View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0024004 | AI War 2 | Bug - Gameplay | Oct 19, 2020 10:16 am | Oct 20, 2020 2:16 pm | |
| Reporter | ArnaudB | Assigned To | Chris_McElligottPark | ||
| Severity | minor | ||||
| Status | assigned | Resolution | open | ||
| Product Version | 2.617 Calming For The Nerves | ||||
| Summary | 0024004: Waves budget stacking | ||||
| Description | I was testing out Beam damage (it does perform somewhat worse at higher gamespeed) and spammed the wave command. It took 4 uses of cmd:insta waves before the AI actually sent a wave on the planet. The AI just report the budget to make big waves. On one hand, it's smart for the AI. On the other hand I find it makes the game feel empty. I can go over an hour without seeing a single wave. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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If you have only very heavily defended planets and a high difficulty AI then this is working as intended. If you want the AI to be dumb and more willing to attack, play a lower difficulty AI. |
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I think this was a seven. |
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That's high enough, yeah. |
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Yep, this is basically what we expect. The wave budgets for your average AI (it depends on the AI type) are not really all that high. They're high enough that you'll go long stretches without getting hammered, but usually that's because they are saving it up for later. There are really only two basic ways out of this, and I'm not sure I am fond of either (but there are AI types that allow for at least one of them): 1. We increase the AI waves budget, so that you just take more hits in general. 2. We make the AI not care about smartness of attacking you, and just attack when it can, even though it's futile. Then things "feel alive," like in the first game, but largely these efforts are going to be fruitless on the part of the AI. --- So, with THAT said, I get what you mean on wanting things to feel alive. It does feel good to have your defenses tested, even if it's by a puny and pointless level of a force. My first instinct was to close this issue as working as intended and say "yeah, feeling like the world is alive matters, but the other factions are what are supposed to be the main ones causing that now." But then I had a whole flurry of other thoughts. For one, what about people who just like playing against the AI on its own, humans vs AI and nothing else? For another, what about people who play multi-sided wars, where the AI might be launching waves against other factions in a way you never even see? That could be one thing drawing down AI wave budgets that makes them way more sparse in some games in terms of what you SEE, even though the AI is launching some substantial waves there. So that got me thinking about the whole purpose of waves in general, and the limitations and annoyances of the current system. Let's take a bit of a trip: 1. The notifications bar up on the top part of the screen gets freaking cluttered, particularly when there are a lot of waves incoming or a lot of fights happening. I don't mind the notification bar being busy if there's a lot going on that's actually relevant, but as many things as possible should ideally be designed around the concept of "don't tell me too much if it's not really relevant right now." And for me, wave notifications and their countdown actually are a big thing that fall into that: right now, it gives you an absurdly long while to see that waves are incoming and react to them, and I'm not sure that is for the best. It leads to clutter during that entire time, completely ruins any surprise the attack might have, and I don't think that anyone reasonably needs to have that amount of time to react to a wave. The balance of the first game was different. 2. When it comes to waves in general, there is a huge amount of extra time tacked on before they arrive, regardless of how long your warning is. It's something like 28 minutes between the AI deciding to send a wave at someone and the wave arriving. That's patently absurd, and reminds me of the indirect way of how you put cards into a queue as you play Killer Bunnies and then the card you played the turn before is the one that comes out on your next turn. That is fine with a few players, and indirection is cool and all, but when it's a 10-person game that makes your prior decisions almost completely outdated by the time you are next having your own turn. You might as well be playing randomly, the delay gets so large. I feel like that's happening now with the AIs. And it makes the waves part of the AI incredibly sluggish to respond to both humans and other factions alike. No wonder the hunter and warden and so on get all the glory. 3. In the first AI War, in the earlier versions, one of the reasons I had frequent waves was to make sure that players were tested routinely enough in order to make it so that you can't just leave some planet completely undefended. In this sequel, that is mostly accomplished by the hunter pouncing on such planets if it can get to them. But this does make for a long stretch of time where you wonder "is anything happening?" In the first AI War, it was kind of like rain hitting you pretty frequently; if you had a window open, you were going to get a bit wet in there, so you had to take care of your windows. Every so often there would be a fire hose that turned on you, and you really had to watch out for that, but there was also just the general maintenance of rain protection. In AI War 2, there's no light rain, really. Instead I would shift to the analogy of a criminal circling your house with binoculars, and anytime a window is left unlocked on a room with no on inside, he breaks in. That is terrifying, but if you keep at least someone in each room, and your windows locked, then you never even see the criminal during a normal course of events. This shifts away from you having any sense of what you're capable of withstanding, and of being routinely tested, and instead is much more like facing off against another actual intelligence. 