Player versus Player Gameplay

posted on June 1st, 2007, 6:03 pm

Hey ho out there.

This Topic is about mutliplayer-balancing only! Pls do not report any experiences made against the AI.

As v3 comes closer we are currently cleaning up the balancing tables. Cause the goal of Fleet Operations is to make many ways of game play usable especially in mutliplayer we are still fiddling around with the details.
So this topic is for everyone who has experience in mutliplayer, especially the tournament community. I want to find out what currently is the most used vessel class and what you think about that. Do you think a certain tech tree stage is especially strong or weak? Do you think certain unit types are to strong or otherwise imbalanced? Could you think of balancing changes to allow even more game play styles? Post here!

posted on June 3rd, 2007, 8:30 pm

it sort of depends how far into the game it is. If you can churn out destroyers quickly enough it could be game over very quickly. however after a while the support/science ships can be very effective (if you manage to get their research done).

posted on June 3rd, 2007, 9:54 pm

hmm you should pm the following guys and ask them, i think they have the best expericence:: TheBlackBaron, Hypercube,eufnoc, 4 of 11 and jan of course (sry for the US peeps and others i haven't mentionend)

right now it's destroyer spam, especially when you are klingon and romulan (with dom you just spam bugs and T15 nothing else)

Klingon:: only duras avatar; i think martok gets stronger in lategame, but heh who need lategame;
duras cause of the BoP:: cheap and photon torpedos rip through almost everything, so good for eco raids - Kvort:: assassination of stations just build 12 to 24 of em and there goes your starbase or research station) the rest can be neglecteted, especially the science ship of klingon (dies to quickly), vor'cha too expensive as Neg'var

Romulans:: all about shrike in early game, then the refit ship (sry don't know the name now) with the pulse guns and the science one (weapon disable, which is bugged right now (costs 8 special energy instead of 80) the d'deridex warbirds is a buildable option the norexan isn't soo good.

Dom:: best ask baron about it, but i think you can sum it up as:: bugs and t-15, nothing else

federation:: sheez; i have the feeling that both the sabre and the monsoon are weaker compared the klingon/romulan; i'm not sure about dom. The norway class is useful cause of that blue maelstorm thing, BUT you need to target it manually to work and you need a good number of them to be effecient- Later it is all about akira and defiant spam. Defiant is way imba right now;

here again a basic shakedown what ships you use and what not

Klingon (duras)::
BoP
K'vort
Sang (if you are bored)
vor'cha (if you are bored)
not used
science ship (both of them)
the arty range torpedo thing
negh'var
the pulse gun ship at the second yard (too expensive and dies to quickly)
K't'inga/D7 (cause BoP is better)

Klingon (martok)::

BoP
K'vort
Sang (if you are bored)
the first yard micro-topredo ship (if you are bored)
Vor'cha (if you are really bored)
not used
same as above

Dominion:: both avatars
bugs
T-15
small breen ship (if you are bored)
not used
the whole rest

Rom:: (both avatars)
rhienn (both refits)
shrike (if you can; if so only shrike)
Generix (pulse refit and science refit)
D'deridex Warbird
griffin (if you are bored and want to research the special weapon)
not used
pretty much the rest
the other warbirds are nice to have but the D'deridex is the overall better ship

Federation (both avatars)::
sabre
moonsoon
akira
defiant
norway(if you can)
galaxy (cause it's free)
not used
the rest
intrepid isn't good
the canaveral class isn't so good either
that fighter carrier is to slow
the sovereign is to expensive and too slow
excelsior hmpf to expensive? i don't know you can just ignore her
big phaser ship (to expensive, to slow)
steamrunner (why should I?)
nebula (Galaxy is better)

posted on June 8th, 2007, 10:48 pm

i like boping!
rushing or hold out for the megabattleships
none of this medium sised ship combat.  end it quick or draw it out

posted on June 9th, 2007, 12:11 pm

We are just fine tuning the balancing tables and found some irregularities which caused some imbalances in extreme conditions and on smaller units. In result we redid the stuff with more accurate formulas. The basic changes are:

• The construction time of vessels got evened out through all ship sizes. early-game units will see an increase in construction time while late-game units will be produced faster then now (the sovy is still slower to build then the saber, but the gap got smaller)
• The costs you have to put into teching for a specific unit has been revalued. In result you will see a drop in resource costs on larger units to make the "pay-off period" shorter. This should help making endgame units more attractive for Player versus Player tactics.
• Many Special Abilities have been re tuned in respect to their usability in multi player

We are still working on getting Fleet Operations as interesting for Player versus Player combat as we can get. Further Feedback on this topic is of course welcome

posted on June 10th, 2007, 1:29 pm

Ok here is my suggestion:


I think it's obvious that atm every game which is set on human vs human tend to be one sided and boring cos of too low variety in tactics you can choose even though you have avatars and stuff..
MP games are generally fought out by hords of smaller ships and the high variety of availabkle ships and technologies is left out completely cos of inefficiency.

