Resource-For-Kill must be altered.
superelf
Join Date: 2003-05-05 Member: 16077Members
Join Date: 2003-05-05 Member: 16077Members
<div class="IPBDescription">In order to solve the imbalance that frequently occurs on large-scale servers such as 16 v 16 server, Resource-For-Kill must be altered.</div>Currently, the RFK is set up so that it best suits matches such 6 v 6, i.e., when small amount of ppl play against small amount of people.
Therefore, the RFK system is rather balanced during a small match up or scrims; however, it brings awful lot of imbalance on large-scale match ups.
This is due to the fact that, if the amount of people on a team doubles, the chance of obtaining RFK doubles as well.
As a result, the winning team - or the better skilled team - receives a lot more RFKs than the losing one. If the marines are winning, the team will attain more advantage than the Aliens by upgrades, weaponaries, etc. As this continues, the marine will have an awful more advantage than the aliens, and thus, the gap between two teams will become even greater.
This is why Kharaa often face difficulties winning on a large scale match up. Of course, the alien team also wins, but that is simply because one or two skillful alien users are causing total destruction and confusion while the others work as a team to take strategic points safely.
So, the core problem behind this is the fixed RFK system.
In order to solve this imbalance on a large scale match up servers:
RFKs must shift according to the amount of players
So it is possible to have small match ups while making it difficult for the marines to own the alien team by upgrading fast with excessive RFKs.
For example, with this new system, marine will receive 2 resource per kill in a 6 v 6 match up, 3 resource per kill in 3 v 3, 1 resource per kill in 12 v 12, and so on. These different amounts of RFKs should be tested in order to be put into action, but the central idea is that the RFKs must shift according to the amount of players.
In the case of Kharaa, the RFK problem is rather different than the marines', and that is because the amount of resource given to players per time differs as the amount of players on the team changes. Moreover, only the ones who achieved a certain level of skill will be subjected to RFKs, and if those users cannot bring chaos to the marine team, the round is likely to go to the marines (i.e., in a rather large scale game). This is due to the fact that aliens cannot use part of the RFK to build defensive structures and/or upgrade chambers, as usually the 'higher ups' are the only ones who receive RFKs.
In addition, the above RFK altercation can cause alien teams to suffer after a certain period of time passes in a round, when alien players usually rely mostly on the RFKs to achieve enough resources to build and/or gestate into higher lifeforms. The period of time required to achieved this resource will be prolonged if the RFK is reduced in any ways.
So, the alien team's problems cannot be solved by simply altering the amount of RFKs given to players, as it is simply too risky to gestate into high lifeforms.
As a result, the game play will differ from the beginning of the round where everyone gets 25 res to start off.
If the above marine based RFK rule is enforced, aliens will suffer rather greatly after they use up their first few resources, since the resources obtain from RTs are meager and the reduced-RFKs will likely to not help. It won't take them that long to obtain the first 50 res to build a hive or gestate into a fade, but the risk becomes too high when the RFK is reduced as previously stated.
Therefore, there is something necessary so that the aliens can gather resources as fast as they gather the first 50 res.
The solution that I suggest is to make the current resource distribution of "# of RTs / Alien Players" to, in match ups of more than 6 people, "# of RTs / (6 + additional players divided by 2); as well as to change the RFK as I suggested above for the marines. This will balance out a large scale game without seriously altering the current system of NS.
Since too many fades and advanced lifeforms may come out in the beginning of the game when the RFK is fixed @ a certain amount, an inhibitor seems necessary to slow this down. So, in the case of 16 v 16, the resource distributed to the Kharaa players will be, 6 + (10 / 2), that is, "# of RTs / 11" instead of "# of RTs / 16"
Though the RFK was put into action in 2.0 and many applauded it, the fixed amount has caused many problems over the past. If this can be fixed, the balance of 3.2 will be quite amazing. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
Therefore, the RFK system is rather balanced during a small match up or scrims; however, it brings awful lot of imbalance on large-scale match ups.
This is due to the fact that, if the amount of people on a team doubles, the chance of obtaining RFK doubles as well.
As a result, the winning team - or the better skilled team - receives a lot more RFKs than the losing one. If the marines are winning, the team will attain more advantage than the Aliens by upgrades, weaponaries, etc. As this continues, the marine will have an awful more advantage than the aliens, and thus, the gap between two teams will become even greater.
This is why Kharaa often face difficulties winning on a large scale match up. Of course, the alien team also wins, but that is simply because one or two skillful alien users are causing total destruction and confusion while the others work as a team to take strategic points safely.