4. While we're discussing changes in general, since we stopped letting the AI shift resources between its various budgets recently, and since I stopped the reinforcements from being bonkers wrong, I think that certain parts of the AI have gotten more budget-poor. We may be seeing this with the waves right now. --- So with all of the above as context for where I'm coming from, the TLDR is that I am thinking of a couple of things: 1. AI waves should have a short timer of something like 3-5 minutes, not 28. 2. If you are warned or not during this time is I guess a setting, but I'm not sure what the default should be. Whatever the default is, becomes the new rules for a "pure 10 win," which is one thing, but also becomes the new player experience, which is another thing. I am inclined to give 30-60 seconds of warning, and that's it. And only for these "big rare" waves. 3. It's possible that maybe the AI needs a bump in wave income in general, across the board. I'm not that inclined to go too crazy with this, though. Maybe a 10% bump, which really won't make all that big of a difference in most circumstances. 4. I am also thinking that the AI needs to separate wave budgets. One for humans, and one for anyone and everyone else. We shouldn't be wondering why there are no waves in some games because those are going against third parties. And in the games where it is just you and the AI, that extra budget that would be for third parties is simply unused and wasted forever. No problem. Keeping these budgets apart from one another is really important, I think, for having consistent and sensible experiences in a variety of circumstances. 5. I am also thinking that a new "micro waves against humans" budget should be added for the AIs in general. These are raindrops. These are something that are fairly routine, DEFINITELY come with no warning, and that any moderately competent human planet should squash like bugs without any oversight from you. These exist to remind you the AI is there, and make you feel the presence of the warp gates wherever those are. Later, they will also feed your "batteries" a bit, if you have such a thing. These micro waves would never be something that even tries to work intelligently, but rather are just the occasional cannon fodder to let you know it's still there. Throwing pebbles at the electric forcefield and watching them get vaporized, from the AI's standpoint. I think that these changes will allow things to feel a lot more lively, and avoid various edge cases where the AI seems absolutely absent, etc. But it doesn't lose the primary way that the AI actually builds up a substantial wave and sends it, with a taunt, etc. Those ones are still rare enough that they are worth having commentary on, but the little ones would not be. |
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Yeah one of my problem with waves not coming for a long time is that it is... really boring. Even when I leave econ planets or the AI to hit, it takes a long time. I didn't think much of an issue with waves having no chance because then the challenge shifted into trying to keep the waves from escaping once they decided to run. It was a much more interesting balancing act than the current implementation. It's also getting more puzzle-like in a bad way. CPAs have a very weak budget compared to everything else. By the time CPA hit, I have at least two to three times more threat than the CPA throw at me and I have probably killed six or eight times more strength than the CPA have. It's kinda... underwhelming. I also don't see how CPAs could drain planets of reinforcement on either diff 7, 8 or 9. It doesn't throw enough strength even with Tsunami CPA on. I do like bigger waves mixed with small battering waves. I thought the reconquest sort of did that already, as sometimes it just stack up on budget and throw a lot at you. That's fun. |
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AS far as I can tell minor factions already have their "anti-self waves" that accumulate their very own budget, so I'm not sure there needs to be a split between budget vs player and vs everyone else, unless you mean to tell me that the AI launches waves not prompted from the anti-self waves using anti-player-budget. Other than that, I've made a few modifications to how waves work with Marauders for the purpose: If the current wave budget is greater than the maximum (which should only ever be the case if Marauders lose a lot of territory in a very short amount of time) the AI launches, otherwise every minute it checks whether it has at least half its maximum budget, if so it launches. When launching it will trigger as many waves as possible before the budget spent goes to <5% (and while having over 5% of maximum budget left), so if there's a "breaking point" and the AI has enough budget saved up to launch 3 waves at once it will do so. This leads to a number of waves being launched by the AI against Marauders, if any, but it also leaves a longer wind-up period. I'm not saying that's how player waves should be, but it would be interesting to get multiple waves aimed at entirely different parts of the galaxy, potentially, at the same time. |
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I think a lot of this is playstyle. I've mentioned it before but since it's coming up again, my experience with CPAs is totally different than ArnaudBs. They typically multiply my existing threat by several times and are a common cause of death on high difficulties. I've also definitely seen them drain the galaxy of guards/reinforcements; not as often as others who play high-AIP more but it's still there. My general thought on waves being boring or not is just that it's a non-issue. The hunter is more where the action is. FWIW, I see point 0000004 differently. It's not something vital enough to me to really raise a ruckus about one way or the other, but I think it's actually very cool to be in a situation where the AI stops sending waves at the player for a while because it's concerned about something else. I think that fits in quite well with what Chris said earlier about facing off against another intelligence as opposed to something that's just checking items off a list. It makes it feel more like I'm involved in a real, dynamic environment. In general I support the shortening of the timer to a degree for certain, but other than that I think the current system is actually better. The fact that you can have an impact by how much you fortify your planets is an immersive element for me, pretty much the opposite of boring, and the whole mini-game of trying to keep them from escape is - and from what I've heard from other players, I'm not alone in this - more of an annoyance than anything that is gameplay enhancing. Do what you feel is best as always, I just thought I should put in my .02 here particularly since it seems some of the other vets are definitely on the other side of this one. |
