[suggestion] Rankpoints&Wages ReBa

Hey guys,
because the issues with ranking up and the incredible low amount but strange granting of wages haven't been adressed i want to share something i played around with a while ago - "rankpoints.txt"
i put a bit more time in, adjusted some changings a bit and added not used entry's & comments to describe some reasons for the changeings - for me it is considered finished and needs MP testing, but look yourself and the devs can use it or not

Happy Holidays

 

some are indeed arguable in detail but the "direction" is better than the actual state!

• basic tasks that are farmable such as repairing&healing get lowered in wages (sit in a barracks and repair it = farming, sit next to a teammate that gets shot and heal him = farming)
• high value tasks such as destroying buildings&vehicles get rewarded with a good amount of wages (killing unchanged, infantry in empires isn't of that high value resource wise! - counts more to ranking up!)
• squadplay boost individual progress (that is the A&O in every game to motivate ppl to play together!) - counterbalanced by lesser wages for that special boni - so individual players still get normal wage amounts just like all others!
• commanding bonus... as com you get so much wages you never use because you control the damn factorys! - tough could be zero in consequenz but i leaved it at the niveau of squadbonus wages

@flasche: just look at the damn file and think about it! - if comments aren't clear enough point that out!

 

I mean, if anything we need to reduce the number of wages given out completely across the board. Nothing should give more wages, we need to reduce it. Too much money on the field as is causing it to drag on in tank on tank time.

 

wages make a game more interesting, because you earn them for your actions it makes a team less depending on a good resource management - thus noobs that waste the teams resources haven't that devasting effect and the commander won't be hated for locking the vf that much! (i hate ppl that complain it when the team is low on res, tough i complain myself if someone locks it while the team has >1600 res available at early&midgame! -.-# (the most expensive building is the radar with 600, vf 400 and barracks with 200 - so 1600 is enough to set up an entire base and even defences!)
tough, if heavy's are available you need to subtrate ~1400 of it because thats the average prize for a heavy - at least mine, but even then 2000 should be enough as buffer

in the end, a better distribution of wages lead to a more interesting game where you can't say "kay, don't waste time we lost!" just because the team is under siege and res are low due to low map control - if you have good players in team they can still change the tide of the battle and regain mapcontrol! ;-) - tough it needs to be tested so that they have not plenty of wages available to delay the game for unreasonably long like "the last vf, still putting out 1 hvy after another for 30min" situations xP
- but that needs testing and adjusting the values - giving the same for everything was just stupid and unreasonably - i'm still not happy with ranking up but that require further work on it! ;-)
(i think getting 2 rankpoints for squadactions as bonus is a bit much, but overall it would be nice to not have only a "bonus" but to see that it is more valuable to play in a squad - but ofc that requires some sort of checking - atm you get rewarded even if you are on the other end of the map playing lone wolf! xP)

thats why i ReBa them to reflect that - i have read trough some chatlogs and reduced actions that are quite common while increasing such that require some effort! - but as described above that wasn't the only criteria for the changings!
but it's clearly not random and your 1 liner befor is worthless for any progress! ;-)
the values need to be tested and readjusted, as above the 2 rank points for squadactions might be to much - but thats the purpose of sharing, disgusting and pointing such overlooks out!)

why wages for recycling? - the team gets 40% out of the cost, while recycling cost as much as deconstructing an enemy structure and needs even more time than defusing wich puts you in high danger - that should have a individual payoff! ;-)
(it's 40 for 100, 40% - and still much less than what the team gets! - as far i know the 100 needed are based on the dead carcass health - not the vehicles health - wich is mostly very low... kay, checked that, was it in my files because i already have dealt with them, at the current game version it's often the same as vehicles base health and at heavys even more - so a heavy would give you 120wages if fully recycled because despite it's vehicle health of 225hp it's carcass has 300hp - wich means you need more time for recycling one than to kill it with calculator - and if you ever tryed to recycle an enemy hvy you know how incredible long that is - long enough for the driver to respawn, travel the propably long way across the map back to you and kill you! - 120wages isn't that high payoff for that risk, tough you will earn 3 rankpoints too wich are more valuable but still not worth it because you ALWAYS get 1 point for even dumpshitting around in a squad xP)

 

Updated file:
- fixed squad bonus (changed back to 1 rankpoint)
- halfed wages for flag capture (50>25)
- added some comments

 

0/10 dont want

 

1: Spam HE at turrets.
2: ???
3: Profit. (literally)

But it's not the fault of your script tho, we need more "classes" for wages.
Destroying a rax/turret shouldn't be the same thing.
Honestly if you destroyed a radar you do deserve 50 wages.

