0.5 release

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Vezzra
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Re: 0.5 release

#31 Post by Vezzra »

LienRag wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 6:39 pmDepends on your value of "not too broken anymore".
Playable, yes.
I'd consider that the minimum requirement for "not too broken"... ;)
Balanced, clearly no.
Considering how much there is that isn't balanced much better, and considering that this is a newly introduced mechanic, requiring things to be properly balanced is probably asking a bit too much for 0.5.
Interesting, I'd say not yet, but YMMV.
This is probably the important thing here. While it hasn't to be perfectly interesting and engaging already to count as "not too broken", it should be sufficiently interesting as not to be nothing more than a chore for the player. Meaning, something a player has to do/deal with, but which adds no gameplay value add all yet. It should at least be interesting enough to provide some fun experimenting with the new mechanic.

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Re: 0.5 release

#32 Post by Vezzra »

Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 11:56 am
LienRag wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 6:39 pm
Vezzra wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 11:18 am
  • Stealth: It has been noted that stealth isn't in a usable place, specifically the impossibility to use it in a defensive way against players. The question has been raised if it's possible to get in fixes for 0.5 to at least alleviate the problem to some degree. I don't know what (or if anything at all) has been done regarding this, and in what state those fixes are. Can anyone comment on that? If nothing has happened yet, I'd strongly recommend to drop it for 0.5 and get that in for later releases.
Nothing really advanced AFAIK. There's been a discussion about an interesting idea I had here but it's too big a change for 0.5 I'd say, especially if you want to release soon.
there are some well-known issues which can rather easily be addressed - in the sense that the result will be better than what we have right now.

i suggest we do the low hanging fruits and polish it in 0.5 and do any substantial changes in the next cycle. i will try to whip something up for the next week
Well, that sounds reasonable. Issues which can be easily addressed, going for some "low hanging fruits", as you put it, can and should certainly be done.

But nothing major for 0.5. If there hasn't been done anything in the meantime, now is not the time to start with it.

Meaning, I won't hold up the release for stealth related stuff.

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Re: 0.5 release

#33 Post by LienRag »

Vezzra wrote: Fri Jul 08, 2022 1:17 pm
LienRag wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 6:39 pmDepends on your value of "not too broken anymore".Interesting, I'd say not yet, but YMMV.
This is probably the important thing here. While it hasn't to be perfectly interesting and engaging already to count as "not too broken", it should be sufficiently interesting as not to be nothing more than a chore for the player. Meaning, something a player has to do/deal with, but which adds no gameplay value add all yet. It should at least be interesting enough to provide some fun experimenting with the new mechanic.
I guess it really depends on the player.

For now it has been relatively enjoyable even when clearly broken because of the potential it lets the player glimpses, as it is clear that we are testing a new thing.

That "discovery of promising developments" aspect will work very differently when put on the Stable version. Some players may still find it new and enjoyable, some others will probably (we already had one example on the forum, though I don't remember his name) consider it a chore that is force-fed to them.

And yes, as of now it is partly a chore. One needs to have a quite good understanding of the Policies (which are not well documented) to begin to find fun in this part of the game (again, some may find the learning part enjoyable, I'm talking about others here) and this fun is imho limited by the fact that Policies are still a mess, with no real coherence and very limited intuitiveness.

The Stability factor can be somehow interesting when calculating how to reach a specific threshold (I remember that it was during the cooperative multi-player game, when I was trying to understand how to get the 10 stability needed for a GGG) but is mostly a chore, especially because there's not much geographic variation (only the one created by Palace and IRAs and sometimes by Specials).
It can be, from the feedback we got from new players, particularly difficult to grasp - and remember that we get on the forum essentially the feedback of players who haven't been discouraged entirely.

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Re: 0.5 release

#34 Post by Vezzra »

Ok, kind of a status update on the progress of the 0.5 release. Unfortunately, the list of open issues and PRs assigned to the release milestone hasn't been reduced significantly yet, there are (at the time of this post) still 23 items on it:

https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/milestones/v0.5

Which means that at this point it is very unlikely that the release branch will be created mid August, end of August or September are more likely. This delay is not that unexpected to be honest, but we should get a bit more in gear working on these items. So, my request to all active devs and contributers is, please focus on the issues and PRs on that list, so wen can get the release out this autumn.

