Considering that flayra is launching a dev company with NS as the flagship title i doubt he's going to want to alienate 90% of his potential/existing fanbase.
Balancing a game is extremely hard process thanks to our best friend, the learning curve. The game shouldn't be balanced for brand new people but it also shouldn't be become balanced after you've spent the last year of your life playing it. It should be balanced for the average player on the average server.
As a pubber from the very beginning of NS i'd say on average your looking at about 60% of the players on a server actually having an understanding of a game and wanting to win the match. Sure there will be occasions where you'll find yourself entirely with a bunch of new people/idiots out to ruin it but they are a minority, IMO.
Ignoring the huge percentage of people who play on pub servers because they don't want to play 5 games a day, sit around and discuss tactics and live, sleep and breathe NS is just wrong on so many levels. It's so wrong i don't even know why it's wrong, it just is! It should be quite obvious why.
The thing with both clans and pubs is there are the freaking awesome, the good, the bad and the terrible, shouldn't actually be allowed near a computer. The skill divide apparent in pubs is apparent in clans. Just beacuse your in a clan doesn't make you better than everyone, doesn't make your opinion on the game any more valid and it doesn't give you magically skills. Sure there are some clans where you have to be the best of the best to get in and mad props to you but you're rare and at the same time there are pubbers out there who fit into the same category.
If the game should be balanced for anyone it should be for the majority of the users, the people who keep NS alive and the people EVERYONE started off as and thinking otherwise is incredibly selfish.
Well, enough of my off the mark rant. I'm pretty sure i've probably angered a few people with this convulated post what the hey, aye! Show a little love!
Calldown wrote: <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I think the real problem that's going to be encountered is how far down do you balance it?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->The bigger question is how far *UP* do you balance it?!?
Think about when you first played aliens on NS. Did you find it difficult? I'm not ashamed to say that I was completely taken aback when I first played NS since I felt like I was sliding across the floor because of the low skulk view. It was awkward and difficult to adjust to.
That, on it's own, is a significant aspect that players have a hard time adjusting to. However, we now have peole who suggest that we should make playing skulk that much more DIFFICULT by keeping skulk armor at the reduced levels, allowing knockback to stay in, forcing aliens to sit in long one hive spawn queues etc. In other words, join game and die repeatedly as skulk because clanners feel that this is balanced.
Just how much do people expect the 'average pubber' to take before they say 'screw this' and move on? I've had many people I introduced to NS (including many beta testers I know from other projects) quit playing because because they found that the balance wasn't there, but more importantly, things were being made HARDER for aliens.
Let's be honest, as much as it is fun to play marines, it is also nice to play aliens for a change.
The problem is that playing aliens just isn't fun anymore.
Aliens die too easily, have huge spawn queues, or face isues where they KNOW they will lose because the marines are just to overwhelming. The balance may be fine for clan games but it just isn't fun for the gaming public. I think that is the reason why so many people like playing combat. At least there they will have a chance at getting some kills in without feeling the game is pointless 5 minutes in or being forced to wait in a huge spawn queue. <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->There might be small changes you can do to adjust the game, but honestly, the core idea of NS is teamplay, and if you're going to balance it for the pubs, you'll lose that.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->I don't think so. Balance for pubs means that either team will have an equal chance to win, even in a situation where there is a minor to moderate skill imbalance. In other words, the game needs to be 'forgiving' in that a team shouldn't make a small mistake in the early game and have it mean that they are guaranteed a loss. It also means that they shouldn't have to play a game that they know they have lost but are FORCED to continue playing because the other team won't finish them off.
<b>These things are NO fun at all, but they happen all the time.</b>
We don't have to give up teamplay to balance the game for pubs. We had balance in early NS before clans came along, and it was often the clan members who picked up on certain tactical exploits. (which were later fixed - eg JP/HMG rush)
Public play should be the number one concern if we want NS to thrive in the large market. As much as clan play may have its fans, it's only a fraction of the pub play fanbase.
Damn, this thread had more support then I thought <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> *Bump*
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->We had balance in early NS before clans came along, and it was often the clan members who picked up on certain tactical exploits. (which were later fixed - eg JP/HMG rush)<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh please. It was anything but balanced.
1.04, just for the record, not only had absurdly large 2.01 hitboxes, but also had the low health values of 70/10. In 3.00 you no longer have huge hitboxes.
Just because the playtesters neglected to use the JP HMG attack, or *GASP* an LMG hive rush, does not mean the game was balanced, the competitive players not PTers found the flaws. I suppose those clanners fall into the category of "not playing the game properly" (that was my favorite one <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> ) because they "unbalanced" the so called "balanced" game.
Generally one can easily tell that savant never took a part in any sort of banacing/beta testing team. The whole "you must cater to the new players b balancing the game for them" idea is simply ridiculous - newbies evolve and change their tactics much faster then the game could keep up as their skill increases exponentially in the beginning. The only way to "balance" that would be to adjust personal damage to match the players experience - which is completely ridiculous. In general, pub play with both teams having roughtly equal skill can be divinded into four scenarios: 1. Both teams new: Aliens win 70/30 or so. Tactic is very constant - few rts dropped, slow crawl towards tech on both sides, eventually it's all about whether the onos will come before ha/hmg (and it's usually onos) after which the game is about how long the rines can hold those few rambo oni off (and with their lack of skill it's not possible) 2. Both teams skilled, team size <~6: likely alien win due to better resourse flow. 3. Both teams skilled, team size <~12: likely marine win due to slow alien resourse flow. 4. Both teams skilled, team size 6-12: extremally dependant on skill of the commander. If commander can get his team orginised, marines usually roll over the aliens like a freight train, if he can't, aliens slowly crawl towards having total map control and win the game (the most often seen scenario).
As you can see, the game is pretty well balanced - <b>both sides can win on any skill level</b>.
Generally if you're a game developer, you will want the dedicated people to be the ones testing, not the random "pubbers" who play couple of hours per week. Dedication is the key to the beta-testing, and I'm yet to see more then a handful of "pubbers" dedicated enough to actually be of any use in it. Generally if you want to have NS balanced by(for) pubbers, stop trying to make ready suggestions (these are worthless to the developers, who care little for <i>what</i> you want to change, they want to know <i>why and how you plan it will change the balance in the future</i>. And if you ever want to see a band of pubbers doing any testing for NS, I suggest you put together a plan on how you plan on maiking that sort of testing actually viable. I have quite a bit of experiece in beta-testing various games, and I can see no real way on how that would be possible, so I would be very interested in hearing the actual practical suggestions in place of all that random "you must cater to me" talk that has no real backing.
1) Flayra is putting up some playtest statistics system so he can get good win/loss ratios, including info from different skill ranges and team sizes.
2) It may be impossible to make clan and pub play identical, but the game can be tweaked so that they are more similar. Enforcing teamwork is one such way.
3) Pubbers care less about winning than clanners (statistically speaking). Both want to have fun - they just have different ways of having fun. If the game enforced teamwork in a "fun way", it would encourage these pubbers to help the team and still have fun doing it.
