PVP Balance in Epoch

[Robot]

I know there's a existing thread for Base Building feedback, but that mostly seemed interested in technical limitations and design - which is great, and I like the ideas that have come out of that thread, but this is more about gameplay. I'm starting this thread as a followup of this thread that came out of the BMRF Epoch servers.

 

Base construction requires far more time and effort than base destruction. I'd guess that, right now, we're around 1 hour to destroy something that takes fifty man hours to build.

• Walls can still be clipped through. I realize this is a hard thing to fix, and as a workaround, base builders can double their outer walls. (We've done this.)
• A full height wooden wall takes 54 wood piles (roughly four big trees), a workbench, 27 lumber crafting cycles and 9 plywood crafting cycles. Wooden walls can be taken down in a 2-3 minutes with an axe (which has no cost to use) and can be cleared with a ladder that takes 10 wood (5 lumber). Further, nearly all bases require a lot more than one wall secure; a base with four walls, for example, still only takes one ladder to breach even if  it takes four times the resources to build.
• Concrete doors and walls can be destroyed with armed vehicles fairly easily. Being able to collect and store up vehicle ammo means that in, say 30-60 minutes, an armed truck can be purchased, fire off as many clips as you've collected, and sold back to a vendor. On BMRF, this is exacerbated because armed vehicles can be bought from the Hero vendor (say, the offroad with a DSHKM at 2 10oz gold) and then sold to the Bandit vendor for the same price (2 10oz gold.) This avoids any risk of keeping the vehicle, keeps the amount of ammo in the vehicle low at all times in case you lose the vehicle, and means that fresh spawned armed vehicles are worth significantly less to everyone except for raiding clans with vehicle ammo stockpiles.
  • Previously (before vehicle ammo), which vehicles would automatically refill, if you wanted to get more than 250-300 rounds out of a vehicle in a restart, you had to buy a second vehicle. Also, if someone stole the vehicle from you, there was a higher chance of it having ammo, and if someone found a fresh spawned armed vehicle, it was a more valuable find even for smaller groups and solo players. As it is now, using a hotwire kit on an armed vehicle is rarely going to be worth it, because it'll have at most one full clip.
• The cheapest armed vehicles are only 8 gold (2 red bulls and a sherbet.) Locked Concrete doors take (in 1.0.2.3, I haven't done the math again) 3 cinder blocks, 1 mortar, 6 scrap, 3 tank traps, and a combo lock.

 

Here's the suggestions we came up with out of that thread:

• Switch vehicles back. being able to stockpile vehicle ammo is worse than it was when the vehicles got free ammo. If you're trying to reduce the damage these vehicles can do, decrease the maximum number of clips they refill to or remove the highest damage vehicles like you have with weapons.
• Make plot poles cheaper. Unless the intent is for people to be "offensively" building by putting windows into other players walls, building ladders to clip into bases, or even simply walling off other players doors, plot poles should be cheap enough that they are more commonly used. Rasp (from the thread) suggested that perhaps having a plot pole down could be made more valuable by boosting the durability of all constructed structures in range, which I thought was an interesting idea.

Lastly, here's some new thoughts I've had since the thread.

 

The BMRF servers are devolving from the impressive base building that 1.0.2 introduced down to buildings full of safes and nothing else. Some of the groups are up to 8-12 safes now, and especially with the safe inventory size being increased, there's pretty much no reason to bother with even building walls as there's very little to protect other than vehicles. With the most valuable vehicles being devalued, even this is less important.

• What if Safes, Tents, Lockboxes, and Sheds also took maintenance costs? It seems fair, since even tank traps require scrap metal to maintain, that something like a safe should require some kind of upkeep.
• Increasing the size of safes as taken away a lot of the need for sheds and tents, which means that there's less value in base building overall. I think I'd rather safes be back to what they were or smaller, given that items in safes are really the only things guaranteed to be safe for more a couple hours. Further, you can change the combo on a safe for free by emptying and replacing it, which ruins the only in-game way of raiding/destroying a safe.

Anyway, those are our thoughts from over on the BMRF PVP Epoch servers.

