Balance Mod

dePARA

I have no sentrylimit on atm.
Half damage and half ammoamount make this much more playable with turrets. If a com spam too much turrets, he went out of pres very fast cause he has to reload them much.

Some cry because cystspam, but infestation is essential now. (negative sideeffect is, that servertickrate is going down with too much cysts, hope this will fixed soon)
Place some cyst in front of turrets, wait a moment, ammo empty. If the com isnt fast enough or has no pres to reload, you have a chance vs turrets.
And aliens stronger on infestation with balance-mod, i think this is something uwe want to implement more.

swalk

I'm not much into Lua scripting, or the possibilities of it.
But is it possible to test out the removal of energy, and change the costs to resources, server side only?
Like this:
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=115515" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=115515</a>
My suggested costs values would probably need to be tweaked for balance.
But I would really like to see how this change plays out as a whole.
As it would potentially balance out alot of things, such as spamming of abilities; Nano Shield, Umbra, Cysts, Beacon, Scan etc.
And it would give less access to high tier lifeforms on the alien side. The commander would not have the res for it, if he uses the abilities.
Marines would not be able to keep using beacon on their last base, they would need map control to beacon.
And beacon would need to revive dead marines again due to the new cost.
More trade-offs; better game.

endar

Do you know if there will be an official limit to sentries any time soon? Either twiliteblue's limit, half damage like dePara has done, or even what is suggested above by swalk. I understand the next build has a lot of major things coming in which is already going to take a while, so I'm not really expecting it for 190.

I've been holding off putting in a custom limit but it feels like its getting out of control and I need to do it myself for sanity reasons.

dePARA

What do you mean with "out of control" ? Too much Turretspam?

Halfed turretammo is hard for the com. I play with this a while and it wasnt really funny to reload every sentry every 2 seconds. With half ammo it feels your not the com, your only the "reloader". Coms-pres is down very fast also and you cannot support any longer.
So i stay with the original ammo-ammount, but still halfed the damage.

And the answer to turretspam is cystspam.
While the turrets are busy, the alienteam can clear the area out and the aliens are stronger on infestation.

In addition i limit the macs to 6 and arcs to 8.
So there cant be 5 macs everywhere repairing stuff in 0,5 sek.

yesterday we had an epic battle with these settings and it end in an stalemate as ussual. After 1,5h hours i had an idea and increase the bile-bomb damage to 20000 temporary :D
Maybe this should be an idea for an "anti-stalemate"-mod. Something with a voting-system depend on game-timer would be cool.

endar

Yea just too many is what I meant. I don't know the answer to the problem i'm just wondering if its planning to be dealt with in 190.

I actually misread that you halved ammo as well as damage, thought you only halved damage. I can imagine that would be quite frustrating as a commander!

edit: Just saw your added comment. How about if within a 10 minute window, there is no command chair build/destroy or hive build/destroy we get a highdamage mode. At least someone wins, although balancing that would be a feat in itself.

dePARA

10 Minutes is really to short.
If a game is going over 1 hr we have a real stalemate.

Maybe something like that would help:
If a team has 5 RTs after 1 hour it get the "Nuke-Mode"
- Bile Bomb destroy insta
- Arc need 1 shot to kill the Hive

Something with an dramatic timer and alarmsound or an endtheme like in BF3 :)

dePARA

These are the settings i ran actually on HBZ1:

Turrets:
15000 HP and 0 Armor (Skulks need 20 bites instead of 24 now)
Damage halfed (i think Turrets are little bit too OP normally)
250 ammo instead of 300
I installed the limit again till tier 3 is in (5 Turrets in an radius of 40 meter around each turret)

+
- 2nd Pistolmode do the same damage as first (Some use the 2nd mode in an exploiting way)
- Maclimit of 6 to prevent exessive macspam.
- Arclimit of 8 for the same reason as above.
- Balance-mod with no Hive1-Fade and Nanoshield at spawn (i like the little "spawnprotect")
- Armor Evolve-Fix (Sideeffect:If an Egg is under fire and an alien spawn, it has still full HP)

As i mentioned in my previous post: I want to see the "nuke-mode" to end these boring stalemates till tier 3 is completely in.
What do you think about this?

swalk

We're trying to balance the game here aren't we?
Giving a high damage mode is not a good option for that.
Instead, you could increase bilebomb damage by 50%, I believe that would help alot, then bilebomb and defending the gorge would be a more effective awnser to turtling.

dePARA

Yes, we try to balance the game.
Thats what the balance-mod do ;)

These changes i made are for the actual gamestate and reflect my gameexperience.
I tweak a little bit to make the game more enjoyable for both sides right now.