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Re: 0.5 release

#35 Post by Vezzra »

LienRag wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 4:46 pmThat "discovery of promising developments" aspect will work very differently when put on the Stable version. Some players may still find it new and enjoyable, some others will probably (we already had one example on the forum, though I don't remember his name) consider it a chore that is force-fed to them.

And yes, as of now it is partly a chore. One needs to have a quite good understanding of the Policies (which are not well documented) to begin to find fun in this part of the game (again, some may find the learning part enjoyable, I'm talking about others here) and this fun is imho limited by the fact that Policies are still a mess, with no real coherence and very limited intuitiveness.

The Stability factor can be somehow interesting when calculating how to reach a specific threshold (I remember that it was during the cooperative multi-player game, when I was trying to understand how to get the 10 stability needed for a GGG) but is mostly a chore, especially because there's not much geographic variation (only the one created by Palace and IRAs and sometimes by Specials).
It can be, from the feedback we got from new players, particularly difficult to grasp - and remember that we get on the forum essentially the feedback of players who haven't been discouraged entirely.
Hm, I see. Well, at least to me that sounds as there is still some more polishing required, and the documention needs to be improved so that the players get at least some basic understanding of how the new mechanics work.

So this is also an area where our active devs and contributers need to focus on.

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Re: 0.5 release

#36 Post by LienRag »

For the last part, "stability", putting a base stability of +5 as default alleviates a lot of the problem, actually.
Which also means that it makes the new mechanisms less relevant, but at least it let the players play even without understanding all the subtleties of the new Likes and Dislikes and whatever mechanisms.

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Re: 0.5 release

#37 Post by Vezzra »

LienRag wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 3:11 pm For the last part, "stability", putting a base stability of +5 as default alleviates a lot of the problem, actually.
Which also means that it makes the new mechanisms less relevant, but at least it let the players play even without understanding all the subtleties of the new Likes and Dislikes and whatever mechanisms.
Not an ideal solution, but if getting the stability mechanic sufficiently balanced requires too much work to get it done within a reasonable timeframe, we can fall back on this.

However, that setting (base stability is +5) then needs to be the default.

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Re: 0.5 release

#38 Post by Ophiuchus »

Actually research needs a round of balancing I guess - I think we didn't adjust it to the not-so-exponential-growth curve. OTOH nobody seems to complain that it is completely broken.
Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 9:36 am
BlueAward wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 8:39 pm Of course, in Scylior case, you only need so much research; production looks to be more important in grand scheme of things. So maybe the science effect is similar, but it eventually trails off. Meanwhile, influence stays with you, specifically to put a soft cap on the size of your empire, and I think the difference on the cap is indeed substantial depending on how much influence you get, but don't have numbers to back it up.
that is in my opinion mostly because we did not balance research costs when we introducing influence.

before influence we had unhindered exponential growth in number of colonies. so also research points were increasing in an exponential way.
That is what the tech costs are based on, so of course late tech can be waaay to expensive, shifting power balance away from research.
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Re: 0.5 release

#39 Post by Vezzra »

Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 9:46 amActually research needs a round of balancing I guess - I think we didn't adjust it to the not-so-exponential-growth curve. OTOH nobody seems to complain that it is completely broken.
Hm, that actually makes a lot of sense. Can anyone else give feedback on this? Our playtesters can probably give the most informed input here. Do you think tech costs need rebalancing to account for the changed growth curves because of the new influence mechanics?

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Re: 0.5 release

#40 Post by Oberlus »

Vezzra wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 8:27 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Aug 12, 2022 9:46 amActually research needs a round of balancing I guess - I think we didn't adjust it to the not-so-exponential-growth curve. OTOH nobody seems to complain that it is completely broken.
Hm, that actually makes a lot of sense. Can anyone else give feedback on this? Our playtesters can probably give the most informed input here. Do you think tech costs need rebalancing to account for the changed growth curves because of the new influence mechanics?
I think the late game techs, particularly some of them, have become very expensive with respect to achievable RP outputs. The result is that only very successful empires can dream with getting death rays or titan hulls before turn 250, techs that were possible to have much earlier before influence upkeep. On the other hand, early techs are OK.
In MP games we are using non-default cost factors to accellerate game pace, around 60% of default cost. This makes early techs considerably faster to get, mid techs just OK, and successful empires can get DR and Titan before turn 200 or even 150.

