Balance in NS2
TremanN
Join Date: 2002-11-13 Member: 8471Members
Join Date: 2002-11-13 Member: 8471Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Short youtube clip</div>This is a professional Starcraft 2 player talking about balance. Somewhat relevant to some of the balance discussion going on around these boards. Only really necessary to watch 2 minutes in from where I linked. Nevermind the Starcraft lingo, point still remains.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=UYtfBDJXq0Q#t=306s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...fBDJXq0Q#t=306s</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=UYtfBDJXq0Q#t=306s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...fBDJXq0Q#t=306s</a>
Comments
What matters in balancing a game is that you assume both sides of the players play by exactly by the same rules and deliver exactly the same level of performance in terms of "skills". But for overall balance the skill level of indivduals shouldn't matter.
Only with that kind of scenario you can create game mechanics and enviorments that are equally balanced for both sides.
Yes in a real game that scenario is impossible to reach (2 perfectly matched teams in all kinds of skills) but in terms of pure game design it's required to think in such a way or otherwise you are designing mechanics around an problem that originaly results from an imbalance in player skill/behavior and not from game design.
The only difference that "pro play" usually makes is that these players usually understand games enough to find real imbalances inside the games design. That's because pro players are min-maxers that are able to see the best theoretical choice in any given situation and it's impact on the overall dynamic of the game. Pro-gamers don't "play the game" they basicly "play by the game", a pro-gamer will change his behavior to allways min-max all the mechanics in a game so he get's the best advantage possible.
To make an game interesting for such an type of player you need complex systems that the player actually has to work for trough trail/error for quite some time until he sees all the mechanics and how they affect each other. That is why pro level gamers like deep game mechanics that are not instantly obvious, because it gives them an advantage over people who have trouble understanding games on such an fundamental level.
But such a game becomes naturaly very frustrating to a player who is playing the game in a "casual way" meaning: He will not min-max everything to ensure victory, he will instead chose to use game mechanics that seem fun to him because their use/working are easy to realize and understand at first glance. Throw such a player into a complex game (like RTS games for example) and he will maybe have a good time but he won't naturally take advantage of more complicated/complex game mechanics because these will stay hidden to such a player.
It's basicly the difference between adapting to the situation and expecting the situation to change in your favor... a pro gamer is adapting his playstyle to the mechanics of the game, because he has a very simple goal: To win right now
Most casual players don't adapt that much, they are playing games to "explore" and if they don't instantly realize how something works they often blame the game or the mechanics for not complying with their definition of what "fun" is. So they are expecting the game to behave in the way they want and expect it to behave, if it doesn't do that then the game often seems unfair to him because he can't see the complete picture.
I don't think i got the point he's trying to make (or you are) but if that point by any chance should be "you can't have a competetive game that also plays well in a non ordganized enviorment" then i have to disagree with that.
Because games allow us to change the rules depending on the needs, or simpler said: Nothing stops UWE from adding something like an "ESL Config" that changes game dynamics in such a way that it rewards the min-maxers with a more complete and complex experience.
But at the same time you can still have your "public random"type of game that has mechanics that can be considered "imbalanced" on a pro-level of play but are required to make such an "random pub experience" fun for people who are not all about min-maxing. Like with everything else in life: Finding the middle ground is important and balance is key.
Competetive balance is very important for NS2, but just as important are the dynamics that also made it a great immersive public experience.
Not all competetive games are fun in a casual way and because of that they cut down on their potential customer base, the last thing NS2 needs is an even smaller target audience/customer base by only focusing on the pro-level aspect of gameplay.
At lower levels it's not the game that does the balancing, but rather the skill/ability of the players.. which for obvious reasons can't really be balanced by tuning things in the game.
At lower levels it's not the game that does the balancing, but rather the skill/ability of the players.. which for obvious reasons can't really be balanced by tuning things in the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
NS allready does that and it's one of the reasons why NS is such a horrible game for "random public fun".
Because if you leave player skill balance in the hands of players then you will allways end up with teams where all the "skill" is stacked in one team.
Everybody who considers himself "good" and understands the game notices what other players do not understand the game and he will try to evade them by allways sticking to the other team. Because all "play to win" players think similiar in that regards this dynamic often leads to stacked team by it's pure nature. And that in turn gives the game very very bad reputation in terms of balance and teamplay.
Because the loser team won't notice that it's losing because of stacked teams, instead the loser team is full with people who don't understand the games mechanics or meta game. And all they notice is that they get heavily steamrolled by the other team, making the game feel unbalanced to them.