Lucky_ wrote: <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Generally one can easily tell that savant never took a part in any sort of banacing/beta testing team.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->Please note that personal attacks are not permitted in these forums. Please contact a moderator if you require clarification on this. I have no intent on lowering myself to your level by responding to this insult.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The whole "you must cater to the new players b balancing the game for them" idea is simply ridiculous - newbies evolve and change their tactics much faster then the game could keep up as their skill increases exponentially in the beginning. The only way to "balance" that would be to adjust personal damage to match the players experience - which is completely ridiculous.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->I never said you had to balance the game to only take new players into account, I said that the game should be able to be balanced even if new players are playing.
At any given time there will be new players playing the game. If you want the game to be balanced you have to take that into account. You can't just balance the game for those who are 'highly skilled' and then just expect the rest to learn while not providing them any incentive to stay in the game. A well balanced game WILL allow new players to integrate themselves into the game and learn while not upsetting game balance to any significant degree. <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Generally if you're a game developer, you will want the dedicated people to be the ones testing<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->Big developers normally want 'average people' to test their game since it is 'average people' who make up the majority of sales. At MS we don't balance multiplayer games for clans, we balance them for the public. Once that is done, we THEN look at issues that relate to clan play.
If you only use clanners to test a game then you should only expect clanners to play it. In that case you will alienate 90% of your fanbase for the sake of good clan balance and you will KILL THE MOD.
Don't believe me? Ask the developers of the FireArms mod. They made this very mistake and paid the ultimate price. The public community abandoned them, and now a check of the server list shows no more than a dozen servers with people on them at any given time.
You may want to see that happen to NS, but I don't.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Generally one can easily tell that savant never took a part in any sort of banacing/beta testing team.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Please note that personal attacks are not permitted in these forums. Please contact a moderator if you require clarification on this. I have no intent on lowering myself to your level by responding to this insult.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Feh.. let's just say that I'm sorry and move on - topic is much more interesting then discussing what is critisism and what is a personal insult. <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The whole "you must cater to the new players b balancing the game for them" idea is simply ridiculous - newbies evolve and change their tactics much faster then the game could keep up as their skill increases exponentially in the beginning. The only way to "balance" that would be to adjust personal damage to match the players experience - which is completely ridiculous.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I never said you had to balance the game to only take new players into account, I said that the game should be able to be balanced even if new players are playing.
At any given time there will be new players playing the game. If you want the game to be balanced you have to take that into account. You can't just balance the game for those who are 'highly skilled' and then just expect the rest to learn while not providing them any incentive to stay in the game. A well balanced game WILL allow new players to integrate themselves into the game and learn while not upsetting game balance to any significant degree.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Ah, the #1 problem for any game I've seen. If you figure out the solution on how to balance people (and that's what you're asking for here, not balance between teams but balance between people), you can make a doctorate on social studies easily. People are inherently different. One newbie pubber puts 2 hours a week into the game, of which 1:30 go into combat, other plays NS exclusively for 20 hours a week. Both have different approach, different play style, different skill and different preferences. <i>You cannot make game give them both equal chances - it is simply not possible</i>.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Generally if you're a game developer, you will want the dedicated people to be the ones testing<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Big developers normally want 'average people' to test their game since it is 'average people' who make up the majority of sales. At MS we don't balance multiplayer games for clans, we balance them for the public. Once that is done, we THEN look at issues that relate to clan play.
If you only use clanners to test a game then you should only expect clanners to play it. In that case you will alienate 90% of your fanbase for the sake of good clan balance and you will KILL THE MOD.
Don't believe me? Ask the developers of the FireArms mod. They made this very mistake and paid the ultimate price. The public community abandoned them, and now a check of the server list shows no more than a dozen servers with people on them at any given time.
You may want to see that happen to NS, but I don't.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Rather then look at death-match style mod that faded into obscurity because there were newer and better mods that offered everything that firearms did, only better, I'd like to offer you a comparison with a game that does feature strategic assymmetrical gameplay and has been out for many years - starcraft. Blizzard tried to "balance for average person" at a start. The idea was abandoned after it totally crashed and burned, as <b>experienced players started getting greatly annoyed at ease of winning with certain strategies</b>. This is why you'll always want experinced players to do the balance testing - they find the "easy ways out" much faster then non-experienced will, they understand the whole "spirit" of the game much better and generally you want to give newbies an incentive to evolve into experienced players. Balancing the game for new people kills games - that is a fact. You audience will simply reach a certain level, find the easy ways out and quit playing. If you balance the game for veterans, veterans can play competitively against eachother, and newbies get the reason to play the game more to become veterans. We've seen this with every single big asymmetrical strategy game so far - and I would suggest that comparison to an assymetrical strategy game is much more proper for NS then a comparison to death-match styled symmetrical FPS mod. Which is one of the inherent flaws in your logic.
Understand one more thing - average players will not want to play heavily team-based mod. Those that are alraedy here are the niche audience mostly - average player just wants CS-style deathmatch with light team elements. They want <i>personal gratification</i>. People who prefer <i>gratification of being a part of the group</i> are much more rare. If you begin "enforcing teamplay" (how?!), you will lose the majority of the fanbase, who are at the moment a cross-breed of CS and hardcore NS style. They like to have the freedom of their own, but generally don't mind following orders. Take away that freedom and you will lose them.
And one last thing - perhaps the best way to cater to the new players at the moment would not be any sort of balance change to the actual game - it's an addition of a good tutorial. Right all, all newbies can rely on is the word of the mouth and their own little play experience. This obiviously doens't encourage playing nor learning more - the learning curve gets far more steep. I would suggest getting a good manual/tutorial before even considering if any sort of changes for "pub play balance" are possible.
Funny isn't it. In the end we all want the same thing - to get more people attracted to the NS <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->. I suppose the only difference is that some of us don't want to see any more of the "omg, I want that freaking hmg now comm or I'll eject you" 2 min into the game- and "my resourse is mine so I'm just going to save for onos no matter what the rest of you say"-types.
Lucky_ wrote: <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->People are inherently different. One newbie pubber puts 2 hours a week into the game, of which 1:30 go into combat, other plays NS exclusively for 20 hours a week. Both have different approach, different play style, different skill and different preferences. You cannot make game give them both equal chances - it is simply not possible.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is where you are missing my point. I'm not saying that a 'new player' will have the same chance in a fight as a veteran player, BUT that the <i>team</i> with the new player will generally have the same chance as the <i>team</i> with the veteran player. If that kind of balance is not present then you will NEVER have any kind of balance since you will NEVER have a situation where the skill on both teams is exactly equal. <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->This is why you'll always want experinced players to do the balance testing - they find the "easy ways out" much faster then non-experienced will, they understand the whole "spirit" of the game much better <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->I think you're confusing balance with exploits. No matter HOW you balance a game there will always be the tactics that will be found and exploited. You could balance for only the best of the best and STILL run into this problem because the developers could never possibly consider every use for a given part of the game. It's the same reason why you can never truly make a game 100% bug free. You just can't anticipate EVERY possible situation. <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Understand one more thing - average players will not want to play heavily team-based mod. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->I disagree. If anything, it was the average players that made NS popular, and it is the average player that plays NS today.
Your comments would be more relevant if it were not for the fact that veteran (IE clan) players of NS only account for 10% of the total players that play the game. That alone tells me that we should be looking to balance the game for the majority of players, but while taking the minority into account.
Should the veteran fanbase increase then we can take another look at this. However, I think it would be be foolish to abandon the 90% of people who play the game to cater to 10%.
