Reclaim
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It isn’t a real balance suggestion if there isn’t an idea making a mechanic complicated solely for the point of making it complicated and not really addressing anything a simple yet intuitive system could do just as well.
There are a grand total of 0 people in this game that are even aware the mole and trebuchet have equivalent mass:energy ratio.
Feel like strat bombers are the only real thing holding back the idea of a gradual reclaim decrease. Can’t imagine anything else quite as immediately damaging that benefits from the change. Might need to make an exception just for it, who knows.
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Map reclaim should experience minimal, if any change.
Changing unit wrecks and leaving wrecks already on the map is not possible.
Maps do the following:
- Pull a unit from the game files
- Place it where it is intended to be
- Kill all units with a script, before you spawn.
If you change the units for a balance patch, because the maps pull the units from the same place, they're still going to be affected by the changes. The only real way to circumvent this would be to create a "new" unit to place on the map without the reclaim changes. That is however, entirely unfeasble for FAF to do.
Regarding reclaim nerf for t3: I'm for it, but I don't think it will do much to make the meta around not tossing away units go away. It's a natural consequence of later game units in video games, unfortunately.
You would need to do a number of other changes in tandem:
- Make reclaiming more of a planned tactic rather than a fire and forget thing.
- T1 is always considered fine because at the time, you don't particularly have 400 t1 engineers sitting around for you to send everywhere on the map.
- Artificially extend the """t3 stage""" which implies making T4's better + more expensive
- Most people want to use T3's but by the time you have those in a teamgame you can very easily squeeze out a rambo boy, a monkey lord, or othersuch post t3 unit before the T3 player can invest enough mass to do damage.
- etc
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I think reducing reclaim to a flat 50% at all stages would be intuitive and promote a more aggressive meta. Reclaim is too much, that's for sure. Any agression that isnt guaranteed to succeed is currently considered a mass donation, high level gameplay is static and boring.
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Instead of reducing reclaim you could make buildings less tanky, so it's easier to make leaving the reclaim worth it. This would reward exploiting weak points more and would also allow for easier comebacks by good play like sneaking in a drop or getting a few units behind enemy lines.
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@KaletheQuick said in Reclaim:
What mental math are they needing to do in their head? Sorry, I think I missed something here.
I just meant knowing how much reclaim units are worth.
Changing unit wrecks and leaving wrecks already on the map is not possible.
Wrecks just store a reclaim value, and that value is constantly adjusted as they get reclaimed or take damage. Would it not be possible to write a script to adjust any reclaim at ACU spawn to its previous value?
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When reclaim is being placed: ask every time: if game time < 1.0 seconds (less than 10 ticks) then adjust reclaim values. That would add a logical test every single time reclaim was created, so it would slow down the game, but it would fix the problem.
OR, "at tick 10, iterate through all reclaim that exists on the map, if it's a certain kind of wreck, boost the mass values." That process would run only 1 time, so it wouldn't slow down the rest of the game, and it would happen before ACUs even spawn in when nobody is trying to use the UI at all.
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Kale in theory you could check something like army Civilian replace reclaim value with x value instead. Also secondarily. Just put this out there.
Make T3 Cheaper. To take an absurd example. If you a Percy only costs 800 mass, it only leave 640 reclaim. Obviously a lot more would tequire adjustment here for balancing but just wanted to put the idea out there
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Map reclaim should experience minimal, if any change.
Changing unit wrecks and leaving wrecks already on the map is not possible.
Maps do the following:
- Pull a unit from the game files
- Place it where it is intended to be
- Kill all units with a script, before you spawn.
If you change the units for a balance patch, because the maps pull the units from the same place, they're still going to be affected by the changes. The only real way to circumvent this would be to create a "new" unit to place on the map without the reclaim changes. That is however, entirely unfeasble for FAF to do.
This is only partially true.
As a proof of concept:
A mod that allows you to determine the multiplier for initial wreckages and 'dynamic' wreckages. This was only a few lines of code at the right places. I'll not go into details here but you can have a different reclaim value for initial and 'dynamic' wreckages without any of the suggestions.
