3.3.0 unofficial Rebalance patch (mod)

[Zweistein000]

posted on December 9th, 2012, 12:32 pm

Last edited by Zweistein000 on December 26th, 2012, 11:10 am, edited 27 times in total.

So I have been thinking about a general rebalance mod since we are probably looking at 6+ months (correct me is I'm wrong) before the new patch hits. I'm wiling to do some rebalancing on my limited free time but I'll need input form veteran players mostly, on what needs changing. I will also need a way to mass edit ODF's (I've already PMed Dominos about that).

So my ideas about the mod are the following:
-Induce variability (strategic and unit)
-Make every unit useful (and some less useful, but not useless)
-Make late-game units not suicide (but still lengthy process to tech to and hard to rush them)

What will I need:
- Ideas on what needs changing
- People willing to play and test it. I would like people, who have played a lot and have experience in all races, not just feds, like me)
- Time: I'm a Chemistry student freshman, who is repeating the year because I failed math. Because I am repeating there are times when I have more free time and times when I have almost no time at all (basically the next week and a half will be that, math colloquium is coming).
-Approval form the devs. I'm not gonna create a mod if Dev's don't agree or if by some bizarre reason the patch is less then 2 months away.

Where will this mod be found:
- my dropbox
- FO teamspeak server under up/downloads

HOW TO INSTAL:

Just extract the files into fleetops/data folder. DON'T FORGET TO BACK UP. I recommend backing up the entire game folder.

---

Changelog (this will be updated and will become more accurate as the mod comes to fruition):

KEY:

-Bold changes are done
-Underlined changes are done, but not in current release
-Regular changes are planned
-Striked changes are cancelled and will be removed next time the changelong is updated


BORG:

- Going opti- assims shouldn't meant instawin against feds.

* Make early expands a viable option vs early aggression. Possibly by increasing the cost of probes and scubes/dodes

I would give the Command cube if I could.

FEDERATION:

- Warp -ins: Build time now 180 Sec from 140. Cost now 900 from 800 dilithium and 450 form 400 tritanium, recharge time now 5 min from 4,1 min.
-Descent: All stats increased by 15%, shield reset recharge time reduced 50%, reduced supply cost for shield reset by 10
-Teutoburg: Replaced one of the photon torpedo launchers with quantum torpedos (the mechanic of it stayed the same, this was just a cosmetic change). Overall DPS increased my 25%. As Teutoburg gains levels in now fires additional volleys as primary, artillery ranged attack, but still fires only 2 torpedoes over short range.
- Sensor nebula: Is getting tachyon ping while sensor suite is active
- Centaur: It's ability will now target all kids of enemy and allied pratforms (excluding perimeters and starbases).
-Rigel Nebuls will now quickly deploys empty platforms for 2x regular cost + 20 supplies(200 dil,100 tri, 20 supplies). When reaching Elite rank it will deploy Maysons platfrom.
-Teutoburg now costs 2 warp-in slots, but has 2 Steamrunners escorts. Welcome back old champ. Speed of Steamrunners reduced to match the teutoburg
- Canaveral Build time reduced to 79 form 95. All stats increased by 25%

-Saber: Covering fire now affects Sabres, Monsoons, Intrepids, Novas, Norways, Canaverals, Centaurs, Excelsiors (mk.1), Rhodeislands and Defiants.

-Remoore: Build time reduced by 10s and pint-defense reworked. It is now short range and cost has been reduced by 50% but it now has a 25% hit chance (the phaser sprite will not show if it misses), also all of it's weapons are now burst oriented (torpedo volleys, type XV phaser), but have maintained their DPS (much longer recharge times).

-Norway: is getting plasma coil removed (it doesn't feel very feddy). It's getting 50% reduced auto-repair instead. While in assault mode hull repair and shield recharge bonus are gone, but it now gets centaur stile photon torpedo bursts.

- Tier 3 ships: Make these not suicide, I'll probably buff them but not decrease the build time or make them cheaper.

- Exchanged the build times of Sovereign and Defiant. Sovereign now takes 133 sec to build form 115 and defiant now takes 115 form 133.

