One thing I'd suggest is that if there are hard caps, a server operator should be able to override it and suit to taste.
My personal preferences:
Hydras: 3 seems about right Turrets: 3 per command chair, so long as the sentry actually works against players again Crags: I think there should be a radius around which you can't place another crag, so you don't get the "three-crags-unkillable" scenario. Or just give them diminishing returns on healing. Robot factory: 1 per cc ARCs; 3 per robo Shift / eggs: is there a cap here? If there isn't, there should probably be: say 8-10 eggs.
If we get caps, I'd prefer to see it done like Starcraft Pylons. Some structure (eg harvesters, power nodes, hive/CCs or some entirely new structure) that grants an increase to your unit cap.
Something that makes dynamic unit caps a strategic consideration instead of a hard limit.
I think caps are fine it handled well. Almost every RTS game has a cap of some sort, to prevent lag and encourage tactical use of units rather than steamrolling with a single unit type.
<!--quoteo(post=1984312:date=Sep 28 2012, 07:06 PM:name=Flayra)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Flayra @ Sep 28 2012, 07:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1984312"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is a fine idea, but did you have anything specific in mind? Ie, which entities should be limited and what should the numbers be?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sentries - Return them to defensive duty, but make a limit of 3 per room.
Crags - Return to 15 res, and make is healing cap of 1. Improve healing amount to compensate. Now no advantage of spam. Whips - Not really sure here. They are a problem sometimes, but since they are mostly melee its not so bad when marines can just shoot the cyst beneath them. Probably no cap needed. Shifts/Shades - Benefit is only felt with 1, so no cap needed.
Arcs/Macs - Limit of 5 per commandchair. Combined total, so commander has to choose between welding and nuking. Either support marines with macs, or have the marines support the arcs. No more arc trains supported by mac trains. Need to give both a recycle option at the robotics factory so can reduce the total in use. Drifters - Limit of 3 per hive.
<!--quoteo(post=1984312:date=Sep 28 2012, 05:06 PM:name=Flayra)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Flayra @ Sep 28 2012, 05:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1984312"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is a fine idea, but did you have anything specific in mind? Ie, which entities should be limited and what should the numbers be?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
IMO a general supply cap would be a good idea to try. Think of Starcraft 2 supply, except the supply would come from anything that's not a player (so the structures instead of the units [minus gorge structures]). I think a general supply cap would be the least intrusive in terms of playstyles and creativity. This would include things like Drifters, MACs and Arcs.
I.E.: If you want to have a very Whip heavy endgame strategy, go for it. But that means you wouldn't have much supply left to have other stuff like crags/shift be plentiful. Or say if you want to have an arc train, you won't be able to spam armories around every corner of the map. So smart commanders would be able to develop a good balance of composition in the endgame to secure victory, instead of letting games devolve into endless structure spam (10+ structures in every. single. room.). This would also encourage commander weapon/lifeform drops in the endgame so that the focus can be on players ending the game, and not just a tipping point of overwhelming structure spam.
But if you were to implement caps of any kind, Aliens would need a way to recycle (or at least a way to destroy their own structures, even if they don't get res back).
I assume you guys already know my stance on hard caps from the sentry thread, so you can probably imagine the terror I felt when I discovered there was an entire thread on this which had already made it to the second page. :P Looking back at this post, it looks as though it will push the thread onto the third one, and chances are only a few of the really intrepid readers will truly read through this all, but as long as I can get all of this down in one post, I could always re-iterate in smaller bites which are easier to handle.
If you don't already know, I absolutely, positively, 100%, no doubt about it, do not like hard caps for structures. I'll throw a couple reasons in why, but I will have to clarify a few things before I start. Then I will address why I dislike Structure Hard Caps so much, followed by possible alternatives and the reasoning towards why.
What I would like to make you all recognize is that these issues of Spam and Performance are a very valid and real thing, which can be absolutely detrimental to the quality and enjoyment of a game. There is no doubt in my mind that these are massive problems which slow both the server and the game when taken out of hand. We must figure out a way to deal with these issues, and I have a few ideas of my own towards such, but I'll start by addressing why I am against Hard Caps.
<u><i><b>Fear and Spamming in Los Craggas</b></i></u>
Structure Hard Caps, in my mind, are quick-fix solutions to a problem much deeper and complex than you would normally see. Only until you go down the rabbit hole and find the true cause of the problem, will you find an appropriate solution. While I do not fully know any proper alternatives to the spam problem, I do know that what we should do is analyze the reasoning behind it. I mean really understand why there is spam, and then formulate solutions according to it. This might sound rather methodical, but it isn't as bland as it sounds. I'll get to it in a minute. First I'll describe the possible types of cap I know of, and which ones I am against.
