Empires 2.52 Released

Discussion in 'News' started by ImSpartacus, Sep 28, 2014.

  1. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    It should be about how you use them. Losing because you didn't research the right item is kinda crap. It just puts more emphasis on the commander knowing what they are doing, which really shouldn't be a thing because no one want to be commander as is for all the crap they have to deal with. Small extra thought, it also means they have to play the guessing game of what is the enemy going to get, which is also something that I think is dumb. Game should boil down to tactics on the battlefield, not specific weapons to deal with specific threats.

    Wait what do you mean by three different armors? It has damage reduction of speed of weapon, and it cools a bit when it gets hit. That is two. If you mean it also being really cheap and light, that I think had to do with it once being a really bad armor compared to the other ones. Which I actually don't think is the case anymore, tanks with abs can have the raw hp to survive pretty much anything. The weight the other ones have mean they don't have as much hp as absorbant tanks either.

    Viroman is right in a way, abs is the new compo. The trade off is tanks actually die I think, it is just you have to deal with more of them.
     
    Last edited: Oct 6, 2014
  2. Candles

    Candles CAPTAIN CANDLES, DUN DUN DUN, DUN DUN DUN DUN.

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    Oh look, you've managed to stumble upon the major fundamental issue with Empires balancing. We call it an FPS/RTS but we try to balance it as an FPS because people don't like the idea of balancing it as an RTS because no one wants to be the commander, but then they complain when the balance is too complex. In an FPS, a lot of weapons are really similar and skill overrides almost everything else (e.g., CSS Reverse Gungame, the winner eventually wins against shotguns, assault rifles and the like using only a knife.) RTS's are the polar opposite of this because they're entirely focused on the setup a player has going into a fight; in most situations, micromanaging skill can't make up for a lack of a good setup. FPS's use soft counters; RTS's use hard counters. In an FPS, an assault rifle would soft-counter a pistol by virtue of being strong, faster and possibly more accurate, but you can still beat the shit out of a guy that has an assault rifle by using a pistol and just being better. Whereas in an RTS, units will have variable HP, damage types and resistances, and so forth, where a group of unit A will always beat a group of unit B, even if unit A is a smaller group simply because unit A is designed to crush unit B.

    Trickster's idea of balancing was to make it so that Armor A might be an amazing armor compared to the other armors, but only if Armor A was used very skillfully. For example, reflective is an amazing armor in the right hands and when used with some skill. But it rarely is, and that's why people suck with it. His belief is that such a system would work, but no one simply has the time to do the fine-tuning. This is closer to the FPS way of balancing things and the idea behind making armors and engines unique. This also falls flat on its head when people are straight up saying that they only research for new players. When you specifically are researching for the sake of the new players, skill-based balancing gets thrown out the window because you go for whatever takes the least skill and penalizes players the least. For armors, this is absorbent and reactive; for engines, this is bio and gas.

    In other words, everyone wants skill-based balancing like an FPS, but in game, most people actually want to use whatever takes the least amount of skill. Were we to go straight FPS, the solution would be to just balance armor around health, weight and cost, and engines around speed, cooling and weight, which is the epitome of skill-based balancing because everything ends up so similar that it doesn't matter. But then why bother even having research when everything is so similar? So to make it interesting and to keep the RTS part mattering, we try to make them unique so it's still skill-based but not so nicely cut-and-dry (It's hard to compare the effects of Speed-to-Damage against the effects of an angle-modifier in benefit.) But then it's too complicated, so people get the least complicated things. We could go full-blown RTS balancing, but everyone would cry havoc over that.
     
  3. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    • scrap standard shit
    • redesign weapons for each slot size
    • make upgrade-versions of armors and engines
    • bundle research by slot size, every part is available at all times just different sizes with different weights and different damage and health and cost and whatnot - remember you can put a 1slot thing in a size 3slot awell if you like, so its like limiteless options and shit (no it isnt ^^ )
    • introduce hard counters
    • find something new to do for the comm*
    • ???
    • fun


    *this is going to be the hardest part, so no fear, it wont come soon ...
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2014
  4. DocRabbit

    DocRabbit Member

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    Just my two cents and sure someone will complain about it, but seems like the balance of armors/engines/weapons was best on the pre-Steam version that for whatever reason couldn't be used on Steam distro. Maybe go back and look at the balances then and see what we get.
     
