SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Discussion of all aspects of multiplayer development: unit balancing, map development, server development, and so forth.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Locked
Lastmerlin
Posts: 45
Joined: September 25th, 2007, 5:37 pm

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by Lastmerlin »

Ah ok +40% resist is ok imo, and +50% for bosses too. I thought that enemies can reach 100% everywhere when you fight to slow. As I play rather slow and like to discover everything, get each treasure, kill each guarding, I didnt like that ;)

What about the movement - you should allow at least 30 for FM.

Last question - can I download the new version, reload a savegame from <turn 120 and go on from there to avoid the bug ? I dont know how much about the map is stored in the savegame and what will be reloaded from the map file.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by Mabuse »

im afraid thats impossible :(

in a save game the whole game will be stored, the new data is completely independent from this. i can only apologize and say that in the new Map things will be better.

maybe i wil get even inspired a bit by clonkinators new creep diffculty and raise creep development curve a bit. (just a slightest bit of course ;))

but i may also do that just by setting a higher starting value for the difficulties ;)
hmm, but im uncertain about this, make them grow a bit faster is also nice, lets see
it could be a slight touch harder
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
MCP
Posts: 518
Joined: May 23rd, 2005, 5:23 pm
Location: California

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by MCP »

Mabuse you already have a great setup because you design fundamentally sound enemies. Tweak it if you want, but your maps are well above other maps in that, when it gets more difficult, it usually is more fun(up to the point that Mad mode is literally frustrating). Since you enemies are so varied and interesting, just giving them influxes of gold once in a while would be similar to spawning a mobile boss.

I'd much prefer more mobile bosses (as you suggested) or influxes of gold (mass wave of enemies). Makes things more frantic, if that is possible for a turn based strategy ;p.

ps I saw your maps before you took them down. I have stolen them, employed an office full of code monkeys, and will have a release by tomorrow ;p, Microsoft style.

@Last merlin: Mabuse's bug directly correlates to an efficiency problem in the battle calculations where very high damage will greatly slow down the attack calculations because of the matrix sizes. Zeus improved this, but as far as I know he never got around to submitting his changes. This includes calculating berserk/rage properly when drain is involved, calculates properly if your current HP is greater than your max hp, amongst some other bugs we all knew about.
Of course when any of the two of these three are too large, the matrices get too big:
#strikes
Max Hp/Current HP
damage
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by Mabuse »

true what you said about the difficulty (its besically ok), well as mentioned, it may be only a slight change wich may take affect only later in the game (there more harder enemies make come 5 turns earlier or somehting, nothing big), so lets say if diff rises by 1.1 per turn instead of 1.0 you will have the aditional 10.0 for another diffciculty level at turn 100 :lol2:
- so maybe i will raise the enemy progression to 1.2 (20%), that is 2 turns faster every 10 turns. you may not really notice this, but it may make late game more interesting.

and of course i will think about bosses and stuff, i wil keep players on their toes, also i plan to spawn different bosses over the time (not always the same) to give the players a challenge and confront them with different situations and challenges

well lets see about that
MCP wrote: ps I saw your maps before you took them down. I have stolen them, employed an office full of code monkeys, and will have a release by tomorrow ;p, Microsoft style.
hehe, i dont care. the main thing i took em down again, was because i dont want to spoil too much :)
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
Lastmerlin
Posts: 45
Joined: September 25th, 2007, 5:37 pm

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by Lastmerlin »

Btw - is it a good idea to let the bosses alive until you have explored the complete map and then beat the strongest first ? I always do so, because this was the weaker bosses continue spawning creeps that give money.

For difficulty: Dont overextend it. I think xtreme is already really hard and mad mode ist usually frustrating. In fact at 80% of all online games are lost quite fast. Have in mind when playtesting, that you know which enemies will come and how the map looks like, the player wont know.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by Mabuse »

Lastmerlin wrote:Btw - is it a good idea to let the bosses alive until you have explored the complete map and then beat the strongest first ? I always do so, because this was the weaker bosses continue spawning creeps that give money.
good question.
in fact that also relates to the gameplay question.
BUT i must say immediatly that the number of gold each side gets (and therefore number of creeps) is independent from the total number of leaders (so having more leaders dont mean there are more creeps). still the creeps wil be a bit more scattered.

