You mean similar to how they destroyed skulk gameplay currently? I'm sure we'll see better balance figures, but it's quite a problem that the most basic alien lifeform, the one you usually spend the longest time playing, is in such a dire condition. This is why you don't balance with a sledgehammer, you simply end up going from one extreme to the other, when often just small adjustments can go a long way. (Just look at how they destroyed sentry guns)
There is even more of a problem with that Yuuki. Changing the LMG-Damage AND the Skulk-Damage not only can compensate for each other. But even WHEN a change is applied and in what order to other changes can lead to completely different outcomes. Because humans adapt to new situations. For example changing the onos to be viable again, will have more of an effect if the fade is nerfed in the same patch. Because people will simply skip fade. This goes this far, that setting the LMG-damage to 0 will not lead to 0% win chance for marines. Because they simply will adapt and the standard-first-upgrade will always be the Shotgun, leading to a 5% win rate in the end. That is also why the devs stated, that many values seem to not change the alien/marine-winrate. It is just a very complex topic.
€dit: Oh, and this!: <!--quoteo(post=1980710:date=Sep 20 2012, 02:19 PM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Sep 20 2012, 02:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1980710"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If LMG damage was simply increased to the point where 50/50 balance was acquired, I think a lot of skulks would be having a pretty boring time.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1980711:date=Sep 20 2012, 02:21 PM:name=Xarius)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Xarius @ Sep 20 2012, 02:21 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1980711"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You mean similar to how they destroyed skulk gameplay currently? I'm sure we'll see better balance figures, but it's quite a problem that the most basic alien lifeform, the one you usually spend the longest time playing, is in such a dire condition. This is why you don't balance with a sledgehammer, you simply end up going from one extreme to the other, when often just small adjustments can go a long way. (Just look at how they destroyed sentry guns)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
One problem can result as a consequence of people's inability to perceive minor changes, as opposed to easily perceiving, or even over perceiving major changes. For example, say that the game was in a state where 50/50 balance had been established between light marines and skulks, but the developers found it to flat and one dimensional. If they were then to moderately reduce the power of the skulk, and in turn distribute that power into multiple other aspects such as cyst health, infestation spread rate, resource tower growth rate, gorge heal rate, etc etc etc, people would generally feel that the skulk had been completely over-nerfed and that the game was now broken.
swalkSay hello to my little friend.Join Date: 2011-01-20Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
edited September 2012
<!--quoteo(post=1978672:date=Sep 16 2012, 11:40 PM:name=RobustPenguin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RobustPenguin @ Sep 16 2012, 11:40 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1978672"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I disagree with the statement that just because it has a 50/50 winloss ratio its balanced, things are generally less clear cut than that. Ill use an example of a game I used to play called allegiance, one of the races in that was called the gaataaran, if the game was less than 5v5 they won every time. Any more and they lost, because the community at the time was quite small (the game was intented to be run in very large scale, 20v20 etc) it took alot of time to get servers up and running so looking at their stats the GT had pretty much 50/50 win loss inspite of the fact they were terrible in the actual game. This is what calls me to question the usefulness of looking at this number in exclusion of everything else.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes, this is true. Win/loss ratio is almost irrelevant when looking at the game's balance. Especially publics where playercounts are changing, and players often have a very high difference in skill. Instead of the devs checking the win/loss ratio, they should ask some competetive players from the better clans. As they have a good understanding about the game, and can probably come up with great solutions to some of problems. And maybe point them out in recorded games. I don't know how many times that could have been a major time saver for UWE, but it's probably ALOT of hours of rebalancing. Also, this close to release, they should not just make the game look good. They should most importantly make it play well.
Just as an interesting side track of modern game balancing:
I think Starcraft 2 is way more balanced than Brood War, probably both percentually and especially when it comes to money and effort put to balancing. Still, it's very rare to see people complaining about balance of BW whereas in SC2 the balance complaints are everywhere and on all levels.
The main reason is because of how merciless, brutal and challenging Brood War is even professional level. There's always a plenty of things you can do better. When you get beaten, it might be that your opponent didn't really outplay you, but nevertheless you could've done a million things different or better.
In SC2 the same elements exists of course, but the standard level of execution is much easier and the margins of winning and losing are way smaller. There's much less you can improve in many situations. As a result even small changes cause that a big number of players suddenly shift in power big time.
A pretty good example of how BW allows to defy the imbalance is Savior's play in 2007 or so. Teamliquid has a <a href="http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=226236" target="_blank">wonderful article</a> about it. The telling stat about the article is how Savior went 87% winrate in maps where the rest of the zergs went 25% on a decent sample size. The zerg was clearly struggling, but the monstrous dominance by Savior made the imbalance seem much more tolerable.
