Vanilla Balance Mod Beta - Testers Wanted

TheFlamingRed · Nov 28, 2016

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

Click to expand...

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).

UglyPsycho · Apr 3, 2017

Yeah, but in the beginning the problem should not be there, unless ICE is referring to wrong traits... but the original vanilla traits still have the same number, right? And if ICE does something to the traits itself, their changes should override yours.

TheFlamingRed · Apr 3, 2017

Mag probably has some nice Refocued trait or something, with a +5 from this mod overall instead of +2. But hey

Mag may be the best driver in F1. With talent which isn't being utilised

Ice has other game balance issues too. Chris told me Hulkemburg is now too weak. And then the sponsor payout distribution is universally higher,

Coffer · Apr 3, 2017

TheFlamingRed said:
It's kind of why I like the vanilla game. No pre-existing conceptions, other then we are all sad Rodrigues is signed at the start of the game.

To be fair, it's also very easy to make such preconceptions with the base game after playing it enough. The likes of Rodrigues, Chiaki etc are not the only ones - after a while you get used to seeing things like Dreyfuss's morale dropping like a rock, Marchetta getting a ridiculous result, Cavalcanti becoming a multiple race winner in S2, Jonsdottir choking away a near-certain championship to the eventual deadbeats at Garuda, Sylvander singlehandedly saving Zampelli's ass from deservedly being demoted, Batista being kicked out of Zampelli and subsequently dragging another team in the ERS to the championship etc. There was a mod here that randomized the whole field, but it's too lore-friendly (so you get similar situations to the base game) and the modder abandoned the game so the mod is incomplete.

TheFlamingRed said:
Mag probably has some nice Refocued trait or something

Yep. The likes of Stroll are useless too due to the rebalanced negative traits. More amusingly, it doesn't even stop Massa from being too strong, especially in the hands of the player. The game being beatable in S1 with Williams even with this mod makes the ICE mod somewhat broken from the get-go.

Beynasuh · Apr 3, 2017

TheFlamingRed said:
This weekend we upgraded to Level 3! We have a new tool provided to us (and thanks to Robery Eady who provided the link). Now we have DNSpy. https://github.com/0xd4d/dnSpy/releases

That's great news. So the Gateway to the Stars has opened.

Coffer said:
There was a mod here that randomized the whole field, but it's too lore-friendly (so you get similar situations to the base game) and the modder abandoned the game so the mod is incomplete.

The latest version of the randomizer (mmrandomizer 1.3 beta 3) works for MM 1.31 drivers and create your own team drivers. But the staff randomization is incomplete. Always use it before a new game. Besides a couple of Team description drivers haven't seen similar ones yet.

Coffer · Apr 3, 2017

Beynasuh said:
The latest version of the randomizer (mmrandomizer 1.3 beta 3) works for MM 1.31 drivers and create your own team drivers. But the staff randomization is incomplete. Always use it before a new game. Besides a couple of Team description drivers haven't seen similar ones yet.

Yeah that's the one I last used. The staff not being randomized is an issue, but the bigger issue is the presence of drivers like Valdes, whom the modder said he wanted to keep for lore purposes.

I'm more and more tempted to come up with a full team randomizer of my own.

UglyPsycho · Apr 3, 2017

There's certainly a feature for the wishlist, a randomizer directly included in the game. Since there already is some sort of an randomizer for the replacements created over time during longer games, might not even be too impossible?

BrianUK · Apr 3, 2017

UglyPsycho said:
Yeah, but in the beginning the problem should not be there, unless ICE is referring to wrong traits... but the original vanilla traits still have the same number, right? And if ICE does something to the traits itself, their changes should override yours.

The trait numbers aren't the same as vanilla. I had already used the numbers before the new GT update traits were added, so when I merged I assigned them all new numbers.

