Forged Alliance Forever

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-14T13:53:16+02:00

Veta, well done on actually doing stuff. I say this because I don't do stuff anymore
I don't even have FA installed actually. Too many other timewasters these days.

I'm still interested in the evolution of SupCom though, so I hang around and spout silly ideas and CARPET BOMBING every now and then.

So yeah, good luck

Statistics: Posted by AdmiralZeech — 14 May 2012, 13:53

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-13T18:20:14+02:00

AdmiralZeech wrote:
Just make them dock to a factory, (like planes into an aircraft carrier.)
But rather than add their BP to the factory, they just assist it as normal (from the inside).
Any damage to the factory also transfers to engineers inside. Via some arbitrary formula that tries to simulate area attacks on crowded engineers.

There. Identical gameplay, identical features, but no bumper cars.

-----------------

Personally though, I dont mind changing the gameplay, as long as it's a change for the better. I think the massfab idea is worth exploring, unless it's been somehow disproven while I've been away.

Hey Zeech, I decided to start working on a quick stat mod (I haven't done this stuff in forever) that would include a few different ideas from the balance forum - so that they could be tested out and weighed more carefully without depending on the already occupied balance team. Essentially we'd incorporate different ideas from the balance forum (my focus right now is applying some fixes to the T1 Engineer Spam problem as well as making T2/T3 Engineers and Factories more viable) to make the game more intuitive - without altering strategy or decreasing the efficiency of any existing units.

It'd be pretty simple stuff but it would probably be far more helpful to FAF if the community did some of the balance tweaking/testing on their own time. So far I've read a lot of intuitive suggestions/solutions and the beauty is that most of them wouldn't be all that difficult to implement. I remember you had some good ideas/were pretty adroit with the SupCom code so if you're interested let me know.

Edit: And again the idea would be to make the game more intuitive as opposed to some of the more esoteric aspects of the game - like Energy Storage being required for Overcharge - just because - or T1 Engineers being the only worthwhile means of increasing production - or adjacencies that are actually worth the risks they entail.

Also I just made a mod with T2/T3 engineers for all factions being in a linear progression with their T1 counterparts for ALL stats (buildtime, buildrate, energy cost, mass cost, mass/energy per build rate, and hp) and so far it plays pretty well. Less T1 engie spam is necessary too.

https://rapidshare.com/files/986648799/ ... ce_Mod.zip Anyway that's it so far, if anyone wants to play a game with it let me know. If there's any interest I'll add in the Fire Beetle and Tempest buffs too.

Statistics: Posted by Veta — 13 May 2012, 18:20

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-11T17:48:48+02:00

Just make them dock to a factory, (like planes into an aircraft carrier.)
But rather than add their BP to the factory, they just assist it as normal (from the inside).
Any damage to the factory also transfers to engineers inside. Via some arbitrary formula that tries to simulate area attacks on crowded engineers.

There. Identical gameplay, identical features, but no bumper cars.

-----------------

Personally though, I dont mind changing the gameplay, as long as it's a change for the better. I think the massfab idea is worth exploring, unless it's been somehow disproven while I've been away.

Statistics: Posted by AdmiralZeech — 11 May 2012, 17:48

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-09T19:15:37+02:00

To be honest i don't think that turning the screws for cost, buildpower, hp will bring us anywhere else but changin the gameplay.
Of course, we want to change the gameplay. But like i see the case: We only want that there are no factory surrounded by a bulb of engineers inside our base?

We are fine with the rest? We like our T1-Phase, our T2-Phase(maybe it could last a little longer), our T3-Phase.

But by changing costs,buildpower,hp,buildrange on factorys/engineers, it will have effects on the gameplay.
Like mentioned: It will change the worth of raids without a doubt. Having the buildrange adjustet will leave us with buffing all other stuff but will also reduce the limited self defense of engineers(sucking up a Mech) or building a factory to a different groundlevel.

So what are the lethal points to a idea:
-the costs and other stats should stay unchanged in the long run to keep gameplay but without stacking engis around facs.
-the buildpower still has to be guidable (from a factory to a EXP to another factory to a building)
-the buildpower still should be vulnerable to enemy attacks (raiding enemy buildpower was and should always be possible)

So which solutions don't have a visible effect on all that?
Obviously everything that makes use of the existing gameplay-frame we have.

