Re: Balance? We dont need no stinkin balance!

[z3r0x]

I want to rant about balance for a minute. Game designers always focus on balance... which to me is NOT fun or realistic. Battles are not balanced.....  Thats where RTS's have always been lacking. The teams or units should be balanced.  Think about it for a second.. Think about Surprise attacks... Surprise attacks should degrade your opponents ability to fight. In balanced games.. surprise attacks mean mothing. In fact... tactics.. NEVER matter. Its always about Attrition.. More units=Win. Its like rock paper scissors. Well I'm sorry but that is annoying and not very fun at all. With that being said.. who here agrees with me that the Rebels really have alot of advantages... Lets go over them...

 

1. Plex Soldiers - These guys are a WAYYYY to powerful.

2. Infiltrator -    Again.. Way too powerful

3. Airspeeder -    Dont even get me started on how unfair this unit is...

4. Rebel Artillery-  Again.. way too powerful.. Not to mention annoying

5. Raids - Yeah, here we go again.. Rebels can raid... Imps cannot.

 

Now.. lets think for a moment. If we add this up we conclude the Rebel alliance is pretty powerful... but thats not real and its not true to the SW facts. The rebels were a ragtag group.. they had to rely on  tactics and logistics to win. Now thats fun... not this rock paper scissors crap. With that being said.. Im going to begin working on a mod that corrects all that...  Ill keep you all posted...

 

Any ideas.. to add to this let me know

[Darth Vader]

rebels were less powerful because of their limited number and lack of technology. But with the Mon Calamari cruisers and other allies, they are indeed powerful, and a whorty opponent for the empire. Yet, no nebulon B frigate can still stand a VSD, the only ships capable of annoying to the degree of insanity the Imps are the Mon Calamari, the Y-wing and the X-wing. otherwise, I think that units are well balanced, and they provide a challenge for both sides. And I don't think it's true that only bigger number wins, managing all your units is important, as are tactics... lure the enemy away then blast his base, for example, a surprise attack works in leaving you more vulnerable, because maybe you left your most powerful hero away,and the enemy reeks havoc on your base...

[Athanasios]

z3r0x, have you checked out mod, EaW: Total Realism?

 

Our main and foremost aim is balance, realism & strategy.

 

One big "bug" of the game is the small maps that limit (up to a point) the strategies that can be layed down, but i hope the map edittor will fix this.

[z3r0x]

I have to disagree with you Darth. If you have double the units... you will win. As far as Mon Cal cruisers go... they did not have a ton of em. The imperials were not a worthy force... they frustrated the Empire as they were small and agile.. and were able to hit and fade. Just like any guerilla movement... think Vietnam. The Empire was the big large Sword and the Alliance was a dagger...

[Mikan Cyclone]

It needs to be balanced REALISTICLY.  By that, i mean that the Empire should be powerhouses, and the Rebels should be wimps.  But they have a cause to fight for, it gives them moral and stronger leaders.  The Empire had fools for leaders, but who needs smarts when you have a Star Destroyer?

 

Whenever I play as the rebels, I can take down 2 ISD's with a level one space station and two Y-Wings.  Talk about unbalanced....

 

They didn't have many Mon Cal's because they were painstackingly hard to make, because every one of them was unique.  Even in the Yuuzhan Vong war it took them forever,and the enemy was breathing down their necks.

[z3r0x]

Agreed.... Now some may argue "Well in ROTJ" the rebels took out a SSD" Ya and that was on ACCIDENT. When I play as the rebels.. I just use Airspeeders and I can decimate the Imps.. The tow cable attack is Very annoying.. Look.. ESB is a perfect example... The imps landed some AT-AT's, AT-ST's and some snow troopers and the Rebels had to retreat. Thats the way it should be.. I mean the Rebels should have a hidden base somewhere and if the imps take it thats it... Thats why the Empire could not win. They could not locate the hidden rebel base. Think back to ANH and ESB.... Think about any guerilla movement.

