Has "Balancing" Doomed This Game?

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  • UncleCrunchUncleCrunch Mayonnaise land Join Date: 2005-02-16 Member: 41365Members, Reinforced - Onos
    mattji104 wrote: »
    Source engine was, at the time, far from fitting the bill concerning the game engine market. Cry engine, unreal engine and probably a handfull of others (free ones) were already far beyond on many aspects. In fact the Source engine would have been the worst choice.

    I think we can all agree that Spark was the worst choice. I can't even imagine developing that engine and all the headache still associated with it costs less than a license back when.

    It depends on where you move the slider. There is a blured line in this matter. Many engines (which list is is far bigger than the names i dropped), include scripting or not. Some are made for web some for pure gaming. Some go with a language (so you have to go with it), fileformats, crossplateforms, type of license, only MMO/FPS etc...

    As you will see the list seems endless with names you probably never heard of. But none of the engine "does it all". They all have their special thing.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines

    So maybe they couldn't find a suitable solution at the time. One regret i can truly agree on is there are some little things here and there that makes you wonder why something was done like that. And finally realize it will take time (if it is under consideration) to see this particular thing change for a better method (example: the shoulder patch shader). Basically you can end up being forced to drop your project or a part of it. Not helping the whole community (player & modder).
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    It's there first attempt at building their own engine. While spark may have seemed like a worse choice than some other engines, it gave the devs much experience in the area and is now allowing them to develop it further and much better with the Spark 2 engine in Future Perfect. Everyone has to start somewhere and I think the Spark engine was a good long-term investment.
  • SantaClawsSantaClaws Denmark Join Date: 2012-07-31 Member: 154491Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited June 2015
    OMG Look at this boys! Unknown is stuck on page 3!!
  • FrozenFrozen New York, NY Join Date: 2010-07-02 Member: 72228Members, Constellation
    coolitic wrote: »
    It's there first attempt at building their own engine. While spark may have seemed like a worse choice than some other engines, it gave the devs much experience in the area and is now allowing them to develop it further and much better with the Spark 2 engine in Future Perfect. Everyone has to start somewhere and I think the Spark engine was a good long-term investment.

    They also abandoned it to try and make another game. I think that they learned an engine design takes more resources than they have. Idk computer engines, but I'm pretty sure this relates to physical engines too
  • babblerblingbabblerbling Join Date: 2015-05-27 Member: 204951Members
    There goes the requirement for spoiler tags. (Exclusive hater priviledge, of course)
  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited July 2015
    As I remember hearing, and I may be wrong, but it was a combination of a few things.

    Source cost a lot. At the time, game engines did not have such lucrative offers for developers as unity, unreal 4, and source 2 have today.
    Source engine did not do what they wanted it to do, at least not easily. What it was that it did not do, I do not remember.
    Here is where my memory really starts to get iffy. I think I remember reading that valve would not let them use, or at least give out to modders, the tools to mod the game like a map editor. UWE wanted the most modable game, and this only got them so far. How modifiable ns2 ended up is another topic though.

    Having all that to consider, when one of your developers has been working on a game engine for years that you can use for free. It doesn't sound unreasonable to choose the free game engine that will do anything you want it to do.
  • YojimboYojimbo England Join Date: 2009-03-19 Member: 66806Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    Nordic wrote: »
    As I remember hearing, and I may be wrong, but it was a combination of a few things.

    Source cost a lot. At the time, game engines did not have such lucrative offers for developers as unity, unreal 4, and source 2 have today.
    Source engine did not do what they wanted it to do, at least not easily. What it was that it did not do, I do not remember.
    Here is where my memory really starts to get iffy. I think I remember reading that valve would not let them use, or at least give out to modders, the tools to mod the game like a map editor. UWE wanted the most modable game, and this only got them so far. How modifiable ns2 ended up is another topic though.

    Having all that to consider, when one of your developers has been working on a game engine for years that you can use for free. It doesn't sound unreasonable to choose the free game engine that will do anything you want it to do.