<b><u>The Ceiling Cap</u></b> - This is what I consider "The Hard Cap". This is the bare-bones cap that is predetermined at the start of a match, or by the developers. No units are allowed to go beyond this, and it is invariable once determined. This could either be the 200 unit cap in Starcraft, or the definable 250-1000 unit cap in Supreme Commander, or even a cap dependent on the individual unit types themselves, such as in Wargame:European Escalation. Generally you won't reach this unless you have an absolute reign of supremacy over the map, or have been allowed to in some way. While I do not like this style of cap, I recognize this as a very useful tool at the developer's disposal to regulate game performance. Performance will go down only to the lowest that the cap would allow.
<b><u>The Variable Cap</u></b> - This more of the supply depot style of unit cap. It rises or lowers depending on events happening in the match. It is possible for players on either side to take advantage of this mechanic by destroying key structures, therefore lowering the cap for the other player.
<b><u>The Proximity Cap</u></b> - This is a limiter preventing a high concentration of the same structure in a region. This can function very well if taken in a minimalist approach. I can see this being used in NS2, particularly for the Cysts. While this is also probable for the Sentry, I believe that it would conflict with the current battery implementation, as well as the directional inhibitor.
<u><b>The Volume Cap</b></u> - This is just how many units/structures you can fit in a room. I didn't think it was necessary to add this, but I may as well cover all of the bases. This is something that is probably in every RTS game. It is just the surface area of how much space in your base is available for buildings or units. Note that airborne units are not affected by this unless collision is on and they are constrained to a particular layer.
Analysis: These caps are defined rules that players must adhere to at all times. They are indefinite, and they are necessary. One thing I must explicitly stress is that structures are not bound by these caps (aside from the Volume Cap). Only units.
<u><i><b>Possible Alternatives. How do we stop the spam?</b></i></u>
Now that we know the different kind of caps, now to address the possible alternatives. This involves the use of inhibitors, and more attention to the function of the structure. While structures such as the Cyst are fairly static, so having a proximity cap should be fairly painless to add. This would mainly just prevent people from spamming cysts in a 20x20 square. Crags and Whips are a more difficult problem though. How do we keep a room from being completely stuffed to the brim with structures? While it is very well possible to use the proximity cap again, I suggest a more "cared for" approach.
What we must do is try to influence the players to <u>not want</u> to spam. Well how do we do that? Well here are some tools that we can use, which I like to call the Inhibitors.
<u><b>The Price Inhibitor</b></u> - This is your most common inhibitor. You can't spam expensive things.
<u><b>The Attention Inhibitor</b></u> - This is your player attention inhibitor. This requires a certain degree of player attention to function at greater capacity. An example would be the player's ability to micro units in a game of Starcraft.
<u><b>The Directional Inhibitor</b></u> - This is a Field of View style inhibitor. We see this already on the Sentry. Can also be considered a mechanic in Backstabs, which the Spy in TF2 makes great use of. This can also be the effective range of the Sentry in TF2 (it responds quicker in the cone, but can still engage all 360 degrees.
<u><b>The Design Inhibitor</b></u> - This one is my favorite. This involves using or adding another game mechanic to influence each other. A great example of this would be the happiness rating in Civilization V. The larger your empire is, the more upset your citizens are. Those with small amounts of cities have extremely happy civilians, but they cannot protect themselves in a war very well, while Civs with loads of cities can make lots of soldiers. This dynamic and balancing act the player has to manage is both engaging, and an excellent balancing mechanic.
Analysis: These inhibitors are flexible rules that influence the player more than prevent the player. If the player wanted to, they could ignore these inhibitors entirely. They would just have to understand the consequences of doing so. Also something to note is you can use more than one inhibitor when balancing something. They can be entirely compatible with each-other. One just has to remember that although more inhibitors provide more balancing opportunities, it does add multiple layers of complexity to what you are changing. This can be a turn-off to a new player, but an experienced player may enjoy it a lot more.
<u><i><b>My Proposed Solutions</b></i></u>
<u><b>The Crag</b></u> - I suggest the crag has reduced healing towards other crags. As a sort of "immune" problem. Also make heal wave not affect other crags at all. You could also try to make it so if there is a cluster of crags, only one crag can use its special ability at a time. Kind of a "a nearby crag is already doing this" kind of approach. I would suggest the range of this restriction only being within the range of the actual spell/ability, so that crag across the room could still use heal wave.
While this does not help with the spam problem, it will help with multiple crags being a real pain to kill. One thing to note is that if the marines are able to push the aliens away from this regen zone, it will be a massive loss on the alien side.
<b><u>Whip Forest</u></b> - This is a more difficult problem. But I really like this solution. How do we get a commander to not want to saturate a room with whips? Well how about a mix between a proximity cap and a design inhibitor? What if the whips were really aggressive territorial creatures, and would attack any living being it would deem a threat to its personal space? What if it were to think that other close whips are "threatening" its territory, and would therefore attack any whips in range? This provides us with an opportunity to give the whip a bit of character, as well as to solve the problem of too many whips in an area by using the proximity cap.