[brunikos]

I totally agree with you.

 

I love play on BMRF server but i went to another server with indestructible structures.

 

I think (my opionion), dayz epoch vanilla is a lot unbalanced, u work so hard on yr base, and a couple of bandits can destroy it in seconds.

[Robot]

I totally agree with you.

 

I love play on BMRF server but i went to another server with indestructible structures.

 

I think (my opionion), dayz epoch vanilla is a lot unbalanced, u work so hard on yr base, and a couple of bandits can destroy it in seconds.

 

Hey brunikos, glad to see you agree - I hope the devs see. Just curious, what server did you go to?

[krnja21]

I don't think adding maintenance cost to safes and tents is a wise choice, or the ability to raid them.
Personally i want safe storage that i can always count on whatever happens, only way to lose stored stuff is to leave it open or if someone shoots you with an open safe, adding maintenance or an option to crack a safe would only make people go look for servers without this option since a raided safe usually means ragequiting
Just imagine all those DMR mags and MOD0's you collected being gone in one second, i think it's too much for most players :D

I talk from my experience as an ex origins player, where you could camp someones house (which was similar to how safes work), and the guy would almost always stop playing at that server after that and go somewhere else...

[Robot]

I don't think adding maintenance cost to safes and tents is a wise choice, or the ability to raid them.

Personally i want safe storage that i can always count on whatever happens, only way to lose stored stuff is to leave it open or if someone shoots you with an open safe, adding maintenance or an option to crack a safe would only make people go look for servers without this option since a raided safe usually means ragequiting

Just imagine all those DMR mags and MOD0's you collected being gone in one second, i think it's too much for most players :D

I talk from my experience as an ex origins player, where you could camp someones house (which was similar to how safes work), and the guy would almost always stop playing at that server after that and go somewhere else...

 

I don't think I mentioned adding any new ways to raid safes. I just think if you want to have nearly impenetrable item storage, it should require upkeep, as that would be in line with the rest of Epoch.

 

Honestly, safes and bases can be camped the same way in Epoch. I'm just looking ways to force bandit-style players to spend some time collecting resources. If you don't access a safe for 2 weeks, it gets deleted - I'm just adding that if you don't maintain it in those two weeks, it gets deleted, and that wasn't even my main point.

 

The main point of the thread was that Raiding VS Base Building is not balanced for PVP as currently implemented.

[ToejaM]

The antiwall system from the base building 1.2 mod worked pretty much flawlessly, it even had an antidisconnect/anti wall which stopped people disconnect clipping through walls. I wish someone would get it working for Epoch. I'd pay for this and a base maintenance option on the plot pole

[vbawol]

Thanks for the feedback, I understand the issues with destruction vs build time, this is one of the reasons why 1.0.2.4 made it about twice as fast to harvest wood, and removed supply crate requirements. Balance is harder to find than you might think due to the massive difference in weapon damages. The next patch we are looking at doubling the armor ratings however keep in mind that the idea is that it should always be possible to take down a wood wall with a hatchet, sledge, etc given the "right" amount of time.

 

Yes, It now possible to horde vehicle ammo however what you are forgetting is that the player had to actually find this ammo in the first place and it was not free with the vehicle. What used to happen is that after you ran out of ammo you would either wait for a restart or just go sell the vehicle and buy it back for more ammo. Now you have to actually go out and find more. Chances to find this ammo will be getting toned down in the next patch as well.

 

Safes, lockboxes, etc. actually do now cleanup as of 1.0.2.4. By default a safe will be removed even with contents if no one has unlocked it for 24 days and is older than 42.

[vbawol]

The antiwall system from the base building 1.2 mod worked pretty much flawlessly, it even had an antidisconnect/anti wall which stopped people disconnect clipping through walls. I wish someone would get it working for Epoch. I'd pay for this and a base maintenance option on the plot pole

I have something that I have been working just for this issue.

[fr1nk]

Safes, lockboxes, etc. actually do now cleanup as of 1.0.2.4. By default a safe will be removed even with contents if no one has unlocked it for 24 days and is older than 42.

