Balancing issues due to different player levels

There have been a couple of posts recently (I remember ones from Spacey and Continuum, but there may be others) that discussed the big problem of having really low level players and really high level players on at the same time. I thought I'd open up a thread to see what people felt about it.

If you make it a challenge for the high levels, the low levels just get wiped out. And nobody likes spectating half the map. Pitch it for the low levels, and it's too much a walk in the park for the high levels.

Dru added some changes to boost the sub-level 40 players, which has helped.

I added a couple of monsters which took off a % of health, so they would tend to hit high levels harder than low levels. But it is really only a token gesture.

There are probably 2 problems.
a) If you have low levels still alive, the monsters are pitched at the low level, and are too easy for high level players, assuming you have the monster wave config set-up not too difficult.
b) If only high levels are left, the DB/DR for the monsters makes them unreasonably tough.

So, for a) we could modify the monster code such that it takes the target player's level into account. For example, if the lowest player is 40, and the target is 140, the monster could do double damage. And if the target was level 240, the monster could do triple damage. Some sort of scheme like that - exact details to be decided later.
It may or may not be worth doing the same for monster defense. Only take half damage from the level 140 player (who will have weapon speed 50 and DB 80).

In the same way, if you have just a level 300 player alive, the monsters will probably have such high DB/DR that without a piercing weapon, the player is just doing 1 damage. This ought to be more balanced. Perhaps we should get rid of the monsters-level-25%-of-lowest-player-level, and just put an adjustment in, as in a), based upon the difference in levels.

I haven't thought through the best way of doing it. Open for ideas really?

Also, not sure how we would implement any of that, just throwing ideas in at the moment. We can sort out the implementation later.

I think the hardest part for low levels is just learning the game(what the weapons are, what to buy, tactics...). I don't think its that difficult as a low lvl. Being a well knowledgeable player, it didn't take me very long to get my engineer where he is now, and I skipped the low lvl assists and without any special class skills. Pretty much just ran around with shield gun. I think once people get use to it, they do pretty good.

So, for a) we could modify the monster code such that it takes the target player's level into account. For example, if the lowest player is 40, and the target is 140, the monster could do double damage. And if the target was level 240, the monster could do triple damage. Some sort of scheme like that - exact details to be decided later.
It may or may not be worth doing the same for monster defense. Only take half damage from the level 140 player (who will have weapon speed 50 and DB 80).

I don't think it would need to even be that drastic in damage or defense. That would be like every monster having a double/triple damage constantly on. Even a little bit like 20% would make a huge difference. You also have to take into account the monster targets may not be the ones that get hit by that shot.

Maybe make the monsters more likely to attack a higher lvl player. As it is right now, I think they like feasting on the delicate lower lvl players. I can't count how many times a nali has walked right by my and shield gunned a lower level in the back.

, funny but sad. No, maybe just funny.

One thing that would be nice is to see a capp on the monster's level. I'm not sure what lvl. More than 1HP a shot, but not so much that peircing wouldn't be very usefull. it sucks being the last alive and being forced to use a peircing assault rifle because it does the most damage or no peircing/poison at all. A level that keeps you from these situations

Maybe just their DR capped. That way they can still do a massive amount (except for those darn lava/flying skarrj)

Fro13 wrote:

Maybe make the monsters more likely to attack a higher lvl player.

Sounds good to me.

Fro13 wrote:

One thing that would be nice is to see a capp on the monster's level. I'm not sure what lvl. More than 1HP a shot, but not so much that peircing wouldn't be very useful.

Agreed. In order to do that, we will probably need to remove the setting of the monsters level based upon the lowest player level, and do a damage adjustment ourselves.

I like the IDEAS!

Fro: I think that you overestimate the average players skill. I made a "classless" character as well. Your actual playing skills make up for character skills. I am probably not even in the upper 50% of players as far as skill goes, but honestly there are plenty of people here that are not even as good as me.

You wouldn't need a level cap for monsters if you capped their DR/DB. The advantage of that could be that you can set their DR cap to something relatively low, like 190, but let their DB be alot higher, like 400 or something. But whatever's easier to code.

Griz, maybe you're right. Although, I've seen some "lesser skilled" players do pretty well once they figured out how everything worked and gained some levels.

You don't want to make it too easy, because the transition to the mid levels will hurt a lot. Those are the truly grinding levels(60- 80 probably the hardest).

Low levels don't need to post high scores to level up, but higher scores is a sign that they are figuring it. Those mid level player actually do have a higher need to post higher scores to gain a sufficient amount of xp to lvl.

