Unused Building Balancing Ideas

[chrstgtr]

17 hours ago, faction02 said:

I am not sure I would like to see wonders being frequently used in general. Once a player manage to get his wonder, the game is often over if he has time to use it. But I would agree that changing the repartition of the cost between how much is spent on the building and how much is spent on the tech makes sense. Civilization that have advantage on technology cost or research time might benefits a bit too much of their bonus there.

Wonders aren't used frequently. But it is helpful as a tiebreaker for those long games that otherwise never seem to end. My point is that right now there are a lot of games that last very long and yet still no one builds wonders.

 

I see no reason to make a building that doesn't serve a purpose. Or to delete any building that does (or used to) have a purpose. Instead costs, usefulness, and research times should be adjusted. 

 

Agree on your last point that the research aspect provides an unfair advantage for what should otherwise be a "final upgrade" building. 

Edited April 26, 2021 by chrstgtr

[faction02]

2 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Wonders aren't used frequently. But it is helpful as a tiebreaker for those long games that otherwise never seem to end. My point is that right now there are a lot of games that last very long and yet still no one builds wonders.

I agree there too, I mentioned that I am not sure I wanted to see them used more simply because I am not sure they fit this thread. Wonders aren't really used frequently simply because if you can win with it, you might have won without it in most cases. This part refers more to the thread mentioned by maroder. I don't think changing the function of the wonders should make it more used by itself.

I also agree that currently they are useful as tiebreaker. I would add there that they should make sense as an instrument to punish turtling. If you notice that the enemy invest a lot of resources into defenses, then making a wonder should make sense as a strategy to punish someone sitting back. If there wasn't the issue with slingers civilization, I would have suggested to rise the importance of stone in their cost from that perspective to force a decision between getting multiple fort/towers and building a wonder.

[chrstgtr]

45 minutes ago, faction02 said:

I agree there too, I mentioned that I am not sure I wanted to see them used more simply because I am not sure they fit this thread. Wonders aren't really used frequently simply because if you can win with it, you might have won without it in most cases. This part refers more to the thread mentioned by maroder. I don't think changing the function of the wonders should make it more used by itself.

 

I think we agree. My point is wonders should be more useful than they currently are (which is not useful unless eco is zero difficulty and you can wait several minutes to see any benefit, if at all). The delay for any benefit is unnecessarily long. But that does not mean that these buildings buildings (which are almost by definition rare in their excellence) should be built in most games. 

[hyperion]

The primary purpose of wonder is the victory condition to build a wonder. So it shouldn't be cheap nor fast to build.

The popcap increase bonus is powerful and all that is needed for the wonder to be interesting on it's own in other scenarios. Whether to require a tech to get the bonus, research time/cost, and how big the bonus needs to be are enough variables to balance it's use.

 

 

3 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Wonders aren't used frequently. But it is helpful as a tiebreaker for those long games that otherwise never seem to end. My point is that right now there are a lot of games that last very long and yet still no one builds wonders.

Originally the intention was for a game to take about 45 minutes. The most straight forward approach to end endless games is to make offence stronger over time. Let's say have techs armour plating 1 - 100 for rams. So if you research long enough defence structures become meaningless.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

I think it is important to make wonders a risky but potentially rewarding undertaking. I think there is no reason why we can't have both a pop expansion upgrade for free at a more expensive wonder (like what @chrstgtr said) as well as a civ specific thing there (like what @Dakara said with upgrades).  Perhaps building the wonder for some civs could unlock some interesting unit that maybe some civs could only train from the wonder itself.  I think wonders providing tie-breaking capability is good, but it is important not to make wonders a tie-breaking necessity.  Ties should be rare, and balanced and contentious battles should leave each side one mistake away from severe losses that should often spell doom, rather than a reinforced, stabilized game-state that is inalterable by player choices, be they mistakes or 1000 IQ plays (like in a24).  <<<--- TL;DR

Issues:

Endless 4v4s are a really serious problem in the game. I think some factors contributing to them are:

1. metal availability: people can not afford to lose siege weapons and eles so they are rarely risked once metal runs out.
2. slower time to make new army: decreases willingness to risk, decreases rate at which attacks can be mounted
3. stone and time excess: such slow gameplay tempo and excess of stone causes building proliferation, with forts, towers, ccs, temples, stuck between frontlines. Also towers and forts seem to have more arrow damage, arrow range, and hitpoints.
4. military movement speed: most units seem slower this alpha, so most offensive movements turn into 2v1s or 3v1s. Also defensive building gridlock combined with pathfinding changes has made it more costly to punch through defenses and the reward of being on the other side is reduced.
5. opposing archer armies need more space to not engage each other, so armies can attack each other from their own defenses and bases.

I am sure you guys could name a bunch of other features that introduce gameplay overstability and stagnation. But I would like to describe the effect this problem has. In a23, players could roam the map or go to unexpected places to attack, and turtling usually meant that you were trapped in your base which used to be a bad thing, since your allies could face a 2v1 in your absence. It is not that more players in a24 are choosing to turtle, it is that the gameplay has become more turtle-like in general, and their hand is forced. A standard a24 4v4 on mainland on "medium" (what used to be "Normal") map size has less mobility that a PIZZA(4v4 tiny mainland)  did in a23. In a23, armies would wriggle their way around enemy team bases and cause maximum damage and force favorable fights by using rams and eles to threaten key buildings, in a24 such a move is almost certainly resulting in a loss via 2v1. Truly, in a24, it is rare and often inconsequential to catch someone off guard.