So, the core problem behind this is the fixed RFK system.
In order to solve this imbalance on a large scale match up servers:
RFKs must shift according to the amount of players
So it is possible to have small match ups while making it difficult for the marines to own the alien team by upgrading fast with excessive RFKs.
For example, with this new system, marine will receive 2 resource per kill in a 6 v 6 match up, 3 resource per kill in 3 v 3, 1 resource per kill in 12 v 12, and so on. These different amounts of RFKs should be tested in order to be put into action, but the central idea is that the RFKs must shift according to the amount of players.
In the case of Kharaa, the RFK problem is rather different than the marines', and that is because the amount of resource given to players per time differs as the amount of players on the team changes. Moreover, only the ones who achieved a certain level of skill will be subjected to RFKs, and if those users cannot bring chaos to the marine team, the round is likely to go to the marines (i.e., in a rather large scale game). This is due to the fact that aliens cannot use part of the RFK to build defensive structures and/or upgrade chambers, as usually the 'higher ups' are the only ones who receive RFKs.
In addition, the above RFK altercation can cause alien teams to suffer after a certain period of time passes in a round, when alien players usually rely mostly on the RFKs to achieve enough resources to build and/or gestate into higher lifeforms. The period of time required to achieved this resource will be prolonged if the RFK is reduced in any ways.
So, the alien team's problems cannot be solved by simply altering the amount of RFKs given to players, as it is simply too risky to gestate into high lifeforms.
As a result, the game play will differ from the beginning of the round where everyone gets 25 res to start off.
If the above marine based RFK rule is enforced, aliens will suffer rather greatly after they use up their first few resources, since the resources obtain from RTs are meager and the reduced-RFKs will likely to not help. It won't take them that long to obtain the first 50 res to build a hive or gestate into a fade, but the risk becomes too high when the RFK is reduced as previously stated.
Therefore, there is something necessary so that the aliens can gather resources as fast as they gather the first 50 res.
The solution that I suggest is to make the current resource distribution of "# of RTs / Alien Players" to, in match ups of more than 6 people, "# of RTs / (6 + additional players divided by 2); as well as to change the RFK as I suggested above for the marines. This will balance out a large scale game without seriously altering the current system of NS.
Since too many fades and advanced lifeforms may come out in the beginning of the game when the RFK is fixed @ a certain amount, an inhibitor seems necessary to slow this down. So, in the case of 16 v 16, the resource distributed to the Kharaa players will be, 6 + (10 / 2), that is, "# of RTs / 11" instead of "# of RTs / 16"
Though the RFK was put into action in 2.0 and many applauded it, the fixed amount has caused many problems over the past. If this can be fixed, the balance of 3.2 will be quite amazing. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
Comments
How many servers for 32 players are there out there?
I can name one. G4B2S. One server doesn't warrant all the extra work to balance it just for them.
And even if there are more, adding a small change means a lot of man hours to get the thing balanced. What happens if your proposed RFK system is perfect for 32 man, but fails miserably to the point of exclusion on a 12 man server? The dev team have said countless times, that NS is balanced up to the point of 16 man servers, and after that, holes start appearing in the balance.
The answer is not to change the balance in favour of the larger servers, it's to acknowledge that your playing on a server configuration that was not considered inside design specs. It's no possible (afaik) to limit the maximum number of slots on a server, beyond what the engine can cope with.
You could change RFK.
Or you could look at the gameplay right now and see if the 1 or 2 guys generating 90% of the team's res is the problem.
there could be some plugin that scales this for the size of the server.
but meh.
I'm not sure this'd make much of a difference, but I try to avoid large servers anyway, so if it does work, sure.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> in the case of 16 v 16, the resource distributed to the Kharaa players will be, 6 + (10 / 2), that is, "# of RTs / 11" instead of "# of RTs / 16"<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> for most of the time aliens would only have 4 rts, perhaps less. so for every 4 seconds one will generate 4/11 which means about 1 res every 12 seconds. suppose that alien cannot kill anything. that would make him 5 minutes to reach 50 res. with RFK that will be faster. and that seem to be acceptable. aliens who are good still can fade early as if a alien kill 6 marine gaining 6 res, he can already fade in 4 minutes. but what i afraid is in the mid game. in this scenario every aliens would have a lump sum of 50 res spent or not spent, that would be a lot. if 8 players go gorge, that would have 8 players available to fade. this is the trouble. How long would take for marines to down all the fades? With 5 rts its more horrible that by 4 minutes all aliens would have 50 res, even faster with RFK. so i guess u still have to alter it a bit.
