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Nomad:
lol...
Sorry. I thought wealth*crime was what you put in your previous reply, so I thought that was how you were doing it.

I like your idea of making it abstract to reduce people gaming the system.
However, if you are thinking of making it simplified down to:
Wealth = Gear
Crime = Numbers
Danger Level = Enemy toughness

Well, that works. We get this information through surveillance. These values are how we are quantifying the gangs we are surveilling. We look at their gear and determine that we think they are doing pretty well to afford the gear they have.
We see the number of gangers hanging out on the corners and know the kind of numbers we're up against.
We see some tough looking enforcers and decide what danger level the area is.

It doesn't really have to be abstract, seeing as the premise is that we are actively scouting the area out.
Really, if you wanted to make it a little abstract, you could fill in the three details on our first surveillance run with either random or all low values. These represent your initial impressions. Colour them red or perhaps have them say "Maybe" before their values, until you've done enough surveillance to be sure of your impressions.

=)

I like making more work for other people.  =p

Nomad:

--- Quote from: ushas on May 21, 2017, 02:54:31 AM ---If you two insist on equipment tier jumps between wealth (or any other variable), it's also possible to set the medium score (eg. med. wealth) as the one at which the gang by its current shape resides and then based on this variable go up like +1 rank (eg. high wealth) or down like -1 rank (eg. low wealth), or more.
--- End quote ---
The gang having better gear sounds good. If they're wealthy, then having better gear makes sense. The more money they have, the more they can afford and the better gear they'll want in order to protect that wealth.
However you want to implement it is fine. Start at the bottom and increase equipment based on level and wealth. Start at the middle and go up or down from the baseline.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other.


--- Quote from: ushas on May 21, 2017, 02:54:31 AM ---However, although I was unable to express well, sorry, there is reason why tried abstracted continuous modeling translated to concrete discrete only at the end. By no means wanted to have outside rules forced like this looks. On the contrary, was about what we see in intel to be linked to the gang's AI dealings in the background.
--- End quote ---
I don't think something this simple needs abstraction.
We are getting the information through surveillance. The values represent what we are seeing and noting.

ushas:
Uff. Let's forget I said word abstraction. Just made us talk apples and oranges (budget & AI here), sorry.

Haha, so I first thought you omitted crime, but then took it seriously and realized that wealth is the Resource after all, and went making different budgets to accommodate that local greediness:)

Gangs have various priorities, including but not only protect their income in the form of wealth*crime. So would make sense to observe this via correlation wealth <-> gear or so. The trick is to make it clear enough without a need doing statistics, but not straightforward. So you can slightly nudge gang AI into one way or the other by weights, but this doesn't mean always forcing them to use +1 equipment tier for troops on high wealth*crime tile and such...


Ok, will try muse over equipment differently -- from the AI perspective:
The point is one can express (when programming) how things are relative costly by something like Gang Units (GU, previously troop units). You can define GU for each troop category, eg. mafia rank 1 = 1 GU, sniper = 2.5 GU, underboss = 5 GU... let it vary across ranks and gangs so it feels approx. ok (not exact).

Globally, there is a decision to make how much you want to invest into equipment. Perhaps initially you you don't need to spend more than some minimal amount, and just add enough to accommodate inflation of troops. If player doesn't bother you, may as well save money for facilities even if doing well. But if he starts to be a threat (eg. easy last 3 battles), time to react by investing more money, etc.

M = sum of all Gang Units across all troops. So money value per 1 GU is
MeanValuePerGU = Money-in-gear-property  /  M.           (if you invested more money -> more valuable gear)

Gear-property can be variously distributed though. For example, locally putting higher or lower weights on tiles, but the total amount has to be conserved. If a tile's troop total is N GU and weight W (eg. W=1.4 on high wealth or W=0.8 on low), then
summing [W x MeanValuePerGU x N] over all tiles = MeanValuePerGU x M = Money-in-gear-property.
The most challenging is to first well define what is important for AI at various stages. Inferring then the weights placements and balancing is just an exercise.

So by weight adjusted local money value per 1 GU is   
TileMeanValuePerGU = W x MeanValuePerGU.      (if you care more/less about this -> more/less valuable gear than mean)

Till now, what's inside gear-property hasn't been defined yet. It will only need to be translated into concrete state for a group of gangsters at the time of a mission (ie. observer's effect). All one needs are tables (array) for each troop category (3 x boss, all underbosses, all specialists, 3 x tier 1) to map  values of TileMeanValuePerGU  into equipment tiers. Naturally, sniper has different and more expensive equipment than rookie mafia guy (for the same TileMeanValuePerGU).

When the gang gets access to new stuff, tables can have a second column with an alternative gear to read from. The same if it's a special encounter (eg. all guys having knives or katanas) or a local gear deviation (facility?) - just add a column or condition (eg. exchange main weapon)...

All that is easy to do because, apart from making it look like progression and using common sense, you don't need to care about the cost of gear for gangs at all nor doing any purchases. So yeah, looks like a lot of tables but easy to balance and add special complexity (making tables vs. programming). One may as well have all equipment tables to be read from external xml file, to edit and test on the fly...

Btw. if we defeat and loot an enemy, those items will have specific value balanced from the player's pov, but it's the  [TileMeanValuePerGU x troop's GU] what is substracted from the gang's Money-in-gear-property, and his GU from M and N.

Nomad:
It appears we have differing views on the subject.
I do see where you are coming from. You're looking at it from a business perspective. Only spend what you need and then spend reactively.

I'm looking at it from an observational perspective.
The player is observing the gang in a particular area and evaluating their threat level. Then the player writes down three values. These are observational values.
Why can't they just apply?

Eg: As it IS surveillance, we could just change the values to:
Danger Level          Same as current Danger Level - Proposed to be Enemy toughness/skill
Strength                 Was called Crime - Proposed to be numbers of enemies
How well equipped    Was called Wealth - Proposed to be Gear level

Could just call the last one Gear, as an evaluation of their gear.
Currently it is called Wealth because that's the value to determine how much money the gang makes in that area... however... if the values are related then it doesn't matter. If their Wealth determines their gear, then we can just look at their Wealth and know how well they're going to be geared up (because the more money they have, the more they spend on their gear). The player just thinks he's evaluating their gear. Then when more money drops... well... that makes sense. They must have more money if they can afford this stuff.

The Gear value that the player sees is taken from the current Wealth (we just rename it on the Surveillance screen). It doesn't change. That value is still used by the gangs to determine their earnings.
programatically, nothing changes. If it was Crime x Wealth before, it still is. It's just that now the player sees Crime as Numbers and Wealth as Gear.
Observational.

Even if there's a heap of additional programming under the hood to determine how well the gangs are doing, to the player if could just come down to:
How tough are the baddies?
Roughly how many would I be facing if I went in?
How well equipped are they?

Daithi:
@ Nomad - The problem with linking the equipment entirely to crime rate & wealth is that the highest levels of equipment will be available to them very quickly. A small modifier based on wealth will work.

@ Ushas - The hope is to have different gangs emphasise different priorities - the survivalists want better gear, the churchers will focus on economy, with the mafia in the middle. More ground work (including rackets, permanent upgrades, re visiting basic Gang AI code (a basic implementation, which was written more than a year ago *shudder*), is needed though, before this can be realised).

Can't be certain that the idea of setting numbers, buffs, and equipment will work the way that has been discussed. It seems to make good enough sense, but a lot of things need to be implemented and thought about before any changes are made. Unlikely anything major will happen on the balance front until V19.

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