---
I guess what that contributes to the topic at hand is that it's not always so much about how much you lose, but how those losses feel and seem. Even a small imbalances become difficult to accept when you feel your possibilities to improve aren't sufficient and you're stuck ironing out minimal flaws to improve your performance. It's very important that the players feel they could've played considerably better and different and been able to overcome the odds.
Modern games often like to keep everyone close to the same level and keep the basic level of execution extremely easy and accessible. While there's nothing fundamentally wrong in the idea (not at least when the whole market isn't doing it), it has to be aknowledged that such approach forces extra time and effort put into balancing and maintaining the balance of the game.
<!--quoteo(post=1980731:date=Sep 20 2012, 04:06 PM:name=swalk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (swalk @ Sep 20 2012, 04:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1980731"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Instead of the devs checking the win/loss ratio, they should ask some competetive players from the better clans. As they have a good understanding about the game, and can probably come up with great solutions to some of problems, and point them out in recorded games. I don't know how many times that could have been a major time saver for UWE, but it's probably ALOT of hours of rebalancing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, what he said!
Of course the game balance needs to take into account the public play as well, but the clans are the ones pushing the game to the limits and the ones that spend hours upon hours honing strategies and finding weaknesses to exploit. One would think that the commanders and strategy wizards of the top clans are probably some of the ones with best knowledge of these things right now. Their role in their skilled clans relies on this!
Now, I'm not a playtester so I don't know how well that is working out, and I don't know how much information UWE can glean from watching casts of competitive games. Maybe these are enough for getting a good view of the competitive world, maybe not. I remember there being several different initiatives for player-driven balance councils etc. I guess those didn't work out either?
<!--quoteo(post=1980731:date=Sep 20 2012, 03:06 PM:name=swalk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (swalk @ Sep 20 2012, 03:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1980731"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yes, this is true. Win/loss ratio is almost irrelevant when looking at the game's balance. Especially publics where playercounts are changing, and players often have a very high difference in skill. Instead of the devs checking the win/loss ratio, they should ask some competetive players from the better clans. As they have a good understanding about the game, and can probably come up with great solutions to some of problems. And maybe point them out in recorded games. I don't know how many times that could have been a major time saver for UWE, but it's probably ALOT of hours of rebalancing. Also, this close to release, they should not just make the game look good. They should most importantly make it play well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Completely wrong. Case in point: do you think professional game designers are also professional gamers? No, in fact usually the opposite, because game design are occupied with ->designing games<- . When you do something a lot, you get good at it. Playing games makes you good at games, it doesn't make you good at designing games. Furthermore competive players are not stereotypically the people who play the game the most. This may sometimes be the case, but it is certainly not a prerequisite. In a game like NS2, in order to be competitive all you really need is good aim. A professional COD player could quite quickly become a pro NS player without much problem. Does his pro aim give him some otherworldly wisdom in all that is natural selection? Of course not.
You know who they should consult with regards to design and balance? Proffesional designers and balancers.
swalkSay hello to my little friend.Join Date: 2011-01-20Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
edited September 2012
<!--quoteo(post=1980736:date=Sep 20 2012, 03:16 PM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Sep 20 2012, 03:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1980736"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Completely wrong. Case in point: do you think professional game designers are also professional gamers? No, in fact usually the opposite, because game design are occupied with ->designing games<- . When you do something a lot, you get good at it. Playing games makes you good at games, it doesn't make you good at designing games. Furthermore competive players are not stereotypically the people who play the game the most. This may sometimes be the case, but it is certainly not a prerequisite. In a game like NS2, in order to be competitive all you really need is good aim. A professional COD player could quite quickly become a pro NS player without much problem. Does his pro aim give him some otherworldly wisdom in all that is natural selection? Of course not.
You know who they should consult with regards to design and balance? Proffesional designers and balancers.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Where did I imply that UWE are playing alot of NS2? We all know they barely play it. You are wrong. The best clans of NS2 can easily provide UWE with the information they need. Why would they waste money on paying people for advice, when they got what they need right at their fingertips?
<!--quoteo(post=1980736:date=Sep 20 2012, 02:16 PM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Sep 20 2012, 02:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1980736"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Completely wrong. Case in point: do you think professional game designers are also professional gamers? No, in fact usually the opposite, because game design are occupied with ->designing games<- . When you do something a lot, you get good at it. Playing games makes you good at games, it doesn't make you good at designing games.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> The top tier gamers don't necessarily have the ability to balance the game. Meanwhile they do have valuable information. The devs are supposed to extract that information and then use it to make the game balanced.
