Fundamentals and Gamey

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Shadowstar:
The mere fact that this thread even exists proves my point, as well as all the balance mods and race creation mods which have been made and which are being made at this moment.

Ignorance is no solution.

I would never try to make the point that SEIV is perfect. But this threads exsistance proves nothing, except that some people agree with your opinion. There are just as many people disagreeing with your opinion as agreeing.

And please direct me to all the balance mods? There have been many suggested in the Last two years, but as far as I am aware none have been completed. Although I think PvK's mod sounds very promising. It sounds to me as if all these people think the game is unbalanced and then realize it's not as bad as they thought.

How does a race creation mod prove the game is unbalanced? If anything that might demonstrate the AI is weak in this game, but I would support you in that argument.

Geoschmo

[Fyron]

Adamant mod (still in the works) has incorporated many ideas proposed by PvK and others for his balance mod. Go check it out (linked in my sig).

[spoon]

Originally posted by geoschmo:

It sounds to me as if all these people think the game is unbalanced and then realize it's not as bad as they thought.

It's pretty bad. But, the game balances itself by being multiplayer, and allowing everyone to exploit the imbalances equally, or to team up against people who have done so.

Unfortunately, this requires knowing a lot of non-apparent factoids about the game. It's sad to me that people invest a lot of time developing and playing empires, only to lose the game horribly because they didn't realize that maintenence reduction subtracts from the base, or that your chance to hit can quite easily drop to 1% unless you pour some points into aggressiveness.

-spoon

[geoschmo]

Spoon, I agree with you there. But I think that that's what's great about these discussions. People can learn why their ships keep getting toasted.

That's the main reason I started the KOTH league. Because for me two players games is where I learned almost everything I know about SEIV strategy and mechanics. The big games are fun as are the RP games, but you gotta have combat to learn how it works. And you gotta have the game more along fairly quickly so you can try new theories and see their resolution before you foget what you werre trying to do in the first place.

Geoschmo

[ February 05, 2003, 01:10: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[DavidG]

Originally posted by spoon:
or that your chance to hit can quite easily drop to 1% unless you pour some points into aggressiveness.

-spoon

Hmmm is this really true or does it assume you do nothing in game to increase your attack strength and the enemy does everything to increase his defense.

[Phoenix-D]

To get down to 1%..hmm. The worst you can get from a purely racial design perspective is 135%.

That's equivilent to three squares of distance, or a little more than the Stealth+Scattering bonus.

100% aggressiveness, max tech, BC hull.
They get:
60% (ECM III) + 30% (armor) + 35% (racial)
145%
You get:
65% (Sensor III)

Fleet and ship advantages cancel. The attacker in this situation has a 80% disadvantage- or 20% to hit -at range 1-. If he had gone Beserker + 25% agression, the to-hit would be 55%.

Phoenix-D

[spoon]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
To get down to 1%..hmm. The worst you can get from a purely racial design perspective is 135%.

What do you mean by 135%? I get these numbers:

MinMaxer: 125/bezerk/ecm3/armor6 vs.
Noob: 100/scientist(eg)/sensor3

giving Noob a PointBlank chance to hit of 40%. If MinMaxer is fighting MaxWeapRange, Noob would have 1% to hit at range 4 or greater.

Two bezerkers facing each other would have 75% at point blank, and 35% at range 4.

[ February 05, 2003, 05:05: Message edited by: spoon ]

[Fyron]

He meant +25 from racial characteristic, +10 from culture.

[spoon]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
He meant +25 from racial characteristic, +10 from culture.

Ah, gotcha. Though, really, racial-wise only, you can get a base -65% to hit...

125 defense/bezerker vs.
75 aggressive/engineer

Still, having 1% to hit is not uncommon for a lot of new (and not so new) players. Though, admitedly, half of that comes from failure to use Training Facilities (the other half from not raising aggressiveness).

Makes me think the Minimum chance to hit should be a lot higher, like 30%... (moddable, I know)

[Phoenix-D]

Spoon, the 135% was comparing to the base of 100%. I.e. A 35% increase.

and if you don't train, you are -screwed-. That's an entirely different subject.

Phoenix-D