While the other team with the experienced players has a blast coordinating trough voicechat and steamrolling the "newbteam" that haven't yet realized that voicechat is integral for teamplay when the game otherwise doesn't give you the right features that lead to natural teamplay by gamedesign.
Because of this phenomen to this day many people consider NS really really imbalanced, because the only experience they had with the game is getting raped on public servers by stacked teams. And it's not really helpfull to tell them "oh yeah stacked teams, your team didn't teamplay! but the game is really really awesome once you get some teamplay going!" at that point the guy who got frustrated by stacked random rounds on public servers allready has made up his mind about the game anyway, that's a lost player and customer right there.
It's weird, but in NS1's heyday at least on the servers I frequented the "pro" players usually made a big effort to keep teams balanced. Steamrolling was considered boring and pointless. Maybe I was just lucky.
This. Rebirth stop spouting bull######.
You might as well make ns2 TDM/combat, because you are kinda assuming most ppl will never be able to play ns2 right, dont improve - so it needs to be balanced around that, to be interesting for pub players. But which pub player that wants to improve at the real ns2 gamemode would play this pub balance version?
While there are esl configs, tournament modes, the main point for such configs is not to make alternative balance ("a different gamemod") and split the community, its to make sure everybody plays inside given parameters and rules. (very tiny balance changes, if any at all - usually only friendly-fire)
Games are too complex to heuristically make design decisions. Also, you have to try to balance the game for all levels of play, and sometimes a change is necessary to address a glaring imbalance at low skill levels at the cost of balance at higher skill levels.
This is a fantastic series of articles on the subject: <a href="http://www.sirlin.net/articles/balancing-multiplayer-games-part-1-definitions.html" target="_blank">http://www.sirlin.net/articles/balancing-m...efinitions.html</a>
And the issue of team stacking is not relevant to this discussion. It happens all the time on quakelive too, and both teams are 100% identical there. Is quake tdm imbalanced?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Since more people (including UWE) have been talking about how the win stats relate to balance I figured I'd give it a try. The first problem is what does 'balance' mean with regards to win stats? In my view, a 'balanced' NS2 would be one in which each team wins 50% of the time after controlling for the following factors:
- Map
- Playercount
- Match length
- Skill of team
To give an example, aliens should win 50% of the time on a 8v8 summit match lasting 1 hour with teams of equal skill. We could see if the current build achieves this 'balance' by only looking at win stats data for summit with an average playercount of 16 lasting between 55 and 65 min and using some type of team skill measure (I don't know of any existing or planned method to measure this so we might just have to accept some bias due to team skill). If the win stats was 'close' to 50% we could say that NS2 is balanced (at least for the example specified above). We could then check other scenarios (4v4, rockdown, 20 min, equal skill; 6v6, tram, 40 min, equal skill; etc.) to also test their 'balance', eventually leading to enough 'close' to 50% scenarios that we could call NS2 'balanced' (as a practical matter, UWE might not want to balance every potential scenario and instead just accept that some map/playercount/length/skill combos are going to be unbalanced; <4 playercount or <5min matches are good examples).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In particular, I think balancing based on equally skilled teams to be the ideal, so breaking the games down into skill tiers such as below might be helpful.
- Newb v Newb
- Experienced public v Experienced public
- Pro competitive v Pro competitive
I would characaterize the skill tiers as
Newb = Inexperienced (<10 hr playtime) and not organized
Experienced public = Experienced but not organized (most public players with over 20 hours of gameplay)
Pro competitive = Experienced and organized (primarily clan members, but also public players who participate in gathers, PUGs, or who play on known to be skilled player servers)
Basically, I'd call NS2 'balanced' in a well-rounded way if both two newb teams and two pro competitive teams had equal chances of victory.
That's basicly what i said, pro players are "play to win" agents because their way of thinking, while what many people consider "casual players" are often players with another problem solving mentality compared to the "play to win" mentality that most pro-level gamers approach their games with.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Games are too complex to heuristically make design decisions. Also, you have to try to balance the game for all levels of play, and sometimes a change is necessary to address a glaring imbalance at low skill levels at the cost of balance at higher skill levels.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hate to disagree but i would argue that games are just math, the complex part that messes up heuristics are usually the players once they start messing with the games mechanics and break them in ways the designer couldn't imagine before.
But if you look at a computer game in it's most basic form (without the players that mess everything up) it's just a collection of math formulars that get abstracted in a programming language. Dunno if you can follow my line of thinking, but i think you are a programmer, so wouldn't you agree that on such a basic level it is just simple math?
