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Archives (read only) => Vanilla Glest => Multiplayer => Topic started by: martiño on 18 December 2007, 14:57:37

Title: Balance feedback
Post by: martiño on 18 December 2007, 14:57:37

Hello,

With the new multiplayer version, we are going to take a look at the balance of both factions, since it is not the same to play against the AI than to play against other players.

Any opinions about any units you think are too powerful or to weak are welcome.

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Post by: jbr on 19 December 2007, 00:19:57

Is this only about Magic and Tech, or should other faction devs get feedback here too.

If the later is the case, then I already know there are tons of imbalances in the science faction, I'm actually still working on it and they may be solved someday. Until then, cut the range of the battle cannon towers to 4 or something small.

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Post by: hailstone on 19 December 2007, 01:36:48

I think there should be a system of rating the power of each unit. Then factions are limited to so many points to use. A turn-based tabletop game called Warhammer uses a similar system.

Quote from: "Wikipedia"

Army supplements also assign points values to each unit and option in the game, giving players the ability to play on even terms. An average game will have armies of 750 to 3,000 points, although smaller and larger values are quite possible.

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Post by: jbr on 19 December 2007, 04:52:10

The system would have to be automatic to be objective, but then it would give unfair ratings to "tricky" units. For example, if hp was a factor, a unit with 0 hp would seem weak. But such a unit is actually indestructible!

It would be cool though, to be able to compare armies by points, I just don't know how it could work.

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Post by: titi on 19 December 2007, 12:43:12

I think it is cool to have strong and weak factions. By this the game is interisting  for newbies and godplayers. If you are new, you can play a strong fatcion. If you are good use a weaker one. ( By the way, if you want my indians I would be very happy if you want to use it . They are very fun to play, especially in multiplayer)

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Post by: martiño on 19 December 2007, 16:54:18

I was talking about magic and tech, the idea is that the tech faction is more straightforward but both should be as effective, about 3rd party factions they are out of our control, so we can not guarantee that they are balanced.

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Post by: Jamesgamer on 19 December 2007, 19:46:52

Currently, it appears that Magic < Tech.

-Perhaps make some of the units stronger. Dragons should not be the only way to defeat an enemy.
---the archmage often cannot use its super-attack because it is killed too quickly.
---the tower of souls needs... something.

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Post by: titi on 19 December 2007, 20:15:07

@martinho:
Thats not what I meant, I just wanted to say that there is no need to have balanced factions. It's much more interisting in multiplayer if they are NOT balanced.

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Post by: jbr on 19 December 2007, 23:01:29

I've noticed that the AI plays a very specific game. It is very industrious, so it plays fairly well in brute-force style factions like tech and Indians, but it struggles to grasp the the tech trees of factions like magic and science (although Indians has a little of both).

The point is: If factions appear unbalanced, it may only be because the AI can't figure them out. In multiplayer, I think creativity might make up many differences.

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Post by: martiño on 19 December 2007, 23:25:16

Quote from: "jbr"

I've noticed that the AI plays a very specific game. It is very industrious, so it plays fairly well in brute-force style factions like tech and Indians, but it struggles to grasp the the tech trees of factions like magic and science (although Indians has a little of both).

The point is: If factions appear unbalanced, it may only be because the AI can't figure them out. In multiplayer, I think creativity might make up many differences.

You made a very good point here. I don't think we care about how the AI plays a faction, I'm more interested in balancing the game for human vs human play so we can have interesting network games.

Some things I've noticed:

Horsemen extremely useful due to their speed, armor, low cost, and especially because of how easy to produce they are. They are really imbalanced. They have to have much less armor and attack power.

Armored swordmen are ok for defense, but quite useless to attack, and in general due to their low speed.

Siege units are not strong enough. Is not worth making them.

Other units like the daemon giant are quite useless just because of the fact that they are really difficult to produce in large numbers. We might make it more expensive and much more powerful, so it is not necessary to make a lot of them.

Normal daemons are also too powerful, they are extremely cheap  quick and can stand a few hits.

Archmages are too weak and die really quick, so they can not use they really powerful attacks.

In general, is not worth exploring the tech tree with the tech faction, later units have to be stronger.

