Snappier Eufloria Default.xml

[Rudolf]

Euflroriati!

I need some volunteers to test a number of changes to the default.xml that make the game faster and snappier, plus differentiates the value of different seedling types and different unit types a bit better. The changes won't be implemented on their own, but will be supported by more fundamental changes to the game later on. Nonetheless I won't to start testing those tweaks I can make now. :-)

The tweaks need to be played on levels that use the default settings, but there are plenty of those so we should be able to get some good data.

Who is in the mood for this?

R

[Bonobo]

I’d like to test anything Euflorious.

[Pilchard123]

What does/will this do exactly? I'll probably be able to test it, just wondering what it is.

[Rudolf]

The game has a file called default.xml in the resources folder that affects a very large amount of ingame attributes and logic. I am tweaking this file so that it will change dozens of values in the game, like tree root growth speed, tree growth speed, min max attributes differences (A weak seedling will really be weak, while  a strong one will be really strong) flower health and speed, and so on. I have made a ton of adjustments basically to try to:

Make the game a bit less prone to stretches of time where nothing happens
Speed up gameplay in general
Make the game more strategic
Make the differences between seedlings and unit types more pronounced
Make different some units more useful than they have been

If you want to test the changes you should back up your existing default.xml and test the new one on levels that have few preloadded attributes. Those levels take the default attributes from this file.

Good examples are levels:
Arena level 3, 5, 7, 6
Level 23, 10, 11, 14, 24, 25

The game should play quite different. :-) (But not too different)
I attached the new default.xml, so if you wish you can test it. (BACK UP YOUR OLD ONE FIRST)

[Pilchard123]

Oh, ok. DLing. Will tell you what I think...at some point. I have loads of stuff I'm working on atm. A Portal map series, Eufloria, currently playing Space Colony (I've only just got a copy! Now, after it's been around for seven years! Everywhere I saw a copy, I didn't have any money on me to buy it, and when I went back, it was gone. ). To cap it all, It's the start of the new academic year in a week or two, so I'm taken up then too. *sigh*

[Bonobo]

Uhm, I'm not sure:

(click to show/hide)

- More Laser Mines?

- Laser Mines stronger?

- and here I'm even more unsure because I lost overview sometimes during the game: Laser Mines growing from a tree while it's "sister" mine was still alive?

No idea about changes in enemy strategies.

[Rudolf]

I am not sure I follow :-)
Are these things you are suggesting or things that you have experienced while playing with this new default.xml?
The focus is to see how well my changes are working in regards to the goals I stated, namely:

Make the game a bit less prone to stretches of time where nothing happens
Speed up gameplay in general
Make the game more strategic
Make the differences between seedlings and unit types more pronounced
Make different some units more useful than they have been

There should be loads of that going on. The tree roots for example grow MUCH quicker, leading to less needless, waiting. Mines and flowers grow and fly much quicker so they are of more strategic use. Seedlings are much weaker at the lower end, yet stronger at the higher end, so sheer numbers don't always win. And so on for about 20 or so other tweaks. :-) I am not naming all tweaks on purpose as i want to get "pure" feedback on the gameplay as a whole.

Bug reports are of course welcome. :-)

[Bonobo]

Mh… that was what I believe to have observed :-!

And, dang, since I often play in dev mode with some acceleration I didn’t really notice how much faster some things are. But yes, mines and flowers move and grow a LOT faster and trees are rooted faster.

Haven’t yet managed to win level “200” with these new settings

[Ytaker]

So far, my observations.

Level 10. Units move a lot faster. It's interesting. The big asteroid units, when killing my scouts, move about half the asteroid distance- if you add more features, you should make it so that seedlings can fight other seedlings from nearby asteroids if they happen to collide.

Growth is a lot faster, and it takes longer to take over a planet with a defence tree. Slows down the early game a bit. Def trees fire a tiny bit faster I think, and the trees grow faster.

Hm. Slight bug. You made the units be produced faster, and so because the enemy is stupid they often send small numbers of troops to your planet. Because your trees grow so fast, because units are produced so fast, it's very very hard for the stupid AI to pose a serious threat. So early game, there's less danger, less excitement. Humans are smart enough to estimate how many seedlings you need to take an enemy planet, the enemy is not.

Low energy seedlings seem to have a lower health. It makes the enemy a lot weaker, since their AI can't exploit this advantage. Their low energy seedlings die in droves. If they have the luck to be born on a high energy planet, they're effective, otherwise not. This means that for much of the game you face 0 challenge.

