Balancing issues due to different player levels

Szlat wrote:

As an aside, if we went this way, it would not be a difficult job to implement. Just add two extra abilities that everyone has, similar to the EnhancedDamage and EnhancedReduction that calculate how much to adjust the damage by.

Mmmm. Might have a problem with doing it that way, as the RPGWeapon code is called before the ability HandleDamage routines. So things like Piercing and Vampire would get actioned before the damage adjustment was made. I don't suppose anyone would mind getting more vampire than they used to, but piercing has to be done after the damage adjustment.

As an aside, it looks like things like Vampire get called before double damage gets actioned. Can anyone confirm this is actually the case - if you have a double damage running you only get the same vampire as normal?

I see where you are coming from Szlat. and particularly when the server is busy it makes sense. I have played on the weekends and busy times and know that it can be difficult to pick up a kill on the earlier rounds when you are playing low level. I also know what its like to spawn/die nearly instantly for the last waves of the map as I am currently working up a adrenaline master. His level is about 35. Before I was working on this character I had a "classless" player that I was working on. believe me when I say classless is not an easy way to go.

I appreciate the time and effort that you have put into the changes that have been made recently. The fact is they have kept the server new and interesting.

The change that you are proposing would make things better for many of the players and if it is accepted I think that it would "help" to even out the disparity in levels. But one thing to remember when doing your calculations, they are figured using resources that I rarely see when I play early in the morning (or late at night), things like magic weapons that are maxed. I rarely see a healing medic at night, most of the people who play medics at night are killing things and if you catch a little splash damage, well good for them. There is one player who plays so often alone that he has not purchased his experienced healing up! (characters name is grendel). Players rarely hand out weapons they are generally scrambling around between waves to pick up health and adrenaline and get back in position, or trying to get to the one medic that cares about healing others (often this is TON 80).

All of this in mind, I may not seem all fired up to increase monster damage on players above level 40, even a little bit. don't think that it is not because I don't want to help low level players. I have spent quite a bit of time behind a low level player with a healing mini just making sure they stayed alive, so that they could get good experience.

I suggest that if you want a change, add some factors that will allow different play styles besides the "run and gun". If there were other player interactions that allowed them to get experience through actual team work while playing, then a lot of the problems would cease. I have seen some wonderful combinations of tactics that players used at night when working together (rather than competitively) that should have been rewarded in some way. I have seen 2 players use freezing and poison weapons in combination with the player using the poison weapon getting most of the kills. I have seen link chains that let a level 50 hit the mid point on the high score table and netted one of the low level players that was in the chain 4 levels in a single map. I have seen players use the globe to wedge themselves into a tight door way to shield everyone left from a huge group of warlords that were about to put the smack down on every one left. So my suggestions is to add factors that aid cooperative play, then players have more incentive to play as a team.

I personally think it's pretty good the way it is. Some problems arise when there is only one really high level player left, but that is because the high level players are supposed to protect the low levels and keep that from happening. It doesn't always work that way, but that's just an "oh well" moment. I'm not sure if I'd quite fit into fro's category of good player, but once you know what your doing, the low levels aren't that bad. With the low level player assist and the small xp required to level up, it works just fine.

Classless players aren't that hard either, the real challange only starts when you try and horde points for 20 levels...

Szlat wrote:

As an aside, it looks like things like Vampire get called before double damage gets actioned. Can anyone confirm this is actually the case - if you have a double damage running you only get the same vampire as normal?

I can definitely confirm in earlier druid versions (like, 150s) that the triple doesn't triple your vamp. As for the double, not sure.

Changing gears majorly here. Actually, this thread seems to be going a little off-topic.

It seems like there's a pretty big gap between the day gameplay and the night. I'm usually an afternoon player, and there's usually at least one medic on. If there isn't, I hop on as my medic. Most medics will heal you if they see you've got some damage on you. As a medic, I follow quite a few people through waves trying to keep them alive. After a while, you get used to trying to heal a moving target.

I would love to see more teamwork than we currently do. Maybe once the spheres of invuln and damage come back in we'll see them once in a while. Too bad the sphere of healing isn't even close to being as useful as the blast. But that's another topic altogether.

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I'm not sure about making everything harder for people just based on their levels. I mean, it definitely makes more sense than the current version, and I definitely like it better. (Disclaimer: I don't have a player high enough to have to deal with the level adjustment) I'd say capping how hard it gets at 150 is probably fair, since that's when you've probably bought everything that will help you in a big way. Everything past that is just icing on the cake... at least, as far as I can guess.

