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zxc

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Balance Overhaul
« on: September 22, 2020, 09:20:02 PM »

This is a thread for collecting and debating ideas over balance proposals and concepts, especially stemming from discussions on discord.

I'll provide a summary of suggestions we spoke about on discord and maybe add some more of my own:

Cave-ins

Simplify to two rules: walls don't cave-in, and dirt can cave-in at any time (checked per turn and per move)
Mostly a player nerf because digging is extremely strong, but some flexibility is offered regarding walls
Makes digging in caves much worse, probably a good thing as it trivialises caves

Legs

10% accuracy malus and evasion bonus per point of momentum (caps at 30% or 40% with reaction control)
Accuracy malus uses movement acc malus, so it doesn't affect melee attacks
Only relevant when moving with non-overweight legs
Moving with legs on previous turn locks in malus for current turn
Bonus only takes effect during enemy actions when previous turn you moved with legs

This makes legs more of a mobility-focused combat prop compared to treads. It also makes melee leg build much more viable.

Remove self-damage possibility when kicking
Players rarely kick because self-damage is bad. This would make the ability more fun

Overweight penalty

Increase somewhat for treads (maybe wheels too?)
Support should be relevant in every build, and treads are a bit strong right now

Lightpack

Make it disable the effects of other equipped storage units
This encourages early and midgame usage, and weakens it somewhat in lategame

Matter and energy storage utilities

Make it increase maximum capacity when equipped but not store anything when unequipped or dropped
'Drop on floor' strategy is extremely strong
Possibly reduce coverage to compensate for the change

RIF alert reduction

Change progression from 25/50/75% to 25/40/50%
Very strong if you get lucky enough to stack these powers

Exiles alert chip

Reduce alert gain by 10%
Makes it more useful but not super strong. Can also be shot off.

Cave walls

All cave walls are earth
Fixes the advantage tiles has over ascii
« Last Edit: September 23, 2020, 04:41:49 AM by zxc »
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Kyzrati

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #1 on: September 22, 2020, 09:42:08 PM »

Cave-ins

Simplify to two rules: walls don't cave-in, and dirt can cave-in at any time (checked per turn and per move)
Mostly a player nerf because digging is extremely strong, but some flexibility is offered regarding walls
I feel like this would make a number of people basically never want to go through dug out cells, a massive massive nerf to digging. We just had a digging nerf in Beta 10, and even that was cause for some grumbling, and for good reason since digging can be an important part of stealth tactics, but this... would devastate is since some builds would be much more limited in terms of digging, basically never doing it if it involved any earth at all!

Remove self-damage possibility when kicking
Players rarely kick because self-damage is bad. This would make the ability more fun
This is being removed as part of the leg update.

Overweight penalty

Increase somewhat for treads (maybe wheels too?)
Already doing this, yep, although it will debut as a patron build along with other changes to storage balance as well to actually see how it works out.

Lightpack

Make it disable the effects of other equipped storage units
This encourages early and midgame usage, and weakens it somewhat in lategame
Feel free to discuss, though I've mentioned all the Exiles parts will be revamped for Beta 11 to bring them in line with their intended balance purpose, now that people have had a chance to play around with them. ("Disabling effects of other storage units" seems really weird, though!)

Matter and energy storage utilities

Make it increase maximum capacity when equipped but not store anything when unequipped or dropped
'Drop on floor' strategy is extremely strong
Here for the record, I see, although despite all the conversation around it so far, it didn't seem to come out as a promising change without a lot of drawbacks (being illogical and therefore against player expectations is a big strike against it, too...).

RIF alert reduction

Change progression from 25/50/75% to 25/40/50%
This has already been done.

Exiles alert chip

Reduce alert gain by 10%
Makes it more useful but not super strong. Can also be shot off.
Already done :P
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zxc

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #2 on: September 22, 2020, 09:54:26 PM »

I've added the post slightly since you quoted.

It is true that we haven't reached a consensus on many of these points, but that's the point in gathering it here for discussion! And the changes you've already made are just listed for completeness.

Quote
I feel like this would make a number of people basically never want to go through dug out cells, a massive massive nerf to digging. We just had a digging nerf in Beta 10, and even that was cause for some grumbling, and for good reason since digging can be an important part of stealth tactics, but this... would devastate is since some builds would be much more limited in terms of digging, basically never doing it if it involved any earth at all!

I'm not sure. Surely it's worth trying in an experimental build if it's not too hard? Digging can still be useful. However, maybe to compensate, we could get a utility that lowered the chance of cave-ins? Or something along those lines. Digging is one of the most powerful tactics out there. But it's often the 'easy' or 'lazy' way to do things. It's rarely the only way.

Quote
This is being removed as part of the leg update.

Didn't know about this one! Awesome!

Quote
although it will debut as a patron build along with other changes to storage balance as well to actually see how it works out.

Oh, I forgot storage! But we've barely started discussing that. Maybe that's next. I don't think overweight penalty nerf is 'enough' on its own. Probably changing the counts to 2/3/4/5 instead of 2/4/6/8 is a good one. Also, their integrity is just over the top. I don't think they need that much these days.

Quote
"Disabling effects of other storage units" seems really weird, though!

Very true, but I think it has a nice effect.

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Kyzrati

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #3 on: September 23, 2020, 02:08:16 AM »

Digging is one of the most powerful tactics out there. But it's often the 'easy' or 'lazy' way to do things. It's rarely the only way.
Yep, although I think it's in an okay spot right now. Personally for my own style I think it'd be fine, to be honest--bring on the chance of cave-ins everywhere!--but it feels like a whole segment of players would really hate it.

Quote
although it will debut as a patron build along with other changes to storage balance as well to actually see how it works out.

Oh, I forgot storage! But we've barely started discussing that. Maybe that's next. I don't think overweight penalty nerf is 'enough' on its own. Probably changing the counts to 2/3/4/5 instead of 2/4/6/8 is a good one. Also, their integrity is just over the top. I don't think they need that much these days.
Right, although it wasn't in the OP we discussed it on Discord: the capacity is being nerfed, and mass possibly going up after a review (need to look over a bunch of stats), but the most important part is capacity shrinking.