Like:
-having T1engineers fuse together via sacrifice to get a more powerful engineer.
-having engineer dock to a docking station, which has assist abilities.
-having them dock directly to a factory (still a problem with adjacency, will change gameplay, but not as strong i think)
-having more powerful assist stations and giving them to all factions

Statistics: Posted by Jace — 09 May 2012, 19:15

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-09T18:13:33+02:00

What about just lowering the cost of higher tier engies to be in line with T1 for build power?

People say that the higher tech is what you're paying for... but let's be honest - right now there's no disadvantage to having a single T2/3 engie or even getting one from an ally that you use for all your tech schematics. If the goal of FAF is to eventually give purpose to all the units that lack them let's be direct about it: T1 engies have a variety of advantages over other higher tech engineers. Not to mention how useless the T2 UEF Field Engineer is...

Pros of T1 Engies over other Engineers (Obviously they out weigh the cons since you regularly see 300+ T1 engineers in games with GOOD players):
-Can cover more ground while reclaiming, for the same cost you can spread out your reclaiming ventures and reclaim faster
-Most efficient build rate for cost
-First Tech Level and thus the most available and shortest build speed
-The T1 Engie equivalent of T2/T3 is more spread out and makes it harder to cripple your production capability

Cons:
-Less Health (in Vanilla this may have made a difference but in FA it's all about constant fronts and for how expendable T1 engineers are this doesn't matter)
---To be exact you get 5x more health for over 3x the cost and only 2x the build power and storage (not so bad..)
-Less Tech (except when assisting higher tech structures)

Posited Solutions:
-Bring other engineers in line with T1 engineer build rate per cost, nerf health/play with construction speed if you need to. Essentially this would just be a cost cut on higher tech engineers (really the easiest solution)
-Make T1 engineers somehow less effective relative to their higher tech counterparts. This could be by reducing effectiveness of T1 on higher tech buildings/units or by other mechanics (like build radius). This may entail a major rebalance or tweak of things and while ultimately more sensical it probably isn't as viable as the former solution.

Also before I forget, the other issue is general Engineer spam -- simply reworking the health buffs on higher tech engineers while keeping cost to build rate and storage increases linear with T1 would address the viability of higher tech engineers (without removing the intrinsic advantages of T1 engineers) but not general engineer spam and the resultant congestion.

Again it'd be more sensical to give some kind of detriment to lower tech engies that are using higher tech schematics but it's not really likely to happen. I'm not sure how possible this is (although I vaguely recall a mod that did something similar in Vanilla SupCom) but why not allow ALL units to be able to pass through engineers or engineers be able to pass through all units, except for other engineers. This way engineers would only congest themselves (and not ACUs or factory units) or you could take it one step further and now that all engineers are balanced for their cost to build power (as in now all engineers have the same build power as T1 for cost, despite higher construction times) just allow engineers to move through each other too. Units already do this whenever moving into formation and that's never been a major issue?

These changes would only take a few cost edits (aside from the congestion fix) and then it could be tested by the balance team (or anyone curious). My guess though is that T1 still gets a lot of play because they're so much better for reclaiming (they can be in more places at once for cost and therefore need to walk less) but you'll actually see people transition into higher tech engineers (whether or not higher tech engineers still get a buff in HP and the altered degree of this buff would be up to the balance team's discretion). But now you'd actually see drops using higher tech engineers on forward bases, you'd also probably see an increase in the games pace as well as the ability to come back from a major assault faster (higher tech engineers being more prevalent means you can respond more quickly to threats you detect and you can rebuild your infrastructure faster, e.g. rebuilding T2/T3 MEXs instead of T1).

Edit: The decreased health on all engineers might also give the UEF room to actually find use for the T2 Field Engineer, perhaps increasing its speed from 3 to 3.5 could work. I think the speed for regular engineers is about 2 and that relative buff might make it a viable unit to throw into an army if it's no longer holding you back. That way it could possibly be used with faster units like T1/T2 mixes or Navy.