[Athanasios]

Well, not that i want to show off, but the other time the *smart* AI attacked me with 3 ATATs (plus other forces)...with the modified files, the ATATs are as meant to be, unstopable. You got an airspeeder flying around you? Smash it with the AA headmounted lasers like a fly.

 

Luckily, i had some MPTL on the planet. No AV turrets could stop them, and i had to advance my shield so as to block even particles. I got inside it, and wait for the worse ( 4-5 MPTL that tried to stop the ATATs before they get too close had no good luck...).

 

Finally, i did win, but why? Simply because the AI is in no way like a human player. No player out there with basic knowledge (and with the modifications we've done) would:

a. Bring down 1 ATAT per time rather than landing them all 3 at once, wreacking havoc

b. Would fire at some minor T2Bs that do minor damage rather than entering the shield dome and taking out the 2 MPTLs firing from within!

 

Now, as for the raid function, it might not work since the AI doesn't have any script to use. Ill give it a look and confirm...

[Darthscharnhorst2]

For the most part I agree with your statements.  Rock beats scissors is about as basic as you can get when it comes to "tactics" and most rts games ignore real military maxims like flanking, Blitzing *not the same as a tank rush* etc.  I found RTW especially with the RTR mod to be the best example of real warfare on the tactical level.  

 

So what could be done through modding?

 

Land battles:

 

Sadly not much.  If you lose the paper beats rock mentality, there is nothing buy victory through overwhelming force left.  Unlike RTW, EAW's combat is squad based and is not a good representation Planetary invasions.  There are no unit formations, penalties for being out maneuvered or even a command structure.  

 

In EAW you plop down on a planet what is equivalent to a platoon, face another platoon in battle and then suddenly the planet is yours.  Always a battle of Endor, never like the climatic battle in episode two.  The only way to fix it is to do away with ground combat by abstracting it via Galactic Civ II or Rebellion.  Simply allow both sides to build "armies" and "planetary garrisons" but force them to auto resolve the land battles.  Make the armies hugely expensive with stats that would work in the auto resolve algorithm so that realistic outcomes result.  I know its a harsh messure, but I know I find myself dreading most of the land battles anyway since it is simply wash/rinse/repeat.

 

Invasion Armies should cost a lot of money and take a long time to build

 

Garrison's should be cheaper and take less time but not be loadable into space.  Perhaps you could make them a *building* ?

 

If you want to keep land battles in than I would suggest changing the scope of the conflict and creating *mixed* units.  For example, instead of building tanks and soliders have the player build "heavy and light" armies.  A Heavy imperial army could deploy with 3 AT-AT's 3 AT-ST's 12 storm trooper sqds and 4 speeders.  Shift the focus away from "kill the base" to open combat by making the maps bigger and increasing the pop limit.  

 

Space Battles:

 

Rework the unit stats from the ground up with Naval Combat in WWII as your model.  Capital ships in general should be very hard to destroy.  ISD and MON Cals' should have a tremendous amount of hit points, firepower and gun range and simply own every other cap ship.  Work the rest of the stats out from that point.  However they should be slow and if it is possible force the ISD or Mon Cal to get itself into a "broadside" postion on a target in order to unleash all its weaponry.  This provides real world tactical planning to come into play.  Suddenly they become vulnerable to hit and run tactics by the faster cruisers which can out maneuver them and they can be overwhelmed by a *large number of* bomber sqds if not supported by their own fighters or corvettes.  X-wings should be the bane of tiebomber simply because they are faster and pack quad lasers not because rock beats paper.  If a player is stupid enough to let a group of tie bombers get behind his X-wings than he should be rewarded with some dead x-wings.  

 

Fighters bombers and scouts should be spawned by both sides or none at all.  As soon a side jumps into orbit all fighters/bombers should be deployed.  I would make it so that an ISD spawns 3 fighter sqds, 2 bombers, and 1 scout.  

