gametechmods
Robot Arena => Modifications => Topic started by: Badger on August 14, 2016, 11:20:53 PM
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Foreword
I've been thinking about putting out a 'balance' patch for stock for a short while. The problem with stock (as I see it) is that while the building style allows for some really cool and flashy designs (see geice's showcase), it's a huge pain in the ass to build in, and there is only a small selection of viable components for every situation. Hopefully a balance patch could introduce more (if not all) components into the metagame, allowing for more varied bots and a more enjoyable building experience. Just for clarification's sake, this patch/mod would be played with the standard stock building style, NOT DSL-S.
Status
Currently I'm just theorycrafting and getting input on my thoughts. I'm not sure if this will even ever be released, as it may never gain traction in an already small community. Hopefully, however, it will prove to create a more enjoyable game out of stock, and best case scenario it will take over as the default version of stock used in tournaments/challenges
Aims
To make as many components as possible viable in some way, in some situation
To make stock more enjoyable to build in
To widen the stock metagame to be more inclusive
Long term, if it gets enough traction, it can be regularly updated with buffs/nerfs and even introducing new components, causing a shifting metagame that will prevent staleness and will keep builders engaged
Proposed changes for version 1.0:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a2BI6u869pw3mePBZsCU1f_2bCO_ICSUUKRM_r5NT9Y/edit?usp=sharing
Special thanks to Mr AS for his help and guidance so far.
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I wanted to put the contents of this post outside of the main post.
I haven't put a HUGE amount of thought into these figures and they are completely untested. Given enough interest I may convert the theory into a working mod/patch for you to try and give feedback on, but for now I just need feedback on both the ethos and scale of my proposed changes, as well as feedback regarding whether or not you would play a more balanced version of stock over the standard version.
I'll leave the weapon and extra balancing for tomorrow as it is a whole lot of work, maybe in the interim some of you guys can give suggestions regarding that
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Its not a bad idea just so long as it doesnt end up nerfing or ruining great classic robots too badly as that might be the key to "officialism".
Some food for thought..
That said perhaps addressing the 140cm extender is worth it, weight wise and finishing the model. (I know its a little hypocritical of me but hey times change)
Weapons normals is a key point to assess too (for or against).. as that is what currently culls a lot of parts of the "use list"
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Just a few random thoughts after skimming your post:
- If you are going to be overhauling the balance, you should consider swapping out the control board so that any bots built using your mod won't be mistaken for bots created in stock RA2. It would also help any bot parsers determine which mod a bot was created in so that it can inform the user if they need to download something first.
- For the batteries, I would look at increasing the elecmaxinoutrate more (not just the electotal) so that they stay at full speed for longer. Also, keep in mind that you don't want the pink batteries used on HWs so don't make them too powerful.
- The HP of round and square extenders should be directly correlated to the weight of the extender itself. Right now, if I want to have a 60cm extender, I'll actually use 3 20cm extenders because they have more total HP and each individual segment is less likely to get hit. Alternatively, you could go the route of making all extenders weigh the same (like burst pistons are presently) but that would penalize people that just want to use the APs for things like weapon racks.
- You presently have the angle connector equal to the T and Y connectors. Since this component only has one AP, you should consider making it a little lighter than the other two (which would make this 1kg with your current values).
- The weight of the Axle Mount seems a little low. Considering that you are also increasing the strength of disks, I'm thinking that this would encourage the use of flails too much. I would probably try something around 7kg.
- The T and Y connectors should have half the HP of the 20cm round extender. Otherwise, I would use 2 T connectors instead of the 20cm round extender so that I had twice the HP and two smaller targets.
- I don't think the baseplate anchors should have any collision. Things that attach to the baseplate are invincible so exo-stacking anchors can result in castor-like armor. Also, anchors are commonly stacked inside of other components like batteries.
- Why make the square extender identical to the round extender? Wouldn't it make more sense to give it more HP so that you have more options?
- RAD motors should have a lower max speed so that they aren't as effective when used as weapon motors. This won't affect drive motors because RA2 doesn't use this value in its bot movement calculations.
- You should make the Powered Steering Unit significantly lighter (30kg, maybe) and try increasing the power so that it is better than a RAD to compensate for its size. Ideally, this should become a viable option for MW+.
