Balancing Starcraft off statistics works because: a) Millions of players b) Tiered skill brackets (silver, gold, grandmasters, etc) c) 1player vs 1 player, presumably always trying to win d) only ranked games are used
NS2: a) Much smaller community (few hundred or thousand of players) b) No tiered skill brackets, thus grand masters play against bronze heroes all day long c) TEAM vs TEAM. This leads to player number imbalances, and skill imbalances where players choose their own team d) no rankings, all games (even practice games) are used
Now let's say I'm queuing up with 3 of my friends and we're all grandmaster NS2 players. First game we queue up Marines. We win. Then we queue up Aliens. We win. Then we queue up Marines. We win. Then we queue up Aliens. We win.
Here you'll see a 50% win rate but in no way does that show the game is balanced. It says nothing about game balance. Even in pubs without groups of friends, you'll tend to see players stick together when they win. Not always, but frequently. And this is why balancing on statistics in a team based game without forced matching and skill brackets is a poor idea. The statistics are good to have on hand, but balance needs to be done at the levels where the inputs are as close to even as possible. I.E. The statistics of gathers, scrims, and matches should be used. Pub play will follow.
It's very difficult to tell about the overall balance beside obvious things. Statistics can lie. A few builds ago, where the skulk-CC-rush happened to create many 2-5 minute games, the statistic would say that the aliens are overpowered. But beside this one tactic the marines was in favor at this time. They only needed to survive the first rushes.
The same counts for late-game-advantage of aliens in 208.
To close this: The statistics can help to see that there is something wrong. But don't take them as overall indicator. In reality it may only be one little thing that is broken and beside this the overall balance may be completely different to the statistics.
<!--quoteo(post=1921400:date=Apr 3 2012, 02:05 PM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Apr 3 2012, 02:05 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1921400"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->One of the problem is that fixing as a goal to get 50% winrate is a very ill defined problem. Let me explain.
The winrate depends on a large number of parameters : skulk health, res influx, lmg damage, tech cost, etc.
Taken alone almost every one of this parameters allows to get a 50% winrate. The reason why this is true is the following. Take the lmg damage as an example. Put it to zero, the marine winrate drop to zero. Put it to infinity (one shot everything), the marine winrate goes to 100%. By a continuity assumption there is a lmg damage value where the winrate is 50% (it cannot go from 0 to 100 without passing by 50).
The same is true for almost every other parameter. What this means is that saying "parameter X is responsible for the non-50% winrate" is meaningless since it is trivially true for any parameter.
I don't go into combination of parameters (e.g. for two parameters there is probably a curve of 50% winrate, for three a surface, etc.) but the problem become even more degenerated.
So, what we need right know is more, clearly stated, balance criteria, in addition to the 50% winrate.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This is why balance discussions are often in danger of fixing the wrong problems. If 99 factors are in favour of aliens but marines have 1 factor that produces something close to 50/50 results, it means very little to call the game balanced.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1940367:date=May 31 2012, 03:11 AM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ May 31 2012, 03:11 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1940367"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And this is why balancing on statistics in a team based game without forced matching and skill brackets is a poor idea. The statistics are good to have on hand, but balance needs to be done at the levels where the inputs are as close to even as possible. I.E. The statistics of gathers, scrims, and matches should be used. Pub play will follow.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> It can be done as long as you have a measure of skill included with the win stats. I'm a fan of using score (with some updates) as it gets pretty close to consistently putting who I consider to be the best players in a match at the top of the scoreboard. However, if we wanted to do it properly, we'd probably want to go with something like SC2's matchmaking rating or a modified version of the ELO ranking system for individual players.
Also, at this stage it would be better to use all games (pubs + competitive) with the measure of skill than just competitive matches. The issue is that you want as much data as possible and, currently, there are only dozens of competitive matches played compared to the hundreds to thousands of pub matches.
<!--quoteo(post=1940346:date=May 31 2012, 02:47 AM:name=TimMc)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TimMc @ May 31 2012, 02:47 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1940346"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->These are all symmetrical. In asymmetrical games like Starcraft, they need to balance off statistics.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
starcraft isn't fully asymmetric, and the core mechanics are balanced with very rigid and simple math
<!--quoteo(post=1940391:date=May 31 2012, 09:49 PM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ May 31 2012, 09:49 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1940391"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's very difficult to tell about the overall balance beside obvious things. Statistics can lie. A few builds ago, where the skulk-CC-rush happened to create many 2-5 minute games, the statistic would say that the aliens are overpowered. But beside this one tactic the marines was in favor at this time. They only needed to survive the first rushes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Getting a bit off topic but I wanted to let you guys know we collect data detailed enough to show things like this. We can break down by time to win, units used, by map, by spawn, and a whole bunch more.
