Wobble kill and hover killing in 1.3

[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

I agree Ageis, turrets should point up for reasons that have absolutly nothing to do with hovering/flying/that bug.

If GSH actually listened he might of realised by now that i have always disliked hovering.

Well, now that that is sorted we can go back to the orginal topic before GSH started using caps and told us how wrong we were.

And that orignal topic is *wobble* killing GT's and how to balence them out so they are not too powerful, are vunerable to wobble killing...but only at certain ranges...etc.

[Avatar]

I brought up the whole "a Scout shouldn't be able to kill a GT" bit long ago and was soundly thrashed for doing so.  There are two opposed mind-sets playing this game and neither will accept the other side's view easily.

The DMers think any ship/weapon combo should be able to defeat any other ship/weapon combo, including Base Buildings, when operated by a skilled player.  This comes from an "only SKILL matters" point of view and is correct for an FPS.

The Straters think that each ship/weapon combo has a niche, possibly even a single specific use, fitting into a gameplay that revolves around countering specific strategies.  They don't mind illogical restrictions such as "can only shoot AIR units" or "can't be harmed by energy, only ballistics".  They LIKE tech trees and research.  This is how RTS games are, so once again they have the correct mind-set for their chosen play style.

Unfortunately BZ/BZ2 is a HYBRID game, combining parts of both.  I personally feel that every time DM/Strat comes head to head the Strat loses to the louder DMers, but that's MY hang up.  :p

-Av-

[Zero Angel]

I believe I made a similar statement about GTs a year ago, so I agree with DF I would've gave the GTs a shotspeed of 140 to counter wobbling, tho.

Yeah, and GSH, that is OT. If you want to talk about flying, please start another thread. Thank you

[BZ FeebleEffort]

Gosh its re-assuring to realize that you can drift away from BZ 2 games for a couple weeks, or the boards for a couple months and when you come back....players are still Biaotching things they both do and don't know about(myself included).

It's been said many times that there were always "reasoned" ways to achieve better balance in BZ 2, and many of those approaches were tried in FE(and in some ways successful) and further tweaked in ZST and there(i personally believe) a better "balance" of gameplay and vehicle physics and weapons strengths was found.

but 1.3 took very little of the "reasoned" appraoches...in spite of many well intentioned efforts.

"All you flying-addicts are refusing to face reality. "

Nathan...Give it up! we aren't bitching about hovering, or your mania too prevent it...we're talking about unit balance(ooooh there's that Dirty word!) and some of the many factors that can effect it....BZ 2 life is not soley confined to hovering, or the lack there of.

[DarkFox]

Hilarious. We're not talking flying here GSH. Feel free to ignore all balance topics, or stick a 'flying=bad GSH=Good' post on every single one of them. 1.3, in turn, will be rubbish.

You *need* players that enjoy strategy and DM giving you feedback, your attempts to squash them all in favour of adding the many tweaks you do will not help 1.3. The 'balance' issue is the single most important thing affecting the popularity of 1.3 now that you've firmly told everyone flying is removed. Please don't remove balance as you did flying, with that pathetic 'I know I just don't care' attitude that (which reminds me of playground mentality after losing all reason in an argument you clearly can't back-up your own stance in).

[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

Avatar's post is *spot on*. The solution is to create a game where any weapon ship/comb can kill any other unit /ship etc....but!

It becomes extremely diffult, or more importantly *time consuming* to use a non-optimised weapon.

For exmaple a very skilled scout piolet should be rewarded for pushing the doging weapon abilty of it to its extreme. A reward is a kill.

However, this must be held in check by the fact that it is easier/faster to use another higher tech weapon/ship. For exmaple, someone can kill a turret with a chain scout at point blanc, even if it is covered by other tanks. HOWEVER , it is much easier just to shoot them down with mdm. But mdm is harder to aquire...two pools, etc etc.

FE has bascially done this as much as possiable in 1.2. *every* weapon is useful, *no* ship is over looked....but the rewards of stratergy are only unlocked via skill.

I think 1.3 should adopt as much from FE as possiable, so much effort went into balencing it that it would be a waste not to do it. And in FE flying really is not an affective thing to do (esp with the new rec def) that with 1.3 disableing flying...well...its perfect.

[GSH]

The overall balance of FE was rejected for this reason: FE has 3 races. BZ2 does not. Things fixed for the third race may have huge imbalances.

People who talk "balance" (this means you, WD) rarely get off their ass to *DO* anything. Thus, there's zero respect. 1.3 has a perfectly functional way of selecting alternate recyclers, why have people done jack with that? If they wanted things to maybe get picked up, submitting completed work might be a start. Right now, their "I talk, you do the work" (once again, this means you, WD) attitude gets zero respect.