On the other side HBZ is the most frequented NS2-server and i thought: maybe it isnt a good idea, that the people cant play the "original"-game. Hmm, dont know :)
The changes are very subtle.

50% more Bilebomb damage would help for sure.
Now we need an talented programmer ;)

Gametimer + the ammount of rts should activate the extra-damage in my opinion.

swalk

<!--quoteo(post=1891645:date=Dec 25 2011, 11:08 PM:name=dePARA)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dePARA @ Dec 25 2011, 11:08 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1891645"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yes, we try to balance the game.
Thats what the balance-mod do ;)

Gametimer + the ammount of rts should activate the extra-damage in my opinion.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That will not balance anything, that will just become annoying for both sides.
It achieves nothing, but being an annoying gimmick to end the game.

You have to keep in mind that in public games, the teams lack teamplay very often, and that is also a reason for the stalemates.
<!--quoteo(post=1891645:date=Dec 25 2011, 11:08 PM:name=dePARA)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dePARA @ Dec 25 2011, 11:08 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1891645"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->These changes i made are for the actual gamestate and reflect my gameexperience.
I tweak a little bit to make the game more enjoyable for both sides right now.

On the other side HBZ is the most frequented NS2-server and i thought: maybe it isnt a good idea, that the people cant play the "original"-game. Hmm, dont know :)
The changes are very subtle.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's fine to tweak some values to make the game more enjoyable, that might even be another reason for your servers activity.
And I like most of the changes, but the one above is <b>not</b> a good idea.

Heroman117

I've been thinking about this for a while, and its become a little discerning to me that server operators are implementing fairly significant gameplay nerfs and alterations, while at Ns2's current state people don't have much of a choice but to play on these servers due to the limited number of servers to the general playerbase that are actually capable of running the game smoothly.

I'm perfectly fine with Balance mod in and of itself, but i'm concerned about the fact that its running on every server that is worth playing on; IE has frequent players, hardware to actually sustain a a larger player count and etc. Lets face it, the only servers that you can actually play a decent game on that also frequently have players on are the Inversion servers, HBZ, and Australia Pure, however if your in the US or Europe, the servers you have available to you are running Balance mod. It's fine that Schimmel made a mod to tweak gameplay elements and see what works, but at this point it seems like more people are playing on servers with balance-mod enabled than ones that don't, and its not the players who necessarily have the say on the changes being made and when the mod is enabled, but the discretion of Schimmel and the respective server operator.

Don't get me wrong, i completely understand that these servers are of private domain, and traditionally I've always supported being able to do whatever you want if its your own server; your the one paying the bills, you get to call the shots. However at Ns2's current state, its not like counter-strike, left 4 dead, or killing floor; its different to say "if you don't like the way we do things on our server you can just play on a different one" for Ns2 because you don't have 1000's of other servers to play on, since not only are other servers sparsely populated, but also suffer from intense server lag, as well as the induced client-lag; the former probably being a product of the latter.

The reason i'm speaking out about this is because of my rather irritating experiences with it, as well as my disagreement with some of the decisions being made in the mod; perhaps any of you have read my <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=115595&hl=" target="_blank">Sentry limit bug thread</a>. It worries me that significant game balance changes are being made and the players don't have the option to simply play on a equally as enjoyable vanilla server and don't have nearly as much say on the changes being made. This problem would be entirely null if the availability of good servers wasn't an issue but right now it is, and the past occurrences of threads suggesting the complete removal of static defense, introduction of aim assist, and other controversial suggestions, the prospect of a server operating making an impulse and drastic decision is particularly worrying to me.