<!--QuoteBegin-Lucky_+Mar 9 2004, 07:17 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Lucky_ @ Mar 9 2004, 07:17 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Ah, the #1 problem for any game I've seen. If you figure out the solution on how to balance people (and that's what you're asking for here, not balance between teams but balance between people), you can make a doctorate on social studies easily. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> It's not about balancing the players. Obviously we can have no direct influence on how skilled or cooperative the players of this game are. We are indeed trying to balance the teams; balance them so that they are both equally influenced by the skill of their players, and so they can function without highly coordinated levels of teamwork(i.e. scrims). Certainly NS is a team-based mod, but you have to understand that the vast majority of games are pubs, and thus the level of teamwork typical in a scrim is impossible for them. Requiring flawless teamwork in order for the game to be balanced means that the game will never be balanced for 90% of its players. Is that really what you want? Would you rather alienate 10% of the playerbase and kill clan play(which, by the way, is not necessary to help pubs), or alienate 90% of it and kill the mod entirely(yes, clan play included)?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->People are inherently different. One newbie pubber puts 2 hours a week into the game, of which 1:30 go into combat, other plays NS exclusively for 20 hours a week. Both have different approach, different play style, different skill and different preferences. <i>You cannot make game give them both equal chances - it is simply not possible</i>.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Of course. A vet fighting a total newbie should win the majority of the time, and that won't change. Similarly, a team that is completely stacked with clanners should beat a team of newbs if the game is balanced. Obviously not all games can be fair; one of them has to be the more skilled team, and it's the admins' job to try to keep them balanced. It is, as you say, about balancing the teams.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Rather then look at death-match style mod that faded into obscurity because there were newer and better mods that offered everything that firearms did, only better, I'd like to offer you a comparison with a game that does feature strategic assymmetrical gameplay and has been out for many years - starcraft. Blizzard tried to "balance for average person" at a start. The idea was abandoned after it totally crashed and burned, as <b>experienced players started getting greatly annoyed at ease of winning with certain strategies</b>. This is why you'll always want experinced players to do the balance testing - they find the "easy ways out" much faster then non-experienced will, they understand the whole "spirit" of the game much better and generally you want to give newbies an incentive to evolve into experienced players. Balancing the game for new people kills games - that is a fact. You audience will simply reach a certain level, find the easy ways out and quit playing. If you balance the game for veterans, veterans can play competitively against eachother, and newbies get the reason to play the game more to become veterans. We've seen this with every single big asymmetrical strategy game so far - and I would suggest that comparison to an assymetrical strategy game is much more proper for NS then a comparison to death-match styled symmetrical FPS mod. Which is one of the inherent flaws in your logic.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
NS is only an RTS for one player in the server. For everybody else it is an FPS with strategy elements. Comparisons to pure RTS games don't really make sense. How many of the people playing NS do you think are really RTS fans? Judging by the reluctance to get in the comm chair I often see in pubs, I'm thinking not many.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Understand one more thing - average players will not want to play heavily team-based mod. Those that are alraedy here are the niche audience mostly - average player just wants CS-style deathmatch with light team elements. They want <i>personal gratification</i>. People who prefer <i>gratification of being a part of the group</i> are much more rare. If you begin "enforcing teamplay" (how?!), you will lose the majority of the fanbase, who are at the moment a cross-breed of CS and hardcore NS style. They like to have the freedom of their own, but generally don't mind following orders. Take away that freedom and you will lose them.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Who said anything about taking away freedom? It is the fact that freedom loses aliens the game that makes them so weak in pub play.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Funny isn't it. In the end we all want the same thing - to get more people attracted to the NS <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->. I suppose the only difference is that some of us don't want to see any more of the "omg, I want that freaking hmg now comm or I'll eject you" 2 min into the game- and "my resourse is mine so I'm just going to save for onos no matter what the rest of you say"-types.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, you want to draw people by balancing the game for the minority and causing everybody else to get sick of the imbalance and quit. We want to draw people in by balancing the game primarily for the majority. <b>NO</b>, this does not mean balancing it for newbies as you seem to imply. It means balancing it for a realistic level of teamwork in pub servers. Even skilled players suffer from clan-level balance because it's still very hard for them to have that much teamwork in a game of total strangers.
The "omg give me HMG comm" and "i fade when we 1 with hive and no dcs" people will always be around, this is unavoidable regardless of who you try to balance for, these are the people you just have to put up with, find another server because of, or just simply ban them if your an admin.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->No, you want to draw people by balancing the game for the minority and causing everybody else to get sick of the imbalance and quit. We want to draw people in by balancing the game primarily for the majority.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is the funny thing about TFC. I think it's a good example how balancing should be done. The game did not change when bunnyhop or conc jumping were introduced (at the level it is now used). Clan style game-play was not enforced on pub players and this is why there are still pub servers. With strict clan game-play enforced by the developers TFC would already be dead because nobody but clanners would play on pubs. No new players would ever come into clans and they would die a painfully slow death.
The same applies to NS. Pub game-play must be fun or no new players will come. At the moment playing alien is a pain and not fun. Pubs are important. When the game is not balanced on publics people will quit the game and never come back no matter how good the balance in a perfect clan environment is.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Requiring flawless teamwork in order for the game to be balanced means that the game will never be balanced for 90% of its players.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is flawed thinking. Perfect teamwork is not required for optimal balance.
If both teams only have 50% level of teamwork, then it evens out.
It is very difficult to determine in a pub the level team play, thats why if you balance it for the high level play which is static, it would be better than using random pub guys.
Also the playtesters in pre-release are responsible for the LMG rush, and the JP/HMG rush, that were used in BOTH pubs and SCRIMS (no matches because the game balance was thrown so out of whack, leagues refused to have NS as a legit game). They did not test the effects of different strategies, they tested things that were fun. As a result a broken game happened which probably turned a lot of people off to the game. It took the ELITE to suggest ways to counter the rushes, so that the game would be BALANCED.
What happened when the elite tested 2.00?
The game was a lot more fun, and a lot more balanced for BOTH clan and pub play. The elite found strategies that the other playtesters would never think of, let alone execute, and things were done to thrawrt such strategies, and they could be counterable. The lerk was available earlier with spores to have a chance of countering LMG rushes. JP costs were increased (my personal suggestion, as well with many other of the elite), to deter the frequeny of the JP rush.
Tell me why again the average gamer should playtest?
Okay, so we can all safely agree that the main issue in the pubs are resourse flow changes based on team size (as in those 30+ max player severs being hopeless for aliens most of the time) and level of teamwork (which is much harder to accomplish with aliens due to lack of centralized entity commanding the entire team. You cannot fix #1 on game level at this point - the whole nature of marines makes them stronger as the team size grows, and that can't be changed without introducing radical changes to the resourse flow system. I think that current resourse system is fine, so if you want the game to be fun as aliens, you should simply avoid servers with player cap >20 or so. #2 is much harder to avoid. Generally aliens are designed to be stronger when they use appropriate teamwork - but you get to see alien teamwork on pubs much less often then marine teamwork due to the lack of the commander.
Personally I think that while the hive sight system could be extended a bit, no major structural changes should be introduced - the mod is still quite well balanced because <i>both teams, when having people with relatively same skill level, have relatively even chances of winning when playing on a 10-20 player server</i>. Hence I would be inclined to claim that NS is balanced for pub play.