- The blue snapper should be a tad heavier, IMO.
- When you do the extras, you should make the Steelyard Dogs Snow Plow heavier and give it more HP than the regular Snow Plow. This is the same idea as round extenders vs square extenders.
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Just a few random thoughts after skimming your post:- If you are going to be overhauling the balance, you should consider swapping out the control board so that any bots built using your mod won't be mistaken for bots created in stock RA2. It would also help any bot parsers determine which mod a bot was created in so that it can inform the user if they need to download something first.
- For the batteries, I would look at increasing the elecmaxinoutrate more (not just the electotal) so that they stay at full speed for longer. Also, keep in mind that yo don't want the pink batteries used on HW so don't make them too powerful.
- The HP of round and square extenders should be directly correlated to the weight of the extender itself. Right now, if I want to have a 60cm extender, I'll actually use 3 20cm extenders because they have more total HP and each individual segment is less likely to get hit. Alternatively, you could go the route of making all extenders weigh the same (like burst motors are presently) but that would penalize people that just want to use the APs for things like weapon racks.
- You presently have the angle connector equal to the T and Y connectors. Since this component only has one AP, you should consider making it a little lighter than the other two (which would make this 1kg with your current values).
- The weight of the Axle Mount seems a little low. Considering that you are also increasing the strength of disks, I'm thinking that this would encourage the use of flails too much. I would probably try something around 7kg.
- The T and Y connectors should have half the HP of the 20cm round extender. Otherwise, I would use 2 T connectors instead of the 20cm round extender so that I had twice the HP and two smaller targets.
- I don't think the baseplate anchors should have any collision. Things that attach to the baseplate are invincible so exo-stacking anchors can result in castor-like armor. Also, anchors are commonly stacked inside of other components like batteries.
- Why make the square extender identical to the round extender? Wouldn't it make more sense to give it more HP so that you have more options?
- RAD motors should have a lower max speed so that they aren't as effective when used as weapon motors. This won't affect drive motors because RA2 doesn't use this value in its bot movement calculations.
- You should make the Powered Steering Unit significantly lighter (30kg, maybe) and try increasing the power so that it is better than a RAD.
- The blue snapper should be a tad heavier, IMO.
- When you do the extras, you should make the Steelyard Dogs Snow Plow heavier and give it more HP than the regular Snow Plow. This is the same idea as round extenders vs square extenders.
I agree with all of Trovs points here.
I also support this project and if you need any help or input, hit me up bro :thumbup
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Hey that sounds familiar:
My goal is to create a modified stock/vanilla game with more balanced components and more info(each component will show it's stats), encouraging players to build more RW like robots and not stack thousands of razor tips.
https://gametechmods.com/forums/index.php?topic=18881.msg699388#msg699388
So I guess I could help, then again my mod was more going into the direction of DSL-S/what the developers originally intended.
Thoughts so far:
Why not boost the tank/battery stats by 2x so that stacking is completely useless? The BBEANS components basically already did that and I don't see why this shouldn't be done here(maybe those should be separate components)
Let the Extenders scale with lenght and add the other side AP's, I've been thinking about the short extenders and how it would be if the long extenders basically were multiple small ones attached to eachother/having those AP's. Also the Ap's on extenders need to be fixed as you can do this: _L only with some extenders while others refuse to connect that way.
T and Y should have increased HP as well, at least the same as 20cm extenders if not more(increase their weight if you think it would be unbalanced)
Increase the Disc HP a little more? I still find them to be very fragile and tribars the better choice.
Wouldn't it have been better to make square extenders stronger at the cost of more weight? Also what are you going to do with the 150cm one? If you rebalance it so it has more weight, the extender weight needs to be generally more lower for hammers or we need way better bursts.
I wonder why so many bursts have no initial force, think that ruins it as all the flipper power as the max speed gets wasted on heavy bots(that's why flipping with a front hinged flipper or when the other bot is already in the air is much easier). The second is the retract speed while third is fire speed right? Would increase the DDT one a bit.
Nice weight reduction, no idea if you can change DSA but why not just buff up all the armor HP to be double, if not triple?