I'll leave the discussion as to what to do as is.
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I favor (through whatever means necessary to implement), a slight reduction on mass gathered through reclaim, as I am a fan of aggressive gameplay and would like to see mass donations not be game ending and/or not having the giant reclaim fights where you are stuck fighting all or nothing over a reclaim field. As much as I want to say gut it hard, I'll instead just say a 'small' adjustment of 5-10% be tested.
Reducing wreck HP sounds interesting, as destroyed units would lose more $ based on overkill. Giant fights in reclaim fields would do more damage to surrounding wrecks. Higher tier units have more damage, and thus, more overkill potential. Maybe I am reading too much into it, but if tuned too heavily, it might get annoying seeing percies leave no wrecks due to 1600, 1450, (whatever the value is at these days) alpha strike damage, opposed to a bricks measly 150. Also if there is a way to make ACU Overcharge not leave perfect wrecks behind, that would be good. But idk how to do that without breaking OC's energy draw values...
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Can we have Ythotha lightning storms deal damage to reclaim? That was disabled because people like getting reclaim. But being able to send a weapon that by definition WON'T leave reclaim for your opponents actually could be a significant advantage in team games. It would be impossible to "donate" mass with an Ythotha.
(This would also make it basically impossible for the owner to reclaim it to get mass back, unless you could get some engies on "factory attack move" to scoop fast while the storm was happening...)
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I favor (through whatever means necessary to implement), a slight reduction on mass gathered through reclaim, as I am a fan of aggressive gameplay and would like to see mass donations not be game ending and/or not having the giant reclaim fights where you are stuck fighting all or nothing over a reclaim field. As much as I want to say gut it hard, I'll instead just say a 'small' adjustment of 5-10% be tested.
Reducing wreck HP sounds interesting, as destroyed units would lose more $ based on overkill. Giant fights in reclaim fields would do more damage to surrounding wrecks. Higher tier units have more damage, and thus, more overkill potential. Maybe I am reading too much into it, but if tuned too heavily, it might get annoying seeing percies leave no wrecks due to 1600, 1450, (whatever the value is at these days) alpha strike damage, opposed to a bricks measly 150. Also if there is a way to make ACU Overcharge not leave perfect wrecks behind, that would be good. But idk how to do that without breaking OC's energy draw values...
Aggressive gameplay is not mass donating if units are balanced properly which thye're not currently.
Stating its good because it removes fighting over reclaim fields, and saying you are in favour of aggressive gameplay is contradictory.
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@Tex the problem I see with reducing wreck HP is that wrecks are only damaged by splash, so high splash low accuracy factions coughcybrancough will get affected much harder than Aeon/Sera and their sniper bots.
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@Psions Aggressive Gameplay is mass donating at any level above 1k lol.
One bad attack late - mid game and your basically toast. People forget the game is about having fun, i promise if you reduce reclaim by like 40% gameplay will be so much better because not only can you risk going in for an attack, but if you destory half the base then its worth it because he'll not be able to get the amount he spent back instantly to just rebuild the base. People will be much more aggressive, games wont slow down as much because the attrition will be higher. Games will be more and more action packed later game because you can push into the enemy without being so badly punished just because you lost like 10 T3.
You realize 10 Pervicals is 10k mass in reclaim, thats retarded. Reclaim is one of the reasons this game scales out of control so quickly when you reach lategame because nobody is really losing mass because reclaim is like 81% return in either side so your only losing like 19% of mass collected in the entire fucking game; go do some math on that and you'll see how dumb that is.
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Azraeel, if you're trying to be "aggressive" by attacking the enem'ys main base and essentially raiding it, then the question is not about reclaim, reclaim is an afterthought. Attacking enemy's main base is not exactly "aggressive" gameplay. Aggressive gameplay is spending resources to gain map control. Attack an enemy's main is attempting to "end the game", which inevitably if you fail will yield certain benefits to the defend for a comeback. Its not really worth it, because you're targetting buildings that can be rebuilt instead of the COM which is what you should be targetting to end the game.