I'm not saying it's the ultimate tool for designing the perfect game, i'm just suggesting that it's an great way to see if at least all the "numbers add up" because by using different player types you can basicly see how the mechanics of the game would react to certain situations. But it's only really applicable for the whole metagame, just like the perfect BO in SC2 falls appart as soon as more complex player interaction starts.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is a fantastic series of articles on the subject: <a href="http://www.sirlin.net/articles/balancing-multiplayer-games-part-1-definitions.html" target="_blank">http://www.sirlin.net/articles/balancing-m...efinitions.html</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thanks for sharing that thing! Really should help me expressing better what i'm thinking/talking about :)
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And the issue of team stacking is not relevant to this discussion. It happens all the time on quakelive too, and both teams are 100% identical there. Is quake tdm imbalanced?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes stacking happens in every game, i just think that certain games are more keen to it happening then others.
NS in it's most active times had many servers with active communities where people played each other on a daily basis, making team stacking mostly a non-issue for such an complex game. But it still happened an awfully lot when you didn't play at peak times or ended up on strange servers with no communities at all.
I just think that the high learning curve of NS1 coupled with some social dynamics makes NS1 suffer a bit more from the "stacking" effect compared to other games like quake tdm. At some point even the nicest person gets sick of allways sticking with the "newb team" to explain the very same game mechanics and cookie cutter public tactic for the felt 2000. time.
So sticking with the weaker team is alot more effort in NS then it is in quake tdm, in quake tdm it's often only a difference in twitch skill you have to make up.
In NS you have to make up the twitch skill and additionally alot of missing knowledge about gameplay mechanics and explain them to your team, if you want to stand a slim chance at winning. It doesn't help that new players without knowledge about the game often end up "sabotaging" the game to the disadvantage of the unstacked team because they don't know the games mechanics yet (dropping random SC in first hive and fun stuff like that). Imho that could be an explanation for that feeling that stacking might have occured more often, even if it's done unintentional by the players.
But i agree it's basicly irelevant to the topic, as that issue is impossible prevent from a game design point of view. Because it's the players messing up your games mechanics and you can't predict for that stuff ;)
I just think that other factors of the game like accessibility could at least help lessening the occurance of dynamic that seem to lead more stacked teams. You may not be able to predict player behavior exactly, but you still have alot of options for "leading" them into a certain behavior by offering risk&reward mechanics or by explaining more complex game mechanics to them trough causality in the game world, so they start exploring and understanding mechanics on their own.
I don't pretend to know anything better then anybody else, i'm just throwing ideas around here. But after not having played NS2 for quite a while i got back into the gorilla build and had a blast playing marine team. Because it basicly plays exactly like NS1 marines but in an very overpowered kind of way, that's on one side kinda cool on the other somewhat dissapointing because i still remember flayra saying he doesn't want NS2 to be just an "NS HD" instead he wanted to get rid of the flaws in NS1 and make a new game without the flaws that prevented NS1 from getting "mainstream status".
But right now so many people around here seem to be once again all busy about the competetive side of the game, leaving learning curve and accessability completly out of the thinking process. And that's kinda sad, because i believe like everything else in life: There are two sides to everything and balancing them out is the best way to success and harmony :)
This is not true, and thinking it is breeds laziness / willful teamstacking in pubs.
This is why I inevitably drift toward playing competitively in every game I get involved in - after a while it ends up to not be fun playing in pubs because:
<ul><li>people teamstack</li><li>people think the teams are stacked just because they lost (when in reality it's because they're not trying, or the other team played better)</li><li>people don't understand that the developers aren't reading their every word to rebalance the game to their liking</li></ul>
Computer games aren't just mathematical relationships in action, because the players have input, and they have different levels of understanding and different psychological states (that the computer is not aware of). Well-made games allow the player input to differentiate 'good' players from 'bad' ones. They also don't pull any punches when it comes to 'allowing players to get better if they practice' or 'good players beat worse players because they're better'. That second one is important - before I quit playing TF2 entirely, I would try to play on the Reddit pub servers. Any time a team lost a game, they would vote to scramble the teams (to deal with a perceived stacking problem), and any time the game went on longer (for having balanced teams) people would cry that it's boring. You can't have it both ways. If you really care so much about having balanced teams and enjoying the game, you need to let go of the part of your thinking that says the people who beat you were stacking. Organized competitive play is basically the only solution to this (this includes casual 'gathers' where team captains choose the teams).