but allowing a non linear approach raises that kind of question, ok you can make the gameplay a bit more linear by making certain enemies stronger than others -

however, its true that once you have a certain strengh, certain areas filled with "low levlel" enemies make no real sense anymore, including weaker leaders.

weak leaders/bosses simply suck, so i have to think something about that, already existing maps wont change (well, in the end, beside all critique that can be made, i think they are ok, for what they are), but be sure that i will put some thoughts into the gameplay on the new map.

i essene if you kill the "head leader" of a certain side, there is no need to run across the whole map back and kill the other little bosses/leaders also, it just artificially lenghtens the gameplay for no reason.

i may give other good reason to kill the minor leaders though, it may be that they possess a mighty artifact, give goild (well usually they do), guard a shop, or you simply have to kill them in order to open a passage to be able to continue

another point here
.. concerning the creeps and the steeper "creep difficulty curve" .. yes that was the whole point of making enemy creep difficutly progression a bit quicker. it wont change anything about the bosses, but you maybe dont see the creeps as pure money givers, instead the money givers may be a little bit more dangerous ;), so you really want to get rid of a faction.
yu can even do this by giving a supposed to be early killed leader/side kind of creeps that get really nasty in later game, so you really want to get rid of that side as fast as possible.

.. or as long certain leaders alive they spawn also bosses.
but here theres also a balance question

however, as soon you kill head leader of a side, other leaders wil also be "destroyed" (or at least they lose their leader status) since this makes kinda sense.

so thoughts are made here, the question is only what will be realized practically. :lol2:
'nuff said
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
Lastmerlin
Posts: 45
Joined: September 25th, 2007, 5:37 pm

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by Lastmerlin »

When the gold one side gets is independent from number of factions that have leaders then you should not kill the leaders (especially not the last leader of one faction).
Easy example: 4 enemy sides, each side has only one leader - if you kill 3/4 leaders you will get only 25% of the gold because there is only one side left that can recruit. The other 3 factions may get gold too, but they cant use it.
This calculation has nothing to do with creep difficulty - I'd always prefer more creeps, even if they are nasty, over getting so much less income because the latter will always kill you in the long run. The more you increase creeps strength the more the player will need the money and cant afford to kill the leaders. If you are really to weak to deal with this enemies you have lost anyway.

I dont like letting these leaders alive: I like to clear an area completely, its realy annoying when already conquered places are always filled with such creeps and you get attacked from the back permanently. Unfortunately its the best strategy. I dont think you can fix this by placing more gold ore an artifact below the leaders, because the creeps will still nearly always more valuable.

My proposal is: When one side has lost all leaders its should not get gold anymore and the others should get more income, so that the money that is spent into creeps stays constant. Then you could completely wipe out one side without losing income. I'd kill those berserker-spawners first :twisted:

If you want to make creeps more interesting you could implement some rushes (enemy spawns much more for a short time) or make 10% of the creeps ~30% stronger than normal.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by Mabuse »

Lastmerlin wrote: My proposal is: When one side has lost all leaders its should not get gold anymore and the others should get more income, so that the money that is spent into creeps stays constant. Then you could completely wipe out one side without losing income. I'd kill those berserker-spawners first :twisted:

If you want to make creeps more interesting you could implement some rushes (enemy spawns much more for a short time) or make 10% of the creeps ~30% stronger than normal.
interesting.
btw, its not important if a side that has no leader gets still gold or not, i still could increase other sites income independent from that. but i get what you wanted to say. keep the amount of creeps in game constant to provide gold flow.

btw, thats an interesting point, in terms of gameplay mechanics it makes absoutely sense, from scn-logic standpoint it makes no sense at all :D
so thats no option for me. :eng:


so i need to figure out a way to compensate this loss.
there is already an income bonus in case an enemy side has no more leaders, the amount of the income is defined by the "difficulty of the leader" but it is currently almost annihilated by a stupid factor on higher difficulty levels

i just made a quick calculation, for example on FM Side 6 starts with 32 gold income, its highest icome is reached with turn 120 with 98 gold. i just make a flat number out of these and say side 6 (ai 1) gets 65 gold in average per turn (in fact its lower since the gold doesent increase linear, but thats taken as a bonus) - now we assume a lvl2 unit costs 40 gold (well, some are cheaper, but thats compensated already by the bonus from the average income per turn, and most importantly the average is calculated for turn 120, so if you kill a side earlier (which is likely) the assumed average is significantly higher anyway, so we can be generous with the assumed unit costs either ;) - on Xtreme a lvl 2 units provides 8 gold for an player if killed. for 65 gold we get 1.625 lvl 2 units - multiplied with 8 an appropirate income bonus (per turn, with out being molested would be 13 gold ... for side 6)
for the other sides is higher.

