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badosu

Balancing Advisors
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Posts posted by badosu

  2. When are tech upgrades worth it?

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted

    Thanks for the correction @faction02, I fixed the numbers.

    I agree with the questioning regarding the relative value of each res type and having mil vs eco, this is assuming not heavily harassed.

    With regard to the bonus impact, I assume that the computations are performed in floating point values instead of integers, the +0.1 for example would be just for display, but would require confirmation.

  5. When are tech upgrades worth it?

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted · Edited by badosu

    I noticed some good players don't make upgrades in good timing even when unharassed so I thought about discussing what would be the ideal ones.

    These are my raw calculations, it might be different depending on conditions (excess resources or being attacked). Also, not taking account ptols particularities.

    Starting the discussion with P1: wood and food are the ones you'll want to take, unless playing with slingers and taking stone, great hunt or extra berries, but the basics apply:

    If you have 30 gatherers, 15% bonus equals to having additional 4.5 workers, which assuming a mix of women and men (2 men, 2.5 women) equals 225 food, 200 100 wood. For their first gathering run, these workers would have brought you 45 resources. So for an investment of 250 resources, offloading the recruitment buildings (since you don't need to queue as much), you would get a 130 resources payback. Taking into consideration a generous 10% tax for walk time (if wood, food negligible) about 100 resources payback.

    Considering that the upgrade compounds with the scale (you get more benefit with more workers) I would put this as a ceiling when you would want to get the upgrade, having 30 workers gathering that particular resource. It could be argued that if you are not making mercenaries, you could even write off the metal cost, but I digress.

    This is assuming also that the upgrade happens instantaneously, otherwise we could take into consideration using 250 resources to build 2 men and a women or 5 women (if you could balance wood for food) which on their first run would bring about 20-50 resources (taking into consideration queue time). Even with these factors into consideration taking the upgrade seems to be a positive return.

    So in raw terms, between 40-60 pop in P1 would be the ideal timing to get both upgrades, food and wood.

    Stone and metal does not seem to be good upgrades to take in P1, unless unbalanced food for stone, but one could argue that taking cav could be a better option in some cases, if slinger/merc civ and having more than 10 men on stone/metal could also be worth it.

    Basket upgrade (5+ res cap per gatherer) seems to be a worthy upgrade for P1 only in maps with sparse wood, timing could be 100+ pop and only if a lot of excess resources since it's a costlier upgrade, calculations for the return on investment are tricky for this one.

    This first post is just about P1, but it's worthy to mention that if you are not taking P3 upgrades for wood and food as soon as possible and you are not planning a decisive timing attack in 1v1 or having to defend an all in, you are in heavy disadvantage (assuming a balanced matchup). One must take into consideration that having a higher rate of gathering means less men required to mine resources which can be in the front lines, defending while managing eco, or building fort/expand. This is not as relevant in P1 but for P3 the scale is too high to ignore.

    • Like 4

  8. Ratings Disputes and Offence Reporting (Discussion)

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by badosu

    I agree with @sphyrth, while ranking is kinda broken at the moment it's still a reasonable measure if a player is decent or not, while not a guarantee that a 1400- user is nub it is that a 1400+ player is not 'cosmic'.

    Another reason is that for tournaments and other limited roster events it's the official way to get in, e.g. I got only second bracket games for all SPG weeks (which means I had to play Valihrant and borg-in my first game) even after going from low 1400s to high 1500s. While I would certainly not have won later brackets I would have enjoyed being able to get there.

    It helps with TGs where even if a host does not know you, he can see that you're not a cosmic. Cosmic players are unreliable, they quit games out of the blue or as soon as are rushed, they provide nothing more than a light deterrent for the opposing team in the best case scenario. In 1v1s they are more likely to quit rated games. Even if you are a good player, if others don't know you, you'll be put in the same category as above.

    After I got 1450+ I noticed that the rate of 1v1 quitters has decreased dramatically.