Problems I have with FleetOps 3.0 pr:

- Special weapons are some kind of unspectacular especially the ones from the big ships. They don't really benefit my empire (whatever) especially in contrast to hords of small ships the enemiy os throwing into my base ( exception: Dominion Bombardement).

- Small sized ships have a too high value in game as they deside wether you will loose or win the game

Example: Dominion vs Federation

Dominion will mass build bugs as all other stuff is too expensive and lasts too long to build/research
Federation's option is to also mass on Sabres and simultaniously trying to build a Star Fleet Command.
All other strategies will result in a loose...so if you deside to go on e.g. Defiants your Dominion friend will overrun you with 10 fleets of bugs when you have just build 3 defiants.

And this is some kind of boring because I don't have much of a choice as using the same strategy as my opponent does. I will never in game have the possibility to bring my Dominion opponent to change his strategy which is a very important matter for a fun strategy game with depth.


- Big ships are not worth to be built, it's all about throwing hords of ships into enemie's base.

- Dont get me wrong because I love huge maps...but with such a unit management those are too huge.

- Gameplay is too slow. In addition there is no warp which makes the whole thing much more slower. It can really be frustrating.

- I'd like to zoom out more just to get a better overview in battle. I have massive problems to handle all ships on the current settings.




My solution:


I thought of two main changes which could balance the whole gameplay drastically and bring the game to a permanent flow of increaseing evolution.

1. I call it "Elastic Unit Limit" :

The game is separated into 3 phases. First is the rush and build up phase, second the research and fleet build up phase with smaller assaults on enemie's expansions or weak points of main base, third phase is the heavy assault and battle phase.

To guarantee that the phase 3 is not dominated by ships from phase 1 I though about a unit limit which supports the evolution of the tech tree and suppresses the mass build of small sized ships in late game.
Static limits would be strange and would erase much fun and freedom out of the game.
But an elastic limit would give you the ability still going on to build small sized ships but for a econimicall y inefficient manner.

Taking Federation as example: You can build a specific amount of each ship class up to...say 10 sabres and 5 additional destroyers. If you build then more sabers the cot of each ship will increase significantly and beyond the costs of a cruisers costs. Which will let you then bring you to build cruisers or search for bigger ship classes. And through that also will research the corresponding special weapons to optimize your fleet strength.

The max class amount coud be easily balanced race specific.


2. Binding in AOE damage:

In FO there is less to no Area Of Effect (AOE) damage. Even though that would be one way to get rid of hords of bugs and stuff your opponent built up in a very short time.
Generally I believe that a good game is marked by the race-to-race-relationship...means that each unit of a race as a counter unit in all other races. For those small sized ships that assault in bulks, artillery with AOE damage would give a player the ability to resist against an overrun. For long time fun and replayablility overruns are fun killers N°1 in RTS games (my opinion). Those small ships should just play a role for rush tactics (possible on small maps only) and as back up in late game.


Ahh...yes... Special weapons like Ultritium Burst (The one from stock Armada 2) and Rhienn Phaser Refit are also AOE like weapons which in addition bring a real eye candy into the game. Though the bigger the ship the more effective a special weapon should be. E.g. the Sovy...c'm on. What use do I have out of its special weapon? All ships are so slow and shot from the sky before the could have ever retreated.



My 2 cents. Hope it helps.

posted on June 10th, 2007, 3:50 pm

i am VERY happy that there is NO warp in FO; i'm also happy about the speed of the units, in general. The idea with some AoE weapon that rip through smaller sized ships like butter is a good one. the idea with increasing costs for ships is cool, but i think not makable (i know of a game that features such a concept and it worked fine there).

Maybe you could do a closed beta test with some folks of the community?

posted on June 10th, 2007, 8:12 pm

I'm also very glad there is no warp. I just mentioned that as enhancing effect on the general game speed which is very slow in contrast to other RTS games. It wasn't ment to be some sort of offence. Just what I was feeling when I played it as long time Armada 2 player.

posted on June 10th, 2007, 9:01 pm

I have to agree with Jan when he points out that it takes a lot of time to build the big ships. As it takes too long if you have an enemy constantly sending in fleets of small ships you won't survive until you have even one of the bigger ships and if you have one it is likely destroyed by uncountable small ships. So what to do about it? Of course you will also start building lots of small ships because there's not really a reason to wait and tech if the cheap and small vessels are able to do the same job.

I'd appreciate a solution preserving the value of small ships but forcing you to build also bigger ships. (If you just needed to build a bunch of Sov's to win, FO would be the same as stock A2.)
More effective special weapons might make the big ships more attractive to build.
(E.g.: If the Dampening Missile wouldn't only disable one random system for five seconds but every system for the same time it would be worth the money and the time you have to invest into a Breen Battleship. - I know, this is very yucky )
The rebalancing Optec mentioned is already a very good step to get diversified multiplayer battles. I think there will be a good solution to bug/bop/saber/shrike-spam.