Decision 2009: 1.2 Balance

[AppleJuice]

Since I'm starting to shake off the rust, and I've been playing 1.2 for a while now (under aliases), I believe I have enough experience to start commenting on balance.

First: overall, I like the changes and the direction. Most of them are pretty sound; at first, they seemed random to me, and in certain cases nonsensical, but as I played more, I realized how certain things fit together.

Second: Please keep any flaming of 1.2/1.1/me/the devs/anyone else out of this thread. Please keep this about the game, instead.

Third: Lighten up, community! Watch this if you're feeling too serious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWfyIwnN0Wg

Anyway, there are definitely some tweaks needed.
   - Stamina - huge problem. I should not be punished for being able to kill 2-3 goons in quick succession, but I am. After 2 goons, I no longer have enough stamina to avoid a dretch, which almost always results in my death because of stamina, not because I couldn't dodge well enough. This is not fun; in fact, it's very annoying. One of the devs said that realism wasn't a major concern for Tremulous development, so that shouldn't be the argument here. Since the stats seem to show that 1.2 is balanced more towards aliens (though that is very debatable), there shouldn't be a huge concern in overpowering humans - sprinting is not that quick against bigger aliens, after all, and dretches and basilisks should rarely charge head-on, anyway. In 1.1, I never experienced this problem, and I probably sprint less now than I did then. I also try to conserve my stamina as much as possible between fights (I always use toggleSprint, and I always toggle it off when I am not fighting). Please increase the stamina. Many other people I've played with agree - low stamina is too limiting.
   - Goon pounce - I still disagree with this. Pouncing is much easier to do than chomping is; this is a case of making it too easy for new players to do well. It is very, very hard to dodge a good pouncer. I've just 1v1ed a good player in devmap on atcs, goon vs any s2 human. Pouncing was extremely easy, especially because of the range and the knockback. My opponent was hard to goon in 1.1; in 1.2, I believe he killed me only 3-4 times out of over 30. Dodge doesn't really help too much against pounce, either, considering the stamina issues. As an alien, chomping has a rather limited use. I survive far longer pouncing humans + dodging their shots at the same time than I do by chomping; I also try a lot less. I will admit that I'm still not used to the chomp range/width changes, so that is most likely a big factor with chomps, but that doesn't change how overpowered pounce is. Chomping takes much more skill than pouncing does, yet pouncing is almost as strong if not stronger than chomping is (taking into consideration speed, evasion and knockback as well as damage).
   - Goon chomping - I have no problem with the width reduction; that part is good. In 1.1, it was too easy to *kind of* miss a human with a goon and still hit; that seems to have been fixed. However, the range nerf was just too much. Yes, I can still chomp with a goon if I just stay really close to a human, but that nerfs the goon's ability to dodge/fight multiple humans. Also, sometimes I stand directly in front of a still human (as in, a human just shooting and not moving), and just chomp (I'm pretty close to the human at this point), and it misses because of the range nerf. This just takes away the feeling of power I used to get when playing as a dragoon; now I just pounce instead.
   - Marauders just feel slower. Maybe I need to jump differently, but they just feel much slower.

All of these gripes reflect a difference in philosophy, I suppose. I prefer a game in which what you can do is limited by your skill, not by nerfs in the game. 1.2 and Tremulous as a whole mostly support this preference, but these issues prevent it from being fully realized.

Thoughts?

[NotYarou]

I fully agree with what AppleJuice has posted.
As I had previously stated in my thread earlier, dragoon needs some minor tweaks to even it out.
But I had not realized how much of a problem stamina was until I had started playing humans; so much so that a dragoon with half a brain can pounce me to death before I have a chance to recover my stamina (I believe I blacked out or was on the verge of blacking out almost every single time I went out of base).

[KillerWhale]

I agree with the above.

In specific, the mara jump is not as intuitive or useful, in my opinion.

