View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0026692 | AI War 2 | Suggestion | Mar 11, 2022 1:35 am | Mar 14, 2022 6:40 pm | |
| Reporter | Exlium | Assigned To | Chris_McElligottPark | ||
| Severity | trivial | ||||
| Status | feature for later | Resolution | open | ||
| Product Version | 4.004 Easy There, Hack Response | ||||
| Summary | 0026692: Zombification mechanic could use some polish and counter play | ||||
| Description | So I like the mechanic of zombification as a whole but I notice that a lot of the values being used on ships seem arbitrary or just inflated for no reason. in AI War:FC we had the mechanic of residual nanites transferring to nearby ships if it wasn't enough to convert the ship that got destroyed. In AI War 2 everything seems to get enough zombification in 1-5 hits which just seems like there is hardly a point of having a value its more of a system where you get tagged once and that's it. I would either like to see numbers get reduced so it takes a whole line of parasites focus firing a single guardian to actually get enough zombification and/or have some sort of counter play to it. I find it frustrating when the AI have so many parasitic ships that I know after a single engagement, even if I didn't take a single loss, my ships will all have 10x the amount of zombification required and as far as I know there is no way to remove it. It should go down over time or be removed by engineers. Also from what I have seen most ships apply a value of at least 1000 so couldn't the values for zombification drop at least 2 zeroes? If there's a reason the numbers need to be that high then so be it but I just think it would look nicer if a frigate needed 100 value, most smaller stikecraft needed 10 or so, and ships dealt 1-50 depending on how powerful the shot is. The strikecraft that the AI is likely to have hundreds of should do a smaller amount of zombification and spread if they didn't inflict enough before the unit died. Also the number doesn't really need to overflow after hitting the cap it can just be at 10/10 or 100/100 etc. which can determine how long it takes to remove it with repair beams or over time. It's a small gripe but as the game nears completion with multiplayer almost out of beta, I'm trying to look at things that we may all be used to from the prospective of a newer player. the tooltips throw lots of numbers and lines of text at you and it just makes sense to have stuff be more clear and concise. With the numbers smaller and capping out at certain values there could be a static spot somewhere on the tooltip with an icon next to it so you can easily see at a glance the zombification value applied and the target amount you need instead of more lines of text. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| child of | 0026429 | feature for later | Parent: Collection of ideas for game features to implement |
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I rather like the zombification mechanic as an idea, and if anything I would like almost everything to be able to be affected by it if I could enable that with settings, but I agree that everything requiring 10k zombification to be converted is a bit off - it should scale with something else like their health or something. For some cases 10k is too little, whereas in others it is way too easy. |
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@crawlers: There already is an option for everything to be affected by zombify under "Galaxy-Wide Options" > "Balance" > "Allow Everything To Zombify" I agree with the suggestion for a zombification cap and think a removal mechanic (repair or by itself over time) would be nice as high amounts of zombification dmg on a unit just clutter the tooltip instead of providing useful information. Maybe make it a percentage out of 100% zombified? |
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I think this is way beyond the scope of what we have available to us to do in terms of time, and in general people have been enjoying zombification for a long time, but it's a specific niche among many niches. If someone wants to handle this in a mod fashion, and that turns out to be more popular with folks, then I'd be happy to fold something like that into the game. But in general, that's outside the scope for our main staff. The necromancer in DLC3 is kind of a different take on zombification in general, with different rules for necromancy that are much more balanced in a specific way because it is one cohesive design. Zombification is a challenge in the rest of the game because it's just one of many unit mechanics, and shows up from time to time without actually being a specific codified playstyle. |
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@Zer0h1nder that setting doesn't go far enough for my tastes, and I have used it for a very long time so I know this. Many units are still immune to zombification, like exowar units, golems, and others. |
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I figured as much but I just wanted to put my idea out there and see if anyone else felt the same way. It's not as important as a lot of the other things that need to get done and since it does work as intended then I understand that it's not really worth the time of the devs in most cases. |
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FWIW in case anything every comes of this on the modding side, I think the abiity to repair/remove zombification would be quite unbalanced in the player's favor since the AI doesn't have repair capabilities. Requiring the amount of zombification damage suggested would make it not very useful as a mechanic IMO. I don't think it's perfect as is but I favor the current implementation over the suggested changes. Somewhat higher zombification for a big target would be good but is not essential in my opinion since you still have to destroy them to get any benefit from it. I think counterplay already exists in the form of 'use counters to ships the AI is deploying that zombify a lot'. It's more clear how to do this ofc in the case of ships such as teuthida guardians than it is more numerous strike craft of course, but I view that as being quite similar to any other strikecraft the AI uses a lot of that causes the player grief, such as those used by the Thief AI. |
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Countering what the AI uses, as well as the relevance of zombification, varies a lot per game type. If the human fleet is around 1-2k str and uses a good deal of fallen spire and looted alien ships, the main thing to really try to counter is exowar ships, not tethuida guardians or parasite variant fleetships who have limited effect due to most important things being immune to their power. |
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Sure, but if you're playing Fallen Spire, Fallen Spire *is* the counter to the big exowar ships. I don't think base game mechanics should change to alter the balance of a faction that the game specifically says 'drastically changes how the game will play'. |
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I know Sage does a lot of work on the balancing and such so I'm sure if it seems my suggestions were too much in favor of the player, I'll take their word. However I wasn't suggesting everything that I said, but whatever would work best. If it just went down over time that would benefit the AI equally. My main suggestion is still just the adjustments of the tooltip format but that does sound time consuming for something that doesn't actually change how the game plays which is why I marked it as trivial severity. Whenever I see that line on a ship that say the ship inflicts over 100k zombification when the needed amount is 10k for every single ship I just question if the numbers were auto generated by some method or the mechanic was meant to have something more to it that never got finished. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 11, 2022 1:35 am | Exlium | New Issue | |
| Mar 11, 2022 11:49 am | crawlers | Note Added: 0065378 | |
| Mar 11, 2022 12:33 pm | Zer0h1nder | Note Added: 0065380 | |
| Mar 11, 2022 3:24 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Assigned To | => Chris_McElligottPark |
| Mar 11, 2022 3:24 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | new => feature for later |
| Mar 11, 2022 3:24 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0065383 | |
| Mar 11, 2022 3:47 pm | crawlers | Note Added: 0065384 | |
| Mar 11, 2022 5:58 pm | Daniexpert | Relationship added | child of 0026429 |
| Mar 12, 2022 5:53 am | Exlium | Note Added: 0065390 | |
| Mar 12, 2022 10:27 pm | Strategic Sage | Note Added: 0065398 | |
| Mar 12, 2022 11:49 pm | crawlers | Note Added: 0065400 | |
| Mar 13, 2022 1:17 am | Strategic Sage | Note Added: 0065401 | |
| Mar 14, 2022 6:40 pm | Exlium | Note Added: 0065419 |
