Adjustment to the reclaim rates

[Loom-]

@paradox_of_war terari summarised it best for me:
"now they are making reclaiming slower to make it fair to everyone (you can no longer outscale old men because of manual reclaim)"

[snoog]

When will M29AI be released that can just play for us instead?

[Paradox_of_War]

@thewheeiienoob great let's make building speed and movement speed 5x slower also so the old men stop crying (their brains just work slower, it's only fair)

[Zeldafanboy]

Stop reducing the volatility of the game. Volatility is not bad

[CheeseBerry]

Big props to everyone actually testing out the new experimental ideas and giving constructive feedback!

Many of them will probably not work out and wont make it into the main game but that's what the testing is for afterall.

[CheeseBerry]

Maybe a dumb question and probably not the right thread for this, but regardless:

Why is the high level 1v1 ladder so dead?

High level team games seem to be doing mostly fine afterall.

Are there some gameplay changes that could make (high level) 1v1 more popular?

[Terarii]

@cheeseberry said in Adjustment to the reclaim rates:

Why is the high level 1v1 ladder so dead?

bad gamemode

@cheeseberry said in Adjustment to the reclaim rates:

Are there some gameplay changes that could make (high level) 1v1 more popular?

no rush timer 15 minutes

[StormLantern]

@cheeseberry

I think its mainly two things. 1. Mapgen has made teamgames a lot better, so that even custom games are not as BO dependent anymore. 2. Jagged stopped casting 1v1 ladder.

Making high level 1v1 more popular will mostly be dependent on a popular caster/streamer giving it attention. But im hoping the upcoming veto mechanic will help a little bit as well.

Third, making the league system more prominent and changing custom games to unranked casual games would ofcourse help make the matchmakers more relevant in general. But its not clear whether that is worth it.

[snoog]

changing custom games to unranked casual games

Jesus.... talk about a bad idea

[Whiteheart]

just make manually rock clicks speed the same as alt move

[StormLantern]

@snoog

not saying its a great idea. But the question was how to make 1v1 ladder more popular. This would prob do that.

[waffelzNoob]

1v1 would be more popular if we deleted all other gamemodes ️️️️

[relentless]

I have a question as I've always wondered how this works.
In the numbers you've got there tagada. How does it translate to the various engineers tiers? like is the number you've got there of 20m/s for a wreck based on a t1 engineer. What part of the blueprint affects how much mass an engineer can pull in per second?

[Jip]

@relentless The more build rate = the more reclaim rate. Tech 1 engineers have 5, an ACU with no enhancements has 10 and therefore has double the amount.

    ---@param self Prop
    ---@param reclaimer Unit The unit to compute the duration for.
    ---@return number time it takes to reclaim
    ---@return number energy to reclaim
    ---@return number mass to reclaim
    GetReclaimCosts = function(self, reclaimer)
        local maxMass = self.MaxMassReclaim or 0
        local maxEnergy = self.MaxEnergyReclaim or 0
        local timeReclaim = self.TimeReclaim or 0
        local maxValue = maxMass * 5
        if maxEnergy > maxValue then
            maxValue = maxEnergy
        end

        local time = (timeReclaim or 0) * (maxValue / reclaimer:GetBuildRate()) -- <- build rate is used here
        time = time / 10

        -- prevent division by 0 when the prop has no value
        if time < 0 then
            time = 0.0001
        end

        return time, maxEnergy, maxMass
    end,

[Swatoslav]

It is very sad for me that we will lose all legacy of maps like Daroza / The Ditch / Bermuda / Pyramid etc. with that change, and all casts / replays of tourneys will be not as much usefull or enjoable for learning yourself.
Also about team maps like Setons, where BOs are some part of a history. But it will affect only mid and partially rock BO, so not a big deal maybe. But still after change the game review will be different. "Setons whores" will understand me
I enjoyed spending hours on learning things with currenct gameplay with its dynamic and ideas of reclaim speed.

I accept and understand that on the other hand it opens new gate where new rules will have new effect on competition level. Same as Excelsior and Paradox_of_War, I do not think that change will solve the problems we're trying to solve. And for those who understands and applies it first in a more efficient way, it will be a good advantage.

I like all Jips references to WC3, and as former ladder WC player I can say that there were never changes like gold or lumber mining speed. Yes, units can be balanced, but in general economics and start buildings were always the same for so many years.

It is just my opinion and point of view and I would be happy if I'm mistaken and it such changes (if implemented) will lead us in the end to a better future.

[phong]

@Tagada I really appreciate the attempt at making auto reclaim work. I'm in no position to judge if these changes break the game or not, but I think the idea behind it is entirely fitting with the original vision behind the game, and if there's a way to also make it good balance-wise, I'm happy someone is trying to find it. Thank you for putting in the effort to give it a chance.

Even independently of auto-reclaim, I'm excited to try this change out, as I think it might shake things up a bit in an interesting way. How and when to fight for big reclaim clumps has always felt like one of the most important aspects of the game, in all it's stages, and I'm very curious to see what impact slower reclaim has.

[snoog]

Any chance we can get the reclaim adjustments without the auto reclaim?

[relentless]

I've spent the last few days playing with and observing the reclaim rate changes and I really like them, I hope they go in. The economy swings are not so volatile where props are involved.

It didn't seem to give me any more time to interrupt someone from reclaiming all my wrecks from a skirmish I lost though.

[Squirtle]

I disagree that all APM is worth favoring. APM for the sake of APM is a gating mechanic, it makes games harder for new players. APM is only worth favoring when it is fun, otherwise I am in favor of simplifying the mechanic in question.

I have 2 examples where studios improved their games by removing needless APM.

SC1 and SC2

In Starcraft 1 a lot of the game was very manual. You had to manually tell workers how to gather resources. You had fewer options for selecting and grouping build capacity. Overall there was a lot of micromanagement that was required in order to play the game.

SC2 simplified a lot of that. Resource gathering was partially automated, buildings and units could be selected more precisely, and progressing through the macro part of the game was made easier. A lot of people complained that the changes made the game too easy, too dumbed down, or hurt their preferred play style. Here's a forum post from 2008 of someone complaining how overly simplified SC2 is. https://tl.net/forum/final-edits/75512-bwwi-from-the-banelings-lair-an-in-depth-look-at-starcraft-2

In the end, the decision to simplify SC2 made it much more accessible to new players, much more fun, and most importantly the skill ceiling was able to increase for top players because they were able to shine through other parts of the game instead of spending mental cycles micromanaging the UI.

League of Legends

There are too many examples to count where Riot removed clunky UI, simplified mechanics, or nerfed play styles they thought were unhealthy to the game. When Riot rolled out Smart Cast, a faster way to aim spells, the community complained that it simplified the game too much and made it too easy for unskilled players to land projectiles. The reality is that Smart Cast leveled up the community overall because everyone had an easier time playing the actual game instead of fretting with a clunky UI.

FAF

FAF isn't Reclaim Simulator. FAF is a realtime scifi RTS. These arguments that we need to preserve the current reclaim system because we want to favor APM are misguided. Your APM would be better spent focusing on every other part of the game. Automating the tedious parts of the reclaim system sound like great additions to the game.

[BlackYps]

I agree with your post in general, but manual reclaim in FAF is a completely optional mechanic in 99% of game situations. The fact that attack move exists to already provide an area reclaim tool means that manual reclaim is not a mechanic that makes games harder for new players or is APM for the sake of APM.