of course having creeps in back is dangerous and all, so i would cut it down again to 10 gold per turn cash on hand ;) for side 6.. without hassling with high hp grunts for example, and even better: if yoou kil a leader significantly before turn 120, you'd make surely a big win. (not to forget the 100 gold chest on a leader) all multiplicators for difficulty level are also going to be cut out (these are already taken into account by calculation what a lvl2 woudl provide)

after my calc you would get on xtreme (generously rounded down, also to compensate that leaders usually die before round 120 ;)):
if side 6 is dead: 10 gold
side 7 dead: 20 gold
side 8 dead: 30 gold
side 9 dead : 40 gold (+win)

so since side 9 would die last anyway you'd get for annihilating p6,7,8 - 60 gold per turn for free ;)

so after all i guess i will take this way to give players an income bonus provided at begin of every turn if they keep a certain side without leader.

slightly raising the creep difficulty progression will also encourage to get rid of the creeps and get instead a free income bonus - i think this is a solution for this "logic failure"

but thx for pointing that out.

you should be [censored] be interested to kill the [censored] leaders ASAP and not exploit them making creeps - lol :D
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by Mabuse »

ah btw, system already implemented as well the higher creep diffculty advancement

btw, there a slight twist overall:
as i thought about especially the seemingly large bonus for killing player 3+4, i just thought its possbly better not to reward killing player 3+4 ;)

getting for example 60 gold per turn could easily ruin late game, since after killing player3 the players gain so much gold just for sitting on their asses

so in the end only killing the minor leaders early is rewarded with a bonus, ye earlier ye higher the gain in long run. btw, if it interests you: both p6 and 7 reach their "average" out of 120 turns around turn 100 ;), so killing them early brings you a big fat bonus in any case. 30 gold per start of each turn is a free chest each round. (10 gold for p6, 20 gold for p7)

btw, after i thought that p6 may also train many lvl1 units which provide more gold i granted for all diffs (except mad) another 10 gold for p6 killing bonus.

so on extreme you get +20 gold per round for killing p6, +20 gold for killing p7 for a total of +40 per round bonus. (on mad its 30 total)

highest bonus (as usual) is on simple diff with +30 gold for p6, +50 gold for p7 for a total of +80 per round. (which is a lame diff anyway ;), everything below hard is for whimps)


however, creeps diff progression is raised by now raised by 30%, which means on MAD yu can exspect serious mofos around turn turn 80 (well they are spawned at 76 ;)), and around turn 95 the fun really starts

on XTREME its only slighly delayed

so kill p6 and p7 early to get some easy chash, time is working for the creep empire :twisted:
and thus i dont really care if you kill p8 or p9, if not you will lose, that easy.

i add now a few more difficulty stages for the creeps and there we go, ready for testing
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by Mabuse »

more thoughts:
--------------


btw, the BIG downfall of this system is that the "stat explosion" will be accelerated.
players gain more cash = higher stats

creeps get higher stats more early

ok, we may say the creep stat explosion-thingy is ok, since BOSSES have anyway higher stats

but if the players gain more cash more quickly then in the games i played so far (and these were kinda balanced "player/boss"-wise), there could be a balance disturbance as a result

so with player/boss balance in mind i guess i will cut down the p6/p7 killing bonus a bit, again
(taking +10 away from the p6 bonus, as p7 will usually last longer and thus wont have much effect ... hm - or better only -5 on xtreme, hard, normal, easy, and simple, else players may have the silly idea that let them live is a good idea :D)

anyway, some testing on that is required - i think i will test the new system on evil dead. xtreme
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
Lastmerlin
Posts: 45
Joined: September 25th, 2007, 5:37 pm

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by Lastmerlin »