 It's very hard to take the large planets with a high energy, since they have an extremely high health, and regeneration. Time to mass a lot of troops.

Skirmish 6. Well, no chance of taking them early. Time for mass colonisation.

Incredibly easy. I built a few dysons, ignoring their feeble assaults that didn't take into account the snappy trees. I then crushed them with ease. The extra health and regeneration effectively removes any unit attrition, if managed well, and means you end up with an unstoppable force of high energy units.

Level 25. Very easy. Now I've worked out to go for high energy ones, it's obvious strength and speed are pretty useless, and the atttrition of your forces is essentially nill. Your planets are fortresses, so most of the time you can ignore assaults or send 20 seedlings to defend. Flowers are notably more useful here, since you can easily route them to a key planet.

Eve100 is pretty hard. The lack of any low energy ones is lucky for the computer, the ai attacks a lot, and the sheer number of enemies makes it hard to win, due to the fast spawn rate. These modifications essentially make any large scale battle into a slug fest. You can both produce troops very fast, move mines very fast, and so the lines just move back and forth. Super seedlings were notably more powerful here.

[Rudolf]

Thanks!

Yeah the changes won't work well in isolation, the AI really needs to be be able to cope with it and the levels have not been adjusted to deal with it so are completely unbalanced.

Does it feel snappier though? Less pointless waiting and so on? (It does to me but I have some bias of course)


EDIT:
The idea is also to make some asteroids much more important than others. It is all a bit too samey at times where it is more about colinising tons of asteroids rather than colonising the right ones. I should realy try to create an optimised level but I am not sure if that is useful as there are major AI and gamemechanic updates in the works. I guess i can tweak the current AI to be much mnore aggressive and see if I can make it more appropriate with these settings, and then apply that to a few known levels.

Yeah... sounds like a plan really

[Rudolf]

Mh… that was what I believe to have observed :-!

And, dang, since I often play in dev mode with some acceleration I didn’t really notice how much faster some things are. But yes, mines and flowers move and grow a LOT faster and trees are rooted faster.

Haven’t yet managed to win level “200” with these new settings

Interesting. I expected several levels to become easier, but it is interesting to see which ones have become tougher. I guess those where you start with a disadvantage have that potential as you have less time to catch up and take advantage back...

[Ytaker]

Thanks!

Yeah the changes won't work well in isolation, the AI really needs to be be able to cope with it and the levels have not been adjusted to deal with it so are completely unbalanced.

Does it feel snappier though? Less pointless waiting and so on? (It does to me but I have some bias of course)

Two things. First, yeah, the game is much faster. Units are produced faster, you can always find reinforcements for a big battle, you can move mines and flowers a lot faster so they're more useful. You never have to wait for units, you can always continue fighting on.

But, because 2/3s of planets are utterly useless (strength and speed- you've upped the regeneration rate, so there's almost no attrition of troops if you use high energy) it doesn't feel faster a lot of the time. I'd recommend you lessen the health enhancement a bit. It's overbalanced. Or reduce regeneration.

EDIT:
The idea is also to make some asteroids much more important than others. It is all a bit too samey at times where it is more about colinising tons of asteroids rather than colonising the right ones. I should realy try to create an optimised level but I am not sure if that is useful as there are major AI and gamemechanic updates in the works. I guess i can tweak the current AI to be much mnore aggressive and see if I can make it more appropriate with these settings, and then apply that to a few known levels.

Yeah... sounds like a plan really

The asteroids are differentiated. Energy won. You've increased health to energy ratio a lot, more than doubled, a figure which is enhanced by regeneration, and weak seedlings are maybe half as strong. If a high energy has four times the health of an strength one, it's gonna win. Strength and speed can't be enhanced much more than 50% in your mod.

Plus, now I pretty much avoid weak planets, since they are utterly useless.

Having a more aggressive AI would make it harder, but the ai has fundemental disadvantages that this mod enhances. Speed needs a major boost. As it is, all units are fast enough that speed is no longer than important. Strength is no longer effective against energy. I've even found that high energy troops aren't damaged much by mines.

You mentioned having some sort of global settings thing that would allow you to apply mods to everything. Maybe you could do that with the overhaul? Have an easy, medium, and hard AI. And an insane one, which would be annik's.

[Rudolf]

Yeah I agree the health attribute has taken over too much. :-)
It is interesting how much change can be affected with simple logic tweaks.

