Balancing the Playable species

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MatGB
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Balancing the Playable species

#1 Post by MatGB »

First, defining terms: by Balance I virtually always mean play balance not, for example, the different metabolism types or similar.

Play balance for a playable species is roughly defined as: if two players of similar ability were playing against each other, would making one pick over another make one player more or less likely to win independent of other factors. Acheiving this in an open environment is difficult, so for me the balance has to mean within recommended galaxy settings, and I test for galaxies between 150 and 300 systems in size, normally with most other settings on Medium and with the recommended number of AIs for the size of galaxy. Certain species will always be unbalanced outside of these settings. The baseline reference will always be humans, they're the "normal" species.

So, taking an extreme example, Egassem started the 0.4.4 Release Cycle as horrifically underpowered and are probably now the most powerful species within standard settings. Their power is magnified if you're on a small map, if you have High natives, or if you have a large number of AIs for the number of systems. On the other hand, if you play with my personally preferred (for 'fun' games) settings of a large, very sparse, low planets/natives/monsters setting then they lose significantly in power and a high research output species has the advantage.

So, Egassem need to be toned down as within the 'standard' settings they can fairly easily dominate, but they're not ridiculously overpowered and a few small tweaks to settings (no natives, for example) can severely weaken them.

I think the biggest issue is the large effect that good/bad attack troops has: all 'bad' attack troop species have to pay double to invade a planet over humans, which can be debilitating. On the other hand the only species with an advantage there also gets big industry boosts and good supply.

The next part of the mix I'm not keen on is good/bad pilots and that a) there aren't that many Good or Great piloting species and b) that this trait applies across the board to fighters and weaponry.

So: Put yourself in a notional situation. You're going to play a multiplayer game against a few other real people. It's going to be 200 systems, with all other settings to default/medium and a total of 10 players including AIs. What do you most want to be in that game. What do you really not want to be in that game. What would you most fear seeing in your immediate neighbour.

In other words, are the currently playable species balanced, if not, what is the weakest, what is the strongest.
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labgnome
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Re: Balancing the Playable species

#2 Post by labgnome »

Firstly: Egassem. Yes they are unbalanced, but I think you and I might be on opposite pages on what needs to be toned down. I think invasion has always been an important qualitative aspect of Egassem gameplay so they should keep that. I also don't think any playable species should get an "ultimate" stat period. It not only strikes me as unbalanced, but as "unbalanceabel", as you either have to pepper the list with other "ultimate" stats or handicap them is ways that might be even harder to re-balance later (hence our current Egassem dilemma). Also it kind-of feels like an inherent "cheat". If I figure out a simpler solution for my diploshuttle and you stick in the no-troops Setinon I'd say maybe have the Egassem be a playable planet-bound species that expands only though invasion?

Secondly: Trith are just unbalanced, really self-sustaining metabolism as a whole is. I don't even really get the logic to it. I've never had a plat with as many as three metabolism specials on it (even after monkeying around with their planet-type distribution) and I've never had any planets with two specials for the same type of metabolism. I think the metabolism specials were reduced in number before I started playing, so maybe that was actually more of a thing in earlier versions. So I think the Trith fix is going to have to be a whole-sale change of self-sustaining metabolism, as previous balance passes have all failed to deliver, and the general agreement seems to be the self-sustaining is overpowered. Maybe, and just maybe, they could be balanced by throwing in another self-sustaining playable species to pit them against. However that might not really make them "balanced" so much as "balanced with respect to".

Thirdly: Phototrophics in general seem to turn out a bit weaker than I would expect in the population area. Probably because brighter stars aren't super common and they are also penalized for dimmer stars. They're also the only ones to get metabolism-specific population maluses. The trait might actually work better (probably with a bit of a nerf) supplementing the lithic, robotic and organic metabolisms.