    My recommendation is that even if you don't care about ranking or 1v1, getting out of the 1400- will benefit you a lot.

    This does not mean you need to be one of those 'rating farmers', players who stay online all the time fishing for 100+ rating difference players to crush and which claim to have 'skills only' but chicken out at any slight challenge. If you're a good enough player, can boom when necessary (p3 200 pop in 14- min) while also knowing how to not panic and throw units away when rushed or even perhaps scouting and rushing yourself, 1500-1700 would be the range where I'd expect to see you. That said, unfortunately this is the range where you find most inconsistency in player skills per rating, very good players in the low 1500s and borderline decent players at 1600+.

    Also an interesting thing I noticed is that when I actually started caring about rating for SPG I started noticing more subtle details of gameplay that would give me an edge, had to learn how handle more competitive players and strategies for which I was unprepared before, and got a better insight on game sense.

    The rating also keeps me accountable, I care for it, but not as a number to be optimized but rather as a symbol of what it means: do I multitask, rush, scout, boom, know more different civs and strategies as other players in the same range? If not, look for good players in that range and play them, learn what is missing and get better, it's fine to get a lower rating if it means you're evolving.

    • Like 1

  9. Why are slingers so good?

    in Gameplay Discussion

    Posted · Edited by badosu

    10 hours ago, surpriuss said:

    "They cost stone" Well this is not exactly true.  While the need for stone can increase the amount of time required to create slingers, all you need is to start gathering it from the beginning. Also with the stone provided even in the low resources configuration it is possible to have extra units at the cost of only food and some wood, this basically explains why slinger rush is so successful and widely used among those so called "professional players".  I really believe that the existence of overpowered slingers is something to diminish the gameplay and some well known issue among the game user base. I'm not sure if the developers are aware of it, but until something changes most players will be sticking to slingers and relying on them as their main strategy.

    So, basically you agree with me?

    Another aspect is that is easier to balance resources as well, if you're strapped for wood, make more slingers; if for stone, make spearmen. At the same time stone closeness to base means it's easier to secure and you have more men near farms early on, the fixed position means less resources and time spent building storehouses.

    • Like 1

  18. Borg Expansion Pack Mod implementation in 0ad alpha 24 release.

    in Game Modification

    Posted

    2 hours ago, borg- said:

    This is an idea I've had for some time.

    We could have a male unit (slave for hellenics?) with the same status as the soldiers, but with low capacities and health as women.

    My plan is for the CC only train women and men (not soldiers).

    Slaves may cost 0, long training time. Other men, same training speed as women, but food cost 60.

    Not sure if possible to implement, but maybe you can only train slaves after a certain number of enemy units are killed, this would avoid slave spam and be historically accurate as well.

    With exception to spartans, which were a slaver society, perhaps they could train slaves for free at a certain limited rate as a civ bonus.

    I am not sure which other civilizations had big slave populations but this could be available for Romans, Hellenic and Ptolemies.

    • Like 1

  19. Borg Expansion Pack Mod implementation in 0ad alpha 24 release.

    in Game Modification

    Posted

    3 hours ago, borg- said:

    I need some help about cavaly.

    Specifically what were the battle objectives between cav lancer and cav sword, in the battle?

    Was the cav sword lighter n faster?

    @Lion.Kanzen can help me?

     

    1 hour ago, Sundiata said:

    I think in the real world the primary weapon of melee cavalry has always been spears/lances. Swords were a secondary weapon: when the spear broke, or was dropped/lost, close quarter mosh pit style combat, or when the unit was dismounted making the long spear unwieldy for 1v1 combat. I think dedicated "sword cav" is mostly a game convention. In antiquity cavalry was primarily used against other cavalry, scouting, and chasing down retreating/fleeing units. They're particularly useful for their speed and manoeuvrability, exploiting weak point in the enemy lines. They perform very well against lightly armed units. They perform very poorly against disciplined heavy infantry. If the cav is armored, they can perform well against ranged units. If not, they're very vulnerable to missiles.   