Random aside: it's a shame that MFabs and T1PD/T1Flak are now so useless -- but maybe I'm just biased because I was so used to Vanilla and the viability of turtling/teching/farming. I'd love to see an encouragement of the aforementioned strategies as they allowed for more premeditated strategy (without playing 40x40 maps). Then again I know FA is entirely about map control while it didn't really matter in Vanilla, I think a good middleground would've been the best. I left StarCraft 2 because it was so intensive only to find that SupCom had become the same way (but moreso geared towards macro and reflex counters). That... and the fact that ASFs are a self counter... so silly. Vanilla had somethings right with its slower starting pace and strong static d - it definitely allowed for the strategic use of a lot of units that don't get play anymore e.g. Stealth bases. Although maybe that would've been better suited for an FA mod.

Statistics: Posted by Veta — 09 May 2012, 18:13

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-09T15:06:21+02:00

It may not - it is a more complex change than I've suggested requiring art assets, text etc for two factions to be introduced as well as extensive rebalancing and tweaking of the existing 2 eng fabs.

Mine is a text change on 4 units that can be reverted in <5mins.

I'm not saying you're wrong - merely that you can rapidly implement and test mine with ease.

Statistics: Posted by Korbah — 09 May 2012, 15:06

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-09T14:30:04+02:00

Korbah wrote:
Meanwhile the other suggestions in this thread are talking about game-wide rebalancing of the first tier econ......

I have yet to be told how giving assistStations to everyone an buffing them would require a total rebalance of the game though?

Statistics: Posted by Jace — 09 May 2012, 14:30

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-09T14:06:24+02:00

The change isn't well thought out because it has flow-on effects to 2 discreet units (the two engi centres) ???

Meanwhile the other suggestions in this thread are talking about game-wide rebalancing of the first tier econ......

In my experience in game balancing and gameplay revision I generally follow a set thought process:

1. Identify the problem
2. Propose a solution
3. Determine if the solution is intuitive for the player
4. Determine if the solution introduces unnecessary overhead/complication that detracts from gameplay
5. Determine if the solution is thematic within the race you're changing
6. Actual testing of the change looking to see if it works as intended. Documenting unforseen consequences. Noting technical issues that may arise

Problems with the change may arise at any point. There will always be issues that arise from any change - the question is whether it's a critical issue or whether an alternative solution has fewer drawbacks. All solutions have consequences - RTS are Newtonian in that regard.

The good point about my change is that you can test it rapidly and evaluate it - far more readily than tier wide rebalances. Unforseen consequences will be easily identified and technical issues obvious. Also easy to code (change a simple value and test).

With regards to the inevitable flow-on effects to cybran/UEF then a consistent and logical approach to rebalancing those will also apply - lower tier eng huts having lower range/drone mobility. Developing an intuitive and logical ecosystem is comforting to any player, reduces intial learning curve and reduces annoying idiosyncrasies.

Statistics: Posted by Korbah — 09 May 2012, 14:06

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-06T19:04:31+02:00

If you decrease the Engineer assist radius, people will cry about UEF and Cybran being OP...... that idea isn't thought through very well.

Statistics: Posted by Jace — 06 May 2012, 19:04

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-06T20:26:24+02:00

Korbah wrote:
I feel that people are overlooking the most simple and elegant solution - simply nerf the assist range on t1 builders like I mentioned earlier.

If you can't stack them in 6 deep around your fac's then you'll need to go for t2/3 eng's instead.

Otherwise you'll need a complicated rebalance that will still affect game balance in other ways

that still wouldn't stop people from making 300 t1 engineers and at most 5 of any other type of engineer in 1v1. it's only in the major macro/team games that people can afford to stack 50 engies on a single fac

but yah i agree, it's still a good idea regardless to balance out the fact that you can simply build more (and as a result have a greater presence on the map) for the same cost as t2/t3/scus --- on top of maybe an increasing range progression for other engineers (ACUs/SCUs would have the most range, followed by T3, T2 and T1 in that order). So you could still stack engies 6 deep if you wanted to but it'd be expensive and require that you also use higher tier engies. In general though I think something needs to be done about the congestion engies can cause as well. I'm not sure if it's possible in FA but in other games (e.g. StarCraft 2) you can basically move through builders -- so what if engineers reacted differently to different units? Engineers would still be congesting and take up the same space to other engineers but to non-engineer units (and say the ACU/SCUs) their unit radius would either be smaller or not even exist (then you'd just be able to walk through them).

If you think this would look weird... it won't... at least not as weird as planes flying through mountains or each other like they currently do.

Edit: Actually now that I think about it, it may be slightly easier since units already walk through each other whenever getting into formation (including engineers). So maybe playing on that would somehow allow one to solve engineer congestion, albeit a different problem than engineer spam.