You guys forgot one major problem: Chaingun range.
A human jetcamper in ATCS can kill a goon with no problem using a chaingun.

I like the higher range chaingun, but I think it's a bit overdone.
Perhaps a change in the other direction may be good; very, very fast firing, low damage, low range.

[Plague Bringer]

I agree with the above.

In specific, the mara jump is not as intuitive or useful, in my opinion.

You guys forgot one major problem: Chaingun range.
A human jetcamper in ATCS can kill a goon with no problem using a chaingun.

I like the higher range chaingun, but I think it's a bit overdone.
Perhaps a change in the other direction may be good; very, very fast firing, low damage, low range.

The spread reduction is minuscule, in my opinion.

[Cadynum]

I fully agree with your post.
I definitely think sprinting should be reduced to consume 30-50% of the stamina it does now.

One of the things bothering me with 1.2 is how slow everything feels compared to 1.1
Sprinting is part of the problem but also the reduced goon pounce and mara jump acceleration.
I want the nice swift feeling of 1.1 back.

[ziplocpeople]

yes

[ACKMAN]

yes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2xj6p7Igqo

[A Spork]

Agree with the goon range, but I actually like the new Mara
myself...And I was in Nano! yesterday and just flying, haven't noticed an real drop in speed for me.

[bob0]

   - Stamina - huge problem. I should not be punished for being able to kill 2-3 goons in quick succession, but I am. After 2 goons, I no longer have enough stamina to avoid a dretch, which almost always results in my death because of stamina, not because I couldn't dodge well enough. This is not fun; in fact, it's very annoying. One of the devs said that realism wasn't a major concern for Tremulous development, so that shouldn't be the argument here. Since the stats seem to show that 1.2 is balanced more towards aliens (though that is very debatable), there shouldn't be a huge concern in overpowering humans - sprinting is not that quick against bigger aliens, after all, and dretches and basilisks should rarely charge head-on, anyway. In 1.1, I never experienced this problem, and I probably sprint less now than I did then. I also try to conserve my stamina as much as possible between fights (I always use toggleSprint, and I always toggle it off when I am not fighting). Please increase the stamina. Many other people I've played with agree - low stamina is too limiting.

The amount of stamina taken from sprinting has not changed since 1.1 (look at the HUMAN MISC section in tremulous.h for both files); however, jumping takes less stamina than it did before.  I think the cause of confusion is that humans previously couldn't start sprinting with negative stamina (human is breathing hard), but if they continued sprinting in the same direction, they would stop sprinting and wouldn't be able to sprint again until it was positive.  Now, they can start sprinting even if their stamina is negative, which, although intuitive, usually does not benifit humans.  Humans ability to start sprinting with negative stamina instead of just walking probably causes some people confusion.  (Note: I'm not implying that I disagree with your opinion; you're reasoning is quite sound)

   - Goon pounce - I still disagree with this. Pouncing is much easier to do than chomping is; this is a case of making it too easy for new players to do well. It is very, very hard to dodge a good pouncer. I've just 1v1ed a good player in devmap on atcs, goon vs any s2 human. Pouncing was extremely easy, especially because of the range and the knockback. My opponent was hard to goon in 1.1; in 1.2, I believe he killed me only 3-4 times out of over 30. Dodge doesn't really help too much against pounce, either, considering the stamina issues. As an alien, chomping has a rather limited use. I survive far longer pouncing humans + dodging their shots at the same time than I do by chomping; I also try a lot less. I will admit that I'm still not used to the chomp range/width changes, so that is most likely a big factor with chomps, but that doesn't change how overpowered pounce is. Chomping takes much more skill than pouncing does, yet pouncing is almost as strong if not stronger than chomping is (taking into consideration speed, evasion and knockback as well as damage).

