First, wanted to say that I actually liked that the Browncoat Heavies were so durable; they finally fit their theme. It's so, so so important, imho, that each faction becomes much less generic and fits their stated theme, if the SP Campaign's going to be truly Fun.
Anyhow, I've gotten going on modding a complete overhaul of the balance. I tried it last time but I wasn't very motivated without some sort of gameplay framework to balance for, but the Campaign provides a goal.
If you'd like to read about what I'd like to do, I've spoilered the TL:DNR.
I've already finished integrating my aHuman / aCrab scripts with the HumanAI / CrabAI so that they're totally compatible are agnostically designed re: the AI scripts (I like how they were cleaned up, btw). This means that I've finally got full mobility for my troops and all other features work. Back in January I stopped short of that because I got bored with Skirmish.
Haven't re-fixed the dropship / rocket behaviors yet, especially the rockets (for example, I had Rocklets landing with 100% perfect behavior, human or AI control), but I'll be doing so.
I've changed the Loadouts so that the AI will grab Presets that spawn multiple troops.
For example, the Dummy theme is cheap unit spam, so they're bringing down 3-5 guys per dropship run.
Now I "just" need to work on thematic stuff, get all of the weapons to the point where they're generally useful and correct all of the holes in the current design. Oh, that, and make it so that player troops are automatically put on brain-hunt mode so that assault landings en masse work for the player as well as the AI, getting rid of fiddly micro.
Overall, here's my intended strategy for balance:
1. Give each of the official factions a definite theme.
Coalition are balanced; their Heavies are tough but slow, their weapons are all fairly average. I'd like to keep all their whacky stuff but frankly some of it's useless or the AI can't use it worth a darn so it may have to go. Dummies are tough, cheap and expendable, with specialized weapons that are good for one task. Browncoats are really durable and have good weapons but are expensive. Imperatus are medium-tough and have weapons with a high accuracy but less damage. Ronin are very flimsy (basically unchanged, Actor-wise, although I'll want to differentiate them a bit later) but are fast moving and have powerful, spammy weapons. The Culled Clones / Undead, if made into a faction, would get inherent regen via Lua and high ground speed to make up for their lack of jump packs (or maybe I'll just sprite up a jump pack). I don't suppose it's possible to repair broken pixels yet?
2. Correct all of the glaring deficiencies in the official loadouts.
All factions should have a grenade launcher. Yes, a grenade launcher; having an arc-fire weapon with AOE that can serve as light artillery is a really big deal. The Thumper is the obvious choice there. All factions should have an assault rifle that's balanced for anti-infantry use, not terribly useful vs. tanks and doesn't destroy terrain. All factions should have a cheap, light, disposable anti-armor / anti-bunker weapon. The Ronin's RPG is a good choice there for a placeholder but the basic model I'm thinking of is the LAW- a fire-once-and-you're-done bunker-buster and AT weapon. All factions should have a LMG that can do area fire support and has a large magazine but is, if anything, a bit weaker per shot than the assault rifle, or inaccurate enough to not be as effective in long-range firefights. I'm thinking that the Coalition Assault Rifle should be the placeholder for that, just with a bigger magazine. All factions should have a cheap, weak pistol with reasonable rates of fire. All factions should have good options in terms of tunneling devices, explosives and basic grenades. I don't feel there's nearly enough functional differentiation between the current diggers atm, amongst other things.
I'd like to see the Laser as a concept again. I was very perplexed when it was missing from B27, it was a classic. This is the future, right?
In general, ballistic weapons that fire bullets or lasers or whatever should do a lot less terrain destruction; it's not realistic to chew huge holes in the ground with guns, even if you fire all day. IIRC there's a script to deal with that and allow Sharpness to be adjusted to whatever we want.
In general, shrapnel anti-infantry weapons should do a lot less terrain destruction; IRL, you can throw grenades into a pit all day long and the pit doesn't grow.
I think I'll just move some things into the "neutral" category to address these things for now and get rid of the joke guns like the Blunderpop, or move the Zombies and their guns to their own faction.
3. Get rid of the bombs; they're weak, sure, but they're also a weapon only players can use efficiently. I might change my mind if I can script up a way for the AI to call in artillery, but I don't feel like the game should be about artillery duels.
4. Give each faction a tank. What's a tank? An aCrab or aHuman set up to be really tough, yet mobile, especially outside.
The biggest problem with CC's current approach to tank-like objects is that they're neither all that tank-like, in terms of performance (the Dreadnought, at 200 gold, is a joke for what it costs, and troops costing half that can kill one pretty easily- heck, even a shotgun can knock its gun off, making it useless) nor do they solve any particular problems well (a Coalition Gatling Drone sure looks neat, but it isn't significantly tougher than soldiers, has a gun with a huge delay that isn't terrifically powerful, and like all of the aCrabs, has only slightly more mobility than a potted plant).