 

Just a thought - I'm not sure when the first instances of items disappearing from safes started, but all the reports I've received seem to coincide with the release of 1.0.2.4. Could this item deletion issue somehow be related to a cleanup issue? 

[vbawol]

Just a thought - I'm not sure when the first instances of items disappearing from safes started, but all the reports I've received seem to coincide with the release of 1.0.2.4. Could this item deletion issue somehow be related to a cleanup issue? 

The cleanup I refer to would delete the entire safe so no.

[TGW-Wraith]

The problem with base building in a persistent world is that without a team that can cover all time zones you are always vulnerable to the most basic of attacks.  It doesn't matter how strong a base is, if you are not there to defend it one guy with free time can destroy it. This extends to vehicles and anything else outside a safe or lockbox. So the scale of effort to build versus destroy is extremely skewed towards people who destroy.

 

                 Outside of bases look at vehicles.  A vodnik is very well armored and can stand up to quit a bit of sustained fire. But find a locked one with no one around and about 20-25 axe hits will blow it up.  

 

  Because of these balance issues it really drains the desire to accumulate anything outside a safe/lockbox.  A group of friends can spend hours / days building a base, accumulating vehicles / aircraft only to find that when they leave for the night one guy can break a wall and proceed to destroy everything in a very short amount of time. This drives most people to just be bandits. Or worse specifically set out to grief people.

 

             EVE online is a good example of a persistent world based game. it has the same issue but its solved mostly with the reinforce timer, player structures can only be damaged to a certain level, at that point they are put into reinforced mode and a timer starts based on the amount of a specific resource available in the structure.  This allows the defenders time to rally and actually defend /save the structure if possible.   Something like that in Epoch would be great as it would level the playing field. 

 

                As for vehicles it would be great if there was a mechanic that would make them invulnerable while locked or locked and not interacted with for a specific amount of time. In this way preventing griefing that occurs with people simply finding your expensive car/truck/aircraft and destroying it with a hatchet.  But that may also be too overpowered.

[Robot]

Thanks for the feedback, I understand the issues with destruction vs build time, this is one of the reasons why 1.0.2.4 made it about twice as fast to harvest wood, and removed supply crate requirements. Balance is harder to find than you might think due to the massive difference in weapon damages. The next patch we are looking at doubling the armor ratings however keep in mind that the idea is that it should always be possible to take down a wood wall with a hatchet, sledge, etc given the "right" amount of time.

 

Yes, It now possible to horde vehicle ammo however what you are forgetting is that the player had to actually find this ammo in the first place and it was not free with the vehicle. What used to happen is that after you ran out of ammo you would either wait for a restart or just go sell the vehicle and buy it back for more ammo. Now you have to actually go out and find more. Chances to find this ammo will be getting toned down in the next patch as well.

 

Safes, lockboxes, etc. actually do now cleanup as of 1.0.2.4. By default a safe will be removed even with contents if no one has unlocked it for 24 days and is older than 42.

 

Hey vbawol, thanks for the thoughts. upping the usefulness of wood walls does help. The changes in 1.0.2.4 is speed obtaining wood were great too - as were the changes to keep things upright. I can agree that if vehicle ammo was rare enough that it took a lot of work to accumulate, it'd get closer to what you are hoping for. Granted, selling and buying a vehicle back (as long as you aren't abusing the hero/bandit vendors) makes the ammo refill cost half the cost of the vehicle, which is usually pretty expensive.

 

 I guess my thoughts about maintaining safes/lockboxes/sheds was more about forcing the clans who only just stack tents in a stable to do at least some base building, or at least some gathering of resources.

 

The problem with base building in a persistent world is that without a team that can cover all time zones you are always vulnerable to the most basic of attacks.  It doesn't matter how strong a base is, if you are not there to defend it one guy with free time can destroy it. This extends to vehicles and anything else outside a safe or lockbox. So the scale of effort to build versus destroy is extremely skewed towards people who destroy.

 

                 Outside of bases look at vehicles.  A vodnik is very well armored and can stand up to quit a bit of sustained fire. But find a locked one with no one around and about 20-25 axe hits will blow it up.  