I do not mean to potentially offend any server admins running balance mod, and i do not demand that anyone stop running it on their server. I only wish that you consider the weight that making dramatic alterations to the game would cause and understand the impact it has on players who may potentially disagree with you and therefor not be able to enjoy Ns2 to its fullest potential.

dePARA

<!--quoteo(post=1892283:date=Jan 1 2012, 05:13 AM:name=Heroman117)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Heroman117 @ Jan 1 2012, 05:13 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1892283"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->players who may potentially disagree with you and therefor not be able to enjoy Ns2 to its fullest potential.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Cause tier3 isnt in yet, these balancechanges are for the "fullest potential" right now.
Especially the turret-limit ist needed atm.
On HBZ build of sentrys is limited in an radius around turret, not per room.
Dont know how the other server-admins solve this.

The other changes the balancemod made are very subtle and im sure most of the players didnt notice them.
Most of these small changes find a way in 1.89 from last balancemod-version, so you can play some "future features" on modded servers.
Im not talking of sentry-limit here.

Cause game-mechanic isnt touch by the serveradmins, i dont see a problem with these little changes.

Possible solution for you: Host an insane server without any modification.

Sewlek

because of that reason i don't include anymore "drastic" changes in the mod. i want that feedback from the players does not change. i only try to change obviously game breaking stuff, or add small improvements to existing features. I don't add/unlock features, and i also removed the turret limit (it's a seperate mod) because the real problem of turrets is server performance and that aliens have not enough possibilities to fight turrets currently, but not the actual amount of turrets. Fixing server performance, adding new game mechanics (to fight turrets) and tweaking their numbers (damage, ammo, cost) is the proper solution.

That is the stuff i want to have in the balance mod in future:
- expose balance variables of obviously unbalanced features (weapon damage, resource costs etc). i try to identify them by chatting with active players ingame, read the forums, opinions of clans (and watch their matches), server admin opinions etc

- fix game breaking bugs (broken weapons), or adjust game breaking variables (spawn times)

the main intension is to not falsify feedback from players who know, or don't know that they played on a server with balance_mod enabled / disabled, but to fix unbalanced/broken stuff.

Yuuki

I my opinion you should change much more things on the server. The gameplay is clearly sub-optimal right now, and the only way to change that is to shake things up, furthermore the developers don't have time to test everything.

For example you could remove completely turrets/hydra from the game and run the server one week like that and see how it works. Add "no turrets mod" to the server name so everybody knows what is going one and create a post with a poll or whatever to get feedback and see what people prefer.

dePARA

Thats a thing i definitely will never do.
Turrets are part of the game and if they are tweaked enough, they are fine.
Im sure the "pro"-players dont like them. So, live with it.

We have postings like this enough in the forum.
Next one cry: fades are too op, lets try this without fades.

I should try this without weapons and textures, cause pistol is op too and "pro"players dont need a good-looking game.

Yuuki

?

Removing turrets was just an example. We could test any gameplay modification.
No need to be afraid.

swalk

<!--quoteo(post=1892294:date=Jan 1 2012, 01:41 PM:name=Schimmel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Schimmel @ Jan 1 2012, 01:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1892294"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->because of that reason i don't include anymore "drastic" changes in the mod. i want that feedback from the players does not change. i only try to change obviously game breaking stuff, or add small improvements to existing features. I don't add/unlock features, and i also removed the turret limit (it's a seperate mod) because the real problem of turrets is server performance and that aliens have not enough possibilities to fight turrets currently, but not the actual amount of turrets. Fixing server performance, adding new game mechanics (to fight turrets) and tweaking their numbers (damage, ammo, cost) is the proper solution.

That is the stuff i want to have in the balance mod in future:
- expose balance variables of obviously unbalanced features (weapon damage, resource costs etc). i try to identify them by chatting with active players ingame, read the forums, opinions of clans (and watch their matches), server admin opinions etc

- fix game breaking bugs (broken weapons), or adjust game breaking variables (spawn times)

the main intension is to not falsify feedback from players who know, or don't know that they played on a server with balance_mod enabled / disabled, but to fix unbalanced/broken stuff.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thats the definitly best approach.
I have a few suggestions to try out;
<ul><li>You can only place sentries within a certain AoE of a robotics factory.</li><li>Change energy costs to personal res(except for beacon, team res). More on that here: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=115515&st=40&start=40" target="_blank">Nano Shield, Beacon</a></li><li>Don't know if this is possible server-side, but re-add the old upgrade on harvesters/extractors, but only increase pres income for commanders, not the whole team like it was last it was implemented in the game.</li></ul>
I believe that could help some of the sentry problems, as well as making the res model more "complete", obviously more content is still missing.
And the last one with the upgrade, is to re-create the trade-off from ns1 where you had to decide whether to support your team with packs, or get them upgrades.
Hope you're up for trying it out, the pres costs would need a little bit of balancing to get them right, but I think I have some decent numbers in my thread.