I disagree on integrity, though. Years ago when it was done, the main purpose behind raising it high and lowering their coverage was so that you don't really have to worry too much about replacing them for quite a while (unless your other coverage is absolutely terrible), since otherwise the focus becomes 1) carrying more spare storage units by necessity and 2) seeking out more replacements whenever you can. Neither of those activities is very fun, but it becomes optimal.

I don't see any good results from allowing storage to be destroyed any more quickly. Balance of this generic and often essential component of a build should come from other factors.

Quote
"Disabling effects of other storage units" seems really weird, though!

Very true, but I think it has a nice effect.
There are likely going to be other effective ways to balance it without needing to deal with making things weird.
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zxc

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #4 on: September 23, 2020, 03:50:01 AM »

Fair points on storage integrity. Regarding digging... I'm not sure the change is that drastic that lots of people would hate it. Needs more discussion.

We've been talking a bit more on discord about storage. I like either shrinking their capacities (2/3/4/5) or making storage units no_stack, but stronger (2x mass and 2x inventory increase of current values).
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zxc

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #5 on: September 23, 2020, 04:11:50 AM »

Thoughts on making storage no_stack:

Suppose we have these new values for storage units:

Small +4 cap M8
Medium +8 cap M16
Large +12 cap M32
HCP +16 cap M64

^ Values all equivalent to 2x storage units today

And humpback, lightpack values unchanged (+20 inventory for 2 slots)

This results in less storage compared to now, but more slot-efficient storage (in the cases of small to HCP). For maximum storage, you can still opt for humpback or lightpack, but their penalty is slot efficiency. I think you might end up with a more interesting playing experience with less hoarding overall. One build that would take a big hit is drone fabbing for extended, but maybe even that could be worked around with ingenuity (even get around carrying drone bays by just deploying them outright).

---

A more conservative approach would be to keep things as they are now, except shrink storage capacities. 2/3/4/5 for small to HCP seems workable. You would need more than 3x large storage units equipped to be able to carry more than the previous proposal, and similarly for HCP. This nerf hits the heavier storage units harder. It would mean that you need to dedicate 60% more slots to HCP storage if you want to carry the same as now, or 50% more slots for large storage. The mass might be a more limiting factor. I'm thinking this is actually a harsher change than the previous proposal, and less fun. But it should work as well.
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zxc

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #6 on: September 23, 2020, 05:08:35 AM »

Traps

Trap extractor stores traps similar to FRU stores matter? And overload it to deploy?
Collect/deploy trap arrays as single items?
Trap storage container?
Trap type can stack in inventory somehow?

The problem is that traps are very slot inefficient, and combined with storage unit changes, this might get even worse.
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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #7 on: September 23, 2020, 06:30:48 AM »

Quote
walls don't cave-in, and dirt can cave-in at any time (checked per turn and per move)
I like this more the more I think about it. It's a big nerf to digging, but digging strats still dominate the stealth space in a way that isn't actually necessary. Cogmind has so many parts and so much intel and other help on the main floors that winning would not be any great hurdle, it's just that the variance of those builds skyrockets instead of looking mostly the same every time. Certainly some of the best items in the game such as sensors and terrain scanning don't get phased out by a change like this, it just gives you a reason to maybe run something else at times.

Now it is worth noting than when I speak of domination, machinehacking specifically does not get dominated by anything, even less-utilized hacks like enumerate(patrols) are incredibly powerful and I foresee a need to nerf machinehacking in some way if other in-the-meta strats get nerfed, it will dominate the game again in a rather obnoxious way and I'm surprised how little players talk about its power-level, to some extent I read that as players still experimenting with new things like RIF and forgetting to consider whether hackware is just better than couplers.

For example, see my recent recorded run , S7 specifically, where just a bit of mundane hackware prevents an alert-4 from spiraling even somewhat out of control. I don't know what that floor looks like to players unfamiliar with combat builds in S7, but to me it was a relaxing & easy floor where ultimately the hackware felt like a bigger contributor to that than SHELL armor. In general the interaction between Hcp. and picking up hackware from the floor is just overpowered, this build did not have particularly much Hcp. or particularly good hacking, so you can imagine what a more normal run for me is like in this regard.

Quote
[storage unit vulnerability]
I think it's worth noting that in 7drl Cogmind, storage vulnerability was high enough to be unfun, and that I currently occasionally lose hcp./lrg. storage units to damage attrition, without farming squads or anything silly like that. I could keep them alive with repair stations if attrition was greater, but I would not enjoy that especially as it often means dropping items on the floor and shooing recyclers, that or carrying storage inside storage.

Quote
[matter and energy storage]
Dropping resource-storage is both overpowered and an obnoxious tactic to execute, there was a time when quickswap didn't exist and dropping the pod/well was much more comfortable in terms of micro, but that is no longer the case. Forgetting your resource-storage on the floor scores very high on the annoying-gameplay scale.

Quote
[storage capacity]
I feel a hard "no" on med-storage giving you 3 slots of inventory, 4 strikes me as the point where the fun starts and you're not just getting marginal benefits from equipping a unit. It's worth noting that med. is supposed to be somewhat effective if it's all you have, because of mass-considerations or because for whatever reason it's all you have on the floors where it's what you get from Haulers, or Recyclers once Haulers are more dangerous to kill. I would much rather see a no_stack applied to storage.

First impression of doubled values is... positive? It makes me question whether +16 inventory for one utility slot is more powerful than current builds, so at the very least it would not be crippling. Perhaps the bigger question is whether 64-mass properly prevents a situation where every single combat build runs 1x hcp., it could be just barely enough if being non-overweight on legs/treads ends up being more attractive than it currently is.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2020, 06:36:35 AM by GJ »
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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #8 on: September 24, 2020, 05:48:30 PM »

I don't know where I fall on all this yet, mostly sharing general thoughts and playing a bit of devil's advocate.

Cave-ins

Simplify to two rules: walls don't cave-in, and dirt can cave-in at any time (checked per turn and per move)
Mostly a player nerf because digging is extremely strong, but some flexibility is offered regarding walls
This would be a major nerf to current stealth builds and one that creates a risk that players should probably never take, given that these stealth builds often have several essential but weak parts (flight units, sensors, processors, etc) and little storage for backups or temporary removal, and losing one of these pieces can be detrimental to a run.  This kind of risk already occurs when put in a position where you have to take shots from enemies, but is much worse in the case of a cave-in, which I believe does not respect part coverage.  Combat builds likely to not care about this risk, so this continues down the path of nerfing flight builds (the primary users of stealth tactics and digging); but feels like a step too far, as it is likely to remove the "digging through dirt" option for many players (which is fine if this is the goal, but it seems like the current game design wants multi-tile digging to be an option).