     

    That is on point, sword would be used as a secondary weapon if the lance broke or the rider lost his mount.

    Also, apart from the other points already mentioned (chasing retreating units, scouting, attacking light infantry) on many battles of the antiquity they were used to great effect with the anvil and hammer strategy, heavy infantry attacking the front lines while the cavalry would circle the flanks and attack from behind. If I am not mistaken I've read that 0ad has logic with regard to lower armor when attacked by the flank, I am not too sure if this is actually implemented though.

    If we were striving for historical accuracy though we would have a very hard job to make it real, as it would require heavily nerfing skirmish units, they were used just behind the frontline to taunt the enemy, get a few kills before armies clashed, or the flanks. Slingers had an even less preeminent role.

    So I would avoid looking at drastic changes at a first iteration to improve balance, just making it better than the current state would be a huge accomplishment.

    If we were allowed to dream though:

    - Archers and skirmishers could have a limit to how many throws they can perform and then get a cooldown, this would drastically reduce their abuse.
    - Flanking generates an aoe morale effect in which units would have a more drastic armor nerf, reduced attack speed or similar
    - Your favorite civ trivia: roman soldiers throw a pillum (a javelin shaped weapon) and draw their gladius (sword) or use it against cav, macedonians can have sarissa wielders (greatly increased armor in formation, abismal walk speed), etc...
    - etc...

    • Like 2

  21. The day I killed Borg_ and he ragequited

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by badosu

    Well, disregarding the fact that it was arguably the worst faction against the best one and that you had 2 extra berries...

    Had borg scouted you were on a women centric economy until 100-120 pop it could have been different, nevertheless still a good win.


    That is quite an achievement, congrats.

    Stay above the drama and keep it up.
     

  22. Balance Mod to test changes.

    in Game Modification

    Posted

    I'll take a look at the source and work on the weekend to figure out how to make changes in separate commits.

    Does the development team accept patches in.. well patch format? Since I use git I would be more comfortable just using my workflow and sending each patch separately.

    Some should be pretty straightforward to be included in separate patches/commits, e.g.: loom 100% health, archer buff, slinger nerf, ele buff, etc...

    • Thanks 1

  23. game balance is beyond bad

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Quote

     practice has nothing to do with a game being unbalanced 

    > Swordcav and Lancecavis useless. Archers own them in mass!

    Does not seem like someone who understands interactions between these units.

    > U still dont get notified when u r in a battle wiht a player and another player is raping ur base.

    Not sure what this means, I think it's lack of attention span unless it's a bug I never faced.

    > Ballista are totally overpowered. 3 ballista can rape army of 100 with eles.

    I am not sure an experienced player would have an issue here, ballistas are powerful yes but they have major drawbacks that can be easily overcame.

    > Melee units are trying to convert opponents siege instead of destroying it.

    I mean, I understand that the defaults may not be your personal preference, most of the time you'll want to destroy instead of capturing. But not paying attention to a simple default is not reason to blame 'balance beyond bad'.

    Quote

     practice has nothing to do with a game being unbalanced

    This assertion is true, it does not mean that the accusations aforementioned are objective truths as opposed to frustration.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

  25. ValihrAnt reborned from ashes (1v1 with Carthage)

    in Alpha 23

    Posted · Edited by badosu

    Great match, thanks for sharing!

    Though I don't see it much as 'Reborn from ashes':

     

    Spoiler

    Carthage went on to rush with a few camels and women behind, while Valihrant had only a few men.

    As soon as Valihrant noticed the investment on camels he started making his own cav, not engaging until it had a critical mass, even if it cost women lives (house garrisoning could've been better).

    Then he went on, to use his best in class micro and dancing to overwhelm his opponent with rotating rushes. gg

     

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