Gameplay Preview Phase 3 Results

[Norfenstein]

Time for round four! Here are the balance graphs grom GPP phase three.

Reading the graphs: Each cross is one game, the distance from 0 on the vertical axis indicates how close a game was to the mean duration for all games on the graph (the weighting for how much this affects the lines is half as much as we used in phase 1). The numbers in the bottom right are the min/median/max/standard deviation for stage up times and game duration.

Both servers combined


Euro server


US server


Really not as nice as the previous set of graphs (which had remarkably straight Overall lines). If you're comparing, however, I think it's worth noting that the X-axes aren't the same: we've had some bigger games, and it looks like bulk of games have been with higher player loads. And I suspect that some of these lines would straighten out more with more data (remember that we've found it takes about 200 games for trends to stabilize, and only the three most common outcomes have more than that).

But I hardly used the statistics in deciding what to change for phase four. At this point I think the game is very close to what it should be, and the tweaks I decided on were based on feedback and my own judgement. There probably won't be any big surprises for anyone. Let's first review the changes from last time.

Stamina
I don't think I've heard any complaints about this since reducing the drain from sprinting, increasing the standing restoration rate, and adjusting the threshold for jumping/dodging. I like the faster restoration rate and how there now isn't any combination of walking/standing/sprinting that is more efficient than any other. I don't feel the need for any further changes to stamina.

Dragoon bite and pounce ranges
I'm happy with the new bite range. It's closer to the previous value of 72 than 1.1's value of 96, but I think it's effective as it should be. In fact, coupled with the pounce reduction, I think the bite is actually slightly better than the pounce now, and my opinion is they ought to be roughly equal in usefulness. Also, though I think cutting down on the crazy side-pounces was the right move, I don't think we had to go quite so far.

Flamer
The effect of reducing the flamer's splash damage clearly shows that self-damage was the biggest problem with the flamer. Judging whether or not it was overpowered at 25 direct damage, 12 splash was a little tricky, however. It's hard to trust peoples' judgement (including my own) when something goes from useless to useful, but what really made me pause is that the flamer didn't seem to be overused in GPP 3. Usually the best indicator of how imbalanced something is how popular it is in practice, but I wasn't really impressed by its jump from about 3% of all player kills to about 9%. However, given pretty much everyone's opinion about the flamer (including my own), I think this is probably a case of something being too powerful in some situations but not useful enough in others. If the splash damage comes down a little more along with the direct damage, and it gets more ammo so you don't have to conserve as much versus dretches (and don't get drained so much destroying structures), it'll probably even out well enough.

And one thing not tweaked last time, but due for a change...

Marauder
We (myself, kevlarman, and bob) finally tracked down the cause of the marauder being slightly-but-noticeably slower in 1.2 than in 1.1, and we think it was because of a change in its jumping that fixed it from accelerating unnaturally in the air (usually you have to do something to gain speed while bunnyhopping, but it appeared that you got extra speed with no effort with 1.1 marauders). Assured that this wasn't something that affected all classes and was only noticeable with marauders, I have no problem giving marauders a little something to make them feel more like they did in 1.1. They won't behave exactly like they did (I suppose technically they'll be better now than they were), but they will feel nice and speedy. And I don't expect this to affect balance much (since my opinion is that, discounting the zap, marauders really aren't as productive as dragoons, and when they do wreck bases with lightning their movement speed is largely irrelevant), but if it does I'll be balancing around it instead of stepping back.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I found and fixed a bug that swapped the regular and advanced marauders' claw ranges. The difference is only 2 units so I wouldn't believe anyone that said they could tell the difference, but worth mentioning anyway.

