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Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11871]

Sat, 17 September 2005 11:35

Snap

Messages:286
Registered:September 2000
Location: USA (by way of the Old Wo...

This is for all things balance-related: money, weapons, etc. I'll start by reposting Kaiden's post from another thread:

Quote:

Originally posted by Kaiden:
Snap, Money is definitely a huge balance issue. Especially with the drop everything option. Even to the point where not having the "Sell ALL option" would still be game-breaking, running guns and equipment to Tony with a team of mercs every day would pay for the fuel and cost of those mercs. Especially if you sent the free mercs.

In my Externalization of options, I will be allowing any "controversial" options to be turned on or off, but in THIS case, it won't fix the problem.

Here are some options that I was considering, and feel free to offer your input:

1. Lower the buyback rates even more, for both Arms's Dealers AND for the Alt-LMB option.

2. Make ALL mines run out of Ore eventually.

3. Make the Crepitus show up in EVERY Mine when the time comes.

4. Increase the Cost of Mercenaries for Hire.

5. Increase the Sell price of goods from the Arm's Dealers.

6. Lower the output of Mines.

7. Put a time restriction on the "Sell All" button, OR restrict it to a certain amount of cash per day (like the arm's dealers).

Other than that, How is the game balance with the all the improved weaponry and other goodies vs. the Improved AI of the enemy on Insane Difficulty?

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Master Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11872]

Sat, 17 September 2005 11:40

Madd_Mugsy

Messages:634
Registered:July 2005
Location: Canada

I'd start by lowering the 25% alt-LMB selling function that I put in there to just 10% and limiting it to town sectors only.

Most of these money issues aren't quite so severe when drop all is turned off, so I don't know how much tweaking is necessary in that case. I guess just making it so that you can't earn $10,000 a day from the boxing matches.

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First Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11873]

Sat, 17 September 2005 12:45

the scorpion

Messages:1834
Registered:September 2004
Location: CH

I`d like to see a better weapon balance of the default ja2 weapons and the new ones

but again, this is not so important, as anybody can make that himself

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Sergeant Major

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11874]

Sat, 17 September 2005 12:53

DurtyDan

Messages:103
Registered:November 2001
Location: Oregon, USA

I kind of like the 25% sell rate. It really speeded up the game for me, as I can't stand to have stuff laying around. I would load mercs in the 'copter to sell stuff to Jake with the old system. This just takes the tedious part out of it. The 25% part is actually less than Jake gives (I think), and he doesn't seem to have a limit.

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Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11875]

Sat, 17 September 2005 12:56

dextertt

Messages:54
Registered:November 2000

Madd Mugsy,

The current 25% sell rate and anywhere is fine. Like DurtyDan said, it takes the drugery of dragging all the stuffs to the dealers. The goal should be to focus on conquest and mercs development.

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Corporal

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11876]

Sat, 17 September 2005 14:01

Madd_Mugsy

Messages:634
Registered:July 2005
Location: Canada

Quote:

Originally posted by the scorpion:
I`d like to see a better weapon balance of the default ja2 weapons and the new ones

but again, this is not so important, as anybody can make that himself

I plan on doing up some new weapons and items; doing things like maybe making Deidranna's forces use just Russian/Chinese/eastern weapons and have the western/USA/German/etc weapons available from BR's.

(This is actually why I was wondering what the weapons were in NightOps and Shady Job, so we could borrow the pics Wink

)

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First Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11877]

Sat, 17 September 2005 14:31

Khor1255

Messages:1817
Registered:August 2003
Location: Pleasantville, NJ

Are you saying it will be possible to link weapons with factions?
That would really be sweet.

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Sergeant Major

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11878]

Sat, 17 September 2005 17:19

bonechucker

Messages:33
Registered:March 2001
Location: who wants to know ?

hiho

here some of my theories concerning gamebalance in ja:

-weapon attachments are a fun factor
-weapon attachments are a threat for game balance

its fun to think about which weapon attachments are best for ur style of playing - the higher number of attachments increases the fun factor of the game.
on the other hand this gives the ki a disadvantage because the enemy don't use weapons which are pimped up to the max.
my idea to balance this out would be this :
giving pro's AND cons to weapon attachments.
some examples :
- in wf6 the silencer reduced a weapons range by 5 tiles.
-sniper scopes - the higher the magnification of the scope - the more ap's u need for aiming.
-weapons which are maxed could receive a "handling modifier" which results in a higher draw cost.

enough for the moment - maybe more later

greets bone

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Private 1st Class

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11879]

Sat, 17 September 2005 21:32

Majek

Messages:437
Registered:January 2003
Location: Slovenia

restricting the alt-lmb to town sectors is enough. i don't think the %25 valuee should be lowered . but if it is, it should be no more than %5-7.

and all this points Kaiden made are good for Drop all funtion turned on. on normal games :

-if all mines run out of ore you'll be forced to use the sell all option even if you don't want to , to play extra long games like some do.

