Current Balance poll

[Rman Virgil]

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Blizzard was still balancing the original SC a decade after it's release ! (Ditto the protracted dev time they spent on SC2 had much to do with getting its release balance just right.) In reality, not everybody has Blizzard's financial resources and time to deal with the complex challenges of game balance though all who work on games must deal with it's seemingly endless, emergent, pitfalls.

Here's just a few useful links to grasping game balance complexity in it's fullest, nuanced, system dynamic scope:

* Techniques for Achieving Play Balance By Tom Cadwell on GameDev.net which has a few more perceptive articles that you can get to once there.

And a classic 3 part series on the topic by Jeb @ Oxeye Game Studio - an Indie developer that's been around for many years.

* RTS Game-play Part 5: Introduction to Unit Balancing

* RTS Game-play Part 6: Visible Balancing

* RTS Game-play Part 7: Abstract Balancing

There is no doubt the importance of getting extensive MP play testing data. HOW you structure the data capture / harvesting (it's methodology - criteria, controls, assumptions, etc.) is a useful discussion up front, especially when it comes to taking into account, and fulfilling, the fun-factor contract with ALL player skill levels.

- Regards, Rman.

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[lav_coyote25]

Somebody really needs to make a sticky to explain what a "balance" is. I'm surprised to see so many people misunderstand it.

so, lets see what YOUR explanation is... i look forward to seeing it.

[Iluvalar]

I believe the first link of Rman Virgil answer the question perfectly. Nothing to add to that definition.

[aubergine]

From that first link above....

What is Play Balance?
Sid Meier once said, "A game is a collection of interesting choices". It follows that game elements being out of balance and thereby eliminating choices detracts from the gameplay. Ideally, a game should be a series of choices, ending with victory of defeat or some other end condition. Sometimes, some choices will become unquestionably the only choice, or definitely not a valid choice. If there is only one valid choice at some point, but the game hasn't ended, there is a play balance problem.

So there's a bunch of tech and strategies/tactics that get ignored (although without anon feedback mentioned in the other thread we don't have hard evidence as to what) = game imbalance.

[lav_coyote25]

I believe the first link of Rman Virgil answer the question perfectly. Nothing to add to that definition.

wasnt asking for your input sir. was asking noq. thanks.

so, lets see what YOUR explanation is... i look forward to seeing it.

[NoQ]

lav_coyote25: no, i don't imagine myself to be more clever than the authors of the articles above.

aubergine: From the same article:

In recent years, it has become increasingly popular to record game outcomes and statistics secretly without player knowledge. Age Of Empires, several games published by Sierra, and Strifeshadow have benefited from this technique. Sometimes such statistics can be enlightening, and sometimes they can be highly misleading.

All data must be taken with a grain of salt. In some cases, an immature testing population can give you very skewed results, simply because they aren't familiar with the game and haven't gotten around to trying things (or just rush to the easiest things to use). Similarly, an overly mature testing population can either be so set in their ways as to ignore the potential of other strategies, or get caught on a very advanced, obscure point that is indeed imbalanced, but perhaps less pressing than other, more obvious imbalances. One highly effective technique that Ethermoon Entertainment used with Strifeshadow was to overstate play balance changes in beta patches, so as to encourage players to actually try new strategies, as opposed to continue to "write off" changes.

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

I've only recently decided to playtest the master build, though I haven't yet fully understand what the differences are between Master and 2.3.9, other than the new graphics, models, AI choices, 10-player support, the addition of gates, and being able to slow the game down to pretty much a standstill (for those who want to give lots of orders without being under intense time pressure). I don't know if the tech tree is different, or if certain weapons have been changed up, so I can't give any reliable feedback at this time, sadly.

Also, I'm not much of a multiplayer kind of person, partially because of my questionable internet connectivity, so I wonder, are there are any AIs out there that focus on certain gameplay styles, such as flamer spamming, early-game vehicle/borg rushing, tech rushing, artillery spamming, or simply turtling?

[RBL-4NiK8r]

OK I am now using 3.2 beta and one of the first things I took notice was the Ripps look beautiful, but they are to deadly I had 20 of them and they trashed a base in 3 salvos, I can understand now why someone made the comment to me once the first person gets Ripps in a game its over.

The next major problem I saw was Bunker Buster VTOLS they are slower and fire at 9 squares WTF this was a big issue back 12 years ago that things that fire one shot should move fast and have some distance, not only that with full building upgrades 10 VTOLS could not take out a factory and they all died before leaving the area and the AI didn't have much AA 3 WW and 2 SAM and I had 10 Mantis BB VTOLS. There in no balance here, I could see losing a few of them but they are in the area way to long.


4nE

[NoQ]

but they are to deadly I had 20 of them and they trashed a base in 3 salvos

If the opponent allows you to target the base, he's already dead anyway, regardless of wether you have ripples or not ... right? Also, ripples are intentionally anti-building, they deal almost no damage to tracked tanks and cost a huge amount of money; if you're able to get enough money to build 20 ripples, you'd better use them to make 30 heavy tanks instead.

They have their use, but they're far from an instant win.

[effigy]

OK I am now using 3.2 beta and one of the first things I took notice was the Ripps look beautiful, but they are to deadly I had 20 of them and they trashed a base in 3 salvos, I can understand now why someone made the comment to me once the first person gets Ripps in a game its over.

That was quite awhile ago, like v2.2.4 and early v2.3.x releases. As NoQ said a few tanks with heavy bodies and tracked propulsion can hold out for a little while against that number of ripples.

[zany]

only 23 votes and most think the balance is ok

[NoQ]

*and nobody thinks the balance is perfect (:

[zany]

*and nobody thinks the balance is perfect (:

18 with fair or better with 5 saying different.

[Reg312]

i think better ask people: Do you want improve game by making useless things better?
or Do you like more ways how you can kill enemies?

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

i think better ask people: Do you want improve game by making useless things better?
or Do you like more ways how you can kill enemies?

I'd personally prefer both actually, though if I had to prioritize one of these 2, then I'd prefer if we make some less-useful things a little more useful.