And read the changelog for some specific balance issues WD *CAUSED* during 1.3's development (revoked before release). [E.g. moving the mauler up the build tree] Despite his public protestations, the issues where he was listened to were a freaking disaster. He keeps claiming he gets no respect. Well, when he talks more than he does, and his suggestions are dead wrong, he's earned a trip to my "useless" list.

-- GSH

[Avatar]

Well, we all have our strengths.  

WD's is playing and analysis, not modding.  Then again a lot of Modders have their own ideas about what's fun, not always shared by *experienced* players...  (I'm trying here, TV, I'm trying... )  

What I've suggested in the past is that WD and a few like-minded straters team up with modders like Greenheart and tweak their own set of ODF's up.  

-Av-

[Commando]

I think GreenHeart is a little busy with his 20th Century mod at the moment.  

I remember one thing people were upset about, during 1.3 beta testing, was the fact that the Rocket Tank automatically targets the bomber, unlike it did in 1.2.  They said that the commander had to tell the Rocket Tank to attack the Bomber, and from that point on, that Rocket Tank would automatically target incoming bombers.  I personally like the change, I don't know about the majority of players though.

There was also the MDM mortars bouncing off of spires and gun towers, which was fixed.  A toggle for that would have been cool, so mod makers had the ability to make MDMs bounce off of specific defenses and not others.

There may have been more complaints.  The Service Trucks have been address with the Recycler Selection screen.  That was the source of a lot of conflict during the beta.  It is nice that both sides can have their way now.

I'm sure DarkFox, TimeVius, Aegeis, Wardog, and the rest of the vets could point out the blatant inbalances that come up in human vs. human strats.

[DarkFox]

1.3 has a perfectly functional way of selecting alternate recyclers, why have people done jack with that?

I'll tell you why I *personally* haven't played with this: I'm waiting for the 1.3 public release...
If I change something you don't like, I run the risk of silly fixes like the air-damage making it into the final release. If I don't tell you what I'm going to do with it until 1.3 is released, then you don't have any power to decide whether what I want to make is allowed or not.

I'm not sure about the other players though, some of them are indeed 'all talk', and some of the 'all-talkers', if listened to, can make a profound contribution to a balancing procedure. Hemp and WD are both 'all talk', and are both invaluable assets to any beta team. I hope to god they join the beta team and talk lots when I start tweaking FE strat balance for 1.3.

[Zero Angel]

Its called ZTV and it preserves midair maneuverability. Although thats not to say that the future 1.3 patch will allow for more maneuverabilty then the PB1 patch. PB1 physics are not horrible, but I can see myself going back to 1.2 in the future simply for a break from 1.3 PB1s slightly overbearing (at times) physics code.

I tried to comprehend the physics logics of 1.2 and 1.3 and while it took me about 30 minutes to hypothesize whether 'gravity' was a function of a fixed downwards *acceleration* or a fixed downwards *top speed* and just exactly what limited downwards gravity, and where raw values were used vs. a percentage of maximum total.  Whether individual thrusters accel is lowered, or whether gravity worked against them instead.

Seems like the 1.2 engine asserts a maximum downward speed of gravity that works counter to your thrusters, where the gravity acceleration kicks in to about 25 m/s and the percentage of remaining thrust is allowed for upwards acceleration. What it probably shouldve done was continue to increase grav acceleration after it hits its 25m/s threshold and say add 10% every 5 seconds and compounding on to that. Thus making your ship heavier and heavier but not cutting out your thrusters (allowing you to also control your rate of descent to some degree)

1.3PB1 physics were impossible for me to 'figure out', since that a lot of work went into rewriting a physics engine that could eliminate infinite flying while preserving maneuverability (though not entirely successful), it seems that the code was made a little more difficult to comprehend in the process.

Of course, i'm just talking and being useless, but I wanted to say that anyways.

[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

Que : drum roll... This is a classic!

The overall balance of FE was rejected for this reason: FE has 3 races. BZ2 does not. Things fixed for the third race may have huge imbalances.

*badum- CHING!*



You really have revelaed your lack of knowladge about stratergy in this one GSH. If you had any idea of how FE was balenced you would know it was balenced like this

First the Scions vs EDF was fixed.... (changes made to EDF)

Then Edf vs Hadean....(changes made to Hadean)

Then Hadean vs Scion (changes made to scion)

Then all the way back to the orginal loop again. This is because the stratergy games were Team 1 vs Team 2. This method resulted (after a great deal of work, e.g. *doing*) in all of the races being very balenced Simultaneously.

As in...one race vs another. To say that Scions and ISDF are not balenced better in FE than they are in 1.2, let alone 1.3 is Laughable. Infact i burst out laughing when i read your post!