I am going to do a second draft of this overhaul soon, probably this week. The global mod thing isnot going to appear in the short term, but might become a factor later on. There are other big factors like AI that will play a role, and some features/additions that I can't anounce yet, so there is more to take into account. I will tweak what I can for now though.

The health/speed/strength balance is REALLY hard to get right, but I am sure I can get something decent in place that will still play a lot faster and more strategic than the current commercial version. Will see what I can do about the existing AI as well.

Good fun this. :-)

The feedback is essential. Much appreciated all of you.

[Pilchard123]

I don't know whether this is anything to do with the default.xml update, but level 11 crashes now. I'm not sure where (it's when you take a certain asteroid fairly early on, sort of up-left of the start, I think), because my dad noticed it, not me. Other than that, what other people have said.

Vaguely related to updates: Mines are annoying when you fight one-on-one. Both explode, even when one is far superior to the other in all aspects. It did this before, but could it be changed?

Also, flowers seem to be less frequent for the player than they were before, though my dad does seem to believe THIS.

[Rudolf]

Right, here is a new and improved default.xml. Feedback taken into account and I sped up AI decisionmaking and proactiveness to a fair degree.


NOTE: This does not make the AI smarter, just less tardy :-)
NOTE 2: All the tweaks in this file are most noticeable on levels that have the least number of bespoke setting in their LUA file. So the levels I indicated earlier are best to test this on.
You can also tweak some yourself. So if a level has a lobals.AI.GraceTimer=(60) then the AI waits 60 seconds before it starts acting. Feel free to lower that value or to delete it so the one in the default.xml becomes active.
Note 3: Make backups!! :_D

[Bonobo]

Just played levels 10 and 11 (latter one crashed near the end) and can't say much, but yes, the game is a lot faster, I noticed a larger difference between strong and weaker seedlings so I also differentiated their use more than before—strong ones for besieging enemy-held asteroids and weaker ones for planting trees after the strong ones cleaned everything out. Very nice how fast flowers and laser mines fly now.

But one thing: Please make the laser mines a 3-, 5-, 6-, 7- or whatever-star but not a 4-star, this looks awful to me. But I do like the stronger colours.

And yes, backups I’m kind of paranoind about backups, so I have all that stuff at least double, preferably triple.

Cheers, Tom

[Rudolf]

Thanks for the feedback :-D
Glad it seems to be working and I will see what we can do abou the laser mines. :-)
Gotta get the gameplay right first, then we will fix any  graphic issues though :-D

How was the AI?

EDIT:
There is a new default.xml coming (I reckon tomorrow) which really ties things together and improves the game a lot.
Quite shocked to see a more proactive AI sending in reinforcements and similar fun stuff.

:-)

R

[AWS]

any chance of tweaking the menu screen. ive always had the impression it could be designed much better.
eg, the space on the sub-screens, ie, custom maps, is too small imo.

and the whole aesthetic and overall funness of a menu screen can be improved.

is it just me that is ever so slightly, very slightly!, annoyed at having to work the scroll bar manually?
maybe it would be a good idea to have a piece of code that stores your most popularly played maps at the top of the menu, regardless of name order.

just ideas thrown up by this unrelated but mildly related post!

AWs


PS - sorry i havent been around recently  and wish i could contribute more than i do. if i had internet at home i would be here every week. so, whenever that day arrives, next year probably, ill be here!

[Rudolf]

Hey welcome back :-D

We have a general suggestions thread for that kind of stuff here:
http://www.dyson-game.com/smf/index.php?topic=3.0
 

[Rudolf]

And here is another updated Default.xml

I reckon this is pretty close to the limit of what we can do without code changes, and it does require AI improvements so the AI can use mines and flowers better. We ARE looking into this, but in the mean time the game is a bit unbalanced in that regard.
It is much better in many ways though, so please give her a spin and tell me what you think?

There are some other good additions already in our build as well, we may be able to push that out soon.

[threephi]

Just coming to this thread, I will check out the new xml and let you know what I think...

I have grown very fond of arena level 7 since the setup parameters are so random... sometimes you get a tiny asteroid with very weak seedlings, and overcoming those odds takes some very careful strategy.  I have probably played that level over 200 times.  It will be interesting to see how the new file changes things.

