What are the most important balance issues in the core?

TheCorsair · Post by **TheCorsair** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:03 am

Jimen wrote:QUOTE (Jimen @ Jan 31 2011, 03:55 PM) People are always going to complain about the whore ships, because in a game styled like Alleg, the ability to quickly and easily kill other players tends to spur versatility and is very difficult to balance against. For example, although mini does very poor damage against util hull, the ability to easily shred defending figs and nans means that ints aren't particularly worse at attacking util ships. Is it unbalanced? Don't know, don't really care. But you're going to hear whines about it till the end of time.

Yet those who whine the most are being listened to by CC devs and making radical changes to a game that has worked well for years (such as removing quickfires) behind closed doors all based on their own personal opinions and prejudices. Oh no I podded someone with quick 2,remove quick2 kinda crowd

Mastametz · Post by **Mastametz** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:20 am

Why do you care TC, you don't even play.

TheCorsair · Post by **TheCorsair** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:39 am

Well that's very recent. It's hard to play on laggy ass servers from here, if only I could move to LA but oh well life is good here. You're right, I shouldn't care.

sono · Post by **sono** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 8:43 am

Congratulations on derailing and hijacking the top two threads.

Back on topic, something i left unsaid yesterday but really deserves an extra post anyway:

I would love if the CC team could take a look at the changes made in XC and consider them for remerging into CC.
Personally i "agree" with all of them with one sole exception, namely the giga lt base income per day change.
"agree" in this context means i haven't participated in any of the playtesting sessions on XC but i liked what i read in the changelog.

Jersy · Post by **Jersy** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 9:45 am

Talking about interceptors - for my own purposes, I was looking up the general differences between real fighters and interceptors...

The sources generally agree on the fact, that the role of interceptor is to be a defensive short-range aircraft, that can launch as fast and possible and intercept incoming bombers. It is also said, that for the sake of speed and ability to reach their target as soon as possible, they sacrificed the general dogfighting ability.

There are also some design differences between "point-defense" and "area-defense" interceptors... But anyone interested in that can easily wiki it.

Just some thought material for you, guys.

SpaceJunk · Post by **SpaceJunk** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 3:44 pm

Jimen wrote:QUOTE (Jimen @ Jan 31 2011, 05:55 AM) mini does very poor damage against util hull

That is partially negated by higher KBs on average.

Spinoza · Post by **Spinoza** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 4:44 pm

Jersy wrote:QUOTE (Jersy @ Jan 31 2011, 01:45 PM) Talking about interceptors - for my own purposes, I was looking up the general differences between real fighters and interceptors...

The sources generally agree on the fact, that the role of interceptor is to be a defensive short-range aircraft, that can launch as fast and possible and intercept incoming bombers. It is also said, that for the sake of speed and ability to reach their target as soon as possible, they sacrificed the general dogfighting ability.

Indeed the original designers of Alleg may have started out with a notion that Sup is about long range space supreriority while Exp is about defending bases.
The names Supremacy and Expansion hint at this.

However, this didn't work out and names no longer fit the function.
In Alleg, interceptors are actually better than fighters for loitering, for example camping an Aleph or a base door.
At the same time, figs are just as good as or better at spiking bombers.

The only situations in which figs live up to their assigned role are when using a carrier to harass miners or when teleporting around galving stuff.

What no one had been able to do yet is define roles for ints/figs which would take us away from the current paradigm but still provide a balanced and interesting system.

Alien51 · Post by **Alien51** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 4:58 pm

I'm telling ya...

Make Ints faster and weaker. Then maybe slow down Figs turning, to be closer to a sf. And Increase (at least Sm class) shield recharge rate. Maybe the bigger the shield the slower the recharge (in terms of ratios)?

This would help fulfill 2 roles which would take us away from the current paradigm but still provide a balanced and interesting system.

Role of the Interceptor: Lightning fast Devastating attacks.
Role of the Fighter: Space Superiority achieved through range, versatility (missiles, mines), and durability (rechargeable health). Also they have more ammo too no?

Dorjan · Post by **Dorjan** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:05 pm

Alien51 wrote:QUOTE (Alien51 @ Jan 28 2011, 01:46 AM) In C&C (at least in the earlier ones, haven't played teh newer ones) each side was practically identical. Only differences were slight stat changes, like alleg.

In Starcraft each side was completely different. Only thing that was similar were the mining practices.

What are you smoking?

In C&C the two sides were completely different in the sense of tech. That is what they could get away with only having two factions. C&C red alert introduced countries which gave small bonuses to different stats (like movement speed, rate of fire) which is closer to our factions (but ofc we have more than just a few little global tweeks with ours, which makes them good).

Starcraft had 3 factions and followed the same formulae that C&C did. Example: Basic unit ( Marine, med ranged, med health, med cost; Zergling, melee, low health, low cost; Zelot, melee, high cost, high health ) where in C&C you had (Light Tank, fast, low cost, low firepower, high rateoffire; Heavy tank, slow, high cost, high firepower, low rateoffire)

The balancing patter is basicly the same thing. The main difference was Starcraft had 3 different races where C&C was based in a semi-real-warfare environment.

The difference you're trying to get at though (I hope as it is the only thing which has any credit but not much) is the fact that in starcraft, the 3 factions use 3 different bulding styles. Build with unit, get unit back. Morph unit into building. Drop building to "phase in" and continue on your way.

How are we meant to do that in alleg? Answer: We can't and don't want to. You build by sending a constructor into a 'roid and that's the end of that con.

Regarding the "tweeking" style which C&C used for "factions". We're not an RTS and have a lot more tweeking we can do which makes the factions play differently. A lot of players can tell what faction they're flying just by the way the ship handles.

That's the long answer, here is the short answer:

TL:DR? STFU K? K...

Dorjan · Post by **Dorjan** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:11 pm

Spinoza wrote:QUOTE (Spinoza @ Jan 31 2011, 04:44 PM) Indeed the original designers of Alleg may have started out with a notion that Sup is about long range space supreriority while Exp is about defending bases.
The names Supremacy and Expansion hint at this.

However, this didn't work out and names no longer fit the function.
In Alleg, interceptors are actually better than fighters for loitering, for example camping an Aleph or a base door.
At the same time, figs are just as good as or better at spiking bombers.

The only situations in which figs live up to their assigned role are when using a carrier to harass miners or when teleporting around galving stuff.

What no one had been able to do yet is define roles for ints/figs which would take us away from the current paradigm but still provide a balanced and interesting system.

They have, sometimes it is lost in the noise. For example, Viru has countlessly said that one failing of sup teams is the lack of Carriers being used. Now that might be an underlying balance issue but if you have a carrier push at the enh fig stage you're good to go even vs mini2 ints assuming equal skill. Ints have a very hard time hurting the carrier so it will take a while to fall (assuming a 10-15 vs 10-15 type game) the figs will have lead indicators for the voobs and near infinate missiles if they choose to DM on the way to the target.

The main issue with the balance between sup and exp is the way people want to play their games. Sup seems to be "lets defend until galvs" instead of "lets get bombers, and upgraded bomber tech and carrier bomb the $#@!ers"

I personally blame glavs for that @#(!e but hey ho, I don't cry about it just observe. I maybe wrong, who knows. All I do know is that people think sup isn't as fun as exp because of the way people fly sup. If you have a commander who is using sup like I outlined above, your team will think sup is fun. Lots of action and the game will be decided in 30 mins as either a monumental $#@! up or a win. Shorter games (mostly, there are ofc exceptions) make for more fun games. More action condenced into shorter times.

This ofc is forgetting TAC but that's another issue