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Topic: Economic Part versus Heroes

the-x
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Posted at: 2020-03-31, 14:19

Alalizing some multiplayer Games, casting them and looking step by step what makes the difference in game, what surprised me was:

  • 95% of how you manage your hero and only

  • 5% how you build up your economy

Indeed often the player with the stronger economy, more wares, more production loses - always against the player who handle his heroes better. Whoch is not bad, cause the hero part is important, though it should be better explained escpecially, when starting the game.

"There is the hero" --> gg - indeed some new players give up cause its against their logic why a superman can defeat 30 soldiers, included healing in atlantean tower even more.

I see many players, myself included playing not so much multiplayer anymore -> because the win is already determined before the game starts. It makes 0 affect to try different strategies or changing your economy if your enemy has a better time in leveling his hero.

-> Maybe a perfect way should look like this:

30% handling of your hero

70% how you set up your economy, try different strategies, working cycles of wares

On the other hand we probbaly dont want to change anything in wares, what big concepts, like the triple circle system maybe could to to much, but at least they solve the problem.


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the-x
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Posted at: 2020-03-31, 16:45

Who has some Ideas, that make new concepts, strategies and therefore the economic part more deciding?


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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2020-03-31, 17:07

I think the problem is that everybody is using winconditions which makes the military part important. As long all players want to play such winconditions one can make the economy much complicated, or challenging, but in the end creating heroes will be ever 'managing your hero and only'.

If one doesn't want this, don't play autocrat or the other winconditions which enforce focusing on military.

If one want to make the game more challenging on economy, there is a need for other winconditions, imho.


Fight simulator for Widelands:
https://wide-fighter.netlify.app/

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the-x
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Posted at: 2020-03-31, 17:54

This is also a nice idea, but peaceful mode is in another way boring.

You all know the tension curve and it's fun when it goes up and down. Ah, there comes a C, great, I'm well prepared because I have just finished counter B, now I'm trying to expand it even more -> fun. The opposite would be: Oh, the opponent has a hero, it's 0:50 so the game is over. There are actually players who just stop or quit, which I can follow up on because it doesn't make sense to continue playing because of the tension curve. These are essential mechanics that determine the long-term fun of Widelands. There are also players who play it once, but then stop for exactly the same reason.

Solution -> concepts that allow one up and down, create tension and where I can guess what my opponent is doing and adapt to me depending on how it develops. That would mean a lot more fun.

Ihr kennt ja alle die Spannungskurve und Spaß macht es dann, wenn es auf und ab geht. Ah, da kommt ein C, super, ich bin gut vorbereitet, weil ich gerade den Konter B noch fertiggestellt habe, jetzt versuche ich das noch mehr auszubauen --> Spaß. Das Gegenteil wäre: Oh, der gegner hat ein Held, es isz 0:50 also ist das Spiel vorbei. Es gibt dann auch tatsächlich Spieler die einfach aufhören oder quitten, was ich nachvolziehen kann, weil es aus der Spannungskurve heraus keinen Sinn macht weiterzuspielen. Das sind wesentliche Mechaniken, die über den Langzeitspaß von Widelands entscheiden. Es gibt ebenso Spieler, die spielen es einmal, hören dann aber auf, aus genau dem Grund.

Lösung --> Konzepte, die ein auf und ab ermöglichen, die Spannung erzeugen und wo ich Vermuten kann, was mein Gegner macht und je nachdem wie es sich entwickelt mich anpassen. Das würde massig mehr an Spaß bedeuten.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2020-03-31, 18:39

is there a point in making a new one of those threads every few weeks, each one saying basically the same things?

But as I've said in all those other threads, for me the problem is that defense is disadvantages, so as soon as you have a slight bit of military might more than your opponent, you want to attack. and if your opponent has more power, he wants to attack. if combat mechanics favored defence, then one would need a larger advantage before attacking. so there would be a situation with two armies stalling in the fortifications, and players would have to build the economy.


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the-x
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Posted at: 2020-03-31, 18:44

Yes, strenghten defensive would be a very nice attempt, which solves most of the problems. Indeed healing is too strong atm, cause with fortresses you can get stuck in time. Im not making the same point. I am aiming at making multiplayer more fun and there are a lot of different ideas, like the triple circly system. I think we should aim for such solutions?


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blind3rdeye
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Posted at: 2020-04-01, 00:43

I'm interested in this topic, but I don't yet know enough about balance in multiplayer to make any substantial contributions.

I will say one thing though... if heroes are seen to be too dominant, then isn't the obvious solution to just make heroes a little bit less powerful? ie. make the benefits of higher promotions slightly lower than they are currently. (I'm not trying to advocate for a change like that, or any change at all really; I'm just saying that would seem like an easier 'fix' compared to changing the mechanics completely.)