-and if you add lowering the output of the mines to that long game with expensive mercs will be almost impossible since youll ahv emoney problems sooner or later.

- even more expensive mercs? i think the prices are more still balanced enough.

if you add all this options together then drop all and sell all will be a must not just a preference.

so if these can be implemented to work with Drop all only i can say i might improve the balance but IMHO not on normal drops where the balance is fine as it is.

of course there Bobby ray's that has to be added into the equation which makes it even more complicated.

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Master Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11880]

Sun, 18 September 2005 01:02

Kaiden

Messages:502
Registered:September 2003

Majek - All of this will be optional. I'm working on the code for it right now. Err not right NOW, cause I have to go to a soccer game, but as in, that's my current project Smile

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First Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11881]

Sun, 18 September 2005 04:30

wudu

Messages:56
Registered:September 2002

Playing on Insane, realistic, drop everything, great BR.

I've barely left Drassen to conquer other cities, but I'm already sporting end-game gear, such as Barrets and PSG-1's, some Spectra armour and many UV goggles. Grizzly's already level 6. Every daytime fight with random patrols is extremely easy, as I can use the PSG-1's and Barrets for some headshot galore. Insane became insanely easy all of the sudden.

But I'm having a blast, that's for sure Very Happy

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Corporal

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11882]

Sun, 18 September 2005 05:07

quasimodo

Messages:54
Registered:November 2000
Location: eugene, oregon U.S.A.

I like playing with the Drop All option, but I don't ever buy or sell anything. This keeps the game balance just right, and I don't have to bother with shopping.

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Corporal

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11883]

Sun, 18 September 2005 17:22

Snap

Messages:286
Registered:September 2000
Location: USA (by way of the Old Wo...

bonechucker: the new attachments attributes can give negative bonuses...

Some thoughts on the sell-all feature. In addition to money balance problems, it also presents some realism and even ethical problems. Do you really think that the impoverished local population could absorb unlimited amounts of expensive weapons and gear? And do you really want to supply the locals with massive amounts of military weaponry?

I have an idea, which I think is doable, though it will take some work. Rather than increasing militia training costs, require additional payment for militia equipment. Here is how this might work. When you first train militia, they get the most basic (level 1) equipment, and they will keep at that level no matter how high your progress level. If you want to strengthen your militia, you can pay to upgrade them to the next level. You'll be able to upgrade them up to the current equipment level of enemies (which is related to your progress in the game). Each upgrade cost will be proportional to the average price of weapons on that level.

Now, where do the dropped weapons come in? An interesting feature would be to actually arm your militia with the dropped weapons. However, this would not be easy to implement, and it would present some logistical difficulties. What I propose instead is that you be able to sell your trophies in cities, but the proceeds will go not into your bank account, but to a special fund for arming militia. Each militia sector or town (whichever is more convenient to implement) will have a special "account" associated with it. Whenever you request an upgrade to militia equipment in that sector/town, you will be asked to pay a certain fee. That fee can be reduced by contributions "in kind" that you make in that sector/town.

Having variable equipment level for militia will introduced an additional strategic feature. And being able to contribute your trophies to militia equipment will help preserve balance. Another advantage of this feature is that it does not put undue pressure on the player right from the beginning, when the game is hard enough as it is.

Of course, this should be a switchable feature. Those who play with normal drops might want to turn it off, or leave it on for extra challenge.

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Master Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11884]

Mon, 19 September 2005 09:19

Khor1255

Messages:1817
Registered:August 2003
Location: Pleasantville, NJ

That's an excellent idea. This would add a lot of realism and be a lot of fun as well.

On another note:
Do you think it woud be possible to link weapon types (i.e. NATO or Warsaw Pact weapons) with factions?

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Sergeant Major

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11885]

Mon, 19 September 2005 10:33

DurtyDan

Messages:103
Registered:November 2001
Location: Oregon, USA

Snap, I like that idea,if it is reasonably possible.

