Prototype Assistance Request: Game Rebalancing

Prototype Assistance Request: Game Rebalancing

Postby MosayIC » 11 Oct 2020, 19:49

Last night, in a measure of intoxication and sleeplessness, I posted files on github and got scolded for it. For brevities sake, what I present to you is a suggestion on the subject of a faster gameplay experience. This would make a fine replacement, sequel, or secondary mode to the gameplay proper. It makes a very exciting game. Last night and today I identified many things that I cannot do on my own. If you are inclined, your help in creating a playable prototype using these files would not go unplused. I plus you for it now? I'm a medicated schizo on the internet. Plus+!

The included files go in your data folder; top level

Brief: The carts are faster and they play much more differently from each other now.

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EDITED Raised base acceleration to implement a renewed sense of speed and frenetic response.

EDITED Changed the turn radius of the base kart toward a slower base turn; Attempting to reach an experimental number of 4 interruptions.

EDITED Raised the amount of nitro gained from canisters, large and small, to raise the relief gained and thus pleasure gained. The races appear to still be competitive.

EDITED Raised the potency and lowered the required skill gap of the slipstream due to conflicts with silly and/or goofy play.

EDITED Balanced the karts. In play against computers, the winners are not determined by cart weight. Every balance problem is now determined by AI personality, which I'm not sure how to access.

EDITED Removed the speed limits on the game modes. They made play more difficult to enjoy.

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Request: Please take note of these tips:

A light kart cannot compete unless they boost for an entire race and use every opportunity for speed boosting. Every factor here has been made easier if I was able to do so.

A heavy kart cannot compete unless they combine braking and skid. When playing heavy, drop speed when possible and skid for sharp turns (currently not altogether helpful,) but remember to correct your driving out of skid.

A medium kart will can compete if they use the games systems to take and keep a lead.

Assistance Request

Request: Please test in multiplayer for any consistancies that shouldn't be there and relay those back to me. The rubberbanding has made testing very difficult for me, but I have watched several outcomes of races I did not win for the cart types winning, and the build seems balanced.

Some Feature Requests

Request: I would like to implement a high likelihood that a player who is far behind other players and (a smaller but higher chance for) a player who is in the leading 6 positions will pick up a zipper; but I don't know how. I think the alteration in favor for the player who is behind is done already.

Request: I would like to impliment a fix. The files that I rebalanced are trending off the ingame chart, but it seems like they (the karts) are balanced as light, medium, and heavy and can now consistently keep up with low and high level computers. I think its true, since its a change from when light was leading every race by a wide margin. I would like to change the kart select chart to a higher value so that the values remain in the boxes.

Request: I would like to change the numbers of AI racers in each type of race. I would have done this myself, and once I had stumbled into the file to do so within, but I've lost it.
Best: 11
Hard: 9
Medium: 7
Easy: 5

Request: Where the items switch with visible timing between good and bad items, I would like to change the feature to blink back and forth (at an interval of one of .45, .75, 1, or 1.5 seconds,) but I really don't know how to make the change. This really seems like an illusion of choice point, where the player presently doesn't feel good about their experience of having the rug pulled from under them, a change of the item every second would seem like a different experience entirely. I think.

Request: Make fire an option for starting a race, and make enter an option for opening a level start window in story mode. Switching between fire and enter in story mode feels awkward.

Request: I would like to lower the gear ratios, instead of lowering the max speed, on easier difficulties. I just don't know how to.

Request: I would like to implement a custom difficulty level, allowing the player (or online host?) to determine what features will be added (like item switching) or withheld (like slipstream).

Request: Test and consider using 'C' and 'V' for Skid and Nitro in the default settings. The long reach over has annoyed me once during play already.

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This morning I took another look at the game balance. I may like the new gamefeel, and I was very excited about it last night, but I really did bungle the balancing in the previous files. However now I can consistently win in intermittent races with light and medium. However heavy is something that I can no longer balance alone.

I need several things that I cannot do.

I need to be able to use a higher value than .8 on the heavy's skid to make it a drift machine. As far as special interests go, I need it to spin out if held too long and to slowly ease into a very sharp turn for a period of time settable in the kart characteristics xml doc before spin-out. It should also explode and stun the player on spin-out.

Furthermore: I need the heavy's skid to reduce it's speed.

I have already removed the speed bonuses the heavy has mostly. Mostly out of necessity, but I did make sure to leave enough speed for the nitro boost to remain useful, and I haven't bothered with the zipper. The base speed is functionally enough to eat away at the lead of the rest of the racers; it just isn't controllable. I need the heavy's speed to drop faster than it already does when the accelerator button is released.

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Come to think of it, I'd like to do something similar to spin-out with the light and medium - and use the explosion asset on all 3 carts. The light I would give a heat bar to for boost - exceed the bar and burst the engine. The medium I would burst on crash.

--

Please help me make a prototype. I suggest the name: Project Speedboost

If there were anything I'd still like to do, it would be to design more catch-up mechanics for a player who is lagging behind. Expert computer characters leave me in that position often. My zipper idea appears to already be implemented. I would also have rescue to the same thing; transporting the player to where third place once had been once per lap after the first lap (for the bottom tier 5 racers.)
Attachments
STK retouch.zip
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MosayIC
 
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Re: Prototype Assistance Request: Game Rebalancing

Postby fracture » 14 Oct 2020, 18:56

One thing I noticed is that how poorly the AI plays even on SuperTux. Some tracks (particularly addons tracks like High in the Sky) have speed boosts which the AI almost never uses. This makes it very easy for the player to win without having to do anything at all. I can't think of any main tracks that have this problem. Sven's new fort magma had a section with moving spike balls, still a huge WIP, so when I tested the track, I noticed that the AI always got hit by the balls every time, on SuperTux, so as long as the player can dodge the slow moving balls, they will win without doing anything. The only tracks I can think of where the AI karts perform well are most of the main tracks, Down by the River, Green Hill, and Industry.

It's probably just me playing lots of addons tracks, although I found several main tracks to have a few AI issues. If this is a game problem and not an addons problem, then it needs some tweaking.
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Re: Prototype Assistance Request: Game Rebalancing

Postby Alayan » 14 Oct 2020, 19:31

The AI receives no information about on-road speed boost and so can't use this information. It also doesn't have code to handle moving hazards.

In some addons, the AI limitations are really exposed, but many addons are kind of broken.
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Re: Prototype Assistance Request: Game Rebalancing

Postby fracture » 14 Oct 2020, 22:00

Alayan {l Wrote}:The AI receives no information about on-road speed boost and so can't use this information. It also doesn't have code to handle moving hazards.


Can these limitations be fixed in 2.0?
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Re: Prototype Assistance Request: Game Rebalancing

Postby tempAnon093 » 14 Oct 2020, 23:31

Alayan {l Wrote}:The AI receives no information about on-road speed boost and so can't use this information. It also doesn't have code to handle moving hazards.

I wonder if it would be a good idea to have an arbitrary 'repel' and 'attract' object that can be placed that will draw AI towards or away from them, like how they react to items and bananas. Maybe the designer can set parameters like radius/strength/falloff.

Alayan {l Wrote}:but many addons are kind of broken

Is there a list somewhere of wanted add-on improvements? I can work on some basic stuff in spare time.
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