On real drivers/fake drivers: it all shakes out after a few years and very few drivers from season 1 still exist by about season 8. In a game where traits are also random, you could get Lewis Hamilton taking on some negative traits all at once that tank his rating even in vanilla, what are you going to do then? Remove all the traits because traits are unrealistic in a game that didn't use official drivers and has a mechanic so that nothing ever pans out the same? Personally, I'm not going to reverse the stat changes on my side of the Personality Traits mod because some mod I don't use is having odd results.

Feel free to 'adapt' my mod to your liking, but it's not something I'll be doing.

UglyPsycho · Apr 3, 2017

Technically... does the game care if the trait numbers are not sequantial? In other words, would it break everything if all the modded ones started from 1000, for example? That way it would be relatively easy to make sure the original ones stay the same. Would require some tweaking of the dilemmas and interviews, but at this point it would still be pretty easy thing to do.

Coffer · Apr 3, 2017

BrianUK said:
The trait numbers aren't the same as vanilla. I had already used the numbers before the new GT update traits were added, so when I merged I assigned them all new numbers.

On real drivers/fake drivers: it all shakes out after a few years and very few drivers from season 1 still exist by about season 8. In a game where traits are also random, you could get Lewis Hamilton taking on some negative traits all at once that tank his rating even in vanilla, what are you going to do then? Remove all the traits because traits are unrealistic in a game that didn't use official drivers and has a mechanic so that nothing ever pans out the same? Personally, I'm not going to reverse the stat changes on my side of the Personality Traits mod because some mod I don't use is having odd results.

Feel free to 'adapt' my mod to your liking, but it's not something I'll be doing.

Mind you, there's a very big difference between "taking on" bad traits in the middle of a run (which is in no way unrealistic as bad luck can happen to any driver at any time - Hungary 2009 comes to mind) and starting with them, which is what is going on in the ICE mod. In general, the existence of form and morale should mean that few drivers besides, very debatably, Vettel, ever "have" to start with something like Refocused (and it absolutely makes no sense for someone like KMag), but clearly that mod's creator doesn't agree.

I do think your traits are overdoing it in some cases though, which is partly why I have the game on hold as, to me, both the vanilla game and your mods (in conjunction with TFR's) have issues that are tricky to work with outside of personally tweaking them to my liking, and I have very little time on my hands for that or something like a team randomizer right now. Obviously mine is only one opinion in a sea of opinions though, since the feedback generally seems to be positive here and in your thread.

In fact, Vettel's case reminded me - is there any way to currently come up with traits that do something initially, then something else after a while? Either by having them be innate or by forcing new traits to appear as soon as they disappear.

huggybear · Apr 3, 2017

Big news regarding the new modding capability. Nice one TFR! Can't wait to see what you come up with.

Now that you can edit code directly, I would recommend using a form of source control, like I suggested to you before. I think it would really help you massively in the long run. If you would like to see an example, let me know. Im currently running source control on a mod project I'm working on.

Beynasuh · Apr 3, 2017

Coffer said:
I'm more and more tempted to come up with a full team randomizer of my own.

That sounds great, since Eddie stopped playing the game (and for that matter, stopped the development of his randomizer).

huggybear · Apr 3, 2017

Regarding traits...

I think its absolutely fine. Its good that the game runs with these traits the way it does. This game is by no means supposed to be realistic. I think any "realism" mods created are done so to a certain extent - I see these as a "base" or "structure" to the racing world as we know it. What the game does to that "base" is merely interesting and emergent systems at play which makes the whole thing enjoyable. Example: Second season, In Enzoli's mod, I turned McLaren around to Constructors champions. This shook Mercedes to it's core as they got rid of Hamilton (he ended up at a GP3 team as he was a bit of a diva and was having a hard time (many negative stat modifiers). Toto Wolff hired about 5 drivers (and fired 2) before the 3rd season even begun and his job was at risk.

Even though this would probably never happen in real life, I found it enjoyable and it created a story I was interested in following. Essentially, its what kept me going back and playing the game, I wanted to see if the giant (Mercedes) would fall.