Statistics: Posted by Veta — 06 May 2012, 18:57

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-06T18:27:31+02:00

I feel that people are overlooking the most simple and elegant solution - simply nerf the assist range on t1 builders like I mentioned earlier.

If you can't stack them in 6 deep around your fac's then you'll need to go for t2/3 eng's instead.

Otherwise you'll need a complicated rebalance that will still affect game balance in other ways

Statistics: Posted by Korbah — 06 May 2012, 18:27

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-06T12:07:14+02:00

AdmiralZeech wrote:
Why should T2 and T3 engys have worse BP/mass than T1? Shouldnt they all be the same?

Sure, people sometimes say, "oh, T2/T3 have additional tech, so they need an offsetting disadvantage", but that is presupposing that we want T1 engys to be a viable choice at T3.

But it seems like we dont - we actually prefer higher tech engys to absolutely obsolete lower tech ones.

So lets make all engys equivalently efficient in buildpower/mass and buildpower/buildtime.

This is a good idea, maybe keep T1 slightly more efficient in build efficiency but nothing too drastic. Also, something that would be great is giving T2/T3 additional build range while reducing the T1 range. This would be offset the benefit of T1 engies being able to be in more places than T2/T3 equivalents (and thus more expendable/useful for taking forward mexes).

Also is there a way to make it so units that aren't engineers can just walk through engineers like how air flies through land and other units?

I think a combination of these things would go a long way to balancing mass engineers on a single factory. T1 would only be able to fit a certain amount of engineers on a single factory so eventually you'd want engineering stations or T2/T3. Also since all other units can pass engineers (except engineers) you won't have the silly congestion that you currently have. Lastly there needs to be a reason to produce from more than one factory - plenty of ideas on how to tackle that. I agree the current state is... awkward to say the least. I think someone else said something about engineers losing build speed when assisting factories? That could possibly work if then factories also got say production boosts from things like pgen and production adjacencies. The combination of all this could make it viable to build other factories with adjacencies of their own.

Lastly, I'm not sure how this would alter gameplay but shouldn't factories be more efficient for cost than anything else at building factory units? I know the way the game currently works the only difference between engineer tiers is their schematics, so you could just nerf the efficiency of assist. Maybe make it a percentage decrease for units that don't have the schematics (it'd make sense... they have to be coordinated by the engineer that does have the schematics after all).

This would make ALL engineers less effective a assisting factories but it wouldn't alter play at all at the start of the game, you'd still make a lot of engies to take forward bases and assist your ACU. And as long as the ACU is building tier 1 tech there'd be no difference in its effectiveness.

Also, to keep things strategically deep, SCUs and ACUs could keep their full build efficiency when assisting factories. That could also give purpose to SCUs.

Edit: Some players have suggested this could slow down game speed, since factory build speed is already determined by engineer spam, why not just increase factory efficiency and add production more/better adjacencies from power and mexes/mfabs?

Statistics: Posted by Veta — 06 May 2012, 12:07

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-03T23:32:11+02:00

I guess the previous post is too long? I couldn't add more to it, but I still would like to get this posted.

It dawns upon me that nerfing the T1 Eng below T2 efficiency level is way too severe, since it hampers expansion somewhat after the bonus to starting ressources runs out, especially with offensive strategies.
The example as is certainly qualifies for the 'changes the game completely' moniker.
But keep in mind that it was just an example either way.

I failed to consider enough that increasing its cost reduces its survivability (a more yummy target).
Hence it should definitely stay more efficient (or equally so) than other, more resilient units and buildings (at least to some degree).
Of course taking into account the engineers abilities beyond assisting in construction...
An increase in HP would, in any case, have to be rather minor, because of its offensive abilities.

