20 replies to this topic

[MaxDoW]

http://forums.relicn...ad.php?t=141487

[Malkor]

No fixes to the Hellhound's buggy projectile, just completely unneeded nerfs. This is going to kill my customized AI.

[Zenoth]

The Chaplain can now attach to squads.

Yay !

[ThetaOrion]

Yes, Aralez had the Chaplain attaching in the UC Rebalance Mod as well, one of the first and most useful changes in the UC Mod.

I think that would have been one of my top picks for SM improvements, attachable Chaplain, certainly in the top ten.

It's nice to see that Relic borrowed or copied a lot of Aralez's UC Mod ideas while creating this new 1.2 patch -- right down to using the exact numbers that Aralez used when rebalancing a number of the units for the UC Mod. But, Relic took it all a lot further too, which is also great! It's just nice to see Relic actually listening to some of the users and some of the modders, paying them homage by using some of the same ideas that the modders created or came up with after study of their own.

Hopefully Relic got 1.2 balanced enough that there won't be any need for another UC Mod or any other balance mod. (I'm still allowed to hope, aren't I?)

Then all we'll need for great gameplay is a good AI that fits in and takes advantage of the new stuff that's there, which we all hope of course that Thudo and Arkhan will 'gift' us with, as time allows.

--

Perfect balance is really no good without a perfect AI, and a perfect AI is really no good without a perfect balance, when it comes to the DoW and DC skirmish mode gameplay that I love. That's what I have learned and experienced over the past couple of years.

Edited by ThetaOrion, 20 March 2007 - 09:09 AM.

[thudo]

Yep.. love the 1.2 changes! Migrating the 2.2 AI over to be optimized for 1.2 DC.

[Inquisitor]

Yep.. love the 1.2 changes! Migrating the 2.2 AI over to be optimized for 1.2 DC.

That is great news! cuz we can't live without it anymore!

BTW: I think the new patch looks awesome! I play Necrons (just love 'em) and I look forward to the new challenges. I already played a skirmish and the Warriors have been nerfed quite a bit and every Necron player will have to rethink their strategy. Anyway, I think the best change is that the preds have got their upgradeable guns back - I missed them since the original DOW. Yay for RELIC!!!

[thudo]

I'm creating a change list from 1.0 -> 1.2 for the AI devs to easily see what needs to change. I already have the before and after snapshot. AI is being updated!

[Malkor]

I really don't like most of these changes. Warriors were fine. You're not meant to be able to stand toe-to-toe with necrons using nothing but guardsmen. It gave the Necrons a unique trait. Now, that's gone. I don't see any fixes regarding their buggy death state, either.

The hammerhead changes are also concerning. It was one of the few heavy vehicles that could really take out infantry. Now it's just like every other one. Again, the unique traits of the Hammerhead are gone (and my Hammerhead rush AI won't be nearly as strong).

The Assassin changes are just... wtf? There goes one of the IG's best units. Now it's no different than scouts with sniper rifles for the SM.

Really all they should have done is tweaked a few stats, removed the hard cap limits on tier3 units, and left it at that.

They're doing what Blizzard did with warcraft 3 - Remove each race's uniqueness so they can dodge having to actually balance anything.

Edited by Malkor, 20 March 2007 - 06:39 PM.

[thudo]

SC had a paultry 3 civs to balance. DC has 7 !!! SC = even after 8years it continues to see balance changes. Necrons and Tau needed nerfes, especially Tau. Yes uniqueness gets removed but what about remaining exploits and obvious uberness? When does the dilemma end? It can never.. its always fighting the balance police.

[Malkor]

Age of Wonders 2 has 16 races. Count them, 16. They're all perfectly balanced. Although, unfortunately, the hero system is NOT balanced and nor is the spell system. The number of races is no excuses for being lazy, which relic has an articulated track record of.

Starcraft is also far more micro intensive than Dawn of War, half the things aren't automated for you, and has air units. It's balance was far more difficult to achieve than dawn of war's comparatively simple combat system. Please don't attack starcraft unless you have any idea what you're talking about.

DC release only had a few major glaring issues, the foremost being the cheap and completely unthought way out of balancing heavy vehicles.