While I do disagree with your opinion here, what can you suggest to fix this?  Norfenstein already tried making pounce charge longer (than what it is curretly), and people (sanely) complained that it made the goon sluggish and difficult to evade chasers.  I think Norfenstein was satisfied with that goon, but the charge was reduced because most people found (yes, most people; active players, too) it unusable.  I suppose damage could be reduced, but it will make pouncing bsuits more difficult than what it already is.  I think that would be fine in my opinion, since I usually just use chomp, and especially against battlesuits.

   - Goon chomping - I have no problem with the width reduction; that part is good. In 1.1, it was too easy to *kind of* miss a human with a goon and still hit; that seems to have been fixed. However, the range nerf was just too much. Yes, I can still chomp with a goon if I just stay really close to a human, but that nerfs the goon's ability to dodge/fight multiple humans. Also, sometimes I stand directly in front of a still human (as in, a human just shooting and not moving), and just chomp (I'm pretty close to the human at this point), and it misses because of the range nerf. This just takes away the feeling of power I used to get when playing as a dragoon; now I just pounce instead.

Chomp and bite seem fine to me; I've never missed a shot I was sure should have hit.

   - Marauders just feel slower. Maybe I need to jump differently, but they just feel much slower.

They're not slower, nor should they be.  Their speed, acceleration, and air acceleration have not been changed.  The only difference is the lower jump magnitude, but as long as you can strafe jump (try playing straftrain1), you should notice as much a difference as I do: none.

Also, thank you for using semicolons correctly.  I'm pretty much only saying this because they can't be typed in-game anymore, and I'd like more people to understand their necessity.  This sentence needs a semicolon, there is no conjunction.  This sentence has a conjunction, so there doesn't need to be a semicolon.  This is another sentance; it doesn't have the world "and" in it.  (Repeat:) Technically, taking away semicolons forces people to use coordinating conjunctions to link closely-related independent clauses.  And for the people who don't care or understand, they can't say "" or ";_;" or "/r_something 0; vid_restart" anymore.  People who don't think about security issues like executing a player's unsanitized input is a very bad reason to remove semicolons.

[kevlarman]

   - Stamina - huge problem. I should not be punished for being able to kill 2-3 goons in quick succession, but I am. After 2 goons, I no longer have enough stamina to avoid a dretch, which almost always results in my death because of stamina, not because I couldn't dodge well enough. This is not fun; in fact, it's very annoying. One of the devs said that realism wasn't a major concern for Tremulous development, so that shouldn't be the argument here. Since the stats seem to show that 1.2 is balanced more towards aliens (though that is very debatable), there shouldn't be a huge concern in overpowering humans - sprinting is not that quick against bigger aliens, after all, and dretches and basilisks should rarely charge head-on, anyway. In 1.1, I never experienced this problem, and I probably sprint less now than I did then. I also try to conserve my stamina as much as possible between fights (I always use toggleSprint, and I always toggle it off when I am not fighting). Please increase the stamina. Many other people I've played with agree - low stamina is too limiting.

The amount of stamina taken from sprinting has not changed since 1.1 (look at the HUMAN MISC section in tremulous.h for both files); however, jumping takes less stamina than it did before.  I think the cause of confusion is that humans previously couldn't start sprinting with negative stamina (human is breathing hard), but if they continued sprinting in the same direction, they would stop sprinting and wouldn't be able to sprint again until it was positive.  Now, they can start sprinting even if their stamina is negative, which, although intuitive, usually does not benifit humans.  Humans ability to start sprinting with negative stamina instead of just walking probably causes some people confusion.  (Note: I'm not implying that I disagree with your opinion; you're reasoning is quite sound)

the light armor bonus to sprinting was removed (it halved the cost).

[UniqPhoeniX]

Marauders used to gain a small fwd speed boost from jumps. Also semicolons were removed? WHAT ;(

[A Spork]

why no moar semis?

[KillerWhale]

As far as I understand, semicolons were removed because of an issue of sanitized input allowing an rcon to be reset with no knowledge other than the fact it was a server.
Also, as far as I understand, this never happened in Tremulous; it happened in Urban Terror and was fixed.