For example lifeform ABC causes problems in pub at moment XYZ. The devs ask a top tier gamer how he deals with such situation. After the discussion the devs have tons of good information on the interactions and such. They can use that information to adjust the lifeform or its interactions in any possible way they can think, it doesn't necessarily have to do anything with the way the top tier gamer thinks the game should be adjusted. Meanwhile the information provided by the top tier player is absolutely essential for the devs when making a good well educated decision on how they choose to solve the problem.
I don't know why everybody thinks the top tier gamer decides what goes into the game if devs end up talking to him. The devs always have the power and responsibility over what goes into the game. Meanwhile top tier player has huge amounts of extremely valuable information and understanding that allows the devs to make whatever decision suits the ideal of the game.
fmponeJoin Date: 2011-07-05Member: 108086Members, Squad Five Blue
As much as I'm impressed by the polish in the Ns2 stats site, it would need access to the internal statistics to be a viable tool. Right now the stats site measures a literal fraction of games included in the internal stats, which measures every game (perhaps including some metrics of measurement I wouldn't know about). I think it's about 1/6th the number of games right.
So, unfortunately the NS2 stats .org statistics tend to be completely unusable from a practical standpoint, and misleading.
<!--quoteo(post=1980731:date=Sep 20 2012, 02:06 PM:name=swalk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (swalk @ Sep 20 2012, 02:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1980731"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Instead of the devs checking the win/loss ratio, they should ask some competetive players from the better clans. As they have a good understanding about the game, and can probably come up with great solutions to some of problems. And maybe point them out in recorded games. I don't know how many times that could have been a major time saver for UWE, but it's probably ALOT of hours of rebalancing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Was thinking about that the other day while playing fade "hum, this fade blink feels a bit similar to the blink mod competitive players were using one year ago, except the energy values are a bit off".
I think better than asking competitive players would be to actually play the game themselves for a significant period of time. The number of competitive players that currently play ns2 are pretty small and really could be anyone. Should UWE listen to people just because they formed a team and won a few matches? I don't think so. I do believe a lot of the competitive players tend to be on the same page but some of them have wacky ideas and sometimes they disagree with each other about fundamental things. Ultimately you need someone who is calling the shots to make sure the game has a direction and a vision that it is heading towards.
What I don't understand is how it seems like Charlie and most of the other devs at UWE don't really play multiplayer fps games. I don't understand why you would choose to make that genre of game if you aren't really into it yourself. I can understand artists and programmers not being experts but I would have thought that the game designer would be someone who loves the genre and plays those types of games often. I think that's why many players who play ns2 for hundreds of hours get frustrated because it seems like the decisions are being made by someone who doesn't see the game the same way they do.
I don't know how often Charlie or the other devs play ns2, but I think it would really help the game development if they spent a significant period of time just playing (probably using a fake nick) just to really get a feel for the game. I think many things you just get a feel for after playing for many hours.
I don't think 50/50 balance is very important, especially over every single game of ns2 that is played. I think it would be a much more relevant statistic if you looked at only competitive teams (as those are the ones performing the mechanics the most optimally) to see if there was any team bias. Although the sample size is extremely small right now.
I think what is much more important for balance than 50/50 is individual mechanics within the game. For example "Does feign death feel fair?", you could very well have 50/50 balance between teams with many frustrating mechanics and perceived unfairness. That is not something you are going to be able to see from stats though. You need to play the game.
The most recent change to the skulk bite is a good example of why I don't understand UWE design decision in many cases. I do not know what "skulk domination" they are talking about, but I never seen that. In fact, it is extremely difficult to even get close to a good marine. Looking at the best players in ns2 it is clear that marines have a higher skill celling. Even when you play the skulk at optimal performance, the marine can still out play you. Nerfing the skulk bite has just lowered the skill floor of the skulk without affecting the skill celling. It has just made it more difficult to play the skulk optimally, but not made playing it optimally any more effective that it was previously.
I also don't understand why the bite radius is becoming narrower and shorter all the time. I would have expected that aiming the skulk bite should be a relatively easy task and that closing the distance to the marine is the difficult part. Even with the skulk bite as it was in 219 I felt like it was inconsistent and it was risky to engage a marine even if his back was turned to you, as often you could miss bites just slightly left or right. They are making it so that you need to aim the skulk bite accurately but also it has no range since it is a melee weapon.
IMO the only way that could work is if they reduced the number of bites it takes to kill a marine or something else to make playing the skulk optimally (landing all the bites accuratley) more powerful (i.e. raise the skill celling). I don't think that is what should be done though, but it is just an example of what it would take to justify those changes. IMO it makes much more sense to make the skulk bite reliable at close range but make closing the distance (and avoiding bullets) the skill based mechanic.