Also NS is perhaps best compared to SC then to any FPS mod for a rather simple reason - one of the most popular ways of playing SC was the team skirmish, where you had lots of 3vs3 and 4vs4 games. In those cases the three-four players that co-ordinated their actions and complemented eachother usually beat the other three-four easily even if the other three-four were individually significantly better. The same goes for NS, while in most FPS mods, the team with better individuals would win. In fact that is the main "candy" that NS offers - the fact that you don't have to be "uberleet" to defeat another "uberleet" - all you need is teamwork. I will point out a simple fact again. <b>Average FPS players are not attracted to heavily team-based games/mods</b>. This is proven by simply looking at the usage statistics of all half-life mods. Or, if you study human psycology, you can find some interesting knowledge on why it is so there. This however is a <b>fact</b>. Those people that play NS are already a partially niche audience as is, most of them being a cross breed of average CS/DoD player and a type wanting teambased or RTS styled play. This are also the main 2 sub-groups in the NS community - the people who're here for tight teamplay, and people who're here for RTS feel. Saying that only commander is experiencing the RTS aspects of the game is crazy - the whole mod is built around the concept that everyone is a pawn on a huge chessboard of the NS, be it alien or marine. The players that ignore the strategic aspect are doomed to fail both on team and personal level.
Noting all above I would argue that the game is indeed balanced quite well for pub play right now, for the number of reasons: 1. When having people with similar skill and having 10-20 people playing on the server, both teams have roughly equal chances of winning regardless of the actual skill level (with some minor exceptions when EVERYONE is a total newbie) 2. Current system heavily encourages players in the field to understand both strategic aspects of the game (players begin advising the commander what would be a better thing to do in their vicinity, like asking for RTs, or sugesting a PG drop) as well as teamwork (as people gain more experience, they learn that even a crappy teammate that sticks with you is better then no teammate at all). These are not currently enforced in any way though - so people coming from CS or similar mod aren't punished for playing like they're used to. But they are <i>encouraged</i> to change their style of game play to the style that suits the mod better. Some agree with it and adapt, some find it unsuitable for themselves and either start whining about it everywhere, saying it's too "elite", "pro-aimed" and so on and some leave quietly. In reality it's a simple inability or unwillingness to adapt, instead wanting everyone else to adapt to their play style. This is the main blessing and curse of NS, and the main reason why it's not likely to loose the players it has already aquired - unlike firearms which in the end was yet another variation of deathmatch, NS is a unique mod, and a unique game. Players won't leave if the learning curve becomes steeper simply because there's <i>nowhere to leave</i>. With firearms, there was DoD and CS, which were very similar to it. WIth NS, the only somewhat similar game is battlezone 2.
To make the long story short - majority of people that whine about NS being unbalanced for pub play are the types similar to those that whine that counter strike is unbalanced because of one shot-one-kill weapons. Those are the types that do not wish do adapt to the mod, instead wanting the mod to adapt to them. And it simply does not work that way.
EDIT: damn it didn't seem this long when I typed it <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->To make the long story short - majority of people that whine about NS being unbalanced for pub play are the types similar to those that whine that counter strike is unbalanced because of one shot-one-kill weapons. Those are the types that do not wish do adapt to the mod, instead wanting the mod to adapt to them. And it simply does not work that way. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Reminds me of my sig <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Wow. I've never heard so much elitism in my life. I've played with a lot of these supposed "veterans" and a lot of them quite frankly suck. And that's coming from a lowly pubber. Now that that's off my chest... I'm on the same page with Savant an the others. The game should NOT be balanced for morons. But it should be balanced to a degree that the average player who has knows how to play the game, who knows how to cooperate with his teammates, and TRIES can play the game.
I'm not necessarily saying that it isn't either. I think it is getting fairly balanced. But I do think that in NS (not combat, I could care less about combat) aliens need some improvements. I dont want to get into specifics, because most of them are already being discussed in other threads. But generally speaking, I would disagree with Lucky. In a server with 10-20 people of moderate to low skill on both sides, marines are much more likely to win. I think this mainly because they have a commander who has the ability to direct the team into specific tasks, and I'm not sure if you can (or if you'd even want) to do anything about this, it's just the nature of the game. But there have been some other good suggestions that would go along way to relieving some of those problems.
<!--QuoteBegin-Firewater+Mar 9 2004, 08:42 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Firewater @ Mar 9 2004, 08:42 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> What happened when the elite tested 2.00?
The game was a lot more fun, and a lot more balanced for BOTH clan and pub play. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Really? All the public got to know was that 2.0 was balanced extremely well, but it was <b>boring</b>. So flayra threw in some last-minute changes(RFK I believe?), to make the game more fun. Obviously this unbalanced things. Everyone knows the rest...
With all these posts about balance, you would think someone would post some statistical evidence gathered from servers to support their points.
NS is/isn't balanced in pubs? NS is/isn't balanced in organized matches? -Shouldn't these rather general statements be backed up by something?
Perhaps it is more correct to say "I just finished playing 10 games on public servers and aliens won x times and marines won y times with player counts of ..."
The points being made here by Savant, Firewater any many others are valid, but without evidence other than vague personal experiences it is difficult to agree with the points.
In my experience (this will sound very arrogant) I win most of my games, on either side. But my experience doesnt even represent half the people that play this game.
<!--QuoteBegin-Align+Mar 9 2004, 03:34 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Align @ Mar 9 2004, 03:34 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Firewater+Mar 9 2004, 08:42 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Firewater @ Mar 9 2004, 08:42 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> What happened when the elite tested 2.00?
The game was a lot more fun, and a lot more balanced for BOTH clan and pub play. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Really? All the public got to know was that 2.0 was balanced extremely well, but it was <b>boring</b>. So flayra threw in some last-minute changes(RFK I believe?), to make the game more fun. Obviously this unbalanced things. Everyone knows the rest... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Those last minute changes to make things fun were all recommended by top vets of the time and were mainly changes killing PT ideas.
Trust me on this one, but generally the further you go into the whole PT/Vet thing the worse it gets. On both sides.
But please, just trust me when I say what you probably think to be true is not true.
I don't think there is even any question here: the experts should balance the game, period. This came up at a game company I worked at once, where they were worried about me and another expert balancing their game because we were "too hardcore." I said to the executives "so you'd rather have people who don't know what they are doing balance it?" That ended that discussion really fast.
If average players balance the game it will necessarily end up with major problems, because they are not seeing the whole picture. The experts are seeing the most full picture (though even they aren't seeing everything, since everything is not yet discovered) so they are the only ones with any hope having the high level game balanced correctly. A good balancer is also looking out for the low and intermediate levels of play. First, it should be pretty obvious which tactics the lower level players are NOT going to use, so the expert can make changes to the game that don't affect high level play, but that make sure it's balanced at a low level as well. The whole endeavor requires such deep thought that it should only be in the hands of people who know everything possible about the game.