Again, this is really off topic - But hopefully that gives you some comfort over what kind of picture we have of the game balance :)
<!--quoteo(post=1940706:date=May 31 2012, 10:20 PM:name=Strayan (NS2HD))--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Strayan (NS2HD) @ May 31 2012, 10:20 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1940706"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Getting a bit off topic but I wanted to let you guys know we collect data detailed enough to show things like this. We can break down by time to win, units used, by map, by spawn, and a whole bunch more.
Again, this is really off topic - But hopefully that gives you some comfort over what kind of picture we have of the game balance :)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Any plans to publish the data? (or am I just not seeing it somewhere?)
In TF2, for instance, a lot of good suggestions, maps etc came out of players studying the statistics collected by Valve.
It feels to me that Aliens have a higher chance of making a comeback from a losing position than marines. That is the biggest problem for me. When playing Aliens, and the marines have a big map control, the aliens can defend their hives, and slowly do hit and run on res nodes. Eventually the aliens will be able to go onos, and can take out some of the advance marine posts. The onos is not really limited by the tech of the aliens, where a marine is very limited in what the commander has researched.
What I liked about NS1 was the games that went on for a long time, and where one team could sneak up a CC in a vent somewhere, or put up a new hive, and do a comeback by playing smart. It seems that the aliens can still play smart, and evade the marines, while setting up a new area. But the marines doesn't feel like they can do something to make a comback to an alien team dominating the map.
<!--quoteo(post=1940747:date=Jun 1 2012, 10:28 AM:name=Grimfang)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Grimfang @ Jun 1 2012, 10:28 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1940747"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It feels to me that Aliens have a higher chance of making a comeback from a losing position than marines. That is the biggest problem for me. When playing Aliens, and the marines have a big map control, the aliens can defend their hives, and slowly do hit and run on res nodes. Eventually the aliens will be able to go onos, and can take out some of the advance marine posts. The onos is not really limited by the tech of the aliens, where a marine is very limited in what the commander has researched<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is absolutely not true. It is the exact opposite of this actually. Marines can hold out longer and make a comeback with tougher tech. I have yet to see a 209 game where aliens held out and then just pushed marines. Even before 209 that was rarely seen. The onos is not an effective counter measure against jetpackers. I think this is one of the times where one should consider the experience of the player, as i am almost sure senior players will agree with me. Correct me if im wrong.
<!--quoteo(post=1941073:date=Jun 2 2012, 09:38 AM:name=countbasie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (countbasie @ Jun 2 2012, 09:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941073"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->3 good Onoses and the game is over, as far as I experience it. Just like in NS1 with JP HMG when Aliens had no SCs for Focus Fades.
Exos will change that. Aliens are actually pretty weak. Bad Hitreg vs Skulks, Fades and Lerks and no Marine tier 3 gun vs Onoses is the only problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes I think once exosuits are in, aliens will start to constantly lose once the tech is researched unless their team is extremely competent. Games currently become a bit of a struggle once marines get GLs and jetpacks, since a single marine constantly going on suicide missions can steadily kill a hive. Shift hive has helped with this alot.
Early game though, it always seems aliens are on the stronger legs.
<!--quoteo(post=1940347:date=May 30 2012, 11:49 PM:name=Papayas)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Papayas @ May 30 2012, 11:49 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1940347"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->No. Marines don't need infestation Kharaa do. Marines have better map control they just need to LISTEN TO THE COMMANDER! <-- True story.
Edit: Rushing Jetpack is a pretty good tactic, in a game I played we did that and we won because it was still early and they were trying to rush Onos. However, they wasted their PRes on Lerks to take care of us. We just need people on Marines to understand simple tactics and stop going Rambo (1 Rambo is good for Resource Towers though). Marines should understand that alone they are most likely dead, sticking as a team and they should survive (If they can move their crosshair onto a target and left click). It is not like the Kharaa do not work as a team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Aliens have better map control because they can easily get to any part of the map very fast. Marines may be able to set up in any room and not be connected to the main base, but are slow to defend their rt's. So aliens can control the map better only because of speed. That changes when phase gates, if the marines get phase gates.