 

Increase the ship cap limit dramatically.

 

Do away with the stupid bonuses the player has to research every mission and make them plantarty bonuses or researchable on the galatic map and perminant.  

 

Capital ships need to cost a lot and take a  *long time* to build.  If the player can crank one out fast, no strategy comes into play as they are meaningless.  Once again look back at WWII naval combat for guidance.  A loss of a BB or especially a carrier could be devastating for a nation.

 

Spacemaps need to be bigger so fleets can play cat and mouse.

 

The fog of war needs to scaled back a little to allow long range combat between ships with senors to occur.  Not all ships should have sensors

 

Space stations need to be more expensive, only spawn fighters, and take a lot longer to build.  The focus on space combat should be fleet actions not starbase hunts.  

[DragonShadow]

z3r0x, have you checked out mod, EaW: Total Realism?

 

Our main and foremost aim is balance, realism & strategy.

 

One big "bug" of the game is the small maps that limit (up to a point) the strategies that can be layed down, but i hope the map edittor will fix this.

 

 

 

BALANCE IS NOT REALISTIC!!! You're supposed to use tactics to win, not have a counter and equivalent to every enemy unit!

[z3r0x]

Agreed... Look I love this guys WW2 example...  Lets use the Germans as examples... They had the Tiger tank which was pretty much invincible. The US Sherman tanks could not knock it out. They only way was to somehow blow the tracks and disable it.. and try to kill the crew.. OR a Direct hit in the rear at close range. I mean Michael Whittman the German Tiger Tank Ace decimated a whole armored Company with only himself and 3 Tigers. Thats the way battles are.... Sometimes you need to use your brain to get around somethings. Also.. One thing the Rebels should be able to do.. is Raid shipping lanes... and mess with the Imps Economy. Why this was never implemented is beyond me.. I mean.. this is really how a guerilla movement operates.. is attack the supply lines. I mean in Vietnam the US lost for a lot of reasons BUT a big one was we were fighting the wrong kind of war. We were trying to fight a WW2 type war.. and we could not adpapt to the hit and fade small unit tactics ovthe Viet Cong and the NVA... and when the NVA DID engage the US in a large scale battle. Like in the Tet Offensive. They got their little butts kicked. Another thing is the atsteroid fields... almost every damn space map has a asteroid field... that makes moving around even harder. That needs to be fixed also...

[Manic]

At some point, you have to trade off realism for fun. Especially when one guy has a rock, and the other a rocket launcher.

(personally, I have a strong hatred for the non-canon units.)

[Stellar_Magic]

Reality of Rebellion aims for a Realism above all else...

[z3r0x]

Well rebellion is a great game.. but I like EAW alot and there is a ton of potential here... I mean I wonder how hard it would be to script in a Raid Shipping lanes thing.. Also.. make it so Trade Routes actually bring credits to the planets they are linked too. I mean I love the Siphon credits thing with the smugglers... That was a GREAT ideas same with the Bounty Huners...and the killing of the command units also was a great idea. I love the idea of the rebels stealing techs.. BUT.. c'mon.. It should be harder ... I mean there should be a real battle involved.. Albeit a small one.. where they can raid Cargo ships carrying tech.. OR raid a specific facility.. like Bilbringi trying to get certain techs. Also.. Han and Chewie.. are bit annoying.. and hard to beat. Han with the EMP blast.. and chewie with the take over vehicles.. Vader kicks butt... However the guy is one of the baddest sith lords to ever exist and he can be damaged by a handful of rebel soldiers.. NO FREAKING WAY..  The jedi units should not even be able to get damaged by regualr infantry IMO. 

[Graf]

I'm with ya on this.  Things need to be harder and more unbalanced.

 

Perhaps add in a variability with some things.  Say Boba goes to Kashyyyk to eliminate a commander, he has a 40% chance of doing so due to heavy defences.  Or C3P0/R2D2 have a small chance of stealing technology from a planet and the type of technology stolen depends on the size of the planet and its defences.