As usual though there is no communication for why they made this change, just a "it was needed". I have lost hope in ns2 now and I just hope that some of the modders out there can develop a game that is actually interesting and fun for me.
<!--quoteo(post=1980748:date=Sep 20 2012, 01:47 PM:name=fmpone)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fmpone @ Sep 20 2012, 01:47 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1980748"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As much as I'm impressed by the polish in the Ns2 stats site, it would need access to the internal statistics to be a viable tool. Right now the stats site measures a literal fraction of games included in the internal stats, which measures every game (perhaps including some metrics of measurement I wouldn't know about). I think it's about 1/6th the number of games right.
So, unfortunately the NS2 stats .org statistics tend to be completely unusable from a practical standpoint, and misleading.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Part of the reason why I've been pretty eager to request a HLTV like system is that you can actually upload a demo for everyone and tell them "Here, this is the pattern that keeps happening, this is a good example game of that." After that you can kind of relate it to statistics and start connecting patterns ingame and in statistics.
Even as a NS1 competetive commander it was sometimes extremely hard to recognize the chain of events that lead to certain outcome. You're playing one of the 12 characters that constantly interact with the game according to their own capabilities and ideas. Without some kind of ability to pause and re-examine the situation from different angle you're only catching small glimpses of the big picture. In public games the random occurrences and factors go totally out of proportions and become impossible to examnie from one viewpoint.
That's why you want to have a HLTV tool in a game like NS.
<!--quoteo(post=1980756:date=Sep 20 2012, 02:12 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Sep 20 2012, 02:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1980756"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think better than asking competitive players would be to actually play the game themselves for a significant period of time. The number of competitive players that currently play ns2 are pretty small and really could be anyone. Should UWE listen to people just because they formed a team and won a few matches? I don't think so. I do believe a lot of the competitive players tend to be on the same page but some of them have wacky ideas and sometimes they disagree with each other about fundamental things. Ultimately you need someone who is calling the shots to make sure the game has a direction and a vision that it is heading towards.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I don't think it's almost ever a bad idea to go and have a talk with various people from the community. The way some person new to comp play thinks could have some absolutely wonderful and beneficial things in it. However, obviously with limited time and need for hard facts you go for a seasoned top tier player. What matters is that the devs recognize what they need at the specific moment, recognize the person who has the necessary information, understanding and experience and ask him the right questions. At some point it might be a guy who has just won his first PCW ever or some guy who is still bottom of the pub games after 3 years of playing.
Nevertheless when you want raw understanding of the mechanics for balancing purposes for example, I think you're better off by talking to a seasoned top tier veteran. That's probably what is needed right now.
Information can be garnered from anyone, the notion that they should talk to "competitive" players is laughable. Here are some questions to think of: Whose advice/information do you value most: Competitive player A, or pub player B with double the play time of player A. Whose advice/information do you value most: Player A with X hours in competitive matches, or player B with the same number of hours in pub games, keeping in mind that "competitive" play will compose less than 1% of total playtime between all players.
Tell me why you would especially care what a competitive player has to say? Do you go to David Beckham to hear about the inner workings of aerodynamics and spinning balls? Do they manufacture Adidas trainers for Hussein Bolt which deform at >10m/s and then try sell them to Joe Soap? The information one can garner from people who actually play games is constant across all players, and largely negligible.
Why would you pay someone for advice? If you can make money off something, especially something like giving advice, then you're probably going to be good at it. Always be weary of people offering free advice.
Seasoned top tier players have two things going for them.
1) They've played the game a lot. They have picked apart the mechanics. They know about the flow and feel and viable strategies. And often these will trickle down to the rest of the community, making broken strategies ubiquitious. 2) They have a wealth of underlying game and balance knowledge. Sirlin pointed this out when talking about asking pros for help balancing. You build an intuition of what is balanced and what isn't over time playing multiple games. You can get a feeling of when you're behind and need to make a crazy gamble. You start to intuitively look at the changelog and realize where the tweaks happeend and what they change.
True, you shouldn't rely on them for everything. They obviously have the skils to fully exploit the skill cap. But not only are they the ones trying to intentionally break the game open over their knees, they are often the ones who know WHY the game is broken and can help focus development on those aspects.
<!--quoteo(post=1980770:date=Sep 20 2012, 04:44 PM:name=spellman23)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (spellman23 @ Sep 20 2012, 04:44 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1980770"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->True, you shouldn't rely on them for everything. They obviously have the skils to fully exploit the skill cap. But not only are they the ones trying to intentionally break the game open over their knees, they are often the ones who know WHY the game is broken and can help focus development on those aspects.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Once again, you are making the mistake of thinking that people who play games are somehow knowledgeable technically. Michael Schumacher is one hell of a driver, thought I doubt he is much of an engineer.