Hell, we are not even asking you to DO work, we are asking you to let US do the work FOR you. Affectivly if you want your 1.3 patch to be anything more than a '' nice game, shame the balence is so screwd its pointless/boring/repetitious '' your going to have to ask for '' a black check in time '' from US, people like WarDog and I.

So much for 'useless'. Look GSH, your a logistics master, not someone who comprehends the subtle and fluidic nature of stratergy/tactics etc.

In the real world they tried to run a war though logistics, and they ended up with World War I. A big huge long ditch with idiotic generals who thought they could win because '' never mind all that rubbish about subtlety and a lack of absolutes, we have 1.3445% more bullets than they do! Charge! ''.

Adding the massive improvements FE made to 1.2 and inculding them in 1.3 is a *very* good idea.

Deal with it.

[Commando]

Darkfox, there is no air damage.  It was an experiment.  I personally agree with you about it being a bad thing, and I'm sure a lot, if not most people, agree with you on that.  Personally I liked 1.3 Public Beta's physics, the option for modders to reintroduce hovering was there.  The only problem was that the stock mortar bike was still able to hover.  If no stock units were able to hover, and at the same time, if there was the option to make custom units that could hover, that would be great.  That way, pro hoverers could create their own recycler for their games, while those opposed to hovering would have their own recycler without any hovering units.  Just to be clear, when I said hovering, I meant static hovering.  I did not mean I wanted all units to be treaded or walking .  I just wanted to make sure that was clear.

[BZ FeebleEffort]

"People who talk "balance" (this means you, WD) rarely get off their ass to *DO* anything. Thus, there's zero respect.

If you recall dimwit, YOU chose to boot me from beta testing because I tried to at least keep the idea that "balance is a critical issue" in any game/mod/patch alive...instead of your Chicken Little "The Balance is falling! The Balance is falling! Phobia.

But admittedly, by that stage any enthusiasm or desire I had to help in your "Thou Shalt Not Hover Dictum Above All Other Aspects Of Gameplay!" had long since burned me out. That Burnout I'm sure is shared by virtually all of the MP Strat players who had to deal with you in the  closed beta.  I commend those who stuck it out, they have my sympathies.

Another reason I chose to take no part in any continuing work on 1.3 is because of the rumored obsessive efforts you will go through to prevent future 1.3 Modders to tweak physics to a fashion that we like...You yelled from the highest moutain since the day 1.3 glimmered in the back of your mind "1.3 will be highly Moddable to give players the options to play the way they like!"..Well what is the one thing you insanely, and obsessively work to prevent?..The abilities of the modders to tweak vehicle physics. If you'd just drop that I would sit patiently and let you finish whatever else you feel needs work on 1.3 and when you were done, I'd feel comfortable working with whatever modder is out there to create Mod 1.3 to a degree that it will be popular, because I tell you point blank, in my judgement 1.3 will never become the MAIN version of BZ 2...Soley because of your vehicle physics (yes I know Ken did them, But YOU Directed the "THOU SHALT NOT HOVER!" edict).

The only hope 1.3 has is in the hands of the modders.

And Just for fun, Who the Hell are you to comment about the balance of FE? or its' degree of success?...You've never even played a MP strat game vs real players. Last time I checked..(about 10 minutes ago, there's still 3 or 4 FE games running eachnite...1.3?..lucky if you find 1..and if you do, it's most likely a MPI because for many (like me) 1.3 MP strat is virtually unplayable(but even if it was playable for me..I wouldn't play it)And we told you all along, in 1.3 you've created a mpi players dream, but killed the dream for many  BZ 2  humanstrat players.

"1.3 has a perfectly functional way of selecting alternate recyclers, why have people done jack with that? If they wanted things to maybe get picked up, submitting completed work might be a start. Right now, their "I talk, you do the work" (once again, this means you, WD) attitude gets zero respect."
Once again Nathan...we asked, we pleaded we cajoled we suggested.It got us nowhere.

Ask Me to do the work Nathan?...Yeah...thats brilliant, I do my work in a Courtroom...not on a laptop...I wouldn't last 30 seconds in your vocation same as you wouldn't last 30 seconds in mine. expectations of players like me of sending you "finished" work is just foolishness.

I've seen some of the work of BZ 2's best Modders, and It was a pleasure. I've found a great joy in playing some of the SP mods out there recently, and toying around with MP game with my 10 year old son Someday, if I ever feel the desire to get involved with 1.3 it will be through their projects and it will be done in a spirit of collaborative discussion.

And don't forget  Nate, I still got that Link to Amazon anytime you need it.

[DarkFox]

Bashing GSH gets you nowhere, don't feed the trolls guys.

This topic has given me some thoughts on where to go with the next FE guntowers (somewhere in-between FE and ZST), and for that I thank you.