Why balance an unfinished game?
Jonacrab
Join Date: 2003-08-02 Member: 18705Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester
Join Date: 2003-08-02 Member: 18705Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester
<div class="IPBDescription">Updates need content. Not balance.</div>To get straight to the point, where are onos? where are the next 2 chambers? where are the next hive abilities? It seems to me that build 180 was almost purely related to balancing an unfinished game. Why?? It took 2 weeks to try to balance a game that will not even resemble the current build when its complete... and for what? I really think the devs should reconsider their position and make adding content, not balance a priority. The balance will come later... dealing with res costs and damage is just making a very very slow development process even slower. To me it feels like the last two weeks from a development standpoint were wasted.... just my 2 cents.
Comments
Even if some people do, there won't be as many by a long shot.
I'm interested in knowing what makes you such a specialist in game development? It honestly just seems like you are speaking without even thinking first.
There are several people working on this game, and they cannot all be working on implementing one feature, that you so desperately want now! They all have certain specialties, and you will see that there has been many changes done, in various categories if you would just read the changelog.
This game is also tech/tier based, so it does make some sense to balance each tier of tech against each other.
Would be kinda fun asking the art guy to implement the Onos code into the game though, just to see what would come out of that.
I can't find the thread but the jist of the answer was as such:
It's easy to make balancing changes such as cost/damage/speed increase/reduction. It's a simple matter of changing variables. The balancing is not what takes up their time. The debugging/optimizing is what's taking up their time, and if you have been playing the "beta" you would know there's a lot of work to be done in that area.
I agree that the lack of content at this point is getting a little disturbing but it's not because they are wasting time balancing the beta. As the previous poster put it, beta or full version, if it's not balanced there's no point in playing.
...and yes, I agree it's time we see some more end game content.
WHAT DOES TAKE AWAY TIME THOUGH!!!
Charlie has been spotted going to candy mountain A LOT as of late!
Nope, Cysts were though :P
Even if some people do, there won't be as many by a long shot.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Huh? People won't to play test new never before seen things? What crazy backwards world are you in?
Also the way you are describing the game is if it was a finished, on the shelf product.. this is most definately not the case, so why point it out?
I hear you program better without kidneys.
For the sake of correcting incorrect corrections, alien comms place pustules, gorges place the cysts :)
For the sake of admitting I stand corrected, I hereby stand corrected good sir!
Be honest. How often would you play NS2 if Marines did 1/10th of the damage they do now with all their weapons, sentries, ARCs, etc., everything else about the game was kept constant, and UWE said they had no intent on changing it for a long long time? The same question for Kharaa.
Additionally, how easily do you think you would be able to find opponents or teammates if that were the case?
Balance keeps the game fun, which motivates people who might otherwise not play as much (or at all for the less-motivated players). As I said, there would probably still be some hardcore fans playtesting the game even in the face of gamebreaking balance issues caused by a complete lack of concern from developers, but the number would almost certainly be lower than the number of current players, by a lot.
UWE keeps taking the small amounts of time required to balance NS2's Beta, we keep having fun, they keep hold of a large bugtesting userbase whose loyalty and dedication increase as the process continues, and I for one am glad they do.
I was under the impression that they're both called cysts, but the gorge versions are informally mini-cysts.
If we had an automatic map download system in place we could start playing all the community maps that are coming, at the moment even if they are released hardly anyone would download and play them.
<i>"Don't add new content, fix performance first!"</i>
<i>"I want new content, why is there only stupid server stuff in this patch, where's the onos?"</i>
<i>"This patch is totally unbalanced, how am I supposed to test if the game is this unbalanced?"</i>
<i>"Wow only balance fixes in this patch, what a waste of time!"</i>
<i>"Don't add new content, fix performance first!"</i>
<i>"I want new content, why is there only stupid server stuff in this patch, where's the onos?"</i>
<i>"This patch is totally unbalanced, how am I supposed to test if the game is this unbalanced?"</i>
<i>"Wow only balance fixes in this patch, what a waste of time!"</i><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
this!
complainers will complain, no matter what you do. Especially in the internet, approval and praise is a scarce good.
As I said before, a satisfied customer tells maybe 5 friends that he is satisfied.
An unhappy customer says more than 1000 words - he won't stop complaining and even tells his neighbours dog that XY sucks hard.
In my opinion uwe is on the right way.
And it became sort of a rule, that after every <i>good</i> build follows a <i>crude</i> one and the other way round.
It's like with windows ;-)
(Edit: spelling)
<i>"Don't add new content, fix performance first!"</i>
<i>"I want new content, why is there only stupid server stuff in this patch, where's the onos?"</i>
<i>"This patch is totally unbalanced, how am I supposed to test if the game is this unbalanced?"</i>
<i>"Wow only balance fixes in this patch, what a waste of time!"</i><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1859421:date=Jul 10 2011, 05:25 AM:name=Shilorius)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shilorius @ Jul 10 2011, 05:25 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1859421"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->this!
complainers will complain, no matter what you do. Especially in the internet approval and praise is a scarce good.
As I sayd before, a satisfied customer tells maybe 5 friends that he is satisfied.
An unhappy customer says more than 1000 words - he won't stop complaining and even tell his neighbours dog that XY sucks hard.
In my opinion uwe is on the right way.
And it became sort of a rule that after every <i>good</i> build follows a <i>crude</i> one and the other way round.
It's like with windows ;-)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
agreed
So now you've gone from "why are they bothering with balance changes" to "why are they added new features that change the balance when instead they should add different new features that change the balance." The pustules are added because, like the Onos or the Jetpack or anything else that will be added, they're part of NS2. Sure, they were added to change the game balance, but that's what any other feature is gong to do also.
So UWE should just release build 179 as the final product and stop trying new things?
This is the Beta. It is a testing ground for UWE's ideas and a scouting ground for their bugs and flaws. Cysts, Impact slowdown, ARCs costing team res: these are all new ideas that UWE wants to study in action. If you don't want to test new content, you're in the wrong place.
To give a different example: I am an artist, and when approaching a painting, I start with some kind of outline that represents the idea I have in my head. Then I start working with a general color scheme, start slowly adding in the detail, but never getting too specific too early, because I know that I have to paint in steps, if I start getting too specific on one section of the painting, I could end up repainting that section because it doesnt fit the whole.
In my opinion, I think it would have been a better approach to start by making the game identical to NS1, then adding the new content and seeing how it fit in. They did spend years balancing NS1 after all... it would have been a great starting point.
Is it that a fade is not able to take out 4 marines by himself? (unreasonable - a fade should not have that much power or survivability, nor any other unit in the game)
Or that a fade doesn't have enough energy due to flamethrowers? (reasonable - the fade should not be so restricted just because marines have researched the fade's kryptonite)
Well that's not actually the fade being underpowered, that's the flamethrower being overpowered.
Anyway, if UWE does follow your advice and decide to change their approach by only "finishing the game without balancing along the way", then that means that for the <u>foreseeable</u> future, the fade will remain horribly underpowered. Are you okay with this? <i>I am.</i> I <b>would</b> rather that they finish the game without balancing along the way.