I'd like to
- up the cost of the cheapest techs, around x1.5 or x2,
- keep the cost of most mid game techs,
- down the cost of the more expensive techs, -25% to -50% cost reduction (special mention to Black Shield, which is absurdly expensive).
- set the default research cost factor to 1 (currently it is 2, while the other cost factors default to 1).

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Re: 0.5 release

#41 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 8:58 pm - up the cost of the cheapest techs, around x1.5 or x2,
Why ? Spread is good.
In no way did Influence mechanisms make them cheaper, either.


For late techs, yes they need rebalancing, but it's also a good thing that now we can't research everything and have to set very clear priorities.

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Re: 0.5 release

#42 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 11:38 pm
Oberlus wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 8:58 pm - up the cost of the cheapest techs, around x1.5 or x2,
Why ? Spread is good.
In no way did Influence mechanisms make them cheaper, either.
Because I am also suggesting to make the default tech cost = 1, down from 2 (for the sake of equalizing all the cost factors), effectively halving the cost of all techs.
So the techs that are already relatively cheap won't change (2*0.5*cost=cost) or will be a bit lower (1.5*0.5).
When I play with halved costs, I have the feeling I have not many research choices to make when I'm industry-focused, and no choices at all when research-focused, due to the abundance of RP for the few available interesting techs.
LienRag wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 11:38 pm For late techs, yes they need rebalancing, but it's also a good thing that now we can't research everything and have to set very clear priorities.
Of course.
This is about rebalancing early vs late techs costs, not about making all techs cheaper (if that was it, we would just change the research cost factor).

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Re: 0.5 release

#43 Post by Daybreak »

Oberlus wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 12:16 am Because I am also suggesting to make the default tech cost = 1, down from 2 (for the sake of equalizing all the cost factors), effectively halving the cost of all techs.
So the techs that are already relatively cheap won't change (2*0.5*cost=cost) or will be a bit lower (1.5*0.5).
When I play with halved costs, I have the feeling I have not many research choices to make when I'm industry-focused, and no choices at all when research-focused, due to the abundance of RP for the few available interesting techs.

Of course.
This is about rebalancing early vs late techs costs, not about making all techs cheaper (if that was it, we would just change the research cost factor).
+1

MP20 Research cost: 120% but overall it was not too bad, and myself, Wobbly and Oberlus all have death rays 3 + high tech hulls at turn 202 which is pretty respectable overall.

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Re: 0.5 release

#44 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 12:16 am Because I am also suggesting to make the default tech cost = 1, down from 2 (for the sake of equalizing all the cost factors), effectively halving the cost of all techs.
So the techs that are already relatively cheap won't change (2*0.5*cost=cost) or will be a bit lower (1.5*0.5).
Oh right, makes sense.

Oberlus wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 12:16 am This is about rebalancing early vs late techs costs, not about making all techs cheaper (if that was it, we would just change the research cost factor).
But if you halve the cost of all techs by changing the cost factors, why change the late techs costs ? Divided by two is already huge - it's good to have expensive techs (not to have all techs be expensive, but to have Research-oriented playstyle bring some results).

Blackshield is expensive, but it's also the ultimate shield (well, less useful since fighters, so maybe yes there should have been a rebalance when fighters have been introduced).

I mean some tweaking may be useful, but not a general divide by 3 or 4.

Especially, the spread in costs should probably not be reduced.

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Re: 0.5 release

#45 Post by Oberlus »

I've already set rebalanced RP costs for all techs, in a spreadsheet. Now I have to make the changes in the hundreds of tech files.

As commented before:
Early techs (<20RP) keep same cost.
Mid techs cost around 80%.
Late techs around 60-70%.
End-game techs around 50%.
Black shield around 33%.

There are exceptions: good techs that everyone give priority got smaller reductions.

Compared to current MP settings, this means early techs are close to 200% and endgame techs are similar cost. Edit: which, together with the halving of the tech cost factor, means that default galaxy settings now have same research cost of early techs and aprox. 50% cost for end game techs.
Last edited by Oberlus on Mon Aug 22, 2022 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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