Let's Talk about Unit Health Again

Discussion in 'Balance Discussions' started by brianpurkiss, August 20, 2014.

  1. liquius

    liquius Well-Known Member

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    Clopse does have a point. In RCBM every single units has been touched, and a significant portion of those were reworked. At this point RCBM is too different to be able to say "if it works in RCBM, then it should work in vanilla".
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  2. nanolathe

    nanolathe Post Master General

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    Health increases for all T1 mobile units in the range of about 2 to 2.5 times higher.

    T2 units were changed radically (relatively speaking) from their vanilla counterparts to the point that there isn't a neat rule that applies.
    Last edited: August 22, 2014
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  3. squishypon3

    squishypon3 Post Master General

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    Nah, that problem arose when we created the 4 times health mod. RCBM and Statera both opted for doubling (or so)

    This number seemed to be the best at giving more health yet keeping micro low.
  4. Jaedrik

    Jaedrik Active Member

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    No, I am tired of games with high/slow TTKs.
    I like fast death.
  5. brianpurkiss

    brianpurkiss Post Master General

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    That's what I initially thought. But it doesn't.

    Seriously. You should try it before you knock it. I used to agree with you – until I tried it.

    That's why I've said roughly a 2x health increase. Of course things would need to be tweaked further. 2x health increase is just a rough starting point.
  6. squishypon3

    squishypon3 Post Master General

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    It doesn't need to take a long time, it's just that being able to one shot a unit feels dumb because then that unit never even fires off a shot.
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  7. brianpurkiss

    brianpurkiss Post Master General

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    This. Very much this.

    Right now units shoot and die.

    By increasing unit health, we're not talking about minute long engagements.

    We're talking about units taking 2-4 shots before dying. So engagements last a little bit longer, but they are by no means "long" engagements. It simply means they last longer, there's more explosions, and you can actually retreat and whatnot.

    Unit movement matters a lot more essentially. Where you send your units, in what order, and attack orders matter.
  8. YourLocalMadSci

    YourLocalMadSci Well-Known Member

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    If anyone needs it, there is a quick perl script to do this kind of thing on the RCBM github. It can filter by the unittype as well, so you can easily make large changes across all files. If you are familiar with command line usage, it only takes a few seconds.
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  9. mjshorty

    mjshorty Well-Known Member

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    wasnt there a huge poll going on where everyone wanted to X3 the unit health as the most popular?
    I for one dont particularly mind quick deaths (except maybe pelters and holkins, those literally are glass cannons...but im going off-topic) i would prefere just reducing all units cost by like 1/3 or 1/2 so we could get MOAR! More is better....when it comes to planetary annihilation
  10. brianpurkiss

    brianpurkiss Post Master General

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    More is indeed better. But when they vaporize instantly, there is little strategic depth.

    By increasing the unit health, the game improves drastically. There is more strategy and tactics involved. Army composition matters a lot more. It's possible to retreat. It's difficult to convey – but it's just awesome.
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  11. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    Pictures speak louder then words.

    I do believe you have many videos at your disposal, show them.
  12. brianpurkiss

    brianpurkiss Post Master General

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    Watch any of the RCBM videos in particular.

    Or go play RCBM. The increased unit health is great.
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  13. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    I already agree with you, mine was the second post on the thread.

    You however expressed that it was difficult to convey in words, so I am suggesting you showcase how more HP would be better with content you have likely already made.

    You don't need to preach to the choir, I am already sold.
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  14. brianpurkiss

    brianpurkiss Post Master General

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    Got'cha.

    I should just get around to making a mod that increases health and sticks to vanilla.

    My weekend is fairly free... I could probably do that...
  15. squishypon3

    squishypon3 Post Master General

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    I believe madsci posted a command line to make it easy, and to think- I had to do it by hand so long ago. ;)
  16. SatanPetitCul

    SatanPetitCul Active Member

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    My 2 cents...

    In my opinion, increasing the health of units would help the process of balancing unit because :

    1. The margin to balance unit will be more subtle, finer.

    Example
    2. The range of units influence will be reduced

    Example
    I share also the opinion of clopse, if health of units are increased, it means that the whole balance has to be reworked. But why not ? the game is not really complex at the moment, the amount of units is quiet low so it is better to rework now than later (if the amount of unit increase in the futur).
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  17. nanolathe

    nanolathe Post Master General

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    Because that would require the Devs to see our point of view. Scathis, Meta and whomever else is working on balance design, don't; they like the balance direction they've gone in, and that includes 'popcorn' units.
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  18. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    They want, what they want.

    No need to demonize it.
  19. nanolathe

    nanolathe Post Master General

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    I didn't.

    I think you're reading into what I'm posting a lot more than is necessary. There's no reason to daemonise me either.
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  20. drz1

    drz1 Post Master General

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    This sounds cool, but aren't getting towards intensive micro territory here, when people were worried that having to manage large armies across multiple battlefields would be too much to ask of most players? I'm not saying that will be the case, I'm more interested in your thoughts on it.

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