Imagine if football had rules in it that let bad players win just because everyone on the field is wearing a flag that says they're "playing casually" - how do you resolve that with people in the NFL, without making casual players feel like idiots? Even the casual players eventually figure out that those added mechanics are no good - like how pretty much everyone who plays TF2 hates the engineer, natascha, sandman, huntsman etc.
<!--quoteo(post=1901274:date=Feb 9 2012, 01:02 PM:name=puzl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (puzl @ Feb 9 2012, 01:02 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1901274"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's important to listen to pro players but you have to use your instincts in deciding if their advice is correct. Pro players are usually great at finding flaws but often poor at providing solutions. Sometimes a really talented musician is not a great composer ( and vice versa ).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ideas like this are not helpful. You can't make a generalization like that about pro players. If I could make one about casual players, it's that they're irrationally afraid of competitive players in almost every game community. Whether one group knows what's right for the game, I can't say, but in TF2 and Starcraft there is way too much bickering between two groups of people that love to play the same game.
But i'm party to blame for that because i made this pretty bold claim off:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Because if you leave player skill balance in the hands of players then you will allways end up with teams where all the "skill" is stacked in one team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Without going into the specifics as to why i believe that happens more often in public NS games, luckily for me i did most of that in my post other post in reply to puzl:
<!--quoteo(post=1901455:date=Feb 10 2012, 12:11 AM:name=rebirth)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rebirth @ Feb 10 2012, 12:11 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1901455"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yes stacking happens in every game, i just think that certain games are more keen to it happening then others.
NS in it's most active times had many servers with active communities where people played each other on a daily basis, making team stacking mostly a non-issue for such an complex game. But it still happened an awfully lot when you didn't play at peak times or ended up on strange servers with no communities at all.
I just think that the high learning curve of NS1 coupled with some social dynamics makes NS1 suffer a bit more from the "stacking" effect compared to other games like quake tdm. At some point even the nicest person gets sick of allways sticking with the "newb team" to explain the very same game mechanics and cookie cutter public tactic for the felt 2000. time.
So sticking with the weaker team is alot more effort in NS then it is in quake tdm, in quake tdm it's often only a difference in twitch skill you have to make up.
In NS you have to make up the twitch skill and additionally alot of missing knowledge about gameplay mechanics and explain them to your team, if you want to stand a slim chance at winning. It doesn't help that new players without knowledge about the game often end up "sabotaging" the game to the disadvantage of the unstacked team because they don't know the games mechanics yet (dropping random SC in first hive and fun stuff like that). Imho that could be an explanation for that feeling that stacking might have occured more often, even if it's done unintentional by the players.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think you understand the "pro gamer" mentality of playing a game, so you would probably agree with my above statement? A lone player who thinks in a "play to win" mentality among a bunch of random public players will always chose the stacked team, he may not know the other players but after 1-2 rounds a skilled player usually has a good grasp about the other players abilities on the server, people with a better understanding of the game will naturaly find to each other without noticing it. Because a "pro gamer" plays to win, not for a nice experience (well winning is his nice experience ;)). That's the "pro gamer" mentality inside a game system. And that's why i believe that NS teamplay mechanics unintentionally promote stacking teams.
I'm not saying that "good people are ###### and all always stack the same team", far from that because i know the NS community well enough. I just believe it happens on an unintentional level by most people. Because while NS might have one of the nicest and most helpfull communities around the interwebs, it also has one of the most competetive communities.
Sometimes you can even see this behavior in the discussion culture in this forum, everybody seems to see this as an competition one has to win. Always questioning authors "player skills" or "understandings" while never actually going into details of the discussed object/idea the author brought up. But imho all this should rather be an open creative process where every idea should spawn new ideas or at least questions that need to be answered, but not insults as it sometimes happens around here ;)
I admit I sometimes 'dismiss' player's opinions because of that. I would rather listen to a player that has been playing NS2 for a while. I give even more credence to people who played NS1. The people's opinions that I would give the most thought to are people that played in high-ish level clans in NS1 for a good amount of time. Why is this? Because of their experience. Players that have played at a lower level skill and are new to the game will NOT have an understanding of the game like those older players have. Whose opinion would pull more weight: a little league baseball player or a college player on a AAA team? And yes, people can usually differentiate those who are newer to this game than those who have been playing for years.
Note that this does not mean that new players have nothing good to say. On the contrary, new players give a fresh perspective on the game that should always be welcomed. I am just saying that older NS1 players will tend to stick together. Really, that shouldn't surprise you at all.