 

Many things could have ben done better.  Seems they made this game for the very much younger crowd. 

[Mikan Cyclone]

Here's the deal:

 

People want realism over balance, and there are at least three realism mods out there, so I say, COMBINE THEM ALL AND GET IT DONE SO WE CAN END THIS ARGUMENT.  We all know how balanced this game is, (unbalanced is more like it, because the Rebels are retards) and people obciously want realism, so just join together and get things done quicker!

[z3r0x]

Well for one... the Imps need many many more ships... Rebels need MANY many more ships also.. lots of ragtag type ships.. not to mention stolen modifed imperial ships.. Thats another thing.. the Rebels should be able to steal Imperial ships from ship yards.. that should be the way they can only get certain types of ships..

 

My list of Imp ships that need to be added in...

 

Dreadnaught Cruiser

Lancer Frigate

Carrack Cruiser

Escort Carrier

Executor Class Super Star Destroyer

Skipray Blastboat

Torpedo Spheres

Strike-class Cruiser

Enforcer-class Picket Ship

Destructor-class Cruiser

Invader (to carry all the shuttles and drop ships)

TIE/st V38 "Phantom"

TIE Interceptor

TIE/tb Torpedo Bomber

 

Also.. the Empire should have MORE superweapons..

Galaxy Gun and maybe the Sun crusher

 

 

Rebel Units that need to be added...

Preybird

Dauntless Cruiser

Ferret-class Reconnaissance Vessel

Liberator Cruiser

Hajen-class Fleet Tender

CC-7700 Frigate

A-9 Vigilance Interceptor

B-51 B-Wing

T-Wing

R-41 Starchaser

Mynock-class Assault Boat

Skipray Blastboat

 

The nebulon B and other Imp should have to be stolen in order for the Rebels to use them...

[Foshjedi2004]

Isn't it a coincidence that you just wrote down much of the LoW Unit Lists.....

[Mikan Cyclone]

...O RLY?

 

I'm ashamed to say I don't know what most of those are.  TO WOOKIEPEDIA!! *batman screen transition*

[Athanasios]

BALANCE IS NOT REALISTIC!!! You're supposed to use tactics to win, not have a counter and equivalent to every enemy unit!

Heh, i guess i was misunderstood here, although the ATAT example meant to clear up some things... more precisely, personally, i am one of the RTS players that prefer Realism > Gameplay ("fun"), because realism for me is fun. That's why i liked some games like D-Day, where no freaking soldier with a machine gun would penetrate the armor of a Tiger I or II. Now, if you see EaW, it lacks in many ways at realism aspect; ATAT can be shot down by a bunch of regular troopers, trooper conflicts last 1-2 minutes (...), a T4B shot would only scratch a stormtrooper's armor colour and so on.

 

When i say "balancing" the game, i mean implementing imbalance (i guess this confused you) but not overpowering one faction so that the other has no chance of surviving. Balancing in factions means (for the developers): ATAT - T4B, M2 - T2B, Stormtroopers - Rebel troopers and so on. Scissor-rock-paper balance means (for developers): ATAT does 1 damage to T4B, T4B does 1 damage to ATAT. M2 does 1 damage to T2B, T2B does 1 damage to M2 and so on (see gameconstants.xml). Obviously, there are two aspects of balance as mentioned.

 

Now, for me, faction balancing means: ATAT - 3 T4Bs and with their "power to weapons" ability activated as long as it lasts (5 secs all in all...), T2B - 2.5 TIE Crawler and so on. For scissors-rock-paper balance, this means that ATAT has enough firepower to be unstopable if you don't attack it wisely, MPTL too but has too be protected and so on.

 

Thus, in strict "vocabulary" term, this is "imbalance" for some people, yet, realistic.

