Resource changes - Nanite costs from test

Discussion in 'Test Server: Discussion' started by Zamfwo, Jul 13, 2014.

  1. Inex

    I'm not terribly worried about which class or who it was. In order for the MAX to be overpowered, it has to be demonstrably better than the Infantry resource alternatives for most players. This is generally going to mean a gain of 5 KDR just to break even; doubling most KDRs won't get you past 3.
  2. Freedom Fries

    Wait. So let me get this straight. The timers are being removed and its now down to price alone? Does that mean I can't pull my battle flash for several squads?
  3. minhalexus

    Certain vehicle prices need to be brought down a bit.
  4. Craftyman



    If you're getting killed by C4 in a tank you are playing a tank wrong. They should not be taken anywhere near ANY type of building or cliff where the C4 fairies can drop C4 on you. A point emphasised by the questionable design flaw in that they have no coaxial machine gun.

    They should be used for long range anti-infantry bombardment with their main guns and tank on tank warfare. That's pretty much it. Leave close-in anti infantry jobs to the grunts/MAXes and possibly a decent viper lightning, you shouldn't be within 20m of a build or drop-off.

    Also make sure either you or your gunner are watching your backs when not other wise engaged or around massed infantry formations. Basically if you get C4'd you have been outplayed because you weren't paying attention.
    • Up x 1
  5. Valadain

    MAX isn't a class, it is a resource. Much like a very limited and less effective lightning. It is an infantry unit, but not an infantry class. It would be better to think of it as the lowest tier vehicle. If it killed on average 1 to 1 (which it does in your lowest tier example), it is pointless to spend resources on. You can kill 1 to 1 with any other class. 2 to 1 is the very next step. There's nothing between.
  6. Axehilt


    Drawing the line at some absolute K/D increase just represents a limited understanding of how balance works. A doubling of relative K/D is significant. No matter how good or bad you are, your current effectiveness is doubled.

    My job is game balance. (Literally. That's what I do for a living.) I generally draw the line at 7%: If something is +7% stronger than other things, it's too strong and deserves to be balanced. MAXes are +100% stronger (double K/D). It's ridiculously overpowered.

    To add more objective evidence to the mountain, the player Inexy (which may or may not be you, doesn't matter) has 4.5 MAX K/D and their next-best class (HA) is 2.1 K/D.
  7. Axehilt


    MAXes are an indoor combat class. They need to be balanced with all the other indoor combat combatants, or they're overpowered.

    It clearly results in deeper and more varied gameplay for Liberators to be balanced equally with the other outdoor combatants. The same is true of MAXes indoors.

    The resource cost would be removed once balanced. The cost has never (and will never) balance MAXes. All it means is I pay to be overpowered. I'm still overpowered in a MAX, even if it costs me resources.
  8. Arkenbrien

    I would agree with a lot of what you say, but I would make a few notes.

    First, there is no 'safe' spot from enemy infantry. There is only a 'this place is less likely to have infantry'. I'm not saying this a bad thing, just that the concept that if you are away from buildings etc you are safe from C4 is fundamentally flawed. Then there's the whole concept of ESF-Bailing-C4-Toting-LAs, but that might be a less viable option with these upcoming changes.

    I would suggest that 2 C4 would only bring an MBT down to 8-10% health. That way, it would mean that an infantry would no longer rush like a suicide-psycho from BL2, and that destroying an MBT would take at least 2 infantry. Result: MBTs stay away from bases because of the resource cost, and infantry don't think they can solo a tank, especially considering the lowered cost for C4. It would also bring more fairness to the MBT because C4 doesn't have an acquisition timer, and the MBT will have a huge wait if destroyed too soon.
  9. Inex

    But are MAX's 7% stronger than other things?

    I didn't actually pick +5 KDR completely out of a hat. The resources for the MAX are an opportunity cost against the other infantry consumables. If I can expect dramatically higher kill counts with a MAX, then you have an argument. Keeping in mind that you will often need to spread your consumables out over several lives because of carrying capacities, so that hurts their peak KDR. A run of 350 resources worth of grenades might only get +0.8-ish KDR, but that will be consistent over 7 spawns. To match that performance a MAX would need to add +5.6 KDR (each consumable type earning 5 kills for 350 resources).

    If MAX's are only granting their users double KDR, then for most people that's going to be a gain of < 3. You only need a 30%-ish "accuracy" with grenades to match that. So no, I don't think MAX's are terribly overpowered. You paid the opportunity cost for a 5-7 killstreak, and most people can't even manage that.
  10. Axehilt


    No they're not 7% stronger. They're 100% stronger. Their twice-as-good (+100%) K/D is pretty closely correlated to the twice-as-good TTK advantage they have over infantry.

    Again, the resource cost would just be dropped once MAXes were balanced. Like other games that have balanced slow-but-powerful playstyles (TF2's Heavy Weapons Guy), MAXes would simply be a slow-but-powerful tank playstyle in PS2. Resource cost never balances things -- it can create interesting tradeoff decisions, but it doesn't address the core attributes of the class.
  11. Inex

    2 extra kills once per seven spawns is 100% better than 3 kills spread over 7 spawns.

    I'll keep that in mind.
  12. nubery

    The max has infinitely more kill potential than 2 bricks of c4. That's just silly.