apart from this, what about late time? what would u do/suggest about the jp/heavy ownage? whats happening on big (at least superelf yours) server is whenever heavy and jp are researched, aliens would hardly stand a chance to win as heavy and jetpack combo seems to be so overpowered that even a 2-hives-fade-onos combo cannot handle it, even in 1:1 ratio.
but anyway, good analysis.
rfk = bad to begin with. I liked 1.04 because we only got res by RTs. no rt, your own damned fault. To bad. Promoted teamplay, not kill hunting.
Also since we do balance the game for 6vs6 (which I LOVE since we are a SQUAD not a damned army spawning in) we don't need more rfk when we get more players
So far the best argument I've seen is that the aliens are supposed to be work individually. On the other hand you see people yelling 'work as a team' to any posts regarding how aliens are underpowered (no comment on my opinion on that part). So what is it going to be?
What if all, or part, of alien RFK was dispersed like normal rt income?
Two options here: (and keep in mind that RFK is always random between 1-3)
(1st option) All res is put into the team. The top alien wouldn't get to go super early fade lerk whatever, and the first hive would be delayed, but overall the aliens would have a lot more res. Those who go fade and rock (i fall into this category, keep in mind) would be nerfed, because upon dying, we'd have a much higher chance of not being able to re-fade right away.
(2nd option) Part of the res is kept, part back into flow. Perhaps it could be that the alien always keeps 1 res to himself, but if the total res gained from the kill is 3, then he gets 2. So, for the 1-3, it would be (1 for himself), (one for himself and one for team), (two for himself and one for team). Or the 3 res could be dispersed with 2 to the team so the alien always just gets 1 res. It would add a bit to the 'predictability' of res, from looking at kills, but that could actually be considered a bad thing.
The second option would probably be the best. It would more evenly disperse res; the aliens that are racking up the kills still reap the rewards of good skill, but their currently unspent res is put to better use: its given to players with less income (from less rfk).
The idea behind this, is a semi-mirroring of the Marine RFK. Marine rfk is centralized; the whole team benefits from any marine getting kills. That marine who went 30-1 only gets a personal benefit if the comm chooses to give him a specific gun for good behaviour.
On aliens, in the current version, there is none of this. Sure, the alien loaded with rfk can choose to help the team by getting chambers, rts, hive or whatever, but for the most part, those who rack up the majority of the rfk spend it on themselves. You do get players who spend their hard-earned RFK on the early hive etc, but if you have say 5 players who have good kills (and hence god rfk), generally only one of them will *not* spend it on themselves. This modification would ensure that <u>all</u> aliens would contribute to the team with their kills.
Thoughts? I think i'll repost this in the I&S forum too.
*EDIT: Dammit XCan, you posted that right after i went to Reply <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />. Beat me to it by goddamn seconds.
Just a question.
How many servers for 32 players are there out there?
I can name one. G4B2S. One server doesn't warrant all the extra work to balance it just for them.
And even if there are more, adding a small change means a lot of man hours to get the thing balanced. What happens if your proposed RFK system is perfect for 32 man, but fails miserably to the point of exclusion on a 12 man server? The dev team have said countless times, that NS is balanced up to the point of 16 man servers, and after that, holes start appearing in the balance.
The answer is not to change the balance in favour of the larger servers, it's to acknowledge that your playing on a server configuration that was not considered inside design specs. It's no possible (afaik) to limit the maximum number of slots on a server, beyond what the engine can cope with.
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Just a question.
How many low ping NS servers with a good ammount of people in them are there?
I can run my listen server with a great ping time for most people, (sorry my UK m8's, can't make the Atlantic Ocean any smaller) but I can't get people to join. Most are playing combat or on an already decent server like the one you mentioned, and I'd have to leave it up all the time which means I'd be without a computer.