Title: topic
Post by: @kukac@ on 20 December 2007, 15:36:53

Quote from: "martinho"

Quote from: "jbr"

I've noticed that the AI plays a very specific game. It is very industrious, so it plays fairly well in brute-force style factions like tech and Indians, but it struggles to grasp the the tech trees of factions like magic and science (although Indians has a little of both).

The point is: If factions appear unbalanced, it may only be because the AI can't figure them out. In multiplayer, I think creativity might make up many differences.

You made a very good point here. I don't think we care about how the AI plays a faction, I'm more interested in balancing the game for human vs human play so we can have interesting network games.

Some things I've noticed:

Horsemen extremely useful due to their speed, armor, low cost, and especially because of how easy to produce they are. They are really imbalanced. They have to have much less armor and attack power.

Armored swordmen are ok for defense, but quite useless to attack, and in general due to their low speed.

Siege units are not strong enough. Is not worth making them.

Other units like the daemon giant are quite useless just because of the fact that they are really difficult to produce in large numbers. We might make it more expensive and much more powerful, so it is not necessary to make a lot of them.

Normal daemons are also too powerful, they are extremely cheap  quick and can stand a few hits.

Archmages are too weak and die really quick, so they can not use they really powerful attacks.

In general, is not worth exploring the tech tree with the tech faction, later units have to be stronger.

Horseman: low cost?

Siege units: they could do more damage against buildings (or the buildings could be only attacked by siege units, but its szvsz)

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Post by: Jamesgamer on 22 December 2007, 21:13:13

I think daemons are ok... but thats just imo.
Everything else i agree with.

I think the magic needs a better defensive building (perhaps weaken the tower of souls but give it land+air...?) because the tech faction has few air units,

Maybe the golom could get 1 splash radius so they would be better defensive (i mean, if a stone hits something and breaks, it will probably shoot out little shrapnel stones in nearby space ::) )

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Post by: titi on 21 January 2008, 19:41:59

The techs are a bit too strong for my opinion.
probabaly it's enough to stop them a bit by rising the wood price of the guard
and the horsemen.

If that is not enough, you can add a restriction for the blacksmith. It can only be build  if a barrack  exists.

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Post by: Jamesgamer on 2 February 2008, 18:48:04

Maybe you could give Magic another air unit  :o  :shock: [the airships too, aren't they? - @kukac@]

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Post by: hailstone on 3 February 2008, 09:44:33

@Kukac: Your doing posting in other peoples posts again. If you have something to add to the discussion you should create your own post IMHO. [sorry, i just didn't see the reason to create a new post for one sentence - @kukac@]

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Post by: BrainDamaged on 11 February 2008, 16:12:36

i think the giant deamons are gread units. but it takes too mutch time to pruduce them. you have to wait hours to build that statur and then you have to build the giant. i think you should lower the producing speed.

edit: and i like the magictech^^. you can rush the enemy with deamons and some mages. or wait a bit more and build the drake riders and deamons.

sry for my english :-[ ^^

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Post by: Jamesgamer on 14 February 2008, 22:37:47

Quote from: "@kukac@"

the airships too, aren't they? - @kukac@

Are they? i rarely use tech  :D
...But tech has the ornithopter thingies, which are less expensive... perhaps magic could have like "baby dragon" that summoner summons, which would morph to "dragon" =D

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Post by: titi on 18 February 2008, 08:36:06

glest3.1:
I think the dragons are too expensive now! The techs flying units are getting cheaper and cheaper ( ok also a bit weaker, but they are there! )
I would vote to lower the price for dragons to 250-300 gold and speed up the production time a little bit.

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Post by: ttsmj on 18 February 2008, 12:04:19

Ranged units need to focus on enemies that doesn't move.

because they often shoot at moving and they allways miss them.

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Post by: Jamesgamer on 19 February 2008, 00:12:56

Quote from: "titi"

glest3.1:
I think the dragons are too expensive now! The techs flying units are getting cheaper and cheaper ( ok also a bit weaker, but they are there! )
I would vote to lower the price for dragons to 250-300 gold and speed up the production time a little bit.

I agree =D

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Post by: martiño on 19 February 2008, 00:17:15

i dont really know, airships are really weak against dragons and ornis against battlemages