4. PvP balancing: Reduce maxHits on walls/ramparts, controller downgrade time

PvP balancing: Reduce maxHits on walls/ramparts, controller downgrade time

  • Dev Team

    @w4rl0ck Actually, I like this idea. Something like StructureSiege which competes with the controller for control over the room, and should be somehow interacted as well. Does anyone want to elaborate this mechanic a bit?

    1 Reply

  • why an additional structure. As Dissi said: I personally always saw the controller as a way to control the room. It should be considered the most important structure in the room in stead of the "oh yeah that thing" structure it is now.

    so something like when attacking a controler you're granted temporal building rights in the room. Still, there can't be 7 towers, but if you destroy one of his - you can build your own as well as ramparts and such... The room battles will take a whole other perspective than the static one there currently is


  • @artch

    Some ideas for StructureSiege:

    • Disallow safemode while it is in the room (safeMode can always be popped before it is completed)
    • Have upgradeBlocked while it is in the room
    • Give it .energy and .energyCapacity properties and allow some of the same functions as a StructureTower
    • Energy might also be used to attack the controller to reduce ticksToDowngrade
    • Make it expensive to build but also give it enough hits that it can't be knocked down in just a few ticks (perhaps 1m hits)
    1 Reply
  • YP

    I like the idea of the structure over the CLAIM creeps because of the limited range you can use CLAIM creeps effective and it's very expensive. I understand that limiting the claim range is important .. but I don't think that it's the same for the downgrade part.

    My basic idea of the SiegeStructure was that it has to be build near the controller, and slowly degrades the room while it has energy.

    • maybe give it the possibility to upgrade the siegetower to a higher level by upgrading the tower and accepting higher minerals to make the decay faster
    • or let it work like a rampart .. it uses energy but also decays slowly if not repaired and it has a maximum hp count

  • Given the nature of construction I wonder how practical that will be.

    • Simply stepping on the siege construction site will destroy all progress
    • If it obeys the standard placement rules, then basic exit walls/ramparts will prevent placing the site
    • Towers can attack the structure anywhere in the room
    1 Reply
  • YP

    @warinternal said in PvP balancing: Reduce maxHits on walls/ramparts, controller downgrade time:

    Given the nature of construction I wonder how practical that will be.

    • Simply stepping on the siege structure will destroy all progress
    • If it obeys the standard placement rules, then basic exit walls/ramparts will prevent placing the site
    • Towers can attack the structure anywhere in the room

    I don't see the SiegeTower as a Structure that is build while there is still a Tower or a Spawn active in the room but something that takes place after the room is basically lost. If it works like a Rampart it would be build with 1 HP .. but still easy to destroy if not protected

    It needs to be refilled while working and repaired.

    I also think it should be limited so it has to be build like in range of 3 to the controller to be able to interact with it.

  • Dev Team

    It might be constructed right on top of the controller, like an extractor on top of the mineral.

    Or, it may be a more widely used siege structure that assists not only with overtaking the control, but also with directly attacking the room, like a siege machine in the front of ramparts line.

  • Dev Team

    Also, we need to consider power creeps in this regard. Some features may/should be moved to power skills rather than structure mechanics.

    1 Reply

  • @artch

    we need to consider power creeps in this regard

    I can see the sense in waiting to see what solutions Power Creeps will bring, rather than add mechanics that might eventually be unnecessary.

    Since we don't know when that will be, is there anything that seems reasonable to you to adjust in the meantime? Even just increasing the potency of attackController would go a long way toward addressing this issue. CLAIM parts are already very expensive and distance-limited. It seems like the current potency is below what is justified by the cost.


  • Maybe some sort of mechanic that makes a siege stronger over time if the threat is not answered.

    For example, maybe each SiegeTower you build in a room decreases the cooldown on building another one. Or maybe the tower itself can be upgraded over time to be more potent.

    SiegeTowers seem a little kludgy.

    It would be really cool if you could build artillery emplacements or battering rams that are good at wrecking walls but weak/useless against creeps.


  • @bonzaiferroni Thanks for making this post. I think this is the right approach on both fronts. You could adjust the controller downgrade to accelerate if there is no allied buildings in the room or for consecutive levels lost.


  • Excellent discussion!

    I'm very happy to see that the devs and community manager are receptive to some of these ideas. It does give the feeling that an improvement (or several) might be applied. Thank you for that.

    My two cents. Two small and easy changes would have a massive impact on how interactive warfare is:

    1. Increase the effect of attackController by a factor of 2 or 3 (can be increased further later if necessary)
    2. a. Pushing energy into the controller no longer resets the timer, it adds 100 ticks to it
      b. Pushing energy into the controller no longer resets the timer, it adds 10x energy
      c. Pushing energy into the controller will only reset the timer if the controller has not been blocked in the last 10k ticks, otherwise, it just adds 100 ticks
  • Culture

    @atavus said in PvP balancing: Reduce maxHits on walls/ramparts, controller downgrade time:

    a. Pushing energy into the controller no longer resets the timer, it adds 100 ticks to it

    I really like this suggestion, this way it takes time to "fend off" the damage. I would suggest it to be ~50 ticks per work maybe? This means you will always have to upgradeController every 50 ticks, or lose the room!

