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    About the veterancy system

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Balance Discussion
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    • P Offline
      Plunder
      last edited by

      I see that most people are voting for option 2 here, but there are also downsides of giving veterancy to the unit that has not performed a kill yet. For example, you have tele sacu teleporting in your game ender, let's take mavor. They will get veterancy for every shot that they perform. In case of mavor 1 hp costs 28 mass (225K/8K HP). The damage of sera tele sacu is 400 with 400 dps. Which means tele sacu will get an instant veterancy after performing one shot in something very expensive, mavor, yolo, paragon, etc. In the case of the SMD, for example, if you repair it, you will buff the teleporting unit, cause it is gonna get a veterancy as long as you are repairing it. So the teleport is gonna be way to overpowered with an option 2. The same goes for every ACU teleporting into the game ender and not killing them. With an option 2 you are gonna extremely buff the teleport, because the teleporting unit (SACU or ACU) is gonna get a huge buff for every second damaging the target. Therefore I guess the options 3 is better or 4 is also ok. The veterancy should be given for kill, not for a damage delivered. That's my opinion, thanks!

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      • B Offline
        Blade_Walker
        last edited by

        we can do a combination here :

        (2) We keep the system but we provide the veterancy when the damage is applied, instead of when the unit dies. This prevents table allocations.

        veterancy is gained on damage, up to the amount needed for next level -1

        (3) We go back to the 'on-kill' notion, where the killer takes the mass value of the killee. This prevents table allocations.

        xp for the unit that gets the kill will allow it to pass the threshold to vet

        could also do a version where the kill could vet units in a certain close radius

        this would require some separation of the vet bar from the total mass kill/damaged amount (which we want to keep to see how much value the unit got)

        i wonder if a small, visual battlefield indicator of units vetting would be worth adding? (yes ex-dota player here)

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        • JipJ Offline
          Jip
          last edited by

          Note that this is a topic from more than a year ago ๐Ÿ™‚ , the original debate is no longer of concern. Just found it interesting to post that there was a few things off with the veterancy-based system after all.

          i wonder if a small, visual battlefield indicator of units vetting would be worth adding? (yes ex-dota player here)

          I'm open to this. Do you have a suggestion on an effect to use?

          A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

          B Anachronism_A 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • B Offline
            Blade_Walker @Jip
            last edited by

            @jip said in About the veterancy system:

            Note that this is a topic from more than a year ago ๐Ÿ™‚ , the original debate is no longer of concern. Just found it interesting to post that there was a few things off with the veterancy-based system after all.

            good to know, seems forum was starting to re-design it again ๐Ÿ™‚

            i wonder if a small, visual battlefield indicator of units vetting would be worth adding? (yes ex-dota player here)

            I'm open to this. Do you have a suggestion on an effect to use?

            well originally I was thinking of a brief glisten effect, similar to

            https://forum.unity.com/threads/ui-text-shine-effect.467346/

            but - this has been done a lot and would require new graphics

            a much better faf option would be to use the visuals from units being built, so on vet cybran would display the semi-transparent frame, aeon the metallic form, uef the 3d blueprint, and sera the ghostly shape, for 1 in-game render (should need code only and no new graphics, beyond my skill though!)

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            • JipJ Offline
              Jip
              last edited by

              I'm not so snappy on changing shaders (temporarily). I was more thinking in lines of an emitter / effect

              A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

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              • Anachronism_A Offline
                Anachronism_ @Jip
                last edited by Anachronism_

                @jip said in About the veterancy system:

                Note that this is a topic from more than a year ago ๐Ÿ™‚ , the original debate is no longer of concern. Just found it interesting to post that there was a few things off with the veterancy-based system after all.

                i wonder if a small, visual battlefield indicator of units vetting would be worth adding? (yes ex-dota player here)

                I'm open to this. Do you have a suggestion on an effect to use?

                How about having veternacy symbols appear next to units like some other games do? Maybe something similar to
                f105c829-cca3-4e6b-8bfe-26bfa98c586a-image.png
                0 vet: no marks
                1 vet: 1 gold mark
                2 vet: 2 stacked gold marks
                3 vet: 3 stacked gold marks
                4 vet: 4 stacked gold marks
                5 vet: gold star

                pfp credit to gieb

                ZeldafanboyZ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • ? Offline
                  A Former User
                  last edited by

                  There is another option: Remove veterancy.

                  arma473A 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                  • FtXCommandoF Offline
                    FtXCommando
                    last edited by

                    What we need is less incentive to micro anything in this game, it's too heavy on it as it is

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • ZeldafanboyZ Offline
                      Zeldafanboy @Anachronism_
                      last edited by

                      @penguin_

                      These look too contemporary, plus any symbols flashing in a big battle on top of projectiles, explosions, and other visual effects might make it too visually cluttered. Maybe at 5 vet a gold star would be ok since its a rare achievement.

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                      • arma473A Offline
                        arma473 @Guest
                        last edited by

                        @melanol said in About the veterancy system:

                        There is another option: Remove veterancy.

                        Remove veterancy bonuses completely.

                        Remove tracking of damage/veterancy from live games. Track only the number of kills, because that's easy to keep track of.