Specs:
Mobo: Asus; something model #? (going to upgrade eventually, it was the one from a gutted HP desktop)
CPU: AMD Athalon X2 4600+
RAM: 2048MB DDR2 PC2-5300 Normal grade (I wish I had performance grade PC2-8000)
GPU: nVidia GeForce 7950 GT OC with added Zalman VF-900Cu silent all copper cooler
SPU: Creative Soundblaster XFi (Gamming Version)
NPU: nForce controller
Power: 650Watt Antec
Case: Antec 900 (this thing is evil, and silent because of it's huge fans, esp the 200mm one ><)
Router: D-Link Gammer Lounge DGL-4300, firmware v1.7
Modem: Cable DOCSIS modem from Linksys BEFCM10U
ISP: InsightBB (~8Mbps down / ~1Mbps up)
It ran fine. My only complaints for lag were from my UK mates, I can't help that. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
what
Mobo: Asus; something model #? (going to upgrade eventually, it was the one from a gutted HP desktop)
CPU: AMD Athalon X2 4600+
RAM: 2048MB DDR2 PC2-5300 Normal grade (I wish I had performance grade PC2-8000)
GPU: nVidia GeForce 7950 GT OC with added Zalman VF-900Cu silent all copper cooler
SPU: Creative Soundblaster XFi (Gamming Version)
NPU: nForce controller
Power: 650Watt Antec
Case: Antec 900 (this thing is evil, and silent because of it's huge fans, esp the 200mm one ><)
Router: D-Link Gammer Lounge DGL-4300, firmware v1.7
Modem: Cable DOCSIS modem from Linksys BEFCM10U
ISP: InsightBB (~8Mbps down / ~1Mbps up)
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e-[male-specific body part]++;
NS becomes unplayable at 250+ ping
i got 150 ping to most of my american fav's
doesnt hinder me much, except from that half a sec medpack. and uberfast reaction as a skulk or marine.
having 150 ping with good reg doesnt hinder me, or my opponents much.
and if i play on low ping servers, i actually perform better.
1) Game starts
2) I go Gorge, drop an RT <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pudgy.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::gorge::" border="0" alt="pudgy.gif" />
3) I reskulk and get enough kills to be the first fade (RFK is helping me here) <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/fade.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::fade::" border="0" alt="fade.gif" />
4) Then, depending on the game, I proceed to get a ton of kills and res from them <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/marine.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::marine::" border="0" alt="marine.gif" />
5) Now I'm a fade with 70 res and we need a hive/chambers <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/hive5.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::hive::" border="0" alt="hive5.gif" />
Do I go gorge to build these structures and waste my fade points? Until (if) I die they are totally useless to me and I would happily give them to a gorge
This isn't a problem with /giveres servers. I think that should be implemented as standard as was suggested. Probably a better solution than dynamic balance, althought I do see where you are coming from.
But of course when you have +250 ping, it never happens that you don't lag <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
Anyway, I've never had a ping of about 250-300. Either I have about 50, either I have 3000-4000 <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
1. Game starts
2. I skulk around and get RFK until 50 res, and go fade.
3. I fade and pick off wandering marines, save the hive, etc.
4. I die, and instead of having res from RFK to refade, I'm stuck with like 20, since in large games alien res is distributed very slowly. In the meantime, some other random player will use the res resulting from my actions to do something useless, like drop OCs inside the hive.
I can see the logic in spreading RFK through the team, but I think the res should go to the players that will utilize it best. The marine commander can decide how to distribute res in the form of equipment. RFK is the only thing on aliens that gives the good players the extra res they need to win the game.
RFK doesn't hinder aliens - extra res for aliens is better than no res at all. Here's another scenario:
1. Game starts
2. I skulk around and get RFK until 50 res, and go fade.
3. I fade and pick off wandering marines, save the hive, etc.
4. I die, and instead of having res from RFK to refade, I'm stuck with like 20, since in large games alien res is distributed very slowly. In the meantime, some other random player will use the res resulting from my actions to do something useless, like drop OCs inside the hive.
I can see the logic in spreading RFK through the team, but I think the res should go to the players that will utilize it best. The marine commander can decide how to distribute res in the form of equipment. RFK is the only thing on aliens that gives the good players the extra res <b><!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->they<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b> need to win the game.
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And I thought it was a team effort. Dang.
If the commander is dropping medpacks, 15 players to drop medpacks for is going to be a huge slice of his resource revenue and RFK compensates that.
he doesnt have to drop medpacks because the skulks are terrible and the aliens have no lerk, and even if they do he'll do something useless instead of sporing
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i said almost the exact same thing in irc lol <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink-fix.gif" /> v. true tmk <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
actually I think it's kinda screwy that one guy has to sacrifice his res to build the hive. That's like saying "ok marine, you get to build the team protolab but you'll never get a gun".
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Leap is probably the second most powerful weapon in the game. He sacrifices his res and the entire team gets upgrades <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />