What are the most important balance issues in the core?

[Dome]

Interesting take Jersy. Nice to see a person write something with thought put into it.

While making tech paths different for each faction would be cool, it would be a major code change and take years to balance. Also getting rid of historic factions that have been around for so long is simply unrealistic.

Only one techpath per faction would make the game extremely predictable (more than it is now).

But yeah TF scouts are cheese. Just gotta be able to fight cheese with cheese.

[Jersy]

It wouldn't necessarilly have to be a code change - you could keep sup, exp and tac, but each faction would have different ships (same models, but different properties) and devels under them. However, it is true that something like that would take a long time to core, and it is absolutely out of the question to do this in community core, as it has it's own direction it is heading...

The only way would be to make a new core and from the start handle it with such intentions in mind. The problem however might be the fact that most people in my opinion think that Allegiance = CCC (Community Core Conquest), even though much more game styles are realisable even within the spaces of cores. The lack of interest in other cores might indeed prove to be a killer here.

Of course, being focused on one style is advantageous for promoting a game and stuff... Right now, if you were to describe Allegiance to someone, you would probably say something like "It's multiplayer online team game that combines real-time strategy with space flight simulation" or somesuch, which indeed is a unique concept, that has a lot to offer.

However, if cores with different game-stlyes were made, and if the community brought itself to liking them (as a side-option to CCC - "Hey, I'm sick of the team not listening to me... Let's do 1on1 with mindless drones instead..."), then it might be possible for Allegiance to be promoted as a platform for many different game types. Something like "X in 1" game, with individual cores optimized for individual gameplay styles. Out of the most obvious, there could be "Quake_Core" (optimized for arcade-ish deathmatch) and "RTS_Core" (drones instead of ships, optimized for "comm vs comm only").

Just stating the possibilities here, Allegiance has the capacity to be a lot more things than just CCC.

[TurkeyXIII]

It wouldn't necessarily require a code change and while balancing would be harder, years is a bit of an overstatement. I can't see such a major overhaul happening in CC, but if this happened in its own core I'd play it.

Edit: Four minute ninja. Damn I'm slow.

[Heyoka]

I like the idea that tech actually does something unique per faction.

GT expresses this well for me.

Each of it's tech paths have different faction specific tech that allow you to counter many things.

If you're GT sup and the enemy has gone Exp, get Zeus missiles up. It then makes figs a contender as an air superiority fighter because *gasp* it's missiles actually DO something. Also the Laser option. Allows you to do very high damage, but you drain energy quickly. Which means in furballs they might not doo as well because of having to engage multiple targets, but, then you can try to get a Tac up and get the Energy GAs. But then OH @#(!. You have more options there as well! You can get SFs, and gauss, and SBs and all these really cool and interesting things to play with! PT bbrs, mustangs, all of these options make GT one of my favorite factions. It feels truly unique and often times it feels like just when the enemy gets used to you doing one thing, you can do something else that takes them by surprise.

I think each faction should have faction unique tech that expresses the factions Strengths.

IC is think skinned, and very aggressive. Make something that accentuates this.

Dreg, fast and nimble. A lightning faction. What can express this? What unique technology options would dreg bring to the table?

The same thing can be done for all of the factions. I think this would makes the game 1000 times more fun and interesting to play.

We have all of these factions that just beg to be specialized. But in reality the faction with the most perks and mining capability will usually win. The rest is down to pilot skill. Have a good enough team and they can win against any faction with any techpath. But that is true of any good team in any situation.

This is what I would like to see alleg bring to the table.

[Jersy]

The only problem I can see with that is that you run out of significant differences rather quickly, as there is only a limited amount of "archetypes" you can follow.

While I was thinking about how would I differentiate individual factions, the obvious trinity came into mind: "Strong but slow" "Balanced" "Fast but weak". Depending on what set of properties you look at, there's plenty of such groups.

