Perks auto-balancing

[Nibelung44]

There are many discussions on the usefulness or supposed over-powerness of many perks. Sometime there is a near consensus (like a 70/30 split in the player population!), sometime the debate rages for many pages. Because some perhaps are very contextual, so it adds up in the difficulty of balancing them. And then there are over perks (like the infamous Hail of Bullets) that need some nerfs (and already got one), and still they are chosen preferably over the others two choices.

Now consider this optional feature (the numbers are example, they can be adjusted). Each time, for a given class, you choose a perk on level up, then the two others perks get a (cumulative) +1 aim +1 dodge +1 will bonus (the bonus is either reset to 0 or reduced strongly upon picking it). Many boardgames use that to balance out roles by the way, and if you played games like Twilight Imperium, Citadel you know about that.

Now figure out this example. You are leveling up a sixth shinobi to Tech Sergeant. As usual, your mouse cursor go without much an afterthought to 'Conceal'. And then you see something. This 'Coup de Grâce' perk, in addition to what it does will also provide a grand +5 aim +5 dodge +5 will to the soldier choosing it.
Now, you think a bit more, right?

And again, the numbers are example. Perhaps it should be even more. Imagine 'Conceal' for your sixth Shinobi versus 'Coup de Grâce', +10 aim, +10 dodge, +10 will.

Which Choice will you make ?

[Thrombozyt]

The problem is that it's game-able by having not-so-good soldiers (the haven advisor type) pick up the bad perks first so that your good soldiers get the good skills PLUS bonus.

Even more if you have multiple builds for a class and you want to split them 50/50 anyhow.

It would work, if there is a global database of 'perks picked' and each time you save, the picks you made are transferred to a central server where they influence the boni of competing picks.
Whenever you start a campaign the perk tree is reconfigured to lock the bonus values that were in the server at that time and you play the campaign with these bonus values.

[chrisb]

Something similar was done with certain classes in LW1. For example both the Scout and Engineer class could pick up Holo-Target. But the Engineer would get +1 Aim if they took the perk, where as the Scout wouldn't. There were a few other cases that perks would give aim or will bonus, but it wasn't used that extensively.

And I disagree with having some sort of self-balancing perk tree. Sounds good in theory, and it probably works for some games, but I think it would simply add unnecessary complexity to the game.

[Jadiel]

Something similar was done with certain classes in LW1. For example both the Scout and Engineer class could pick up Holo-Target. But the Engineer would get +1 Aim if they took the perk, where as the Scout wouldn't. There were a few other cases that perks would give aim or will bonus, but it wasn't used that extensively.

And I disagree with having some sort of self-balancing perk tree. Sounds good in theory, and it probably works for some games, but I think it would simply add unnecessary complexity to the game.

Actually, at some points in development (of LW1), it was used extremely heavily. In the end, the devs decided that it wasn't a good way to balance perks, so I'd be very surprised if we see it come back to any greater extent than it is at the moment.

[Icreatedthisforyou]

Hmmm strongest most versatile class perk in the game vs worst perk in the game.

I am going to go with conceal even if you bump those values up to 20 aim, 20 dodge, 20 will, that wouldn't make coup de grace even remotely close to the power that conceal has.


Just rename coup de grace to seppuku and have it delete the shinobi when you get it that way you don't need to feel the shame of a poor decision every time you see it.



More seriously though, auto balancing like that is a pretty bad idea, it can get gamed and it doesn't change the fact that the perk is still garbage. I would wait until balance has actually been gone over to really push something like auto balancing, because having a good perks to choose from is better than forcing bad perks to be taken due to auto balancing.

[JoINrbs]

currently perks are already "auto-balanced" by random soldier stats, random soldier awcs, and different conditions as the campaign progresses. I pick a hugely more varied set of perks for each roster in my campaigns than I ever did in LW1.