Basically, there's no point in having tanks at all right now; they're a waste of gold.
But we don't want tanks to be the end-all and be-all of warfare, either, or the thematic stuff gets broken. So, tanks need to have problems but be really useful at what they do.
What kinds of problems should tanks have?
A. Tanks should be mobile and jump-capable so that they aren't getting hosed by terrain all the time and can be used strategically, but should be significantly slower than foot soldiers. B. Tanks should either have weapons designed to kill soldiers that can't be used to defeat other tanks or weapons that primarily defeat tanks or static bunker infantry but aren't terrifically useful vs. soldiers, but not both.
For example, the Dummy Dreadnought has a weak, spammy machinegun that will not defeat tank armor. If the other side sends a tank, the Dummies need to respond with a tank-killing weapon (probably their laser) or buy another faction's tank that's designed to defeat tank armor. This isn't the reality of tanks IRL, where their limitations are a bit different but it's necessary to keep them balanced in CC. C. Keep the primary problem with tanks in CC, which is that they're not suitable for roaming around bunkers with. The Dummy Dreadnought, once it was made mobile again, is probably on the small end of what tanks should be; using tanks to Rambo whole base interiors probably shouldn't be possible. Where this leaves the Coalition Gatling Drone, I don't know yet, but it probably needs to be no stronger than a Coalition Heavy with the same weapon but a smaller footprint.
I've already fixed up the Dummy Dreadnought so that it has a jetpack and uses my aCrab mobility code and generally behaves in the intended way; it's almost bulletproof and is mobile light fire support, but is more expensive now that it's genuinely useful.
Obviously giving people aHumans as tanks is a balance issue, but customizeable mecha that people can strap guns to instead of an inflexible platform is inherently cool and should be explored. Dummy Expansion has the Heavy Dummy, which I'll probably borrow if I can get permission to redistribute it, and it would be a good way to explore this issue at first, since I don't have time to do all the pixel-art atm and will just be doing placeholder work at first.
Tank-only weapons that no human-sized character can lift or shoot or just using Lua to forbid them being equipped by inappropriate characters might be a good solution.
Anyhow, that's the plan, in a nutshell. I don't have the time to do much art and I find CC's palette really annoying to work with but I'll try to get it done. I got maybe halfway through overhauling all of this last time but now that there's a gameplay structure to balance for, I'm feeling motivated enough to do all of the fiddly bits, I think.
Wed Jun 13, 2012 7:24 pm
Crow
Banned
Joined: Sat Aug 16, 2008 7:17 pm Posts: 282
Re: Tested out B27... my thoughts
Cool!
Thu Jun 14, 2012 6:48 pm
xenoargh
Joined: Fri Dec 30, 2011 3:33 am Posts: 276
Re: Tested out B27... my thoughts
The MetaGame's nicely-commented and yay, it's not a biggie to work with.
First priority: develop smarter "groups" including some presets so that there are some very specific types with preset gear that the Tactical AI can work with and through correctly. I've also gotten rid of the need to micro this out, so that humans and the AI can land and fight with huge armies without endless micro detracting from play.
The groups that I've defined are pretty simplistic:
Brains: stay the same, do Gold-dig behaviors. Engineers: automatically get put on Gold-dig. Guards: automatically get put on Sentry. Mecha: automatically get put on Brain-Hunt. Assault: automatically get put on Brain-Hunt. Turrets: automatically get put on Sentry.
Not quite sure how I'm going to sort this out from the Presets, yet, or the way that the Presets are used for base defenders. I don't like that these two things are mixed in terms of data and treatment. I think that each Troop needs 3 variations (engineer, guard, assault) or each faction needs 3 variations present to function correctly.
I want to separate these things, because we don't want the base guards to go walking off; they need to stay where they're put. Need to understand that part of the code better first.
But it's a start; instead of the player landing a passive army that just stands around waiting for orders and the AI on defensive mode just sitting there and putting all the new drops on default orders, not even Sentry, everybody's going to get really busy, automatically. So air-dropped armies can now be made functional for everybody, including players, getting rid of a lot of needless micro.
Thu Jun 14, 2012 8:39 pm
Kytin
Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2012 3:38 am Posts: 8
Re: Tested out B27... my thoughts
TheLastBanana wrote:
Browncoats will definitely be nerfed. We've already fixed the head bug.
What? No! Put it back! Seriously, I thought it was one of the coolest things when I saw it happen. It's easy enough to justify in the lore too. These are custom-built remotely-controled bodies. The designers just put the control transciever in the chest cavity on this design.
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