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[quote]I've been working on Istrolid with treeform recently, this is how I did the initial balance pass but the balance has diverged by empirical feedback since then, I'd like to plug everything into a database and try to find weights that come near our values (Or possibly find outliers again) just to have another pass of that.[/quote]I've never heard of that game. Seems like an interesting concept. I think Wargame:Red Dragon does something similar where you preselect units before you go into battle.
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[quote]I've been working on Istrolid with treeform recently, this is how I did the initial balance pass but the balance has diverged by empirical feedback since then, I'd like to plug everything into a database and try to find weights that come near our values (Or possibly find outliers again) just to have another pass of that.[/quote]I've never heard of that game. Seems like an interesting concept. I think Wargame:Red Dragon does something similar where you preselect units before you go into battle.
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I think simple balance metrics is really useful initially. However I hope that by using more advanced metrics according to the design goals of the game you can also use them later to evaluate the balance.
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I think simple balance metrics is really useful initially. However I hope that by using more advanced metrics according to the design goals of the game you can also use them later to evaluate the balance.
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[quote]Evil4Zerggin did the most comprehensive mathematical analysis of game balance I've ever seen back in CA, I think we brought this up last time we discussed this and you said it was outside of the scope of your thesis, but it was really interesting stuff. It looked at "DPS over expected lifetime" by looking at how much DPS a unit would output before it ran out of HP vs another units DPS.[/quote]As I said earlier. I don't want to work with statistics. I'd rather work with just raw unit stats.
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[quote]Evil4Zerggin did the most comprehensive mathematical analysis of game balance I've ever seen back in CA, I think we brought this up last time we discussed this and you said it was outside of the scope of your thesis, but it was really interesting stuff. It looked at "DPS over expected lifetime" by looking at how much DPS a unit would output before it ran out of HP vs another units DPS.[/quote]As I said earlier. I don't want to work with statistics. I'd rather work with just raw unit stats.
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[quote]From this you could add in the 'bonus damage' taken when outranged vs the time it takes to close that range. A unit with 10m/s speed and 100m range vs a unit with 5m/s speed and 150m range will take 10 seconds of DPS before it closes and needs more DPS over lifetime for free to compensate (Say, with 10s worth of DPS in extra HP). This doesn't treat range or movement as a flat bonus or multiplier, but actually calculates how much free damage a unit will take in various scenarios. You'll notice that free damage becomes infinite if you are both faster than and have more range than your enemy.[/quote]This is exactly what I do in the column "units lost on approach" for the unit Dox in this matchup table. http://people.dsv.su.se/~akbj7812/pa-db/unitmatchup/assault_bot/stat.html
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[quote]From this you could add in the 'bonus damage' taken when outranged vs the time it takes to close that range. A unit with 10m/s speed and 100m range vs a unit with 5m/s speed and 150m range will take 10 seconds of DPS before it closes and needs more DPS over lifetime for free to compensate (Say, with 10s worth of DPS in extra HP). This doesn't treat range or movement as a flat bonus or multiplier, but actually calculates how much free damage a unit will take in various scenarios. You'll notice that free damage becomes infinite if you are both faster than and have more range than your enemy.[/quote]This is exactly what I do in the column "units lost on approach" for the unit Dox in this matchup table. http://people.dsv.su.se/~akbj7812/pa-db/unitmatchup/assault_bot/stat.html
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"Outranging
time"
is
how
long
the
faster
unit
will
outrange
the
the
slower
one(
negative
values
is
if
the
Dox
is
being
outranged)
.
"units
lost
on
approach"
is
how
many
units
that
will
be
lost
on
approach.
Negative
values
is
how
many
Doxes
that
will
be
lost
on
approach.
Positive
values
means
that
the
Dox
will
kill
that
many
enemy
units.
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7 |
"Outranging
time"
is
how
long
the
slower
unit
will
outrange
the
the
faster
one(
negative
values
is
if
the
Dox
is
being
outranged)
.
"units
lost
on
approach"
is
how
many
units
that
will
be
lost
on
approach.
Negative
values
is
how
many
Doxes
that
will
be
lost
on
approach.
Positive
values
means
that
the
Dox
will
kill
that
many
enemy
units.
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[quote]You can also do even more complex things like figure out at what speeds and projectile speeds (or if you want to be more complex, hitvolumes and turnrates too) you can dodge projectiles and how close you have to be before it becomes impossible. There is a sharp slope there between trivial at long range and impossible at point blank where it comes down to micro, but knowing where that slope lies can be useful. Some units have to get into the 'impossible to dodge' end of the slope in order to be in range to fire back, in which case dodging only matters for the 'free' damage (and can slow the unit down enough that the free damage becomes infinite).
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[quote]You can also do even more complex things like figure out at what speeds and projectile speeds (or if you want to be more complex, hitvolumes and turnrates too) you can dodge projectiles and how close you have to be before it becomes impossible. There is a sharp slope there between trivial at long range and impossible at point blank where it comes down to micro, but knowing where that slope lies can be useful. Some units have to get into the 'impossible to dodge' end of the slope in order to be in range to fire back, in which case dodging only matters for the 'free' damage (and can slow the unit down enough that the free damage becomes infinite).
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Anyway probably outside the scope but fun stuff. [/quote]Yes this is a bit more advanced but otherwise it is perfectly in the scope. I just need to derive a formula. :P
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Anyway probably outside the scope but fun stuff. [/quote]Yes this is a bit more advanced but otherwise it is perfectly in the scope. I just need to derive a formula. :P
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Mathematical balance metrics in competitive multiplayer games