  5. Ikalx

    Ikalx Member

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    Trickster's balancing was to make the unique perk of an armour its defining feature. We straddle the difference, so that's not going to work. We don't want a 5% perk, but neither do we want 50%. A value midway between that is just right, at 3/4 being about the weapon/armour/engine and 1/4 being about how it's used. So anyone being able to put their skill in that 1/4 would be able to utilise the entirety of the item and be able to outplay anyone just using the basic level, but not by an insane amount. They wouldn't be able to take on two 3/4 players and win without using support and/or using the huuuge strategic element that the game affords in terms of movement, cover, and strategy. Each of which are available to all players.

    Balancing for Empires isn't that hard. It's not easy by any stretch, but it's not impossible. What you have to reconcile, however, are the values and stats against the use and player's mindsets. Which people seem to find difficult.

    It is pretty difficult, because you have to mentally assign a soft value to player variables, but that's what being a game developer is about. It's not a maths equation, it's maths + logic + people, a very human puzzle indeed.

    The balance we have right now is actually pretty interesting. With cost out of the research tree, many armours and engines end up being researched to counter and adapt on the fly. It's no one thing anymore, and while that's not right, it's still brings an interesting strategy on its own.

    I understand this view point, but there are other ways to deal with this.

    But this is kind of laughable as it's an argument against research in its entirety. You know that, right?
     
  6. ImSpartacus

    ImSpartacus nerf spec plz

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    I don't know of any limitation that would prevent us from using the scripts from 2.31 or a nearby version.

    Mind you, game mechanics might not work exactly the same in sdk 2007 as they do in sdk 2013, so it may not be a carbon copy. I haven't tested anything like that (and I probably wouldn't remember back to 2.31, so it wouldn't matter).

    If you collect the right data, you can definitely make informed decisions on nearly any aspect of gameplay.

    Valve does it. They get a little bit extreme with it, in fact.

    Being able to objectively compare the effects of Absorbant and Reflective would require a pretty decent amount of data - you'd ideally know about each vehicle shot (though Valve basically did it, so there's precedent).
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2014
  7. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    I feel like I should clarify myself a bit. I think a system of hard counters is dumb and softish counters are better. Kinda like what we currently have.

    Here is an example of what I mean. Say reactive took 75% more damage from bio instead of 25%, it would be almost useless against bio. A player's skill couldn't really make the difference if their entire armor is gone by a simple touch of green gas. That is what I mean by hard counters, a team is immediately forced to research regen or something that wouldn't die in a hit.

    I like what we have in terms of how there is a difference in armors and their usefulness changes over the course of the game. I wouldn't even mind too much if those difference were made more apparent, in terms of strengths and weaknesses. I just don't want it too be a case were a player can't do anything in a situation because of bad research, where skill can't make the difference.

    I think I should also mention absorbant is not only researched all the time for new people because it is a simple hp buff, it is incredibly cheap. If you raised abs to the same cost as reflective and regen you would probably see those armors researched more often. Those armors do have the potential to be much better than abs and if they cost the same people would be more willing to gamble that the vets will make better use of it and new players will learn to use them. Well considering how they usually play maybe not much would change, they would lose all tanks equally. Again though, skill would make the difference which is what you want to encourage.
     
  8. Ikalx

    Ikalx Member

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    Yeah I know. What's slightly more difficult is that you can do this process just mentally in a simple game like Empires, and that's basically your job now.

    I don't find it too difficult, but I've played the game for a long time and I understand people fairly well. The main problem I have now is being able to tolerate enough games to get a feel for current balance.

    5 Cost really is too cheap. Nothing costs 10 and that's double the cost without making it extortionate.
     
  9. ImSpartacus

    ImSpartacus nerf spec plz

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    If you think you can "feel" the right decisions, then you're a fool. I refuse to sugar coat it.

    Empires isn't simple. It's really fucking complicated.

    Every single balance update that I oversee is literally just me guessing. I don't have the data to make informed decisions and I don't expect that I'll ever get it (data is expensive, yo).
     
  10. Ikalx

    Ikalx Member

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    You get a feel for an approximate boundary to make a change in - based on player feedback and/or your own experience, and then you change that variable. There are only a certain amount of engines and armours and still a fairly limited set of weapons to have to deal with. None of the items are prerequisites - which happens pretty often in many many rpgs, and most need to be balanced around their tree and the wider context of the game itself.

    And yes, you can get a feel for the balance. You get a feel by playing the game consistently, in varied conditions, for many maps and games. You build up your own mental database of the variables and assign them weighting.

