[RA] Balance changes for next playtest/release.

[SoScared]

Added values from pre-release1019 playtesting - Frame Limiter's (Mar-Sep, 2016) playtests and SoS playtests (v1-v1.42).

Allies Tech Center
Health: 600HP, up from 400HP

Flame Tower
Projectile speed: 250, up from 204

Light Tank (25mm)
ReloadDelay: 22, up from 13 (+70%)
Damage: 27, up from 16 (+70%)
Damage vs Heavy: 45, up from 40
Damage vs Light: 110, up from 100
*Actual change with damage output: #12739 (comment)

Mobile Radar Jammer
Cost: $1100, up from $800
Custom build time: 22 seconds (default is 27 sec at $1100, 20 sec at $800)
Missile Jammer range: 5c, up from 4c
Radar Jammer range: 18c, up from 15c
Vision range: 7c, up from 6c
Cloak Detection range: 7c, up from 6c

Mobile Gap Generator
Custom build time: 24 seconds, down from 29 seconds

Destroyer (Stinger, StingerAA)
Missile range: 7c512, down from 9c
Missile tracking: 9c512, down from 10c819

Paradrop
Infantry drops with +1 Veterancy

---

Added values as of Frame Limiter's (Mar-Sep, 2016) playtests and GAP Experimental build playtesting.

YAK
Vision range: 11c, up from 10c

MiG
Vision range: 13c, up from 12c

---

• Added values as of OMnom's TechCostEdit (v3 - v4.4) and RA Experimental build v2.0.

Barracks/Tent
Health: 600HP, down from 800HP

---

• Added values as of OMnom's MCVEdit (v1-v4.0) and RA Experimental build v2.0.

MCV
Custom build time: 40 seconds, up from 32 seconds

---

Comment: With exception to the MRJ and MGG the changes above has consistently provided for better games over periods of time. Values added from post-release1019 has the benefit of being tested by multiple community members and are represented in this PR as a lower common denominator.

It is of the opinion of this author that balance changes beyond these are natured more high-risk-high-reward and/or could benefit of being layered upon the above with future playtesting.

With regards to the Paradrop veterancy the code doesn't follow any known coding standards regarding added traits and new units (E1R1, E3R1).

---

References:

GAP Experimental build: http://www.sleipnirstuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19843
RA Experimental build v2.0-v2.2: http://www.sleipnirstuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19886
OMnom's Playtest maps: http://www.sleipnirstuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19877
SoS Playtest maps v1.5: http://www.sleipnirstuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19944

[SoScared]

Conflicts slightly with #12737 (ballistics.yaml, missiles.yaml)

[kyrylo]

Good stuff. Exactly what we need. Well-tested and thorough changes! 👍

[Smittytron]

@SoScared I’ll rank my views from 100% on board to minor disagreements. Overall this is a good set of changes and as always thanks for the work you put into this and for putting up with our nitpicking.

100% On Board

Barracks/Tent HP reduction, MCV build time increase and +1 Paradrop:
Thanks for taking the testing of OMnom’s maps into account. I know it was late in the process and with different methodology; but between OMnom, Lorrydriver, km, Barf, Medium Tank and myself we had a large amount of high level games played with these values.

Flame Tower: As a general rule I don’t like to see static buffed just to balance it vs. other static. However it would be a heckuva lot more work to balance Allies and Soviets vs the base crawl using another method. I’m on board with this change.

Neutral:

Yak and Mig vision, tech center health, MGG build time reduction. These are probably fine. I don’t have much to add.

Destroyer: This game has boats?!

Nitpicking: (This is more thinking out loud than outright opposition)

Mobile Radar Jammer: This is already strong and used normally in games that reach T3. My main concern is the extra cell of vision and the extra cell of missile jamming. A soviet player could be in a lot of trouble if they don’t keep a Yak alive vs this.

Light Tank: I thought this was a bit too much damage in the testing I did. I know they seem worthless at times but I view the light tank sort of like the grenadier; a niche unit that works situationally. Currently the light tank is good with pressure openers and late game with mass chrono-crushes and raids as Germany. As I always say, there’s a huge difference between underused and unused.

