Economy, Supply Cap, Turtling, and Predictabiliy

[CombatEX]

Decreasing Turtling and Predictability

In regards to a potential Outwitters 2:

(11-15-2013 02:18 AM)oneadamleft Wrote:  Less predictability and turtling are goals I'm messing with.

Two new mechanics that I believe would help with both addressing predictability and turtling:

I. Economy
II. Supply Cap

I. Economy
One mechanic that may help with decreasing turtling and predictability is to expand the economic component of Outwitters slightly. I don't like the idea of making Outwitters 2 overly complex, so this would be something very simple. Basically you can spend wits to upgrade wit spaces (akin to building workers in an RTS). For example:

Tier / Wits per Turn / Wits to Upgrade to next tier
Tier 0 / 1 per turn / 2 to upgrade to tier 1
Tier 1 / 2 per turn / 4 to upgrade to tier 2
Tier 2 / 3 per turn

Note: Costs to upgrade are just an example and subject to balancing

If a wit space ever becomes grey, it is reset to Tier 0 (only produces 1 wit per turn).

Decreased Predictability
What does this do? Firstly, it gives players another crucial decision to make. Do I invest wits in early economy? Do I want to rush my opponent instead? Did my opponent invest in economy? How much did s/he invest? If my opponent did invest greedily, should I do the same or should I attack and try to punish his/her greed?

Furthermore, one things that always bothered me in Outwitters is that often times it's not worth attacking your opponent's wit space unless it happens to be on the way to your opponent's base or another target (like an overextended sniper). This means that on most maps the game becomes predictable because certain wit spaces are rarely worth harassing due to marginal damage potential vs cost to execute the attack. There are essentially 2 types of wit spaces in Outwitters.

1. Vulnerable wit spaces: Along the most cost efficient line of attack
2. Safe wit spaces: Not along the most cost efficient line of attack

At the highest levels, wit efficiency is king and as a result some wit spaces are basically never worth attacking as you often lose wits even if you capture the enemy space. Giving wit spaces more value should rectify this issue. Safe wit spaces are the problem in current Outwitters (they hardly see action resulting in predictable attacks from your opponent towards the vulnerable spaces instead). With this economic system however, the most common spaces players will upgrade are the safe wit spaces. This gives more value to safe spaces and as a result, encourages your opponent to attack safe spaces instead of always attacking towards vulnerable spaces.

Net result? More potential routes for attack which means less predictable play.

Decreased Turtling
There are two ways you can turtle with this economic system.

1. Try to get up defense immediately and delay economy
2. Upgrade economy early so that you can get out more units to turtle later

How do you respond to these two methods of turtling that your opponent may attempt?

1. If your opponent forgoes early economy, you can invest in your own economy and hopefully overwhelm them by pumping out more units due to your superior wit production.
2. If your opponent goes for early economy so they can turtle more later, you can skip your own economy and rush them before their wit production kicks in and they start getting out many units to defend.

II. Supply Cap
Decreased Turtling
One way to approach this is to implement a supply cap as is seen in basically all RTS games. A simple way this could be done is by making each unit be worth supply equal to their wit cost (for example, bombshells would be worth 7 supply while soldiers would be worth 2). Then implement a cap of ~30-40 supply (as always, these numbers are subject to balancing). This wouldn't influence most normal games but it would prevent you from spamming out too many bombshells because doing so would limit how many soldiers and other units you could have to support them.

For example, with 30 supply you would be hesitant about getting out more than 2 bombshells. If you have 3 bombshells you would only have 9 supply left for other units (21/30 is filled by bombshells). This means that even without a medic, heavy, or sniper, you could only have 4 supporting soldiers and a runner at most.

Limiting units seems like the most obvious way to at least somewhat address turtling. Bombshell games aren't the only time people sit back and turtle. There are plenty of other matchups where people still just get 4hp soldier walls and are afraid to attack since you have to invest more than your opponent to do so. Having a limit on your army size will encourage more engagements and unit trades.

Decreased Predictability
A supply cap could also result in less predictable, more creative play. Why? When you max out your army, two things happen.

1. You start building up wits
2. You can't build any more units.

1. The fact that you build up wits means that you'll have more to spare and potentially use on less cost efficient maneuvers to out position your opponent. In Outwitters it's presently almost always bad to spend wits inefficiently unless doing so will win you the game in the next few turns. Throwing away wits without a quick followup is often disastrous. This means that the game can become predictable because you know your opponent will always try to make the absolute most cost efficient moves. Under this new system, however, you'll have more wits at your disposal as well as a limit on how much you can spend them on making units. Subsequently it's less of an issue if you throw away some wits inefficiently while moving your army to an advantageous position in the hopes of catching your opponent off guard. Basically, by limiting wits spent on building units you're freeing up wits to spend on moving and attacking.