Fourthly: bad troops. Bad troops is too much of a malus. I also still think that your starting troop pods are over-powered, but that argument got shot down during the troop-pod discussion a few years back. I will say that maybe making good/bad troops more in-line with good/bad everything else might be a good fix. Personally I'd prefer both.

Fifthly: pilots. Unbalanced and broken. Good pilots are good at everything. The trait need to be broken-up somehow at the very least. This will make it both easier to balance, and easier to justify giving better stats to some species currently lacking. Right now the only thing to balance it against is troops, which is also broken.

Sixth: Scylior and Hhoh. So they were both playable before I jumped in, but were made into native species. Scylior stayed a good species, and were one of my favorites to grab up when I started playing. They were probably too good. At least too good for a minor species. Recent balance passes seem to have brought them down enough that they're not quite as over-powered as before but could probably still make a decent playable species. The Hhoh however are a different story. I have never been super-excited to grab them up and they have never done well enough in may empires that I've felt anything other than "meh" about them. They're not bad, but I can't see them making anything other than a pretty mediocre playable species.

Seventh: narrow tolerance. It's broken and the other part of why balancing the Egassem was kind of a mess. I think they should get adequate planets, so that early game pop-bonuses are useful to them. Basically as it stands, (again why Egassem were conquerors) the lack of adequate planets makes conquering other species that can live on other planets the better strategy. The other solution would be to move terraforming way back in the tech tree.

Almost-Lastly: Happiness. It doesn't do much right now (and doesn't effect a few things it should IMO), but it's also a non-variable trait. Everyone gets average happiness. I have some thoughts, and have tentatively scripted something for variable happiness. I really think we need to introduce variable happiness. Especially if we are going to have mechanics that will allow for "diplomacy" and "espionage" functions. Variable happiness could also be a way to give some love to under-powered species or give at least a bit of a nerf to over-powered species.

Lastly: telepathy. Needs to do something. Psi-dom is comes too late in the tech tree to count. My current idea is that things like research and production for telepaths might be affected by happiness. Throwing in some science-sounding fluff about psychoactive fields and their ESP and mind-over-matter stuff. It makes telepaths inherently more "complicated", but in conjunction with variable happiness wouldn't be a straight-up bonus. IE: bad happiness telepaths would have something of a malus to research and production.
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Re: Balancing the Playable species

#3 Post by dbenage-cx »

Currently never want to start with Chato or Gyasche (mostly due to bad troops).
Gyasche possibly needs some decent defensive option, might be interesting to play off their timid nature.
(e.g They are so good at spreading panic, it has an effect on enemy ships near their planet; Takes more troops to conquer because they keep running away)

I also never really want to start as Human. They are not at a huge disadvantage, but have no strong points to play towards (at least until diplomacy).

For the requested settings, these are the 3 I see at a disadvantage, the others all have a fighting chance depending on how the game plays out.
(hopefully some of the multiplayer group can chime in with opinions)

The one species I want to avoid starting next to the most is Eaxaw, which seems fitting.

I agree in general with labgnomes points for Phototrophic(3), Troops(4), Pilots(5), and Environment tolerance(7) being an issue (not exactly agreeing with all solutions).
I disagree that Telepathy needs to do more than it does, since it is a trait.

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Re: Balancing the Playable species

#4 Post by MatGB »

K, both, thanks for this feedback, going to go through it and separate it out. As I've said in the other thread, the main thing we can do in this pass is to tweak species themselves to have stronger/weaker versions of pre existing traits.

Any rewrite of how traits work would require an AI rewrite and a LOT more testing than we can do, I'm looking, initially, for tweaks, not major changes. So I'm separating out into tweaks we can do, and major changes we'd need to put more time into: if there's a delay in 0.4.7 due to factors outside our control and/or someone capable of working on the AI code is available in a way that doesn't detract from other higher priority projects, that can change.