Another thing I've noticed is players that are more aggressive gain more xp. Most new players play to survive, not kill. So, they get less xp and lesser score. The more aggressive players may die 5+ times a map, but they're leveling up faster.

So, basically I think the low lvl's are fine. They have the low lvl assists and reduced xp requirements. Once they leave the comfort of the low level assists, it's a much longer road to each lvl.

Szlat wrote:

Dru added some changes to boost the sub-level 40 players, which has helped.

I added a couple of monsters which took off a % of health, so they would tend to hit high levels harder than low levels. But it is really only a token gesture.

The boost dru added does help and probably was necessary the concept just doesn't seem right though.

I didn't know that monsters were doing % damage. btw % damage does take more health from a high lvl but still leaves more too ?

I'll have to think about that one a bit to decide wether its good or bad

As for the us lesser skilled players yeah occasionaly we do have a good game or are able to time the double damage / keg or something on a certain map and it is true that scores arent the same as xp but scoring ~450 points in the first 7 waves then dying within seconds of a wave starting the rest of the game should be a sign that somethings not right.

Anyways I still have fun playing and as of now don't really have much in the ways of ideas that could work on this issue.

Fro13 wrote:

Another thing I've noticed is players that are more aggressive gain more xp. Most new players play to survive, not kill. So, they get less xp and lesser score. The more aggressive players may die 5+ times a map, but they're leveling up faster.

And the more agressive player also die a little quicker as well!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, time for some figures.

Assume we have the "adjusting monsters to 25% of lowest player level" switched off. Then monsters will go from level 2 on the first wave to level 32 on the 16th wave. Their DB/DR will go from 7 to 112.
Assuming the player has max DB/DR of 80 and 50, then for the first 8 waves the player will have the advantage and for the last 7 the monster will.

So, this looks relatively balanced. Why do we need the "25% of lowest player level" hack on the DB/DR?

Because as players go up in level they get all sorts of other skills - triple, globe, beam, vampire, drips, regen, maxed weapons etc that mean without some help, the monster gets wiped much too easily.

Let's look at where we currently are. Assume wave 9, so halfwayish through the wave upgrades.

Assume lowest player is level 40. Monster level is 18+(40*0.25)=28, giving DB/DR of 98. This is about +25% attack damage for monster and around 90% of received damage.

Assume lowest player is level 100. Monster level is 18+(100*0.25)=43, giving DB/DR of 150. This is +50% attack damage and only 2/3 received damage.

Assume lowest player is level 200. Monster level is 18+(200*0.25)=68, giving DB/DR of 238. This is about double attack damage and only 20% received damage.

Assume lowest player is level 300. Monster level is 18+(300*0.25)=93, giving DB/DR of 325. This is +140% attack damage and only 1 received damage.

Now the attack damage figures are not too bad. The monster might be doing +140% damage, but the player could easily have a triple going a lot of the time which would be +200% damage, or even +320% damage if he has a +4 weapon.

But the damage accepted by the monster drops to just 1 damage. Realistically, 25% ought perhaps to be the least. This counteracts the triple+4 that the player has running.

So, in the new scheme, perhaps we are after monsters in wave 9 always having level 18, so a balanced 63 DB/DR whoever they are against.
However, the monsters attack according to

if (monster level > player level) subtract 1.5% off damage for each level the player is lower. Just a token really, but counts for more in the later waves when monsters are higher levels.

if (monster level = player level) do normal damage.

if (monster level < player level) add 0.4% damage for each level player is higher than monster. So a level 100 suffers +33% damage, level 200 +73% damage, level 300 +113% damage.

And on the defense,

if (monster level > player level) add 1.5% onto damage done by player for each level the player is lower.

if (monster level = player level) do normal damage.

if (monster level < player level) take 0.4% off the damage for each level player is higher than monster, upto a maximum of 75% off. So the monster suffers only 67% from a level 100, only 27% from level 200, and 25% from level 205 upwards.

So, lower levels will find it slightly easier. Higher levels will find it more difficult than it used to be when low levels were still alive, but easier than if just they were on.

We can obvious adjust the % to give whatever balance we like. The 0.4% may still be a bit too tough on the high levels, and 0.3% may be better.

If that was the case for a high level player all the time, I would probably rather not get much higher than level 100, maybe 150. If I was going to have to fight harder monsters with only crummy skills left to buy....

FogRaider(_MM) wrote:

You wouldn't need a level cap for monsters if you capped their DR/DB. The advantage of that could be that you can set their DR cap to something relatively low, like 190, but let their DB be alot higher, like 400 or something. But whatever's easier to code.