<b><u>Shift: The Super Hive</u></b> - Shifts can spam quite a bit of eggs. While this does help in staging forward attacks, it can be taken to the extreme and could place more eggs than a hive ever could. I don't particularly remember if the shift has any "energy" mechanics, but otherwise we could have it so the shift would get "tired" after placing too many eggs too soon. Maybe 4-6 eggs in a burst. The shift is a movement structure after all, so I don't imagine it would be down for too long, so this egg burst could be in a set. Or the commander could just drop 5 eggs in one click and have it cool down for a period of time so it functions more like a spell.
<u><b>The Sentry</b></u> - There is already a thread for this kind of suggestion, but the idea is to make the sentry return to the ammo mechanic. Marines could manually reload sentries once they deplete, or you could drop a sentry battery which automatically regenerates nearby sentry ammo at a fixed rate. The more sentries, the longer it takes for the battery to fill all of them. Other mechanics which add more "character" to the structure would be to make it so marines could purchase the sentry from a robotics bay like they would mines, and deploy/move them around as they see fit. Both are equally compatible with eachother.
<b><i><u>The Conclusion</u></i></b>
Well you made it to the end! Congratulations on that gauntlet of reading. Hopefully you managed to extract something useful out of that mess. I may have not explained particular arguments well enough, such as why exactly I don't enjoy hard caps, but I hope you can understand that there are always better, more imaginative and fun solutions there, and you just have to turn on your thinker and you can find them.
The problem isn't the spam, it is how the game design encourages spamming. The buildings were designed to be not as effective in comparison to players, they were made purposely weak, commanders try to compensate this by spamming buildings. Instead of hard capping buildings, have more attractive options to invest the tres into the players or include strategies to make spammed buildings lose effectiveness. One example of a good use of anti-building spam is bile bomb from the gorge. Marines spamming armories or sentries, Aliens can get gorges and bile bomb them.
I think it is okay to have the option to spam building as long as there is a way for the players to combat the problem. It isn't fun to kill buildings, and the commanders role shouldn't be about spamming buildings but to command players and assist them. If a commander has to spam builds or non player units to be effective then the game designed to be adjusted.
<!--quoteo(post=1984335:date=Sep 28 2012, 05:17 PM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Sep 28 2012, 05:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1984335"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->IMO a general supply cap would be a good idea to try. Think of Starcraft 2 supply, except the supply would come from anything that's not a player (so the structures instead of the units [minus gorge structures]). I think a general supply cap would be the least intrusive in terms of playstyles and creativity. This would include things like Drifters, MACs and Arcs.
I.E.: If you want to have a very Whip heavy endgame strategy, go for it. But that means you wouldn't have much supply left to have other stuff like crags/shift be plentiful. Or say if you want to have an arc train, you won't be able to spam armories around every corner of the map. So smart commanders would be able to develop a good balance of composition in the endgame to secure victory, instead of letting games devolve into endless structure spam (10+ structures in every. single. room.). This would also encourage commander weapon/lifeform drops in the endgame so that the focus can be on players ending the game, and not just a tipping point of overwhelming structure spam.
But if you were to implement caps of any kind, Aliens would need a way to recycle (or at least a way to destroy their own structures, even if they don't get res back).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, this would probably be worth a try.
I'd like to see how it would pan out for both sides. In regards to Crags, I think simply putting a limit on how much heal wave stacks would encourage players not to use more than say 3-4 Crags in one zone.
<!--quoteo(post=1984763:date=Sep 29 2012, 08:19 PM:name=Locklear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Locklear @ Sep 29 2012, 08:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1984763"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah, this would probably be worth a try.
I'd like to see how it would pan out for both sides. In regards to Crags, I think simply putting a limit on how much heal wave stacks would encourage players not to use more than say 3-4 Crags in one zone.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But it would also make placing crags pretty bad, theres a reason you always place 5+ in 1 spot, its because 1 does basically nothing.
Nice post, you've put alot of thought into this. A few issues though:
1) The sentry solution would not stop spam, especially if you had automated reloading. Just makes it a larger res sink.
Res sinks will be overcome lategame, and are detrimental to early game use. I would keep away from mechanics that add additional costs to units.
I still think a max per room for sentries would be best. Or an alternate solution = make so sentry guns cannot share firing arcs. This means two sentry guns cannot cover the same hallway, or eachother. Make them tougher obviously, but now they are limited without putting a 'hard' cap.
2) Whips attacking other whips is amusing, but would effectively end any alien ability to stop grenades. Aliens need whip forest around hives for grenade defense, or a better solution to grenade spam.
Otherwise I like the idea.
Any proposals for macs, arcs and cyst spam?
<!--quoteo(post=1984859:date=Sep 29 2012, 05:00 PM:name=RobustPenguin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RobustPenguin @ Sep 29 2012, 05:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1984859"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But it would also make placing crags pretty bad, theres a reason you always place 5+ in 1 spot, its because 1 does basically nothing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah an armoury fully heals a marine in 5 seconds flat, while a single crag cannot heal a skulk in 20 (numbers out of my ass, may be wrong). Once you work up to onos, the speed of healing becomes embarrassing.