On the other hand, this restores one of the larger impacts of the recent melee-digging nerf, which made it very difficult to destroy reinforced barriers in common prefabs where the reinforced barriers are surrounded by walls.  Melee weapons are one of the best ways for destroying reinforced barriers (especially for faster bots with momentum bonuses) -- towards the end of the game, very few ranged weapons are capable.  The melee-digging nerf has made it so that in many of these prefabs you now have to risk a cave-in as you are melee-attacking from one of the adjacent wall tiles.  If walls never caved in then you could still attack from them.

Additionally, having walls never cave-in would restore the killhole tactics that were the source of the melee-digging nerf, albeit in much more limited locations.   Another option would be to make both walls and dirt always be unstable, which would eliminate this.

We just got a digging nerf that many players are opposed to (I am not one of them, I think it is a fair nerf and probably makes these situations more interesting overall).  We should wait and see how the most recent digging nerf plays out before further nerfing it, but these discussions are good to have.

Makes digging in caves much worse, probably a good thing as it trivialises caves
Digging in caves makes them much easier for experienced players who are taking advantage of sensors, optical arays, drones, or other data; allowing them to potentially dig around known threats.  But this is actually not such a simple thing for newer players (many find the caves maps difficult based on what I see on discord) and rewards players in general for developing map sense (something that the caves reward in general, which very specific and predictable layouts for those who understand the maps).  If we were only balancing for the top percentile of players then nerfing this aspect would be fine, but I think this is a good feature for the game overall.

Legs

10% accuracy malus and evasion bonus per point of momentum (caps at 30% or 40% with reaction control)
Accuracy malus uses movement acc malus, so it doesn't affect melee attacks
Only relevant when moving with non-overweight legs
Moving with legs on previous turn locks in malus for current turn
Bonus only takes effect during enemy actions when previous turn you moved with legs
I really like the general idea behind this and there are a number of ways it could be implemented.  I like the relationship with momentum because it makes reaction control systems have more synergy with legs, which were already decent with legs but this improves that in a good way.  Plus a lot of the leg ideas I've heard have seemed out of Cogmind's style, too similar to other game features ("siege mode, but legs!"), or somewhat ridiculous.  This feels reasonable and fits the game nicely.

Overweight penalty

Increase somewhat for treads (maybe wheels too?)
Support should be relevant in every build, and treads are a bit strong right now
I would at least double the penalty from treads (20 -> 40), possibly more but 40 is probably a good starting point.  Current overweight penalty for "basic" treads is 160 speed to 180 speed, which is only a 12.5% increase in time/move to gain *double* the mass support, which is significant on treads.  Perhaps adv. treads should have a lesser penalty (30?) since being a little faster is their niche and this seems to hurt them more than other treads, although I think them being fast while not overweight looks pretty good already. 

I'm not sure that wheels need a nerf in general, they can be quite fast if you limit your mass and evolve enough slots, but that's about all they have going for them (low coverage is a nice but is also a downside).  Centrium wheels could possibly be nerfed as they are quite good and relatively common, but I'm not sure if it's necessary.  If we are looking to nerf wheels then maybe tweaking the rating or rarity of centrium wheels could be a starting point?

Matter and energy storage utilities

Make it increase maximum capacity when equipped but not store anything when unequipped or dropped
'Drop on floor' strategy is extremely strong
I think there's some good merit to this idea, as sapping energy off the ground *is* quite strong, although it does come with some side-effects vs equipping (you need to have space to drop it, it only restores when the turn increments so you may have to wait to refill, etc.).  There's also some awkward behavior if you have empty storage in your inventory, because you will sap matter/energy from storage on the ground into storage in your inventory, and not always gain any benefit to your useable active resources. 

Another option may be to put a cap how much you can pull from the ground, maybe to something like 100/turn.  I'm actually not sure that matter is quite as exploitable as energy, which could make balancing them both but maintaining some level of consistency difficult.

I do like the idea of being able to store energy/matter in your inventory still.  Another option could be to halve the storage while in inventory, so they are more effective while equipped.
Does energy/matter storage share the property of inventory storage units where they can't be dropped due to corruption or severed by slashing damage?  That would be necessary for this change, otherwise losing an equipped energy/matter storage part and watching as potentially 1000 energy or 500 matter vanishes could be devastating in a way that isn't very fun.  This could be very nasty in
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This also exacerbates an issue that many kinetic builds have in
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If energy storage were to always consume a slot regardless, there is going to be a breakpoint here where evolving more power slots or using power amplifiers is better than having energy storage equipped.  I haven't looked at numbers on this but depending on where this lands, energy storage could become somewhat irrelevant to a lot of builds that used to use it.  This could also make endgame builds more interesting where you can't rely on large stockpiles of energy storage in your inventory.  Any potential Storage nerfs will also affect this by putting more stress on inventory slots that could be dedicated to energy/matter storage.

Cave walls

All cave walls are earth
Fixes the advantage tiles has over ascii
This has always been an awkward problem since it is one of the few (if not the only) places where tiles have a distinct advantage over ASCII.  Tiles revealing more information than ASCII is common in roguelikes, for obvious reasons (that isn't to say it should also be the case in Cogmind).  Removing cave walls would make digging easier (especially from stray shots, which I assume is one of the reasons the walls exist to begin with).  It also makes sense that walls would be harder and more compacted than looser dirt inside.  I do wonder how caves might look if segments of the current wall tiles were made into dirt, so there was a mix while you explored, and it would also make the walls less reliable for guiding digging routes.  If cave walls became earth it would push players to spend more time digging (essentially digging out every tile in a 3-tile radius to find an opening, instead of just 2), which would cost more time (not always a critical resource in the caves) but be a potentially tedious behavior. 
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Kyzrati

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #9 on: September 24, 2020, 05:55:45 PM »

I think the storage thing will require testing to see how it plays in either case. For the past months I've already been planning to release experimental builds on Patreon to see what people think of it, but ended up having to wait until after Beta 10 to do this. So... soon.

But yeah the long-term plan has been to reduce total capacity one way or another.