 

As for the variety of units, indeed, we would need way more units, especially in space......looking forward to grand-scale modifications  :

 

PS: Luckily, games such as Medieval II are in process

[Mr.Caine]

              So far ive been combing and making my own mod of realism. Currently the empire has the brute force. I increased the atat size and made them literally almost invincable. Only Air Speeders and Turbo lasers can take them out. But even then its a strech cause there range is extreme. I changed the empire artillary i was thinking of the heavy version of the model seen in The battle of geonoisis. Their ranged is far greater. They make quick work of infantry and light tanks. Sometimes building. ATSTs eat infantry for breakfast and take no real damage from them. PLEX troops do a good job against em. But then again they'll get slaughtered in a frontal assault.

 

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a105/333Super/Nightbarrage.jpg

 

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a105/333Super/Deploying.jpg

 

Empire gets access to marader and neboun b frigate. They no longer fire rockets but instead use blaster cannons. They are fast and manuvarable. (sp), the ventor is aviable also. I'm thinking on giving the rebels pirate craft. Some transports the rebels use are imperial hence stealing. I wish i could reskin a imperail craft and put the rebel insignia on it and add it as a new unit. Ships have been rescaled and are much more powerful. Fighters are almost unseeable.

 

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a105/333Super/Newmarader.jpg

 

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a105/333Super/shiptoship.jpg

 

Also adds space units on ground battles. TIEs are excellent for air support but are weak to enemy AA fire and turbo lasers.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a105/333Super/AirSupport.jpg

 

 

I was trying to aim for epic battles. http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a105/333Super/Boomtime.jpg

 

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a105/333Super/nien.jpg

 

T4B are excellent anti infrantry, and anti tank. Given there speed they are easy prey for air targets. And ATAT make short work of them. There are extremly expensive and time consuming. But it'll all pay off once on the battlefield.

TIE maulers also updated they are larger, a bit slower but they have a amazing rapid fire mode. They eat infantry for lunch. I made T2B tanks more of anti infantry role.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a105/333Super/Artysavesthedayagain.jpg

[Ashram Darkstar]

 

Do away with the stupid bonuses the player has to research every mission and make them planetary bonuses or researchable on the galactic map and permanent.  

 

 

I have started experimenting with the permanent planetary bonuses assigned in PLANETS.XML.  It is possible to assign these other bonuses (look in UPGRADEOBJECTS.XML) to specific planets.  You can even assign more than one permanent bonus to any given planet if you wish.

[Mr.Caine]

but i got a problem from that other guys mod. Whenever i select the elite stormtroopers the game crashes. i think his lines werent just in the groundcompaines and groundinfantry. BTW is there a limit to the use of hardpoints? I wanna add more turrents on the captail ships.

[Foshjedi2004]

You'd need to edit the bones of the ships which for the moment we cannot.

[DragonShadow]

You'd need to edit the bones of the ships which for the moment we cannot.

 

Yeah. I tried hexing a bone into the Death Star. Didn't crash the game though, the Death Star just disappeared when I put into a battle.

[Ashram Darkstar]

BTW is there a limit to the use of hardpoints? I wanna add more turrents on the captail ships.

 

Well you can add more fake/non-destroyable hardpoints to a ship.  You just duplicate the hardpoint on the capital ship you want to add more firepower to (you're just reusing the existing hardpoints for the model), give it a new name, make sure to set the extra hardpoint as non-targetable & non-destroyable, adjust the weapon data as needed, and add the new hardpoints to the hardpoint list of the ship.  Ships/stations can put a much larger volume of fire out using this method.

 

There isn't an upper limit I'm aware of using this method, but it will affect the performance of the game with all the additional lasers/missiles/torpedos flying around on screen.  Doing this requires you to tweak the other value settings for the ships and stations if you don't want everything on screen dying even faster than normal though.  I personally increased ships/stations hull & hardpoint health and shield values to make my battles last longer while enjoying the additional fireworks. 

 

At least one of the existing available realism mods already uses this method.  I don't remember which one though as I've downloaded and merged together parts of several mods for my own personal use.