[SoScared]

@kyrylo , @Smittytron , thanks for the comments.

[MRJ] is already strong and used normally in games that reach T3.

This claim took me off guard. I'm under the strong impression that MRJ's have little-to-no presence in the late game whatsoever. Certainly not normally. With exception to naval maps (coast guard protecting against destroyers) I've seen sporadic attempts at integrating the unit into the meta with various unit compositions but that's about it. Care to elaborate?

[Smittytron]

Maybe I’m using the term normally loosely, but I would say I see the MRJ more often than phase transports, Chrono tanks and of course the MGG. Off the top of my head I can think of games vs Barf, FiveAces and OMnom where MRJ’s were used effectively by myself or my opponent.

I will say that if I don’t build an MRJ in T3 play it’s more because I forgot to build the thing in the first place; I always want one in my composition as allies. A standard tank-led army can win the day with one in its current state. It’s a high micro unit that requires you to keep tanks in the four cell ‘safe zone’. And if one shows up against you it is a high priority target.

Then again I’m one of the few guys who likes to build Mammoths late game so you might want to gather some more opinions.

On a separate note, and I meant to add this to my original comment, getting T3 out in the first place is a concern right now. I reckon it's too late for the next release but I would like to see efforts to address this. I'm in favor of reducing build times of the radar dome and tech center, OMnom favors his tab edit, and others want to reduce build times for T3 units. Something to think about going ahead.

[SoScared]

Partially agreed on the point of T3 being the current focal point of RA's game balance testing. This is a personal preference but I regard T2 as being still immature in regards to a big chunk of it got exposed very recently with the map pool and competitive overhaul of 2016 and still has great growth potential. This will to a certain degree push back T3 development somewhat in that T2 will be slightly redefined by further tilting strength in favor of standard army play vs base play - placing additional risk on moving towards tech.

Parts of this PR are balance changes that slipped away in before the current release.

[pchote]

Looks fine overall, just one small nit:

[pchote]

Same here.

[pchote]

This leaves them buildable in the sidebar with cheats enabled. It would be better to use -Buildable here to indicate that they really aren't buildable at all.

[SoScared]

done

[abcdefg30]

That should be -Buildable:.

[SoScared]

done

[SoScared]

Copy/pasting part of a recent conversation between Fortnight and myself, also addressing @Smittytron on the Light Tank feedback. Because why not:

---

Fortnight wrote:

To me the Light Tank is actually in a pretty good place in 20161019. It dominates all other types of early vehicles with offensive capabilities (Ranger, APC, Mobile Flak) and it is produced quickly and travels fast.

I did a test with the new changes. In 20161019 it takes 3 Light Tanks to be able to win against 1 Medium Tank, after the buff it just takes 2 Light Tanks (one will survive with around 25% HP remaining). It might make sense that two tanks for 1400 credits should be able to beat one tank for 850 credits, however there's more to account for than attack power.

What worries me is that this Light Tank buff diminishes the purpose of Medium Tank. There's few things in RTS games that matter more than mobility, speed is such a huge factor and Light Tank is faster on all fronts (move speed, turn speed, turret rotation). And since damage is dealt in small chunks with short reload in between there's less overkill as well (less waste).

Combined with the shorter production time and lower price I can't see much reason for having slow Medium Tank armies after the buff when you can have larger (for the same cost) and much faster Light Tank armies that sweep around on the map, able to outrun any threat and chase down almost anything.

Those extra 5% againt heavy armor may not seem like much but going from 40 to 45 is a 12.5% buff and those 12.5 add up when you start having three or more Light Tanks in the mix. Harvesters already can't escape from Light Tanks, now they won't even have time to try and escape.

You also don't need a Service Depot to build Light Tanks, another reason why they should be much worse against heavy armor than Medium Tanks. Since more buildings is required before being allowed to build them (a Service Depot needs resources in credits, power and time) they should at least be useful on some front compared to what's already available from the War Factory.