Basing the adjustment on class seems like a little bit of a shaky issue. We've already got the enhanced DB and DR, which are pretty much doing that thing anyway. To give certain classes arbitrary strengths based on their expected playing style might be hard to balance and convince people it's "best". Even so, LAs seem to have consistently better weapons in general... but the LWs can certainly find themselves with a great weapon set once in a while that would take an LA all map to get. I would be (a little) angry if I was doomed to always doing a certain percentage less of damage per shot than an LW given the same weapon. The enhanced DB/DR doesn't seem to make much of a difference (well, the DR doesn't come into play so much) and you actually have to DO something (kill monsters, get XP, buy it) to prove you've "earned" it. Just giving people certain bonuses for being a certain class seems like a bit of a hard thing to choose.

That's all that's on my mind for now.

kyraeu wrote:

I can definitely confirm in earlier druid versions (like, 150s) that the triple doesn't triple your vamp. As for the double, not sure.

Thanks for the feedback. It will be same for the double as the triple, and that bit of code is buried in RPG/UT2004 rather than Druids code.

kyraeu wrote:

I would love to see more teamwork than we currently do.

Agreed. I have not served in a real army, but if one went out into the field like our troops do they would get annihilated.

kyraeu wrote:

Basing the adjustment on class seems like a little bit of a shaky issue.

Yeh, I'm not convinced about it. It may be worth putting the flexibility there and setting them all the same. Then in the future we might generate another class, for which it might be obvious that it is better.

Grizzled_Imposter wrote:

All of this in mind, I may not seem all fired up to increase monster damage on players above level 40, even a little bit. don't think that it is not because I don't want to help low level players. I have spent quite a bit of time behind a low level player with a healing mini just making sure they stayed alive, so that they could get good experience.

I understand what you are saying. It is a totally different game when you have 15 people on to when it is just 2 of you and 2 bots. Perhaps we need to think what would help best there. However, I may be wrong, but I think if there are only 2 of you, the bots come in at about the same level. So if you have 2 level 50 players on, the extra bots come in at 50, so your lowest player level is 50, so the monsters do an extra (50/4)*3.5*0.5 = 22% extra damage. I am proposing (50-40)*0.3 = 3% extra damage, so actually making it easier when no low levels are on.

Grizzled_Imposter wrote:

If there were other player interactions that allowed them to get experience through actual team work while playing, then a lot of the problems would cease. I have seen some wonderful combinations of tactics that players used at night when working together (rather than competitively) that should have been rewarded in some way. ............ So my suggestions is to add factors that aid cooperative play, then players have more incentive to play as a team.

It would be very good to reward good team play. However, it is very difficult to code for. As an example, how do we differentiate between 2 players working together and one kill stealing from the other? If you can think of set situations which cannot be mis-interpreted, which we can code, then I am all for it.
EDIT:But again, most teamplay will occur when there are more people on. If there is only you and 3 bots, it will be something else you miss out on.

Szlat wrote:

As an aside, if we went this way, it would not be a difficult job to implement. Just add two extra abilities that everyone has, similar to the EnhancedDamage and EnhancedReduction that calculate how much to adjust the damage by.
Mmmm. Might have a problem with doing it that way, as the RPGWeapon code is called before the ability HandleDamage routines. So things like Piercing and Vampire would get actioned before the damage adjustment was made. I don't suppose anyone would mind getting more vampire than they used to, but piercing has to be done after the damage adjustment.

Of the weapons, damage, force, infinity, luck, null entropy, penertrating, poison, freeze, knockback, sturdy, reflection, quickfoot, vorpal and protection should still work as now.

Vampire and energy will work slightly differently, giving perhaps more payback than in reality they should - but it will not be a vast amount. Healing will also be slightly different, but still ok since it is not monster damage we are concerned with.

The ones that would need an extra bit of code would be piercing and rage.

I think Dru changed the Piercing from "shield penetrating" to "original damage" due to the "only 1 damage due to monster level" problem. If this change goes ahead, the very worst case would still be 60% damage, so a vorpal would do more damage than a piercing. So we might not need piercing.

The rage would take off too much self-damage, so a small amount of code would be required to pitch it correctly.

So, weapons are ok. There may still be a problem with the order in which the abilities get actioned. The only ones that spring to mind are vampire and leech, both of which would tend to give slightly too high a payback.

So, a minor fix to rage weapons, and all else livable with. I think.

Of the weapons, damage, force, infinity, luck, null entropy, penertrating, poison, freeze, knockback, sturdy, reflection, quickfoot, vorpal and protection should still work as now.

A question, if I may? What is the relative ranking of the magical properties themselves. For example, is the freezing a higher magical property than damage? Is poison better than sturdy? ETC.