[threephi]

Just played arena 7 a few times, and my immediate impression is that the new defaults go a bit far with the mine speed.  I thought mines did move too slowly before, but now because they can reach and orbit an enemy asteroid very quickly, a mine is almost guaranteed to wipe out any flowers there, and that is far too imbalanced IMO.  On the one hand, if you don't have a mine, you're totally screwed if one gets to your asteroids early in the game.  On the other, erasing flowers means that the mines themselves will be wiped out very quickly and thus the game will rapidly tilt in favor of whoever owns the last upgraded defense trees that survive the great purge.  I would say, yes make the mines move faster than before, but only a little.  Also, I think by far the most influential factor in determining the strategic impact of mines is the frequency with which flowers are generated.  Any change to mine attributes will lead designers to rebalance the flower generation probability so I think it's a net wash.

I do however like that flowers move quickly, since that lets you send them where they will be useful instead of "wasting them" on a small planet only because it would take too long to reach your powerhouses.  There are still a few outstanding bugs in how flowers are handled however, and if those could be addressed, it would help to make flowers more logical and consistent in how they affect strategy (upgraded defense trees on on a captured asteroid no longer produce mines if the mine is destroyed after the asteroid changes ownership; the AI will plant multiple flowers on one tree).

I don't know if I like the idea to make weak seedlings weaker and strong ones stronger, either.  If anything, I would have voted for narrowing that gap.  There is something very satisfying to me with the "ants devouring a caterpillar" strategy if you can pull it off.  For Arena 7 in particular, trying to win with a weak starting asteroid surrounded by strong ones was a nice challenge.  It was difficult, not guaranteed, and took a lot of strategic thinking.  With the new default settings, it seems you need slightly larger forces in general to take an asteroid, and doing so with weak armies is now much harder.  Seedling economy is still the most important element in Eufloria, so even with the change, whoever has the most seedlings will win.  

I also like the tree roots planting faster, but maybe you could slow that down a little.  The length of the root path is a meaningful random factor that can have a big influence in the early game as it affects how quickly you can get your asteroids pumping out seedlings.

[Rudolf]

It is a tricky balancing act. I have given the mines an extra laser as well, so that contributes to their added power, and maybe they are a bit strong now, but you know what? They can be countered with defensive trees, which I have also made stronger. This makes them more important which I think is a good thing to do. The problem with making seedlings more alike is that it removes even more strategy from the game. It just becomes a matter of farming huge armies, and I prefer that there can be nasty surprised if you just concentrate on pumping out seedlings without considering the level circumstances. Having said that I will look at the mines to see if I can make them less unbalancing yet still more fun. :-)

There are some additions coming for the PSN version of the game that will trickle into the pc version as well, so there will be more to balance the currently lopsided gameplay. Sorry to be vahue about that.

Next big steps however are to make the AI cope with the new settings, and to make the levels fit them as well. I may spend some more time tweaking though.

Does the AI (with exception of handling flowers and mines/super seedlings) feel a bit more reactive, or even proactive, now? It does to me but hey, it is quite a fuzzy system.

[Rudolf]

I am currently making the mines slightly less devastating, but importantly, I am making them more subject to asteroid attributes, just like seedlings. It will still make them useful, but there will be more strategy involved in where you create your mines as it will heavily impacct that strengthh and speed. The speed value of asteroids especially becomes more important now, which is actually a really good thing to do as it isn't enough of a factor I think. Healt and strength are more impactful at the moment.

Speed will mean also you can get you flowers and mines to the right places quicker, which is useful indeed. :-)

[Bonobo]

So, because of my problems with the Honourifics/Achievements I have installed anew and now I am playing all the levels again, using the new Defaults.xml file.

Feels as if the gameplay is different, though I can’t tell what exactly it all is. Strong laser mines are quite helpful. More flowers are very helpful, too.

And I have the feeling that the AI is somewhat stronger, often quickly making counterattacks when I attack them.

[threephi]

The AI definitely feels more aggressive, and I like that.  I'll have to play a few more levels to get a better feel of how it changes things.  I do like that laser mines are stronger, and point taken about defense trees being more powerful, but the mines' sheer speed in the new default file means they can largely outrun those defenses, and zap away flowers before being hit enough times to be killed.

I also totally agree something needs to be done to make strength and speed more effective against energy.  I don't envy you that chore, it will probably take some very, very fine tuning to get it right.  But overall, I honestly think the game is fairly well balanced as it is, and any tweaks should be subtle.