Stealthy but weak, balanced, Strong but Unstealthy
High cadency/low damage, balanced, low cadency/high damage
Fast mining/low capacity, balanced, High capacity/slow mining
Short range/high damage, balanced, long range/low damage
etc. etc. etc.

Also some differences tactical-wise:

strong offense/weak defense, balanced, strong defense/weak ofense

Offensive strategies:

Hit and run / Constant pressure / Blitzkrieg / Numbers / Stealthing

Defensive strategies:

Walling in / Counter-attacking / Persistency (Numbers) / Hiding

etc. etc. etc.

Well... In the end, there just *might* be enough factors to consider when differentiating factions... It's all just a matter of mixing it up correctly...

[Heyoka]

Well all we have to do is look at the premise of each faction.

Giga corp makes cheap @#(!, but can make a lot of it.

Belters has primitive ships that are not very maneuverable and bulky. But their ships are very tough. They can also assimilate any tech without having to research it etc. Their tech is totally modular. Any ship can load just about any weapon.

IC. Their ships are tough and deliver heavy fire power. Their tech is a bit more expensive, but more rewarding as well.

Dreg. Extremely fast ships. A strong but vulnerable economy. Miners can bring in large amounts of money but they take longer to mine which means more time for them to be rushed. Dreg has fast ships and fast tech. So they're a bit easier to kill as well.

Rix. Futuristic alien types. Ability to research technology almost instantly. Really I wouldn't change much with Rix as they are nearly perfect. Their ripcord abilities and research abilities already set them apart quite a bit. plus their range and damage modifiers make them strong as $#@! if you let them get there.

GT also very unique. Though it still has some balancing issues. I'd like to see it's garr tech be it's focus as that is what distinguishes it in my opinion. Mustangs and PTs are awesome yet rarely used because of cost. PTs are in my opinion a very viable end game tech. You can win a game with PTs, yet no one seems to think so.

OH, turret faction. It's good itself, just needs to find it's medium for balance.

Bios. I really think there is alot of potential for bios exclusive tech. Their ability to mount HeavyCloak on anything is very nice.

They all have inherent potential for unique tech options to distinguish them.

[Spinoza]

I have to applaud Jersy for thinking before writing, a rare treat.

I both agree and disagree re: faction differences.

If all 9 factions had significant differences in flying style, not just newbies would be overwhelmed...
Even for an experienced player, taking advantage of (or compensating for) the unique traits of Belters, Rix and Bios is quite hard.
Just one example, I have studied in some detail the optimal mix of guns on a Belter fig/int... in theory against well shielded targets it's a good idea to have one dis. (in practice, the fact EW weapons do not inherit momentum screws up your aim)

I have studied acceleration to optimize my fig for galv runs, which affects all faction...
I have heard whispers of sage advice from masters of prox and stealth fighter...
I drank deep from the well of forbidden assault ship magic...

I also appreciate the strategic differences... although these don't seem to affect the player tactical environment, they take effect in ways which are non-trivial.
Different factions approach mid-game to end-game in different ways, some of which takes years to appreciate and I do mean years.
In a squad game, knowing these differences can be a game deciding factor.

Short summary:
I love having differences and I love having a lot to learn about the details. It's one of Alleg's two basic features which I love (the other is emphasis on teamwork).
Whenever I come back to Alleg after a break, I feel a sense of awe and pride at the level of skill I have and how much I still have to learn...

However, the balance is delicate and I don't think Alleg needs more stuff which requires finesse, with the obvious exceptions:
Expansion is too whore-centered and hard to counter.TF is too cheesy.SY is only slightly more interesting than crashing the server.

Instead of adding differences, work on balancing things so that the paths/factions which require finesse don't get pushed aside by easier whorecheesecrap.

Rants:
I've seen squaded players using flying SBs with a shield on, leaving the cloak on until they run out of energy while waiting for SBs to set up and then attacking the base without recharging first.
I shudder to think of how badly they will play if flying requires even more skill.