Consider Rob Pardo at Blizzard. He's a super-top player who (for one thing) balanced StarCraft. If there was a complaint that "wraiths are not good enough" then he'd play, build only wraiths, and beat everyone. Before the game was released, that was basically the best data available for him to decide that wraiths were fine as they are. Once he had access to a larger pool of players, he could also look at games between experts who built Wraiths and watch how low level players use them as well. If low level players can't use them for some reason, imagine if low level players re-balanced them! Whatever they change would surely make wraiths way too good, and high level play could very well become all about all-wraiths vs. all-wraiths. Even if the low level player isn't good enough to realize this and play matches like that...the game itself is really ruined. The top tier players will leave, the ones below will realize they have no good gameplay to look forward to, etc.
Bottom line, it's insanity to put balance in the hands of people who aren't seeing the whole picture. The experts can balance for themselves AND for lower skill levels. The lower skill levels (the masses) would be extremely lucky to even balance for themselves and they simply cannot possibly balance for higher level play.
I don't think that Starcraft is really analogous to NS. Starcraft has a single-player mode that walks you through the initial stages and eases you into the increasingly difficult play. The example would be more applicable if you handed somebody a copy of Starcraft and dropped them right into Battle.net. Most people will tell you to beat the game before even attempting Battle.net play, but NS has no such tutorial.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->A good balancer is also looking out for the low and intermediate levels of play.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is the point of contestation. There are people who feel that testers are only looking to balance 6v6 clan play and leaving pubs hanging. I'd have no problem with high level players doing the balancing so long as the game was kept fair and <b>fun</b> on pubs. The balancing act that's been performed so far has ended up giving marines cookie after cookie while aliens get nerf after nerf. As a result, pub games just aren't as fun as they used to be.
The res system is still broken for anything 9v9 and up, 2nd and 3rd hive abilities have been made more and more ineffective (and consequently less fun, as things are only fun when they work) and a host of other issues that have been brought up on this board.
The other concern is the learning curve. Currently, the learning curve is so high that it's discouraging to new players. It's not much of a problem for people who have been playing since release, but people I show NS to don't have any fun playing as aliens. I believe Savant and Majan have had similar experiences with showing people NS. Without the ability to draw new players and hold non-clanners, NS will die out.
Comments
Balancing a game is extremely hard process thanks to our best friend, the learning curve. The game shouldn't be balanced for brand new people but it also shouldn't be become balanced after you've spent the last year of your life playing it. It should be balanced for the average player on the average server.
As a pubber from the very beginning of NS i'd say on average your looking at about 60% of the players on a server actually having an understanding of a game and wanting to win the match. Sure there will be occasions where you'll find yourself entirely with a bunch of new people/idiots out to ruin it but they are a minority, IMO.
Ignoring the huge percentage of people who play on pub servers because they don't want to play 5 games a day, sit around and discuss tactics and live, sleep and breathe NS is just wrong on so many levels. It's so wrong i don't even know why it's wrong, it just is! It should be quite obvious why.
The thing with both clans and pubs is there are the freaking awesome, the good, the bad and the terrible, shouldn't actually be allowed near a computer. The skill divide apparent in pubs is apparent in clans. Just beacuse your in a clan doesn't make you better than everyone, doesn't make your opinion on the game any more valid and it doesn't give you magically skills. Sure there are some clans where you have to be the best of the best to get in and mad props to you but you're rare and at the same time there are pubbers out there who fit into the same category.
If the game should be balanced for anyone it should be for the majority of the users, the people who keep NS alive and the people EVERYONE started off as and thinking otherwise is incredibly selfish.
Well, enough of my off the mark rant. I'm pretty sure i've probably angered a few people with this convulated post what the hey, aye! Show a little love!
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I think the real problem that's going to be encountered is how far down do you balance it?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->The bigger question is how far *UP* do you balance it?!?
Think about when you first played aliens on NS. Did you find it difficult? I'm not ashamed to say that I was completely taken aback when I first played NS since I felt like I was sliding across the floor because of the low skulk view. It was awkward and difficult to adjust to.
That, on it's own, is a significant aspect that players have a hard time adjusting to. However, we now have peole who suggest that we should make playing skulk that much more DIFFICULT by keeping skulk armor at the reduced levels, allowing knockback to stay in, forcing aliens to sit in long one hive spawn queues etc. In other words, join game and die repeatedly as skulk because clanners feel that this is balanced.
Just how much do people expect the 'average pubber' to take before they say 'screw this' and move on? I've had many people I introduced to NS (including many beta testers I know from other projects) quit playing because because they found that the balance wasn't there, but more importantly, things were being made HARDER for aliens.
Let's be honest, as much as it is fun to play marines, it is also nice to play aliens for a change.
The problem is that playing aliens just isn't fun anymore.
Aliens die too easily, have huge spawn queues, or face isues where they KNOW they will lose because the marines are just to overwhelming. The balance may be fine for clan games but it just isn't fun for the gaming public. I think that is the reason why so many people like playing combat. At least there they will have a chance at getting some kills in without feeling the game is pointless 5 minutes in or being forced to wait in a huge spawn queue.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->There might be small changes you can do to adjust the game, but honestly, the core idea of NS is teamplay, and if you're going to balance it for the pubs, you'll lose that.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->I don't think so. Balance for pubs means that either team will have an equal chance to win, even in a situation where there is a minor to moderate skill imbalance. In other words, the game needs to be 'forgiving' in that a team shouldn't make a small mistake in the early game and have it mean that they are guaranteed a loss. It also means that they shouldn't have to play a game that they know they have lost but are FORCED to continue playing because the other team won't finish them off.
<b>These things are NO fun at all, but they happen all the time.</b>
We don't have to give up teamplay to balance the game for pubs. We had balance in early NS before clans came along, and it was often the clan members who picked up on certain tactical exploits. (which were later fixed - eg JP/HMG rush)
Public play should be the number one concern if we want NS to thrive in the large market. As much as clan play may have its fans, it's only a fraction of the pub play fanbase.
Regards,
Savant
Oh please. It was anything but balanced.
1.04, just for the record, not only had absurdly large 2.01 hitboxes, but also had the low health values of 70/10. In 3.00 you no longer have huge hitboxes.
In general, pub play with both teams having roughtly equal skill can be divinded into four scenarios:
1. Both teams new: Aliens win 70/30 or so. Tactic is very constant - few rts dropped, slow crawl towards tech on both sides, eventually it's all about whether the onos will come before ha/hmg (and it's usually onos) after which the game is about how long the rines can hold those few rambo oni off (and with their lack of skill it's not possible)
2. Both teams skilled, team size <~6: likely alien win due to better resourse flow.
3. Both teams skilled, team size <~12: likely marine win due to slow alien resourse flow.
4. Both teams skilled, team size 6-12: extremally dependant on skill of the commander. If commander can get his team orginised, marines usually roll over the aliens like a freight train, if he can't, aliens slowly crawl towards having total map control and win the game (the most often seen scenario).
As you can see, the game is pretty well balanced - <b>both sides can win on any skill level</b>.
Generally if you're a game developer, you will want the dedicated people to be the ones testing, not the random "pubbers" who play couple of hours per week. Dedication is the key to the beta-testing, and I'm yet to see more then a handful of "pubbers" dedicated enough to actually be of any use in it.
