Topic: Few balance issues

Issue 1. Module cost

t4 modules are better than t1 modules in 1.4 times. They have material cost 4+ times better than t1.
So, to gain advantage in, lets say 10% you should spend 100%+-10% more efforts.

You should work harder in ten times to get advantage in one time. Even if you buying ores for 1 nic, and selling modules for 2 nics, it means that someone done 10 times work for you.

Q. You asking why people leaving?

A. Because there is not so many carebears who are ready to give 10 to get 1.

Issue 2. Combat

Small-scale pvp (1-v-1 or 2-v-2, up to 5-v-5) have duration under and equal 5 minutes. Anti blob mechanics, currently interference system, cuts efficiency of light squad after 20 agents in a blob (80b/4b), or 15 mechs(90b/6b), so the game is intended to limit squad count to 15-20 people. Lets take that 20 people can do 1-2 volleys to kill one of the enemy. Given that we have 9 second average weapon cycle, duration of combat should be near 9*20=180 sec or roughly 3 minutes. As intended.

But players don't care about interference and continue to use megablobs and mass pvp have duration from 40 min to 1-5 hours.

Q. Why people anyway making this blobs?

A. The vitality in large squad is greater than in small squad, so players have no choice to make zerg. Assuming that you don't want to loose 10 times of your work in 7 minutes, so risk-vs-reward is better in large squads over small one.

Issue 3. Alliances

Its obvious that alliances are not intended because we have no alliance mechanics atm. You can see that benefits from outpost can have only one corp.

Q. Why most of corporations don't running their business independently on outposts?

A. See issue 1 and 2.

Q. ?

A.:

Currently each of beta islands have enough epriton for lets say 100 of players. To have enough epriton to use it for your modules (issue 1) and to have opportunity to protect your bots (issue 2), given that average size of corp is 10 active members because of issue 1 and 2, its easier to assemble an alliance to cover 3-4 teleports in your island while game still not dead.

Thoughts?

2 (edited by Annihilator 2011-10-23 11:33:47)

Re: Few balance issues

blobs also happen because of the way specialisation works.
(rock paper scissor on "per player level" not on "per module")

the minimum size of a squad can only be used if you know in advance what you are facing. This works in RTS games like starcraft, where you need about 20s to rebuild your strike force with a different set of Units.

In Perpetuum you need to have it pre-built if you want to change your tactics, also you need onmi-skilled agents to be able to change your configuration at all.

About the equipment tiers:
you know what i am thinking about that. Each tier should have its advantages, but also its penalties - and they should be MUCH bigger. Stacking should have dimishing returns.

to think about it: equipping a mech fully with missiles and turrets is considered a Lol-fit. Fitting arm slots of ewar mechs is considered lol-fit. Equipping an Industrial with a weapon is considered lol-fit.

tbc...

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

3 (edited by Kaldenines 2011-10-23 12:25:55)

Re: Few balance issues

One problem is that if you made T4 cheaper more people would have it and then the more developed corps/alliances would complain that any noob can get the same gear as them.  If you made it more powerful people would just learn who uses T4 and not fight them with anything like equal numbers.

Having said that, I would not object to cheaper T4 at all.

[rant]
There will be blobs as long as there are large alliances.  There are many reasons for blob formation, not least the fact that a lot of people are sitting around bored and just want to see some kind of action.  Hopefully the new intrusion system will help with it.  A blob takes a long time to form.  The less time you give it the smaller the blob.

I think the most fundamental problem in perpetuum is that there is no strategic or tactical objective to PvP other than to kill the opponenet and loot the field.  In other words "there is nothing to win, you can only lose".  Which leads people to not even undock unless they know they can wipe their opponents with minimal losses (with the exeptions of a minority who just like pvp for the hell of it).  For some reason every carebear seems to think that if the PvPers are given a reason to go out there and get blown up it will hurt the PvE side of things.  That couldn't be further from the truth.  It would create demand for modules and bots and enrich the PvE players.

Maybe they could introduce a mechanic whereby attacking an outposts SAP actually give some kind of reward even if your alliance has no intension of taking the outpost.
[/rant]

+1
-Confucius

Re: Few balance issues

Agree with Issue 2 and 3
But if you live on beta there is no problem with money you can easy have observer kernels, lvl5 kernels, epriton, norgalis

Re: Few balance issues

CyberBaby wrote:

Agree with Issue 2 and 3
But if you live on beta there is no problem with money you can easy have observer kernels, lvl5 kernels, epriton, norgalis

Issue 1 is not about money. Issue 1 is about material cost.

Re: Few balance issues

Alexadar wrote:
CyberBaby wrote:

Agree with Issue 2 and 3
But if you live on beta there is no problem with money you can easy have observer kernels, lvl5 kernels, epriton, norgalis

Issue 1 is not about money. Issue 1 is about material cost.

If you can't afford it, or don't find the upgrade big enough, just stick to t1 then...

If t4 got super-cheap, then every single player would use it, removing the point of having different tiers.