While I like the idea, I would like it more if Stock stayed vanilla stock and this turned into it's own mod(of course, calling it balanced or fixed Stock would work, but I wouldn't want this to replace vanilla stock in tournaments). Should be a very interesting mod if no components get nerfed as it shows how buffed components would go against current stock bots.
Good idea Trov, I agree with some points, not all:
Axle mounts(I honestly don't find flails that great in stock, also what about the people who want to use them for wheels? Because yes, unlike popupar belief, they do help with changing the bot driving)
T/Y connectors(unless Badger changed it, they have the same weight as 20cm extenders and using 2 gives only 2 weapon points while 2 extenders can give you 4)
think having RADs as low weightclass weapon motors would be ok since redbirds are a bit hard to use because of their shape, the suggested buff might be too big however.
Would keep Blue Snapper like that, it's mostly used for glitches and rather big/only attachable to the chassis, if anything don't buff it's burst use up too much and keep the weight. Personally I'd like to see how a bot with the rebalanced mod would do against a current Stock one, and for that it would be good if components didn't get nerfed.
Baseplate anchors are "invisible" as far as I know, no idea if they would still have collision then.
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Updated the OP with minor changes in the extender and mechanics sections, thanks to trov for the feedback
Redgarding the batteries: I didn't really want to change the number of batteries required for a bot, only to make fights less uninteresting. Maybe changing the capacity to infinite would achieve this more easily.
I don't think the axle mount buff will lead to flail spam. Maybe flails will become more viable, but axle mounts will still be incredibly fragile, as their HP has not been changed
I don't really want to edit component meshes or APs as I think this is out of the scope of a balance patch
Disc HP will already be increased
I think the 140cm will be kept as-is, very fragile but light and long. Allows for more building diversity, and with the 120cm extenders being made viable I don't think it's an issue.
I don't want chassis armour to be particularly viable as it never had been particularly strong in stock.
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I won't be posting much but I'll keep my eye on the thread just so you know that there are people who are interested in this.
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Updated the OP with minor changes in the extender and mechanics sections, thanks to trov for the feedback
Redgarding the batteries: I didn't really want to change the number of batteries required for a bot, only to make fights less uninteresting. Maybe changing the capacity to infinite would achieve this more easily.
I don't think the axle mount buff will lead to flail spam. Maybe flails will become more viable, but axle mounts will still be incredibly fragile, as their HP has not been changed
I don't really want to edit component meshes or APs as I think this is out of the scope of a balance patch
Disc HP will already be increased
I think the 140cm will be kept as-is, very fragile but light and long. Allows for more building diversity, and with the 120cm extenders being made viable I don't think it's an issue.
I don't want chassis armour to be particularly viable as it never had been particularly strong in stock.
The problem about the uninteresting fights is the output, increase that and possibly add more capacity. Also thought you mentioned that you didn't want battery stacking to be required?
You can already see how quickly armor goes now in stock, it's almost nothing, and we're talking about DSA here, I don't think that making it triple would make it last long, but I see where you want to go with your mod, think I'll just make mine my own thing since I'm not really a fan of constant buff/nerf updates and stupid metagames(no offense to you, but I rather play RA2 for fun instead of tournaments and getting that number 1 best player spot) and wouldn't want to replace default stock.
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But if you have infinite capacity, your output will never go down from its initial value.
I feel that increasing the armour would remove some of the stock feel
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I would just buff external armor and boost all the chassis armors so you don't get raped by gut rippers. Everything else is honestly pretty balanced because of how few viable components there are and unrealistic building.
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I would just buff external armor and boost all the chassis armors so you don't get raped by gut rippers. Everything else is honestly pretty balanced because of how few viable components there are and unrealistic building.
That's the point though, I'm trying to make more components viable.
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Bump but this seems like something that should be looked into. Can you release what you have or were you only in the theory stages, badger?
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Bump but this seems like something that should be looked into. Can you release what you have or were you only in the theory stages, badger?
Only ever in the theory, it never gained enough support to go any further
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Bump but this seems like something that should be looked into. Can you release what you have or were you only in the theory stages, badger?