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Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11886]

Mon, 19 September 2005 15:19

Bastage

Messages:94
Registered:December 2004
Location: Winnipeg, Canada

I like the idea Snap has. What about the repair of these weapons? Most found guns are in serious need of repair and ready to jam. You would use up quite a few toolkits and mechcanic manhours.

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Corporal 1st Class

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11887]

Mon, 19 September 2005 16:24

Madd_Mugsy

Messages:634
Registered:July 2005
Location: Canada

I don't think it'd be very easy at all to actually assign weapons to militia, since I'm pretty sure they're randomly generated every time you enter the sector (unless you left a merc behind).

What we might be able to do, with some work, is assign a general level of equipment to a given sector, based on some attribute(s) of the items (guns and launchers) that were sold/donated there (ubCoolness and quantity of items donated come to mind). Then the militia there could be generated with better gear than normal. We could also reset this level if the enemy re-takes the sector, or even give the enemies the benefit of this new equipment level after they've taken over.

We'd also need some way for the player to view what level of equipment is being used in a given sector.

If we wanted to get fancy, we could also create an array to remember what items were donated in a given sector and then automatically create militia with those items.

Bonus: This way you wouldn't need to be bogged down with the micromanagement of which militia gets which gun and repairing items, etc.

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First Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11888]

Mon, 19 September 2005 18:22

Snap

Messages:286
Registered:September 2000
Location: USA (by way of the Old Wo...

Quote:

Originally posted by Madd Mugsy:
What we might be able to do, with some work, is assign a general level of equipment to a given sector, based on some attribute(s) of the items (guns and launchers) that were sold/donated there

Yes, that's similar to what I proposed.

Khor: It should be possible, in principle.

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Master Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11889]

Mon, 19 September 2005 21:07

Majek

Messages:437
Registered:January 2003
Location: Slovenia

but that would make some money issues wouldn't it?
there has to be an option so sell dropped stuff somewhere for your profit as it's not that good to be dependable on mines only or hauling all the stuff around the country looking for buyers. milita is linmited to towns only so it what good is it if you have elite militia when you don't have to resources for liberating the country?

putting to much realism into the game isn't that good idea since the basic concpet of the game is unrealistic. 20 mercs and some militia beat a whole army? IMHO te most important thing should still be fun not realism.

money is definitely an important thing but i'm not the "less money, more and tougher enemies, a must to conquer many mines as soon as possible = fun" guy.

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Master Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11890]

Tue, 20 September 2005 07:40

Madd_Mugsy

Messages:634
Registered:July 2005
Location: Canada

Majek,

I'd like to add this feature, but not replace any existing features to put it in. I'm thinking along the lines of making Ctrl+Alt+LMB (we'll need some new hotkeys here pretty soon Razz

) an "Equip" or "Donate" function that would increase your militia's equipment level.

For the balance issues related to the sell all feature, I'm pretty sure Kaiden has externalized both the % of value in $$$ that you receive, and whether the function works at all. (Kaiden: Correct me if I'm wrong here)

We could also add a new tag to items called "SellableToLocals" or something to control whether items can be sold on the inventory screen or not. (I mean, really, who wants all those bits of string anyway?)

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First Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11891]

Tue, 20 September 2005 08:22

Majek

Messages:437
Registered:January 2003
Location: Slovenia

well you do have Shift + LMB left is you need a hotkey or is that taken too? Very Happy

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Master Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11892]

Tue, 20 September 2005 08:24

Kaiden

Messages:502
Registered:September 2003

The junkyard guy seems to collect the bits of string Razz

Yes, both are optionated.

Also, Mugsy, enough with the hotkeys, I have a better idea. Since the invention of your Ctrl-LMB delete item feature, the trashcan has gone very largely unused Smile

We could change the graphic, and keep tabs on how much money worth of equipment was donated, along with an average of the ubcoolness factor.

When it reaches a certain point, the militia equipment goes up 1 level, and the cash/coolness tracker resets till it hits the next level.

But, it would have to be a sector by sector type thing, and it would need to be optional Smile

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First Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11893]

Tue, 20 September 2005 08:46

Madd_Mugsy

Messages:634
Registered:July 2005
Location: Canada

Majek,

Shift is already being used to pick up multiple items.

At least we still have Ctrl-Alt-F4-Del-LMB Wink

Kaiden,

Sweet idea. That way people wouldn't "accidentally" equip their militia.

I think it'd also be useful to display the equipment level in the sector stats popup (the brown box when you right click on a sector when you have your mercs viewable on the map).