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the-x
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Posted at: 2020-04-01, 02:06

blind3rdeye wrote:

I'm interested in this topic, but I don't yet know enough about balance in multiplayer to make any substantial contributions.

I will say one thing though... if heroes are seen to be too dominant, then isn't the obvious solution to just make heroes a little bit less powerful? ie. make the benefits of higher promotions slightly lower than they are currently. (I'm not trying to advocate for a change like that, or any change at all really; I'm just saying that would seem like an easier 'fix' compared to changing the mechanics completely.)

Yes, indeed there are 2 things which make lots of unbalance

  • Multiplaying of upgrades: 1,3x1,3x1,3x1,3 = 2.856 which should be 1,3+1,3+1,3+1,3 - 4 = 1,2 -> the difference between 2,8 and 1,2 is what a hero is to strong. These upgrades should be added, so indeed also strategys like going for attack value are possible - the actual concept leads to high unbalance, since 2,8 is more than 100% more than 1,2

Solution: Reduce the strenght of either the higher upgrades or the strengh of the non attack values

Better solution 2: The values are not multiplied anymore but added

  • Rapid Healing Rates in towers

  • It seems contraintuitive that a hero goes in a tower in 10 seconds later he comes out fully healed going for the next move.

Solution: I propose to deactivate it and have a look how it works then. Why is that important: If not i just heal my hero and attack again after a few seconds, if we keep this concept of healing it really should take a long time and not seconds to heal a hero

-> 5 % Economy ; 95% Hero decides every game

Edited: 2020-04-01, 02:55

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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2020-04-01, 09:59

the-x wrote:

Yes, indeed there are 2 things which make lots of unbalance

  • Multiplaying of upgrades: 1,3x1,3x1,3x1,3 = 2.856 which should be 1,3+1,3+1,3+1,3 - 4 = 1,2 -> the difference between 2,8 and 1,2 is what a hero is to strong. These upgrades should be added, so indeed also strategys like going for attack value are possible - the actual concept leads to high unbalance, since 2,8 is more than 100% more than 1,2

This formula is simply not correct, as upgrades have a different effect. To understand this you need to understand the current fighting system. this has been explained in a lot of threads already but I'll try it again.
1. a fight is round based
2. attacker strikes first (although I am not 100% sure who will be the attacker, as it might be that an intercepting soldier might be the attacker as well)
3. first of all it is evaluated by random function if the attacker hits taking into account the evade probabilty of the defender. if he misses nothing happens
4. if he hits then the strength of his hit is calculated by random between his upper attack value and lower attack value
5. this calculated attack value is reduced by the defenders defence percentage.
6. the remaining attack value is subtracted from the defenders remaining health value.
7. if the defender has at least 1 health point left it his his turn to attack.

so there are multiple values where you can influence this algorithm but neither of them is simply multiplying or addition.

  1. increasing attack is adding a fixed value to the upper and lower attack value between which the real attack value will be chosen for each hit.
  2. health directly adds healthpoints.
  3. evade increaes the chance to evade a hit completely there by a multiplying factor is increased.
  4. defense increaes a multiplayer as well.
  • Rapid Healing Rates in towers

  • It seems contraintuitive that a hero goes in a tower in 10 seconds later he comes out fully healed going for the next move.

also not correct. e.g. an atlantean hero has 17500 health points. to heal fully from let's say half of this (8750) it takes 73 seconds as a atlantean tower heals 120 health points per second.

Solution: I propose to deactivate it and have a look how it works then. Why is that important: If not i just heal my hero and attack again after a few seconds, if we keep this concept of healing it really should take a long time and not seconds to heal a hero

-> 5 % Economy ; 95% Hero decides every game

that is not true on bigger maps with later contact where the abilty to produce more heroes per time is the key. this is purely based on better economy. In the last tournament we had a nice match between KoN and WorldSavior where even the random luck component played almost an important role and this was on fjords which is rather a small map.


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Native
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Joined: 2020-03-04, 22:11
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Posted at: 2020-04-01, 10:30

I think one of the most annoying things about the hero stuff is the "automatic" training of the heroes, as the game tends to train a lot of "a little bit trained" soldiers instead of one really good one (which is what you want). Players that know how to click on stuff and micro the soldiers around can achieve this, but for my part I don't have the patience for that and widelands should more be about caring about your eco than microing one specific soldier into your arena and making him stay there.

Also another point is that the randomness of fights is too big in my oppinion. More often than not a full rookie defeats a half trained soldier, which shouldn't happen when looking at how difficult it is to train them.

So my proposal/wish would be to reduce the randomness and make the game automatically train full heroes instead of the current "train all soldiers a little bit".


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