Page MenuHomeWildfire Games

[gameplay] Team bonus balancing
ClosedPublic

Authored by ValihrAnt on Oct 27 2019, 3:21 PM.

Details

Summary

Nerfs Iber, Kush and Rome team bonuses all from 20% to 10%.

For Iberians it is because the cheaper skirmishers allow for a very strong boom, a very strong cavalry rush and also gives a much stronger late game due to being able to spam units more easily, and also be cost efficient whilst taking bad fights.
For Romans it is a similar story to the Iberians. Units being created faster allows for a stronger boom, makes defending rushes easier due to being able to get defenders out faster and in late game you can reinforce armies quicker.
For Kushites it is because I plan to reduce elephant base cost slightly (to 225F+M) and with a 10% reduction that ends up being the same cost as 250 with 20% reduction. Elephants with Kush teambonus already feel very strong and by leaving the teambonus unchanged they would end up a bit too strong.

Test Plan

Enter match with Iberians, Kushites and Romans as teammates. Check if skirmishers and elephants are 10% cheaper and 10% faster to train.

Diff Detail

Repository
rP 0 A.D. Public Repository
Lint
Lint Skipped
Unit
Unit Tests Skipped

Event Timeline

ValihrAnt created this revision.Oct 27 2019, 3:21 PM
ValihrAnt edited the test plan for this revision. (Show Details)Oct 27 2019, 3:24 PM
Stan awarded a token.Oct 27 2019, 3:37 PM
elexis added a subscriber: elexis.EditedOct 27 2019, 4:15 PM

Congratulations to coming forth and actually uploading a patch to change things.

Enter match with Iberians, Kushites and Romans as teammates. Check if skirmishers and elephants are 10% cheaper and 10% faster to train.

That's basically the "test that it works" plan which basically should be implied by performing a review.
A typical oversight is to forget some files that should receive the analogous change.

But what the summary / test plan misses to explain is the reason as to why this nerf should be performed, why this is team bonus is too strong.

I guess it's not so hard to see why -20% resource cost might be too impactful on matches.
But for romans, they don't have another team bonus, so perhaps this should be compensated for by giving them something else, or is that +10% production speed similarly impactful to other team bonuses already?
Perhaps this bonus is more "OP" in lategame where it's about reproducing spam rather than in early games, or is it bad so early on too because it allows to boom so much faster?

Also contributors to the game should add themselves to the game credits, that currently is gui/credits/texts/programming.json (but soon it will be time for a separate category for balancing).

(Also in case you weren't aware, you can search the commit history in the browser or using the svn blame tool, where it shows you for every line of a file which commit changed it, where you can find further links to the arguments and missing arguments when it was committed, for instance at https://code.wildfiregames.com/source/0ad/browse/ps/trunk/binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/data/auras/teambonuses/kush_player_teambonus.json;23099?as=source )

Edit: Finally if possible it would be good to have a peer review, as in some competitive player judging whether 10% is the best number - (did borg- have an opinion on this, what changes did he perform in his mod?)

borg- said he agrees with rome and iber, but says that kushites are underpowered and that this would nerf them further, i.e. that it would be better to keep the kushites bonus as long as they lack other bonuses.
I don't mind either way, you know better than me. (Also if there are multiple opinions, for balancing issues one can always go the way of doing the average of opinions, i.e. 15% bonus for kushites, in case both opinions have a point)

ValihrAnt updated this revision to Diff 10218.Oct 28 2019, 7:10 PM
ValihrAnt edited the summary of this revision. (Show Details)

Fixes oversights.

ValihrAnt updated this revision to Diff 10219.Oct 28 2019, 7:17 PM

Apparently I need to combine them, sorry for spam.

ValihrAnt updated this revision to Diff 10220.Oct 28 2019, 7:25 PM

Actually fixed it. :)

Thank you.

That's basically the "test that it works" plan which basically should be implied by performing a review.

I'll try to improve on that in the future.

A typical oversight is to forget some files that should receive the analogous change.

Yeah, I did do that, but I went back and fixed all I could find, which is only the History tab.

But what the summary / test plan misses to explain is the reason as to why this nerf should be performed, why this is team bonus is too strong.

I added that to original.

Finally if possible it would be good to have a peer review, as in some competitive player judging whether 10% is the best number - (did borg- have an opinion on this, what changes did he perform in his mod?)
borg- said he agrees with rome and iber, but says that kushites are underpowered and that this would nerf them further, i.e. that it would be better to keep the kushites bonus as long as they lack other bonuses.

I have talked to Feld and he agreed with the changes. In the case of borg- I was trying to contact him , but didn't get a response yet, though in his own balance mod he changed Kush bonus to 10% as well. I think it's just that he didn't didn't know the full context of the change, which is reducing elephant base cost just like he also had done in his mod. But I have no trouble changing this if he disagrees. Bonus wise Kush have more bonuses than most other civs, they're just all very weak, but that's a different matter.

D2436 proposes a balancing credits category that allows us to add you to the credits properly.

Nescio added a subscriber: Nescio.Nov 22 2019, 7:35 PM

Perhaps the Kushite bonus ought to be replaced with something else? Half of the civilizations can't train elephant, so the Kushite team bonus is useless for them.

You mean something historically relatable which perhaps could be grasped from Sundiatas thread?

Nescio added a comment.Jan 4 2020, 8:03 PM

Don't forget to add yourself into the gui/credits/texts/balancing.json list.

elexis accepted this revision.Jan 15 2020, 1:05 PM
  • Kush bonus:

So the only thing I wasnt sure about is the Kushite elephant bonus. It was discussed in the lobby about 2-3 weeks ago with ValihrAnt and on 2020-01-05.
It came out the purpose for nerving the elephant bonus was because some other non-uploaded patch (either borg or Valihrs balancing mod) changed the cost of elephants.
Since we don't have strong indication that this bonus is currently overpowered, we'll leave it out for now and if someone comes along and changes elephant stats or finds other aspects really warranting the bonus reduction for Kushites, we can add it then (once it's warranted).

  • Credits:

Credits were discussed with ValihrAnt in the lobby when the patch was uploaded.
He was reluctant to add himself. I asked whether its about the fact that he didnt add a big enough contribution warranting to be listed near the other contributors, which I answered with the addition of the balancing credits category in D2436/rP23182.

  • Rome bonus was too strong because it allowed too fast reinforcements in lategame
  • Iber bonus was too strong because it allowed too cheap unit spam, both relevant for later game attacks and perhaps even worse in early economy

So I'm closing this now with the addition of ValihrAnt in the credits, the realname can be added later if there is any indication that it is wished, and without the Kushites diff.

Thanks for the patch.

This revision is now accepted and ready to land.Jan 15 2020, 1:05 PM
Owners added a subscriber: Restricted Owners Package.Jan 15 2020, 1:06 PM
Nescio retitled this revision from Team bonus balancing to [gameplay] Team bonus balancing.Mar 19 2020, 10:54 AM