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First Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11894]

Tue, 20 September 2005 09:23

Kaiden

Messages:502
Registered:September 2003

Yeah people are already deleting instead of selling... I'm guilty of it too Razz

I'm thinking we could set a value of cash, say for example, to get from level 1 equipment to level 2 equipment, you would need $10,000 worth of equipment. And say the half coolness factor counts as a multiplyer.

So if you donated something that had a coolness factor of 4, and was worth $200, it would count as 2 * $200 = $400.

And even for items with a coolness factor of 1, that would be .5 * $200 = $100.

Incentive to give up some cool gear maybe?

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First Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11895]

Tue, 20 September 2005 09:46

Madd_Mugsy

Messages:634
Registered:July 2005
Location: Canada

I need to also go through all the items and check on the coolness of each item (check how cool they are? Smile

), because I don't think they're very well balanced right now. Even the suck-ass .38 has a coolness of 2.

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First Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11896]

Tue, 20 September 2005 10:18

Kaiden

Messages:502
Registered:September 2003

We could expound upon the coolness factor and increase the range, or do you think that would require way too much coding for now?

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First Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11897]

Tue, 20 September 2005 10:31

Madd_Mugsy

Messages:634
Registered:July 2005
Location: Canada

Personally, I'd like to bump it to 100. But I think there's a lot of code relying on it only going from 1 to 10.

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First Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11898]

Tue, 20 September 2005 10:45

Kaiden

Messages:502
Registered:September 2003

42 occurrences found. Not too bad, most of them are in one file too, Inventory Choosing.cpp.

And as a base to start from, we could multiply everything by 10, so we end up where we are now for starters and then diversify later Smile

So yeah setting them to 100 would work out fairly easy.

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First Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11899]

Tue, 20 September 2005 18:43

Majek

Messages:437
Registered:January 2003
Location: Slovenia

and how will this affect the game?

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Master Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11900]

Tue, 20 September 2005 21:09

Snap

Messages:286
Registered:September 2000
Location: USA (by way of the Old Wo...

Majek: you are complaining about something that has always been in the game (not being able to sell anything you want on the spot). Not that you can't - just making a point Smile

Quote:

I'm thinking we could set a value of cash, say for example, to get from level 1 equipment to level 2 equipment, you would need $10,000 worth of equipment. And say the half coolness factor counts as a multiplyer.

I was thinking of scaling the fees with the average price of weapons on that level. That way, the balance will be preserved even if waepon prices change.

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Master Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11901]

Wed, 21 September 2005 04:13

Madd_Mugsy

Messages:634
Registered:July 2005
Location: Canada

Kaiden,

For bumping the coolness up to 100: watch out for the Bobby Ray and the shopkeeper inventory selection code, as it relies on the coolness going to 10, and not any higher.

One other question about equipping militia:

If we rely on a cash amount to equip the militia, what's to stop the player from donating a whole bunch of crappy guns instead of 20 or so good ones?

I'm thinking maybe we should do something involving just the coolness stat.

So if the player donates 20 level 10 weapons, his militia will have 20 level 10 weapons. But If the player donates 200 level 1 weapons, he should not still get 20 level 10 weapons.

This would make the player actually need to sacrifice some of his better guns to equip the militia.

I'm thinking of something along the lines of:

int currentEquipmentLevel; // current level of equipment in a sector
int itemCoolness; // bonus from donating one item
float totalCoolness; // keeps track of partial level increases
int numItemsDonated; // keeps track of the number of items to donate to the militia for the next level

equipmentLevelBonus = min ( itemCoolness, Weapon[x].ubCoolness );

if ( itemCoolness > currentEquipmentLevel )
{
    totalCoolness += itemCoolness;
    numItems++;

    if ( numItems >= MAX_MILITIA_PER_SECTOR )
    {
        currentEquipmentLevel += floor(totalCoolness / numItems); // average coolness donated rounded down
        numItems = 0;
        totalCoolness = 0;
    }
}

Thoughts?

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First Sergeant

Re: Balance in 1.13 - general thread[message #11902]

Wed, 21 September 2005 04:31

Kaiden

Messages:502
Registered:September 2003

That would be fine, but I wouldn't restrict it so much that you HAVE to donate XX level 10 items in order to equip them with level 10 items, just make items lower than the level they are trying to get to worth a lot less.

For instance when going from lvel 9 to level 10, say that a single sector needs 20 level 10 items. Well, Level 1 items wouldn't do anything, but lets say they had some level 5 items, these items would count as less than half, so more than 40 level 5 items would be needed, but they could "be sold to raise cash to purchase a portion of the level 10 items required"

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First Sergeant

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