The Changes

• Dragoon base pounce range increased 40 -> 48
• Flamer damage reduced 25/12 -> 20/10
• Flamer ammo increased 150 -> 200
• Marauder air acceleration increased 2.0 -> 3.0

Friendly Fire?
I think the above changes could warrant another full phase all on their own, but given that they're either further refinements to things we've already been tweaking, or a return to something that I don't even expect to affect balance much, I don't think they need it. People seem to be getting antsy about turning friendly fire on, and since these changes probably won't have drastic, unpredictable effects, I'm okay with that. My prediction is that friendly fire will alter the slope of the balance graph lines (making humans less potent in bigger games) but won't necessitate any major balance changes, if any at all. But we'll find out!

And just so no one gets all tl;dr, and starts killing teammates, allow me to reiterate:

Friendly fire is now on; don't shoot your teammates

unless they deserve it ;)

[Kiwi]

Nice job

- Kiwi

[FreaK]

I am happy with all these changes, especially FF 

[Demolution]

Awesome.

[bob0]

Very good!

[mooseberry]

Looking good, FF on will be nice.

[SlackerLinux]

Looking good, FF on will be nice.

it is very nice.

FF on is the best change yet balance changes look good too

[kevlarman]

Looking good, FF on will be nice.

it is very nice.

FF on is the best change yet balance changes look good too

the vast majority of the balance changes on gpp were made and tested with ff on, ff off was a very recent change.

[A Spork]

Finally FF!

Although, am I reading this wrong, cuz it sounds to me like you said the flamer is OP, so you gave it more ammo, and made it even harder to hurt yourself with.....

[NINJA-EDIT]have you guys fixed the wallwalk/sprint toggle bug yet? It's kinda annoying...[/NINJA-EDIT]

[your face]

good luck 1.2

[FreaK]

Finally FF!

Although, am I reading this wrong, cuz it sounds to me like you said the flamer is OP, so you gave it more ammo, and made it even harder to hurt yourself with.....

[NINJA-EDIT]have you guys fixed the wallwalk/sprint toggle bug yet? It's kinda annoying...[/NINJA-EDIT]

The damage went from 25->12 splash went from 12->10 and it gained 50 ammo. I think flamer will fill its role now, primarily killing dretches and a lisk or two but it shouldn't be able to kill a goon or rant.

The wallwalk bug is a client bug and for that to be fixed they have to release a new client, I think they are waiting on a few more things before they release it ( not sure ).

[Silver]

Finally FF!

Although, am I reading this wrong, cuz it sounds to me like you said the flamer is OP, so you gave it more ammo, and made it even harder to hurt yourself with.....

[NINJA-EDIT]have you guys fixed the wallwalk/sprint toggle bug yet? It's kinda annoying...[/NINJA-EDIT]

The damage went from 25->12 splash went from 12->10 and it gained 50 ammo. I think flamer will fill its role now, primarily killing dretches and a lisk or two but it shouldn't be able to kill a goon or rant.

The wallwalk bug is a client bug and for that to be fixed they have to release a new client, I think they are waiting on a few more things before they release it ( not sure ).

The Euro server doesn't have the wallwalk glitch.  Which is really weird.

[Lakitu7]

Wallwalk bug is client-side.

If you aren't seeing it on Euro it's because your test case has you playing somewhere else first. What server you're on is irrelevant. Also US and Euro run exactly the same thing.

While we're not ready to officially release a new client, that bug is fixed in svn and anyone can build the gpp branch and have a fixed client that's otherwise the same.

http://lakitu.mercenariesguild.net/temp/gpp/
Here's some *nix 32 and windows builds.

[Norfenstein]

Although, am I reading this wrong

Yes.

I think this is probably a case of something being too powerful in some situations but not useful enough in others.

[Silver]

Although, am I reading this wrong

Yes.

I think this is probably a case of something being too powerful in some situations but not useful enough in others.