So, from the top:

Tweaks: possible to implement quickly

Egassem. See, the crossed wires here doesn't matter too much: they need to lose either Great Attack Troops or Ultimate Industry. I'm in favour of them keeping Ultimate Industry because they've always had that (since their very first appearance) and downgrading Great Troops to Good Troops because, well, it was me that approved them getting Great Troops in the first place and I'm more inclined to tweak my change than I am change someone else's work. However, we have an advantage here, as the initial creator of the Egassem was Krikkitone, so I'm going to reach out and ask them their preference, I'm good with either but I honestly believe that the Bad Population/ Massive Floating Factory thing is their primary trait and prefer that (caveat: they're one of my favourite species both to play and for flavour, I'm biased—Setinon are also one of my favourites and they're also Krikkitone's creation).

Scylior: Yup, they were definitely overpowered before, they had Good Population which was the best good trait, just as Bad Pop was the worst 'bad' trait. Plus, they'd kept the Large Planet signifier that playables got. After I toned down the Population traits and removed the automatic Large Planet, they became less of an awesome grab: they're still statistically better than Humans, which should be the baseline, that's why despite making them Playable I haven't regiven them Large Planet, in initial testing this appears to balance them in a more interesting way.

Hhooohhhoohooh (sp?): I do like these guys, and am considering playability again, but bear in mind the baseline is 'human but in that environment'. They have Good Pilots and Good Defence Troops, with no drawbacks. If we made them playable they'd need nerfing. As it is they're my second favourite grab after Mu Ursh until/unless playing Eaxaw or Etty, but as soon as you've got a shipyard working on a Great Pilots planet they become second rate. If we made them playable then they'd need work: if you want that to happen, put it in the other thread?

Chato & Gysache: This is definitely a playstyle thing, I rate both of these quite highly due to their exceptional research output, their weakness is definitely Attack Troops, and that is a problem that we need to look at.

Humans: intended baseline, everything else should be on a par with them. For me, their biggest strength is preferred focus: research, that means they start at maxed out research output which can give a fairly strong boost (specifically, Gysache don't have this as that boost would be too good). Again, playstyle, if other races are actually better rather than preferred, we have a problem.

Self-Sustaining: Yup, overpowered, and I actually made it worse when I fixed Good/Bad Population, it now applies always rather than only on otherwise habitable worlds. A quick and dirty solution would be to reduce the bonus to equivalent of two growth specials not three, a more longer term solution is to change the Growth tech tree so that not all habitability boosts affect all metabolisms, and Self Sustaining creatures get fewer boosts. The former is easy, the latter a large project and thus delayed.

Bad Troops: Too bog a drawback. I agree here almost completely, a possible quick and dirty fix is to make the basic strength of a Troop Pod 3, with the same modifiers, changing a few other numbers in a minor way wouldn't be that hard. Also, removing the trait from some species (and indeed giving Good Troops to some more) is definitely a very simple fix: which species definitely need to lose it?

More substantive mechanic changes, probably need more time for this specific pass but worth considering

Self-Sustaining: from above "a more longer term solution is to change the Growth tech tree so that not all habitability boosts affect all metabolisms, and Self Sustaining creatures get fewer boosts."

Phototrophes: Agree here, they can be incredibly powerful on a Young Galaxy, but in general they can underwhelm, having said that a Young/No Specials galaxy gives them an insane boost for the most part. I'd almost certainly tweak the boosts so that White Stars give more and perhaps differentiate Orange and Yellow, while also both reducing the Dim Star malus and giving them access to a tech that lets them at least inhabit Dim/No Star worlds (we have artificial lighting afterall). The other option is to make it a combined trait, that's an interesting idea and could immediately be applied to, for example, Etty in a fairly obvious way. But it can't be done in this pass.

Piloting: I definitely want to split up the bonuses for shooting ship weapons and the bonuses for piloting a fighter, this would allow a nice easy balancing of, for example, Mu Ursh and Eaxaw, I'm putting this under 'more substantive', but if the AI can be very easily changed to know about two traits it ought to go up in priority.