You can't ever achieve perfect balance, but you can still get a hell of a lot better than where relic is going. Constantly releasing enormous patches like this is what makes balancing the game so difficult. So many huge and radical changes where they were not needed only further blurs any challenges you possibly face, and it also ruins the gameplay. They are also ignoring some of the glaring bugs and nerfing bugged units while failing to fix them so they actually work correctly, virtually making them useless (like the hell hound now is). This is far worse than people massing tier3. There are easy ways to fix tier3, by not making tier1-2 so bloody useless. In Starcraft, every unit serves a purpose well into the end of a two-hour game. If you're playing on some idiotic money map with no rush 40 minutes rules then yes, everyone's going to mass heavy air because you're playing with complete and utter retards, but even then you can beat them with basic units. DoW was (Back in WA) a game where you needed to be in the action using everything you've got according to the situation and trying to make water from wine, and putting a limit on the strategical and tactical possibilities only further alienates the game from the true RTS market. Massing tier3 appeared to be a common problem in multiplayer, but that's probably because everyone just sits in their base doing nothing for half an hour.

Homeworld 2 suffered the same thing. The two races play virtually the same. Look how far that got it. It's practically dead, now, where its ancestor thrived. There has been a massive string of RTS's in the past few wars following DoW with its silly squad system, but they will all be short lived. Starcraft will outlive them all, mark my words. It isn't just because blizzard is popular, because blizzard's starcraft team is long dead and there will never, ever be another RTS like it. It's because they did something right. There's only 3 races, but in each of those 3 races you have a multitude of possibilities, each shaped by terrain geometry, personal playstyle, enemy actions, so forth. In DC, you are forced to go a certain path. In wc3, you're forced to go a certain path. These types of games seriously need to stop if the RTS market is ever to thrive again.

This isn't really the forum for balance, but this does greatly impact how the AI mod plays, because now the possibilities to make AI that has variations in its strategies is quickly dwindling to only mediocore differences because you are forced into the same build order and same army composition every single game. DoW quickly becomes boring after a few games because the replay value is being forced into an ever more narrow corridor by relic's daft balancing team.

My IG Hellhound AI is dead. The only vehicles worth bothering with now are the top-tier units, oh wait, they're capped, so you have 2 squads of top-tier units that 1shot everything. Hell, I don't even build low-tier units anymore, I can out-micro the insane AI to the point of working them with a group of high-tier units BECAUSE they can't build anything past a composition of varied unit types, since every race is the same, it's obvious where this is going. High-tier units need tweaking (remove Karskin heavy weapons, for example), then their caps removed. Relic's trying to encourage a balanced army but makes units that are perfectly fine and useful in early tiers now completely useless. Contrary to what some people thought, the Hammerhead was perfectly fine. It did NOT need extra armor in return for losing firepower. It was intended to be a weapon platform. It was no uber unit, especially since you could only get 2, but it was the backbone of any armored force. The skyray without its missile ability does laughable damage to even the weakest of infantry. What they could have done is buffed the skyray (fix the missiles while they're at it), removed the Hammerhead limit, upped its cap requirement, and left it as it was. But, nope. Too much work. My hammerhead AI isn't as badly scarred as my IG AI, but the point behind it is gone. Plus the poor Hammerhead has just become a predator with a different model.

Oddly enough, the EXACT opposite has happened with the Necrons. Remember how you were always telling me the necrons needed to get warriors, first? Well, look at that! Warriors are nothing but cannon fodder, now, especially when moving around. Better just fast tech to monolith like my necron AI does and twiddle your thumbs. That is so ironic given the above statements.

In summary, my insane AI project is dead. There's no point to it, anymore.

Additionally, the only patches SC has seen in the past few years are fixes to exploits, which in turn cause more exploits because Blizzard has no idea how to code and they keep breaking stuff by trying to fix it. There was a string of 11 patches in one week solely due to this. I don't recall any actual balance changes for an extremely long time.

God, if you've played World of Warcraft like I once did, you'd see just how freaking nuts you can go breaking a game's balance. Even relic's blunders don't even remotely compare to that game. Sheesh, Blizzard.

Edited by Malkor, 20 March 2007 - 10:53 PM.

[Inquisitor]

Constantly releasing enormous patches like this is what makes balancing the game so difficult. So many huge and radical changes where they were not needed only further blurs any challenges you possibly face, and it also ruins the gameplay.

I think they did a great job and I like the major changes that are also risky balance-wise. The re-introduction of pred weapon-choices is a step in the right direction and actually makes the units more unique. It will require the player to consider if the weapon upgrade is needed - i.e. am I fighting infantry or vehicles? think we need to try it out and see if all the little changes is not making the game even more fun. I just played three matches online and I think the Warriors are still strong and unique. They will still pwn marines in the early game as they probably should.