Only ever in the theory, it never gained enough support to go any further
What kind of support were you looking for? If you're interested in something like this just do it
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Make the parts weigh less.
I want a weapon that can crush the other robot. I want a spinner like tombstone. I want golem ramp. I want I want Twin Paradox plow and blade. I want golem hammer, I want cat claw. I want a wall
to put in front of your bot. I want bot covers. I want more motors. I want more motors for horizontal spinners. I want upside down motors. I want the to be a cco. Chief creative officer. I want more paint jobs. I want a GTM skin. Disk Extender, Chain for ranged discs, Perm, Ampflow, Badger's sparkly stick. Vant batteries and tons more lipo batteries. And more hammer/flipper motors.
I want more armor choices such as
Wood A weak but light armor. It is easy to snap since it is hard.
Brick: Super easy to crack and is super weak. Also somewhat heavy.
Stone: Similar to brick
Trump wall material
Glass
Diamond
Lapis
Tigers eye
Gold But call it Butter
Thats all for now bro keep up the good work. Do you have 3ds max or blender? I can send you the exe for 3dsmax. Or you can get blender for free.
If you need support i can help.
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Make the parts weigh less.
He was going to do that
I want a weapon that can crush the other robot. I want a spinner like tombstone. I want golem ramp. I want I want Twin Paradox plow and blade. I want golem hammer, I want cat claw. I want a wall to put in front of your bot. I want bot covers. I want more motors. I want more motors for horizontal spinners. I want upside down motors. I want the to be a cco. Chief creative officer. I want more paint jobs. I want a GTM skin. Disk Extender, Chain for ranged discs, Perm, Ampflow, Badger's sparkly stick.
Look into DSL, and also most of those you can build your own/has replacement options (except becoming a CCO. You will never become that.)
I want more armor choices such as
Wood A weak but light armor. It is easy to snap since it is hard.
That's Plastic
Brick: Super easy to crack and is super weak. Also somewhat heavy.
WHY WOULD YOU EVEN WANT THIS?
Stone: Similar to brick
See Brick
Trump wall material
No.
Glass
See Wood
Diamond
Ehm, No.
Lapis
Nah
Tigers eye
wut
Gold But call it Butter
See Wood
Thats all for now bro keep up the good work. Do you have 3ds max or blender? I can send you the exe for 3dsmax. Or you can get blender for free.
If you need support i can help.
All my comments are Bolded within the quote.
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My 1st RA2 was dsl. I like the ideas you did not like. Brick looks good.
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My 1st RA2 was dsl. I like the ideas you did not like. Brick looks good.
if you want a "armor" just because of it's looks, might I suggest skinning your bot.
Also, all your armor ideas are redundant.
Who builds a robot out of bricks, or out of gold, or diamonds? I know some make it out of wood, but still!
AT LEAST suggest an armor that is another metal (other than gold).
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someone's been playing too much mwinecwaft
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Bump but this seems like something that should be looked into. Can you release what you have or were you only in the theory stages, badger?
Only ever in the theory, it never gained enough support to go any further
What kind of support were you looking for? If you're interested in something like this just do it
I guess interest would be a better word. I knew that nobody would play it so I never bothered making it.
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So you won't make it or just have not.
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My 1st RA2 was dsl. I like the ideas you did not like. Brick looks good.
if you want a "armor" just because of it's looks, might I suggest skinning your bot.
Also, all your armor ideas are redundant.
Who builds a robot out of bricks, or out of gold, or diamonds? I know some make it out of wood, but still!
AT LEAST suggest an armor that is another metal (other than gold).
OK I will make my own mod!
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My 1st RA2 was dsl. I like the ideas you did not like. Brick looks good.
if you want a "armor" just because of it's looks, might I suggest skinning your bot.
Also, all your armor ideas are redundant.
Who builds a robot out of bricks, or out of gold, or diamonds? I know some make it out of wood, but still!
AT LEAST suggest an armor that is another metal (other than gold).
OK I will make my own mod!
With blackjack and hookers?
FWIW, Badger, I think this is a pretty good idea. I'd be more inclined to build stock bots if there were more viable options than just "36-mace HS" and "wedgey pop-up".
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Wedge popups would be nice.