Mach wrote:

I prefer something like this. As a higher level player, I have no problems with a challenge obviously, but when I have to off myself numerous times to get a piercing or poison weapons it sucks. If you were to ask me after wave 11 I'd take a plain piercing weapon over a vorpal 10 shock. Essentially if you want ANY chance of surviving the late waves you need piercing or poison aweapons, but poison is still tough to win with.

Obviously you want piercing and poison to still be useful, but as of now for a higher level player (at least in my case), I'd take those over vorpal's, plus 4 damage weapons, etc. etc.

As of now, if you leave yourself exposed to monsters of wave 11+ you are going to get slaughtered very quickly even if you have vamp, regen and ghost like me, or you are a level 30 medic. I simply think players need a shot at winning a map without having a piercing weapon, I don't think you need to counteract the possibility of doing more than one damage per shot by amplifying the damage monsters do, as they can already slaughter you in a second.

Notice you said nothing about the adren junkies like me. At level 170, I am down where I will soon be buying things like countershove... talk about worthless! But survive... since the new bugs and new waves, I am probably dying on average 4-6 times per map now. And weapons are the key. I get an energy flak or RL, I die a little less frequently, and a piercing might get me down to 2-3 times. This is with medics, and I am a player who can, if I forget about trying for the bingo, get 800-1000 for a score.

Weapons. More and more, I find myself stopping when I get that piercing shock... max it, pass it out, and then cap it before say wave 10 or so. Then I start throwing the triple, or a triple/rod into the mix in the higher waves for as long as my adren holds out. The main time I don't follow this is if I get a piercing flak or RL. Then I feel free to drop adren trying to get the vorp shock. Or, if I get a vorp shock, I will try for an energy and piercing on my RL and flak, which is something I normally work towards anyways. I cannot even think of the last time I settled for a normal damage weapon, especially given it is so easy to make one. I mean, 650 adren, I can get a damage +5 from a normal weapon every time. But why bother... they are effectively worthless, especially for the higher level players.

BTW... I don't know what was meant by "category 2" or such. I know if I am the lowest player, Szlat's equations say that the monsters are either level 60 or 61, depending on how they round. Figuring integer math and using 60, the DB/DR are 210. Now, I don't know how a DR of 238 means only about 20% received damage... that is one of those equations I do not have comitted to memory, but 210 is close enough to think that it might means the monster takes only 22% of the damage, which also means that my adren, as I understand it has dropped to 22% of what it would be otherwise. But, as I understand, if I have a piercing weapon, regardless of the plus it makes their DR effectively 0. This all was what was behind my idea of a AM specific weapon just like the medics have their medic weapon, which had aspects of piercing along with a energy.

But back on the balance issue... I am about to the point where *BEL*_e will get retired for the most part, except to perhaps stay up in the rankings. This will probably happen about the time I max out on everything I can buy. Indeed, I may start up a second LA character in the next week or so... Folks should be able to figure it out, besides the obvious *BEL* in the name (which is restricted to me, as BEL clan general). Given my background, it will stick out like a sore pun, which will make it even more obvious given that it is a pun. Talk about a classic feedback loop.

And lastly... I am like Mach in that I think that players should have a chance to win a map, or even just stay alive, without the necessity of having that piercing which I can sometimes never get for multiple maps.

(DC)DEMONSLAYER wrote:

Of the weapons, damage, force, infinity, luck, null entropy, penetrating, poison, freeze, knockback, sturdy, reflection, quickfoot, vorpal and protection should still work as now.

A question, if I may? What is the relative ranking of the magical properties themselves. For example, is the freezing a higher magical property than damage? Is poison better than sturdy? ETC.

There isn't really one. It depends on your playing style, what class of player and what level you are, and what you are facing.
Some, like sturdy, penetrating, force have very limited usefulness. For the others...
A very high level player at the moment needs piercing to survive, and failing that a poison. If none of those, then at least a minigun of infinity to kill the high level monsters. A piercing -1 can be better than a vorpal+10 for these guys.
Energy weapons are useful if you want to run artifacts a lot, as you still get adrenaline back whilst the artifact is running. Leech and drip stop when the artifact kicks in.
Vampire can be extremely useful to LAs, but not so much to LWs, and certainly not Medics.
Freezing or null entropy are very useful against fast monsters like the gnat, but not a lot of use against a titan as it doesn't move too much anyway.
Luck is useful between waves as it spawns shields and health.
Knockback can be useful in certain places to slow advancing monsters down, or throw them into lava.
Some people value the quickfoot to help you dodge better and get you faster to the next kill, if you are trying to keep a spree going.
If you like to hang back and fire long distance shots, then you need a high damage instant hit weapon, like the vorpal. It can also be useful to keep sprees etc going.
And if you are using the triple a lot, the damage +4 gives you the most damage, since you cannot use the rage or vorpal with the triple.

