Resource Imbalance
falloutx2
Join Date: 2003-05-01 Member: 15979Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2003-05-01 Member: 15979Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">and making it less painful</div> I'm sure everyone has noticed that with greater than 7 players, alien resource flow is very slow.
Now, the majority of pubs are at least 8 players ranging up to 10 players per team.
Part of the problem with the current resource system, is that marines have 1 pool of resources, meaning they always will have money to do something useful while aliens have multiple pools, which could mean everyone could have as little as 5-6 resources which really has no meaningful purpose other than getting upgrades.
I think the multiple pool model is why aliens suffer horribly from res imbalance in larger games and I have a small idea that can begin to address the problem.
Now, if you join aliens past the one minute thirty second mark, you get no resources to start with and essentially are the team leech for at least 2-3 minutes, harming the economy of your team greatly.
My suggestion is that each unique steamid that joins a game gets the initial 25 resources. We know that the game checks steamids when people enter for the sake of icons, so it shouldn't be horribly difficult to make it check to see if the person has connected to the currently running game and either give them the initial 25 resources or not give it to them. That way "new" players to the game are a fresh pool of resources, not a leech.
I've though of a few potential problems with this, just for the sake of it:
1.) People could exploit by joining with one account, then switching to another with a different steamid, so they get 50 resources to blow instead of 25.
2.) A ton of people dropping and new players joining to replace them could give a dead alien team second life.
I think this idea gives aliens a fighting chance on pubs, or at least prevents them from being screwed when half their team joins after the 1:30 mark and doesn't get any resources, crippling alien economy.
Now, the majority of pubs are at least 8 players ranging up to 10 players per team.
Part of the problem with the current resource system, is that marines have 1 pool of resources, meaning they always will have money to do something useful while aliens have multiple pools, which could mean everyone could have as little as 5-6 resources which really has no meaningful purpose other than getting upgrades.
I think the multiple pool model is why aliens suffer horribly from res imbalance in larger games and I have a small idea that can begin to address the problem.
Now, if you join aliens past the one minute thirty second mark, you get no resources to start with and essentially are the team leech for at least 2-3 minutes, harming the economy of your team greatly.
My suggestion is that each unique steamid that joins a game gets the initial 25 resources. We know that the game checks steamids when people enter for the sake of icons, so it shouldn't be horribly difficult to make it check to see if the person has connected to the currently running game and either give them the initial 25 resources or not give it to them. That way "new" players to the game are a fresh pool of resources, not a leech.
I've though of a few potential problems with this, just for the sake of it:
1.) People could exploit by joining with one account, then switching to another with a different steamid, so they get 50 resources to blow instead of 25.
2.) A ton of people dropping and new players joining to replace them could give a dead alien team second life.
I think this idea gives aliens a fighting chance on pubs, or at least prevents them from being screwed when half their team joins after the 1:30 mark and doesn't get any resources, crippling alien economy.
Comments
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You can't transfer res between lifeforms, so this wouldn't be an issue. And even if you joined with two sucsessive accounts, you could at most build a res tower, or one OC. More trouble than its worth.
There isn't a perfect solution, but I am finding playing aliens to be more of a chore than it used to be. prehaps the bonus only lasts until you have 25 res, enough for 1 res-tower and 1 oc to protect it.
I miss making WOL's, were they really ever that much of a problem?
Solution: Currently, nothing a gorge can build is more that 40 Res. So limit the amount a gorge can hold to 40. Everything else gets put into the central pool (not the bonus, just the regular 1-2 res a tick)
The resource model just needs to become properly scalable through the team sizes.
You could in theory , go gorge and wait unil you had 25 res, then run around as a skulk until you had enough for a hive or higher life form. So some limited abuse (or strategy) would be possible but nothing overpowering.
Granted, I only play on pubs, but the difference between a 3v3 where aliens ALWAYS win due to how fast higher lifeforms can be attained and a 10v10 where marines have the numbers advantage (and the spawn advantage) is very noticeable.
Worth testing, if it hasn't been already?
We have been talking about this issue a bit (PT's) and this idea strikes me as one that's fairly easy to implement and makes a lot of sense, no reason why a player coming into the game much later shouldn't get the advantage of what his team has built, but also shouldn't directly be penalized if his team hasn't built anything...
I suspect the issues with this that you mention are very small..
Considering it would hurt aliens more to not have a player for 1/1.5 minutes then it would benefit them to get 25 res (since they can't even lerk) I don't consider this an issue.
Bob: Everyone can go gorge at gamestart currently, and drop a node, I don't see how this changes that, except allows a new player to contribute something to the alien side, and forces marines to have to deal with another alien node (which is one of the other inbalances of large games, when aliens lose nodes, it crippples them, a team of 10 on 2 res nodes will have an incredibly difficult time regaining any advantage, let alone building an RT, this would allow a new player to balance things out)
<b>No.</b> This is what made 1.04's res system so terrible, and I doubt it's ever going to be done this way again.
I strongly agree with those of you who are calling for a scalable resource model and I see this idea as a part of that process. Its not going to cure every problem with the current resource flow, but its a start.
At least this way every unique alien who joins is a benefit to the economy instead of a drag. I do think this needs to be coupled with a "better" res model. I'm thinking about some ideas and will eventually post when I have something worthy of mention.
3 gorges each gets 1 res bonus
1 gorge gets 1 res bonus
So, a big team with lots of gorges gets more bonuses. The bonus, is just that; an extra point of free res.
More people going gorge means more res in total available to the team.
In imaginary game terms, the gorge is more efficient in its resource absorption; thus it is gorging on res.
I do belive the marine team should NOT receive any income scaling. The marines have mostly fixed costs for RTs, research and buildings, so they don't need any extra res for larger games - they already get lots of inherent advantages, thanks to the general process of fixed cost upgrades.
The aliens, OTOH, do need SOME scaling in order to offset that marine advantages.
However, not like in 1.0x, where the total res income for the aliens scaled directly with the number of players. You need to give smaller teams slightly less res, while larger teams gets slightly more res to share than today. Assuming the balance is in the 6 to 8 player range today, a 4 player alien team should earn income at the rate of 6 players, while a 16 player alien team would earn it at the rate of an 8 player team. Draw a line between those two, and you end up with a formula like
alien team res income per tick = #of RT's * (num_players +2) / 9.
Compared with today, that doubles the 16 player teams income and cuts a 4 players teams income with 1/3. A 7 player team would earn it at todays rate.
Per player, it would seem like you had an almost constant income independent of team size. Going from 4 to 16 players, you would need 1/3 extra time to earn the same res, compared with today, where you would need 4 times more.
Kind of offtopic: Other alien res problem is gorge overhead. 10 res to gorge and drop a rt and then go back to skulk or whatever. Gorges are pretty expensive for such a limited use evolution. 5 res seems more resonable.
Also if a marine with shoty or sth gets killed.. the mates can get the weapon and continue. If the gorge gets killed.. you lost definately 10 res.
And of corse the thing that you get only a bonus for the rt's you have built gives you a little advantage but not your team and not a big one.
great idea <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif' /><!--endemo-->