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.

kyraeu wrote:

If that was the case for a high level player all the time, I would probably rather not get much higher than level 100, maybe 150. If I was going to have to fight harder monsters with only crummy skills left to buy....

Two good points there. It's all the time, so ought to be easier, and shouldn't increase after say level 150.

Also, the algorithm I posted above looks at the difference between the player level and the monster level. The effect of using monster level is that there will not be much difference between a wave 6 titan and a wave 14 titan - and there ought to be.

So, adjusted new scheme. Monsters still have level 2*wave number so DB/DR go from 7 to 112.

The monster's attack according to

if (player level < 40) subtract 1% off damage for each level the player is lower than level 40. So a level 20 player will get 20% off received damage, every wave. If the monster normally does 100 damage, and assuming the level 20 player has 80DB/50DR, on wave 1 it will do the player 63 damage, and wave 16 105 damage.

if (player level = 40) do normal damage. This will be 79 wave 1 and 131 wave 16.

if (player level > 40) add 0.3% damage for each level player is higher than level 40 upto level 150, then add 0.1%. So a level 100 suffers +18% damage, level 150 +33%, level 200 +38% damage, level 300 +48% damage. Using the 100 damage monsters above, on wave 1 the monster will do 93, 104, 108, 116 damage respectively, and wave 16 will do 155, 174, 180 and 194 damage respectively.

And on the monster's defense,

if (player level < 40) add 1% onto damage done by player for each level the player is lower. So a level 20 player gets +20% damage, and so a 100 damage weapon will do 164 damage wave 1 and 101 damage wave 16.

if (player level = 40) do normal damage. This will be 136 wave 1 and 84 wave 16.

if (player level > 40) take 0.25% off the damage for each level player is higher than monster, upto a maximum of (150-40)=27% off. So the monster suffers only 85% from a level 100, only 73% from level 150 upwards. This means the 100 attack will do 116, 98 on wave 1 respectively, and 71, 61 on wave 16.

So, in summary the worst case for a level 300 player is monsters doing 194 damage for a standard 100 hit, and the monster receiving 61 damage for the 100 hit. Accounting for all DB/DR and everything.

So the earlier waves will be more difficult than high levels are used to, because low levels often survived. Later waves will be easier than they currently are.
And as you get above level 150, the monster die just the same, but they hit slightly harder.

It think it will be quite difficult to get the balancing just right, and only trials will do it. It has to be balanced such that high levels do better than low levels.

I agree, players skills improve as they get used to the difficulty. Mine have improved monumentally in the last year. the thing I like the most about it is to see a player that you helped to make it through waves finely get to the point where they are helping you!

I have no characters that are in the "do only one damage to monsters" category. I have 2 that are well within the " cant buy more defense but every level the monsters will be doing me more damage" proposed category. I also usually play at night when there are only one or two players on. I have seen time after time when high level players came on to try to break a record because there are a small number of low level players on. Before the most recent monster changes, I was able to occasionally (1-10) finish a map with my medic or my LW character. I have yet to pull it off again.

I just believe that as you adjust and tweak the game to make things more difficult for the experienced higher level players, you rob the lower level players of some of the enjoyment they could have had.

Grizzled_Imposter wrote:

I just believe that as you adjust and tweak the game to make things more difficult for the experienced higher level players, you rob the lower level players of some of the enjoyment they could have had.

The situation at the moment is that really high players can do extremely well when low players are on, but really struggle when they are on by themselves.

A method like the one above would make give the high level players a static playing field - so it was the same regardless of the other players on. This would be more difficult than the really easy times, and easier than the really difficult times.

One other thing to consider is the low level players. At the moment, the low levels struggle to beat the high levels to the kill. By end of wave 2 a high level LA will have a couple of good weapons maxed, and with maxed surge/leech/drip will be running artifacts quite frequently. A low level LA being so much slower getting adrenaline will not have the same quality weapons or adrenaline to use them. So most of the kills (and fun) go to the high levels.
Imagine a high and low level player both about to attack the same monster. If the high level attacks first, the monster is probably dead. If the low level fires first, he half kills it, then the high level mops it up.
So if we went ahead with the above mod, it might make the waves more survivable and more enjoyable for the low levels. It might also give more of a challenge to the high levels, but not an impossible one.

Dunno. Just a thought really. It will be a very long time before I get high enough to worry about it personally.

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.

It would be just as easy to add it into the class types, so the %s could be set differently for different classes. For example, support classes could get better defense automatically, and WMs could get better offense. Just a thought.

EDIT: I have mainly been thinking about invasion, but the same system (perhaps with different %) could be applied to PvP?