 

Possible Changes:

Some measures that could be undertaken to make gameplay in a25 as dynamic and exciting as it was in a23, while being balanced are:

1.  nerf archer infantry speed---> archers should be powerful still but can be out-maneuvered by most other army comps, this way they can not protect the whole base from the woodline, and an attack to the vulnerable part of a base with rams will cause panic and a defender can not patiently organize a huge defense army before serious damage is done.
2. return archery tradition to a trade-off to suit different situations (perhaps minimum range? ----> check out my post to @letsplay0ad mod)
3. return stone cost to some upgrades and make fort cost 100-200 more stone than in a24. Or perhaps keep tower damage but increase stone cost by 100% so that most bases will have defensive holes.
4. increase training rates somewhat
5. increase lethality of overall battles.
6. decrease HP, arrow damage and range from forts and towers and CCs (back to a23 levels)

This is an underlying cause of many seemingly unrelated frustrations people have with a24, and is a problem that I feel must be addressed by a25. If you disagree or agree please tell me how you feel about this. It is a very complex problem and I hope I have been able to summarize it in one post. And in the end, the changes could be many things, but they need to reward: movement, risk, maneuvering, and action. 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 30, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

military movement speed: most units seem slower this alpha, so most offensive movements turn into 2v1s or 3v1s. Also defensive building gridlock combined with pathfinding changes has made it more costly to punch through defenses and the reward of being on the other side is reduced.

this is a problem. Note this with cavalry units.

 

2 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

• increase lethality of overall battles.
• decrease HP, arrow damage and range from forts and towers and CCs (back to a23 levels)

That they are the values of before but with technologies you can invest in turtling.

As well as others invest in attack. (Rush)

 

How feasible is it to break turtling with economic booming?

[Lion.Kanzen]

On 25/04/2021 at 7:43 AM, Dakara said:

WONDER :First delete the tech for bonus population and replace with a bonus linked to civilization once the wonder is built. A bonus military. 

Why not  both?

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

2 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

How feasible is it to break turtling with economic booming?

The tragic situation in a24 is that you can turtle without any significant economic downsides. Or to phrase it better, a turtling situation can arise from a 4v4 even when all the players do not try to turtle. After 20 minutes I would say about 90% of attempted attacks on a base become retreats.  Perhaps imposing a stone cost per unit*second of repairs for repairing big buildings like forts and towers and ccs could make it harder to dedicate to long term turtling with units static under defenses. The best unit for turtling, archers, should have a hard time moving along the defenses to defend a weaker portion of the perimeter. This would cause archer+ building defense to be relegated to defending particular structures like forts and CCs, it would reduce the area of which turtling can defend and reduce the economic feasibility of turtling, in this situation archers would be unable to defend a fort unless they were placed near there in advance, this would reduce the area of the map that can be covered by a turtle-like defense with archers and make army mobility and exciting gameplay a feature of a25.

 

These problems are very hard to explain, but also very important. If you want to, you could join me to spectate some 4v4 where hopefully I could point out some of these situations or explain them better. I could be online this Sunday between GMT 21:00 and GMT 7:00 the next day. 

 

 

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

On 25/04/2021 at 10:44 PM, chrstgtr said:

Wonders aren't used frequently. But it is helpful as a tiebreaker for those long games that otherwise never seem to end. My point is that right now there are a lot of games that last very long and yet still no one builds wonders.

 

I see no reason to make a building that doesn't serve a purpose. Or to delete any building that does (or used to) have a purpose. Instead costs, usefulness, and research times should be adjusted. 

 

Agree on your last point that the research aspect provides an unfair advantage for what should otherwise be a "final upgrade" building. 

That is why we talked about technologies that would break an even situation, and that would give an imbalance in the balance of power.

 

I can only remember Castle technologies in AoE II or OP technologies ideas in AoE Online for premium users.

[Dakara]

9 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Why not  both?

because military bonus proposed already op

more pop= more lag 

[Lion.Kanzen]

33 minutes ago, Dakara said:

because military bonus proposed already op

more pop= more lag 

I prefer World population set up. Less laggy.

[chrstgtr]

5 hours ago, Dakara said:

more pop= more lag 

In my experience, wonders actually get built when a game effectively becomes 3v4 because one player either resigns too early or can't sustain full pop ( because border/at a new base or they're just not very skilled). The extra pop from a wonder allows one of the three remaining players to get extra pop and break the stalemate (Sometimes it works. Sometimes the player invests too much, ignores his allies too much, is unable to adjust to the new eco, and loses.) So the "extra" pop isn't actually more than the game is set up to sustain.

 

Also, wonders are generally built late game after a lot of game features (i.e. lots and lots of trees) are removed from the map, which decreases lag. 

 

What often actually causes lag late game is players building a ton of walls, which increases lag a lot. Corrals can do it too, but there is a ticket to limit the number of animals and fix this. 

 

10 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

That is why we talked about technologies that would break an even situation, and that would give an imbalance in the balance of power.

This is removing something that already works and replacing with something that we do not know whether it will or will not work. Extra population works. I see no reason to remove something that works.

Adding extra techs is fine. But we shouldn't remove good features just for the sake of replacing good features with new features.