[WIP] The Realm Community Balance Mod

Now this is more like it. I've been wondering what would be the result of Uber's trend on balance and the community's frustration with it. I might join the ranks in testing, though I don't know how much of a voice I'd give given my level of status as a player. (or realistically, the lack thereof)

One thing I'm confused about is this.

By this context, are you presuming that PA will continuously have balance changes well after release? Or is this idea / statement just until they are satisfied with the final balance that results in the 'finished product' as it were? I don't think Uber plans on changing balance in any big way once they get the big numbers out of the way and finish the little things, so the vanilla balance should eventually stop changing numbers entirely. At this point, it won't make any difference what numbers you decide to change from in the end.

All of that said, When Scathis says he balances by looking at the extremes instead of by slight numbers, it's possible that the current gen balance is simply one side of the scale at least when eco is concerned. Maybe there'll be a balance on the other end of the spectrum more towards where this mod is going. Maybe not. While I completely agree on quite a few of the balance ideas going on here, and torn with others (lack of storage for basic), I think this may be jumping the gun a little bit soon. It's also possible that this mod very well may find a balance right off the bat so good that Uber may feel it's vanilla-worthy. Here's hoping, right?

I'll definitely be lurking about and perhaps peek in and post every once in a while.

I do indeed presume that Uber will constantly be tweaking balance (and it is likely that we will as well). As I said before in the post you've quoted, it's purely for a measurement of control as all of our other mods are going to be using this balance mod as a starting point. Where possible we may release said mods in both a standalone state that would work with vanilla as well as a RealmPack version that would account for our rebalance; though I make no promises as I don't have control over other Realm modders' dedication to catering to vanilla.

Energy Storage is still in the basic tier and you can increase your Metal Storage too by building more factories. However, come the late game it becomes rather an inefficient way to increase it. Hence the "specialist" Metal Storage that holds 30,000* M per silo, as opposed to the measly 500* gained per Factory.

Finally, I don't like to view this as jumping the gun. Rather, I see it as having a degree of preparation for when we get our hands on the tools to mod the server-side.

*Numbers are there purely as a placeholder. It may increase or decrease based on tester feedback when we get the means to distribute and test the mod.
Theory-crafting only goes so far before you have to test it.

Okay, it seems we have the first draft of amended JSON files assembled and ready to go. Since we now have the ability to make minor amendments to Galactic War, we can begin preliminary testing.

Any coders interested in helping to get this first round into the game, grab hold of @nanolathe and @YourLocalMadSci - though I suggest we wait until the next patch goes live this morning before getting started on the code, just in case.

As long as the json changes just altered values (didn't add any new fields), it should be pretty easy to make a mammoth loadout which represents this mod. Given the large amount of changes, and that json is the 'source', a quick converter from the modified json to the loadout would be the easiest way to do it.

Just look at the existing cards for reference. Loadouts are named gwc_start_*, other cards are good examples of modifying data, you'd make heavy use of the replace operation instead of multiply.

If no one has done it by sunday I probably will. I'll pm you to check if anyone has claimed it when I have time to try it myself.

With the new PTE build you can test out balance mods, no need to make a galactic war loadout.

But if you still want the galactic war loadout it wouldn't take long to make, assuming minimal issues

So yea, it looks like you can just... do this now. When do we start? How can I help? I'm very familiar with json, know java, a smattering of c++, c#, and have too much free time.

A lot of modders are aching to get astart on this now. I believe if you look around, you will see the "aim" of the balance in the mod, if you feel like adjusting some unit jsons, the worse that can happen is you do the same work 3 other people did at the same time lol.

Alternatively, PM one of the other responders to this thread, see if they are actively doing work so you can partner up with them and help speed things along.

I want to get started too but possibly won't until tuesday.

If anything, I believe, mods like these can actually help with the core balance of the game. This mod is willing to do what Uber are not (at least for the time being). Even though they may not be collecting and analyzing data the feedback will still be there.

Some of the proposed tweaks just seem to be "well that makes total sense" changes. Maybe Uber is on track for the same outcome, they just have different plans and goals for the game.

So, I have been playing around with the .json stuff. Waaaaaay to much fun, and way to much freedom. I already made bomb bots into an unstoppable plague- they convert the mass of things they explode into more of themselves.

In terms of more real things, I feel like a public git repo for this would be a good way to document changes to base unit stats.

So, less than a day and someone's already created the 'Lego-bots-of-doom'..? Wonderful.

I think I also just crashed the server

Just to let people know, myself and Nanolathe have been busy with a different project this weekend. However we plan to start serious testing and altering on Monday. Anyone who wants to join in is more than welcome.

I'm hoping to get all the infrastructure up and running this afternoon so coders can get stuck in!

Right, here's the repo: https://github.com/cwarner7264/realm-rebalance

Are you about to put the current rebalance json files there? Someone can turn those into a server mod quickly.

First files we'll be changing will be the Economy files. We're not touching units at all until we can be sure that our changes don't break anything fundamentally (like crashing the game or somesuch). As soon as the Econ is sorted we'll start rebalancing units from the ground up; a much larger task to be sure. Starting with Ground units (land and structures), then Air, then Orbital, Naval and finally the super weapons (Nukes and Halleys). Basic and Advanced should be going in at the same time for each theatre of war, as both are critical in representing a full unit roster.

Testers should be ready for Monday afternoon (BST) when the first changes are likely to hit and we'll be releasing steady updates from that point on based on testing and feedback.

ooh, is it too late to sign up for testing? Or does that not even require a signup? I'm too tired to check atm!

Question: Do you guys plan to do the changes in the files by hand?
What about patches that may change the structure of the unit json files? They may require you to rewrite all changes into the new json files, won't they?

Not at all @emraldis. Testers just need to be willing to test.

@cola_colin, MadSci is writing a script to automatically record changes between our different versions. In time he hopes to be able to have the Unit's statistics presented in an easy to read (and edit) table, however, that isn't working just yet. Currently we are editing each JSON by hand because the changes we're doing aren't "universal"... everything's being changed by a little bit and in different ways.

If you'd like to help us out, give MadSci a shout on Monday and I'm sure he'd be glad of any help you're willing to offer in getting the scripts working.

Well... as I was a bit enthusiastic yesterday, I've ended up with a local version that's got all the economy changes directly mentioned in the document. ~90% of which are done through adjusting the inheritance to something a bit more logical. (i.e.; all factories inherit off a base_factory, with base_factory_adv for the advanced ones)

I'll try getting the eco stuff up into a git branch this morning, but since it's the first time I've actually used git it might not make it there. ><;

Edit: Files are up. Stripped out what combat changes I had gotten to putting in.

On a different note, the changes make pgens your go-to once the factory's down. With the factory and your commander you have ~5.25 seconds (~4.2 for air first) of building before running out of power and pgen take ~7 seconds to build with the commander.