---
70mass/350energy (a pretty flat 33% increase, slightly better efficiency than a T1 factory) and with no compensation (since they still are the most cost effective thing ever and can reclaim/repair/etc.)
A starting ressources increase of 200mass/1000energy could cover the first ~11 Engineers (round numbers, k?).
Seems like a good starting point.
---
Another viable option:
80mass/420energy (slightly worse efficiency than a factory, same as T2 Engineer, more fragile but quicker to build)
This is probably a good way to make T2 Engineers viable without making the T1 obsolete.
In brute output, T1 would still be better since they finish more than twice as quickly with half the power and can be built at T1, but the T2 is more versatile and has much higher hitpoints. There's little reason to go T2 any sooner, tho.
Starting ressources, as before, are up to balancing, really, but right now I think compensating for 10-15 should be fine.
In this case 500mass/2500energy would cover about 10.5 T1 Engineers.
This seems like the best option to me atm.
---

Going with higher cost than above would mean that in theory T2 Engineers supersede T1s once they are available.
This might be desirable but I'm not sure. Such a big increase in cost would entail covering at least 10, better around 13-15, with the increase in starting ressources, to prevent an undue strain on the economy (nice way of saying stall... ).

Statistics: Posted by ElCapitan — 03 May 2012, 23:32

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-03T20:48:11+02:00

pip wrote:
You underestimate how much the starting resources would make a difference. With extra ressources, you can build more units like bombers, bots before engineers. The guy who would build units and kill your engies would just win the game because of how much mass you would have wasted in engies while its units are cheaper.
It would also considerably slow down early game expansion, you would need to be extra careful with early engineers. Only ACU expansion would be safe.

In short, this would just change the game completely. I'm not saying it would be worse, just that you underestimate the impact of the changes you suggest.

A valid concern. I just went by a very crude '10-20% shouldn't hurt too much' rule of thumb, but in turn I think you're exaggerating.
'It changes the game completely' is a bit preposterous, altho it certainly is something that would have to be tested.
Any increase would make suicidal early game aggression more powerful (#edit: by this I mean 'early aggression/disruption at the expense of basic economy development), this can't be argued against, but both sides have it and I think it doesn't matter beyond the 5 minute mark.
(#: changed to 5, did some math and testing, 5 is still quite liberal, there's more info below)

I agree that this has to be investigated very closely, tho.

------------------------------------------
To avoid a doublepost I'll add a few things.

Regarding the danger of bigger suicide rushes (I read a bit into your post , pip, sorry about that, but it was worth investigating either way).
The 'rush size' difference in my example would be about 5 Mantises more in an army of 20 Mantises, so 25 Mantises, vs the enemies statistical 20 Mantises. That enemy however also has an advantage of +25Buildrate and, given assisting and reclaiming, probably more than 25 Mantises, depending on what he did exactly.
I did some other calculations and some sandbox testing, too, and in short there's no real difference.
T1 Engineers are still generally more healthy than all out aggression in the first minutes, as usual.

Hence this shouldn't be any trouble as long as the increase in starting ressources is less than about 1/3 (33%) of the current values, but I didn't really try to figure out a workable upper limit since there is no need in going that far.
The doubled T1 Eng price in my example is pretty much the upper limit of cost increase I would deem reasonable, aswell,
so I think I got the extreme ends of the deal covered for the most part.

Regarding the T1 Engineers becoming more worthwhile targets (basicly, hit 1 get 1 free! ) and the usefulnes of the ACU increasing:
The usefulness of the ACU can't really increase in the early game, and you only have one, in one place, so I think it's not a real change, altho I fully understand what you say and it is true, technically, I just doubt it will make any real difference.

The Engineers becoming more worthwhile targets is a much bigger issue, tho, I think... I'm still thinking about that part.
Suggesting a buff to HP is probably premature without any testing, but it might well be that some other change might be called for due to their increased cost.
Of course apart from the fact that the changes ARE supposed to make building T1 Engineers less attractive.

Statistics: Posted by ElCapitan — 03 May 2012, 20:48

Re: We need to find a way to fix engineer spam

2012-05-03T19:24:27+02:00

Disadvantages (that i could think of):
- higher starting ressources might change a few things in the build order, but I expect this to be minor, since the change would only amount to 10-20% or so.

Took longer to write than expected, but I tried to get into all possible detail (sometimes multiple times, yes, but it's easy to get the wrong idea of thise scheme ).
Now shoot.

You underestimate how much the starting resources would make a difference. With extra ressources, you can build more units like bombers, bots before engineers. The guy who would build units and kill your engies would just win the game because of how much mass you would have wasted in engies while its units are cheaper.
It would also considerably slow down early game expansion, you would need to be extra careful with early engineers. Only ACU expansion would be safe.

In short, this would just change the game completely. I'm not saying it would be worse, just that you underestimate the impact of the changes you suggest.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 03 May 2012, 19:24