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It's truth that my experience might not be for everybody. I do remember a time when 150-200 strength wave was scary, though since others on Discord mentioned finding the CPAs "anemic", I don't think it comes only from me. I suspect part of why they feel weaker is because of my highly offensive use of battlestations which allow early-game dives into high strength planets, causing them to release a lot of threat. That combined with my much faster playstyle nowadays means that I have 'released' several times the CPA's worth of threat by the time 2h rolls in. However CPAs aren't my concern here. I really like the base design of waves ever since I started playing AI War, probably either prequel or sequel. From a thematic standpoint I loved the throwaway nature of the waves, lacking in ship variety and relatively uncaring of how well they fare against your defences. It really sold me that the AI was a distracted giant swapping at a fly, the first hint that the AI possess so much resources and economy that it can throw away that many ships without a thought. As a new player that became a veteran I loved waves frequents and of predictable strengths, it was the first feedback you had to increasing the AIP-threat you represented to the AI, it was also what led you know if you are ready for a difficulty. "Surviving the waves" was a condition to play at a given difficulty, a checklist to see if you were capable of playing at that level. Waves were the first feedback you had to the growing response of the AI to your deeds and let you know if you should push or hold back a little. As a learning player, waves were great because they let me experiment and look for counters. It's surprisingly easy to ignore the rock-paper-scissor nature of certain ships in the mixed fleets that features the Sentinel-Warden-Hunter fleets. The enemy might have a lot of eyebots and cloaked stuff, but it still won't necessarily make you go look for Ablative Gatlings, or cut down on frigates. Waves on the other hand because they were a bunch of similar ships encouraged you to work on builds to counter specific ships. There is nothing quite like 1500 Pulsar tanks showing up in a wave to make you consider whether hugging the wormholes is a wise decision. Those instances of looking up at an incoming wave and seeing what was in it was a good part of me learning to get better. You can pause and just work out with what you have, decide whether to pull in backup or shift your load-out the target planet in order to keep your offence mostly going. It's a very nice moment of AI War, where you have an imminent problem that can be solved based on what you gathered so far, with imminent feedback and sometimes long lasting consequences but sometimes also not something that will make you panic. It's just very nice to have those frequents waves. I never saw them as something that was meant to kill the player. It's a gauge for players both new and veteran to know much the AI is taking them seriously, an immediate feedback and a recurrent but 'easy' problem they have to solve temporarily till the AI dies to solve it permanently. It's also a learning tool both to learn how to fight the AI and to judge whether difficulty 8 is too steep or something you're ready for. Another part of this is the pacing. The frequents waves threaten you and you get used to them, then CPA rolls in. When it's strong it's great: you have the small throwaway waves then every two hours the AI glances at the galaxy and seeing how bloated it gets, it just grab a bunch of ships and sent them your way more to make space for reinforcement than to kill you. I suspect not everybody see the CPA that way, but I really liked how that interaction between waves and CPAs framed a narrative of the AI being that giant who had better things to do. The "new" system of the waves feel very poor in comparison. CPAs are feeling anemic partly because the waves becomes huge rather than small things. You can go for forty minutes without any feedback from the AI in the notification. Then the AI throw in an enormous wave that arrive with three minutes of warning than the 10 min warning of CPA that stack with players learning CPAs comes roughly every two hours give or take twenty minutes. It is just... bad. The AI just show up with bunch of threat 'for free' that lands straight up on your planets in player-killing amount. That this leaves the player with no feedback about how much trouble it's sending the player's way for over 30 min is completely unacceptable. I pity new players for this, because the moment they start building proper defence, or even just if they build everything with military stations, they are going to get crushed by an unbeatable wave just showing up on their doorstep. This feel doubly unnecessarily since there are others threats to the player that fulfill the role of those "big waves". The threat is the first one and it's what the player should pay attention to, it's what punish the player if the player let it build too high and doesn't plan for when it attacks. The CPA fills the role of that "huge death wave" that you know is coming, and it has much more warning. Then as you climb AIP there is the Wormhole invasion, which turn the defensive equation on its head, providing a new