<!--quoteo(post=1984859:date=Sep 29 2012, 03:00 PM:name=RobustPenguin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RobustPenguin @ Sep 29 2012, 03:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1984859"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But it would also make placing crags pretty bad, theres a reason you always place 5+ in 1 spot, its because 1 does basically nothing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
4 + healwaves works pretty good? When it gets above 4, things get really ridiculous with the heal stacking with a Gorge in there also.
<!--quoteo(post=1985028:date=Sep 30 2012, 09:29 AM:name=Locklear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Locklear @ Sep 30 2012, 09:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1985028"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->4 + healwaves works pretty good? When it gets above 4, things get really ridiculous with the heal stacking with a Gorge in there also.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
4+ healwaves costs you 12 tres per heal and it cant outheal a GL. Or you could just kill the cyst near them and they do nothing. Marines plonk 1 armoury down for 10 tres and heal off that, aliens need the cost of the cysts, 4/5 crags, a crag hive and to heal wave to heal anything bigger then a skulk in any decent time....
<!--quoteo(post=1985153:date=Sep 30 2012, 10:20 AM:name=RobustPenguin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RobustPenguin @ Sep 30 2012, 10:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1985153"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->4+ healwaves costs you 12 tres per heal and it cant outheal a GL. Or you could just kill the cyst near them and they do nothing. Marines plonk 1 armoury down for 10 tres and heal off that, aliens need the cost of the cysts, 4/5 crags, a crag hive and to heal wave to heal anything bigger then a skulk in any decent time....<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1985153:date=Sep 30 2012, 08:20 AM:name=RobustPenguin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RobustPenguin @ Sep 30 2012, 08:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1985153"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->4+ healwaves costs you 12 tres per heal and it cant outheal a GL. Or you could just kill the cyst near them and they do nothing. Marines plonk 1 armoury down for 10 tres and heal off that, aliens need the cost of the cysts, 4/5 crags, a crag hive and to heal wave to heal anything bigger then a skulk in any decent time....<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I play both Commander sides. I'm not being bias towards Marines but I've thrown down 4+ Crags myself and since I typically Command a good Alien team, the GL is not constantly firing and is disrupted by Fades etc.
Clearly someone here doesn't consistently use these bad boys. As they instantly heal any lifeform with the exception of Onos, and heal the hive up pretty damn fast under the effects of Heal Wave. 4 is really fine. The Tres cost is pretty much fine. Alien resource management leaves a ton of room for res floating. But back to Crags, upwards onto 7-8+ becomes actually impossible to out DPS with a 5 man push.
I think if a supply cap was implemented there would at least be a penalty to spamming those things out the ass.
I would like to see a scalable supply cap for AI units, using the # of active Resource Towers. For example, the Commander would see a "<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->3/3<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> <img src="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/images/0/0e/Icon_harvester.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />/<img src="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/images/f/fd/Icon_extractor.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />" in the tooltip for Drifter, MAC, and ARC.
This is similar to what you see for Gorge Hydras and Clogs, except the former "3" changes with # of an AI unit type, while the latter number reflects the # of resource towers active (also visible at the top of Commander HUD). Simply put, you can have as many AI's as you have resource towers.
<!--quoteo(post=1985234:date=Sep 30 2012, 02:22 PM:name=PsiWarp)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (PsiWarp @ Sep 30 2012, 02:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1985234"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I would like to see a scalable supply cap for AI units, using the # of active Resource Towers. For example, the Commander would see a "<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->3/3<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> <img src="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/images/0/0e/Icon_harvester.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />/<img src="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/images/f/fd/Icon_extractor.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />" in the tooltip for Drifter, MAC, and ARC.
This is similar to what you see for Gorge Hydras and Clogs, except the former "3" changes with # of an AI unit type, while the latter number reflects the # of resource towers active (also visible at the top of Commander HUD). Simply put, you can have as many AI's as you have resource towers.
AurOn2COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS!AustraliaJoin Date: 2012-01-13Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
hard caps should not be considered, period, if you dont want something to be spammed, make it expensive, make it so the team has to LOSE in order to GAIN Hence the STRATEGY.
<!--quoteo(post=1984861:date=Sep 29 2012, 04:00 PM:name=TimMc)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TimMc @ Sep 29 2012, 04:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1984861"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Nice post, you've put alot of thought into this. A few issues though:
1) The sentry solution would not stop spam, especially if you had automated reloading. Just makes it a larger res sink.
Res sinks will be overcome lategame, and are detrimental to early game use. I would keep away from mechanics that add additional costs to units.
I still think a max per room for sentries would be best. Or an alternate solution = make so sentry guns cannot share firing arcs. This means two sentry guns cannot cover the same hallway, or eachother. Make them tougher obviously, but now they are limited without putting a 'hard' cap.