[SpkWill]

I think we need to remove the turtle until adv tech strategies from the game. Make early/mid-game play more varied and interesting than lets go kill all their miners. Re-balance the techs so that each has three tiers.

I'm thinking along the lines of removing cbs specmines and any factions ability to sitback and payday tech, increasing he renewal, making miners cheaper.

The Tier system being extended to all techs would work something like this.
3 tiers of bombers for instance: Tier 1: Can only kill small bases. Tier 2: Reg bombers now. Tier 3: Hvy bombers with skycap turrets

The idea being Tier 1 bombers are cheap and effective way to remove the opposition from the map early on, provided they fail to probe/d of course. Buying them wouldn't stunt your ability to tech up as much as reg bombers are now.

Remove/nerf the techs that make it hard to end the game pps, hvyscouts, anything with skycap turrets. Remove or make useful any redundant tech e.g remove retroboost make tts viable to cap ops. Perhaps introduce a lt stealth bomber so tac has a method of removing small bases at enh tech level (could be overpowered).

Overhaul sy so it's no longer about brute force and requires more teamwork/co-ordination between capitol ships. Give tac proper tech and buff the missile carrying capacity of sfs sniper1/killer1 free, sniper3 in adv tac. Remove/nerf the overpowered probes of certain factions and buff ews1 slightly. Give all tps the ability to dock pods. Put qf/mrm in sup. Give exp it's own set of boosters.

Have the firepower of the ships go up by a similiar amount each tech level. I don't know the numbers but currently you could have basic rix fighters with gat3 have the same dmg output as adv rix figs with gat3 which is pretty stupid. I'm thinking 2 guns tier 1, 3 guns tier 2, 4 guns tier 3.

I realise a lot of these changes are massive and some of them conflict with the way things are currently balanced. Just throwing some ideas out.

If you ask me the question this thread poses is pretty silly, what people think "the most important balance issues" are is more about peoples perception than reality e.g what strategy is currently popular amongst comms, game sizes and what they enjoy playing. I think you need to completely re-balance the game so that all factions and tech combinations are viable on a 13 sector map with team sizes between 10-20. That's what everyone ends up playing week in week out.

[Spunkmeyer]

While it's off on a different tangent, Jersy's idea is interesting. The problem with it and current Alleg play is accentuating differences may make certain gameplay options too easy or near impossible. What springs to mind is things like signature, hull strength and speed. A lot of Allegiance gameplay revolves around those three - and by gameplay I mean sequences like miner offense, miner defense, bomber run, galv run, htt run, tp2 drop, sbing, camping etc. It may be very difficult to keep this dynamic going with factions that are very slow, very visible, very strong etc... but yeah, if someone takes it up, puts sufficient thought into it and manages to make it work, I'd play it.

QUOTE (SpkWill @ Jan 28 2011, 06:55 AM) I think we need to remove the turtle until adv tech strategies from the game. Make early/mid-game play more varied and interesting than lets go kill all their miners. Re-balance the techs so that each has three tiers.
I'm thinking along the lines of removing cbs specmines and any factions ability to sitback and payday tech, increasing he renewal, making miners cheaper.

You really have two ideas in there: 1) Slowing down the progression to advanced tech (which can be done with two tier techs to begin with too) 2) Taking the focus away from miner offense by making miner kills less effective.

QUOTE I think you need to completely re-balance the game so that all factions and tech combinations are viable on a 13 sector map with team sizes between 10-20. That's what everyone ends up playing week in week out.[/quote]
I completely agree. There are unfortunately both code and basic design choices in the game that prevent this from being achieved entirely. Giga's inherent vulnerability to sup, tac's inherent requirement for more game knowledge, the game's random rock type distribution and positioning forcing tech choices etc. (this last one is a problem ONLY because tech+faction combos are not balanced vs each other)

[SpaceJunk]

QUOTE (Icky)An HTT run takes the htt pilot, good stealth scouts, stealth ints

Yeah, thanks for reading me.

If you are ok with the most popular tech path being about flying two ships the whole game, then I have nothing else to say.