Generally if you want to have NS balanced by(for) pubbers, stop trying to make ready suggestions (these are worthless to the developers, who care little for <i>what</i> you want to change, they want to know <i>why and how you plan it will change the balance in the future</i>. And if you ever want to see a band of pubbers doing any testing for NS, I suggest you put together a plan on how you plan on maiking that sort of testing actually viable. I have quite a bit of experiece in beta-testing various games, and I can see no real way on how that would be possible, so I would be very interested in hearing the actual practical suggestions in place of all that random "you must cater to me" talk that has no real backing.
2) It may be impossible to make clan and pub play identical, but the game can be tweaked so that they are more similar. Enforcing teamwork is one such way.
3) Pubbers care less about winning than clanners (statistically speaking). Both want to have fun - they just have different ways of having fun. If the game enforced teamwork in a "fun way", it would encourage these pubbers to help the team and still have fun doing it.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Generally one can easily tell that savant never took a part in any sort of banacing/beta testing team.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->Please note that personal attacks are not permitted in these forums. Please contact a moderator if you require clarification on this. I have no intent on lowering myself to your level by responding to this insult.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The whole "you must cater to the new players b balancing the game for them" idea is simply ridiculous - newbies evolve and change their tactics much faster then the game could keep up as their skill increases exponentially in the beginning. The only way to "balance" that would be to adjust personal damage to match the players experience - which is completely ridiculous.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->I never said you had to balance the game to only take new players into account, I said that the game should be able to be balanced even if new players are playing.
At any given time there will be new players playing the game. If you want the game to be balanced you have to take that into account. You can't just balance the game for those who are 'highly skilled' and then just expect the rest to learn while not providing them any incentive to stay in the game. A well balanced game WILL allow new players to integrate themselves into the game and learn while not upsetting game balance to any significant degree.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Generally if you're a game developer, you will want the dedicated people to be the ones testing<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->Big developers normally want 'average people' to test their game since it is 'average people' who make up the majority of sales. At MS we don't balance multiplayer games for clans, we balance them for the public. Once that is done, we THEN look at issues that relate to clan play.
If you only use clanners to test a game then you should only expect clanners to play it. In that case you will alienate 90% of your fanbase for the sake of good clan balance and you will KILL THE MOD.
Don't believe me? Ask the developers of the FireArms mod. They made this very mistake and paid the ultimate price. The public community abandoned them, and now a check of the server list shows no more than a dozen servers with people on them at any given time.
You may want to see that happen to NS, but I don't.
Regards,
Savant
Generally one can easily tell that savant never took a part in any sort of banacing/beta testing team.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Please note that personal attacks are not permitted in these forums. Please contact a moderator if you require clarification on this. I have no intent on lowering myself to your level by responding to this insult.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Feh.. let's just say that I'm sorry and move on - topic is much more interesting then discussing what is critisism and what is a personal insult.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The whole "you must cater to the new players b balancing the game for them" idea is simply ridiculous - newbies evolve and change their tactics much faster then the game could keep up as their skill increases exponentially in the beginning. The only way to "balance" that would be to adjust personal damage to match the players experience - which is completely ridiculous.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I never said you had to balance the game to only take new players into account, I said that the game should be able to be balanced even if new players are playing.
At any given time there will be new players playing the game. If you want the game to be balanced you have to take that into account. You can't just balance the game for those who are 'highly skilled' and then just expect the rest to learn while not providing them any incentive to stay in the game. A well balanced game WILL allow new players to integrate themselves into the game and learn while not upsetting game balance to any significant degree.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ah, the #1 problem for any game I've seen. If you figure out the solution on how to balance people (and that's what you're asking for here, not balance between teams but balance between people), you can make a doctorate on social studies easily.
People are inherently different. One newbie pubber puts 2 hours a week into the game, of which 1:30 go into combat, other plays NS exclusively for 20 hours a week. Both have different approach, different play style, different skill and different preferences. <i>You cannot make game give them both equal chances - it is simply not possible</i>.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
Generally if you're a game developer, you will want the dedicated people to be the ones testing<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Big developers normally want 'average people' to test their game since it is 'average people' who make up the majority of sales. At MS we don't balance multiplayer games for clans, we balance them for the public. Once that is done, we THEN look at issues that relate to clan play.
If you only use clanners to test a game then you should only expect clanners to play it. In that case you will alienate 90% of your fanbase for the sake of good clan balance and you will KILL THE MOD.
Don't believe me? Ask the developers of the FireArms mod. They made this very mistake and paid the ultimate price. The public community abandoned them, and now a check of the server list shows no more than a dozen servers with people on them at any given time.
You may want to see that happen to NS, but I don't.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Rather then look at death-match style mod that faded into obscurity because there were newer and better mods that offered everything that firearms did, only better, I'd like to offer you a comparison with a game that does feature strategic assymmetrical gameplay and has been out for many years - starcraft. Blizzard tried to "balance for average person" at a start. The idea was abandoned after it totally crashed and burned, as <b>experienced players started getting greatly annoyed at ease of winning with certain strategies</b>. This is why you'll always want experinced players to do the balance testing - they find the "easy ways out" much faster then non-experienced will, they understand the whole "spirit" of the game much better and generally you want to give newbies an incentive to evolve into experienced players. Balancing the game for new people kills games - that is a fact. You audience will simply reach a certain level, find the easy ways out and quit playing. If you balance the game for veterans, veterans can play competitively against eachother, and newbies get the reason to play the game more to become veterans. We've seen this with every single big asymmetrical strategy game so far - and I would suggest that comparison to an assymetrical strategy game is much more proper for NS then a comparison to death-match styled symmetrical FPS mod. Which is one of the inherent flaws in your logic.
Understand one more thing - average players will not want to play heavily team-based mod. Those that are alraedy here are the niche audience mostly - average player just wants CS-style deathmatch with light team elements. They want <i>personal gratification</i>. People who prefer <i>gratification of being a part of the group</i> are much more rare. If you begin "enforcing teamplay" (how?!), you will lose the majority of the fanbase, who are at the moment a cross-breed of CS and hardcore NS style. They like to have the freedom of their own, but generally don't mind following orders. Take away that freedom and you will lose them.
And one last thing - perhaps the best way to cater to the new players at the moment would not be any sort of balance change to the actual game - it's an addition of a good tutorial. Right all, all newbies can rely on is the word of the mouth and their own little play experience. This obiviously doens't encourage playing nor learning more - the learning curve gets far more steep. I would suggest getting a good manual/tutorial before even considering if any sort of changes for "pub play balance" are possible.
Funny isn't it. In the end we all want the same thing - to get more people attracted to the NS <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->. I suppose the only difference is that some of us don't want to see any more of the "omg, I want that freaking hmg now comm or I'll eject you" 2 min into the game- and "my resourse is mine so I'm just going to save for onos no matter what the rest of you say"-types.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->People are inherently different. One newbie pubber puts 2 hours a week into the game, of which 1:30 go into combat, other plays NS exclusively for 20 hours a week. Both have different approach, different play style, different skill and different preferences. You cannot make game give them both equal chances - it is simply not possible.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is where you are missing my point. I'm not saying that a 'new player' will have the same chance in a fight as a veteran player, BUT that the <i>team</i> with the new player will generally have the same chance as the <i>team</i> with the veteran player. If that kind of balance is not present then you will NEVER have any kind of balance since you will NEVER have a situation where the skill on both teams is exactly equal.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->This is why you'll always want experinced players to do the balance testing - they find the "easy ways out" much faster then non-experienced will, they understand the whole "spirit" of the game much better <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->I think you're confusing balance with exploits. No matter HOW you balance a game there will always be the tactics that will be found and exploited. You could balance for only the best of the best and STILL run into this problem because the developers could never possibly consider every use for a given part of the game. It's the same reason why you can never truly make a game 100% bug free. You just can't anticipate EVERY possible situation.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Understand one more thing - average players will not want to play heavily team-based mod. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->I disagree. If anything, it was the average players that made NS popular, and it is the average player that plays NS today.