    The siege structure is also a really nice suggestion. I think that this could be implemented without PowerCreeps and later move it so only PowerCreeps can build them.
    This way the mechanic can be field-tested before the actual release of PC's.

    I would suggest that you could bring up minerals to the StructureSiege to upgrade it, and make it have multiple levels. I'll have to think about what it would do, maybe an AoE effect every tick or something.

    1 Reply

  • @dissi

    If the SeigeTower either healed your nearby guys in the room OR increased their TTL, I think that would be effective.


  • I'd like the see the siege tower as something that starts weak and you can upgrade rather than a huge initial investment. Make it a threat if you don't deal with it, a 5k hp building that can be upgraded to some very strong fortified structure. Start it as a level 1 structure, and let you upgrade it like a controller. Then the attacker has a use for energy in the room (makes dismantle better) as well as a constant objective for both sides.

    1 Reply
  • Culture

    @davaned said in PvP balancing: Reduce maxHits on walls/ramparts, controller downgrade time:

    I'd like the see the siege tower as something that starts weak and you can upgrade rather than a huge initial investment

    That's exactly how I see it, if you can not deal with it, it WILL be hard to get rid off.


  • I only just read the entire discussion and I must say that I really like the idea of the SiegeStructure.

    It could even be possible to combine the current attackController mechanic with this new structure. I'd like to pick up some of the previously mentioned ideas and mix them with my own.

    • Place the structure on top of the controller
    • The structure will reduce the downgradeTime by x every y ticks
    • Attacking the controller will now upgrade this structure instead (or additionally)
    • Each level will increase x and decrease y

    I could even see the structure have two different levels where one gets upgraded by CLAIM parts and the other one by WORK parts and energy. The former would be responsible for increasing x and the latter for decreasing y.

    Additional thoughts:

    • Instead of having two levels, the structure has an energyCapacity and requires a certain amount of energy every tick to downgrade the controller
    • The structure itself downgrades as well, using attackController will increase this timer
    • Controller can't be upgraded and safemode can't be used before this structure is destroyed
  • Dev Team

    After considering your comments, here is the final proposal:

    • attackController will apply 1000 ticks of upgradeBlocked and will decrease the ticksToDowngrade by 300 * CLAIM ticks. The claimer creep will only need 1 tick to do this amount of damage. The claim creep will not be able to do another attack until upgradeBlocked is back to 0.
    • upgradeController restores 100 ticks of ticksToDowngrade rather then resets it immediately.
    • While the controller is downgrading, it doesn't upgrade its level even when it has enough progress (it is accumulated without triggering the level up).
    • Safe mode activation is not possible when ticksToDowngrade < CONTROLLER_DOWNGRADE[level] - 5000. I.e. when the controller is downgraded for 5000 or more ticks, you have to upgrade it back to activate safe mode.

    This may be implemented on the PTR on the next week. What do you think of these changes?

    1 Reply
  • Culture

    Overall I like it, but I have a couple of questions.

    attackController will apply 1000 ticks of upgradeBlocked and will decrease the ticksToDowngrade by 300 * CLAIM ticks. The claimer creep will only need 1 tick to do this amount of damage. The claim creep will not be able to do another attack until upgradeBlocked is back to 0.

    With the current cap on room energy you can reasonably make a creep with 19 claim parts- maybe 20 if you boost some move as well. Assuming the 20, that means a max of 6000 each 1000 ticks, or 6 extra ticks removed per tick as a max.

    Currently, assuming a max 20 claim parts, that limit is 4 extra ticks removed per tick. However, this can be stacked with multiple creeps. Putting three creeps on it would allow the current method to have twice as high a max.

    While the controller is downgrading, it doesn't upgrade its level even when it has enough progress (it is accumulated without triggering the level up).

    I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this. If a controller has downgraded a single tick, does this mean the next upgradeController action wouldn't count?

    upgradeController restores 100 ticks of ticksToDowngrade rather then resets it immediately.

    Will boosts affect this in any way? Personally I think it should.

    Safe mode activation is not possible when ticksToDowngrade < CONTROLLER_DOWNGRADE[level] - 5000. I.e. when the controller is downgraded for 5000 or more ticks, you have to upgrade it back to activate safe mode.

    I think this should be delayed for a month before it's pushed to the production servers- you have a lot of people who play this game and go to burning man, and those people are not going to see any updates for about two weeks.


  • Some excellent changes, thank you for engaging with us on this.

    These changes shouldn't impact the standard defense very much, it should still be very difficult to take over a well defended room. The main difference would seem to be in the aftermath. Without the help of safemode and insta-recovery, the defender will need to put an equal amount of effort into taking back a room. They can still build structures and restoring a controller is still much easier than attacking a controller. But other than that, it would seem to be a level playing field.

    It will also mean that players need to be more careful about guarding their controllers.

    Over all, this ought to breathe some life into the possibility of attacking/holding a room.