"Gamey" tactics like "Rock, none" races

[Suicide Junkie]

The only truly equitable situation would be for players to have to start with the same set up - sort of like Chess. But what fun is that?

I have a chess scenario, and its pretty cool. An 8x8 grid of systems, a resource-generating king (if he dies, you lose because your ships get scrapped) A powerful queen, Heavily armored Rooks, repairship bishops, fast & powerful knight cruisers, and a bunch of pawn destroyers.

Hunt down the enemy king, while protecting your own!

[capnq]

Charts and formulae are the proof.

Only if they are accurate, and the person you're trying to convince understands them well enough to interpret them and verify that they are accurate.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." -- Mark Twain

[LostCommander]

Why are agressiveness and defensiveness (combat only bonuses) being considered very important? Just wondering as I have never touched them. Yes, I know exactly how they work, so is it not just a personal choice for either more ships or better ships? Sorry, I can't seem to find who originally posted on this...

[Grandpa Kim]

quote:

Definitely, gaining all the way up to 20% experience in only 3 turns instead of
7 is a major advantage. However, the experience bonuses are not a MAJOR
advantage per se because there are other options which give an advantage
roughly analgous to that of having 20% experience bonus

Oh yes they are. A lack of training will get your ships slaughtered by weaker forces. And it
is not a 20% advantage, it is a 40% advantage (ship + fleet training).

Not 20%, not 40% but 80%!

Take two identical, opposing ships. Set them at a distance from each other so that they each have a 50% chance to hit. In this situation its a crap shoot.

Now, give full training to one ship. Suddenly he gets 20% for ship training and 20% for fleet training. That modest 50% has leapt to a staggering 90%! But don't stop there. His defense has increased by the same amount causing his opponent's chance to hit to drop from 50% to an abysmal 10%! 'Nuf said. (Note that warrior and berserker status, aggressiveness and defensiveness have similar, though less compounded effects.)

In several spots in this thread, Geo said that its the player's skill that matters. I couldn't agree more! This game is so complex that it is player skill in using this complexity, that more than any other factor, win's the day.

[ December 22, 2002, 20:34: Message edited by: Grandpa Kim ]

[Fyron]

Originally posted by LostCommander:
Why are agressiveness and defensiveness (combat only bonuses) being considered very important? Just wondering as I have never touched them. Yes, I know exactly how they work, so is it not just a personal choice for either more ships or better ships? Sorry, I can't seem to find who originally posted on this...

It is because of how the combat system works. Any difference in to hit chances makes a huge difference in the results of combat. Take 125 agg and def, and Berzerker. You opponent does not. That gives you an automatic 35% to hit and defense bonus. That means that a lot fewer enemy shots hit your ships, and a lot more of your shots hit enemy ships. You destroy his ships much faster, and then even fewer of his shots hit. It is a snowball effect.

[PvK]

Yeah, the whole combat system would be a lot more balanced and less easily lopsided if the to-hit factors were actually factors (that multiply) instead of additive stacking modifiers. I've ranted and explicated that to MM until I finally gave up.

Anyway, I'll make a balance mod that only affects the racial point costs in the otherwise-unmodded game. Not that there would be only one way to do it, but I think I can come up with something pretty reasonable, or at least a big improvement. I'll start a new thread soliciting opinions. Then people can re-argue all the balance issues.

Oh, and as for MM not fixing the balance in patches, I think he's tried to limit changes to the basic game except where really necessary, because of the effects on existing games, and in breaking people's favorite tactics. Even with what little has been changed, there have already been some players who got bothered by some of the changes to the system.

PvK

[geoschmo]

Yes, it's very difficult for Malfador to do balancing tweaks when we can't agree on how much they should be changed, or even if they need changed to begin with. A lot of those issues he ticks off as many people with the fix as he makes happy, so why bother?

Geoschmo

[Krsqk]

Not to mention that changing racial characteristic/trait costs makes all previous AIs and EMP files obsolete. That would really tick off some people.

[spoon]

I guess it's a matter of perspective. I'd rather he perfect his game. Modders are a small minority of people, whereas there are likely 100,000 people who don't know what a mod is.

Do you think Blizzard waits until there is some sort of concensus before they balance their games? Nope. Do people get pissed off? Yes. Are their games better because of it? Yes.

-Spoon

[geoschmo]

How do you define the game as better Spoon? If an equal number of people are upset by the change as made happy by it, sounds like no net improvement to me.

edit: And I am not talking about stuff like the maint reduction here. Those sorts of things could be changed and I doubt anyone would complain too much. And he does change those sorts of things. It may just be a matter of enough people complaining to him about it. I don't know about Blizzard specifically, but I doubt they put out more patches for their games and are more responsive to the players than Malfador. I don't think anyone is.

But stuff like the PPB, where a legitimate case can be made for both sides. It's tough there to make changes without ticking people off. Those that don't think there is anything wrong with it anyway.

Geoschmo

[ December 23, 2002, 14:40: Message edited by: geoschmo ]