View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0026364 | AI War 2 | Balance Issue | Feb 13, 2022 7:29 pm | Feb 16, 2022 3:22 am | |
| Reporter | Strategic Sage | Assigned To | Chris_McElligottPark | ||
| Status | assigned | Resolution | open | ||
| Product Version | Beta 3.801 Load Estimates And Unit Encyclopedia | ||||
| Summary | 0026364: Economic Defaults on Expert+ | ||||
| Description | ** Human discounts for Metal and Energy on low-mark ships default to on for all modes. I suggest they default to Off for Challenger, and be enforced Off for Expert+ ** Using more than available fuel is On for all modes. I suggest this default to Off, but not enforced, for Expert+. The existing penalties for over-use are more than sufficient, but I can see where people would want to play with it either way. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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** Human discounts for Metal and Energy on low-mark ships default to on for all modes. I suggest they default to Off for Challenger, and be enforced Off for Expert+ So, for settings we get: - One overall default - A level it's forced to some value - And that's it. I can't do different defaults at different levels, or different values forced on at different levels. For this specific item, I strongly suggest that we leave this on for all levels, rather than turning it off. The reason for this mechanic is so that players don't have to micro their lower-mark ships and try to turn them off, or try to calculate their metal to value or energy to value ratios. That sort of mental calculation is really hard for most players, isn't enjoyable, and doesn't add any strategy. It slows down the game a lot. The first game, AIWC, had this sort of thing built in with the scaling of higher-mark ships being more costly. This worked great! However, in AIW2 that is not possible to do, because when you upgrade your ships, they all upgrade from that line. So suddenly everything would be more costly, and you are potentially in brownout because you made an upgrade. To solve this same problem, but in reverse and using the carrot rather than the stick, I made the lower marks cheaper. The net balance effect is very similar to the first game, is minimum complexity on players, and encourages figuring out HOW to use all your stuff rather than nitpicking which ships to use that you already have (this has pretty much always been a core part of the AI War ethos). I'd really need a very convincing argument before I would think that turning off this mode by default for any regular game version would be a good idea; it has really wide-reaching and subtly insidious impacts, and I feel like it's the sort of thing that can suck all the fun right out of a game for most people. When I added this mechanic, I think some people felt like this was just a dumbing-down of the game, but it's just an inverse implementation of a system that worked great in the original game with each mark level of each ship having distinct units and distinct ship caps and costs and such. I am actually more inclined to take this option out entirely, just because it's the sort of thing that people can kneecap themselves with, and then wonder why the game is so tedious or unbalanced, without realizing this is the reason. ** Using more than available fuel is On for all modes. I suggest this default to Off, but not enforced, for Expert+. The existing penalties for over-use are more than sufficient, but I can see where people would want to play with it either way. Sure, that makes sense. I'll default it to off. |
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If this is the "Can use more than available fuel", that already defaults to off. Is there another setting as well? |
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I've always thought of the metal/energy discounts as being pretty strange, largely because it applies on a fleet level not a global one. I think the micro point would make sense if it was a global effect. I.e. some players including me will just put a lot of their low-mark ships into a mobile defensive fleet, but since the discount only applies relative to whatever else is in the fleet, this means those ships cost *more* energy than they would in another fleet that had all of your ships or whatever so it's effectively a punishment for doing this. It also means that for most of your ships, what you read on the tooltips about how much energy they cost, isn't actually the energy you're going to be charged practically (only if they are the highest-mark ships you have in the fleet will that be accurate). I would also say that the micro is something you're just going to end up doing anyway. I.e. if you are short on energy, which happens in most games just as a basic part of the game mechanics - you aren't going to build all the turrets you can on all planets without running out for example - then you're going to have to assess your ships, turrets, what you need and don't need ... it's just integral to the game from my point of view so it's not something that it is possible/desirable to get away from. The only reason I don't advocate for having the discount default off for *everyone* is just that it's been part of the game for quite a while and people are used to it. Having said that, it's a small point and definitely not one that I'm particularly concerned about one way or another. On the 'Can use more than available fuel' that is the setting I meant, but I apparently said it backwards. It is defaulted to Off, but having it be On - but changeable if people don't want that - for Expert+ was the idea. |
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I think going in and choosing which ship lines to disable for metal or energy reasons based on mark levels sounds very tedious and unfun. I think upgrading my ships with by spending science should be an entirely positive experience, with no non-obvious hidden gotchas. If we wanted players to go do that sort of thing then we would need better UI at the very minimum. |
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I guess my point is that gotcha is already there regardless. It just is, unless you give the player unlimited energy in which case there is no game balance at all. |
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I had to think about this a fair bit. How about if this is a non-fleet-based thing, and applies to the cost of turrets as a group, strikecraft as a group, frigates as a group, and nothing else? Then you have three groups where this applies (your highest strikecraft line makes other strikecraft lines cheaper), and you can do what you like with other lines going into smaller fleets, etc. I don't like the current method where your energy fluctuates as you move between fleets, or where it's cheaper to build a lot of stuff by moving low mark items to a high mark fleet, then moving it back out. My current implementation has those gotchas, and those were not intentional. |
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Careful with the turrets one. That would be horribly easy to abuse compared to the others. Since you can have Mark 5 turrets on a battle station just a minute into the game and the stuff on your planets is all a couple marks behind. Discounts on strike and frigates is fine as long as you keep a separation between station-keepers and mobile fleets. Again direct upgrades giving you things like mark 4+ watchmen frigates just a minute into the game is a thing. |
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Oh, true. So, not turrets at all, actually. |
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I think basing the discounts on the strikecraft and frigate 'pools' as described would be an improvement and fit with your stated goals for this feature. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 13, 2022 7:29 pm | Strategic Sage | New Issue | |
| Feb 14, 2022 9:24 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0064432 | |
| Feb 14, 2022 9:29 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0064434 | |
| Feb 14, 2022 12:57 pm | Strategic Sage | Note Added: 0064441 | |
| Feb 14, 2022 1:08 pm | BadgerBadger | Note Added: 0064442 | |
| Feb 14, 2022 1:09 pm | BadgerBadger | Note Edited: 0064442 | |
| Feb 14, 2022 1:18 pm | Strategic Sage | Note Added: 0064443 | |
| Feb 15, 2022 3:34 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0064501 | |
| Feb 15, 2022 3:34 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Assigned To | => Chris_McElligottPark |
| Feb 15, 2022 3:34 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | new => feedback |
| Feb 15, 2022 5:05 pm | CRCGamer | Note Added: 0064506 | |
| Feb 15, 2022 9:47 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0064529 | |
| Feb 16, 2022 3:22 am | Strategic Sage | Note Added: 0064544 | |
| Feb 16, 2022 3:22 am | Strategic Sage | Status | feedback => assigned |