    It can even be rearmed to deal with different kinds of targets with different effect.
  13. Lamat

    It's a game full of crazy gadgets and toys. I don't care if a lesser skilled player can kill me easier with a MAX, I find fighting MAXs challenging and fun. It's not all about 1 vs 1 player skill, there are different tools in this game all good or bad at various things. This is a war game, it's not about honorable duels. There are supposed to be tools to tip the favor of battle to your side. Otherwise, why not just restrict everyone to a pistol and knife with only 1 class. As long as MAXs are balanced against each other and are only roughly making 1 player as effective as 2, I don't see a problem.

    Vehicles also allow you to kill more than you can as infantry, so what? Variety = fun

    Also, after the resource changes, MAXs will actually help balance disproportionate forces with the large force not being able to afford as many MAXs while the smaller force can.
  14. Axehilt


    Using Inexy as an example of why your assumptions are wrong:
    • 110 lifetime grenade kills
    • 19030 kills (without grenades; non-max classes only), 10327 deaths = 1.85 K/D without grenades
    • 19140 kills (with grenades), 10327 deaths = 1.84 K/D with grenades
    • The advantage of taking grenades over 7 deaths = 0.07 additional kills (the difference in K/D (0.01) times 7 lives)
    • The advantage of taking MAXes over 7 deaths = 17.08 additional kills (the difference in K/D (2.44 = 4.56 (MAX) - 2.12 (HA) ) times 7 lives)
      • Note that I'm comparing MAX K/D with the best infantry class K/D. If I took the difference between MAX K/D and the average K/D (1.84) it would be 18.97 additional kills instead
    This means MAXes are worth 244 (17.08 / 0.07) times the resources of a grenade for this player. Even if we pretended that resources matter, which they don't because you're always just going to use the absolute best weapon to dominate your opponents -- the game isn't about being resource efficient, it's about being manpower-efficient.
  15. Runegrace

    So what about the MBT, Lib, and other 'classes'. I have to imagine that they manage near a 2.0 KDR (or more). I mean, sure, they take resources…but you've claimed that resources will never work as a balancing mechanism. So how are we going to rework Sunderers, ESFs, and other classes to take no resources and have a 1:1 KDR? Given that we're doing the resource revamp right now it'd be important to get this sorted.
  16. Inex

    I've seen you post some insightful stuff, and good analysis. So while I'm not aware of how to do it on the internet without sounding condescending, I have to point out you're making some very obvious calculation errors here. Comparing grenade kills over total deaths vs MAX kills over MAX deaths won't give you any numbers worth looking at. You need to change it to grenade kills over grenade deaths, or MAX kills over total deaths.

    Or, just go for the res/kill ratio...

    Resources do matter, because they can be measured in Resources spent per kills "earned". Specifically for Inexy, he's getting 2 kills for every 350 resources spent on a MAX - or 175 res / kill. To match that in grenades, he's going to need 1 kill for every 3.9 grenades, or around 25% effectiveness.

    Frags he's not doing so hot on. Only 110 kills for 1116 frag grenades thrown - 9.9% I hope that was largely poor aim at low BR because even I've got more than double that.
    AV and Stickies however are very close. 42/191 - 22% and 4/20 - 20% respectively.
    The rest of the grenades are nigh impossible to credit kills to, so we'll leave them alone.

    So Inexy is a borderline case, but he is a point in your favor. What are the overall grenade efficiency vs. MAX KDR boost numbers? I have no idea: I can't be bothered to sign up for Dasanfall.
  17. DevDevBooday

    This argument is silly. You can be careful all you want but C4 fairies are unavoidable in the end.
    You can be careful, not take risks, stay back from the fighting (in other words not using your tank as a tank) but people will find a way to destroy you.

    You cant stay at least a 100 metres from ANY tree or cliff or rock or anything a drifter can use.

    I am careful. I do play it safe. Im a prowler for gods sake. Sitting back in anchor and bombard is how this tank functions. I get HUGE sprees and kill many failed jetpackers trying to c4 me but in the end. Its all ways the way i go.

    If c4 had a meaningful cost to dropping it then there would be less people just throwing themselves at you like men possessed until they eventually get lucky. THATS the issue I have.
  18. UnDeaD_CyBorG

    Well, isn't that correct then?
    A tank with one person should be counter-able by a single infantryman.
    The extra kills the tank gets on the way show it's increased efficiency, and thus, resource worth.
    Tanks shouldn't operate alone.

    As for the MAXes:
    MAX suits are vehicles.
    They may be indoor vehicles, but depending on your driving skills, so are Flashes and Harassers.
    Their Efficiency is to be compared to Tanks and Liberators.
    While I agree that they might end up having a too high impact on overall KDR, KDR in itself is inherently meaningless.
    An ESF Pilot can podspam a parked Sundy or enemy spawn for as long as his magazines last and in the end have nothing contributed to the ongoing battle compared to a single Engie to place mines on it instead.
    A single sniper can annoy a squad capping a point and farm a dozen kills, he won't stop the point capture.
    MAXes need to be meatshields. They might be a bit to powerful firepowerwise, but they need to be threatening enough that you end up shooting them, otherwise they need not exist.
    If they were to cost no resources, they couldn't possibly be strong enough to achieve that.
    I'd personally prefer MAX suits to take a bit less damage from the front and have a turn rate cap, emphasizing that vehicle aspect and allowing them to be outdanced by Infantry, to force them into teamplay.
    But they will always be stronger than Infantry, and it's good that way.
  19. Rtwpygbzstpqacihfd

    This is the worst idea SOE have had and they should not change what isn't broken.
  20. Tacom

    The only way a member can make use of his larger/faster resource pool is by dying (when talking about vehicles), so clearly not winning, just giving you more targets.