KLINGON:

- K'T'Inga: Popping freighters now costs 5 supply, but if k't'inga kills something when under the effect it will now immediately rank up and grant 6.2 supply, then grant normal (3.2) supply when ranking up further. If it doesn't kill or you build it from K'BeajQ Yard it will not grant supply on rank-up. Additionally you can now build K'T'Inga's from a K'BeajQ yard for 90% cost and 90% build time.


- Tier 3 ships need to be viable. You NEVER see Neg'Vars, BortasQ or Dirsuptor battleships unless trolling.

- B'rells now have a tractor beam that will enable them to drag disabled enemy ships. I just need to find a way to disable them at the same time this ability is used.

* Make Sangs not form a deathball. If possible: increase scaling a bit.

ROMULAN

-Leahvals: Remove auto-repair. It will be getting modified plasma coil. Leahvals gain 150% shield regen while under the effect of Energy reeling and plasma coil get's an additional effect . Metapasmic disruptor bonus might be changed or altered.

- Phase plates: need to be adjusted so they are sill viable, but don't make ships nearly invaluable.

- Warbirds: Should be viable against skilled opponents also, not just noobs like me. Thinking of increasing stats slightly and reducing build time/cost slightly.

- Generix singularity refit: make it not require tal shiar.

- refits: They are rarely seen as they are specialists. I will see how the changes to leahval affect them, but I'm thinking of a cost decrease since it's quite hard to get them.

- What I'm seeing is that they have 2 generalists, several short and medium range counters, and a single (2 if Mijual) high tier anti long-range counter. Maybe I'll do something about it.

- The D'Deridex class warbird is probably getting a buffed plasma coil, but is losing it's stealth field. Still not sure how will i buff plasma coil.
- Serkas: Flight speed of the torpedo is increased (x2 for normal attack, x3 for silent resolve).

DOMINION:

- All prototypes need to build quicker and be cheaper, to make 1 unit spam less viable, but a loss on a prototype should still be devastating.

- Bugs: Need to become a FO zergling. A cheap units, only viable in large numbers, cheap and fast to produce, good when you are rebuilding a prototype. I'll remove ADAI, make their weapons less stronger and make them more squishy. Their cost and build time will go down. Basically it should take 3 of these to kill a B'rell (assuming they find it decloaked). And 2 to kill a Sabre.

*Nerf to s2. Need to be less spammable. i'll increase the build time and resources slightly.

- Breen: Needs to be viable. I'll probably change them a bit so they don't need a prototype, but will require a special tech path - they are not a standard part of the dominion. I will also give them the ability to fire on cloaking ships, like some klingons can so Breen gets cloak detect.

- Lategame ships: This is a hard nut to crack. Yesterday I played a game where our team had 2 dominion. They went early game ship spam like usual and our team went for normal tech-up. Your team lost because they were out produced. This would imply that dominion lategame needs buffing ad ell, but I have seen games, mostly with Zebh (sry I get you 2 mixed up ) where once recahing late game his fleet became os powerful he could basically win a 1v4 at that point. I need more input here.

- since they need a lot of ships and resources to keep rolling I'm gonna make expanding for them a bit easier. Probably a 50% reduced build time and resource cost on structures and miners (excluding supplies).


OTHER CHANGES:

- I'll rework mix-tech so it becomes both an alternative to your original tech tree or and add-on to it (you can go and get all the goodies, but not get your prime research tree or just take it as an add-on. Taking both should mean a lot of time and resources, and hard teching both SHOULD be suicide). (A full rework is low priority, but I will make mix-tech ships behave somewhat similar to the races they are mixed with. Example: Romulan mixed ships will get Romulan stile burst when entering combat , but their ROF will fall as the fight progresses ).

-Possibly new avatars if it is agreed on by the community and dev team. (this is still a big maybe, bigger than mixtech rework)

THE PLAN:

1. Rebalance the races
2. I'll make an alpha release after I'm done with each specific faction)
3. Buff the battleships
4. After done I'll release the beta
5. Mix-tech
6. Release the 1.0 version
7. Add avatars
8. Release the 2.0 version
9. Cry when 4.0 get's released and all my work is lost.

NOTE: During ANY time the plan may change. I might even pause or cancel the mod depending on my IRL status.