Traps
No current plans to make full trapper builds viable as their own sustainable thing, so it doesn't really have any bearing on the storage discussion. Not to say they couldn't become something there one day, but it's not intended or balanced for that right now.

Quote
walls don't cave-in, and dirt can cave-in at any time (checked per turn and per move)
I like this more the more I think about it.
I really like it, too, actually, just imagining what the wider result would be. Guess this one could be brought up on Discord in #cogmind to watch everyone go crazy for a bit? :P. OR, just release it like that so people have less time to worry about how "bad" it might be and actually try it.

I do wonder if there would be any unforeseen negative side effects of making such a change, however.

Quote
[matter and energy storage]
Dropping resource-storage is both overpowered and an obnoxious tactic to execute, there was a time when quickswap didn't exist and dropping the pod/well was much more comfortable in terms of micro, but that is no longer the case. Forgetting your resource-storage on the floor scores very high on the annoying-gameplay scale.
I completely agree, but a very lengthy discussion of this on Discord didn't seem to produce any convincing alternatives that were clearly better. Also changes here could really mess up a lot of otherwise fun meta...

Since then I did put more thought into it, however, and considered giving in and allowing them to no longer store resources once removed (which would no doubt cause lots of complaints from new players--would never hear the end of it...). For energy an alternative could technically be to remove them completely and have power sources pull the weight there, somewhat increasing their capacity to make up for it, and encourage people to attach more power sources. Though matter doesn't have a similar alternative.


(edit: also I just got ninja'd by Tone, so I haven't read his input yet)
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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #10 on: September 24, 2020, 06:34:18 PM »

Cave-ins
This would be a major nerf to current stealth builds and one that creates a risk that players should probably never take, given that these stealth builds often have several essential but weak parts
That'd be my biggest worry--stealth builds could much more easily get trapped in rooms with no safe way out (due to incoming hostiles, for example) unless they're willing to risk it one way or another. Maybe that's okay, though? Require a bit more forethought and preparation than almost always having a pretty safe way out of things?

Also compared to the current rules, in terms of stealth digging this only actually comes into play for wall-earth-wall scenarios. So maybe it's not quite as big of a hit as it seems, given that we already nerfed that approach as far as melee digging goes. Having experienced a bit of the difference so far, it only comes into play so often unless you're being greedy or careless.

Matter and energy storage utilities
Another option may be to put a cap how much you can pull from the ground, maybe to something like 100/turn.  I'm actually not sure that matter is quite as exploitable as energy, which could make balancing them both but maintaining some level of consistency difficult.
Yeah this was one of the other ideas I was considering more strongly after the Discord discussion, as it seems like it might be the best approach. Logically speaking it's weird you can't extract all at once, but it's definitely less weird than other alternatives. I wonder what others think on this. Then at least less would have to change overall, and the related meta could be preserved as little or as much as we want, based purely on the rate.

Remember also that overall reduced inventory capacity will already end up cutting down on how many spare resource containers you can actually carry around with you at once!

This also exacerbates an issue that many kinetic builds have in SPOILER
If necessary we could possibly increase the effectiveness of Desublimators to help compensate (?), since they're only found there.
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zxc

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #11 on: September 24, 2020, 09:45:55 PM »

Thrilled to have such detailed responses.

Now it is worth noting than when I speak of domination, machinehacking specifically does not get dominated by anything, even less-utilized hacks like enumerate(patrols) are incredibly powerful and I foresee a need to nerf machinehacking in some way if other in-the-meta strats get nerfed, it will dominate the game again in a rather obnoxious way and I'm surprised how little players talk about its power-level, to some extent I read that as players still experimenting with new things like RIF and forgetting to consider whether hackware is just better than couplers.

Maybe a nerf through a new mechanic or something? Like... as you get detected more often, main.c gains familiarity with your hacking fingerprint, which has some effects down the line.

Quote
[storage capacity]
I feel a hard "no" on med-storage giving you 3 slots of inventory, 4 strikes me as the point where the fun starts and you're not just getting marginal benefits from equipping a unit. It's worth noting that med. is supposed to be somewhat effective if it's all you have, because of mass-considerations or because for whatever reason it's all you have on the floors where it's what you get from Haulers, or Recyclers once Haulers are more dangerous to kill. I would much rather see a no_stack applied to storage.

First impression of doubled values is... positive? It makes me question whether +16 inventory for one utility slot is more powerful than current builds, so at the very least it would not be crippling. Perhaps the bigger question is whether 64-mass properly prevents a situation where every single combat build runs 1x hcp., it could be just barely enough if being non-overweight on legs/treads ends up being more attractive than it currently is.

Reducing storage unit capacity does feel bad, a bit like how the hackware nerf felt bad. 64M is probably within range of most combat builds, but humpback would be an option too. Maybe we could discard the old values and start from scratch. Small = +4 for 12M, Medium = +8 for 24M, Large = +12 for 48M, HCP = +16 for 96M. Or 10M/20M/40M/80M?

We could also make HCP 2x slot and increase the inventory size bonus further. E.g. +20 for two slots, and increase humpback further. But it seems like humpback already fulfils the role of maximum storage regardless of slot efficiency.

Cave-ins

Simplify to two rules: walls don't cave-in, and dirt can cave-in at any time (checked per turn and per move)
Mostly a player nerf because digging is extremely strong, but some flexibility is offered regarding walls
This would be a major nerf to current stealth builds and one that creates a risk that players should probably never take, given that these stealth builds often have several essential but weak parts (flight units, sensors, processors, etc) and little storage for backups or temporary removal, and losing one of these pieces can be detrimental to a run.  This kind of risk already occurs when put in a position where you have to take shots from enemies, but is much worse in the case of a cave-in, which I believe does not respect part coverage.  Combat builds likely to not care about this risk, so this continues down the path of nerfing flight builds (the primary users of stealth tactics and digging); but feels like a step too far, as it is likely to remove the "digging through dirt" option for many players (which is fine if this is the goal, but it seems like the current game design wants multi-tile digging to be an option).

I'm not sure it's a 'major nerf'. It's basically just eliminating two things: hiding in dirt indefinitely (cheesy), and making wall-earth-wall digs risky (for ONE tile!). Wall-earth-earth-wall is already risky in the current system, and so on.