If you leave the development and balance of this game as an 'open creative process' where everyone's input is treated equally (whether they're skilled, unskilled, serious or trolling) you end up with a garbage game like TF2 - patch after patch of added content that isn't fun, without any of the bug fixes people are clamoring for. All because *someone* out there in cyberspace indicated that they would put in money for it even if every other player has to suffer.
At some level, you need to know how the game is *supposed* to work, in order to know if/how things need to change. That includes things like learning curve and accessibility, but it also includes skill at performing the in-game actions. If somebody makes a thread about how "aiming is hard, so we need more guns that do tons of damage really easily without aiming" should I take him seriously?
When people call others' skill/understanding into question, the opportunity is there to prove yourself either way. If you're bad and ashamed of it, get better. If you don't care whether you're good, go on not caring but don't imply a level of understanding that you don't have. When bleeding-heart casual players make claims like "they only play to win!" or "they hate fun!" there's no proper way to explain how that's wrong (not to mention incredibly rude), so you can't help but say "lol get good kid"...and here we are!
Not trying to psychological profile, more like behavior profiling because i assume there are only 2 kinds of players, and this isn't meant to label/rate persons psychologically on a "good/bad" scale but rather to give these 2 kinds of players different kinds of motivations to play.
Basicly asking the question: Why does the player play? What is his ultimate goal inside the game?
And in that regards i believe you can basicly put them in 2 very rough camps with alot of different of half states between them. But the two camps are basicly:
Play to win Player
This is what many people consider "pro-gamer" around here, this type of player plays "to win" that means the ultimate goal in each game will be to optimize every single action he performs so they lead to the ideal outcome for him/his side. Because of this he understands all the games mechanics and rules and how they key into each other depending on the situation. Thus this player will perform tasks that don't imminently seem profitable to him, but because of his understanding of the games rules and mechanics he knows they will pay off in the later stages of the game.
Play for fun Player
Don't get confused by the name, this player obviously also considers winning "fun" so he won't willingly play against the rules to lessen his chances at winning. The problem is this player doesn't understand the games mechanics and rules completely (yet). He knows the basic winning condition and he knows the most basic way to reach it, but unlike the "Play to win Player" he can't connect all the involved game mechanics in such a way that it allows him to "play out the round before his inner eye" before it starts.
So because this player doesn't understand the overall flow of the game, he will get distracted and follow other impulses the game gives him. A good example for that behavior is RT munching duty as skulk in NS. A "play to win"player knows that killing marine RT's is integral to his team winning the round, so he will spent minutes biting away at an stationary object that won't fight back, even if it's not really fun in terms of "interaction".
The "play for fun" player on the other hand doesn't instantly realize the profitable effect that "munching an RT" has on his chance of winning the game. So he is way more likely to get distracted by other things that he considers fun at that point (like killing marines, crawling around in vents, or basicly doing anything at all that involves interaction). The "play for fun player" will constantly get distracted by gameplay mechanics he doesn't understand yet preventing him from fully utilizing the ones he already understands.
Like i said: This isn't psychological profiling, i'm assuming that as the "play for fun"players understanding of the games rules increases as he interacts with them. At some point making these rules and mechanics so natural to him that he will follow them in an intuitive way so he in turn also becomes an "play to win player" who only focuses on maximizing the rules and mechanics he knows and understands. And now suddenly that same player who didn't have "fun" munching RT's understands that "munching RT's" is required for winning the game which is by now his ultimate "fun goal" and for that he will even perform tedious tasks that somebody without the understanding of the rules would never consider "fun".
But this is a learning process and these always take some time until we humans can apply the results in an intuitive way. I now used NS as an example with the RT munching, but i believe you can apply this type of player behavior to many game models and games and it still somewhat describes how players evolve in their understanding of how games mechanics work.
Asking for factual evidence for such an game theory is kinda moot considering that theories are often just that because of the lack of factual evidence to come up with a working solution in a scientific way :)
That's why i'm sharing this idea, maybe there is a way to come up with factual evidence for this or maybe not, maybe it's just an intuitive feeling i got by thinking way too much about this stuff or maybe i'm just an rambling idiot ;)
But i'm pretty sure if this behavior would be measurable in any kind of way then some kind of marketing game strategy department would have figured this out by now and profit the ###### out of it by focus designing a game around that concept ^^
<!--quoteo(post=1901514:date=Feb 10 2012, 02:16 AM:name=TremanN)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TremanN @ Feb 10 2012, 02:16 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1901514"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I admit I sometimes 'dismiss' player's opinions because of that. I would rather listen to a player that has been playing NS2 for a while. I give even more credence to people who played NS1. The people's opinions that I would give the most thought to are people that played in high-ish level clans in NS1 for a good amount of time. Why is this? Because of their experience. Players that have played at a lower level skill and are new to the game will NOT have an understanding of the game like those older players have. Whose opinion would pull more weight: a little league baseball player or a college player on a AAA team? And yes, people can usually differentiate those who are newer to this game than those who have been playing for years.