I want semicolons back.

As for the marauder, the jump is much more vertical now than it was in 1.1.
You can still strafe-jump, but it takes much longer to attain any decent speeds.
I don't particularly like the new wall-jump. I'll live with it, but I don't like it.
The 1.1 Marauder's ability to propel itself off of a wall created incredible versatility, especially in tight spaces.
The 1.2 Marauder's jump is better suited for reaching where you want to go with ease, but not with speed.

[Norfenstein]

I'm okay with reducing sprinting's drain on stamina.

[mooseberry]

I'm okay with reducing sprinting's drain on stamina.

This seems good. Like someone else said somewhere else, I never never used to really black out, but I had it happen to me twice in a row (two different lives) while fighting aliens.

[AppleJuice]

The amount of stamina taken from sprinting has not changed since 1.1 (look at the HUMAN MISC section in tremulous.h for both files); however, jumping takes less stamina than it did before.  I think the cause of confusion is that humans previously couldn't start sprinting with negative stamina (human is breathing hard), but if they continued sprinting in the same direction, they would stop sprinting and wouldn't be able to sprint again until it was positive.  Now, they can start sprinting even if their stamina is negative, which, although intuitive, usually does not benifit humans.  Humans ability to start sprinting with negative stamina instead of just walking probably causes some people confusion.  (Note: I'm not implying that I disagree with your opinion; you're reasoning is quite sound)

No doubt you've seen kevlarman's response, so no need to mention that. Most of my problem was not with blacking out (I usually die as I slow to a crawl - before I black out); it was instead with losing stamina too quickly from sprinting.

While I do disagree with your opinion here, what can you suggest to fix this?  Norfenstein already tried making pounce charge longer (than what it is curretly), and people (sanely) complained that it made the goon sluggish and difficult to evade chasers.  I think Norfenstein was satisfied with that goon, but the charge was reduced because most people found (yes, most people; active players, too) it unusable.  I suppose damage could be reduced, but it will make pouncing bsuits more difficult than what it already is.  I think that would be fine in my opinion, since I usually just use chomp, and especially against battlesuits.

I don't think it should be feasible to pounce a good chainsuit to death. It wasn't in 1.1; chomping was necessary. Thus, a damage reduction, along with a slight knockback reduction, would probably be best. Personally, I liked the 1.1 combo of pounce + 2 chomps = dead s2 human, but I also realize that something new would probably be more fun. Changing too many variables at once would muddle things, however, so I propose doing something simple, such as the following:

- Looking at the Tremulous.h diff, I realize that this will be somewhat tricky. Pounce width and range were actually reduced from their 1.1 values, yet it is still very easy to pounce a human. However, I don't think that should change; making it too difficult to pounce a human will reduce the fun factor of pounce. Thus, the pounce range/width values seem fine, to me.
- According to the Tremulous.h diff, pounce damage hasn't been changed at all; rather, the damage reduction from armour has been reduced? Is that correct? Regardless, pounce is stronger.
- I suggest reducing the damage pounce does, while increasing the rate at which one can pounce. Unfortunately, since I don't see where the human damage reduction was changed, I can't think of specific numbers. This sounds like it would be the same pounce as it was in 1.1; therefore, I recommend keeping some of the new knockback associated with pounce. This would add a new "pin your enemy to your environment" tactic to dragoon gameplay (even more so than in 1.1), thus adding new functionality while reducing its power. (Bolded to clarify)

Chomp and bite seem fine to me; I've never missed a shot I was sure should have hit.

I see. I'm still not used to the new chomp range (though the width hasn't really affected me much), so I'll need to use that more before I'm really certain. However, I suspect that just a little more range would make the chomp perfect (not as much as in 1.1, but not as little as in 1.2).