No doubt that gamers can do the things you said, but wow, did you make it sound more complicated and intelligent than it actually is. Here's the bottom line: in almost all games, there is a "physical" skill which is required to truly be good. In FPS, its aim, in RTS, it can be RPM or it can be ability to multi task (typically both), in RPGs its.... hell I don't know, perseverance? These are the things that make competitive players competitive. If a competitive player is superior to a normal player in some way, 90% of that superiority lies in these "physical" skills. Skills which have absolutely <b>nothing </b>to do with the game that they are playing. There are some pretty robotic 13 year olds who can aim ###### well, you better hope they don't learn the ins and outs of NS2, otherwise they will be the ones dictating the future of this game apparently.
<!--quoteo(post=1980774:date=Sep 20 2012, 05:55 PM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Sep 20 2012, 05:55 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1980774"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Once again, you are making the mistake of thinking that people who play games are somehow knowledgeable technically. Michael Schumacher is one hell of a driver, thought I doubt he is much of an engineer.
No doubt that gamers can do the things you said, but wow, did you make it sound more complicated and intelligent than it actually is. Here's the bottom line: in almost all games, there is a "physical" skill which is required to truly be good. In FPS, its aim, in RTS, it can be RPM or it can be ability to multi task (typically both), in RPGs its.... hell I don't know, perseverance? These are the things that make competitive players competitive. If a competitive player is superior to a normal player in some way, 90% of that superiority lies in these "physical" skills. Skills which have absolutely <b>nothing </b>to do with the game that they are playing. There are some pretty robotic 13 year olds who can aim ###### well, you better hope they don't learn the ins and outs of NS2, otherwise they will be the ones dictating the future of this game apparently.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure, we competitive players who are always trying to improve our game, teamwork and tactics are only doing some repetitive mouse movements without understanding the game itself. Sure, since we only spend 40 hours a week playing the game, we do not know how for instance skulk nerfs make aliens early game suffer or how tying the blink and leap to second hive make the 2nd hive an important early game priority. Sure, as you seem to suggest, people who come in without playing the game will know a lot more than us, since they have a calling card and they take money for their efforts. (/sarcasm)
I don't think anybody in their right mind is suggesting that UWE just grab a random competitive player and change all according to that players whims. Also, I'm pretty sure there are some experienced professional game designers that are pretty good at balancing stuff. Your comments however seem purposefully disrespectful as always and show your lack of understanding for competitive gaming.
Comments
This goes this far, that setting the LMG-damage to 0 will not lead to 0% win chance for marines. Because they simply will adapt and the standard-first-upgrade will always be the Shotgun, leading to a 5% win rate in the end. That is also why the devs stated, that many values seem to not change the alien/marine-winrate. It is just a very complex topic.
€dit: Oh, and this!:
<!--quoteo(post=1980710:date=Sep 20 2012, 02:19 PM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Sep 20 2012, 02:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1980710"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If LMG damage was simply increased to the point where 50/50 balance was acquired, I think a lot of skulks would be having a pretty boring time.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
One problem can result as a consequence of people's inability to perceive minor changes, as opposed to easily perceiving, or even over perceiving major changes. For example, say that the game was in a state where 50/50 balance had been established between light marines and skulks, but the developers found it to flat and one dimensional. If they were then to moderately reduce the power of the skulk, and in turn distribute that power into multiple other aspects such as cyst health, infestation spread rate, resource tower growth rate, gorge heal rate, etc etc etc, people would generally feel that the skulk had been completely over-nerfed and that the game was now broken.
Yes, this is true. Win/loss ratio is almost irrelevant when looking at the game's balance.
Especially publics where playercounts are changing, and players often have a very high difference in skill.
Instead of the devs checking the win/loss ratio, they should ask some competetive players from the better clans.
As they have a good understanding about the game, and can probably come up with great solutions to some of problems. And maybe point them out in recorded games.
I don't know how many times that could have been a major time saver for UWE, but it's probably ALOT of hours of rebalancing.
Also, this close to release, they should not just make the game look good. They should most importantly make it play well.
I think Starcraft 2 is way more balanced than Brood War, probably both percentually and especially when it comes to money and effort put to balancing. Still, it's very rare to see people complaining about balance of BW whereas in SC2 the balance complaints are everywhere and on all levels.
The main reason is because of how merciless, brutal and challenging Brood War is even professional level. There's always a plenty of things you can do better. When you get beaten, it might be that your opponent didn't really outplay you, but nevertheless you could've done a million things different or better.