Note that this does not mean that new players have nothing good to say. On the contrary, new players give a fresh perspective on the game that should always be welcomed. I am just saying that older NS1 players will tend to stick together. Really, that shouldn't surprise you at all.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The thing is this: I've played NS on "play to win" level during it's times when it became really popular and the competetive scene exploded all over the world, before that i spent most of my time playing counter strike on a "play to win" level also on tournaments and LAN's and before that i spent my time in Quake 2.
Problem is you can't mention these things around here without everybody instantly feeling like you "want to show off" when i'm just trying to explain that i've spent most parts of my gaming life playing with an pure "play to win" motivation. For some games i've played in my life i spent more time over spreadsheets then actually playing them (not even competetive ones), that's how i would describe my motivation to game and my passion for the "play to win" mentality.
I know lots of the stuff i write sounds like i have no friggin clue about Natural Selection, but that's because it's been quite some time since i actively played the original NS (but my thoughts had always been with the game :D) so i'm all out of the lingo. I've played NS2 in alpha a little bit but the recent gorilla trailer brought me back to NS2 and i have an absolute blast with the current marine gameplay because it perfectly replicates the NS1 experience, at least on the marine side.
I just feel like everyone here is so busy looking at NS2 as the "perfect competetive game" that they forget that it's still a videogame and if UWE want more mass appeal with NS2 then they had with NS1 then maybe they shouldn't focus too much on the "perfect competetive balance" because if that alone would work then NS1 would already have had the mass appeal that UWE now desires for NS2 or wouldn't it? Because at least i consider NS pretty well balanced considering the asymmetric teams and mechanics.
And once again: All of this is imho! I'm just trying to throw a new/fresh perspective in here because the game and the community feel like they have been stuck with themselves for quite some time. So some unconventional ideas can sometimes help recalibrating the perspective, especially if these ideas are of the drastic variety. It's not about them being wrong or right but rather about them leading to new ideas :)
I like how rebirth has taken over this thread.
Also, I'm confused about what it is that we're discussing balancing.
Are we talking about balancing frontiersmen against kharaa?
Every single unit against every other single unit?
Every single unit against other single units of the same cost?
Groups of units against every other group of units?
Groups of units against other group of units of the same cost?
I liked the munching RTs example that rebirth wrote about, but then you have to consider that it's exactly the same for both teams and for every unit, so this is, inherently, balanced. Therefore, it's irrelevant in terms of balancing the game, because assuming that teams are equally skilled/knowledgable (a necessary assumption) and have the same motivations, both teams will either munch RTs or not munch RTs.
Maybe watch the video again, and listen to the words this time. I feel like you are someone getting their feelings hurt by talk of 'pro' players. I thought it was pretty obvious that we were talking about alien vs marine balance, bu then again, I thought that video was about how 'skill' plays a huge part in balance at lower levels of play.
How about instead, you try to articulate in written words what you believe they said (or what you interpreted from what they said)? If the words themselves have wisdom, then it doesn't matter who says it, right?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is too large of a topic to go into depth on here, so I’ll give only a short summary. There’s a wonderful study on incompetence that shows that people who are incompetent at a task (logic, humor, grammar, etc.) grossly overestimate their own ability at the task and are unable to detect expert performance in other people who actually are skilled at the task. The reason is that the very knowledge they lack to do the task is the same knowledge they need to evaluate themselves and others.
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The result is that you will definitely have to deal with the loud complaints of incompetent people who are quite sure of themselves, and who might even have a well-developed tip-of-the-iceberg of reasoning, but no underside to their iceberg at all. I suggest somehow gaining enough authority that your vague feeling on a balance issue is able to trump their loud complaints. You might even try explaining why that is best for the game.