First thing: please try to write calculations a bit easier to read. You like to write sentences with several nested brakets, commata, etc. Thats makes it not easy to read as non-native speaker. Just an example:
i just made a quick calculation, for example on FM Side 6 starts with 32 gold income, its highest icome is reached with turn 120 with 98 gold. i just make a flat number out of these and say side 6 (ai 1) gets 65 gold in average per turn (in fact its lower since the gold doesent increase linear, but thats taken as a bonus) - now we assume a lvl2 unit costs 40 gold (well, some are cheaper, but thats compensated already by the bonus from the average income per turn, and most importantly the average is calculated for turn 120, so if you kill a side earlier (which is likely) the assumed average is significantly higher anyway, so we can be generous with the assumed unit costs either ;) - on Xtreme a lvl 2 units provides 8 gold for an player if killed. for 65 gold we get 1.625 lvl 2 units - multiplied with 8 an appropirate income bonus (per turn, with out being molested would be 13 gold ... for side 6)
for the other sides is higher.
I see you dont like the idea of letting the remaining bosses spawn additional creeps to compensate the killed side (btw - whats scn-logic ? ).
Giving the gold directly to the player is an option, but as you noticed yourself this has drawbacks too ;) . Getting gold for doing nothing (in lategame this will be the main income) doesnt sound very good.
If you assume, that all enemy gold is transformed into player gold with a certain faktor (approx 0.2) then this system could be made incomewise perfectly equivalent. Your current calculations shows a heavy advantage for killing the bosses early because you have approximated and rounded and usually favored the players.
If you want to follow this system, why not make it exact ? If an Enemy gets G gold but cannot use it, give 0.2*G gold to the player instead. Factor 0.2 is calculated this way: G Gold make G/40 lvl2 creeps, make 8*G/40 = 0.2*G for the player when killed. This way, you have a system that is equivalent to the strategy *let the leaders alive*. This way you also get rid of the stat explosion.

Btw: Giving the gold for free still seems odd - perhaps you could spawn moderately strong semibosses that carry the gold or something like that.

Another think that always bugged me - when playing online you always have one or two stupid players that buy 10 different weapons and 20 mp and then suicide against the first guard ;)
In this case the creeps get _a lot_ stronger, making the game nearly unbeatable on higher difficulties. I have heard that this is done avoid the abuse that some players get killed immediately and give their 800 starting gold to others. In theory a good idea, in practice you should check how much money the killed player actually dropped and how much it is compared to the money spent by the other players (in turn 80 800 gold isnt that much as in turn 1). This is why I now play the survivals alone (beside game length), online the game nearly always gets spoiled by such idiots.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by Mabuse »

hm hm hm.
yes, theres stuff to think about.

about what you suggested, like an increasing reward for kiling sides which calculates from the actual income: sure, would be something to think about -
but in general you must know that 40/gold for lvl 2 is already very high assumed.

a lvl2 grunt costs 26, a lvl 2 skirmisher cost 30, a lvl 2 augur cost 27, a lvl 2 mage cost 40 .... so in general the system is a bit blurry, and it always be blurry.

you can say that the critical ceiling for the "average" is not around turn 100, instead its something around turn 60 ;) (assuming a cost of 30 per lvl 2)

so killing side6+7 would translate into a significant amount of gold, right, but the players would also gain gold from killing creeps over time

i think the income bonus as it is ok, there is no bonus for killing p8 and p9 anyway, which are usually mean and strong Leaders ;). its a good alternative to let bosses live to produce creeps.

------------------------------------------------------------------

the thing with the increasing creep difficulty:
well, im about to reject that idea again. maybe increase is 10%, but it may be as well cut down to 0% since it makes no sense anyway to increase stats to compensate somthing.
or i give it a slight increase right at start

instead i will cut players income for killing creeps by 20% ;). this seems better for me overall.
and will even encourage players to kill sides 6+7 more quickly, stat development is reduced a little (well, its really only a little i speak of -1 gold per creep on mad and extreme ;)), gold from chests will be very valueful, in general killing a leader which leaves 100 gold chest will be a good thing, and if it is the last leader of a side you get a good bonus per round.

less income make players stats a bit weaker in comparison to creeps so effect is same, of course problem may be to deal with bosses now

----------------------------------------

i will overthink all the values and changes again. primary goal is,

1) to encourage players to KILL the low sides asap,

2) increase overall creep difficulty slightly,

3) reduce stat explosion a bit -

4) while keeping the overall balance (players/bosses) as it is

(well, a slight increase would be also ok, but it should not change from "challenge" to "freaking impossible"). well, mad mode will be and should be freaking hard. if the game offers me a the game developer (which knows the level in its last detail) a crispy challenge then mad is just about right