They're not slower, nor should they be.  Their speed, acceleration, and air acceleration have not been changed.  The only difference is the lower jump magnitude, but as long as you can strafe jump (try playing straftrain1), you should notice as much a difference as I do: none.

That was more of a comment than a gripe; I haven't used marauders that much yet, so I don't really know. I was just wondering if others felt the same, but if not, then it's just me.

Also, thank you for using semicolons correctly.  I'm pretty much only saying this because they can't be typed in-game anymore, and I'd like more people to understand their necessity.  This sentence needs a semicolon, there is no conjunction.  This sentence has a conjunction, so there doesn't need to be a semicolon.  This is another sentance; it doesn't have the world "and" in it.  (Repeat:) Technically, taking away semicolons forces people to use coordinating conjunctions to link closely-related independent clauses.  And for the people who don't care or understand, they can't say "" or ";_;" or "/r_something 0; vid_restart" anymore.  People who don't think about security issues like executing a player's unsanitized input is a very bad reason to remove semicolons.

Hah. It's natural at this point.

I'm okay with reducing sprinting's drain on stamina.

Awesome. How are you going to choose new values? I'd like to be there to test it, if possible.

[kevlarman]

pounce damage hasn't changed at all against most humans (you could always kill a bsuit in 5). the only changes are knockback, and the non-location damage calculation being changed to more accurately reflect the area armor covers (iirc, this results in slightly less protection for light armor alone, and slightly more for helmet alone, relative to 1.1)

[AppleJuice]

Then why can I pounce-kill an s2 human (larmour + helmet) with 3 pounces (in 1.2), when in 1.1 I could do no such thing? (if pounce damage hasn't changed)

[KillerWhale]

The usage of the current GPP dragoon is a rather confounding conundrum.
If you happen encounter a human who is sprinting or using dodge, there is no plausible way to consistently kill them.

A dodging/sprinting human can outrange the current dragoon chomp, even if the dragoon is moving towards the human and the human is sprinting backwards rather than forwards.
With the charge time of pounce, a focused human can deal very large amounts of damage before you can attack them. Don't even think about missing if you want to survive.

[Edit: These were guess/estimates, and not very good ones. ]
Really, I think that the best solution would be: Reduce chomp repeat by 200, increase chomp range by 1/4th of the difference of the 1.1 and 1.2 values, reducing pounce damage by 1/5th or so, and reducing pounce charge by 400ms.
Another feasible solution I could see is the increase of the dragoon's walking speed to let them keep up with humans.

[AppleJuice]

reducing pounce charge by 400ms.

Was that a typo, or am I misreading something? The pounce charge time was only increased by 100 msec from 1.1's value (according to http://pastebin.ca/1720754).

Also, pouncing utterly destroys most s2 humans, in my experience (as you saw in the 1v1 a few days ago)...why do you think pouncing is underpowered? (serious question)
It's also easy to miss a pounce (probably only one, though) and still kill the human.

As a side note, I'm starting to get used to goon chomping, and it doesn't seem so underpowered anymore. However, goon pouncing is still overpowered.

[KillerWhale]

I thought the pounce charge time was increased by 600ms, my bad.
I don't have the source on this computer, and I don't feel like downloading the source to check the values.

I was recommending increasing the rate of pounce and reducing the damage for the sake of the mobility of the dragoon.

As a side note, I'm starting to get used to goon chomping, and it doesn't seem so underpowered anymore.

Ah, I thought so also, but then I went up against someone who was adept with the dodge command; it destroyed any chance of hitting him with the current chomp range.

I suppose the range could be forgiven if the repeat was increased appropriately.

[Edit: That pastebin was rather useful, I'll put the values that I would like to see below this]
LEVEL3_CLAW_RANGE           78.0f
LEVEL3_CLAW_REPEAT          790
LEVEL3_POUNCE_DMG           ADM(80) [Or maybe not changing this, maybe just mildly increasing the full-body armour protection. This could possibly fix the problems with tyrant charge too.]
LEVEL3_POUNCE_TIME          750

[AppleJuice]

As a side note, I'm starting to get used to goon chomping, and it doesn't seem so underpowered anymore.