I know that a vast reason of people not using flamer was because the majority of the time if you used it the majority of the active player base cussed you out to shit.(or maybe that was just me)

I do, however, agree with your statement.  It's too useful for for fighting, but as flamer goes to me, it's meant to be a defense/support weapon.  Because it covers such a large spread it's really good for pushing back aliens to help retreating teammates or picking off smaller aliens.  Where as other weapons are better for base rushing because they actually have a larger distance range and they can pick off buildables from a safe distance.  That or saw, which has just an insane DPS making it effective for sawing important structures like OM and eggs. 

I like the changes to flamer though, although I would like it's range nerfed in a little.  Not as far as 1.1, but a little less than it is now.

[Celestial_Rage]

I think Tremulous 1.2 is starting to get really good, especially with the new changes, though the teamwork aspect in a pub game is new to me.

ps: Is it just me, or can you not press Ctrl-C to delete text when you press 'T' to do pub chat?

[Demolution]

Escape usually does the job.

[No IQ Dude]

Wouldn't FF result in even more alien wins?
becuase when u look at it, the hummies get ff the most

[Conzul]

Wouldn't FF result in even more alien wins?
becuase when u look at it, the hummies get ff the most

You obviously haven't played much as aliens, much less in cramped hallways.
FF on will result in more balanced Alien vs. Human encounters, not alien vs. hBase or humans vs. aBase .
I also predict a sudden drop in the number of flamers that accompany human squads. Teammates will have more to fear than the aliens

[UniqPhoeniX]

Geesh. To fix the wallwalk bug, just add

Code: [Select]

cg_sprintToggle 0
cg_sprintToggle 1to the end of your autoexec or whatever...
Anyway, I still don't get the importance of those graphs (so what if games have different durations? What if when a team wins just after 1 team gets stageup (it was balanced most of the game)?).
And what will happen to FoV?

[bob0]

Geesh. To fix the wallwalk bug, just add

Code: [Select]

cg_sprintToggle 0
cg_sprintToggle 1to the end of your autoexec or whatever...

That will be reset when autoexec is rewritten.

If you won't build a GPP client, the easiest solution would probably be "/bind key "setu $u $u; toggle $u; toggle $u; unset $u" and press that button whenever you connect.

[UniqPhoeniX]

What? autoexec is not written by trem, autogen is.

[bob0]

What? autoexec is not written by trem, autogen is.

Ah, right.

[Cadynum]

With the latest update & the activation of friendly fire 1.2 feels a lot better!
The only really big problem I can still see is the underpowered dretch.

[scrape]

My suggestions =D

Evolving
Remove an old and unneeded limitation of alien evolution, the "cannot evolve
because enemies are too near" feature.

As it stands, humans can only use a powered armory to upgrade their class, therefore
to make it balanced, the alien class should only be able to evolve in range of the creep.

Remove the "enemies to near" limitation, with slow build point regen, this additional
limitation only imbalances alien defense, and with the addition of the prior mentioned change,
would make upgrading equal, yet remain different between the two factions.

Lucifer Cannon
If the alien class had a weapon that was:

• ranged
• had splash damage
• could one hit the 2nd largest opposing class
• was incredibly fast at close range

...it would have been removed. Its a BFG lite, at the very least, if no one
can agree that its flat out overpowered, increase the credits required to buy one.
The prior mentioned "BFG" had very low ammo, very hard to get, and normally 1 location to
obtain it. with the lucifer, the opposing team can cheaply suit their entire team, with a weapon
that perhaps should have a limit of 1/2 per team.

Flamer
Make the self damage higher while wearing < a battle suit, but remain the current while wearing
a battle suit. Give it a overheat\overcharge bar, like the lucifer cannon.

Battle Suit
The battle suit should not be able to sprint or dodge. The bonus of damage absorption with
the same movement abilities makes it overpowered. While at the same time, it makes sense, it should have
radar, since its a greater degree of human technology. So give the bsuit a greater range radar, and shorten
the range (slightly to make the suits value worthwhile) of the helmet.