Tolerance: Yeah, the more we talk about this the more I agree that reworking it needs doing, but it's definitely too big a job for this pass. I'm actually thinking to rethink it entirely and possibly have all species getting the same 'adequate/poor/whatever' numbers, but broad and narrow getting different modifiers on them, so that for example a Narrow Tolerance species gets reduced population on an Adequate World instead of not having Adequate worlds. We'd need to talk this through thoroughly in the growth tech tree rewrite though.

Happiness: We're slowly implementing uses for this but haven't done any work on using it as a species balance yet: partially because the AI doesn't understand it. We've discussed, for example, putting the same happiness requirements for shipbuilding as for colonising/drydock use, but that requires major AI work else Trith and Eaxaw AIs are dead in the water. I forsee this will get a lot more work during 0.5.?+ alongside Influence and Diplomacy, it's definitely not for now.

Telepaths: I want to do more with this, but again diplomacy, the diplomatic shuttle, Translinguistics, etc will need to be considered, definitely something to plan for, not something for this pass.

So, the stuff in the first section we can work on, the stuff in the second section we delay for now.

New questions:

Which species should gain or lose what traits? Why?

Would an easy fix of changing the troop pod numbers (and possibly increasing defensive troop numbers) make the Bad Troops nerf less of a major hindrance?

Should we reduce the Self Sustaining bonus from 3*size to 2*size?
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Re: Balancing the Playable species

#5 Post by Sloth »

MatGB wrote:Humans: intended baseline, everything else should be on a par with them. For me, their biggest strength is preferred focus: research, that means they start at maxed out research output which can give a fairly strong boost (specifically, Gysache don't have this as that boost would be too good). Again, playstyle, if other races are actually better rather than preferred, we have a problem.
A very long time ago, humans were supposed to get a bonus in diplomacy and/or influence once those are implemented. Because of that, other species are allowed to have an advantage over the current weak humans.
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Re: Balancing the Playable species

#6 Post by MatGB »

Sloth wrote:
MatGB wrote:Humans: intended baseline, everything else should be on a par with them. For me, their biggest strength is preferred focus: research, that means they start at maxed out research output which can give a fairly strong boost (specifically, Gysache don't have this as that boost would be too good). Again, playstyle, if other races are actually better rather than preferred, we have a problem.
A very long time ago, humans were supposed to get a bonus in diplomacy and/or influence once those are implemented. Because of that, other species are allowed to have an advantage over the current weak humans.
Aaah. Is that what the "Stylish" tag represents then?

OK, I'm good with that overall, but 'better' shouldn't be that much better currently, and the Oliphants would trigger my "unbalanced, too powerful" instincts as is regardless.
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Re: Balancing the Playable species

#7 Post by LGM-Doyle »

Bad Troops I don't find this too weak. It is a one time impediment the first time you conquer a species with better troops. After that one conquest you use the new troop species from then on. So, the cost of bad troops is a one time cost, albeit highly visible. Good/bad production/research is a benefit/malus every turn, that is more costly to overcome because it requires creating multiple new colonies.

Egassem I think of them primarily as the super industry species, but that is probably due to first playing them when Ultimate Industry was a 400% boost.

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Re: Balancing the Playable species

#8 Post by AndrewW »

LGM-Doyle wrote:Bad Troops I don't find this too weak. It is a one time impediment the first time you conquer a species with better troops. After that one conquest you use the new troop species from then on. So, the cost of bad troops is a one time cost, albeit highly visible. Good/bad production/research is a benefit/malus every turn, that is more costly to overcome because it requires creating multiple new colonies.
More then once if the ones around you don't have ground troops or only have bad ones as well.

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Re: Balancing the Playable species

#9 Post by MatGB »

Yup, and it's especially a problem if you're on Low/No Natives: if you're playing bad ground troops and your closest neighbours are Good Defence Troops, especially with the low RP cost for the defence techs and the high priority the AI gives them it can be massive hindrance.