Beynasuh · Apr 3, 2017

TheFlamingRed said:
And this mod is designed to be a balance and tweaks mod with the current gameplay, not a realism mod.

All the tools are there if you can convince someone to make a realism mod though. It's just realism isn't an aspect I'm particularly worried about.

Like FlamingRed said once, this mod didn't started for realism, but for more challenge. So the purpose of all the pumped traits is to add challenge (not realism). But since everyone knows by now how to edit those aspects of the game, It's really just a matter of personal choice (and like). So if you wan't something different just open the file and change it into what you want. I don't thing that neither FlamingRed or Brian will change their modding aspect because we all don't like a part of the game to be unrealistic. That's why this is called modding. If you don't like it change it.

I have my personal changes backed up and whenever FlamingRed puts a new version, I just add my changed into it and enjoy the new version with my personal flavors.

calvg · Apr 3, 2017

TheFlamingRed said:
Getting a podium with the worst car is something :o rain, crashes and retirement help or some amazing strategy?

Was rain crashes and about 5 cars leading pitted 2 laps from end to fix parts.

coming over the line a had a train of 5 cars that i blocked from passing, so they were quicker than me for sure, i'm just tactical and managed to make hard tyre last 30 odd laps thanks to some SC's.

calvg · Apr 3, 2017

Beynasuh said:
The latest version of the randomizer (mmrandomizer 1.3 beta 3) works for MM 1.31 drivers and create your own team drivers. But the staff randomization is incomplete. Always use it before a new game. Besides a couple of Team description drivers haven't seen similar ones yet.

Wish he'd release the code for others to work on

Beynasuh · Apr 3, 2017

calvg said:
Wish he'd release the code for others to work on

That would be nice. Maybe next time he is in the forum we could perhaps ask?

TheFlamingRed · Apr 3, 2017

Beynasuh said:
That's great news. So the Gateway to the Stars has opened.

For the most part. Expect lots of experimental updates to come out soon. And it's certainly going to assist with the 12 team experimentation. Me and Chris basically also got our 'Chassis changing each season' project working now.

UglyPsycho said:
There's certainly a feature for the wishlist, a randomizer directly included in the game. Since there already is some sort of an randomizer for the replacements created over time during longer games, might not even be too impossible?

Ts not impossible as I am sure I could intercept the data coming in from the database in game and the workshop mods... however, that's probably a reason I wouldn't do this. Some people spend ages crafting their Driver set, and I don't want to automatically randomise everything. While as we've seen, the game is going to rebalance any mod n driver stats because of traits, I don't want it to be the thing that randomises everything crafted from the workshop.

I always thought the solution would be that once the workshop came out, the Eddie might have used his randomiser a dozen or so times, and upload this Driver and Staff .txt to the workshop and have a dozen or so alternate starts to choose from, and then go from there.

If I find the time to recreate his work in Excel, I would do the same. (Excel would be better too due to the fact that I can control the stats formthentiers and the trait ids better) - it'd be less work then trying to get that level of control in the dll. And you know me

I like less work.

Coffer said:
In fact, Vettel's case reminded me - is there any way to currently come up with traits that do something initially, then something else after a while? Either by having them be innate or by forcing new traits to appear as soon as they disappear.

Yes there is. Several exist already.

Re Personality Traits Tweaks: you could easily install the original PersonalityTweaks.txt. This would bring the strength back of the mod authored intentions. if you save, and then input my Text back in again, only NEW traits I believe will have the higher ratings, everyone who has a trait I'll keep it (I believe).

Having checked the save data file, don't believe the game is saving the whole Pt.txt into the save game like we initially thought. Only everyone's current traits and strengths,

calvg said:
Was rain crashes and about 5 cars leading pitted 2 laps from end to fix parts.

coming over the line a had a train of 5 cars that i blocked from passing, so they were quicker than me for sure, i'm just tactical and managed to make hard tyre last 30 odd laps thanks to some SC's.

Your races need to be on TV. They're better then F1.