Ah, I thought so also, but then I went up against someone who was adept with the dodge command; it destroyed any chance of hitting him with the current chomp range.

I suppose the range could be forgiven if the repeat was increased appropriately.

That is just a case of using the right move at the right time. If someone still has a lot of stamina left, or if you're in an open space and it's easy to dodge away, pouncing is usually better to open the fight. I usually chomp towards the end now, and it's becoming pretty effective.

[Edit: That pastebin was rather useful, I'll put the values that I would like to see below this]
LEVEL3_CLAW_RANGE           78.0f
LEVEL3_CLAW_REPEAT          790
LEVEL3_POUNCE_DMG           ADM(80) [Or maybe not changing this, maybe just mildly increasing the full-body armour protection. This could possibly fix the problems with tyrant charge too.]
LEVEL3_POUNCE_TIME          750

Before I comment: I think knockback should be reduced just a little; it affects human dodging way too much, right now. It can not only pin a human, but it can pretty much bump it into a corner (at will) in which it is hard to dodge. What's the name for knockback damage in Tremulous.h? I didn't see it.

I like these values, though I'm not sure how they'd be in game (they require testing, obviously). 78 range is not a huge increase from the current value, but it just might be enough to make it feel perfect. 790 claw repeat/750 pounce time is a good compromise between 1.1's and 1.2's values...not too slow, not too quick. I'd be interested in testing these values...maybe when Yarou comes back (I don't have ssh/ftp access), we'll try them on our server, unless Norfenstein decides to try them (I hope so!).

[A Spork]

Sounds worth testing to me.
Norf, test plz?

The goon range does kinda bug me...and uberknockback hurts(especially if they knock you over a ledge...)

[Celestial_Rage]

Perhaps try two different servers. One with some of the community changes and one with the current build. Then let democracy and personal choice take over?

[A Spork]

Democracy to a degree.
There's a few people it would seem who want to turn 1.2 into Tremx......Ignore those.

[StevenM]

I think with the stamina changes there wont be much need to change the pounce. Lots of people arent really using the dodge feature as much as they could be. Its highly useful for dodging goons, problem is stamina. Also the question arises with nerfing the goon pounce, how effective will the goon be against s2. With the chomps range being reduced and its repeat increased, you run the risk of nerfing the goon too much

I also think the dretch could use a little more. It usually takes up too 3-4 bites to kill a single human...with this in mind imagine a group of humans camping a longer hallway. its nearly impossible to touch them. It might be that I just need to practise my dretch alot more and find that sweet spot so that I get the 2 hit KO. Either way it is slightly harder, putting the aliens in a hole right off the bat.

I was pretty skeptical about 1.2, but I must say, it isnt all that bad. Although I will say it is far from perfected or even a final state.

Another thing I have noticed is the lack of people playing it. Its sad to see people solely playing 1.1. If you have a problem with 1.2, get on, play, think of whats wrong, and come up with positive and reasonable suggestions. AJ's thread is a perfect example.

The more people play, the better the results and data, the more feedback and the better the gameplay!

[your face]

I'm too lazy to connect since there's no tsb for it yet.

[A Spork]

Another thing I have noticed is the lack of people playing it. Its sad to see people solely playing 1.1. If you have a problem with 1.2, get on, play, think of whats wrong, and come up with positive and reasonable suggestions. AJ's thread is a perfect example.

The more people play, the better the results and data, the more feedback and the better the gameplay!

QFT!

[kevlarman]

I'm too lazy to connect since there's no tsb for it yet.

here you go (it supports only protocol 70 servers, and has some hax to allow a different client binary than the regular version, anything more would require access to the code and more effort than it's worth)

[your face]

<3