Re: [glob2-devel] Glob2 Gameplay Unbalanced

[Leo Wandersleb]

hi

as all this is more of a guess than proven fact, i say what i feel about the 
points you mentioned:

> Its unbalanced in that a player whos skills are only
> marginally better than another player will almost always beat them.

can you quantify this? in chess there are 14 classes of players in class n+1 
beating those in class n with a probability of 75%.
Go has about 20 classes of this quality.
in games of luck you basically have one level.

to me glob2 is by far not as skill-dependant as you mention. i'd say there are 
at max 5 levels. for a big community this is no problem at all especially when 
we have a ladder score telling me who i can play and win against and who not. 
for now i agree it would be good to have some balancing, but only for now.

> The 
> range of players anyone can play against is very small,

10% i'd say. having an elo-rating will allow me to chose balanced teams.

> Partly of this is because mistakes are so punishing. Warriors can 
> decimate each other rapidly. A single opening of attack can bring great 
> devastation. An early mistake with fruits can easily lose a game, and a 
> single explorer-bomb can take the tide of the war. This is why 
> Globulation 2 games are determined so quickly, its mostly city building, 
> and a rock-paper-scissors style game where you pick your strategy, and 
> hope that its the right one.

as i had great fights with me almost winning then almost loosing and winning 
again i don't think an advantage is absolute. also i want to have several ways 
of winning. if buildings get 3 times the hp there will never be a rush. all 
games will be decided in L3. that's what i call boring.

> I think that the hp 
> of buildings and workers should be doubled, maybe tripled.

please not.

> - This would also intensify the focus on having inns near your 
> enemy, making the game more tactical and strategic

how about an outpost? some all in one building costing lots of resources but 
being able to both heal and feed many units at once until it is depleted that 
you can build in your base but place near the enemy once it is completed?

> * The difference in effective attack power between level 1, level 2, 
> level 3, and level 4 warriors needs to be shrunk. As our current numbers 
> stand, the effective attack power of level 1 warriors is 88, level 2 is 
> 288, level 3 is 600, and level 4 1024. Warriors of different levels 
> simply can not compete with each other, which makes the mistake of being 
> just slightly behind in upgrades obliterating. The difference between 
> level 1 and 2 is huge, which is why war rush strategy is so successful, 
> because your enemy can't defend.At most, I think level 4's should not 
> exceed 2.5 times the power of level 1's.

here i agree.

> * Fruit conversion is heavily overpowered, and worse yet, its 
> unpredictable. You could have all the fruit in the world, and be losing 
> in the conversion battle because you don't have the fruit you need in 
> the right Inns, and rarely do you know what the right inns are. The 
> system from conversions needs to be adjusted to be less aggressive and 
> more predictable, but still capable of being used tactically. Methods 
> for doing this are discussed in an earlier thread.

i like the way fruits work now. there is only some problem with some inns not 
getting any fruits while others get all 3 quickly.

> * The difference in walking speed for different levels of walk, and swim 
> speed for different levels of needs to be shrunk, as it puts a heavy 
> focus on the racetrack building. A loss of a racetrack or swimming pool 
> is a huge, huge loss, and because these buildings are big, they are 
> hardest to defend.

i disagree. don't know why.

> * The size of racetracks and swimming pools could be shrunk, and the 
> number of units they can train shrunk to, the idea being that you would 
> have several of these critical buildings, more like the way barracks are 
> balanced now.

i agree. local>>global effects ya know. make swimming available locally.

> * Explorer ground attacks are still to powerful. An explorer bomb can 
> still devastate with little ability to counteract.

problem are turrets. if you want to be the one to attack first, building all the 
turrets you need to defend your ground is far too expensive and doesn't pay off 
as turrets don't shoot without stone. maybe air defence should be for free? 
maybe even mounted on top of every L2 building? opinions??

> * Turrets need to be more effective against explorers.

agree.

Leo Wandersleb