ogz

i for one like hte fact that hte server admins have come on board to help try and balance the game

still trying to convince endar to use it for pure servers :p

(surely you have room to run it on one of the 3 servers, and see where majority of players end up playing in :p)

1 thing i would like though and used to be in the original balance mods... let players see what variables has been changed?

dePARA

I tweak the game on HBZ1 a bit, cause marines are really op in 1.91 now. See only marine-wins last days and some rare alien wins.

balance.lua:
Sentrydamage=7 (default 10)
Minedamage=90 (default 125) - a skulk with carapace will survive 1 mine

balancemisc.lua:
Only 2 mines at armory (This wasnt in 1.91)
Increased mine arm time from 3 seconds to 4 (wasnt in 1.91 too)

balancehealth.lua:
FadeArmorFullyUpgradedAmount = 100
Fade has 150 armor then again with full cara (default 80)

endar

I agree with these in theory, will try them out on aus pure #1.
Leaving pure #2 unchanged.

Also seems like the changes youve done are NOT balance, but actual bug fixes (the mine amount and arm time anyway, the others are balance), as it clearly states in the changelog that you only now have 2 mines, and 4 second arm time. Good pickup.

swalk

I don't agree with the mines leaving the skulks with 5hp, they cost resources, and are quite easily destroyed. 5 parasites.
They should kill the skulk(which is free of cost).
But I definitly agree that they too much damage, fades die to two mines. I would say 90 dmg seems fitting.

dePARA

I change the minedamage to 90.
A skulk with cara will survive a mine, which is ok i think.

I play some games with my settings and it feels much more balanced.

Edit my previous post with new values.

dePARA

There is a bug with the hive-ralleypoint system.
Every time you jump into an hive, it spawns an drifter "inside" it if you set an ralleypoint before.
And it seems the bug affect the serverperformance too.

Schimmel fix this. Just replace the file on the server with this one:
<a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?hupcv3sqf24xnb1" target="_blank">http://www.mediafire.com/?hupcv3sqf24xnb1</a>

For details you have to ask schimmel.

NurEinMensch

Many people who play on those servers aren't even aware that the server is modded. I don't think it's good that all decent servers are running a game that is not vanilla NS2. This changes the perception of the game.

endar

I agree it changes the perception of the game, and any bug reporting/balance reporting which occurs from playing on these servers. This is obviously a negative as it wastes UWE's time and can go against the balancing process if people are unaware.

Without removing these mods, how would you make players aware they are playing on a modified server?

player

An in-your-face message every n minutes maybe, "this server is running so and so" per example. Additionally, we could negotiate a protocol for displaying mods in the server-rules, so fsfod can display that in his server-browser (and filter them away et cetera).

dePARA

If you join HBZ you see the changes in ready room, im sure most people know that they are playing on a modded server.

I paste a comment in here i post on the playertest forum some days before:

"We can balance every new build and every build need new tweaks here and there.
To say: balance right now is baseless, cause game isnt finished yet is baseless.
Who wants to play the game if a build has huge balance issues? Where is the fun?

Sure, i can say: Hey, i have fun in some month, its ok that i die 100 times and have no chance.
And from balances we made every build, the final game will profit too, cause uwe get feedback from players.

Thats part of the development process. So, both sides profit from community balancing. "

Harimau

I think this is useful on a... player vs player level perhaps, but on a team vs team level, there's still so much missing content that it would be wasted effort.

dePARA

As i said, every build need new little tweaks. Sure, you cannot balance missing features, but you can make the current build more enjoyble.
Most of the balance-mod features and community tweaks find a way into the game btw.

NurEinMensch

<!--quoteo(post=1894925:date=Jan 16 2012, 07:53 PM:name=dePARA)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (dePARA @ Jan 16 2012, 07:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1894925"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you join HBZ you see the changes in ready room, im sure most people know that they are playing on a modded server.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Sounds like a good solution.