[Balance] Less-than-linear resource income rate
buhehe
Join Date: 2012-05-15 Member: 152140Members
Join Date: 2012-05-15 Member: 152140Members
In my 240h of play time, I've noticed how most games are decided within 5-10 mins.
The games I enjoy the most are those who last 30+ minutes where both teams always seem to have a consistent chance to win.
Like in many games with RTS elements, a good team will have a greater resource income, thus allowing more upgrades that will make the team even better.
This means that once a team starts prevailing significantly, it's going to be very hard for their opponents to be able to make a comeback.
As of now, the resource income rate depends linearly on the number of extractors.
Each extractor provides 1 TRes every 6 seconds for the commander.
Hence x extractors will provide x Tres every 6 seconds.
My idea was to implement diminishing return effects based on the number of extractors owned.
This would translate into something like this:
1st, 2nd extractors 1 TRes each
3rd, 4th, 5th 0.75 Tres each
6th+ 0.50 Tres each
(Of course the numbers I used are there just to give you the idea)
Example: a team owns 4 extractors.
TRes gained every 6 seconds = 2*1 + 2*0.75 = 3.50 (instead of what would be 4 now).
This system could give some more breathing room for teams who have lost some map control and are short on Extractors, without that implying their (almost) certain doom.
The games I enjoy the most are those who last 30+ minutes where both teams always seem to have a consistent chance to win.
Like in many games with RTS elements, a good team will have a greater resource income, thus allowing more upgrades that will make the team even better.
This means that once a team starts prevailing significantly, it's going to be very hard for their opponents to be able to make a comeback.
As of now, the resource income rate depends linearly on the number of extractors.
Each extractor provides 1 TRes every 6 seconds for the commander.
Hence x extractors will provide x Tres every 6 seconds.
My idea was to implement diminishing return effects based on the number of extractors owned.
This would translate into something like this:
1st, 2nd extractors 1 TRes each
3rd, 4th, 5th 0.75 Tres each
6th+ 0.50 Tres each
(Of course the numbers I used are there just to give you the idea)
Example: a team owns 4 extractors.
TRes gained every 6 seconds = 2*1 + 2*0.75 = 3.50 (instead of what would be 4 now).
This system could give some more breathing room for teams who have lost some map control and are short on Extractors, without that implying their (almost) certain doom.
Comments
They will still get extra resource income compared to the losing team, but it will be significantly less than before.
They don't get "punished", they just get a smaller benefit
I see a lot less turtling ever since vote concede. Turtling was a lot of times a problem of the winning pub team not coordinating to finish off a base (and content playing a form of combat mode ad nauseam) plus that the turtling team never really having a chance to ever push out once at that point (slippery slope). Its why conceding games happen often. Sure we all have that one story of how our team was about to lose but we heroically came back and won the game. Those are the exceptions...the majority of time losing games should have ended long before they did (pre-vote concede).
I don't think it would be a bad idea to lessen the slippery slope and allow comebacks. I'd like for comebacks to be realistic outcomes more often, and lessen the amount of times people give up and just vote concede prematurely or not.
As for this idea in particular, designate extractors so newbie commanders know wth is going on. Label them "primary extractor", "secondary extractor", "tertiary...", ect... Primary pumps out the most, secondary less ..and so on. Just as an example, there can be 1 primary, 2 secondary, and the rest tertiary. Allow the commander to toggle which extractor acts as primary/secondary/tertiary.
WIth a system like this games would drag on even more as the clearly winning team has to wait even longer to get the overwhelming strike set up to fully destroy the enemy. Which, from the vibe I've gotten from other threads, isn't what we want. From what I've gathered people more want the clear victor to be able to deal a fast and clearly smashing blow to end the game. Maybe if the system were reversed so that the more extractors you have, the more res you generate per extractor/harvester. That would definitely end games faster.
All the same the idea is interesting either way. OP's idea would definitely make long games more and more common. Implementation would have to include someone shouting about the change to get comms to realize something's different. Number crunchers would crunch and see what the optimum number of extractors is and strategies would tweak.
It would also make players far more likely to concede once things started going downhill for their team.
Again it goes back to the point of how much of a slippery slope we want for the game. Do we want it steep so the games end quicker. Or do want comebacks too be possible.
Lets identify the problem: long drawn out turtling by defenders that have no chance of winning. The problem is not long games. If there is a constant back and forth, long games wouldn't seem as tedious. Its like multiple short games rolled into one. What we want imo is to up comeback possibilities while minimizing drawn out turtling.
One way to do that is too have a moderate slippery slope for most of the game, then steepen the slope once the game needs to end. For example, once a team gets down to one base with one harvester/extractor and its later in the game, the game should be over soon. Of course this is when turtling happens (especially marine). Just like there are many items that require 2 CC/Hives, have other items that require 2 harvestors/extractors to acquire or even function. For example turrets, hydras and mines stop functioning at one extractor/harvester. Or shotguns, certain higher life forms, ect.. can no longer be acquired. This way once a losing team gets beaten far back into this position, they will either have to push out VERY quickly to get a second extractor, or they will lose (quicker than it takes to even conduct a concede vote). But as long as that team has that second extractor, they will still feel like there is always a chance to comeback and win.
Fundamental balance issues are are not solved with one fix. Its going to be many different things coming together. Howeever, there is more to the game than just simply balance issues. Like, is this shit actually fun? Why isn't this fun? How can we make it more fun?
If its not fun why bother worrying about balance? (but of course NS2 is fun, but it could be funner)
Conceding early or drawn out turtling is what isn't fun.
it's not a NS2 problem - it's a problem with all resource-gathering games. they can be over and decided very early on, and you just have to deal with it
this type of artificial limiting works in games like Quake (armor/health limit of 200. armor/health decay after 100. only 1 item at a time) because Quake actually has victory conditions to make the round end while still allowing comebacks. it's not like NS2 where it would just turn one-sided 30 minute games into one-sided 45 minute games.
An overly fatalistic view of things.
The "more fun" that I was talking about from comes from minimizing turtling and removing premature vote concede. The decreased output on subsequent res towers is one way imo to minimize the slippery slope found thoughout most of the game, allow for some comebacks, and reduce the number of teams from giving up and conceding 'prematurely'.
Drawn out one sided games, turtling, happen when there is not enough of a slope at the end to finish it off (which is why I also suggest a 2 res tower req for certain tech to finish off teams that have long lost).