Concerning the 10% buff vs Light Armor I don't think it's needed because in 20161019 a single Light Tank will destroy a V2 Rocket in about 6 seconds while a single Medium Tank takes 12 seconds to do the same. So Light Tank already has a purpose in taking down light armor very effectively.

Another thing Light Tank does better than Medium Tank is killing infantry, in 20161019 a Light Tank will kill Tanya (or any other infantry) roughly twice as fast as a Medium Tank. So not only do Light Tanks run over infantry easier due to their movement speed, they also do more damage when firing at them (and is able to change between targets quicker).

SoScared wrote:

As for the Light Tank buff I think I understand your concern but I don't share it. The Light Tank won't be able to replace the Medium Tanks mid-game as long as infantry/vehicle army compositions is a thing in RA and the way the map pool has been developing and is continuing to develop we're just going to see more of it after the next release. The abysmal armor HP of the Light Tank makes it relatively useless as a damage soaker compared to the Medium Tank. The damage output buff makes it stronger in wolf-packs yes but that requires you to sacrifice Harvester/Medium Tank/MCV production and so far no-one has successfully managed to take advantage spamming Light Tank/infantry vs conventional play in the past ca. 8 months the Light Tank buff has been part of playtests. The most apparent reason for this, assuming the Light Tank is utilized efficiently, is that the opponents just turtle for a few minutes while getting the extra expansion up or building up their Medium Tank army and just brawls through the map with very little resistance. Occasionally top tier players tried their best to base their strategy on Light Tank as the main army components taking advantage of the damage buff but it just wouldn't work. Notorious Light Tank users such as Gatekeeper also never managed to risk the meta with this Light Tank and that should count for something.

Buffing the Light Tank damage output seeks to help it hunt down light vehicles and finish off damaged harvesters and MCVs out on the field, extending its expiration date just a bit further into the mid game instead of being immediately squishysacked into a blob of infantry because of their inevitable uselessness. From mid-game and up the Light Tank fails to compete with production of Medium Tanks/MCVs/Artillery and various T3 vehicles.

Having said all that, there's noting 100% for certain in game balancing so at the end of the day we'll have to wait and see. As for the unit in relation to e.g. rebalanced strength of the rocket soldiers and whatnot that's an issue I'm sure to be discussed during the next release cycle

[reaperrr]

Keep in mind that our engine uses integers for damage calculations and always truncates decimals (4.8 becomes 4).

If I'm not mistaken, the dps vs. infantry will increase, for example, because 16 x 0.3 = 4.8 --> 4, while 27 x 0.3 = 8.1 --> 8, so damage vs. infantry per shot is actually doubled, resulting in about ~18% higher dps vs inf.

Make sure to take that into consideration when calculating verses values.

[SoScared]

That's pretty significant. The experience with the values have been gathered from play-testing alone so in that regard doesn't matter all that much except for the advertised numbers - I'll have to go through the vs numbers asap for information sake.

[reaperrr]

When testing balance changes in my own mods, I enable Debug Mode and toggle 'Show Combat Geometry' in the debug menu, since it displays the area of effect and actual damage dealt to any hit actor for each shot.

[SoScared]

All right so the actual change in 25mm damage output are:

vs None: +18,2%
vs Wood: -1,5%
vs Light: +7,1%
vs Heavy: +18,2%
vs Concrete: +18,2%

calculations: http://pastebin.com/1gCiuShM

The advertised value has previously been +10% vs Light and +12,5% vs Heavy while the factual value has been quite different all along, most noticeably vs Light +7% and vs Heavy +18% while +18% vs Concrete and None (infantry) is relatively inconsequential. Regardless the playtest experience mentioned in the OP didn't retroactively change with this revelation but the damage calculation is important info for any amateur yaml dweller when dealing with this in the future.

[SoScared]

When testing balance changes in my own mods, I enable Debug Mode and toggle 'Show Combat Geometry' in the debug menu, since it displays the area of effect and actual damage dealt to any hit actor for each shot.

That's super practical, thanks!

[abcdefg30]

Okay, let's try this for the next playtest.

[abcdefg30]

Changelog