(NB: tehcs being too cheap/quick/effective is a different issue but it's pertinent)
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Re: Balancing the Playable species

#10 Post by labgnome »

MatGB wrote:Egassem. See, the crossed wires here doesn't matter too much: they need to lose either Great Attack Troops or Ultimate Industry. I'm in favour of them keeping Ultimate Industry because they've always had that (since their very first appearance) and downgrading Great Troops to Good Troops because, well, it was me that approved them getting Great Troops in the first place and I'm more inclined to tweak my change than I am change someone else's work. However, we have an advantage here, as the initial creator of the Egassem was Krikkitone, so I'm going to reach out and ask them their preference, I'm good with either but I honestly believe that the Bad Population/ Massive Floating Factory thing is their primary trait and prefer that (caveat: they're one of my favourite species both to play and for flavour, I'm biased—Setinon are also one of my favourites and they're also Krikkitone's creation).
If they are going to loose the great troops, then someone needs to get great troops to be the go-to conqueror/empire-builder. Especially if we are going to have a way to get natives peacefully. I will say though that I still think that "ultimate" anything is OP for a player species, and really anything that isn't planet-bound. None of the others even has "great" industry so that could still put them as the super-industry species. I'm actually thinking that maybe if they are going to keep industry we should nerf supply, see below...
MatGB wrote:Scylior: Yup, they were definitely overpowered before, they had Good Population which was the best good trait, just as Bad Pop was the worst 'bad' trait. Plus, they'd kept the Large Planet signifier that playables got. After I toned down the Population traits and removed the automatic Large Planet, they became less of an awesome grab: they're still statistically better than Humans, which should be the baseline, that's why despite making them Playable I haven't regiven them Large Planet, in initial testing this appears to balance them in a more interesting way.
I've wondered about the planet size starting bonus. Have you tried taking that away from the Egassem? That might be an alternate way to balance them, especially with their bad population.
MatGB wrote:Bad Troops: Too bog a drawback. I agree here almost completely, a possible quick and dirty fix is to make the basic strength of a Troop Pod 3, with the same modifiers, changing a few other numbers in a minor way wouldn't be that hard. Also, removing the trait from some species (and indeed giving Good Troops to some more) is definitely a very simple fix: which species definitely need to lose it?
MatGB wrote:Would an easy fix of changing the troop pod numbers (and possibly increasing defensive troop numbers) make the Bad Troops nerf less of a major hindrance?
Maybe split-up some of the good/bad troop species since we can do that right away. IE: decide which ones need better defense or better offense.
MatGB wrote:Self-Sustaining: Yup, overpowered, and I actually made it worse when I fixed Good/Bad Population, it now applies always rather than only on otherwise habitable worlds. A quick and dirty solution would be to reduce the bonus to equivalent of two growth specials not three, a more longer term solution is to change the Growth tech tree so that not all habitability boosts affect all metabolisms, and Self Sustaining creatures get fewer boosts. The former is easy, the latter a large project and thus delayed.
MatGB wrote:Should we reduce the Self Sustaining bonus from 3*size to 2*size?
I'm already working on a tech overhaul on my own, and I plan on the self-sustaining tech fix to be a part of that. Basically they'll be nerfed out of the gate but will perform really well late-game (hopefully).