2) Whips attacking other whips is amusing, but would effectively end any alien ability to stop grenades. Aliens need whip forest around hives for grenade defense, or a better solution to grenade spam.
Any proposals for macs, arcs and cyst spam?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, the SBAD solution does not fully stop it. I suppose we could always adapt that whip friendly fire idea and apply it to the batteries, so if they get too close they start zapping each other until one breaks. The problem with that, is the commander can't just move it away as he could a whip, so he would have to recycle it before one of the batteries die. This may only happen once or twice during a commander's career, because he would probably learn to not do that pretty quickly.
The spam problem is why I think the SBAD and personal system would work so well together. Individually they do not effectively solve it, but together they make a lot of hoops for the marines to jump through to achieve spam status. Imagining a worst case scenario, the commander could drop a whole bunch of turrets near the factory. The marines will first have to move and place the sentry (as they would a mine), construct the sentry, and then the commander could drop the battery. Assuming this is a turtling scenario, there would probably be multiple points of entry, which they would all have to cover. Assuming the batteries attack each other, the marines would have to set up multiple small groups of sentries, rather than a huge mess.
Limiting structures according to rooms would not work. Having maybe 3 sentries per room would make it too much for small rooms, but do completely nothing in the huge ones. We would therefore have to make it dynamic according to the scale of a room, which gets more difficult to define the bigger a room gets because the geometry can become very basic or increasingly complex.
--------------------
Whips haven't really been doing that much good against grenade launchers anyways. They only deflect maybe 1/4 of the grenades shot, and when they do, the grenade usually lands right next to it making them pretty much useless. I would suggest that if this territorial whip idea were to come into play, the competency of whip deflection would be increased. Maybe to deflect 2/4 of the grenades fired.
--------------------
I actually did mention about the cysts. I was realizing that the cysts are very static structures without too much dynamic, so a proximity cap would be relatively painless to have. Especially since the alternative is the possibility of 20x20 sized cyst blobs would demolish a server's performance.
Macs and Arcs are considered units, so I would not mind a unit cap. Obviously a dynamically scaling one would be a lot better to the game, we would just have to determine the appropriate amount. Just keep in mind the problems with scaling it to a room/power node.
Comments
My personal preferences:
Hydras: 3 seems about right
Turrets: 3 per command chair, so long as the sentry actually works against players again
Crags: I think there should be a radius around which you can't place another crag, so you don't get the "three-crags-unkillable" scenario. Or just give them diminishing returns on healing.
Robot factory: 1 per cc
ARCs; 3 per robo
Shift / eggs: is there a cap here? If there isn't, there should probably be: say 8-10 eggs.
Something that makes dynamic unit caps a strategic consideration instead of a hard limit.
<!--quoteo(post=1984312:date=Sep 28 2012, 07:06 PM:name=Flayra)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Flayra @ Sep 28 2012, 07:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1984312"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is a fine idea, but did you have anything specific in mind? Ie, which entities should be limited and what should the numbers be?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sentries - Return them to defensive duty, but make a limit of 3 per room.
Crags - Return to 15 res, and make is healing cap of 1. Improve healing amount to compensate. Now no advantage of spam.
Whips - Not really sure here. They are a problem sometimes, but since they are mostly melee its not so bad when marines can just shoot the cyst beneath them. Probably no cap needed.
Shifts/Shades - Benefit is only felt with 1, so no cap needed.
Arcs/Macs - Limit of 5 per commandchair. Combined total, so commander has to choose between welding and nuking. Either support marines with macs, or have the marines support the arcs. No more arc trains supported by mac trains. Need to give both a recycle option at the robotics factory so can reduce the total in use.
Drifters - Limit of 3 per hive.
IMO a general supply cap would be a good idea to try. Think of Starcraft 2 supply, except the supply would come from anything that's not a player (so the structures instead of the units [minus gorge structures]). I think a general supply cap would be the least intrusive in terms of playstyles and creativity. This would include things like Drifters, MACs and Arcs.
I.E.: If you want to have a very Whip heavy endgame strategy, go for it. But that means you wouldn't have much supply left to have other stuff like crags/shift be plentiful. Or say if you want to have an arc train, you won't be able to spam armories around every corner of the map. So smart commanders would be able to develop a good balance of composition in the endgame to secure victory, instead of letting games devolve into endless structure spam (10+ structures in every. single. room.). This would also encourage commander weapon/lifeform drops in the endgame so that the focus can be on players ending the game, and not just a tipping point of overwhelming structure spam.
But if you were to implement caps of any kind, Aliens would need a way to recycle (or at least a way to destroy their own structures, even if they don't get res back).
If you don't already know, I absolutely, positively, 100%, no doubt about it, do not like hard caps for structures. I'll throw a couple reasons in why, but I will have to clarify a few things before I start. Then I will address why I dislike Structure Hard Caps so much, followed by possible alternatives and the reasoning towards why.