On the other hand, this restores one of the larger impacts of the recent melee-digging nerf, which made it very difficult to destroy reinforced barriers in common prefabs where the reinforced barriers are surrounded by walls.  Melee weapons are one of the best ways for destroying reinforced barriers (especially for faster bots with momentum bonuses) -- towards the end of the game, very few ranged weapons are capable.  The melee-digging nerf has made it so that in many of these prefabs you now have to risk a cave-in as you are melee-attacking from one of the adjacent wall tiles.  If walls never caved in then you could still attack from them.

Additionally, having walls never cave-in would restore the killhole tactics that were the source of the melee-digging nerf, albeit in much more limited locations.   Another option would be to make both walls and dirt always be unstable, which would eliminate this.

The reinforced barriers thing wasn't something I thought about. I don't have an opinion on that. For kill-holing, some degree of that is cool I think. Depends on just how cheesy it can be.

That'd be my biggest worry--stealth builds could much more easily get trapped in rooms with no safe way out (due to incoming hostiles, for example) unless they're willing to risk it one way or another. Maybe that's okay, though? Require a bit more forethought and preparation than almost always having a pretty safe way out of things?

This happens anyway.

Also compared to the current rules, in terms of stealth digging this only actually comes into play for wall-earth-wall scenarios. So maybe it's not quite as big of a hit as it seems, given that we already nerfed that approach as far as melee digging goes. Having experienced a bit of the difference so far, it only comes into play so often unless you're being greedy or careless.

Bingo! The only real change is to wall-earth-wall. Shorter digs are the same or better. Longer digs were always risky due to the three-move rule. Wall-earth-wall isn't so common that it's always a get-out-of-jail-free card. This is why I don't think the change is that drastic.

I had another idea at the time which I didn't voice because it seemed to favour flight too much. But since Tone and Kyzrati have voiced concerns over dig changes affecting flight more than combat: make earth tiles only have a cave-in chance by time, not checked per-move as well. Then the faster you travel through the less risky.

Makes digging in caves much worse, probably a good thing as it trivialises caves
Digging in caves makes them much easier for experienced players who are taking advantage of sensors, optical arays, drones, or other data; allowing them to potentially dig around known threats.  But this is actually not such a simple thing for newer players (many find the caves maps difficult based on what I see on discord) and rewards players in general for developing map sense (something that the caves reward in general, which very specific and predictable layouts for those who understand the maps).  If we were only balancing for the top percentile of players then nerfing this aspect would be fine, but I think this is a good feature for the game overall.

Newer players are already having a harder time by not taking advantage of digging in caves to the degree that more experienced players do. So this nerf hits experienced players much more. Map sense and all that is still important no matter what. Caves are pretty much dead easy for experienced players with sensors (or even without in many cases). The big problems I have are with unavoidable ambushes at the start of the map, and chokepoints where you are forced to aggro enemies. But there are always cool ways of dealing with the latter. I'm not a fan of the ambushes.

Note: all this may go out the window if you stole from exiles, but that's on you. :D

I do like the idea of being able to store energy/matter in your inventory still.  Another option could be to halve the storage while in inventory, so they are more effective while equipped.
Does energy/matter storage share the property of inventory storage units where they can't be dropped due to corruption or severed by slashing damage?  That would be necessary for this change, otherwise losing an equipped energy/matter storage part and watching as potentially 1000 energy or 500 matter vanishes could be devastating in a way that isn't very fun.  This could be very nasty in
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This also exacerbates an issue that many kinetic builds have in
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If energy storage were to always consume a slot regardless, there is going to be a breakpoint here where evolving more power slots or using power amplifiers is better than having energy storage equipped.  I haven't looked at numbers on this but depending on where this lands, energy storage could become somewhat irrelevant to a lot of builds that used to use it.  This could also make endgame builds more interesting where you can't rely on large stockpiles of energy storage in your inventory.  Any potential Storage nerfs will also affect this by putting more stress on inventory slots that could be dedicated to energy/matter storage.

Not a big fan of the arbitrary-feeling half space while in inventory or rate-limited recovery off the floor.

You can already lose power slots through severing, so IDK if that is necessary for energy storage. It was only added for inventory storage units because of the huge MESS it made when all your items splurted out.

Matter is more of an issue I think, in general. That part of the game could benefit from matter piles lying around or something. Or maybe base Cogmind matter storage could be increased from 300.

What if energy storage items increased max storage by %, like power amplifiers? That would require combining with power slots. I guess it messes with AI robot balance when many of them using batteries.

Changing energy storage to increase maximum capacity would probably necessitate reducing coverage.

If cave walls became earth it would push players to spend more time digging (essentially digging out every tile in a 3-tile radius to find an opening, instead of just 2), which would cost more time (not always a critical resource in the caves) but be a potentially tedious behavior. 

This is already a thing for ascii players, which is why I was upset to find out that tiles players did not experience this.

No current plans to make full trapper builds viable as their own sustainable thing, so it doesn't really have any bearing on the storage discussion. Not to say they couldn't become something there one day, but it's not intended or balanced for that right now.

That's alright, I just thought I'd bring it up.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2020, 09:55:35 PM by zxc »
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GJ

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #12 on: September 25, 2020, 04:10:27 AM »

Quote
[resource storage]
I don't think an 8-coverage part rarely getting severed is an issue. Also don't think Desub needs any further buffs, it's already very strong and sometimes you don't find it at all before your matter greed punishes you. It's an inherent aspect of spoiler-map that matter can end up an issue, can always mix in thermal cannons, possibly after it's clear that your ideal desub scenario won't be panning out. Kinetic weapons are by no means weak in this map, not anymore.

Extraction rate for ground resources seems kinda OK, especially if slow-ish. The pattern this might result in is that you mainly want to swap/equip before running down to near-zero active energy/matter, possibly you want to keep it equipped sometimes, but if you're not paying enough attention you have the slower option of drop, extract, pick, swap to solve the oh-shit-I'm-all-empty nuisance. It only really needs to be that fast, where you can get past 0 resources, and the small matter piles post-launcher (and engine output) can comfortably be collected with res-storage in inventory, I think it's fine if you have to swap in the matter pod to store up a huge 179 matter on the ground or some such.


Quote
make earth tiles only have a cave-in chance by time, not checked per-move as well
Eww, overloading prop every time you dig. I think overload shouldn't be particularly desirable for much else than avoiding getting hit by enemies, the time to overload/unload prop in those situations feels better because it's a more difficult situation that makes you pause to think anyway.