MatGB wrote:Phototrophes: Agree here, they can be incredibly powerful on a Young Galaxy, but in general they can underwhelm, having said that a Young/No Specials galaxy gives them an insane boost for the most part. I'd almost certainly tweak the boosts so that White Stars give more and perhaps differentiate Orange and Yellow, while also both reducing the Dim Star malus and giving them access to a tech that lets them at least inhabit Dim/No Star worlds (we have artificial lighting afterall). The other option is to make it a combined trait, that's an interesting idea and could immediately be applied to, for example, Etty in a fairly obvious way. But it can't be done in this pass.
Changing star-type used to be a thing you could unlock tech to do, perhaps re-introducing it? FYI: I also plan on giving them a work-over, along with self-sustaining in conjunction with my planned tech-overhaul as well.
MatGB wrote:Piloting: I definitely want to split up the bonuses for shooting ship weapons and the bonuses for piloting a fighter, this would allow a nice easy balancing of, for example, Mu Ursh and Eaxaw, I'm putting this under 'more substantive', but if the AI can be very easily changed to know about two traits it ought to go up in priority.
So if we wind up going all weapons some rate-of-fire, you could potentially have 4 traits that cover what "pilots" covers now. So you could have one trait (Good Pilots) that set the capacity of fighter bays. You could have another trait (Good Spacial-Perception) that set the damage done by fighters. You could have a trait (Good Aim) that set the damage done by weapons. Lastly, you could have a trait (Good Reflexes) that set the rate-of-fire for weapons. If you had all playable species get at least good in at least one of these you could have some interesting ways to balance them. So Miasorla could keep their damage bonus and have "ultimate aim", but say bad pilots or spacial-perception. Whereas Mu Ursh could have "great spacial-perception" but bad aim or bad reflexes.
MatGB wrote:Tolerance: Yeah, the more we talk about this the more I agree that reworking it needs doing, but it's definitely too big a job for this pass. I'm actually thinking to rethink it entirely and possibly have all species getting the same 'adequate/poor/whatever' numbers, but broad and narrow getting different modifiers on them, so that for example a Narrow Tolerance species gets reduced population on an Adequate World instead of not having Adequate worlds. We'd need to talk this through thoroughly in the growth tech tree rewrite though.
Yes, and not really? I think that having a different number of adequte-poor-hostile planets is actually a good idea, but that everyone should get at least two of each. I like the idea that broad tolerance get most planet types as "adequate", standard tolerance get most planet types as "poor" and narrow tolerance get most types as "hostile". I think that it's also a fairly intuitive correspondence to grasp from the names, and it puts them getting more available planets at different stages of the game. Broad get a lot early game, but the mid and late game additions might not be worth it. Standard are restricted in the early game, but get a nice land-rush in the mid-game. Narrow is still less well off than the others in both early and mid-game, but they are not completely impaired, and can get a late-game land-rush if you're willing to invest in them.
MatGB wrote:Happiness: We're slowly implementing uses for this but haven't done any work on using it as a species balance yet: partially because the AI doesn't understand it. We've discussed, for example, putting the same happiness requirements for shipbuilding as for colonising/drydock use, but that requires major AI work else Trith and Eaxaw AIs are dead in the water. I forsee this will get a lot more work during 0.5.?+ alongside Influence and Diplomacy, it's definitely not for now.
Keep in mind the Thrith are pretty OP, so at least for them that might actually be enough of a nerf to balance them out, though they might become a reverse-Egassem.
MatGB wrote:Which species should gain or lose what traits? Why?
Something I've though of with respect to this is what traits play off of each other, and how:

Better supply is a good trait for "wide" empires, while better research, population or production are good for "tall" empires. Wide empires are either going to be colonizers or conquerors, so they should start with either broad tolerance or good attack troops. Good diplomats can come later and be another "broad" strategy.

So the combo of better supply and better production are going to be broken, especially because of supply carrying production. This is especially true with the colony building mechanic. Your growth will be able to balloon really quickly. The worse your supply is the more of a malus the narrow tolerance is going to be, so probably "standard tolerance" at the minimum.

Conversely better supply and better troops will play off of each other nicely in a more balanced way as you will not have to micromanage supply-chains to your newly conquered planets. Broad tolerance is a bit underwhelming (as it stands now), so combining it with better supply shouldn't be especially broken. They might even be able to have broad tolerance, better supply and better troops, provided none of their other stats (production, research ect..) were "great". A decent all-around "go broad" species.

Better supply can also compensate for narrow planet tolerance, as maintaining a more spread-out empire is much more manageable.

As far as specific species...
Gysache and Chato could use better attack troops. Currently Cray and Etty both get better defensive troops than offensive, so maybe Gysache and Chato can get better offensive than their defensive? Alternately maybe Cray and Etty should both get good attack troops?
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Re: Balancing the Playable species

#11 Post by Krikkitone »

I'd probably go with having the Eggassem lose troops rather than industry. (the main idea was stretching the bounds of the scale..same as the Setinon)

Mountains with remote control drones may seem like a great army...but they would have terrible mobility

If Ultimate industry is unable to be balanced, I'd probably still lower the troops (as well as industry) and loosen one of their negatives slightly.

(I'd agree someone else should get great troops in that case)

also with happiness + influence, Troops might not be as good (if a multispecies empire of conquered species is naturally unhappy and/or influence expensive, then Troops aren't as valuable)

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Re: Balancing the Playable species

#12 Post by Voker57 »

Current well-determined in multiplayer battles race balance problems:

1. Gysache is grossly overpowered. Their maluses (bad troops & pilots) don't really mean much since you only need one planet with decent warriors to completely disregard those. Troops problem is rather a nuisance anyway. Possible solutions: tone down ind/res bonuses to 125/125%? 200% research is way too much.

2. Laenfa is underpowered. Their stealth bonuses don't protect them from aggression (without supply, there is not much point in staying alive), and being phototrophic sucks. Give them normal research at least, maybe small bonus to ship stealth? Only possible way to win as laenfa currently is basically finding a better race and playing them instead.
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Re: Balancing the Playable species

#13 Post by MatGB »

Voker57 wrote:Current well-determined in multiplayer battles race balance problems:

1. Gysache is grossly overpowered. Their maluses (bad troops & pilots) don't really mean much since you only need one planet with decent warriors to completely disregard those. Troops problem is rather a nuisance anyway. Possible solutions: tone down ind/res bonuses to 125/125%? 200% research is way too much.
We definitely need to do some more work on how big the bonuses are, and yes, I've suspected that Gysache remain too powerful but it's a LOT harder to judge that against the AI.
2. Laenfa is underpowered. Their stealth bonuses don't protect them from aggression (without supply, there is not much point in staying alive), and being phototrophic sucks. Give them normal research at least, maybe small bonus to ship stealth? Only possible way to win as laenfa currently is basically finding a better race and playing them instead.
Yeah: in single player they're still incredibly powerful but as the AI increases the priority for detection techs they go down, I still hate having them as an immediate neighbour but if I play as them I basically win. But I've thought they would be a lot weaker against players that know to research detection early if they're seen/suspected.

Thanks for that, it's a good counterpoint.
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Re: Balancing the Playable species

#14 Post by LienRag »

MatGB wrote:Phototrophes: Agree here, they can be incredibly powerful on a Young Galaxy, but in general they can underwhelm, having said that a Young/No Specials galaxy gives them an insane boost for the most part. I'd almost certainly tweak the boosts so that White Stars give more and perhaps differentiate Orange and Yellow, while also both reducing the Dim Star malus and giving them access to a tech that lets them at least inhabit Dim/No Star worlds (we have artificial lighting afterall). The other option is to make it a combined trait, that's an interesting idea and could immediately be applied to, for example, Etty in a fairly obvious way. But it can't be done in this pass.
I played Laenfas for the first time recently (not my starting specie, but they were my first enemy and the first Ocean-inhabiting specie I got).

Phototropics are very interesting as it's a really different metabolism that needs to be played differently, not a different category of the same metabolism model (as are basically Organic, Lithic and Robotic).

Plus it makes for a more varied galactic topology as star type really has to be taken into account.