If you want to promote raiding on main bases, then HQ and t3 mex should have lower HP, so that leaving them unprotected and raids as you are suggesting are more punishing. "Raiding" of the main bases is fraught with risk, not because of Reclaim, but more of the fact that you are investing lots of mass into it, and probably not going to achieve much, because almost everything is shielded or has high HP.
If reclaim is significantly reduced, then after you've reached t3 then is not much benefit in fighting for map control at all, as by the time you've exploited the mexes you've just won, the enemy could have made a game ender. There is a certain point in the game where even building t3 mex, puts you behind and the mass is better spent into a paragon or mavor.
Put it this way. A capped t3 mex costs 5400 mass and generates 27 income, it takes 200 seconds to pay itself back. For every 100 mass you invest into gaining that mex that's another 5 seconds added.
Lets say on the average map you have 8 safe mex, then that is 216 income, to build a gameender costing 240k average lets say as a rough estimate, that would be roughly 1100 seconds to complete. With the extra 27 income then you'd build it in about 1000 seconds. So you are saving 100 seconds by getting that mex, but then losing 22 seconds to accumulate the mass to build that mex, then another 5 seconds for every 100 mass spend to take that mex, meaning that if you have to spend more than 1500 mass to take that mex, then the investment is not worth it.
The reason why reclaim is important, is because it offsets the investment that you put into taking that area of the map, and in some circumstances is actually more beneficial than the mex itself as the reclaim value generated is more than the initial investment. Reclaim is also good in promoting efficient mass usage of units. If there was no reclaim, then the person with more income has a much greater advantage, than the person who has less income, and the benefit of microing your units more efficiently isn't as great.
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@Deribus That is a good point too, I was only thinking about initial overkill from units like percies.
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But @Tex, initial overkill wouldn't be affected by a reduction in wreck hp. The wreck doesn't even exist until 1+ seconds after the unit dies.
Initial overkill is based on the amount of damage exceeding the unit's hp, divided by the unit's max hp.
The hp of a wreck would be based on the mass value of the reclaim left in it.
We aren't talking about having different hp values for different wrecks, are we? Even if we reduce wreck hp, a strat wreck with 1.7k mass would have exactly 1.7x more hp than a Percival wreck with 1k mass, right?
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@arma473 Oh, cool! Thanks for letting me know. I know little about the mechanics behind this game, just how to build units and attack with them. Was just trying to think through my initial ideas is all. Long story short I just want less mass to be left over after a battle. I was thinking if units destroyed by weapons fire might take proportionately more damage then before, and leave a wreck worth less $. Not so much that wrecks were more fragile.
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But @Tex, initial overkill wouldn't be affected by a reduction in wreck hp. The wreck doesn't even exist until 1+ seconds after the unit dies.
Initial overkill is based on the amount of damage exceeding the unit's hp, divided by the unit's max hp.
The hp of a wreck would be based on the mass value of the reclaim left in it.
We aren't talking about having different hp values for different wrecks, are we? Even if we reduce wreck hp, a strat wreck with 1.7k mass would have exactly 1.7x more hp than a Percival wreck with 1k mass, right?
Your last suggestion is not the case as it stands. The wreck has (roughly) as much hp as the original unit did. As an example:
- Firing at a t1 artillery into a (uef) t1 (land) factory wreck will cost about 4 - 5% of the mass value, e.g., say 20 mass a shot.
- Firing with a t1 artillery into a strategic missile launcher wreck will cost about 4 - 5% of the mass value, e.g., say about 750 mass a shot.