[aedn]

currently perks are already "auto-balanced" by random soldier stats, random soldier awcs, and different conditions as the campaign progresses. I pick a hugely more varied set of perks for each roster in my campaigns than I ever did in LW1.

I agree with this, but the main issue to picking perks is now you compliment the AWC random perks. Without having that knowledge ahead of time, your penalizing yourself by having to retrain soldiers, which can be excessive time wise at higher levels. this is bad design, as a player i should not be penalized for not having information available, that i have no control over. Its the main reason i changed the settings so that AWC perks would be visible.

[LordYanaek]

currently perks are already "auto-balanced" by random soldier stats, random soldier awcs, and different conditions as the campaign progresses. I pick a hugely more varied set of perks for each roster in my campaigns than I ever did in LW1.

I agree with this, but the main issue to picking perks is now you compliment the AWC random perks. Without having that knowledge ahead of time, your penalizing yourself by having to retrain soldiers, which can be excessive time wise at higher levels. this is bad design, as a player i should not be penalized for not having information available, that i have no control over. Its the main reason i changed the settings so that AWC perks would be visible.

+10e6
I made all AWC perks visible and doubled the required ranks to balance. I think it's much more interesting this way. No super strong perks early but at least i can plan my soldier builds. It allows for much more diversity in soldier builds as some otherwise useless perks can make interesting combinations with AWC perks but i need to know how to build my soldiers since retraining is so punishing after a couple ranks. I really don't understand why they are hidden, if some perks are too strong just remove them from the AWC list or introduce some weighting so very strong perks are less likely to appear but get rid of that AWC lottery.
Well, at least it's easy to change this setting but i find it a really strange choice.

[chrisb]

currently perks are already "auto-balanced" by random soldier stats, random soldier awcs, and different conditions as the campaign progresses. I pick a hugely more varied set of perks for each roster in my campaigns than I ever did in LW1.

I agree with this, but the main issue to picking perks is now you compliment the AWC random perks. Without having that knowledge ahead of time, your penalizing yourself by having to retrain soldiers, which can be excessive time wise at higher levels. this is bad design, as a player i should not be penalized for not having information available, that i have no control over. Its the main reason i changed the settings so that AWC perks would be visible.

+10e6
I made all AWC perks visible and doubled the required ranks to balance. I think it's much more interesting this way. No super strong perks early but at least i can plan my soldier builds. It allows for much more diversity in soldier builds as some otherwise useless perks can make interesting combinations with AWC perks but i need to know how to build my soldiers since retraining is so punishing after a couple ranks. I really don't understand why they are hidden, if some perks are too strong just remove them from the AWC list or introduce some weighting so very strong perks are less likely to appear but get rid of that AWC lottery.
Well, at least it's easy to change this setting but i find it a really strange choice.

I'd be happy with it being hidden/random if more of the perks were relevant. The offensive perks are completely polluted with grenade perks at all levels, which are typically duds for most classes. Nothing more disappointing then rolling 2-3 grenade perks on a class that carries plate/vest/ammo exclusively. Basically it makes for very static gameplay IMO. All I end up doing is rolling half a dozen of the exact same build to weed out the bad AWC rolls to get a decent A-Team member. It's the reason I don't play with Hidden Potential anymore. It just leads to SpreadsheetCom, weeding out the bad RNG rolls with a bunch of clones.

I think it would be nice if the AWC perks had more uniqueness to them, instead of just a bunch of perks from other classes that often don't fit the class they land on. Hail of bullets is a good one, mostly due to the ammo nerf on it. It's basically unusable by other classes due to needing a minimum of an Adv Mag if not an Elite Mag to use it, which Gunners take priority over because so many of their abilities are multi-ammo shots.

I know I could just unlock them, like many others have, and I can also edit the ini to remove the bad perks or add rules to prevent certain classes from getting misfit perks. And I have done this in a previous campaign. Problem is once you remove the bad perks, there's not much left, and you tend to roll very similar sets of perks on each class. There's just not enough useful variety.