And I guess I'm the lone voice in support of weak seedlings   That probably comes from playing arena 7 so much.  That level really gives you a feel for how to make something out of very poor starting conditions.  I like feeling that I have a chance to win that level no matter what kind of seedlings I start with, and the current defaults make that significantly less likely with weak seedlings.

Keep up the good work though, I am still playing Eufloria regularly so you've done something right

[threephi]

The problem with making seedlings more alike is that it removes even more strategy from the game. It just becomes a matter of farming huge armies, and I prefer that there can be nasty surprised if you just concentrate on pumping out seedlings without considering the level circumstances.

I get the feeling I'm being a little bit of a gadfly, but I hope you don't mind a few more thoughts on the subject, which I offer in the spirit of honest and (hopefully) constructive feedback:

I totally agree with that goal, and in no way do I feel that seedlings should become homogeneous.  But I firmly disagree that making weak seedlings a little stronger would take away strategy, in fact the opposite.  So long as weak seedlings have a chance to take down an asteroid or opposing seedlings with stronger attributes, the player will incorporate the "zerg rush" tactic as an option in his/her strategy.  If weak seedlings are less competitive, they will have less strategic use.  Any change in either direction should be small though--maybe tweaking the relative impact of energy/strength/speed as you are doing will accomplish that on its own.  Another point is that asteroid (and thus seedling) values aren't determined by the player, but by the level designer, so from the player perspective, you have to make do with what you have.  If you are given weak seedlings, I feel they should be competitive.

But here's my brainstorm for this post, and I realize it's completely outside the realm of tweaking values in the default.xml file:  What about adding a new type of special unit that affects seedling growth rates?  Maybe an upgraded dyson tree can produce a special kind of flower, that when you send it to explode on an enemy asteroid, it resets an opponent's trees to a newborn state, or drastically (temporarily, or not?) slows seedling generation?  And I think I've seen the suggestion elsewhere, but what about giving the player the ability to upgrade an asteroid's stats?

[Rudolf]

Hah, you are not being a gladly, we really need this kind of feedback. We will do what we think is best for the game, but part of that is making sure we understand how people experience it. :-D

I get your point, but I think I will see how things pan out a bit more before I raise the strength of weak seedlings. (Not ruling it out, but I think I will let the current changes sink in a bit so we can really assess the longterm impact. They still have strategic use for example by using them to plant trees and thefore use them as "currency". If they have good speed they make good scouts as well. :-) I am adding another default.xml btw, with more balanced mines among other things.

Regarding your other ideas. We actually have a fairly comprehensive list of additions that we will be working on becuase of the PSN version of Eufloria we are doing, and several of these features will trickle down onto the pc version. :-D Some of what you suggest is covered by these additons!

Right, so here is another Default.xml
Please keep in mind that the AI is not yet able to take this stuff into account as much as we like (Although much improved over previous iterations) and that most levels are not optimised for these settings. I will be doing this at one point, but until then the levels I point out at the beginning of the thread see the most positive changes I think.

[Bonobo]

Level 11 doesn’t crash anymore, it seems. Level 15 crashed once near the beginning, second time it didn’t crash.

Arena 5 <correction> Arena 4 “Abundance” </correction> crashed twice when game had progressed and I had almost won.

<edit>

Some of the levels felt more difficult, a few times I needed a second or third attempt to win.

</edit>


<edit 2>

Seems as if enemy asteroids with defense trees are quite hard to conquer now, I noticed that I needed a lot more seedlings to conquer all those bristly 'roids in Dark Matter level "Forest".

</edit 2>

[Rudolf]

UPDATE:

Not sure yet when we can share this but Alex has added some AI code (and other polish) that makes the game play pretty darn well with my current set of tweaks.
Really pleased how this is turning out. :-D

[Bonobo]

Want. To. Have.

[AWS]

like bonobo, i too am drooling at prospect of some enhancements in this area.

its actually interesting, to me at least, because ive been working with lots of globals to tweak mines/ flowers/ times/ powers/ ranges/ strength, etc and now it turns out that you guys are doing the same thing but the to the whole game. i wonder how your code will affect the way all our levels are played?? probably a fair bit by the sounds of it.

keep up the fantastical work rudolf et al, and keep us posted about an official release for all these tweaks and squeaks!

AWS

[Rudolf]

Who wants to beta test?
http://www.dyson-game.com/smf/index.php?topic=955.0
:-)

[Rudolf]

Anybody else? :-)