View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0023846 | AI War 2 | Balance Issue | Oct 1, 2020 1:50 pm | Oct 1, 2020 3:06 pm | |
| Reporter | TechSY730 | Assigned To | Chris_McElligottPark | ||
| Status | closed | Resolution | won't fix | ||
| Product Version | 2.603 Nanocaust And Civvies Strike Back | ||||
| Fixed in Version | 2.604 A Thousand Screaming Idiots | ||||
| Summary | 0023846: [discussion] [2.604] Would allowing the AI to shift budget allocations, but only slightly, be ok? | ||||
| Description | In 2.604, as of this writing, it seems that most cases of budget reallocations by the AI is being removed. While that would stop the deleterious affects listed in the release notes, I wonder if the feature could be kept in a much more limited form to give some of the advantages without the deleterious effects on pacing mentioned. Maybe like the AI can only shift budget for a category from its base (for that AI type) value by up to 5% or something? Similarly, the "overcap refund" for subfactions could be changed to 50% saved for next check, 45% lost, 5% reallocated like the AI does now (instead of the current 2.604, 50% saved for next check, 50% lost) (Exact numbers are to be determined of course, this is just an example) If this reallocation removal is also being used as a chance to simplify the code, then yeah, go ahead and get rid of it then let it persist in such a small form. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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It's slightly a case to simplify the code, but honestly I don't think that these things do us any favors in general. Essentially, anything that we can do with the code-reallocation stuff is either 1) something we shouldn't be doing, for reasons I outlined in that post or 2) something we can do in other easier ways, but just tuning or buffing or nerfing individual budgets based on circumstances, and not tying them together in any way. In other words, let's say that we wanted the AIs to react to you being near their king by... getting extra praetorian guard forces. There's no real reason for us to gate this by what has been happening with any of the other budgets. We can make up budget income sources out of thin air, which is kind of cheaty and lame, or we could do something more interesting like say... those boosts only kick in if the king is threatened and there's a certain "infrastructure" building out in the galaxy somewhere. Or depending on how many of those are out there, versus how many you killed, it kicks in more than it would otherwise. Overall I don't really see anything good that comes out of this reallocation that we can't do better in another way in the future using some other new mechanic that players can actually see and interact with. The biggest sin of this original mechanic is that it's absolutely invisible, and so pretty confusing. And often full of bad-style unintended side effects, like an offensive AI having iron defenses if you stalemate their offensive force long enough. Overall I feel like, when you get right down to it, this sort of budget sharing drags every AI toward the middle and feeling a bit more samey, if that makes sense? I don' think anyone is going to be noticing a huge difference in the loss of this except the annoying stuff going away. The AI won't suddenly seem less reactive -- if anything, it will seem more reactive from these changes (because waves and wormhole invasions aren't getting nerfed while you threaten the king). But then, probably as part of DLC2, this does give me some new levers to start pulling on in order to let the player effect confrontations with the AI in several fashions. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 1, 2020 1:50 pm | TechSY730 | New Issue | |
| Oct 1, 2020 1:50 pm | TechSY730 | Description Updated | |
| Oct 1, 2020 1:51 pm | TechSY730 | Description Updated | |
| Oct 1, 2020 1:52 pm | TechSY730 | Description Updated | |
| Oct 1, 2020 3:06 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Assigned To | => Chris_McElligottPark |
| Oct 1, 2020 3:06 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | new => closed |
| Oct 1, 2020 3:06 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Resolution | open => won't fix |
| Oct 1, 2020 3:06 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Fixed in Version | => 2.604 A Thousand Screaming Idiots |
| Oct 1, 2020 3:06 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0058853 |