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My advice to not explain yourself and to have the authority to ignore incompetent complainers unfortunately sounds like a recipe for creating an ego-centric dictatorship that ruins a project. Yet, the best way to leverage intuition is to gain that kind of power on a project, and then not use it much.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1901635:date=Feb 10 2012, 04:21 AM:name=TremanN)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TremanN @ Feb 10 2012, 04:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1901635"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->bu then again, I thought that video was about how 'skill' plays a huge part in balance at lower levels of play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What puzl posted is better than any 'written words' I could come up with, being part of the incompetent player problem.
These chips are WAY too salty...
<!--quoteo(post=1901475:date=Feb 10 2012, 12:43 AM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ Feb 10 2012, 12:43 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1901475"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Ideas like this are not helpful. You can't make a generalization like that about pro players. If I could make one about casual players, it's that they're irrationally afraid of competitive players in almost every game community. Whether one group knows what's right for the game, I can't say, but in TF2 and Starcraft there is way too much bickering between two groups of people that love to play the same game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think you misunderstand what I am saying. Most players are usually poor at providing solutions to problems. The point I am making is just because someone is great at playing a game it doesn't follow that they have good insights about solving those problems.
I mean, even look at who is in the video above. Idra is on the record for thinking that Zerg is the worst balanced race in NS2, and he has, on many occasions ranted about how retarded protoss are ( too easy to play ) and how OP terran is ( too easy to capitalise on small advantages ). However, in SC1 he played Terran and, surprise surprise, Idra found that Terran was the weakest race, often moaned about its problems despite the fact that 4 out of the 5 SC1 bonjwas were Terran. So has Idra magically picked the weakest race each time, or is it, perhaps, in his character to overly focus on the negatives of the race he plays?
The point I'm making? Being incredibly skilled at a game does not give you the insight and intuition needed to balance it.
The point I'm making? Being incredibly skilled at a game does not give you the insight and intuition needed to balance it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is exactly what I've noted, especially with SC2.
In general it seems a very natural human reaction to explain things through imbalance. When I'm playing SC2 zerg, I feel the protoss get their deathball going way too easily and my roach based armies can't make a dent. Whenever I ended up playing protoss, I got absolutely overrun by the sheer amount of roaches and I felt zergs won by simply mindlessly massing them.
Now that I've played the game more and understand it better I could say toss has it slightly easier, but it's in no way as dramatic as it feels when you're playing against one. And even now my opinion is probably influenced by the fact that I'm playing more zerg than toss right now.
Also interestingly when someone asked Day[9] about his idea of the strongest race, he said that it's usually the one he has been playing the most lately. I guess his mentality allowed him to see where to change and improve his game to beat anything thrown at him.
( speaking as a platinum protoss player.. so ymmv )
But yeah, I think Day[9] is in a very good position to discuss balance because a) he's competed at such high levels, b) he's very smart and c) he's devoted an enormous amount of that smartness to analysing balance *and* skill.
I'd like to think that his career is slowly leading him to designing some kind of super game that we'll play for years.
It is my interpretation that what puzl posted was to back this idea up:
<!--quoteo(post=1901674:date=Feb 10 2012, 06:12 PM:name=puzl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (puzl @ Feb 10 2012, 06:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1901674"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The point I am making is just because someone is great at playing a game it doesn't follow that they have good insights about solving those problems.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1901635:date=Feb 10 2012, 04:21 PM:name=TremanN)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TremanN @ Feb 10 2012, 04:21 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1901635"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->bu then again, I thought that video was about how 'skill' plays a huge part in balance at lower levels of play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is merely a (fairly obvious) description. It doesn't actually present any perspective, recommendation or opinion.
If that's all you wanted to do, just post a video about people stating something fairly obvious (to paraphrase, "skill determines who wins") then that's fine I guess, but I don't see any reason why you recommended that people watch the video, or how it should impact on balance in NS2.
e.g.
"The roads are wet this winter." -> description
Okay, thanks, and?
"Get new tires, drive more slowly, don't brake suddenly, etc." -> recommendation
The forum seems divided between competitive players and casual players. How will UWE balance the game? At casual play, competitive player, or somewhere in between? Ok, are we good on that? GREAT.
The dude in the video believes that the game should be balanced with the highest skill ceiling (competitive players) in mind, or rather talks about balance in terms of the highest skill ceiling. You can't talk about balance at the lower levels (casual) because there will be such a disparity in skill which will lead to misleading results. We good here broseph? SCHWEET.
I used to play NS1 competitively among other games (perspective). My recommendation is that UWE balance the game with the highest skill ceiling in mind (probably selfish and biased because I want to play a competitive game that has depth and longevity). My opinion is that balancing the game for pub players will 'break' the game in competitive scenes.