avenue of attack that the player must manage and risking them overextending on energy and resources as the various threats to the player adds up. The Reconquest wave even fulfill the role that the current waves are. Reconquest are interesting because most of the time they are small, low strength, waves that come to take back a planet after you have already been handed a defeat. But sometimes, sometimes the reconquest wave has hundred of strength in it and even decide to time itself during a wave. I really like those waves because while they follow the progressive growth of what waves used to be, they feel and are much scarier. It's a lot of strength coming your way and that Usurper makes it a lot scarier because even a planet you have no valuable on can be taken back. It's scary because if you lose your command station then the warden might just decide to show up, then with the Warden your defences fall and now there are guard posts warping in and you better do something about it. It's just great to have that moment where the AI decides it isn't just going to break a few of your toys, but just give you a lesson in taking territory after you have already taken a bunch of its planets. It's also great because it's something the player has multiple answers to. It can snipe the Usurper to make things less painful, it can flank the wave to cut off the Warden Fleet by taking a neighbouring planet then swing back to defend the attacked planet, it can try to use the distraction to trap the warden inside human territory and let the player charge the Homeworld before it decides to go hunter... with all the ways this can go wrong. If you do want a wave that accumulates it budget in the manner waves are currently implemented, I'd in fact much prefer if it happened to reconquest waves. It's much more interesting. There is certainly more to be said. I think one frustrating part for me recently was due to the War Unit and the anti-minor factions response work. More and more it feels like, with huge units and vast threats sent against minor factions, the AI feels less like a distracted titan than a kid with economic cheat on buying all the game-enders units but not knowing how to use them and ending up leaving them for hours doing nothing. This is really blatant lately, with thousands of threats hanging by one or two hops away from my planets and sending only 200-300 strength out of a 1,8k threat even when I conquer my way to the Homeworld, literally walk my fleet around the threat on neighboring planets, then attack the Homeworld without even a peep from ninth-tenth of the threat. I do like the game a lot, but I do think some changes make the AI looks dumber, not smarter, and make the game less enjoyable as of late. I don't know what to do except give that feedback and hope that things will get better. (I do apologise for the wall of text) |
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I'm confused by your reference to the "new" waves system. The current system where the AI will delay sending units was put in here: Date: Fri Jun 7 17:29:22 2019 Wave changes: On higher difficulty the AI will now not send waves against planets that are 'too heavily defended'. It will either pick weaker targets or roll the wave budget over into the next wave. This gives the AI a bit better of a chance against a well-defended or turtling player So I'm not sure why this is suddenly an issue now. re: "....with thousands of threats hanging by one or two hops away from my planets and sending only 200-300 strength out of a 1,8k threat even when I conquer my way to the Homeworld" Well, that just sounds like a bug. Has it been reported with save games to reproduce the problem? I did see 23991, but it was a heavily modded game which isn't really supported. If you can reproduce the problem without mods I'm sure chris would be happy to take a look. |
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Likely a combination of factors but I have been bothered by the wave new method for a long while, without quite being able to pinpoint why. I suspect the waves stacking was worsened several times by the new strength calculations, making the AI stack its budget more times before sending a wave. The threat issue is one I had for... pretty much all my recent games. A good chunk are modded since I tested mods so well. Maybe I'll make another game but I have played enough games lately and just don't feel like running another right now. We'll see. |
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The only help I can provide on the threat issue is to note that I haven't seen anything like that recently. To my mind that indicates there are certain conditions when it happens, and others when it doesn't - I've regularly seen threat 'cleanse' itself by attacking me once it reached a certain point. I suspect though much more info would be needed that it could have something to do with threat accumulating against other factions and then not knowing what to do with itself afterwards? *shrug*. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 19, 2020 10:16 am | ArnaudB | New Issue | |
| Oct 19, 2020 10:16 am | ArnaudB | File Added: 20201019145913_1.jpg | |
| Oct 19, 2020 10:43 am | BadgerBadger | Note Added: 0059314 | |
| Oct 19, 2020 10:44 am | ArnaudB | Note Added: 0059315 | |
| Oct 19, 2020 11:01 am | BadgerBadger | Note Added: 0059316 | |
| Oct 19, 2020 2:45 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Assigned To | => Chris_McElligottPark |
| Oct 19, 2020 2:45 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | new => feedback |
| Oct 19, 2020 2:45 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0059318 | |
| Oct 19, 2020 2:55 pm | ArnaudB | Note Added: 0059319 | |
| Oct 19, 2020 2:55 pm | ArnaudB | Status | feedback => assigned |
| Oct 19, 2020 3:18 pm | NRSirLimbo | Note Added: 0059320 | |
| Oct 19, 2020 4:02 pm | Strategic Sage | Note Added: 0059321 | |
| Oct 20, 2020 3:48 am | ArnaudB | Note Added: 0059328 | |
| Oct 20, 2020 12:39 pm | BadgerBadger | Note Added: 0059335 | |
| Oct 20, 2020 12:53 pm | ArnaudB | Note Added: 0059336 | |
| Oct 20, 2020 2:16 pm | Strategic Sage | Note Added: 0059339 |