Quote
[stealth]
Getting trapped on a stealth build is already a failure and/or heavy RNG. It is preventable and is not necessarily run-ending when it happens. The ability to safely exit just about any room in the main floors even if the entrance(s) are guarded not only de-emphasizes good and careful stealth play, it results in an annoying play-pattern of always checking walls with digs before considering more legitimate (and difficult & varied) alternatives for navigation/stealth.
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zxc

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #13 on: September 25, 2020, 07:55:48 AM »

Getting trapped on a stealth build is an essential part of the experience.

Overloading prop to tunnel sounds bad. I don't see how we solve that without removing overloading. :D
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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #14 on: September 27, 2020, 06:24:01 PM »

Quote
[resource storage]
On thinking about it later, the extraction rate thing actually seems kinda pointless since you can just swap it in when necessary, essentially requiring that you have another/something else replacable on the build, but this does kinda counter much of the reason for making that change in the first place...

This modification on the earlier idea, however, seems like a good one:
Quote
What if energy storage items increased max storage by %, like power amplifiers? That would require combining with power slots. I guess it messes with AI robot balance when many of them using batteries.
...even doing the same for matter storage for consistency purposes?

The effects could still stack, too, in the way power amplifiers do (adding all their values together and then applying the percentage increase).
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arch.jslin

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #15 on: September 27, 2020, 11:36:17 PM »

Just trying to voice some thoughts too, after reading some of the discord patron discussion and this threads, about general storage adjustment:

I wonder what storage change might mean for builds like RIF?
Because of the basic game mechanics, storage change invariably almost change everything else too.
Like can you run an effective RIF build with just 20 storage? (Hcp +16 and innate 4)
Or does changes like this simply kills flexibility in certain builds. (while you ONLY provides a bit more flexibility over early game in material due to a couple more util slots because of no_stack, and this small benefits never comes into play for the rest of the game anywhere)

I like the more treads (and maybe even wheels) overweight penalty proposal more, and it already directly impacts the dynamics when it comes to storage.
You probably don't want to nerf that and nerf storage at the same time.

Also like Tone said on discord, multiple storage slot already incur a penalty with regard to wasted util slots, and people do get punished by it -
it's an interesting emergent behavior / gameplay dynamic to consider and learn about; making storage no_stack simply removes this 100%.
If we simply want to disincentives hoarding, we toggle to least impactful variable wrt. hoarding:
1. mass support / overweight penalty for various props (mainly treads and maybe wheels)
2. the mass of those storage units themselves - not the capacity.

And I still wonder if there's enough merit wrt. "making storage no_stack so that early game util slots gets more use"
or if ex-item hoarding is an issue... maybe just change the storage or item spawn(spawn rate, drop rate, etc) for exiles map?
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zxc

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #16 on: September 28, 2020, 02:52:37 AM »

I wonder what storage change might mean for builds like RIF?
Because of the basic game mechanics, storage change invariably almost change everything else too.
Like can you run an effective RIF build with just 20 storage? (Hcp +16 and innate 4)
RIF is a bit bonkers right now. You can definitely run RIF builds without carrying dozens of couplers around. It's more fun as well. You can replenish your couplers as you go along. If need be, coupler values can be upped to compensate slightly for reduced inventory capacities.

Or does changes like this simply kills flexibility in certain builds. (while you ONLY provides a bit more flexibility over early game in material due to a couple more util slots because of no_stack, and this small benefits never comes into play for the rest of the game anywhere)
The saving of at least one util slot is beneficial and provides flexibility to builds across the board and across all phases of the game. It's most noticeable in the early game because saving slots is a bigger deal then, but it's not limited to the early game. It does remove the options of various combinations of storage units being used, but at the same time, I'm not sure that's an altogether interesting part of gameplay or strategy anyway.

I like the more treads (and maybe even wheels) overweight penalty proposal more, and it already directly impacts the dynamics when it comes to storage.
You probably don't want to nerf that and nerf storage at the same time.
I think that's definitely happening regardless, and Kyzrati has had a long-term goal of reducing maximum inventory capacity for a while now.

Also like Tone said on discord, multiple storage slot already incur a penalty with regard to wasted util slots, and people do get punished by it -
it's an interesting emergent behavior / gameplay dynamic to consider and learn about; making storage no_stack simply removes this 100%.
That's very true and one of the main losses of going no_stack.

If we simply want to disincentives hoarding, we toggle to least impactful variable wrt. hoarding:
1. mass support / overweight penalty for various props (mainly treads and maybe wheels)
2. the mass of those storage units themselves - not the capacity.
Given that overweight penalties are being adjusted, upping the masses of storage units as well could have the desired effect. Imagine all storage units being 2x mass of current values. No other adjustments. Thoughts?
« Last Edit: September 28, 2020, 02:54:18 AM by zxc »
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arch.jslin

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #17 on: September 28, 2020, 03:27:29 AM »

I understand RIF can be further changed to accommodate it, but:

1. Unless RIF needs to be rebalanced again, changing / tweaking RIF playstyle because we "have to change/nerf the storage" seems just like more work that might be unnecessary. And it's not just RIF becoming somewhat more constrained, most game plans would lose flexibility to some extent.

2. When I mean flexibility I wasn't talking about giving combinations of different storage units being used. The flexibility I had in mind is the ability to adapt to RNG, which the storage gives alongside with "more health/replacements", also gives you more space for long term planning. This also includes the latter point about storage vs utility choices since mid-game.

Added bits of thoughts:

It feels like the underlying issue is mainly that overweight penalties are too easily ignored. I think the following statement is true:

Currently, unless you are playing flight or hover, no one would ever play a Cogmind run without overweight.

Players will be willingly and happily incur Ox2 on themselves and sometimes even more, on treads and legs. I think there used to be people who advocates even if you are on treads, playing without overweight can be good, because you are just moving that much faster. But when the benefits of carrying more items, and wearing the heaviest armor is almost always more beneficial to your survival in the long run, you kinda would never do it the other way.