                        Keep track of veterancy only in non-live replays.

                        That way regular games run fast with less memory, and the game becomes less complicated/more streamlined.

                        But people can still see how much "work" a unit got done when they are watching a replay. The concept of a "5 vet tank" would exist only in replays, not in live games. Nothing of value would be lost. It would be easy enough to rebalance ACU health to make up for the missing veterancy bonuses (e.g. make it easier to repair an ACU or just give them all an extra 20% base health).

                        Perhaps it makes sense to track "mass killed" on certain units during live games, but only count up the mass value of whatever that unit killed (defined as: delivering the killing blow). that way, you can still see during a match how much damage your nuke launcher did or how much mass your T3 Heavy Arty has killed. But this would only be for a tiny number units (perhaps: nuke launchers, TML structures, T3 heavy artillery, and all T4s except paragon and the novax building)

                        Do we really need to know that a t1 bomber killed 223 mass worth of units? Isn't it more useful to know that it killed 6 units?

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                        • ThomasHiattT Offline
                          ThomasHiatt
                          last edited by

                          No, it is more useful to know how much mass something killed. You compare how much mass a unit kills to how much mass it costs to see how effective it is and if it was used properly. I doubt it is possible to only track that stuff in replays, but I don't know anything.

                          Rebalancing ACU hp would require work, so I'd just remove veterancy for everything else. Your reward for microing units is that they are more effective and survive to deal more damage. Giving them random HP boosts and regen is just doubly annoying for the person on the receiving end.

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                          • FtXCommandoF Offline
                            FtXCommando
                            last edited by FtXCommando

                            They donโ€™t survive as often and you ruin one of the common ways to punish super bad micro from the enemy. Youโ€™re doing nothing but harming a part of the game that is already on life support as it stands. And for what? There isnโ€™t even a gameplay benefit itโ€™s just some weird philosophical hatred of a machine improving.

                            Like you even punish aggression more than defense with this.

                            ThomasHiattT 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • C Offline
                              Cyborg16
                              last edited by

                              If veterency were removed, then an alternative is needed, e.g. cheaper repairing. Regen is OP IMO, especially regen from vet. An alternative might be regen-on-what-you-kill (remember the "vampire" mod in some shooters like UT2004?).

                              Anyway the current vet system is fine, though I do dislike the way vet lets an ACU get back to full HP quite quickly at no cost.

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                              • ZeldafanboyZ Offline
                                Zeldafanboy
                                last edited by

                                Veterancy rewards skill both on the attacker and defender's side. For the attacker its fairly obvious but for the defender they need to make a decision on how to engage a dangerous unit without giving it too much free mass to kill, i.e Ctrl+k your low tech spam or insufficient defenses before an experimental reaches them.

                                waffelzNoobW 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • Ctrl-KC Offline
                                  Ctrl-K
                                  last edited by

                                  @Penguin_ I had thoughts of making this one, but I wonโ€™t because it will simply cause tons of lagsโ€ฆ

                                  โ€œBe a yardstick of quality. Some people arenโ€™t used to an environment where excellence is expected.โ€
                                  โ€” Steve Jobs.
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                                  • veteranasheV Offline
                                    veteranashe
                                    last edited by

                                    Vet should be removed, how is a robot better able to repair itself because it killed things? Why does it have more HP? There is a few things to explain why it has more HP.
                                    I like ta's vet system, just says it's a veteran and has a bonus to accuracy.

                                    Ctrl-KC ZeldafanboyZ C 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • Ctrl-KC Offline
                                      Ctrl-K @veteranashe
                                      last edited by

                                      @veteranashe said in About the veterancy system:

                                      Vet should be removed, how is a robot better able to repair itself because it killed things? Why does it have more HP? There is a few things to explain why it has more HP.
                                      I like ta's vet system, just says it's a veteran and has a bonus to accuracy.

                                      Iโ€™d leave it for units such as ACUs/SACUs and Exps as exceptions.

                                      โ€œBe a yardstick of quality. Some people arenโ€™t used to an environment where excellence is expected.โ€
                                      โ€” Steve Jobs.
                                      My UI Mods
                                      Support me

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                                      • ThomasHiattT Offline
                                        ThomasHiatt
                                        last edited by ThomasHiatt

                                        Experimentals are the case where it is most annoying. Say you have 2 opposing experimentals, each with a small number of supporting units, evenly matched. Whichever experimental kills the other one first, through random chaos, gets a veterancy and gains like 10k hp instantly. Your previously even position is now losing because the experimental got the kill first and gained extra HP and regen to clean up the supporting units. Now you have to muster up enough concentrated firepower to stop the experimental, which you probably don't have lying around since it would have been in the fight already. It is about as bad as when killing your opponents ACU gave you a veterancy bonus before the explosion damage was applied and allowed you to win the game.

                                        I suppose this would not really be an issue if experimentals worked the same way every other unit does, but the balance team made it so they vet with only 50% of their own mass killed rather than 200%.

                                        FtXCommandoF 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                        • ZeldafanboyZ Offline
                                          Zeldafanboy @veteranashe
                                          last edited by

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                                          • ? Offline
                                            A Former User @Zeldafanboy
                                            last edited by

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