In SC2 the same elements exists of course, but the standard level of execution is much easier and the margins of winning and losing are way smaller. There's much less you can improve in many situations. As a result even small changes cause that a big number of players suddenly shift in power big time.
A pretty good example of how BW allows to defy the imbalance is Savior's play in 2007 or so. Teamliquid has a <a href="http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=226236" target="_blank">wonderful article</a> about it. The telling stat about the article is how Savior went 87% winrate in maps where the rest of the zergs went 25% on a decent sample size. The zerg was clearly struggling, but the monstrous dominance by Savior made the imbalance seem much more tolerable.
---
I guess what that contributes to the topic at hand is that it's not always so much about how much you lose, but how those losses feel and seem. Even a small imbalances become difficult to accept when you feel your possibilities to improve aren't sufficient and you're stuck ironing out minimal flaws to improve your performance. It's very important that the players feel they could've played considerably better and different and been able to overcome the odds.
Modern games often like to keep everyone close to the same level and keep the basic level of execution extremely easy and accessible. While there's nothing fundamentally wrong in the idea (not at least when the whole market isn't doing it), it has to be aknowledged that such approach forces extra time and effort put into balancing and maintaining the balance of the game.
As they have a good understanding about the game, and can probably come up with great solutions to some of problems, and point them out in recorded games.
I don't know how many times that could have been a major time saver for UWE, but it's probably ALOT of hours of rebalancing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, what he said!
Of course the game balance needs to take into account the public play as well, but the clans are the ones pushing the game to the limits and the ones that spend hours upon hours honing strategies and finding weaknesses to exploit. One would think that the commanders and strategy wizards of the top clans are probably some of the ones with best knowledge of these things right now. Their role in their skilled clans relies on this!
Now, I'm not a playtester so I don't know how well that is working out, and I don't know how much information UWE can glean from watching casts of competitive games. Maybe these are enough for getting a good view of the competitive world, maybe not.
I remember there being several different initiatives for player-driven balance councils etc. I guess those didn't work out either?
Especially publics where playercounts are changing, and players often have a very high difference in skill.
Instead of the devs checking the win/loss ratio, they should ask some competetive players from the better clans.
As they have a good understanding about the game, and can probably come up with great solutions to some of problems. And maybe point them out in recorded games.
I don't know how many times that could have been a major time saver for UWE, but it's probably ALOT of hours of rebalancing.
Also, this close to release, they should not just make the game look good. They should most importantly make it play well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Completely wrong.
Case in point: do you think professional game designers are also professional gamers? No, in fact usually the opposite, because game design are occupied with ->designing games<- . When you do something a lot, you get good at it. Playing games makes you good at games, it doesn't make you good at designing games. Furthermore competive players are not stereotypically the people who play the game the most. This may sometimes be the case, but it is certainly not a prerequisite. In a game like NS2, in order to be competitive all you really need is good aim. A professional COD player could quite quickly become a pro NS player without much problem. Does his pro aim give him some otherworldly wisdom in all that is natural selection? Of course not.
You know who they should consult with regards to design and balance? Proffesional designers and balancers.
Case in point: do you think professional game designers are also professional gamers? No, in fact usually the opposite, because game design are occupied with ->designing games<- . When you do something a lot, you get good at it. Playing games makes you good at games, it doesn't make you good at designing games. Furthermore competive players are not stereotypically the people who play the game the most. This may sometimes be the case, but it is certainly not a prerequisite. In a game like NS2, in order to be competitive all you really need is good aim. A professional COD player could quite quickly become a pro NS player without much problem. Does his pro aim give him some otherworldly wisdom in all that is natural selection? Of course not.
You know who they should consult with regards to design and balance? Proffesional designers and balancers.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Where did I imply that UWE are playing alot of NS2? We all know they barely play it.
You are wrong. The best clans of NS2 can easily provide UWE with the information they need.
Why would they waste money on paying people for advice, when they got what they need right at their fingertips?
Case in point: do you think professional game designers are also professional gamers? No, in fact usually the opposite, because game design are occupied with ->designing games<- . When you do something a lot, you get good at it. Playing games makes you good at games, it doesn't make you good at designing games.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The top tier gamers don't necessarily have the ability to balance the game. Meanwhile they do have valuable information. The devs are supposed to extract that information and then use it to make the game balanced.
For example lifeform ABC causes problems in pub at moment XYZ. The devs ask a top tier gamer how he deals with such situation. After the discussion the devs have tons of good information on the interactions and such. They can use that information to adjust the lifeform or its interactions in any possible way they can think, it doesn't necessarily have to do anything with the way the top tier gamer thinks the game should be adjusted. Meanwhile the information provided by the top tier player is absolutely essential for the devs when making a good well educated decision on how they choose to solve the problem.