What I would like to make you all recognize is that these issues of Spam and Performance are a very valid and real thing, which can be absolutely detrimental to the quality and enjoyment of a game. There is no doubt in my mind that these are massive problems which slow both the server and the game when taken out of hand. We must figure out a way to deal with these issues, and I have a few ideas of my own towards such, but I'll start by addressing why I am against Hard Caps.
<u><i><b>Fear and Spamming in Los Craggas</b></i></u>
Structure Hard Caps, in my mind, are quick-fix solutions to a problem much deeper and complex than you would normally see. Only until you go down the rabbit hole and find the true cause of the problem, will you find an appropriate solution. While I do not fully know any proper alternatives to the spam problem, I do know that what we should do is analyze the reasoning behind it. I mean really understand why there is spam, and then formulate solutions according to it. This might sound rather methodical, but it isn't as bland as it sounds. I'll get to it in a minute. First I'll describe the possible types of cap I know of, and which ones I am against.
<b><u>The Ceiling Cap</u></b> - This is what I consider "The Hard Cap". This is the bare-bones cap that is predetermined at the start of a match, or by the developers. No units are allowed to go beyond this, and it is invariable once determined. This could either be the 200 unit cap in Starcraft, or the definable 250-1000 unit cap in Supreme Commander, or even a cap dependent on the individual unit types themselves, such as in Wargame:European Escalation. Generally you won't reach this unless you have an absolute reign of supremacy over the map, or have been allowed to in some way. While I do not like this style of cap, I recognize this as a very useful tool at the developer's disposal to regulate game performance. Performance will go down only to the lowest that the cap would allow.
<b><u>The Variable Cap</u></b> - This more of the supply depot style of unit cap. It rises or lowers depending on events happening in the match. It is possible for players on either side to take advantage of this mechanic by destroying key structures, therefore lowering the cap for the other player.
<b><u>The Proximity Cap</u></b> - This is a limiter preventing a high concentration of the same structure in a region. This can function very well if taken in a minimalist approach. I can see this being used in NS2, particularly for the Cysts. While this is also probable for the Sentry, I believe that it would conflict with the current battery implementation, as well as the directional inhibitor.
<u><b>The Volume Cap</b></u> - This is just how many units/structures you can fit in a room. I didn't think it was necessary to add this, but I may as well cover all of the bases. This is something that is probably in every RTS game. It is just the surface area of how much space in your base is available for buildings or units. Note that airborne units are not affected by this unless collision is on and they are constrained to a particular layer.
Analysis: These caps are defined rules that players must adhere to at all times. They are indefinite, and they are necessary. One thing I must explicitly stress is that structures are not bound by these caps (aside from the Volume Cap). Only units.
<u><i><b>Possible Alternatives. How do we stop the spam?</b></i></u>
Now that we know the different kind of caps, now to address the possible alternatives. This involves the use of inhibitors, and more attention to the function of the structure. While structures such as the Cyst are fairly static, so having a proximity cap should be fairly painless to add. This would mainly just prevent people from spamming cysts in a 20x20 square. Crags and Whips are a more difficult problem though. How do we keep a room from being completely stuffed to the brim with structures? While it is very well possible to use the proximity cap again, I suggest a more "cared for" approach.
What we must do is try to influence the players to <u>not want</u> to spam. Well how do we do that? Well here are some tools that we can use, which I like to call the Inhibitors.
<u><b>The Price Inhibitor</b></u> - This is your most common inhibitor. You can't spam expensive things.
<u><b>The Attention Inhibitor</b></u> - This is your player attention inhibitor. This requires a certain degree of player attention to function at greater capacity. An example would be the player's ability to micro units in a game of Starcraft.
<u><b>The Directional Inhibitor</b></u> - This is a Field of View style inhibitor. We see this already on the Sentry. Can also be considered a mechanic in Backstabs, which the Spy in TF2 makes great use of. This can also be the effective range of the Sentry in TF2 (it responds quicker in the cone, but can still engage all 360 degrees.
<u><b>The Design Inhibitor</b></u> - This one is my favorite. This involves using or adding another game mechanic to influence each other. A great example of this would be the happiness rating in Civilization V. The larger your empire is, the more upset your citizens are. Those with small amounts of cities have extremely happy civilians, but they cannot protect themselves in a war very well, while Civs with loads of cities can make lots of soldiers. This dynamic and balancing act the player has to manage is both engaging, and an excellent balancing mechanic.
Analysis: These inhibitors are flexible rules that influence the player more than prevent the player. If the player wanted to, they could ignore these inhibitors entirely. They would just have to understand the consequences of doing so. Also something to note is you can use more than one inhibitor when balancing something. They can be entirely compatible with each-other. One just has to remember that although more inhibitors provide more balancing opportunities, it does add multiple layers of complexity to what you are changing. This can be a turn-off to a new player, but an experienced player may enjoy it a lot more.