 

remove wages!

 

The exact opposite of what we need. We do NOT need more wages. Part of the game has already been destroyed by the lack of resource management that used to be so prevalent. Adding more wages seriously takes away the whole "Empires" and makes it more like battlefield where there are just tanks with no cost. Most of your suggestions in the past take away from Empires, please, if you don't like Empires play a game that isn't Empires.

Again, resource management is one of the whole factors of Empires. Game was better before wages, now there is even recycling so there is too much money on the field. Either tanks/buildings need to be scaled up significantly in cost or resource gain needs to be knocked down significantly.

You can already turn the tide if you have good players. More wages isn't going to help that. In fact, more wages will make games drag out even longer because it will essentially make tanks more common. We need a good balance of Infantry and tanks late game. We shouldn't be wanting everyone in a tank, or everyone shouldn't be in a tank, when part of the fun is combined arms combat. This has the possibility of being one of the best combined arms games ever I believe but it's being capped by the fact that everyone is rewarded for doing anything and tanks are extremely plentiful.

You don't get squad points if you are too far away from your squad leader. Hence, why people ask for squad lead if they are closer to the players in the squad, at least from my view. I don't get squad points for doing that.

This is random, considering it goes against most other people's point of view on the game. It came out of nowhere because I believe the current attitude towards wages + recycling + research cost being removed is there is too much resources on the field. We don't need more resources.

No, it shouldn't. It gives even more money for doing something that gives more money for the team. This is a team based game, this isn't a run and gun lone wolf can do everything game. We need to preserve the team combat, make it more combined arms, and stop giving out participation trophies for doing anything.

What? I didn't understand this at all. I think what you are saying is you get wages for recycling based on health, which is absolutely stupid because that is WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY to much money.

Yea, that's kind of the point. You sacrifice your time to help the team eventually win, in a team based game. Shocking concept.[/QUOTE]

 

I want to get mony for everything I do especially when I use calculator powah to recycle. I believe that each point should give equal amount of points to keep it simple. Empires doesn't have farming like in most games. Repairing a building while it's being sieges is not farming. Team profits and the players should be rewarded for that. Same for healing. Empires would have farming if you gained points by building your own engineer turrets and walls.

 

I agree with vulcan, wages are nice in game

But what fucks it up is income being so high. Lower income keep wages the same

 

Wasn't it you, Lazybum, who suggested removing the resources income proportionality to the number of players because wages already take care of the scaling? I though that was a good idea worth exploring.
However it once again leaves the commander with little control over the resources, WHICH IS BAD! extremely bad! That's the whole problem of wages, commanders should have control over any and all resources.

Anyway I feel like we might be going off-topic here, I might make a thread to discuss the future of wages.

 

How did you quote me on something I didn't say?

Edit: I don't actually mean how, I know how to do it but where did he pull that quote from in my writeup?

 

1. resource management is still necessary, you need just as much wages as normal resources - so wages don't break anything because they are faster gone than gained!
2. Empires always was about tank combat and not combined infantry/vehicular - just look at the maps, most of them are very horrible for infantry (no cover, wide open area, ...)

but still, wages don't change anything on that other than that you can build 1-2tanks when team is low on res - but depending how good you are playing! (or how lucky you are to be in a rax wich gets attacked only so much that you can constantly repair it and farm points&wages - wich is why i reduced wages there...)
battlefield balances via spawntimes - not compareable to resource management, so why bullshitting around?!
(vehicle build times in empires? )

yes resource management is and should stay importand, but it was clearly not better befor - but thats already covered!
but about recycling - yes, 40% of the vehicle cost are propably too much - reducing to 20-25% would propably fix this (i still like it because not only that you have an income based on kills/enemy wasteage - so watch your tank - you also can use them as cover and delay theire despawn! - wich fixes the lack of infantry cover on the maps a bit)
(25% of 1400res hvy = 350res - compared to 40% = 560res - wich resulting in 2 hvy kills + the remaining 280res and you get 1 hvy for 2 hvy kills atm... great deal - endless tank battles where resource income is obsolete xP - but it takes time to recycle them, that counterbalnaces that a bit but in my eyes a carcass should have about half of the vehicle health and thus be faster recycled - but also give lower amount of res! - but not the topic!)