<!--quoteo(post=1940747:date=Jun 1 2012, 01:28 AM:name=Grimfang)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Grimfang @ Jun 1 2012, 01:28 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1940747"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It feels to me that Aliens have a higher chance of making a comeback from a losing position than marines. That is the biggest problem for me. When playing Aliens, and the marines have a big map control, the aliens can defend their hives, and slowly do hit and run on res nodes. Eventually the aliens will be able to go onos, and can take out some of the advance marine posts. The onos is not really limited by the tech of the aliens, where a marine is very limited in what the commander has researched.
What I liked about NS1 was the games that went on for a long time, and where one team could sneak up a CC in a vent somewhere, or put up a new hive, and do a comeback by playing smart. It seems that the aliens can still play smart, and evade the marines, while setting up a new area. But the marines doesn't feel like they can do something to make a comback to an alien team dominating the map.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Thank you. I am enjoying this discussion. I did not mean for this to be another balance discussion but about how come backs are near impossible. The game is usually decided in 5-10 minutes.
<!--quoteo(post=1941073:date=Jun 2 2012, 07:38 AM:name=countbasie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (countbasie @ Jun 2 2012, 07:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941073"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->3 good Onoses and the game is over, as far as I experience it. Just like in NS1 with JP HMG when Aliens had no SCs for Focus Fades.
Exos will change that. Aliens are actually pretty weak. Bad Hitreg vs Skulks, Fades and Lerks and no Marine tier 3 gun vs Onoses is the only problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This is why I did not mean to discuss balance. It is because the game doesn't have everything to be balanced with yet. Whatever is done now will have to be changed when exos come in.
Comments
a) Millions of players
b) Tiered skill brackets (silver, gold, grandmasters, etc)
c) 1player vs 1 player, presumably always trying to win
d) only ranked games are used
NS2:
a) Much smaller community (few hundred or thousand of players)
b) No tiered skill brackets, thus grand masters play against bronze heroes all day long
c) TEAM vs TEAM. This leads to player number imbalances, and skill imbalances where players choose their own team
d) no rankings, all games (even practice games) are used
Now let's say I'm queuing up with 3 of my friends and we're all grandmaster NS2 players. First game we queue up Marines. We win. Then we queue up Aliens. We win. Then we queue up Marines. We win. Then we queue up Aliens. We win.
Here you'll see a 50% win rate but in no way does that show the game is balanced. It says nothing about game balance. Even in pubs without groups of friends, you'll tend to see players stick together when they win. Not always, but frequently. And this is why balancing on statistics in a team based game without forced matching and skill brackets is a poor idea. The statistics are good to have on hand, but balance needs to be done at the levels where the inputs are as close to even as possible. I.E. The statistics of gathers, scrims, and matches should be used. Pub play will follow.
The same counts for late-game-advantage of aliens in 208.
To close this: The statistics can help to see that there is something wrong. But don't take them as overall indicator. In reality it may only be one little thing that is broken and beside this the overall balance may be completely different to the statistics.
The winrate depends on a large number of parameters : skulk health, res influx, lmg damage, tech cost, etc.
Taken alone almost every one of this parameters allows to get a 50% winrate. The reason why this is true is the following. Take the lmg damage as an example. Put it to zero, the marine winrate drop to zero. Put it to infinity (one shot everything), the marine winrate goes to 100%. By a continuity assumption there is a lmg damage value where the winrate is 50% (it cannot go from 0 to 100 without passing by 50).
The same is true for almost every other parameter. What this means is that saying "parameter X is responsible for the non-50% winrate" is meaningless since it is trivially true for any parameter.
I don't go into combination of parameters (e.g. for two parameters there is probably a curve of 50% winrate, for three a surface, etc.) but the problem become even more degenerated.
So, what we need right know is more, clearly stated, balance criteria, in addition to the 50% winrate.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is why balance discussions are often in danger of fixing the wrong problems. If 99 factors are in favour of aliens but marines have 1 factor that produces something close to 50/50 results, it means very little to call the game balanced.
It can be done as long as you have a measure of skill included with the win stats. I'm a fan of using score (with some updates) as it gets pretty close to consistently putting who I consider to be the best players in a match at the top of the scoreboard. However, if we wanted to do it properly, we'd probably want to go with something like SC2's matchmaking rating or a modified version of the ELO ranking system for individual players.