Special thankyous:

Defiant (help with .odf)
Dominus_Noctris (the guy that speaks ancient klingon, written in the odfs and gives general help/advice)

posted on December 9th, 2012, 1:46 pm

Hmmm, I like the idea of a balance patch for the actual game before, the next big change comes, but:

After reading trough your suggestions, it seems like your gameplay experience is quite limited and mostly focused on team games. I don't think that is possible to balance a game for teamplay and 1v1 at the same time.

What is more important, most of the canges you suggest is pretty much like rolling back to 3.1.2 or even to an earlier patch , and I think most players would agree that the game balance have improved a lot since then, so I don't really see why we need to take like two steps back to the past.

If you ask me, currently the game is quite well balanced, even it is not as much fun when crazy strats were viable (aka: Neghvar rush, or Hyperspace artillery rush)

If you want to improve the game as it is now, it would only require very slight changes, my personal suggestions:

- very slight nerf to lehvals, like not allow them to use auto repair after shooting with metaphasic for a while like 5-10 seconds

- some kind of a defense or production oriented buff (like make kethracel facilites to have a built-in version of the phaser sentry) to dominion early game, combined with a slight nerf to S2's

- make it possible to choose between expanding and agression for borg player, as it is now just not worth it to choose quick exp over a normal scube/probe agression, also sometimes double intercept dodes feel a little bit too powerful in early game agisnt some races (klingons/domionon/non-lehval spamming romulans)

- I would say klingons are kinda ok, the menacing two starbase ktinga spam is though yet, I would also slightly make sang class a little bit bigger, to not allow them to clump up as well, and act as an unstoppable "deathball"

- even after the lot of "feds are op" whining (wich I did a lot in the past aswell ) I would say feds are ok and with the slight changes on other races, playing vs feds would feel better balanced even without changing them

posted on December 9th, 2012, 3:03 pm

I don't think that is possible to balance a game for teamplay and 1v1 at the same time.

Indeed, but I always felt that unlike SC2, FO is more of a team game than a 1v1 game and as such I am looking to balance it like that.

If you ask me, currently the game is quite well balanced, even it is not as much fun when crazy strats were viable (aka: Neghvar rush, or Hyperspace artillery rush)

What I'm looking at is that these rushes are still possible, but quite easy to stop. That's why I wouldn't reduce the resources or production time. Actually it is possible, that I will increase them as balancing goes on.

My personal suggestions:

- very slight nerf to lehvals, like not allow them to use auto repair after shooting with metaphasic for a while like 5-10 seconds

- some kind of a defense or production oriented buff (like make kethracel facilites to have a built-in version of the phaser sentry) to dominion early game, combined with a slight nerf to S2's

- make it possible to choose between expanding and agression for borg player, as it is now just not worth it to choose quick exp over a normal scube/probe agression, also sometimes double intercept dodes feel a little bit too powerful in early game agisnt some races (klingons/domionon/non-lehval spamming romulans)

- I would say klingons are kinda ok, the menacing two starbase ktinga spam is though yet, I would also slightly make sang class a little bit bigger, to not allow them to clump up as well, and act as an unstoppable "deathball"

Noted, ty for your input

- even after the lot of "feds are op" whining (wich I did a lot in the past aswell ) I would say feds are ok and with the slight changes on other races, playing vs feds would feel better balanced even without changing them

We had a strange coincidence yesterday when all but me went random in a 4v4 game and the game ended uo with 7 feds . Our team of 4 feds with for different strategies (early double yard,early definat, akira rush, early e2). Their team went for tripple warp-in rush. Our team got rolled hard with a superior numeric advantage form the enemies. I think the warp-ins are a bit OP.

posted on December 10th, 2012, 5:02 am

Hey Zweistein.

...This would imply that dominion lategame needs buffing ad ell, but I have seen games, mostly with Zap where once recahing late game his fleet became os powerful he could basically win a 1v4 at that point. I need more input here.

It's nice that you mention me, but I'm afraid you're not talking about me here but about Zebh.
The only recorded game of me playing Dominion ended with me not even attacking once and my position being described as Fort Knox.
I bet he has a lot more vids of successful Dom-gameplay up there.

