Vanilla Balance Mod Beta - Testers Wanted

[TheFlamingRed]

http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/motorsport-manager-balance-mod-part-1.12965/

Make sure you down load all the parts!​

This mod has now been released. All the changes are listed in the above link. If a Forum Admin is reading this, if you could remove the "Testers Wanted" and change it to "Development Discussion" thread, it would be appreciated.

UPDATED TO WORK WITH 1.3​

Note: In attempts to fix the interviews and dilemmas, I have temporarily removed all non English languages from those two files. I hope to reinsert them into a later version (but when I do, they'll still be the vanilla text as I am unable to translate in any other language).

 

[TheFlamingRed]

@loyalty
Yeah, it's a 20% hit each time. But while the other two rise by 1 per year, loyalty rises by 1.5. So if you fire two lots, you're still keeping pace with the other two stats,

@fanbase
I know but it's annoying, it's another area where "expected position" comes into play. Maybe I should get rid of Expected position, as it's been an issue in other areas, Maybe, I should just make it so "the higher you are in the championship, the more fanbase gain you should get" (I.e., greater then 10th, gain fanbase, less then 10 lose fanbase).

I remember what a possible issue was - it seemed to be the same set of values for team expected finishing and Driver expected finishing, which is weird as one is from 10-1 and the other is 20-1. I wonder if this is causing the issue.

@General balance
I've been playing the mod properly for the first time in a long time. I've done tonnes of testing but haven't sat down to play a proper game.

It's taken me a while but I am playing with octane, a 6th in the series car. I'm at the end of season 1 so I've had good starting funds, the tech boost and no decay. I've had Dreyfuss getting a +5 overall refocused trait for nearly two years making her a 4* driver. My reserve got the same refocued (half a year) to get a full 3* so he took the main drivers spot and pole for the second half of the season.

Despite all the advantage and good luck with traits, and knowing the mechanics inside out (I have modified many of them) I'm still only 4th in the constructors.

So in terms of slowing progression, and having the cars roughly in the right places, I'm pretty pleased with where the mods and how all the new mechanics blend with the main changes.

Lots of cool little side effects happen too which I didn't plan. In my season, Gerard of Firebird is making a pitsop every other lap, as the car simply is too unreliable. It's a genuine problem for this ERS team which makes sense on a big scale, they're a small team with a low budget 'compared to WMC' and they are unable to sort out the car and keep it within the rules for the championship. . But its unlikely happen at WMC because of the minimum Chassis requirements and the starting reliability is increased with a better chassis and the factories generally being better. While it's ruining Firebirds season and given me a place I wormy have got possibly, the 'gift' of the bad firebird car for me, isn't overpowering and letting me finish too much higher then expected.

 

[Beynasuh]

@fanbase
Maybe you can adjust so that only it changes with the team positions (actual and expected) and don't use drivers positions at all.

@General balance
I really enjoy this mod a lot. Not just for the difficulty upgrade but the improvements that you made.
- Better timer: First speed is ideal if I want to do quali, 2nd speed is good at watching race and love 3th speed for fast conclusions
- Solution for retired cars (thx hudson too)
- Better races
- Better skill progressing for player and personal (driver, engineer, mechanic) stats.
- Interviews are more reallistic now
- Traits are more important. Normally only used reserve driver after getting to WMC and if found a promising young talent. But now I need a average reserve in case some unlucky traits.
- AI is much better at handling money and part development. That leads to improvement in signing drivers and staffs from before.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

@fanbase
That makes sense actually. I can probably rip out the entire drivers section and simplify what's happening. It will make debugging it easier until it eventually works.

@General Balance
The AI improvement is another nice side effect. When I gave them a much reduced development expenditure (the only real change I've made to the AI) I wasn't sure how much it would really help them - it was a kind of blind change - as I can't see what the AI does with it's money.

As it turns out, it helped them a lot.

I like the discussion on steam where some people are complaining that the "AI gets advantages the player doesn't - it's unfair". I sit there thinking "I hope these people don't find my mod... imagine the backlash"

 

[Beynasuh]

@fanbase
For me too. Since in this game the signing of the drivers is somehow cloudy ( AI signs drivers witch won't come to my team even I am the better choice (and logical too) / some better drivers won't sign because they want higher league teams and wait years unemployed / sometimes can't renew contract with drivers who are actually not so good even there moral is max....that list can go on)

@General Balance
Oh boy that would be a backlash to see

I really can't imagining playing them your mod with all the latest adjustment (+red zones, upgraded moral impacts, AI's money improvement, chassis parts having secondary effects, traits upgraded effects...). Retirement on first season would go through the roof.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

@fanbase
Okay, I'll rework the entire system.

