers mild protection from damage."		//description given when selecting weapons
    		"Icon"						"vehicles/gui/armor/armor_small"		//icon drawn in the GUI
    		"HUD Icon"					""
    		"Size"						"1"			//number of slots required when selecting weapons
    		"Type"						"0"			//which vehicle can use this armor
    												// 0=all, 1=ground, 2=aircraft, 3=ship, 4=jeep, 5=light tank/afv, 6=med tank, 7=heavy tank,
    												// 8=artillery tank, 9=apc, 10=all tanks:light, medium, heavy and artillery
    		"Weight"					"15"    	//** weight was 5
    		"Cost"						"5"			//cost of an inch of armor in resources, added onto the final vehicle cost
    		"Research"					""
    
    		"Health"					"45"		//amount of health per every inch of armor
    		"Regeneration"				"0"			//amount of health this armor regenerates per second
    		"Angle Modifier"			"0"			// was 0
    		"Speed To Damage Modifier"	"0"	
    		"Damage Modifier"			"1"			//modifier to damage (0.9 reduces damage by 10%; damage*0.9=damage taken)
    		"Damage To Heat Absorbed"	"0"			//percentage of damage received which is added as heat (0.2: damage*0.2=heat added
    		"Bioweapon Damage Modifier"	"1"		// was 1  //scale damage from biological weapons by this amount (bioweapon damage per interval * modifier = damage taken per interval)
    
    		"Sound Impact"				""
    		"Sound Repair"				""
    	//Resists
    		"AircraftMissileResist" 	"0.0" 		//Standard Cannon
    		"GeneralPhysicsResist"		"0.0"		//Physics Cannon 
    		"GeneralChemistryResist	" 	"0.0"  		//Chem Cannon
    		"GeneralMechanicalResist" 	"0.0"		//Mech Cannon
    		"GeneralElectricResist"  	"0.0"		//Elec Cannon
    		"GeneralBiologicalResist"	"0.0" 		//Bio Cannon
    		
    		"AircraftGroundMissleResist""0.0" 		//Standard Missile
    		"MissileResist" 			"0.0"		//Physics Missiles
    		"MissileExplosiveResist" 	"0.0" 		//Chem Missiles
    		"KineticResist" 			"0.0" 		//Mech Missiles
    		"ExplosiveResist" 			"0.0"		//Elec Missiles
    		"MissileBioResist" 			"0.0"		//Bio Missiles
    		
    		"BulletResist" 				"1"			//Standard Bullets
    		"APBulletResist"			"0.0" 		//Physics Bullets
    		"BulletExplosiveResist" 	"0.0"   	//Chem Bullets
    		"AircraftAPBulletResist" 	"0.0"  		//Mech Bullets
    		"AircraftBulletResist" 		"0.0"   	//Elec Bullets
    		"BioResist" 				"0.0"		//Bio Bullets
    		
    		"ExtraType2Resist" 			"0.0" 		//Standard Arty
    		"KineticArtResist" 			"0.0" 		//Physics Artillery
    		"ExplosiveArtResist" 		"0.0" 		//Chem Artillery
    		"AircraftBombBioResist" 	"0.0"  		//Mech Arty
    		"BioArtResist" 				"0.0"   	//Bio Artillery
    		"AircraftBombResist" 		"0.0"    	//Elec Arty
    
    		"InfantryGrenadeResist" 	"0.0" 		//Rifleman Explosive Grenades
    		"InfantryMineResist" 		"0.0"		//Gren Mines
    		"InfantryMissileResist" 	"0.0" 		//Gren RPG
    		"InfantryMortarResist" 		"0.0" 		//Gren Mortar
    		"InfantryStickyResist" 		"0.0"		//Sticky Grenades
    		"InfantrySeismicResist" 	"0.95"		//seismic Grenades
    		"InfantryBulletResist" 		"1"			//Infantry Std Bullets
    
    		"ExtraType1Resist" 			"0.95" 		//Building Damage
    		
    		"ExtraType3Resist" 			"0.0" 		//Mechanical Grenade Launcher
    
    	}
    
    Nothing needs to change because there's nothing to change, it's all possible already.
     
  6. Grantrithor

    Grantrithor Member

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    strangely what trickster posted made more sense than op.

    I think in tree weapons should not counter it's own armor, for instance he vs absorb or bio vs regen, like cmon wtf.
     
  7. dizzyone

    dizzyone I've been drinking, heavily

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    You mean uml vs absorb.
     
  8. ImSpartacus

    ImSpartacus nerf spec plz

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    Colour me impressed.

    By the way, what armor and engine does the CV use? I know the armor has a lot more HP/plate, but what is it based from?
     
  9. dizzyone

    dizzyone I've been drinking, heavily

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    it's in the vehicle armor scripts. I named it after a titanium alloy, but someone might have changed the name.
     
  10. Trickster

    Trickster Retired Developer

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    No, it still has that name. 200 hp per plate, 1000 hull hp, damage mod of 0.7, which I'm considering removing.
     

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