MP structure update

[KJeff01]

Windows artifacts here (you must be signed into your GitHub account to download them). You'll need a dev-build to test.

Seeing as mp structure stats aren't too different I elected to bring what I did to campaign here. The work is adapted, and somewhat liberal in some parts, compared to campaign though.

Defenses:
Considerable HP buffs to weapon emplacements, hardcrete towers, hardpoints, bunkers, and forts.
Weapon emplacements, hardcrete towers, hardpoints, and bunkers have more varied build times and prices to better represent their overall strength. Modifiers changed to make more sense. Because SOFT was barely used I set it to the value of MEDIUM + 10 for all except the BUNKER BUSTER modifier.
Baseline armor on hardpoints/bunkers/forts bumped up a little.

Further tweaks can be done via research bonus manipulation, but I want more people to try this as it's not as tested as the campaign version. For that, I will need classic maps in play (NTW player opinions won't weigh as heavy) to help guide me when to buff wall upgrades. I'll probably be updating this PR a few more times anyway.

---

I am pretty much done with this. Needs testers on a dev-build before proceeding. I can only do so much on my own.

Possible ideas:

1. Artillery Round HARD modifier should be 100 -> 110 so it doesn't match Cannon HARD modifier which is 100.
2. Maybe reduce Fortress HP from 4x -> 3x normal Hardpoint HP as they really live up to their name now.

EDIT: Updated on January 25th, 2024.

mpBalance.zip

[KJeff01]

[vaut]

I am saddened by the rush to merge these changes.
I like the general idea of making the deff more durable and expensive.
Doubling the strength of fortresses will make the endgame dull. In previous patches, fortresses were weakened to make it possible to play with a ground army. Now they have been made twice as strong without proper testing.

Many structures open only in the second half of the game and testing them in real combat is not so easy. We haven't played enough games yet to give feedback.

[KJeff01]

I do not have GitHub notifications turned on so only saw this much later. I removed fort HP buff for the moment so shared NTW doesn't get upset too much.

[maxsupermanhd]

From what I've been told by Vaut, this pull request partially reverts changes made by some bugfixing in the formulas that calculate damages/armors of the structures, is that correct? (do those commits exist and were just not mentioned here?)

I already see fortresses buffs reverted in 9709419 but was anything else actually changed and how did it impact any gameplay testing that you did?

As well as #3575 this pull request (and in case it adjusts bugfixing done earlier) lacks any sort of internal guideline following in regard to balance changes made.

Some thoughts: there probably should be a way to compare changes cross-version with same inputs (army production and movement up to certain point) and be able to dynamically see results of the changes. Example would be a straight collision of 2 groups of army and seeing how it behaves.

[KJeff01]

From what I've been told by Vaut, this pull request partially reverts changes made by some bugfixing in the formulas that calculate damages/armors of the structures, is that correct? (do those commits exist and were just not mentioned here?)

More like structures/features lasted a few seconds longer against a small group and nobody noticed for over a decade. Twas accidentally broken 16 years ago in v2.0.10. I guess everybody assumed if it works against units it will work against the others without any oddity. In the chance case you both missed the bug discovery and PR back in August or so:

1ef5b22

a19141c

I already see fortresses buffs reverted in 9709419 but was anything else actually changed and how did it impact any gameplay testing that you did?

That answer heavily depends on how many units you want to compare to and the timing. The more units attack something the lesser the effect.

It felt fine enough to me on various games on Rush, Startup, Mountain, Highground, and Melting (+ used all 3 power levels across them). Given the majority of playerbase isn't NTW based with 100 units around I think it will be ok. Most are playing against AI and turtling around with many hours long games against bots. Further structure buffs in the future can have parameters like increasing range and whatnot. Prices could be dropped for structure spam I guess at the expense of stronger structures now, although I think most will find the changes rather marginal with a good sized army unless they did a direct comparison with 1, 3, 6, etc units attacking something.

This formula discovery was rather an inconvenience to me, at the same time it was also an opportunity to embark on this. So here both game modes get buffed structures for the first time cause nobody else will do it. Not to mention the swathes of useless t2+ structures like weapon emplacements which I figured could be spammed with less build time and cost at the cost of being the weakest ones at that time.

As well as #3575 this pull request (and in case it adjusts bugfixing done earlier) lacks any sort of internal guideline following in regard to balance changes made.

The merging of this one was always a foregone conclusion as with its campaign counterpart (which was 4x bigger than this). MP stats are merely copy and pasted from campaign to the point everything but the tech tree and weapons data is a near 100% match, so I might as well do something similar to what I did there for mp players as well. It's been over a year, maybe 1.5, since I've sent a mp patch as I don't have anything to do anymore there. But when something like this crops up it's going to get experimented with no matter what. Plus, there is no easy way for a user to play with this anyway due to needing a dev-build and we both know how that goes.

There is ample evidence from Raptor alone in the two mp sections over the months. Distance from Retaliation and Leopard was quite far from Viper to Leopard. You can read tens, if not hundreds, of posts about it there.

As an aside, for your other copypasta post, you forgot pastdue uses lawyer-speak all the time and you probably missed some wording pointers in the discord and in the document. They're more like guidelines rather than law or rule. 😜

[maxsupermanhd]

I see, well, you said everything yourself at least here. RIP.

If you do not want to adhere to the guidelines I will not do anything I promised either.

[vaut]

I understand your desire to keep things simple and look at PvE. But this is a bad way.
PVE is not indicative:

1. Bots have logic programmed at the creation stage. They will not change strategy when the balance changes. Bots will use super-powerful weapons no more often than useless templates.
2. Players playing against bots are mostly just starting to learn the game. They can lose to a light "nexus" bot, while they can defeat 9 "bonecrusher" or "cobra".
3. All bots have trouble finding their way. The bots stick and gather in super-dense packs against the walls.

Based on this, I think that most PVE players will not notice any balance changes at all. The discovery that missiles don't kill cyborgs, but that mra is art has a much greater impact on their gaming experience.

So you need to focus on multiplayer games. There the difference in knowledge of the game is much smaller. Players adapt and choose optimal strategies.
It is enough that the fortification is 5-10% more effective than tanks and players will build only fortifications. A little weaker and they will no longer be used at all.

We also remember that in the versions with broken armor, everyone played rushes with bullets. When machine guns were added to transport vehicles, it instantly became meta. Auto-updating of produced fire cyborgs, fire bombs and many other failures instantly changed the popular strategies of players.

We have agreed on multi-level testing of balance changes to improve the gaming experience. But it seems that all the agreements are interpreted very loosely and do not protect the players.