2. As for not being able to build more units when you reach the supply cap, this brings up an important concept that is key in Starcraft 2. Unit composition. If you and your opponent both reach 30/30 supply but your opponent has a superior army composition that counters yours, then you'll be encouraged to dispose of some of your units so that you can re-max your supply with a better composition to deal with your opponent. This means you'll have to sacrifice these units somehow even if it might not be completely cost-efficient. In doing so you may catch your opponent off guard by performing a seemingly suboptimal play when in reality you're strategically sacrificing a few wits in cost efficiency (so that you can build different units). In Starcraft, as Alex can probably tell you, high level players will do this later in the game by sacrificing low tier units that are taking up supply. For example, a Zerg player may run Zerglings (lowest tier Zerg unit) into an enemy base even if it only does minimal damage and isn't cost efficient just so that the Zerg player can build units that will be more useful in a major fight.

[Flarp55]

(11-15-2013 09:18 AM)CombatEX Wrote:  Tier / Wits per Turn / Wits to Upgrade to next tier
Tier 0 / 1 per turn / 2 to upgrade to tier 1
Tier 1 / 2 per turn / 4 to upgrade to tier 2
Tier 2 / 3 per turn

Maps like sweet tooth with well-protected wit spaces would make this OP.

[TheGoldenGriffin]

They should be called levels to avoid confusion because the tiers are the five skill levels- The Five Tiers o' Skill

[Chas3r 926]

(11-15-2013 12:07 PM)Bbobb555 Wrote:  

(11-15-2013 09:18 AM)CombatEX Wrote:  Tier / Wits per Turn / Wits to Upgrade to next tier
Tier 0 / 1 per turn / 2 to upgrade to tier 1
Tier 1 / 2 per turn / 4 to upgrade to tier 2
Tier 2 / 3 per turn

Maps like sweet tooth with well-protected wit spaces would make this OP.

It wouldn't be op because both teams could do it.

[Flarp55]

(11-15-2013 12:45 PM)Chas3r Wrote:  

(11-15-2013 12:07 PM)Bbobb555 Wrote:  

(11-15-2013 09:18 AM)CombatEX Wrote:  Tier / Wits per Turn / Wits to Upgrade to next tier
Tier 0 / 1 per turn / 2 to upgrade to tier 1
Tier 1 / 2 per turn / 4 to upgrade to tier 2
Tier 2 / 3 per turn

Maps like sweet tooth with well-protected wit spaces would make this OP.

It wouldn't be op because both teams could do it.

Combined with the supply cap, it would lead to huge wit storages for both sides, making wits, the whole point of the game, useless.

[[PETA] Doodat]

Of course not. Sweet tooth only has one spawn so after a back and forth exchange with a cap, it would be about who can keep more units alive so that one spawn per turn won't hurt. Besides, upgrading would leave people open to an attack because you're behind in wits now.

[Chemoeum]

(11-15-2013 12:45 PM)Chas3r Wrote:  

(11-15-2013 12:07 PM)Bbobb555 Wrote:  

(11-15-2013 09:18 AM)CombatEX Wrote:  Tier / Wits per Turn / Wits to Upgrade to next tier
Tier 0 / 1 per turn / 2 to upgrade to tier 1
Tier 1 / 2 per turn / 4 to upgrade to tier 2
Tier 2 / 3 per turn

Maps like sweet tooth with well-protected wit spaces would make this OP.

It wouldn't be op because both teams could do it.

I always hear OP but I have no idea what it stands for.

Never mind, I checked the forum with the abbreviations on it. Overpowered.

[Gf!sh]

As an adjective, it means overpowered. As a noun, original post.

[Chemoeum]

(11-16-2013 06:00 AM)The Frozen One Wrote:  As an adjective, it means overpowered. As a noun, original post.

Heh, too late, I already found out, as stated in my recent edit.

[GreatGonzales]

It seems to me that turtling is no longer much of a problem in Outwitters thanks to the +1 wit for kill change. But, maybe that's only the case at high level play?

I will offer this, from a new game I am playing, Battle Worlds: Kronos. It handles the turtle problem in an interesting way - units deal more damage if they are full health, than if they are at half health, and even less at 25% health, etc. This encourages an offensive style of play. However, I don't think this would work for Outwitters considering that the hp and damage totals are such small numbers.

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Generally speaking Combat - I like the sound of all your ideas! Upgrading wit spaces is quite interesting. However, have to be balanced properly...and we would need to rethink maps having too many wit spaces.