See also this function:
-- from wreckage.lua --- Create a wreckage prop. function CreateWreckage(bp, position, orientation, mass, energy, time) local bpWreck = bp.Wreckage.Blueprint local prop = CreateProp(position, bpWreck) prop:SetOrientation(orientation, true) prop:SetScale(bp.Display.UniformScale) prop:SetPropCollision('Box', bp.CollisionOffsetX, bp.CollisionOffsetY, bp.CollisionOffsetZ, bp.SizeX * 0.5, bp.SizeY * 0.5, bp.SizeZ * 0.5) prop:SetMaxHealth(bp.Defense.Health) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ prop:SetHealth(nil, bp.Defense.Health * (bp.Wreckage.HealthMult or 1)) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ prop:SetMaxReclaimValues(time, mass, energy) --FIXME: SetVizToNeurals('Intel') is correct here, so you can't see enemy wreckage appearing -- under the fog. However the engine has a bug with prop intel that makes the wreckage -- never appear at all, even when you drive up to it, so this is disabled for now. --prop:SetVizToNeutrals('Intel') if not bp.Wreckage.UseCustomMesh then prop:SetMesh(bp.Display.MeshBlueprintWrecked) end -- This field cannot be renamed or the magical native code that detects rebuild bonuses breaks. prop.AssociatedBP = bp.Wreckage.IdHook or bp.BlueprintId return prop endAnd that value, as an example, is for the colossus the following (0.9):
Wreckage = { Blueprint = '/props/DefaultWreckage/DefaultWreckage_prop.bp', EnergyMult = 0, ------------------------- HealthMult = 0.9, ------------------------- MassMult = 0.9, ReclaimTimeMultiplier = 1, WreckageLayers = { Air = false, Land = true, Seabed = true, Sub = true, Water = true, }, },And I think this is the same for all units, as that one line is matched in over 494 files and by sampling a few at random they are all related to the wreckage.
edit: I may have not completely understood your message @arma473 , apologies if this was not necessary.
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I don't think reclaim is the problem. If you want to push bases at little or no risk you just build megalith or shielded mobile artillery. People that complain about mass gifts are those who look at poor late game decision making and then say its bad.
The number one reason T4 units die on push is because of 0 air control and getting bombed.
The number one reason T3 Spam dies on push is that they walk into shielded T4.
As it stands for a defensive base the only broken thing is the T2 artillery as that counters mobile artillery significantly. T2 artillery is already very expensive though.
I'd suggest decreasing T2 artillery fire rate, increasing its dmg so the dps is the same, and making it more accurate. That way T2 artillery is still useful, as a firebase unit and defense against fatty, but its not so broken as to render Mobile artillery useless.
Buffing t2 mobile shields would also greatly assisting sieges.
Also if you are truly spamming t3 armies then why is it so hard to send t1 engi at the back of it to pick up the reclaim?
What happens is people (especially high rated players) are complaining cause they'rein a team game where some random unknown 1000 builds monkeys and feeds 20k mass at a time. The reason they want to remove reclaim is so they don't have to deal with unknown randomers making their life hard.
It has nothing to do with balance.
Reclaim massively rewards aggression as it means you get to reclaim some of the mass you spent on units to win an area, therefore recouping the investment cost. Without it, then to take map control is significantly more costly than it otherwise would be, and this actually favours turtling.
Could not agree with this more. This seems like an idea for a change in response to bad play. You should easily be able to be sending engies while you're on offense to pick up reclaim along the way. People not doing that is just a weird mistake/oversight.
People also shouldn't just faceplant their T4s directly into the enemy, which you see all the time, at least in ratings 1200-1900. Using T4s badly isn't a reason to nerf reclaim, it's a reason to use them better. It's also more interesting if T4s actually stay involved around the map for a while rather than being suicide attackers.
Lastly, the premise that t3/t4 reclaim is fundamentally different than t1 seems flawed to me. If t1 reclaim is healthy, then I'd argue it's the same basic situation. On t1 if you faceplant your whole army into your opponents base and fail at an assault, leaving him all of the reclaim, you likely just lost the game on that play as well. It may be more blatant and feel worse on t4, but 2-3k mass at t1 is just as important as 20k mass on t3/t4.
I think this is an idea to fix a problem that doesn't exist.