Also, at this stage it would be better to use all games (pubs + competitive) with the measure of skill than just competitive matches. The issue is that you want as much data as possible and, currently, there are only dozens of competitive matches played compared to the hundreds to thousands of pub matches.
starcraft isn't fully asymmetric, and the core mechanics are balanced with very rigid and simple math
ns2 is/should be the same way
Getting a bit off topic but I wanted to let you guys know we collect data detailed enough to show things like this. We can break down by time to win, units used, by map, by spawn, and a whole bunch more.
Again, this is really off topic - But hopefully that gives you some comfort over what kind of picture we have of the game balance :)
Again, this is really off topic - But hopefully that gives you some comfort over what kind of picture we have of the game balance :)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Any plans to publish the data? (or am I just not seeing it somewhere?)
In TF2, for instance, a lot of good suggestions, maps etc came out of players studying the statistics collected by Valve.
What I liked about NS1 was the games that went on for a long time, and where one team could sneak up a CC in a vent somewhere, or put up a new hive, and do a comeback by playing smart. It seems that the aliens can still play smart, and evade the marines, while setting up a new area. But the marines doesn't feel like they can do something to make a comback to an alien team dominating the map.
This is absolutely not true. It is the exact opposite of this actually. Marines can hold out longer and make a comeback with tougher tech. I have yet to see a 209 game where aliens held out and then just pushed marines. Even before 209 that was rarely seen. The onos is not an effective counter measure against jetpackers. I think this is one of the times where one should consider the experience of the player, as i am almost sure senior players will agree with me. Correct me if im wrong.
Just like in NS1 with JP HMG when Aliens had no SCs for Focus Fades.
Exos will change that. Aliens are actually pretty weak. Bad Hitreg vs Skulks, Fades and Lerks and no Marine tier 3 gun vs Onoses is the only problem.
Just like in NS1 with JP HMG when Aliens had no SCs for Focus Fades.
Exos will change that. Aliens are actually pretty weak. Bad Hitreg vs Skulks, Fades and Lerks and no Marine tier 3 gun vs Onoses is the only problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes I think once exosuits are in, aliens will start to constantly lose once the tech is researched unless their team is extremely competent. Games currently become a bit of a struggle once marines get GLs and jetpacks, since a single marine constantly going on suicide missions can steadily kill a hive. Shift hive has helped with this alot.
Early game though, it always seems aliens are on the stronger legs.
Edit: Rushing Jetpack is a pretty good tactic, in a game I played we did that and we won because it was still early and they were trying to rush Onos. However, they wasted their PRes on Lerks to take care of us. We just need people on Marines to understand simple tactics and stop going Rambo (1 Rambo is good for Resource Towers though). Marines should understand that alone they are most likely dead, sticking as a team and they should survive (If they can move their crosshair onto a target and left click). It is not like the Kharaa do not work as a team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Aliens have better map control because they can easily get to any part of the map very fast. Marines may be able to set up in any room and not be connected to the main base, but are slow to defend their rt's. So aliens can control the map better only because of speed. That changes when phase gates, if the marines get phase gates.
<!--quoteo(post=1940747:date=Jun 1 2012, 01:28 AM:name=Grimfang)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Grimfang @ Jun 1 2012, 01:28 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1940747"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It feels to me that Aliens have a higher chance of making a comeback from a losing position than marines. That is the biggest problem for me. When playing Aliens, and the marines have a big map control, the aliens can defend their hives, and slowly do hit and run on res nodes. Eventually the aliens will be able to go onos, and can take out some of the advance marine posts. The onos is not really limited by the tech of the aliens, where a marine is very limited in what the commander has researched.
What I liked about NS1 was the games that went on for a long time, and where one team could sneak up a CC in a vent somewhere, or put up a new hive, and do a comeback by playing smart. It seems that the aliens can still play smart, and evade the marines, while setting up a new area. But the marines doesn't feel like they can do something to make a comback to an alien team dominating the map.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thank you. I am enjoying this discussion. I did not mean for this to be another balance discussion but about how come backs are near impossible. The game is usually decided in 5-10 minutes.
Just like in NS1 with JP HMG when Aliens had no SCs for Focus Fades.
Exos will change that. Aliens are actually pretty weak. Bad Hitreg vs Skulks, Fades and Lerks and no Marine tier 3 gun vs Onoses is the only problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is why I did not mean to discuss balance. It is because the game doesn't have everything to be balanced with yet. Whatever is done now will have to be changed when exos come in.
Fixed.