I don't know why everybody thinks the top tier gamer decides what goes into the game if devs end up talking to him. The devs always have the power and responsibility over what goes into the game. Meanwhile top tier player has huge amounts of extremely valuable information and understanding that allows the devs to make whatever decision suits the ideal of the game.
So, unfortunately the NS2 stats .org statistics tend to be completely unusable from a practical standpoint, and misleading.
As they have a good understanding about the game, and can probably come up with great solutions to some of problems. And maybe point them out in recorded games.
I don't know how many times that could have been a major time saver for UWE, but it's probably ALOT of hours of rebalancing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Was thinking about that the other day while playing fade "hum, this fade blink feels a bit similar to the blink mod competitive players were using one year ago, except the energy values are a bit off".
What I don't understand is how it seems like Charlie and most of the other devs at UWE don't really play multiplayer fps games. I don't understand why you would choose to make that genre of game if you aren't really into it yourself. I can understand artists and programmers not being experts but I would have thought that the game designer would be someone who loves the genre and plays those types of games often. I think that's why many players who play ns2 for hundreds of hours get frustrated because it seems like the decisions are being made by someone who doesn't see the game the same way they do.
I don't know how often Charlie or the other devs play ns2, but I think it would really help the game development if they spent a significant period of time just playing (probably using a fake nick) just to really get a feel for the game. I think many things you just get a feel for after playing for many hours.
I don't think 50/50 balance is very important, especially over every single game of ns2 that is played. I think it would be a much more relevant statistic if you looked at only competitive teams (as those are the ones performing the mechanics the most optimally) to see if there was any team bias. Although the sample size is extremely small right now.
I think what is much more important for balance than 50/50 is individual mechanics within the game. For example "Does feign death feel fair?", you could very well have 50/50 balance between teams with many frustrating mechanics and perceived unfairness. That is not something you are going to be able to see from stats though. You need to play the game.
The most recent change to the skulk bite is a good example of why I don't understand UWE design decision in many cases. I do not know what "skulk domination" they are talking about, but I never seen that. In fact, it is extremely difficult to even get close to a good marine. Looking at the best players in ns2 it is clear that marines have a higher skill celling. Even when you play the skulk at optimal performance, the marine can still out play you. Nerfing the skulk bite has just lowered the skill floor of the skulk without affecting the skill celling. It has just made it more difficult to play the skulk optimally, but not made playing it optimally any more effective that it was previously.
I also don't understand why the bite radius is becoming narrower and shorter all the time. I would have expected that aiming the skulk bite should be a relatively easy task and that closing the distance to the marine is the difficult part. Even with the skulk bite as it was in 219 I felt like it was inconsistent and it was risky to engage a marine even if his back was turned to you, as often you could miss bites just slightly left or right. They are making it so that you need to aim the skulk bite accurately but also it has no range since it is a melee weapon.
IMO the only way that could work is if they reduced the number of bites it takes to kill a marine or something else to make playing the skulk optimally (landing all the bites accuratley) more powerful (i.e. raise the skill celling). I don't think that is what should be done though, but it is just an example of what it would take to justify those changes. IMO it makes much more sense to make the skulk bite reliable at close range but make closing the distance (and avoiding bullets) the skill based mechanic.
As usual though there is no communication for why they made this change, just a "it was needed". I have lost hope in ns2 now and I just hope that some of the modders out there can develop a game that is actually interesting and fun for me.
So, unfortunately the NS2 stats .org statistics tend to be completely unusable from a practical standpoint, and misleading.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Part of the reason why I've been pretty eager to request a HLTV like system is that you can actually upload a demo for everyone and tell them "Here, this is the pattern that keeps happening, this is a good example game of that." After that you can kind of relate it to statistics and start connecting patterns ingame and in statistics.
Even as a NS1 competetive commander it was sometimes extremely hard to recognize the chain of events that lead to certain outcome. You're playing one of the 12 characters that constantly interact with the game according to their own capabilities and ideas. Without some kind of ability to pause and re-examine the situation from different angle you're only catching small glimpses of the big picture. In public games the random occurrences and factors go totally out of proportions and become impossible to examnie from one viewpoint.
That's why you want to have a HLTV tool in a game like NS.