In regards to tyrant and dragoon health and health regeneration.
Return the old health numbers to the dragoon and tyrant, but keep the slower regen. The problem in 1.1
with the tyrants overpowered state wasn't the amount of health, but its ability to regen quickly and trapped
an entire human base solo.

Human don't have this other class dependency for their primary assault class, you don't need a engineer nearby
to use [insert item] While I am for teamwork, aliens have far more requirements for a competent team, because of this, while humans just require a moving spamming mob (for assaults, not talking about building or defense)

The Painsaw, while I love the painsaw changes, its unlimited *ammo* is now overpowered. Humans are a range class, and
aliens are a melee class. It manages a 146 dmg a second, against aliens that lack an armor buff. ~2 seconds == dead.
No alien melee class has this power, or should have, therefore to diminish the overkill part I suggest:

Painsaw should have self regenerating ammo, it can fire, but needs a *cooldown* before it can fire again.

While the rebuttals i normally hear, to most of these suggestions are, "Well aliens can wall walk without stamina"
Let me remind you only 3 aliens can wall walk, adv granger, dretch, and basilisk. Hardly warrants a sprinting,
battle suit armored unlimited ammo painsaw upgraded class.

Dodge
It me, it appears as an unneeded *cool* feature that wasn't added to *fix* anything, but I assume there is
no hope of it leaving, so I suggest its cooldown time is increased.  Dragoons are required to *Charge* their
pounce, therefore humans should at least need a little more time before they can "super jump backwards"...

-scrape

[David]

The teams are different.  If you want identical but re skinned teams then there plenty of games out there like that.

[scrape]

The teams are different.  If you want identical but re skinned teams then there plenty of games out there like that.

Yes sir, they are different, yet they should be balanced. Ive pointed out the differences, and I am aware of it, but
the opposing team should have a counter for the enemies assault. At no point in my post did I suggest a "re skinned"
aliens team carrying blasters.

[David]

Humans have to be in a set location to power up, ergo aliens should too.  Aliens don't have a direct lucy equivalent, so remove it.  Humans don't need basi's so why should aliens?  No alien can do as much DPS as the psaw, so nerf it.  Dragoons have a charge bar, so humans should too.

Most of your suggestions are advocating making the teams more alike, that's a cop-out and lame way to balance a game.

[scrape]

Humans have to be in a set location to power up, ergo aliens should too. 

Why is this bad?

Aliens don't have a direct lucy equivalent, so remove it. 

I didn't say remove it. I said increase its cost, there will never be a direct equivalent between teams,
but the possibly of equal power offense.

Humans don't need basi's so why should aliens? 

Or arguments with straw mans. What does this have to do with anything I said.

No alien can do as much DPS as the psaw, so nerf it. 

Why is asking for balanced DPS, a bad thing? I didnt say nerf it, I said to balance its DPS in an assault, so
it doesn't vastly overpower the defending team. No one single item or class should have so much power.

Dragoons have a charge bar, so humans should too.

Again not what I said, Humans DO have a charge bar on lucis, and a bar on stamina, why is asking for a
overheat option on the flamer a terrible thing?

Most of your suggestions are advocating making the teams more alike, that's a cop-out and lame way to balance a game.

No my suggestions are my attempt to make the teams different yet equal. If you think trem should be
imbalanced by design because that makes it *unique* then I wish you good luck with that philosophy.

[David]

Humans don't need basi's so why should aliens? 

Or arguments with straw mans. What does this have to do with anything I said.

You talked about regen and then "Human don't have this other class dependency for their primary assault class".  I read it as referring to the basi, but meh.

No my suggestions are my attempt to make the teams different yet equal. If you think trem should be
imbalanced by design because that makes it *unique* then I wish you good luck with that philosophy.

I'm not saying it should be imbalanced, I'm saying it should be balanced without trying to introduce 1:1 parity between the teams.  If dodge is too powerful then sure give it a cool down or some other nerf,  but aliens having to wait between pounces has zero bearing on the issue.