----------------------------------------------------

about the increasing difficulty when a player dies:
yes, its important that nobody dies. at least on mad

to get really something done ONLINE you need a really, really really good Team.
FM on MAD is maybe just too hard even for a very good Team, because someone may have a bad day or make a mistake, and its important the whole team follows a strategy.
i had most fun on FM with me playing 4 or 3 chars + 1/2 other :lol2:

becaseu yoou really need n FM units for special pupposes and its important that they go there (east/west) where they are needed, also FM leaves no room at all for [censored] chars

excpet you just want to mess around abit, but if you really wnat to get somthing done, you have to play with very expierienced payers.

and well, even i died early sometimes, bad rng and careless play = dead


so i recommend to play, lets say HARD Mode online, of course the danger may be that its all too easy then :p



anyway, i think about that, thx for your comments

ah, and "undead-status" (cursed amulett) and "skirmisher" (cloak of invisibility) wil be added also
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
MCP
Posts: 518
Joined: May 23rd, 2005, 5:23 pm
Location: California

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by MCP »

Good to see you back in action, thinking hard Mabuse.

Look forward to your future work.
I'm working so hard right now but maybe later I will have more free time ;p.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by Mabuse »

btw, after more thoughts :P

i have come to a conclusion:
the balance as it is, is ok for now

i dont know how letting the leader live affects balance, but its definately possible to win the game by killing them :lol2:

so i could now add boni for killing the bosses and make income less for creepkills and whatnot, but that all would affect balance in a way i cannot fully estimate. and ther balance is quite fragile ;)
givin' less income is definately not very good, since mad is already hard, and making it less would be very bad.

i decided to give a very low, flat bonus for killing side 6 and/or side 7 - 5 gold per side per turn (so max 10 gold per turn), its flat, so difficulty independent. i just remembered why simple diff, (or easy, or normal) is so lame: becasue they get upgrades in many, many things which add up and have an exponentinally effect, so giving a higher bonus on simple makes it of course even more easier and has more effect on balance than it already has on mad. so its just a flat bonus

also creep diffciluty progresion is raised by 10%. that means, the creeps which would occur at turn 50, now come on turn 45, creeps of turn 100 now come on turn 91. all the other diffs between also slightly earlier of course.

this will make gameplay bit more interesting, i could have also added a flat 5 turns to the start, but i think thats better

so finally no big changes overall :P
i would say game got a bit easier becasue of the small bonus you get for killing sides 6+7, in the end the 100 gold chest and this little bonus are maybe an advantage of being possibly overrun by behind, additionally you have to heal in shops for 20 gold if you fight and such.

but this may be still subject to be revisited, maybe i come back to the idea to reduce income very slightly (maybe only for lvl 3 creeps, so only effect in later game)


EDIT:
btw, new items are added (cursed ring = status undead/cloak of invisibility = skirmisher), more ideas/suggestions welcome and appreaciated

hehe, i could now list up the special abilities some enemies wil have, or the enemies in detail, but that will be done on release.
no spoil.

i can only say that you will be in serious trouble
(and abilites can really make combat a lot more interesting, opening or leaving weaknesses and such, so players must think how to kill certain nits -

of course some abilities simply make units a lot more powerful, or simply scary



Again. Stop double posting.
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
Lastmerlin
Posts: 45
Joined: September 25th, 2007, 5:37 pm

Re: SurvivalXtreme: Version C.01!

Post by Lastmerlin »

hmm ok more proposals for items (ok you have to think of cool names yourself :P ):
- fearless trait: Usually you try to advance at each time of day, always waiting for preferable tod is not a good idea in SX. This helps lawful and chaotic characters to do so
- you get 5 moves back after attacking : Very often a cool killing streak suddenly stops because you needed one more move to reach the next enemy ;) Here you get it. This is not only useful for offense, but also for defense. I noticed that ranges character have a _very_ hard time on your new maps because there are lots of >12 mp berserkers around. If you run into a crowd of creeps that contains such berserker with a ranged hero you either have to kill them all or find a place to retreat out of their ranged. Both is often impossible. Getting 5 or even 6 moves back after attacking should make this much easier.
- extra mp: As you have capped the number of mp that can be bougth I think an items that further buffs mp is quite useful :)
- swimming: less useful than flying but still nice to have ;)
- green potion: (works same as red and blue): Gives you 12 mp back. I often used the blue potions rather for fleeing than for attacking. Thats not their main purpose, right ? Then you could make a separate *get out of this* - potion.
Locked