Scalability
AssassinTeddy
Join Date: 2010-10-31 Member: 74694Members
Join Date: 2010-10-31 Member: 74694Members
Been noticing that NS2 feels like a lot more of a grind than NS, probably has a lot to do with the low player count in servers and the lack of weapon/class balancing so far, so it will likely change as the releases keep going. But it made me think of something - not too sure how viable it is though. Basically, wondering if it might work to have all buildings hp scale depending on the amount of players in the server.
With some rough numbers - If the max players is 16 per team, it would be aiming for an average of 10-12 as an average team size. Using that:
If both teams have 10-12 players, building health would stay at 100% (possibly up to 105/110% for 12 players).
This could then scale down to ~70%-80% if there are <6 players, and up to ~150% if there are 16 players.
So 2 skulks/marines on a 32 player server would take a building down in around the same time as a single skulk/marine on a 12 player server,
and either one will be done in ~3/4 the time of a single player on a 20-24 player server.
The idea of this is that regardless of server pop, the resource collection rate for a comm is still fairly similar and they're able to build around as many buildings. So this would allow individual players to have more of an effect in a low pop game, and let the game flow better. While promoting teamwork to be able to make any real distance in a high pop game.
If building hp came down too much in low pop it would make it too easy for one player to rambo through, so the main idea of this is to increase it as the player count goes up. Also, I know the alien comm was meant to help with scaling, but it is more of a balance fix - where this is meant more for scaling that players could/will notice as they play and will hopefully encourage attacking enemy structures with better support from your team.
With some rough numbers - If the max players is 16 per team, it would be aiming for an average of 10-12 as an average team size. Using that:
If both teams have 10-12 players, building health would stay at 100% (possibly up to 105/110% for 12 players).
This could then scale down to ~70%-80% if there are <6 players, and up to ~150% if there are 16 players.
So 2 skulks/marines on a 32 player server would take a building down in around the same time as a single skulk/marine on a 12 player server,
and either one will be done in ~3/4 the time of a single player on a 20-24 player server.
The idea of this is that regardless of server pop, the resource collection rate for a comm is still fairly similar and they're able to build around as many buildings. So this would allow individual players to have more of an effect in a low pop game, and let the game flow better. While promoting teamwork to be able to make any real distance in a high pop game.
If building hp came down too much in low pop it would make it too easy for one player to rambo through, so the main idea of this is to increase it as the player count goes up. Also, I know the alien comm was meant to help with scaling, but it is more of a balance fix - where this is meant more for scaling that players could/will notice as they play and will hopefully encourage attacking enemy structures with better support from your team.
Comments
true that.
Yep, but good thing for % changes, this will help balance it, might need more maths equations to implement to even things out, but it'll get the job done.
But team sizes etc are already being tracked so hopefully there would just be a counter for team size and they could use that to have health scale dynamically as players join/leave. Not sure what kind of load that would require on servers though, might just be able to do it within a range of player numbers, so if another 2 connect/disconnect theres a health in/decrement.
Let mappers handle the congestion problem by making bigger maps geared towards larger teams. I recall NS1 had an auto-map rotation that was based on current number of players in the server, so it would pick maps that were larger when it was populated and small combat maps when not.
Another viable option is do what BF2 does. Have variations on a map based on optimal player sizes. It's the same map, but more regions are unlocked in the 32-player version than than 12-player version, which lets the action spread out over more territory. Then just let the server pick the right sized map for the number of players.
This is a different issue. It's about making each player contribute more to the game, and reduce the grindiness in smaller games.
I do worry about higher tier weapons and aliens though; contributing too much. With lower hp buildings in a small game, a fade could rip apart a marine base by himself even moreso than he does now.
Yeah definitely have to agree on that Hari, that's why I was thinking only a 20-30% (probably 25%) drop for the minimum and up to 50% or so for higher. Once you start to bring hp for buildings down you'd really have to worry about that one good fade or the guy with a gl, etc.