    I'm not a smart person, and maybe I am just a fool, but if you can't get a feel for the balance, how can you do it? Is data really the only way you know how to do things? Or am I just using a phrase you don't understand?
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2014
  11. Candles

    Candles CAPTAIN CANDLES, DUN DUN DUN, DUN DUN DUN DUN.

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    There obviously has to be something more than just guessing; you don't go "Huh, this weapon sucks. I'll rev-up the RNG and see where I go." You get an idea that "This weapon isn't so good because it's too weak" or "This armor sucks because it's not worth its weight." I doubt Ikalx is saying you'll be able to feel the exact value you need as much as the general direction and magnitude, like going "The health on this needs to go up somewhere between 10% to 30%" and not "The health on this needs to go up exactly 22% to be balanced."
     
  12. ViroMan

    ViroMan Black Hole (*sniff*) Bully

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    I keep saying... we need shit that auto balances on how much its used. even if we don't want to go the auto balance route, if we can just make a new set of stats that shows average use of items when making tanks we can balance things off of that. Taking into account the research that the com has provided of course.
     
  13. Sgt.Security

    Sgt.Security Member

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    I haven't got time to "actually" play Empires for quite a few weeks.

    But I don't understand the changes of plasma CN.
    Same DPS and now you lose more when you miss the shot?
    Or am I reading it wrong?

    HE CN is good because you can rape infantry easily with the splash damage.
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2014
  14. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    Yeah, at most it gives you a weapon with a lot of burst damage. It'll take of 1.5 plates of anything, which is kinda nice if you pile on a missile or something.

    Technically it gives pretty much the same damage to heat ratio as hecannon and more dps than hecannon too, which means it is more useful against buildings. It also has the bonus of a plasma effect. Oh, the explosion radius of plasma isn't small, it is twice the size of ranged. 300 vs hecannon's 450 for a comparison.
     
  15. Sgt.Security

    Sgt.Security Member

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    I realized that I can write literally an essay to say why I still wouldn't use this new Plasma CN.
    But I'll make it short, I am kinda busy recently.

    If I want pro DPS I'd just take Ranged.
    If I want not-so-bad DPS and HUGE splash damage I'd just take HE.
    Not to mention the cycle time.
    Oh and weight too.
    ...etc
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2014
  16. ImSpartacus

    ImSpartacus nerf spec plz

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    Shove two of em on one heavy plus a salvo ML and you can shred nearly 6 plates of compo in an instant. Can't do that with ranged, dps be damned.

    Or if DPS is the only thing that matters, then we can double the damage, heat and cycle time again. Now instead of just removing an entire side armor, it just kills the whole tank. But DPS is shit, so it's still underpowered. Tsk tsk tsk, plasma will always be so shit...
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2014
  17. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    You'd also have not much armor if you put all those weapons on. I mean that is an extra 90 weight over a standard dual ranged/he cannon with bio ml.

    I don't get the dps thing, there is a dps difference of about 3 damage between the lot of them. The only thing with a massive dps advantage is rail cannon, for obvious reasons.

    Or rather rereading what you said, the dps of plasma is the same as always and will remain that way if all you do is double everything. Which would also make it incredibly op, I mean a nuke that doesn't overheat in a instant? I don't think so.

    All that said, I never said plasma is the best thing ever, I just think it is a viable alternative now, which is a good thing.
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2014
  18. Sgt.Security

    Sgt.Security Member

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    If the enemy driver is that bad(sadly, we got a lot), dual Ranged can do the job equally good and you don't have to make your tank super crispy.

    3 seconds cycle time is just bad.

    I don't abandon my armor for this kind of "potentially-a-little-higher" DPS.
    Bio ML is literally the only thing that I'd abandon 2~4 plates of armor for it.
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2014
  19. Metruption

    Metruption Member

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    It makes sense to me that the BE would make their cannons all shoot the same speed on a heavy so that you can more easily mix/match cannons for cool wombo combos.

    Also, please let us have double MGs on tanks. Give it to the APC after you research advanced chassis, and give light tanks access to two slot weapons when you research upgraded chassis.
     
  20. ImSpartacus

    ImSpartacus nerf spec plz

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    It would have to be an entirely new chassis - that is you'd have a 1-mg apc and a 2-mg apc that is otherwise identical.

    If we're going that route, then it's be more polished to have a completely new dual mg apc/tank.
     

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