So I feels like it's more useful to tackle how to disincentives overweight overall. I don't know how well it would work, but something could be like:

a. making overweight stage steps smaller. for example for every 50% of your current mass support, you get one level of overweight, instead of 100%.

b. making overweight level 2+ progressively harsher than level 1, so you would never try to go Ox2+ under normal circumstances.

c. like what zxc said, the simplest change could be just making storage units double their current mass.

d. (regardless of a/b/c) treads overweight penalty needs to be doubled or something to that effect, given treads can too easily take on Ox1 no matter what.

e. and if we still want to categorize wheels as "THE overweight prop", we can buff wheel base mass support by just a little. In conjunction with option a/b/c, I think it's still possible for wheels to be somewhat good when hitting Ox2+, but even then you can't hoard 40 items with faster than 200 speed like before.

Just some thoughts to throw out there!
« Last Edit: September 28, 2020, 03:31:47 AM by arch.jslin »
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Kyzrati

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #18 on: September 28, 2020, 05:04:12 AM »

I wonder what storage change might mean for builds like RIF?
Because of the basic game mechanics, storage change invariably almost change everything else too.
Yep, other things that are impacted would naturally be adjusted, too, to maintain their respective balance where necessary/desirable. RIF in particular is very easy to adjust, and wouldn't really suffer from storage changes, so don't worry about that. (It's also easy to run low-storage RIF builds, many people just really like the high-storage kind :P)

it's an interesting emergent behavior / gameplay dynamic to consider and learn about; making storage no_stack simply removes this 100%.
Yep, I am in this camp, which is why that change hasn't been made, or even strongly considered, since it was proposed a long time ago. While I do like some of the potential results of <no_stack>, and think it could be interesting to at least experiment with, I think it also really damages a lot of play options.

(Note that storage discussion is also not related to Exiles in particular--it's just being discussed as a general mechanic, not with regard to any specific maps or anything.)

2. When I mean flexibility I wasn't talking about giving combinations of different storage units being used. The flexibility I had in mind is the ability to adapt to RNG, which the storage gives alongside with "more health/replacements"
One thing I have yet to mention is that if I were to do something like no_stack storage (even though I'm not leaning towards it at the moment), it would almost certainly need to be compensated at the meta level by increasing part integrity levels across the board. This would make inventory for spares somewhat less necessary, at least corresponding to the degree that average storage capacity is reduced. (The main problem is this could involve quite a significant amount of rebalancing. I mean, it's actually quite easy to test this type of thing by applying formulas in a test build, but the final product would need more fine adjustments and other work.)

Anyway, just an example of bigger changes that could accompany otherwise radical new ideas to keep everything balanced. Can't think about radical changes in a vacuum because they naturally won't make sense that way :P. Gotta think of all the other things they might truly impact and how to mitigate that if the effect isn't desirable.

The "prepare for the future/alternatives" part of inventory capacity I do rather like and want to preserve, and keeping that a possibility is where it's nice to allow people the flexibility to attach even more storage if they really want to, at an acceptable cost. It's mainly just a question of what that cost should be, which is what we're getting around to with more overweight nerfs.

In the end it'll probably work out better to adjust the overweight penalty system so that it's not always using full support as a single "level" of being overweight, though we'll see.

So yeah, I've been thinking a lot on exactly what you're talking about here, jslin. The main issue is the desire to keep it simple at the same time :P
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GJ

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #19 on: September 28, 2020, 05:06:56 AM »

Quote
On thinking about it later, the extraction rate thing actually seems kinda pointless since you can just swap it in when necessary, essentially requiring that you have another/something else replacable on the build, but this does kinda counter much of the reason for making that change in the first place...
I'm not sure what this means, you don't need an additional backup pod/well in inventory just because you occasionally have one equipped. Finding a currently-equipped util that doesn't discard to swap with isn't really a problem for any build.
Quote
max storage by %
This is rather similar to filters, though if they were powerful due to needing to stay equipped to avoid losing those resources, then maybe that could be an interesting alternative to filters? The play pattern there is you top off energy/matter during safer periods and maybe you enter the next floor with 2000 matter thanks to 1 compressor equipped? There are ways in which this is worse than a matter filter, e.g. if you expect to be picking up matter from corpses on the next floor. For flight you could enter a floor with 5000 energy stored and try clearing it at a big energy deficit per move... (numbers possibly hyperbolic)

The direction I'm taking this thought into is kind of already discarding the % increase aspect and just focusing on powerful resource storage that needs to stay equipped.
Quote
Imagine all storage units being 2x mass of current values. No other adjustments. Thoughts?
It sucks and it hurts, for builds that value 0x0.
Quote
the ability to adapt to RNG
You can already adapt to RNG by equipping new items from the floor as you lose them, Cogmind's biggest inventory is always the floor you're on and the bots on it. There's some ideal balance for how well you can stick to one build, how well you can retain certain items, and how frequently you lose those items and have to rebuild. Currently I think Cogmind is a bit too much into allowing you to preserve a very very similar-looking build and the exact same item for very long.
Quote
Currently, unless you are playing flight or hover, no one would ever play a Cogmind run without overweight.
Not true, but acceptable hyperbole. 0x0 legs and treads are occasionally attractive.

I think the biggest issue with 40-inventory being possible and occasionally viable is that it's sort of objectively unfun until we find a way to rewire the human brain. Like it's not just the fact that the inventory-swap-UI sucks when you've got that many items, it's arguably too many items to deal with as such. They're usually all items that want to potentially be swapped in at some point, so there's more stress to managing them than there is to having 40 potions in other RLs. Yeah, yeah, occasionally it's still fun, but on the whole I'm in favor of that never being possible in Cogmind. Cogmind's better when it's a part-management simulator than an inventory-management one.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2020, 05:11:00 AM by GJ »
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Kyzrati

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #20 on: September 28, 2020, 05:23:20 AM »

Quote
On thinking about it later, the extraction rate thing actually seems kinda pointless since you can just swap it in when necessary, essentially requiring that you have another/something else replacable on the build, but this does kinda counter much of the reason for making that change in the first place...
I'm not sure what this means, you don't need an additional backup pod/well in inventory just because you occasionally have one equipped. Finding a currently-equipped util that doesn't discard to swap with isn't really a problem for any build.
I just left a word out of my comment which made it mean the opposite of what I meant to say :P--I'm saying what you're saying. My comment was meant to read "...essentially ONLY requiring that you have another/something else replaceable..." which is why I think it's a pretty unhelpful approach since you can easily swap in when you need resources.