<u><i><b>My Proposed Solutions</b></i></u>
<u><b>The Crag</b></u> - I suggest the crag has reduced healing towards other crags. As a sort of "immune" problem. Also make heal wave not affect other crags at all. You could also try to make it so if there is a cluster of crags, only one crag can use its special ability at a time. Kind of a "a nearby crag is already doing this" kind of approach. I would suggest the range of this restriction only being within the range of the actual spell/ability, so that crag across the room could still use heal wave.
While this does not help with the spam problem, it will help with multiple crags being a real pain to kill. One thing to note is that if the marines are able to push the aliens away from this regen zone, it will be a massive loss on the alien side.
<b><u>Whip Forest</u></b> - This is a more difficult problem. But I really like this solution. How do we get a commander to not want to saturate a room with whips? Well how about a mix between a proximity cap and a design inhibitor? What if the whips were really aggressive territorial creatures, and would attack any living being it would deem a threat to its personal space? What if it were to think that other close whips are "threatening" its territory, and would therefore attack any whips in range? This provides us with an opportunity to give the whip a bit of character, as well as to solve the problem of too many whips in an area by using the proximity cap.
<b><u>Shift: The Super Hive</u></b> - Shifts can spam quite a bit of eggs. While this does help in staging forward attacks, it can be taken to the extreme and could place more eggs than a hive ever could. I don't particularly remember if the shift has any "energy" mechanics, but otherwise we could have it so the shift would get "tired" after placing too many eggs too soon. Maybe 4-6 eggs in a burst. The shift is a movement structure after all, so I don't imagine it would be down for too long, so this egg burst could be in a set. Or the commander could just drop 5 eggs in one click and have it cool down for a period of time so it functions more like a spell.
<u><b>The Sentry</b></u> - There is already a thread for this kind of suggestion, but the idea is to make the sentry return to the ammo mechanic. Marines could manually reload sentries once they deplete, or you could drop a sentry battery which automatically regenerates nearby sentry ammo at a fixed rate. The more sentries, the longer it takes for the battery to fill all of them. Other mechanics which add more "character" to the structure would be to make it so marines could purchase the sentry from a robotics bay like they would mines, and deploy/move them around as they see fit. Both are equally compatible with eachother.
<b><i><u>The Conclusion</u></i></b>
Well you made it to the end! Congratulations on that gauntlet of reading. Hopefully you managed to extract something useful out of that mess. I may have not explained particular arguments well enough, such as why exactly I don't enjoy hard caps, but I hope you can understand that there are always better, more imaginative and fun solutions there, and you just have to turn on your thinker and you can find them.
One example of a good use of anti-building spam is bile bomb from the gorge. Marines spamming armories or sentries, Aliens can get gorges and bile bomb them.
I think it is okay to have the option to spam building as long as there is a way for the players to combat the problem. It isn't fun to kill buildings, and the commanders role shouldn't be about spamming buildings but to command players and assist them. If a commander has to spam builds or non player units to be effective then the game designed to be adjusted.
I.E.: If you want to have a very Whip heavy endgame strategy, go for it. But that means you wouldn't have much supply left to have other stuff like crags/shift be plentiful. Or say if you want to have an arc train, you won't be able to spam armories around every corner of the map. So smart commanders would be able to develop a good balance of composition in the endgame to secure victory, instead of letting games devolve into endless structure spam (10+ structures in every. single. room.). This would also encourage commander weapon/lifeform drops in the endgame so that the focus can be on players ending the game, and not just a tipping point of overwhelming structure spam.
But if you were to implement caps of any kind, Aliens would need a way to recycle (or at least a way to destroy their own structures, even if they don't get res back).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, this would probably be worth a try.
I'd like to see how it would pan out for both sides.
In regards to Crags, I think simply putting a limit on how much heal wave stacks would encourage players not to use more than say 3-4 Crags in one zone.
I'd like to see how it would pan out for both sides.
In regards to Crags, I think simply putting a limit on how much heal wave stacks would encourage players not to use more than say 3-4 Crags in one zone.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But it would also make placing crags pretty bad, theres a reason you always place 5+ in 1 spot, its because 1 does basically nothing.
Nice post, you've put alot of thought into this. A few issues though:
1) The sentry solution would not stop spam, especially if you had automated reloading. Just makes it a larger res sink.
Res sinks will be overcome lategame, and are detrimental to early game use. I would keep away from mechanics that add additional costs to units.
I still think a max per room for sentries would be best. Or an alternate solution = make so sentry guns cannot share firing arcs. This means two sentry guns cannot cover the same hallway, or eachother. Make them tougher obviously, but now they are limited without putting a 'hard' cap.
2) Whips attacking other whips is amusing, but would effectively end any alien ability to stop grenades. Aliens need whip forest around hives for grenade defense, or a better solution to grenade spam.
Otherwise I like the idea.
Any proposals for macs, arcs and cyst spam?