Regarding the topic, I agree with most of the changes on some level, but finding the balance will be difficult at best and require a ton of thinking and testing in all possible situations. (That's why we're waiting on V4, right?)
In any case, getting some stuff mixed up will probably bring a fresh breeze into the game again.
I'd like to give my input, but I'm a little bit tired right now.
If you're looking for someone to play with, you know I'm always on TS.

posted on December 10th, 2012, 7:51 am

Without the devs tool to change odfs you will take a ton of time....and lacking support from people makes it even more challenging. Some boys even say that things are well balanced and there is no need for improvement...they say ppl are just too stupid to invent new strats to counter e.g. Levhal+S2 spam...

posted on December 10th, 2012, 12:14 pm

Their team went for tripple warp-in rush. Our team got rolled hard with a superior numeric advantage form the enemies. I think the warp-ins are a bit OP.

Well, this is something that happened due bad scouting and wrong build ups, not because of the warpin. Any kind of early agression, from any race, would have killed you guys.
3/4 players tech up, while facing a rush, that is a very unwise thing to do. In pretty much any RTS you will fail with this, except you got bottle necks you can turtle up, or some kind of non agression for x minutes.

Make late-game units not suicide (but still lengthy process to tech to and hard to rush them)

This is mostly already the case. Going directly for Defiants can work in a team game, but if you can't hold until you got a lovely group of them, you will be rushed to death, or lack the ability to help yourself or your team mates.

Improvements can and should always be done, but personally i would go for Elims suggestions, instead of shooting with cannons on lil birds - extreme changes, like some suggested ones, will cause more problems than they solve.

just my 2 cents.

posted on December 10th, 2012, 3:21 pm

There are some tools on the forums that enable you to batch edit files - they may prove useful here viewtopic.php?f=41&t=11830 . This is the most recent one I could find

posted on December 10th, 2012, 6:17 pm

@Zweistein

What you could consider is provide a proper excel sheet containing changes to ship stats over the iterations you have. That way it is easier to evaluate impact between each testing cycle.
You also need to make sure to have sufficient testing runs. This will be the absolute weak point of your whole attempt. I would define a number of testing sessions for each patch and then do an evaluation on what happened. For eval. you should define some indicators that can be tracked and allow you to descibe the game history sufficiently. Though this is really difficult with the limited replay functionality we have it appears very important to me.

These are some unrefelcted suggestions that come into my mind for indicators: Resources collected per player, ships produced by player, ships destroyed per player, time taken till xy amount of attack/defense can be produced by faction (math), ships by type after 15min, 30min (requires replay).

If you find sufficient ppl that test you can play team games 2v2 3v3 with 2 or more observers that complete a short evaluation sheet of each game.

posted on December 10th, 2012, 9:42 pm

What's the point of doing this mod when 4.0 is so close to being released?

posted on December 10th, 2012, 11:33 pm

What's the point of doing this mod when 4.0 is so close to being released?

How close? Like I said, it it's less than 2-3 months then it's pointless, but I had no conformations on that form the dev team.

posted on December 13th, 2012, 1:10 pm

The change log has been updated with the changes made so far.

Please keep in mind, that I have a math test coming up, so mod is progressing slowly ATM.

posted on December 13th, 2012, 5:34 pm

What's the point of doing this mod when 4.0 is so close to being released?

I must admit that I'm not in the camp that thinks 4.0 is "close". Another six months to a year, I think.

posted on December 14th, 2012, 9:43 am

A general note because I got some questions about balancing mods lately:
Yep, you are of course free to make any balancing mode you'd like, we don't have any issues with that.

ODFs are also always free to edit. If you intend to change further content like graphics or include 3rd party models, please take a look at the Modding Guidelines before releasing your mod.

Happy modding!

posted on December 14th, 2012, 12:37 pm

Release date?


Thanks

posted on December 14th, 2012, 2:44 pm

My mod. Soonish™

4.0 patch: From Dominos Noctris, exact quote

You have a fair amount of time before we release the 4.0

Want my mod to com our soon™? Join my team. currently I'm about 35% thought copy-pasting crap for the new covering fire to work. That's about 350 files done out of about 1000. Most of federation ships and all the romulan ships now react to the ships added to covering fire mechanic as does the BorthasQ and the Breen ships.

P.S. I'm updating the changelog again.