I see what you mean about being similar to filters, fundamentally. That is somewhat annoying. Really can't win with this resource thing, getting all the cool and useful while also having it being logical and not cheesy xD

Quote
Imagine all storage units being 2x mass of current values. No other adjustments. Thoughts?
It sucks and it hurts, for builds that value 0x0.
Well I don't know about the 2x values, since that's zxc's suggestion and I haven't looked at any math myself, but regardless of mass increase details, technically there's always the option to add more propulsion/support if necessary, no?

it's arguably too many items to deal with as such. They're usually all items that want to potentially be swapped in at some point, so there's more stress to managing them than there is to having 40 potions in other RLs. Yeah, yeah, occasionally it's still fun, but on the whole I'm in favor of that never being possible in Cogmind. Cogmind's better when it's a part-management simulator than an inventory-management one.
So you'd agree then that reducing overall storage capacity should be a goal, yeah?
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GJ

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #21 on: September 28, 2020, 06:28:29 AM »

Quote
reducing overall storage capacity should be a goal
Right, reducing the inventory sizes you can play at or reasonably would.

Quote
Well I don't know about the 2x values, since that's zxc's suggestion and I haven't looked at any math myself, but regardless of mass increase details, technically there's always the option to add more propulsion/support if necessary, no?
The main potential complication is if currently 0x0 builds transition into 0x1 because 0x0 doesn't seem affordable. 0x1 is double mass support, after all --- can't really add +5 prop to a 5-prop build, and then where's my option to potentially equip reaction control on legs. That's not exactly how it would work out in practice, but you get the point. It is currently "necessary" to run some amount of storage unit(s), and 0x0 would become harder. The builds with too much inventory already run overweight and care relatively less about extra mass.
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zxc

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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #22 on: September 28, 2020, 09:29:28 AM »

The main potential complication is if currently 0x0 builds transition into 0x1 because 0x0 doesn't seem affordable. 0x1 is double mass support, after all --- can't really add +5 prop to a 5-prop build, and then where's my option to potentially equip reaction control on legs. That's not exactly how it would work out in practice, but you get the point. It is currently "necessary" to run some amount of storage unit(s), and 0x0 would become harder. The builds with too much inventory already run overweight and care relatively less about extra mass.

This seems to be an argument against simply increasing mass on storage units. If that can't work out, then the other options are no_stack or reducing cap.

But I'm not yet convinced. If the support cost is too great, the player can use something other than HCP. Such as large storage units. For the same mass, you can store 50% more items. But at a greater cost in slots (33% more). All of this sounds reasonable to me.

A mass increase is certainly harsher on flight than no_stack. That is another aspect to consider. Flight would be quite comfortable on no_stack large storage unit's 16 slots. If say, mass costs are doubled, then it would take an extra util slot and twice the support to break even with the no_stack proposal. If you don't double the masses, I'm not sure combat even notices.
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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #23 on: September 28, 2020, 11:23:04 AM »

Ok I'm allergic to the forums but I figured I'd jump in for at least one post... so here goes:

I want to mention that I'm against the idea of no_stack for storage and some of the other potential storage nerfs... I think there are a ton of builds that are only viable with an increased amount of storage, and in reality the only builds that are running extreme storage capacity are on wheels (a prop specifically designed to carry a ton of mass, like storage) or treads (which already gets significant overweight penalties). I know I keep saying speed is an irrelevant stat (tm), but I don't think many people would think that my 250 move speed 2-prop treads build with a ton of storage is very good. Playing this overweight is actually a huge detriment to a build, with the benefit being that later in the game you can do some truly awe inspiring stuff... My BFG + double wardrone + MAU + plasma storm run comes to mind ;)

None of this is to say that we shouldn't make some modifications to the current mass support / storage balance. I'm definitely in favor of adding some more overweight penalties to treads and probably legs (wheels are designed for being overweight, I think they are fine). There was also some interesting discussion on the discord about an idea to further incentivize being underweight, and that is underweight multiplier bonuses. Just like 0x1 overweight brings a malus, perhaps being 0x-1 should give some special bonuses based on prop? Can even extend this with further underweight multipliers, meaning the more underweight your build, the more effective it is overall. Nothing concrete here yet, just an interesting thought that I wanted to document

IMO some of the most fun items in the game are multiple item slots, and these proposed storage changes will basically remove them from any viability whatsoever. Yes we could modify them so they are less slots, but I personally think that is less interesting overall. It would be a shame if the game removed all hoarder abilities and made cogmind focus on being purely a scavenger every game... while that playstyle is fun, it is not objectively more fun than others than currently exist.

TLDR; Storage doesn't need a nerf, maybe overweight penalties could change to make hauler builds more difficult (even though they're already not great), and if we really want to make changes here we should incentivize being underweight rather than remove the ability to be significantly overweight.
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Re: Balance Overhaul
« Reply #24 on: September 28, 2020, 01:35:04 PM »

Underweight bonuses are probably kinda ugly in terms of gameplay incentives. It works nicely with stasis traps because of flavor and how specific that interaction is, but you don't really want the mass stat to be so expensive that you have to constantly do the math on not just whether you'll end up 0x1 but also whether you want to discard an underweight multiplier.

A brief comment on multi-slot items: neither SB, Perforator nor Storm Laser require big inventories for viability and fun. Wardrone is potentially fine as an item you can't realistically carry and have to transition into using immediately if you wanna play with it, but the item is too new to comment on. BFG ideally gets deleted from the game, but my dislike of its design is at least a bit irrelevant to this discussion.

I think there's been more than one mention of weird 0x3 memery at this point with the implication that they're not great so all's fine, so I think it's worth reaffirming that one of the main balance issues with current storage & weight is that e.g. 0x1 treads is oppressively good, with Hcp. you are almost forced into playing with BIG inventories and slower treads because of how good its interaction with 0x1 is.

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If the support cost is too great, the player can use something other than HCP. Such as large storage units. For the same mass, you can store 50% more items. But at a greater cost in slots (33% more).

The inventory-per-util-slot efficiency that you can currently retain on 0x0 legs or treads probably isn't any notable balance issue, though. You want to avoid nerfs where players resign themselves to always playing overweight because it's gonna happen anyway for a good build. Builds that were already overweight care relatively less about mass increases, and whatever issues there are with storage stacking it's those builds that manifest them the most.
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