Your comments would be more relevant if it were not for the fact that veteran (IE clan) players of NS only account for 10% of the total players that play the game. That alone tells me that we should be looking to balance the game for the majority of players, but while taking the minority into account.
Should the veteran fanbase increase then we can take another look at this. However, I think it would be be foolish to abandon the 90% of people who play the game to cater to 10%.
It just doesn't make sense.
Regards,
Savant
It's not about balancing the players. Obviously we can have no direct influence on how skilled or cooperative the players of this game are. We are indeed trying to balance the teams; balance them so that they are both equally influenced by the skill of their players, and so they can function without highly coordinated levels of teamwork(i.e. scrims). Certainly NS is a team-based mod, but you have to understand that the vast majority of games are pubs, and thus the level of teamwork typical in a scrim is impossible for them. Requiring flawless teamwork in order for the game to be balanced means that the game will never be balanced for 90% of its players. Is that really what you want? Would you rather alienate 10% of the playerbase and kill clan play(which, by the way, is not necessary to help pubs), or alienate 90% of it and kill the mod entirely(yes, clan play included)?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->People are inherently different. One newbie pubber puts 2 hours a week into the game, of which 1:30 go into combat, other plays NS exclusively for 20 hours a week. Both have different approach, different play style, different skill and different preferences. <i>You cannot make game give them both equal chances - it is simply not possible</i>.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Of course. A vet fighting a total newbie should win the majority of the time, and that won't change. Similarly, a team that is completely stacked with clanners should beat a team of newbs if the game is balanced. Obviously not all games can be fair; one of them has to be the more skilled team, and it's the admins' job to try to keep them balanced. It is, as you say, about balancing the teams.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Rather then look at death-match style mod that faded into obscurity because there were newer and better mods that offered everything that firearms did, only better, I'd like to offer you a comparison with a game that does feature strategic assymmetrical gameplay and has been out for many years - starcraft. Blizzard tried to "balance for average person" at a start. The idea was abandoned after it totally crashed and burned, as <b>experienced players started getting greatly annoyed at ease of winning with certain strategies</b>. This is why you'll always want experinced players to do the balance testing - they find the "easy ways out" much faster then non-experienced will, they understand the whole "spirit" of the game much better and generally you want to give newbies an incentive to evolve into experienced players. Balancing the game for new people kills games - that is a fact. You audience will simply reach a certain level, find the easy ways out and quit playing. If you balance the game for veterans, veterans can play competitively against eachother, and newbies get the reason to play the game more to become veterans. We've seen this with every single big asymmetrical strategy game so far - and I would suggest that comparison to an assymetrical strategy game is much more proper for NS then a comparison to death-match styled symmetrical FPS mod. Which is one of the inherent flaws in your logic.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
NS is only an RTS for one player in the server. For everybody else it is an FPS with strategy elements. Comparisons to pure RTS games don't really make sense. How many of the people playing NS do you think are really RTS fans? Judging by the reluctance to get in the comm chair I often see in pubs, I'm thinking not many.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Understand one more thing - average players will not want to play heavily team-based mod. Those that are alraedy here are the niche audience mostly - average player just wants CS-style deathmatch with light team elements. They want <i>personal gratification</i>. People who prefer <i>gratification of being a part of the group</i> are much more rare. If you begin "enforcing teamplay" (how?!), you will lose the majority of the fanbase, who are at the moment a cross-breed of CS and hardcore NS style. They like to have the freedom of their own, but generally don't mind following orders. Take away that freedom and you will lose them.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Who said anything about taking away freedom? It is the fact that freedom loses aliens the game that makes them so weak in pub play.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Funny isn't it. In the end we all want the same thing - to get more people attracted to the NS <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->. I suppose the only difference is that some of us don't want to see any more of the "omg, I want that freaking hmg now comm or I'll eject you" 2 min into the game- and "my resourse is mine so I'm just going to save for onos no matter what the rest of you say"-types.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, you want to draw people by balancing the game for the minority and causing everybody else to get sick of the imbalance and quit. We want to draw people in by balancing the game primarily for the majority. <b>NO</b>, this does not mean balancing it for newbies as you seem to imply. It means balancing it for a realistic level of teamwork in pub servers. Even skilled players suffer from clan-level balance because it's still very hard for them to have that much teamwork in a game of total strangers.
This is the funny thing about TFC. I think it's a good example how balancing should be done. The game did not change when bunnyhop or conc jumping were introduced (at the level it is now used). Clan style game-play was not enforced on pub players and this is why there are still pub servers. With strict clan game-play enforced by the developers TFC would already be dead because nobody but clanners would play on pubs. No new players would ever come into clans and they would die a painfully slow death.
The same applies to NS. Pub game-play must be fun or no new players will come.
At the moment playing alien is a pain and not fun. Pubs are important. When the game is not balanced on publics people will quit the game and never come back no matter how good the balance in a perfect clan environment is.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Requiring flawless teamwork in order for the game to be balanced means that the game will never be balanced for 90% of its players.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is flawed thinking. Perfect teamwork is not required for optimal balance.
If both teams only have 50% level of teamwork, then it evens out.
What happened when the elite tested 2.00?
The game was a lot more fun, and a lot more balanced for BOTH clan and pub play. The elite found strategies that the other playtesters would never think of, let alone execute, and things were done to thrawrt such strategies, and they could be counterable. The lerk was available earlier with spores to have a chance of countering LMG rushes. JP costs were increased (my personal suggestion, as well with many other of the elite), to deter the frequeny of the JP rush.
Tell me why again the average gamer should playtest?
You cannot fix #1 on game level at this point - the whole nature of marines makes them stronger as the team size grows, and that can't be changed without introducing radical changes to the resourse flow system. I think that current resourse system is fine, so if you want the game to be fun as aliens, you should simply avoid servers with player cap >20 or so.
#2 is much harder to avoid. Generally aliens are designed to be stronger when they use appropriate teamwork - but you get to see alien teamwork on pubs much less often then marine teamwork due to the lack of the commander.
Personally I think that while the hive sight system could be extended a bit, no major structural changes should be introduced - the mod is still quite well balanced because <i>both teams, when having people with relatively same skill level, have relatively even chances of winning when playing on a 10-20 player server</i>. Hence I would be inclined to claim that NS is balanced for pub play.
Also NS is perhaps best compared to SC then to any FPS mod for a rather simple reason - one of the most popular ways of playing SC was the team skirmish, where you had lots of 3vs3 and 4vs4 games. In those cases the three-four players that co-ordinated their actions and complemented eachother usually beat the other three-four easily even if the other three-four were individually significantly better. The same goes for NS, while in most FPS mods, the team with better individuals would win. In fact that is the main "candy" that NS offers - the fact that you don't have to be "uberleet" to defeat another "uberleet" - all you need is teamwork.