 

  Because of these balance issues it really drains the desire to accumulate anything outside a safe/lockbox.  A group of friends can spend hours / days building a base, accumulating vehicles / aircraft only to find that when they leave for the night one guy can break a wall and proceed to destroy everything in a very short amount of time. This drives most people to just be bandits. Or worse specifically set out to grief people.

 

             EVE online is a good example of a persistent world based game. it has the same issue but its solved mostly with the reinforce timer, player structures can only be damaged to a certain level, at that point they are put into reinforced mode and a timer starts based on the amount of a specific resource available in the structure.  This allows the defenders time to rally and actually defend /save the structure if possible.   Something like that in Epoch would be great as it would level the playing field. 

 

                As for vehicles it would be great if there was a mechanic that would make them invulnerable while locked or locked and not interacted with for a specific amount of time. In this way preventing griefing that occurs with people simply finding your expensive car/truck/aircraft and destroying it with a hatchet.  But that may also be too overpowered.

 

Yeah, I understand your point, but it can get to a point where the amount of time invested isn't as much of pay off. Right now, in probably a six hour window, a bandit group can hit and destroy every base on the map on BMRF. If they can only really hit 1-2 bases in that time, then they're more likely to spend time planning ambushes, setting road blocks, raiding the airfields, as those will have better payouts.

[MGT]

We made cinder and metal items indestructable but left wood destructable, so those willing to put the time in to build a base can have that feature. We have a 14 day maintenance cycle so the server stays fresh for those that play daily.

[TGW-Wraith]

We made cinder and metal items indestructable but left wood destructable, so those willing to put the time in to build a base can have that feature. We have a 14 day maintenance cycle so the server stays fresh for those that play daily.

what server is that?

[MGT]

Both of our servers, links in my signature

[Randomness]

We made cinder and metal items indestructable but left wood destructable, so those willing to put the time in to build a base can have that feature. We have a 14 day maintenance cycle so the server stays fresh for those that play daily.

 

I did the same thing and also added invulnerable sandbags until there is a better antiglitch

[Ragotag]

I'm posting late in this thread because after two weeks of Epoch play, I see this as the #1 issue with the Epoch mod -- an issue worthy of continued feedback.  I play exclusively on BMRF servers, and I pretty much have to agree with everything the OP posted.  In the current implementation (1.0.2.5), a 2-3 person crew on a slow late night / early morning can (and often do on BMRF Official Epoch servers) tear down every major base that they might know of within a few hours of play.  I'm not talking about just breaking in, stealing/dumping tents/sheds and destroying vehicles, I'm talking all of that plus tearing down every single wall/door that they can find at a base regardless of the material it is constructed from.   This kind of griefing is designed to drive players away from base building and even the server, and I've seen just how effective a result this can be on BMRF servers.  I would like to also add that if the OP's generalized build-time estimates seem excessive, they are not when you consider the effort to acquire and use building resources in a *hostile* PvP environment; with that in mind, the OP might even still be a bit conservative.

 

I think MGT has the right idea with their server settings in terms of establishing some form of PvP balance, something I hope the mod devs are taking a hard look at for future updates.  In addition to supporting OP's suggestions, and similar to MGT's server settings, I would  also suggest the following for consideration:

 

·         Leave wood health where it is.

·         Increase cinder block component health up by 3-4 times, or add another tier of upgradable high-strength building components that are 3-4 times the health of cinder block structures (maybe like Reinforced Concrete).

·         Make metal components indestructible.

·         Keep or even increase the modular component maintenance materials requirement.

·         Further reduce the cost of the 30m Plot Pole, but add a materials maintenance requirement to it.

·         Allow Plot Pole's ownership to be associated with Player ID instead of Character ID (I know, a much more involved dBase change, but doable).

 

Lastly, from reading other posts on this forum it appears that the Mod devs may not intend there to be permanent bases as that would hinder server performance in the long run (dev's, please correct me if I am wrong here).  If I am not wrong in this, then the Mod dev's have a real conundrum on their hands attempting to create a mod that features base building but designed in such a way that makes bases inherently impermanent.