<!--quoteo(post=1984859:date=Sep 29 2012, 05:00 PM:name=RobustPenguin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RobustPenguin @ Sep 29 2012, 05:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1984859"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But it would also make placing crags pretty bad, theres a reason you always place 5+ in 1 spot, its because 1 does basically nothing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah an armoury fully heals a marine in 5 seconds flat, while a single crag cannot heal a skulk in 20 (numbers out of my ass, may be wrong). Once you work up to onos, the speed of healing becomes embarrassing.
4 + healwaves works pretty good? When it gets above 4, things get really ridiculous with the heal stacking with a Gorge in there also.
4+ healwaves costs you 12 tres per heal and it cant outheal a GL. Or you could just kill the cyst near them and they do nothing. Marines plonk 1 armoury down for 10 tres and heal off that, aliens need the cost of the cysts, 4/5 crags, a crag hive and to heal wave to heal anything bigger then a skulk in any decent time....
Don't let logic get in the way of marine tears.
I play both Commander sides. I'm not being bias towards Marines but I've thrown down 4+ Crags myself and since I typically Command a good Alien team, the GL is not constantly firing and is disrupted by Fades etc.
Clearly someone here doesn't consistently use these bad boys. As they instantly heal any lifeform with the exception of Onos, and heal the hive up pretty damn fast under the effects of Heal Wave. 4 is really fine. The Tres cost is pretty much fine. Alien resource management leaves a ton of room for res floating. But back to Crags, upwards onto 7-8+ becomes actually impossible to out DPS with a 5 man push.
I think if a supply cap was implemented there would at least be a penalty to spamming those things out the ass.
This is similar to what you see for Gorge Hydras and Clogs, except the former "3" changes with # of an AI unit type, while the latter number reflects the # of resource towers active (also visible at the top of Commander HUD). Simply put, you can have as many AI's as you have resource towers.
Ex.
3 Harvesters = 3 Drifters
3 Extractors = 3 MACs AND 3 ARCs
This is similar to what you see for Gorge Hydras and Clogs, except the former "3" changes with # of an AI unit type, while the latter number reflects the # of resource towers active (also visible at the top of Commander HUD). Simply put, you can have as many AI's as you have resource towers.
Ex.
3 Harvesters = 3 Drifters
3 Extractors = 3 MACs AND 3 ARCs<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I would prefer tied to command chairs. Extractors already have their importance in getting the resources needed for purchase.
Hence the STRATEGY.
1) The sentry solution would not stop spam, especially if you had automated reloading. Just makes it a larger res sink.
Res sinks will be overcome lategame, and are detrimental to early game use. I would keep away from mechanics that add additional costs to units.
I still think a max per room for sentries would be best. Or an alternate solution = make so sentry guns cannot share firing arcs. This means two sentry guns cannot cover the same hallway, or eachother. Make them tougher obviously, but now they are limited without putting a 'hard' cap.
2) Whips attacking other whips is amusing, but would effectively end any alien ability to stop grenades. Aliens need whip forest around hives for grenade defense, or a better solution to grenade spam.
Any proposals for macs, arcs and cyst spam?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, the SBAD solution does not fully stop it. I suppose we could always adapt that whip friendly fire idea and apply it to the batteries, so if they get too close they start zapping each other until one breaks. The problem with that, is the commander can't just move it away as he could a whip, so he would have to recycle it before one of the batteries die. This may only happen once or twice during a commander's career, because he would probably learn to not do that pretty quickly.
The spam problem is why I think the SBAD and personal system would work so well together. Individually they do not effectively solve it, but together they make a lot of hoops for the marines to jump through to achieve spam status. Imagining a worst case scenario, the commander could drop a whole bunch of turrets near the factory. The marines will first have to move and place the sentry (as they would a mine), construct the sentry, and then the commander could drop the battery. Assuming this is a turtling scenario, there would probably be multiple points of entry, which they would all have to cover. Assuming the batteries attack each other, the marines would have to set up multiple small groups of sentries, rather than a huge mess.
Limiting structures according to rooms would not work. Having maybe 3 sentries per room would make it too much for small rooms, but do completely nothing in the huge ones. We would therefore have to make it dynamic according to the scale of a room, which gets more difficult to define the bigger a room gets because the geometry can become very basic or increasingly complex.
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Whips haven't really been doing that much good against grenade launchers anyways. They only deflect maybe 1/4 of the grenades shot, and when they do, the grenade usually lands right next to it making them pretty much useless. I would suggest that if this territorial whip idea were to come into play, the competency of whip deflection would be increased. Maybe to deflect 2/4 of the grenades fired.
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I actually did mention about the cysts. I was realizing that the cysts are very static structures without too much dynamic, so a proximity cap would be relatively painless to have. Especially since the alternative is the possibility of 20x20 sized cyst blobs would demolish a server's performance.
Macs and Arcs are considered units, so I would not mind a unit cap. Obviously a dynamically scaling one would be a lot better to the game, we would just have to determine the appropriate amount. Just keep in mind the problems with scaling it to a room/power node.