even if i'm dealing with balancing since quite a while ago, i haven't touched cost yet because that need to be calculated in tables! - next year with more time i have planned to stick my brain to recherching how that is usually done at game developing and in wich coherences - but atm i think the costs are okay, but the balancing is not! - but atm i'm busy with rl things so despite times where i can't sleep like now i have no time for such immobile hobbys!

i won't say something like that because it can bite you in the ass!
read on the thread ;-)

too much res in endgame - yes, but wages are an independent resource pool and only used when the com locks the vf!
the problems with general resource management aren't influenced with wages!
wages only soften it out and ofc need to be reasonably low - my problem with them is that you didn't get much for things that need some effort and investment to do while you get the same amount for nearly everything! - that's just stupid and i wanted to give a better bet!

again, it is an independent resource system - as long you can't change team resources for wages or wages for team res ;-)
it is like you are trading with something else than money in rl but surprisingly at the same prize... if you could interchange wages with team res it would be like a credit card... i fucking hate to explain obvious things, sorry that i'm so bad on it xP
fact is that while i understand that the need to have the same amount of wages to buy a vehicle like with team resources spoofs you that wages would give the team more resources - in fact it does not, but in the result the team can indeed buy more vehicles in total DEPENDING on how those players play and spend theire wages IN ADDITION to the team resources! - also you can't build buildings with wages! (oh gods, engi turrets wage costs? - hmm, in the end not such a bad idea - repairing, healing and reviving are engi tasks only, so they usually earn more wages anyway!)

it does, just 20 per 100 - like nearly everything else xP
(if you repair a hvy wich has 225hp you get this twice - 2rp and 40wag)

i guess thats some stupid form of sarcasm - if not sorry, but sounds like bs!
it is nearly equal atm, just look at the original rankpoints.txt in "...\SteamApps\common\Empires\empires\scripts" ;-) - quite stupid that you get much more wages for repairing something than for destroying a building or vehicle! (wich need much more effort and propably investment in a vehicle than repairing!)
not farmable? - tough, you need someone on the enemy side to shoot the building or a teammate - but it is farming! - that is not the problem, the thing is that while you get rank points for helping your team you get also wages for something that require you only to push a button... - tough these unfriendly game breaks are good opportunities to drink&eat something or read newspapers while your staying in rax repairing it and being very good teammember by doing nothing but pressing a button xP - oh and then you can already build a tank - sorry guys but thats the problem, not that there are to much wages (bit to less in my eyes but especially for the wrong things!)

i had some situations like following:
- i get a hvy
- i kill several ppl
- then i got killed - lets say 4:1k/d
- back at base i realize my team has wasted res = result i can't get back in fight
- i got 80wages for those 4 kills... not even enough to build a goddamn ifv/lt! -.-#
- i tabbed to see my teammates
- theres someone with a k/d of 0/? (could be me tough)
- he has 1000wages - just for staying at base building&repairing things!!!
- he can't even donate me some wages, only option would be to ask him if he would give me a tank - wich would be a nice teamplay feature but only if that guy know what i need!
- lets say he is a fucking smart guy and we understand each other perfectly - still takes 1min befor he has outfitted me a tank wich i can use and where both propably useless that time!
- most of the cases that guy won't even respond...
- a trading feature to put wages into team res pool and for the com to donate team res to players at a certain amount (lets say only 300 per player) could be interesting and then your complaints about to much res due to wages would also be legit! (because then it would have a direct conection to team res and being part of the general res management system - but atm it's just a subpart wich doesn't interfering with it!)

another already in the file commented situation is being com = highest wages in team even if vf didn't get locked! - tough deepend on play/commandstyle

yea, thx for the hint - i had only the low cost of armorys and defences in mind, not that costless engineer buildings also count towards that... that really needs to be seperated because engineer buildings are also farmable to a certain degree (farming = res generation without effort/investment - tough destroying something is an effort and maybe need an investment!)
in the end we need 3 destroyed building types

1. player engi buildings (turret, camera, wall) = 25wag (they have some high value to the team while cost the enemy nothing!)
   