The minimum is 0.1Million fans. The most is 500million fans. Let's say a team does constantly really well, what's the minimum number of years do you guys think it should take from going from one extreme to the other?

Once I have an idea on the desired growth, I'll work backwards to find a working equation.

 

[Beynasuh]

If it is not to complicated I think that each tier could have a fan cap and have a different growth rate.
I mean 500 Mil fans for Tier 3

My suggestion would be something like this

Tier 3: 20 Mil fan cap / + 1-2 Million a season
Tier 2: 100 Mil fan cap / + 4-8 Million a season
Tier 1: 500 Mil fan cap / + 20-40 Million a season

10 years to reach max fan for every tier if everything goes right.

 

[BrianUK]

With regards to the help AI get in the mod - if those people can't beat them when they are dumb, they'd have no chance with the mod anyway.

On the game balance side, this mod has done absolute wonders for my enjoyment of the game. To put it into perspective - I played 3-4 seasons of vanilla, which took me 50 hours, and stopped when I realised how easy it was. At the point you know how easy something is, and that unless you gimp yourself it will remain as such, it sucks all the fun out. I'm currently on S12, and 250 hours on this run and I *still* haven't left ERS, yet I'm having so much more fun fighting against everything because I feel like I'm being tested and that once I get to APS, the struggle continues. At this rate, Octane and ZRT will reach WMC before I get to APS. I said to Red that I could not go back and play the game sans mod now.

As for fan movement, in my mind it'd take about a million years to reach 500m, since you're asking one 16th of the world's population currently to love a single team :/ For gameplay, maybe 10-30 years of serious winning and domination to get to max? I dunno, what's your desired approach on it? Realism or fun? Have we confirmed the link between fans and theme park etc. income? If that's true, it's something to consider as you'll end up with more money than you know what to do with before you know it.

 

[Beynasuh]

I hear you and share your enjoyment. After 9-10 season total (2 different games and teams) I can't imagining myself playing the base game, unless they improve it as much as FlamingRed did.

Fan Base and income (tour center, theme park, road car factory) that would awesome. Definitively worth considering grow rate.
(Quick Note: I heard that Theme park and Road factory income is fixed for a year. Total doesn't change just per race change because of adding or removing of tracks)

 

[TheFlamingRed]

If it is not to complicated I think that each tier could have a fan cap and have a different growth rate.
I mean 500 Mil fans for Tier 3

My suggestion would be something like this

Tier 3: 20 Mil fan cap / + 1-2 Million a season
Tier 2: 100 Mil fan cap / + 4-8 Million a season
Tier 1: 500 Mil fan cap / + 20-40 Million a season

10 years to reach max fan for every tier if everything goes right.

The issue is, I don't believe I can create such a cap, or distinction between tiers. It simply doesn't exist already (so if it worked, you could theoretically have 500 million fans In tier 3). it might be possible, but It's a lot of work for a system that has an easier system.

All ERS teams begin with lower fanbase then the WMC, so instead of it being a linear growth (e.g., +x million a season based on results) it would better be +x% a season (e.g., +100% means we'd see growth from 1 million, to 2 million, to 4 million, 8M, 16M etc). That would stop ERS teams getting from 0.1 to 500 as quick.

Hence I'm looking for a time frame between 0.1 to 500. 5 seasons? 20 seasons? 50 seasons? I can work the math backwards once we're happy with a theoretical minimum time frame. Of course, if the team isn't doing well, then it's also got to go down by a percentage, so that minimum time will probably be longer.

With regards to the help AI get in the mod - if those people can't beat them when they are dumb, they'd have no chance with the mod anyway.

On the game balance side, this mod has done absolute wonders for my enjoyment of the game. To put it into perspective - I played 3-4 seasons of vanilla, which took me 50 hours, and stopped when I realised how easy it was. At the point you know how easy something is, and that unless you gimp yourself it will remain as such, it sucks all the fun out. I'm currently on S12, and 250 hours on this run and I *still* haven't left ERS, yet I'm having so much more fun fighting against everything because I feel like I'm being tested and that once I get to APS, the struggle continues. At this rate, Octane and ZRT will reach WMC before I get to APS. I said to Red that I could not go back and play the game sans mod now.