Re: Few balance issues

1. T4 cost is OK, linear reward for exponential cost provides better tier differentiation and makes all tiers useful. Linear reward for linear cost will make everything below T4 MUCH less useful.
2. Your calculations of "intended" squad size ant battle time are absolutely arbitrary. I have no anti-blob recipies, so I'll just note that forced anti-blob mechanic might become worse than blobbing itself.
3. You want small corps to stay out of beta or what? Alliances are good for small-to-medium corps, we need more of them (alliances), not less.

Re: Few balance issues

I have access to all stuff what currently ingame, so its not about myself.

I just want to point on the problems, what are the reasons of disballancing. This stuff should be properly adjusted to make pvp and pve more suitable for all.
lets say reducing difficulty to 1/9 or making large island w/o teleports around tasty areas should do something.

As i can see, this topic will fail, as many other ballancing topic, so i just hope that devs will look at first post.

done here/

Re: Few balance issues

Issue 1 module costs: I think 40% better for t4 than t1 should be enough edge to win at pvp, and enough room for error, even at 1% better than your opponent can be the only edge you need, without even taking extensions differences you might have. certainly, those who can afford t4 probably have much better extensions.

What more do you want?

RIP PERPETUUM

10 (edited by Line 2011-10-23 21:49:24)

Re: Few balance issues

New words, old theme....

Srsly, don't use things that you can't afford to loose or mine more, thats it.

Edit: Ppl are leaving because there isn't too much to do, NOT beacause of t4 cost.

Have a productive day, runner!
R.I.P. Chenoa, you'll never be forgotten.
DEV Zoom: Line, sorry, I was away for christmas.
http://perp-kill.net/?m=view&id=252086

Re: Few balance issues

Issue 1 is not an issue. It's the same in every game ... diminishing returns for the time invested as you go higher in levels/tiers/whatever. If it's the PO parameters thaw you don't like that is up to discussion, but I guess ther DEVs know why they picked the numbers they did.

I don't see an issue specification in your Issue 2 part of the post. It's just stating the obvious. So what's the issue again ?

3 is a non-issue. Game lacks other mechanics that people need and try to use other means to obtain same functionality (contracts as an example).

Re: Few balance issues

...new theme, old trolling...

1st of all we need to change forum mechanics. Now we have the next scheme:

1) Author posts obvious problem.
2) Some people agree. Some disagree.
3) When the arguments ends - starts trolling of author's post.
4) Author bored and tired. He go away.
5) Trolls wins again.

This is not sandbox. This is a Box of Chocolates...

Re: Few balance issues

6) Time for ERP-Hunter!

Have a productive day, runner!
R.I.P. Chenoa, you'll never be forgotten.
DEV Zoom: Line, sorry, I was away for christmas.
http://perp-kill.net/?m=view&id=252086

Re: Few balance issues

The issue here is that there is no issue with anything posted here as a balance issue.

E.g. This entire thread is option based. No one is right or wrong here.

I AM NOT A GM™

Re: Few balance issues

Line wrote:

6) Time for ERP-Hunter!

Thanks for tro-lo-lo.

This is not sandbox. This is a Box of Chocolates...

Re: Few balance issues

Hunter wrote:
Line wrote:

6) Time for ERP-Hunter!

Thanks for tro-lo-lo.

You already posted this "issue" alotz of times, in same or other words. Each time you got the same answer. Why do you still keep posting?

NO, people leaving NOT beause of ERP-nerf
NO, people leaving NOT because of T4 production cost
NO, people leaving NOT because of HMech production cost
NO, people leaving NOT because of larger group of t1-fitted bots can defeat smaller group of t4-fitted bots

Everyone are mining here to afford that t4....Why don't you just do the same?

Enough of QQ here. go mine, biachtiz

Have a productive day, runner!
R.I.P. Chenoa, you'll never be forgotten.
DEV Zoom: Line, sorry, I was away for christmas.
http://perp-kill.net/?m=view&id=252086

17 (edited by Hunter 2011-10-24 14:37:49)

Re: Few balance issues

Line wrote:
Hunter wrote:
Line wrote:

6) Time for ERP-Hunter!

Thanks for tro-lo-lo.

You already posted this "issue" alotz of times, in same or other words. Each time you got the same answer. Why do you still keep posting?

NO, people leaving NOT beause of ERP-nerf
NO, people leaving NOT because of T4 production cost
NO, people leaving NOT because of HMech production cost
NO, people leaving NOT because of larger group of t1-fitted bots can defeat smaller group of t4-fitted bots

Everyone are mining here to afford that t4....Why don't you just do the same?

Enough of QQ here. go mine, biachtiz

Yep. Don't cry my hater... lol

This is not sandbox. This is a Box of Chocolates...

18 (edited by Sundial 2011-10-24 16:27:49)

Re: Few balance issues

If T4 was not more difficult to get, what would be the point of the other tiers besides T2 for fitting/speed?

T1 and T3 would be pointless if T4 was easy/cheap to acquire.

EDIT:

The only "Change" I think would be a good thing would be reducing the Alligor component of heavy mechs, but still keeping it a significant amount.

Looking forward to new players and new conflicts.

Re: Few balance issues

T4 is fine as it is.
T3 is a worthy substitute.
Gropho fitting T1 is laughable but you'd be surprised that it can do.

Fit mighty Gropho with T1 and die easily.
Fit mighty Gropho with T4 and feel like king!

I AM NOT A GM™