You've made this much harder than it had to be. I am sorry I insulted your intelligence and wasted your 150 seconds with that video. I would LOVE to go back and forth with people that call me out and cop an attitude, but I think this forum could do without that. See you around, buddy.
PS. I think more people should listen to puzl. I'm not trying to give suggestions on how to 'fix' or balance NS2. But I definitely think Flayra needs to listen when people who play this game much more than him believes there is a problem.
For example: Zealot build time was increased specifically because it was just too hard to counter proxy 2 gate at low skill levels ( drilling damaged workers back to minerals is not an option at low skill levels )
Also, do you not find it ironic that the unit they go on to discuss is the colossus?
Also - this: <a href="http://sclegacy.com/editorials/105-strategy/1005-sotg-idra-vs-day9" target="_blank">http://sclegacy.com/editorials/105-strateg...tg-idra-vs-day9</a>
My thoughts were balancing things like the shotgun. I've heard a lot of people claim that it is way too strong, in the hands of someone with above average aim. Then someone else with less than stellar aim claims the shotgun is way too weak and needs to shoot faster or have an secondary attack.
Repeat similar argument with fade blink, frenzy, skulk movement...
puzl, what is your take on 'how to balance NS2?" Being a retired developer you know what Flayra thought about game balance (pubs vs competitive) more than most. In NS1, Flayra seemed reluctant to embrace the competitive community. Am I remembering things unclearly?
The forum seems divided between competitive players and casual players. How will UWE balance the game? At casual play, competitive player, or somewhere in between? Ok, are we good on that? GREAT.
The dude in the video believes that the game should be balanced with the highest skill ceiling (competitive players) in mind, or rather talks about balance in terms of the highest skill ceiling. You can't talk about balance at the lower levels (casual) because there will be such a disparity in skill which will lead to misleading results. We good here broseph? SCHWEET.
I used to play NS1 competitively among other games (perspective). My recommendation is that UWE balance the game with the highest skill ceiling in mind (probably selfish and biased because I want to play a competitive game that has depth and longevity). My opinion is that balancing the game for pub players will 'break' the game in competitive scenes.
You've made this much harder than it had to be. I am sorry I insulted your intelligence and wasted your 150 seconds with that video. I would LOVE to go back and forth with people that call me out and cop an attitude, but I think this forum could do without that. See you around, buddy.
PS. I think more people should listen to puzl. I'm not trying to give suggestions on how to 'fix' or balance NS2. But I definitely think Flayra needs to listen when people who play this game much more than him believes there is a problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And so we return to what I said earlier:
<!--quoteo(post=1901634:date=Feb 10 2012, 04:09 PM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Feb 10 2012, 04:09 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1901634"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I can't believe I actually watched the video (and even had to watch an ad before it), when the OP could have just said: "Balance for pro-level, because only pros understand the game." since there was literally nothing else said in the 2 minutes the OP told us to watch.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->which is exactly the excerpt that you took issue with.
How do you even define the skill ceiling?
Perfect aim?
Perfect movement?
Perfect understanding?
Perfect awareness?
Full knowledge?
Always picking the optimal route?
Always picking the optimal choice?
Strangely enough, I actually agree that we should balance for "perfect teams" full of this "perfect player", and where there is a deficiency, e.g. in knowledge, teach the player what he needs to know. This is because that means we're starting from a solid foundation (mathematically sound, if you will). My issue was with you wasting my time with watching a fairly pointless video.
Actually, some elements of the game seem to already be designed to account for less-than-perfect players. For example, bullet/pellet spread. A player with perfect aim does not miss, so spread (especially as range increases) is actually detrimental to their performance: it is designed so that players with less-than-perfect aim (i.e. some shots at the edge) can kill in a reasonable number of shots. Each shot does a significant amount of damage, and the rate of fire (for rifles) is very high, so the time taken to kill shouldn't vary overly much.
The above could just be a coincidence though, because granted, you could consider spread as a range vs melee balancing mechanic at the skill ceiling: with spread, the number of shots that hit decrease with range even with perfect aim, which means that the effectiveness of both classes is maximised at close range. Or you could consider it from the opposite perspective: skulk players move so fast and unpredictably at close range that the almost-perfect player needs the spread crutch in order to kill the skulk in a reasonable amount of time.
Either way, the perfect marine would never lose to the perfect skulk, because the perfect marine will never be ambushed and will kill the skulk before he manages to close the distance. Balancing at the skill ceiling with such a scenario seems a fairytale.