2. small buildings (turrets, wall and armory) = 15wag (simliar value like engineer buildings but cost the enemy res, so the reward should be lower destroying them)
   
3. base buildings (rax, vf, radar, reppad) = 50wag (highest value and hard to destroy)

i love the idea - because repairing works also by "x amount of hp repaired" and not "building fully repaired" - tough the later would be even more worse xP
but this way not only the repairer farms points but also the attacker... but in that case i would lower the amount for destroyed hp equal to the repair amount! - or even remove both because they are senseless then... (the effort and investment of the attacker is higher... - maybe 15 for destroyed and 10 for repaired)
but to be clear, only for buildings - not vehicles! - they should still be handled as kill with assists! ;-)
(would be another alternative, building destruction assists based on dmg dealt)

yep, lowering recycling output from 40%-20-25% stated above in this post ;-)

the reason for the commented out sections is exactly that, they aren't used yet!
(already stated at the top of the file btw...)

the basic balancing haven't been changed much, the only cases are healing (because the effort needed for it and risk at it is much higher than repairing a vehicle! - also it is a scarce task to fullfill because ppl prefer to die than to stay still for 2s! xP), spotting (atm you get the same for spotting as for the kill = lol... - while you need several assists, tough to get the spotting bonus the target needs to be spottet at destruction - i hope i balanced this quite well by equal requirements for the bonus with critical assist and lower wage amount compared to it) and defusing (to encourage the risk to and improve the payout relation - remember, you're not only in danger by enemy while defusing, but also dump teammates that step into it!)

what has "easy to understand" to say? - as i started playing Empires again i have not even noticed wages nor did i know anything about it but that i get them and sometimes loose them because there is NO FUCKING INFORMATION about it!
("i get 20 for each rp... kay, what are wages now?")
then after i realize (several hours of games later) that it gets used at vf i had strange situations where i could buy a vehicle for 20 wages that cost 200... so the first times i tought it is worth 10/1 and wonder why i can't buy a heavy with 140wages another time (today i know the amount is equal and get combined with team res if it is low on res - otherwise it only gets used when vf is locked - that i realized earlyer!)
after all that time wages aren't anything clear or logical despite being described anywhere in the first place!
another thing i wonder, is there any indicator that vf got locked other than the error message if you try to build a vehicle??? (i'm propably just blind... but i never get it befor the error message!)
at the end of those experiences equalized wages for every action have nothing to say about "clearance" because "clearance" about wages does not exist!
but it's rather unlogic that tasks that require effort or even investment give the same low amount of wages as common, often reoccuring and farmable tasks!

i disagree to lower income of refs, tough the flags on glycencity give way to much res!
also the income increase per playercount has a good reason and is low enough in my eyes!
- the thing is, while the res at mid-endgame are indeed so high that having 4-12k while hvys rolling out is quite common, several ppl ignore the fact that at early game your res are very small - on some maps deadly small!
i think we had some starting/minimum resource amount that doesn't drop below 2/s but doesn't count towards ref amount? - seems to got removed wich is quite sad!

well, i haven't dealt with "fun", just with effort and investment needed (effort = killing someone/thing or taking a propably high risk like at defusing or recycling - investment = you propably need a tank for it)
well, killing a 15bucks worth turret giving 50wages - yea, kinda imba - but the turret shoots back while other buildings do not! ;-)
but already suggested to split that for more reasonable rewards!
(and it's not random! -.-#)

thats actually an argument, some sort of "building destruction assist" could aid that

you're playing regular, it's a common case that 2 or more players are just reviving others that get killed over and over and over... and so on - while nothing really happens! - it still benefiets you to revive but it already spare your team tickets! - while killing doesn't necessarly result in lower enemy tickets because of ppl reviving!
so you would double benefiet reviving while killing gets left apart because it's more fun? - well, lets just fuck logic and implement actually real boomtanks! xP (self detonating cv vehicle that can "jump" over map obsacles)
(sorry, but can't stay serious at short minded things! - especially if they are based on things i already stated!)
btw, the only investment revive takes is a skill - just as defusing ;-) - while the risk at reviving is much lower because you can litterally "fly-by" revive! (only a question on awarness and well you should have 50calculator units ready... - okay and luck at hitting the body - can someone improve ragdoll physics? )

yep, the second thing i can totally agree with you!

destroying vehicles can be farmed to a low extent - if your team is playing that way to wait for the meat to come out and focus it down - but with buildings it is hard, just part of the game to take down bases and rebuild them - not really farmable by intention just to get rp&wag! - as said both needs some effort&investment, that is what it differs from repairing taken dmg - at vehicles you only need a safe spot to do and in buildings you can sit back and push the button!
- thus atm the 50wages compared to the propably infinite amount of wages the repairing engineer in the rax you're attacking can farm is very low! - additionally the amount of rp - you get 1 if you manage to destroy, the engineer gets 1-5 if he managed to repair that much! - but mostly not only 1 but 2 or 3! ;-) - while only 1 can get the destroyed reward :-(