Yes, on older galaxies they can be sub-optimal, but there's an obvious fix to that: giving them a Growth Special (either that takes into account both size and starlight, or just starlight) like Kraken Guano¹.
This Special could be more frequent on older galaxies if balance is needed (the other options is letting players pick Laenfas or other Phototropes only on younger galaxies or when wanting to give themselves a handicap).

Another way to do it (I have no idea about its effect on balance, actually) is to give a Population Bonus everytime a space monster (tamed or not) is killed in the system of a Phototropic specie (again, it could be tied to star luminosity and size or just be a flat bonus).


¹ There's even the possibility to have the Kraken in the Ice special randomly give only Kraken Guano rather than a functioning White Kraken after a Xenoresurrection Lab is built.

wobbly
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 1880
Joined: Thu Oct 10, 2013 6:48 pm

Balancing the playable races

#15 Post by wobbly »

Oberlus wrote: Thu Nov 12, 2020 8:44 pm
wobbly wrote: Thu Nov 12, 2020 5:43 pm Hmm I didn't notice you gave it bad industry and bad supply. I think at some stage the race balance needs to be looked at in general, just because a lot of races are currently a lot stronger then human/Abaddoni. Replicon are reasonably close with good industry/bad research and Etty are a bunch of bonuses and maluses. Laenfa were closer to humans before they were buffed. Still better but not by a lot. Then you've got a whole bunch of races that are just crazily powerful compared to them for some reason.

I don't know it seems if balance decisions keep being made by comparing to things like Chato and gyschae etc. the problem with humans is just going to be exasperated. Anyway bit of a semi-rant there.
I agree. There are so many things to do... Proposals are always welcome!
Giving this discussion its own thread. Firstly I don't feel that races need to be perfectly balanced, I do feel however that you shouldn't feel like you already lost in a multiplayer game because you rolled Abaddoni and are up against a power race. I'll start by going through the list and giving my own opinion on whats too strong and too weak. I'm picking Etty/Replicon/Laenfa as my arbitrary point for around the right strength. Feel free to comment or make suggestions. If it's mostly suggestions/discussion about 1 particular race it can go in its own thread on that race.
  • Humans - Presumably this was intended to be a balanced race. Currently its not, its a comparatively weak race. I'd like to see them get a perk that makes them a bit less generic and a little more interesting. My own idea was to give them good fuel. I wouldn't want to see them buffed too much, otherwise you have to buff Replicon as well.
  • Abaddoni - Weak but roughly comparable to humans. Need some sort of buff. Just about every race will out research you forcing you to play aggressively, yet they have nothing that makes them particularly suited to early offense. One idea I had was starting them with Nascent AI (mother) which combined with their broad planet tolerance would give them a strategy of spamming colonies. Not sure if it's a good idea or not, just an idle thought.
  • Chato - broad planet tolerance + great research is too strong. Either normal + great or broad + good.
  • Cray - no current opinion
  • Eaxaw - no current opinion
  • Egassem - This one is tricky. Depends on natives, depends on infernos. Either too strong or screwed from the start.
  • Etty - Bunch of bonuses and maluses. I think these are right where they are.
  • Fulver - never played them so no current opinion
  • George - Overpowered. Everything Replicon have going for them + Abaddoni's edges + their own edges on top. See this thread:
    https://freeorion.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=11774
  • Gysache - Generally considered overpowered. Not sure what to recommend as a nerf.
  • Laenfa - I think these are under rated, certainly better then humans. My suggestion is keeping these as they are.
  • Replicon - In my opinion these are better then humans, but have a clear downside in research. Keep as is.
  • Scylior - These were nerfed. Not sure if they are right now or still too powerful.
  • Sly - Fine for single player. Waiting for them to turn up in multiplayer and get belted before commenting.
  • Trith - Way overpowered. There are suggestions to nerf them. see these threads:
    https://freeorion.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=11844
    https://freeorion.org/forum/viewtopic.p ... &start=105
Last edited by wobbly on Fri Nov 13, 2020 8:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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