PTR Changelog 2016-09-19
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I think these changes will change the balance to a much greater extent than you'd think -- is there a chance we can get a bit longer to try these out? The mineral changes alone (less than half the previous amounts due to longer regen times (slower mining extends regen time)) will greatly impact the rate at which new players are able to get minerals and greatly change how current players use minerals. It's a lot to try to absorb at once.
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All of these changes are strictly related and should be deployed altogether. We've been debating them for weeks already, and have proofs that it is what should be done in order to make the economy more healthy. Also, it is easier for players to adapt to one big balance change, than to re-math everything each week.
Fundamental constants (like how much minerals are needed to boost one body part) are not changed. This update affects only economy metrics, it doesn't require any technical testing period, and in fact they (metrics) are impossible to test on PTR as well, since there is no market activity.
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Can you share the proofs for the change? I feel like this isn't actually as straightforward of a change as you are suggesting. This impacts everything from locations of rooms (including those that have been already claimed and built up), code updates related to creep body generation and spawning, and usage of market. The market just came out and is suddenly going to become a major source of minerals for many players, and I'm not sure there is sufficient time to write the necessary code to leverage the market to handle such a drastic change to resource availability.
The suggestion that a technical testing period isn't necessary only feels half true - a lot of logic around logistics is built around the way the economy functions today. A lot of rewriting will be required to adjust, which *does* require technical testing. I feel like this assumption is based on the idea that everyone is spawning creep bodies and roles based on dynamic calculations. I know you know that isn't the case.
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My main gripe with this is that it will greatly reduce the effectiveness of remote mining, especially when you're just starting out and can't reserve a room. We'll see.
I actually like the mineral changes. Now that market is live, it's otherwise too easy to get the minerals you want, and thus the highest level of boosts.
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The remote mining concern is shared.
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I like this change - finally some value to the minerals and the energy once u reach a higher GCL
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I'm more worried it will greatly reduce diversity -- with SK rooms at 2:1 of normal rooms and providing now scarce minerals there will be increased conflict over these rooms, and far fewer different playing styles. The only viable strategy will be "control all the SK rooms" (in effect, by adding this much "evolutionary pressure" for the sake of the "economy", I'm worried we're greatly reducing the number of different play-styles that are viable -- not every game needs a 'healthy' in game economy as its most important feature)
Novice areas that are 'manually' placed in empty regions typically don't have access to SK rooms, with the new setup they're even more disadvantaged compared to the existing/set up players that they will be thrown in near. (Much slower development + harder for them to get a good mineral stockpile going before the walls drop, etc). It'll be a hard ask for a new player to be RCL7 before the walls drop, so any defenders will be poorly equipped to deal with any issues.
What about starting out by just cutting the amount of X present? That would prevent the highest tier of boosts. You could even change how boosts are made in order to make the higher tiers take more of the base mineral (eg it takes 3 L (plus the rest) to make a tier 3 mineral). This would increase the cost of making minerals (more reactions and more base minerals). Or what about just making the mineral cuts -- it's the energy change that I'm mostly worried about from a startup perspective.
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A lot of rewriting will be required to adjust, which does require technical testing.
What exactly you’d want to test using the PTR server? You would need to precisely replicate your entire empire to test these metrics if you want to use them on the main server. It’s just unrealistic.
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The only viable strategy will be “control all the SK rooms” (in effect, by adding this much “evolutionary pressure” for the sake of the “economy”, I’m worried we’re greatly reducing the number of different play-styles that are viable – not every game needs a ‘healthy’ in game economy as its most important feature)
We’ll simply reduce SK sources to 3500 or 3000 then. 4000 is not final, we’ll be watching how it goes.
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> We’ll simply reduce SK sources to 3500 or 3000 then.
I think reading up to this point is where I realized that this game has no future with development decisions being made in such a reactive fashion. How about you just tell everyone how you want them to play if you are going to punish them for not playing in whatever arbitrary fashion you dictate?
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You're right, it is unrealistic to test, which is why I don't think pushing a change that will potentially break multiple different areas of people's code simultaneously is a good idea. Having this pushed out in increments allows people to adjust.
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I think reading up to this point is where I realized that this game has no future with development decisions being made in such a reactive fashion. How about you just tell everyone how you want them to play if you are going to punish them for not playing in whatever arbitrary fashion you dictate?
Every game should polish its game balance from time to time, even when these changes are painful unfortunately. It will have no future otherwise. I'm sorry if it looks like a sudden decision to you, but I can assure you that we've been watching and calculating them carefully for weeks already.
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You’re right, it is unrealistic to test, which is why I don’t think pushing a change that will potentially break multiple different areas of people’s code simultaneously is a good idea. Having this pushed out in increments allows people to adjust.
Not all people like to adjust something all the time. For many it is easier to sit, create a spreadsheet and fix all the things at once.
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not every game needs a ‘healthy’ in game economy as its most important feature
I completely disagree. Healthy economy (not just player-to-player market, but economy in general) is vital for every game where economy is present.
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How about we take a step back -- I think we could all see a similar point of view if we look at what the current problems are. What problems do the development team think the game has?
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If we're talking about pacing, you could always just lengthen ticks. I don't know how many would agree with me, but I'd be happy with ~5 second ticks. Or you could even double creep life-span and halve most other things.
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Well, going into this kind of discussion would require posting a lot of statistical inner data, economy usage metrics, aggregation reports, etc. We are really not ready to do that right now. Actually, I totally agree that it'd be very cool to post some design docs from time to time, but we really don't have enough time resources to do that properly due to all these timeframes regarding open-source server and other stuff.
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DP's point is valid. Not much has been said for the purpose of these changes.
I am currently uncertain whether these changes are good or bad, but would like to understand the motivation behind them.
The safe room change was made ok by adjusting that it only be possible one at a time. This allowed warfare between multi room empires to proceed without too much of an issue. It might be that some of these changes can be adjusted to manage their impact in a constructive way.
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In terms of balance -- what's the solution to the power problem? With minerals harder to come by and energy now more scarce too, those with large power reserves (a year's worth of power) will be able to afford a great number of power creeps (and as they're "ageless", they can just flood their rooms with them and they'll stay flooded) and those without the power reserves will have a harder time getting power and a harder time combating the bonuses it provides.
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It seems to me that this change is quite punishing for newer players?
1) GCL growth will be significantly slower after this change as less energy and minerals are available. This means that new players will have to catch up on older players with a significant handicap.
2) At low GCL the CPU / Claimable Rooms ratio is much higher, meaning that also the maintainable number of remote mines / claimed rooms ratio is much higher. Therefore I'd expect low GCL players to take a much harder hit to their energy income from this change than high GCL players (who get a higher % of their energy from fully claimed rooms).