So, I don't think there is one weapon that is the 'must-have' for everyone, except perhaps piercing in later waves.
[This could develop into a huge sideline, so it may be worth continuing in a separate thread?]

kyraeu wrote:

Basing the adjustment on class seems like a little bit of a shaky issue.

One thing that occurs to me is that the upper limit is really set when there is nothing more that is significantly useful that the player can buy. Because different classes have different abilities available to them, this point might be reached at different points for different classes. If for example a medic ran out of useful stuff at level 100, it may be worth capping it then, where as an engineer might not need to be capped until level 200.

EDIT: Including abilities like Shields Up, Quickfoot and Smart Healing, but ignoring Iron Legs,Cautiousness, Retaliation, AirMaster, Countershove, Power Jump then the limits for buying useful stuff are:
Weapons Masters: level 258
Adrenaline Masters: level 194
Medic/Monster Masters: level 295 (of which about 86 are monsters)

Shields Up, Quickfoot and Smart Healing account for 43 levels, so without those as well it would be
Weapons Masters: level 215 (of which 46 levels are Vampire)
Adrenaline Masters: level 151
Medic/Monster Masters: level 252 (of which about 86 are monsters)

EDIT: I suppose we have the option of pitching the upper limits differently for different classes, or changing the cost of the abilities to bring them all to their maximums at the same point, say level 150.

One option of progressing this would be to remove the "25% of lowest player level", but implementing exactly the same thing in the Class HandleDamage functions. If people do not notice the difference, then this proves the concept.

We could then modify the HandleDamage function to the new configuration, not based upon the lowest player level to see how people like the changes. Assuming we make the new code configurable from the UT2004RPG.ini file, then we can quickly tweak the percentages to get the balance, without recompiling.

Actually, the more I think about this, the less I am convinced.
At the moment, the set-up encourages high level players to look after low level players. And I am not convinced it is happening as much as it could.
To change the algorithm such that the difficulty for high level players is independent of what low level players are on may be a backwards step. I cannot see it encouraging high level players to look after low levels more.

So, the best answer may be to re-code it so it functions exactly as now, with the damage done by monsters dependent upon the lowest level player alive. Then perhaps only make 2 changes:

Make it so that when only high levels are left, instead of being reduced to 1 damage, it is something like 10%

Slightly increase the damage done by low levels

When playing, most people dont know what level people are on sight. We would have to look at the current list of player levels, and then, what do we do? Help them kill the monster they are attacking? Then they get irritated with us for taking their kill. I dont know how much health they have, or the monster. The awareness skill irritates me and makes me confused at a distance if I'm looking at a teammate with the beakon over their head or a health bar over a monster. So I dont have it. As far as I know of, the only players that constantly look out for anyone else are the medics. The rest of us help each other by utilizing our skills, either maxing weapons, or handing out usefull ones to anyone who wants them.

Flak Monkey wrote:

When playing, most people dont know what level people are on sight. We would have to look at the current list of player levels, and then, what do we do?

Agreed, it is difficult to know player's levels, and once you know, it is difficult to know what to do to help.

There are probably a number of ways to help, and it is probably worth a thread on its own. I suppose it is a question of focus. Are you seeking to get a high score yourself, with as much xp as possible, or are you focused on helping others survive, even at your own expense? I suspect most players are looking after their own score first, then wondering why the low levels are dead.

Some possibilities that occur to me are:

Give them your best weapon

If you have a healing flak or rocket, max it and give it to them. Or better still a vampire+7 weapon, or an infinite mini

Between rounds stand with a luck+7 weapon, spawning health and armor for them to pick up

Perhaps shadow them. Keep an eye on how difficult they are finding things. Monsters typically go for the one closest, so try to keep between the low level and the monsters, but do not block their shots. Try shooting at the full health monsters and leave the lower health ones for the low level to finish off (although it may be better to have fewer monsters?)

Give them a globe or triple if they can effectively use one.

run the spheres

medics focus on healing the low levels first. Other players, keep a healing weapon, and if no medic is around spend a few seconds regularly healing them

Use the drophealth and dropadrenaline console commands if they are working?

give them a mine layer, avril, redeemer or ion painter

And think of ways the developers can add things that encourage team play.
Now how much the low levels want pampering is a totally separate question