As for fan movement, in my mind it'd take about a million years to reach 500m, since you're asking one 16th of the world's population currently to love a single team :/ For gameplay, maybe 10-30 years of serious winning and domination to get to max? I dunno, what's your desired approach on it? Realism or fun? Have we confirmed the link between fans and theme park etc. income? If that's true, it's something to consider as you'll end up with more money than you know what to do with before you know it.

Fun and balanced for the most part. I just guessed 5, 20 and 50 above but admit that 5 is too quick and 50 probably too slow, when you count that you're probably going to lose fans when at the lower end of the grid. So my guess is around 20. But it's not based off of anything more then feeling,

Maybe 500 million fans isn't meant to be achievable - that it was there as just a theoretical upper bound. I can change the upper bound, though I have no idea the effects it will have.

I can't confirm whether it actually increases park income. I've never built the park, nor had many fans. I need to do a test on it someday. All I know is there is code connecting HQ as it's using the fanbase for something, but never tested what it does or if it works.

 

[Beynasuh]

Good thinking with % grow rate.

With BrianUK's (10-30) and yours in the middle (20) seams pretty acceptable. Maybe even 25.

 

[elrond petit pas tapons]

"Only if you use rhe Assembly and import your the text documents into Enzoli's Resource.assets "

Ok but i dont understand how i can import the text documents... Is there a tutorial somewhere ?

 

[weegeebored]

How detailed can the growth formula be? Does it have to be simple like ExistingFanBase * (+ or - Growth%)? Or can it be more complex like ExistingFanBase times some GrowthFactor times a modifier based on TeamMarketing%, Fans' Expectation vs actual Team Finish, plus the Actual Team Finish?

The logic is that higher marketing will lead to more fans and so will the actual finish place of the team. (People like winners, so the higher placing teams should have more fans.) There might not be a Fan Expectation variable so Chairman's Expectation could be a fair substitute. The above may not be the exact formula but I hope you get the idea.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

Good thinking with % grow rate.

With BrianUK's (10-30) and yours in the middle (20) seams pretty acceptable. Maybe even 25.

It looks like we're settling on a half decent starting number. We can always adjust it later.

"Only if you use rhe Assembly and import your the text documents into Enzoli's Resource.assets "

Ok but i dont understand how i can import the text documents... Is there a tutorial somewhere ?

I'll let someone else answer that, some people have been merging the mods already. I haven't studied Enzoli's mod in any depth, so they may know more about which bits to keep and what bits to leave out then I do, by now.

How detailed can the growth formula be? Does it have to be simple like ExistingFanBase * (+ or - Growth%)? Or can it be more complex like ExistingFanBase times some GrowthFactor times a modifier based on TeamMarketing%, Fans' Expectation vs actual Team Finish, plus the Actual Team Finish?

The logic is that higher marketing will lead to more fans and so will the actual finish place of the team. (People like winners, so the higher placing teams should have more fans.) There might not be a Fan Expectation variable so Chairman's Expectation could be a fair substitute. The above may not be the exact formula but I hope you get the idea.

The current equation already has all of those things. - not just for the team but for the drivers too. But if I'm going to strip away the drivers, I may as well take out the marketing and expected finish sections and make the formula 'simple' so we can actually test fanbase works.

I'm probably going to just make it a Growth percentage * championship position multiplier (maybe 0 for 5th, -25% for 6th, +25% for 4th, +50% for 3rd etc etc. I've not done the math yet). Once we finally begin to see the stat working as intended, then we can make the formula more complex and reintroduce Marketing and Expectation. Maybe we'll eventually work out why it never worked.

Or by the time I've done all that, the devs may have fixed it.

 

[calvg]

I've had a game play observation on the vanilla game was wondering if it could be taken a look at or not.

When there is a virtual safety car all ai switch to Blue & Blue modes so as player i do the same however shouldn't all time gaps be reasonably maintained. However on several occasions I have seen some gaps extend but 10+ seconds in one VS.

Wondering if there was any code to look at in this area?

 

[Beynasuh]

Could be pitstops the cause of the extensions?

 

[TheFlamingRed]

I've had a game play observation on the vanilla game was wondering if it could be taken a look at or not.

When there is a virtual safety car all ai switch to Blue & Blue modes so as player i do the same however shouldn't all time gaps be reasonably maintained. However on several occasions I have seen some gaps extend but 10+ seconds in one VS.

Wondering if there was any code to look at in this area?

I don't know much about the VSC, as I don't watch modern F1... If all the cars are meant to be running to a delta, is there any point pitting under a VSC? Shoudln't all the gaps be the same regardless? Is it after you cross the line before it kicks in? I haven't really looked at how it works.

