PTR Changelog 2016-09-09
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And one more thing.
Most often then not, effectiveness in this game is not measured by code complexity but by simplicity. Having 100 different code paths to handle offensive combat is not something to necessarily be proud off.
How's your pathfinding algorithm? Does it handle moving 100 creeps across 20 rooms without killing your bucket? I imagine that's something you did not have to consider yet.
Are you taking into account portals for offensive/defensive considerations? I imagine that's not something you had to worry about yet.
Are your units correctly identifying and coordinating with allied AIs?
How's does your system scale? Will you fit under 10 CPU per room when you have 10 rooms?
How about minerals?
How about boosting?
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@Atavus Please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying that I should be able to stand up to a more senior player. In fact that's rather my point. What I am trying to get at, is two fold.
1. This seems like a "good" feature, for me, the noob player. It means I get more free "noob walls". It means that as the noob player I get more time to get things setup and ready to go.
2. This seems like a "bad" feature. There is no way my emerging code that I can not figure out yet should be able to stand up at all to a more senior, experienced player. https://screeps.com/a/#!/history/W47S53?t=13426880 (sorry at the edge of the time line) is what I would expect. (In short _PK made short work of me) My problem stems from the fact that regardless of how good or bad my code is, I now have a one liner that makes me invincible, no matter how good or bad the attackers code is. Granted there are limitations.
3, This seems like a "bad" feature because it doesn't accomplish one of its goals. It doesn't pause the fight till both the attacker and the defender are online. It simply pauses the fight till the attacker is offline and the defender is online.
4. This seems like a "bad" feature because it makes "empire wars" lengthy and tedious. The one room at a time change does help mitigate this a bit, but lets say empire X wants room 1 and empire Y wants room 1, now instead of many frequent battles over room 1, there is at least an 8 hour cool down between room ownership changes. Instead of just waiting for the controller to reset, now you have to wait out a 8 hour timer + a controller reset.
5. This seems like a "bad" feature because it "allows" me to "man" my defenses. A large part of the game to me is creating a defense that can actually last through the night. Yes I will fail, sometimes comically, but in that failure is learning.
6. This seem like a "bad" feature because it increases the cost of attack by at least 2x. Maybe more, where there is no resulting cost of defense (for new rooms)
To my code numbers, that is more just a specific argument. The idea being that "most people have more code pressure on the defending side". My defense code sucks. My attack code, while not perfect is where I have spent a great deal of time. I should feel a natural need to improve my defense code, but even now I do not. Even less so when I can thwart an attack for 8 hours with a single line. A decent single line, means they break my defenses, then I activate. With 0 cool-down in a noob zone, I can hang out in noob zones forever. I will be invincible. I take a room, RCL to 4, I get 24 hours of free I win, unclaim the room, go take a new room, get another 24 hours of free I win. Other's in the noob zones will have the same ability, though, so there is even more stagnation in an area that should see many tiny little battles.
Now all that doesn't mean that the feature is "bad". It's single good point may outweigh the 5 bad points that I see. There may be other good points that I just don't see yet. It just reminds me of EVE online's POS warfare, which, for me totally ruined the game. The game went from fun, smaller to larger battles, with fleet on fleet action. To POS timer warfare with very little fleet on fleet action. I see the same thing happening here. Two equal players trying to "fight it out" instead sit there and have to manage Safemode timers.
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An eloquent answer. Thank you for putting that together.
To be honest, as mentioned earlier, I am neutral on this change and do not believe it will have a significant impact.
I also have experienced the situation as you. I have spent weeks working on my offensive code, but only have some basic tower targeting and creep code for defense. Probably spent less than a day working on my defense code. There's lots of room for improvement there, but there has been no real incentive.
Even before this change, my reasoning was that walls and defenses are good enough to hold back an attacker for a few hours. Even if I lose 1 or 2 rooms until I get online, I prefer relying on an effective offense and mobile force that I can use to counter threats or simply counter attack.
The benefit from an effective offense has been greater then that of an effective defense. In the words of the famous proverb: the best defense is a good offense. However, I recognize that this may be a personal approach to the subject and am willing to accept alternative perspectives.
I still find it difficult to judge what the real impact this change will have.
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Let's move this discussion to the new thread.
