Development Game [ May 11, 2013 ]

[Viech]

Hey, unfortunately I'm very busy right now and don't have the time for a proper analysis of the last dev games. Here are the graphs so you can compare your own impression with the data we gathered.

[Viech]

I averaged all matches:

The first five minutes seem balanced, both teams reach S2 at approximately the same time. The humans make use of their ability to attack the alien base right at the beginning of a match but there is no measurable negative impact on confidence or resource balance. Looks like humans have the advantage on S2, which might be related to the grenade. I think we need to improve aliens capability to tear down groups of buildables on AS2.

[Anomalous]

Other options include making the aliens harder to kill, making their buildings harder to kill, making grenades weaker or more expensive, giving the aliens some sort of explosive… sooner or later, we'll want to change the aliens' attacks anyway (differentiation from Trem).

Some of these would increase the chance of human camp, though.

Good players are effective at destroying human buildables as it is. Do we want to make that easier?

[Viech]

Good players are effective at destroying human buildables as it is. Do we want to make that easier?

We have more buildables than Trem but the weapons didn't get any bigger yet. This is not really a problem for humans who are very efficient in killing alien forwards. Often there is a single weak spot since having a backup egg is expensive for the aliens. And even if a forward is defended humans can use the grenade to blow that one egg up. I'd tend to leave it that way, since I cosinder it one of the most fun things you can do in this game.

giving the aliens some sort of explosive…

I'm in favor of this. Currently I'm also experimenting with a replacement for human power zones that might change the situation.

[Anomalous]

I don't think that we want to make the weapons bigger (more powerful). Shift things around a bit, add secondary (and maybe tertiary) firing modes, play with what the weapons can do – yes…