 

[calvg]

I don't know much about the VSC, as I don't watch modern F1... If all the cars are meant to be running to a delta, is there any point pitting under a VSC? Shoudln't all the gaps be the same regardless? Is it after you cross the line before it kicks in? I haven't really looked at how it works.

Here's some screen shots of my most recent incident, from 9th downwards gains +10 almost thou and more than 20 secs for those at back of grid.

Yeah cars should stick to deltas and no its not really a time for pitting. From pics you can see no one took stops

 

[iammx]

Really enjoying the mod so far, the increased difficulty was much needed. Thanks for all the effort put in Red. One thing I'd like to point out is the personality traits area - they seem way too frequent and possibly too impactful to me. For instance for ZRT I have had Valdes get the dodgy neck injury trait in both seasons so far each 20+ weeks of 0 consistency and fitness... even with a couple of buff traits gained earlier in the season he's a lot better than my reserve driver, so do I just ignore it? Would a 3.5 star Valdes with 0 consistency and fitness still out-perform my 1.5 star reserve?

I also noticed the WMC champ leader has gotten the same injury halfway through the second season. Like how many injuries would there be in the average driver roster IRL? Maybe one every few years at most? They kinda seem a little unrealistic and far too frequent, it adds so much unnecessary RNG to the game.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

Here's some screen shots of my most recent incident, from 9th downwards gains +10 almost thou and more than 20 secs for those at back of grid.

Yeah cars should stick to deltas and no its not really a time for pitting. From pics you can see no one took stops

It's something I'll look into when it happens as I do my current play-through - its hard to force and thus, test a VSC extensively so I'll look at is as and when it comes up.

Looking at the pictures, the entire field bunched up by about 15seconds total - so I wonder if different cars are put under the VSC at different rates, I.e., those closest to the accident are notified first like yellow flag behaviour? Or maybe its because of "car AI scan". You see, cars don't continuously process their strategies - that would be a lot of processing. So they only adjust their push/fuel/pit behavour when they hit a refresh timer. - Maybe they don't obey the VSC until the refresh its.

Anyway, it's not something I'll get to work on, but I will be on the lookout to see if I can work out whats going on when I see it.

Really enjoying the mod so far, the increased difficulty was much needed. Thanks for all the effort put in Red. One thing I'd like to point out is the personality traits area - they seem way too frequent and possibly too impactful to me. For instance for ZRT I have had Valdes get the dodgy neck injury trait in both seasons so far each 20+ weeks of 0 consistency and fitness... even with a couple of buff traits gained earlier in the season he's a lot better than my reserve driver, so do I just ignore it? Would a 3.5 star Valdes with 0 consistency and fitness still out-perform my 1.5 star reserve?

I also noticed the WMC champ leader has gotten the same injury halfway through the second season. Like how many injuries would there be in the average driver roster IRL? Maybe one every few years at most? They kinda seem a little unrealistic and far too frequent, it adds so much unnecessary RNG to the game.

As for a 3.5 valdes or a 1.5 reserve - that's your call. You have lots of things to consider (which was the point of the changes). Personally, I'd keep Valdes as the injury isn't major and I could probably work around them, even if he is down on pace. Theres a -40 morale hit he would get if you pushed him to reserve, which maybe an issue if you wish to rehire him - (but then morale should be an issue anyway as you're in a ZRT - there's no real getting around that).

---

I've really not looked into how often traits work - some of them have probabilities but I've not touched those. In fact, other then increase the impact, and increased (with random variation) the duration, and made a few changes based on some preferences, both from myself and some users... I've not altered the traits, or experimented with them very much.

There 242 or something like that, most of which work, some of which do not. It's a lot of work for me to investigate and analyse each one. Most of my changes have been blanket changes and a couple of dozen manual tweaks. Their occurrence behavior is entirely vanilla.

I am also not too worried about how injury occurrence compares to real life though, as the Injury is simply a game mechanic to for a player to make a choice to keep a driver in the car or change them out - exactly the choice you have now. It might be better that this game has more injuries then real life though, depending on how fun you find the mechanic.

I am sure someone will someday do a whole overhaul of how the traits work - as its been the one of the most talked changes I've made (both in a positive and negative regard). I am sure an alternate will eventually be worked on by someone.



In other news I will get this Tweet Post sorted soon!

 

[Bjorn de Haas]

I installed this over the enzoli 2016 mod and now al the team names track names are gone?
Do i need do it another way?