I will point out a simple fact again. <b>Average FPS players are not attracted to heavily team-based games/mods</b>. This is proven by simply looking at the usage statistics of all half-life mods. Or, if you study human psycology, you can find some interesting knowledge on why it is so there. This however is a <b>fact</b>. Those people that play NS are already a partially niche audience as is, most of them being a cross breed of average CS/DoD player and a type wanting teambased or RTS styled play. This are also the main 2 sub-groups in the NS community - the people who're here for tight teamplay, and people who're here for RTS feel. Saying that only commander is experiencing the RTS aspects of the game is crazy - the whole mod is built around the concept that everyone is a pawn on a huge chessboard of the NS, be it alien or marine. The players that ignore the strategic aspect are doomed to fail both on team and personal level.
Noting all above I would argue that the game is indeed balanced quite well for pub play right now, for the number of reasons:
1. When having people with similar skill and having 10-20 people playing on the server, both teams have roughly equal chances of winning regardless of the actual skill level (with some minor exceptions when EVERYONE is a total newbie)
2. Current system heavily encourages players in the field to understand both strategic aspects of the game (players begin advising the commander what would be a better thing to do in their vicinity, like asking for RTs, or sugesting a PG drop) as well as teamwork (as people gain more experience, they learn that even a crappy teammate that sticks with you is better then no teammate at all). These are not currently enforced in any way though - so people coming from CS or similar mod aren't punished for playing like they're used to. But they are <i>encouraged</i> to change their style of game play to the style that suits the mod better. Some agree with it and adapt, some find it unsuitable for themselves and either start whining about it everywhere, saying it's too "elite", "pro-aimed" and so on and some leave quietly. In reality it's a simple inability or unwillingness to adapt, instead wanting everyone else to adapt to their play style. This is the main blessing and curse of NS, and the main reason why it's not likely to loose the players it has already aquired - unlike firearms which in the end was yet another variation of deathmatch, NS is a unique mod, and a unique game. Players won't leave if the learning curve becomes steeper simply because there's <i>nowhere to leave</i>. With firearms, there was DoD and CS, which were very similar to it. WIth NS, the only somewhat similar game is battlezone 2.
To make the long story short - majority of people that whine about NS being unbalanced for pub play are the types similar to those that whine that counter strike is unbalanced because of one shot-one-kill weapons. Those are the types that do not wish do adapt to the mod, instead wanting the mod to adapt to them. And it simply does not work that way.
EDIT: damn it didn't seem this long when I typed it <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Reminds me of my sig <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I'm not necessarily saying that it isn't either. I think it is getting fairly balanced. But I do think that in NS (not combat, I could care less about combat) aliens need some improvements. I dont want to get into specifics, because most of them are already being discussed in other threads. But generally speaking, I would disagree with Lucky. In a server with 10-20 people of moderate to low skill on both sides, marines are much more likely to win. I think this mainly because they have a commander who has the ability to direct the team into specific tasks, and I'm not sure if you can (or if you'd even want) to do anything about this, it's just the nature of the game. But there have been some other good suggestions that would go along way to relieving some of those problems.
- Zues
The game was a lot more fun, and a lot more balanced for BOTH clan and pub play. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Really? All the public got to know was that 2.0 was balanced extremely well, but it was <b>boring</b>. So flayra threw in some last-minute changes(RFK I believe?), to make the game more fun. Obviously this unbalanced things. Everyone knows the rest...
NS is/isn't balanced in pubs?
NS is/isn't balanced in organized matches?
-Shouldn't these rather general statements be backed up by something?
Perhaps it is more correct to say "I just finished playing 10 games on public servers and aliens won x times and marines won y times with player counts of ..."
The points being made here by Savant, Firewater any many others are valid, but without evidence other than vague personal experiences it is difficult to agree with the points.
The game was a lot more fun, and a lot more balanced for BOTH clan and pub play. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Really? All the public got to know was that 2.0 was balanced extremely well, but it was <b>boring</b>. So flayra threw in some last-minute changes(RFK I believe?), to make the game more fun. Obviously this unbalanced things. Everyone knows the rest... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those last minute changes to make things fun were all recommended by top vets of the time and were mainly changes killing PT ideas.
Trust me on this one, but generally the further you go into the whole PT/Vet thing the worse it gets. On both sides.
But please, just trust me when I say what you probably think to be true is not true.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Hi John,
I don't think there is even any question here: the experts should balance
the game, period. This came up at a game company I worked at once, where
they were worried about me and another expert balancing their game because
we were "too hardcore." I said to the executives "so you'd rather have
people who don't know what they are doing balance it?" That ended that
discussion really fast.
If average players balance the game it will necessarily end up with major
problems, because they are not seeing the whole picture. The experts are
seeing the most full picture (though even they aren't seeing everything,
since everything is not yet discovered) so they are the only ones with any
hope having the high level game balanced correctly. A good balancer is also
looking out for the low and intermediate levels of play. First, it should be
pretty obvious which tactics the lower level players are NOT going to use,
so the expert can make changes to the game that don't affect high level
play, but that make sure it's balanced at a low level as well. The whole
endeavor requires such deep thought that it should only be in the hands of
people who know everything possible about the game.
Consider Rob Pardo at Blizzard. He's a super-top player who (for one thing)
balanced StarCraft. If there was a complaint that "wraiths are not good
enough" then he'd play, build only wraiths, and beat everyone. Before the
game was released, that was basically the best data available for him to
decide that wraiths were fine as they are. Once he had access to a larger
pool of players, he could also look at games between experts who built
Wraiths and watch how low level players use them as well. If low level
players can't use them for some reason, imagine if low level players
re-balanced them! Whatever they change would surely make wraiths way too
good, and high level play could very well become all about all-wraiths vs.
all-wraiths. Even if the low level player isn't good enough to realize this
and play matches like that...the game itself is really ruined. The top tier
players will leave, the ones below will realize they have no good gameplay
to look forward to, etc.
Bottom line, it's insanity to put balance in the hands of people who aren't
seeing the whole picture. The experts can balance for themselves AND for
lower skill levels. The lower skill levels (the masses) would be extremely
lucky to even balance for themselves and they simply cannot possibly balance
for higher level play.
--Sirlin
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't think I need to say more, as Starcraft was balanced by a Pro.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->A good balancer is also looking out for the low and intermediate levels of play.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is the point of contestation. There are people who feel that testers are only looking to balance 6v6 clan play and leaving pubs hanging. I'd have no problem with high level players doing the balancing so long as the game was kept fair and <b>fun</b> on pubs. The balancing act that's been performed so far has ended up giving marines cookie after cookie while aliens get nerf after nerf. As a result, pub games just aren't as fun as they used to be.
The res system is still broken for anything 9v9 and up, 2nd and 3rd hive abilities have been made more and more ineffective (and consequently less fun, as things are only fun when they work) and a host of other issues that have been brought up on this board.
The other concern is the learning curve. Currently, the learning curve is so high that it's discouraging to new players. It's not much of a problem for people who have been playing since release, but people I show NS to don't have any fun playing as aliens. I believe Savant and Majan have had similar experiences with showing people NS. Without the ability to draw new players and hold non-clanners, NS will die out.