I hope that you will continue with your great work. It is highly appreciated by a lot of people, because it makes the game even more fun!

[Malkor]

Yes, allowing the pred to upgrade its guns individually again is a huge stride in the right direction. It's strange how they are doing things.

If I wasn't so lazy, I'd make a mod to demonstrate how I'd rebalance the game.

Additionally, if anyone cares, here is my IG build order script from the earlier version of DC, using the release of the AI mod. I wasn't actually sure if it worked correctly with the new version, but it should for you. It definately won't work on this patch.

I have my untested Tau hammerhead/vehicle rush AI and I can't recall if my Necron Ai worked or not in the release version as well, if desired I will post them.

And this definately won't sync with people who don't have it.

Obviously this is intended to be used with the Insane difficulty on a big map (even though DoW doesn't really have any big maps).

And lastly I'm not even sure if this is the right script. If there isn't hellhounds/chimeras inside your base at about the 5-6 minute mark, it probably isn't working, or they are slacking.

Attached Files

•  guardstrategyinfo.rar   1.95KB   11 downloads

Edited by Malkor, 20 March 2007 - 11:39 PM.

[thudo]

Update - finished preliminary scripting the AI so all 7 vanilla factions now are synched with 1.2 DC's changes.

I'll be sending Arkhan, Corsix, and other devs the scripts for optimizations.

I've playtested all 7 factions now with the updated Advanced AI v2.2 scripts and wow.. utter bloodshed. I will need the AI devs to examine my work so I was accurate. Sofar, no Fatal AI errors or CTDs. Yey! Went in very smoothly.

Relic gave us new code for Load/Unload units into transports/buildings as well as the ability for the AI to use Eldar Webways and IG Tunnels to move between points. VERY NICE! I wonder what new devious AI strats we can devise with this? Muhhahah!

So 24hrs after 1.2 DC the AI is pretty much up to speed except for more advanced tweaks and new code.

Thanks all!

[Malkor]

The dedication of your team is truly legendary. I wish companies had the kind of balls you guys have to do this work.

[LarkinVB]

Vanilla 1.2 AI is broken. I heard and observed once that Tau and IG won't tech to T2 due to missing power. Not sure if this was also true with 1.1. Relic is so pathetic.

[thudo]

Vanilla 1.2 AI is broken. I heard and observed once that Tau and IG won't tech to T2 due to missing power. Not sure if this was also true with 1.1. Relic is so pathetic.

Fortunately, the Advanced AI v2.3b1 doesn't remotely. But yeaa.. Relic still never fixed that for their own AI. Oh well.

[ThetaOrion]

Yep, all it took was one skirmish mode game with the 1.2 plain vanilla, and the IG standing there doing nothing, and I was done -- not the least bit impressed with anything Relic puts out in terms of AI.

Relic really is depending totally on Larkin, Thud, and Arkhan to do their skirmish AI for them. No effort at all on their part. At least it sounds like Relic gave you more to work with this time around, since you now have you do their skirmish AI for them.

Until the 2.3 AI is back and working right, can't really tell if the UC Mod or rebalance mods are needed or not. It really requires both to be right and to have great gameplay. But, you first have to have a real AI, and only THEN you can go in and see where it is truly imbalanced or truly right.

It's just automatically imbalanced in skirmish mode if half the AI isn't there to begin with or if half the AI goes to sleep and does nothing. Hopefully, the online play is better balanced, but I don't play online. But, if the 1.2 online play is good, then maybe the skirmish mode gameplay won't need much rebalancing once it actually has a real AI. Too many variables, though! Impossible to prognosticate or predict in advance how it will all work out. You guys have done miracles in the past, and the UC Mod rebalance that Aralez did was a miracle too. It can be done, but it looks like the users now have to do it all where Dark Crusade is concerned, if it is ever going to be any good.

Edited by ThetaOrion, 23 March 2007 - 09:11 PM.

[Corsix]

No effort at all on their part

I have to disagree there. I had a chain of emails between me and a Relic programmer (via Buggo). Began with me asking why a certain part of our AI/SCAR integration was giving sync errors, and ended with 4 new functions for the AI to use in the area of unloading and tunelling units.

[Malkor]

At least someone in there is taking heed to your efforts. Blizzard kind of told me, "Yeah, we know there's <insert one of the numerous editor bugs>, and we're not going to fix it because we're lazy". This was pre-expansion, and directly after.

[Adolphus Perrywinkle the 13th]

So, uhhhh... is the updated version far from being finished?