<!--quoteo(post=1980756:date=Sep 20 2012, 02:12 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Sep 20 2012, 02:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1980756"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think better than asking competitive players would be to actually play the game themselves for a significant period of time. The number of competitive players that currently play ns2 are pretty small and really could be anyone. Should UWE listen to people just because they formed a team and won a few matches? I don't think so. I do believe a lot of the competitive players tend to be on the same page but some of them have wacky ideas and sometimes they disagree with each other about fundamental things. Ultimately you need someone who is calling the shots to make sure the game has a direction and a vision that it is heading towards.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't think it's almost ever a bad idea to go and have a talk with various people from the community. The way some person new to comp play thinks could have some absolutely wonderful and beneficial things in it. However, obviously with limited time and need for hard facts you go for a seasoned top tier player. What matters is that the devs recognize what they need at the specific moment, recognize the person who has the necessary information, understanding and experience and ask him the right questions. At some point it might be a guy who has just won his first PCW ever or some guy who is still bottom of the pub games after 3 years of playing.
Nevertheless when you want raw understanding of the mechanics for balancing purposes for example, I think you're better off by talking to a seasoned top tier veteran. That's probably what is needed right now.
Here are some questions to think of: Whose advice/information do you value most: Competitive player A, or pub player B with double the play time of player A. Whose advice/information do you value most: Player A with X hours in competitive matches, or player B with the same number of hours in pub games, keeping in mind that "competitive" play will compose less than 1% of total playtime between all players.
Tell me why you would especially care what a competitive player has to say? Do you go to David Beckham to hear about the inner workings of aerodynamics and spinning balls? Do they manufacture Adidas trainers for Hussein Bolt which deform at >10m/s and then try sell them to Joe Soap? The information one can garner from people who actually play games is constant across all players, and largely negligible.
Why would you pay someone for advice? If you can make money off something, especially something like giving advice, then you're probably going to be good at it. Always be weary of people offering free advice.
1) They've played the game a lot. They have picked apart the mechanics. They know about the flow and feel and viable strategies. And often these will trickle down to the rest of the community, making broken strategies ubiquitious.
2) They have a wealth of underlying game and balance knowledge. Sirlin pointed this out when talking about asking pros for help balancing. You build an intuition of what is balanced and what isn't over time playing multiple games. You can get a feeling of when you're behind and need to make a crazy gamble. You start to intuitively look at the changelog and realize where the tweaks happeend and what they change.
True, you shouldn't rely on them for everything. They obviously have the skils to fully exploit the skill cap. But not only are they the ones trying to intentionally break the game open over their knees, they are often the ones who know WHY the game is broken and can help focus development on those aspects.
Once again, you are making the mistake of thinking that people who play games are somehow knowledgeable technically. Michael Schumacher is one hell of a driver, thought I doubt he is much of an engineer.
No doubt that gamers can do the things you said, but wow, did you make it sound more complicated and intelligent than it actually is.
Here's the bottom line: in almost all games, there is a "physical" skill which is required to truly be good. In FPS, its aim, in RTS, it can be RPM or it can be ability to multi task (typically both), in RPGs its.... hell I don't know, perseverance? These are the things that make competitive players competitive. If a competitive player is superior to a normal player in some way, 90% of that superiority lies in these "physical" skills. Skills which have absolutely <b>nothing </b>to do with the game that they are playing. There are some pretty robotic 13 year olds who can aim ###### well, you better hope they don't learn the ins and outs of NS2, otherwise they will be the ones dictating the future of this game apparently.
No doubt that gamers can do the things you said, but wow, did you make it sound more complicated and intelligent than it actually is.
Here's the bottom line: in almost all games, there is a "physical" skill which is required to truly be good. In FPS, its aim, in RTS, it can be RPM or it can be ability to multi task (typically both), in RPGs its.... hell I don't know, perseverance? These are the things that make competitive players competitive. If a competitive player is superior to a normal player in some way, 90% of that superiority lies in these "physical" skills. Skills which have absolutely <b>nothing </b>to do with the game that they are playing. There are some pretty robotic 13 year olds who can aim ###### well, you better hope they don't learn the ins and outs of NS2, otherwise they will be the ones dictating the future of this game apparently.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure, we competitive players who are always trying to improve our game, teamwork and tactics are only doing some repetitive mouse movements without understanding the game itself. Sure, since we only spend 40 hours a week playing the game, we do not know how for instance skulk nerfs make aliens early game suffer or how tying the blink and leap to second hive make the 2nd hive an important early game priority. Sure, as you seem to suggest, people who come in without playing the game will know a lot more than us, since they have a calling card and they take money for their efforts. (/sarcasm)
I don't think anybody in their right mind is suggesting that UWE just grab a random competitive player and change all according to that players whims. Also, I'm pretty sure there are some experienced professional game designers that are pretty good at balancing stuff. Your comments however seem purposefully disrespectful as always and show your lack of understanding for competitive gaming.
it would be nice if the devs could get hours played stats from steam and display it on the forums for all to see
example : 700 hours of total play and 5 hours for patch 220