    I am pretty sure it was already discussed why they decided to go with the spark engine, I'll find the forum thread link when I can.

  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    edited July 2015
    Ok bare with me here.. If need be I can always open a new topic, but it is quite balance related. :)
    Feel free to correct me on anything if I go wrong on the logic path.

    Right now
    We have a skill system based on win/losses. This is displayed in points. So high points = good player.
    Of course this is a rough indication, but that's the principle of the system.

    This also gives some odd results in terms of balancing which is not in truth balanced.
    Lets make teams of 3 for simplicity sake. (and im not using real hive numbers for simplicity sake)

    marines have 500, 300, 700 giving a overal score of 1500.
    aliens have 50, 50, 1400 giving a overal score of 1500.
    Yay, balanced.

    Except that the marine team will work together much better then the aliens ever could. That poor skilled player wont be able to carry them all, especially on real team sizes.


    Possible future
    How about dividing the skillpoints in, lets say, 3 groups. 'low, medium and high'.
    • We start by grouping all the lower players first.. Their score is puny but they are new, so we may as well spread the green.
    • We then group the medium players.
    • We group the high players last.

    So lets say 12 players have the following:
    Low
    50
    65
    100
    130
    300

    medium
    520
    620
    730

    high
    1000
    1215
    1410
    1500

    We spread this around like this:
    Marine average: 3840

    50
    130
    520
    730
    1000
    1410


    Alien average: 3800

    65
    100
    300
    620
    1215
    1500


    YAY, real balance! (well, more then we have now).
    It takes some shuffling, and may even be more perfect.. (I just randomly picked the numbers in the list, and organised manual for this example)
    But Im sure we can somehow script this, right?

    yes I am aware its still not perfect, but its hopefully a start.

    A reminder that its supposed to balance per group. SO that it wont drop all the low scores on one side to balance for the very high player.
  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    The hive system is being improved in that regard. For the time being, I believe that shines shuffle does just that.
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    mattji104 wrote: »
    coolitic wrote: »
    It's there first attempt at building their own engine. While spark may have seemed like a worse choice than some other engines, it gave the devs much experience in the area and is now allowing them to develop it further and much better with the Spark 2 engine in Future Perfect. Everyone has to start somewhere and I think the Spark engine was a good long-term investment.

    They also abandoned it to try and make another game. I think that they learned an engine design takes more resources than they have. Idk computer engines, but I'm pretty sure this relates to physical engines too

    They used Unity for Subnautica less because of resources and more because Unity could fit the needs for that game more than Spark could. Also they didnt abandon the idea of developing their own engine because like I said, they are developing Spark 2 for Future Perfect.
  • Shoot_meShoot_me Join Date: 2002-11-15 Member: 8696Members
    coolitic wrote: »
    mattji104 wrote: »
    coolitic wrote: »
    It's there first attempt at building their own engine. While spark may have seemed like a worse choice than some other engines, it gave the devs much experience in the area and is now allowing them to develop it further and much better with the Spark 2 engine in Future Perfect. Everyone has to start somewhere and I think the Spark engine was a good long-term investment.

    They also abandoned it to try and make another game. I think that they learned an engine design takes more resources than they have. Idk computer engines, but I'm pretty sure this relates to physical engines too

    They used Unity for Subnautica less because of resources and more because Unity could fit the needs for that game more than Spark could. Also they didnt abandon the idea of developing their own engine because like I said, they are developing Spark 2 for Future Perfect.

    ... why would they start on a derivative version of Spark when Spark itself feels more like an engine in late Alpha, maybe early Beta at best?
  • BeigeAlertBeigeAlert Texas Join Date: 2013-08-08 Member: 186657Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
    Shoot_me wrote: »
    coolitic wrote: »
    mattji104 wrote: »
    coolitic wrote: »
    It's there first attempt at building their own engine. While spark may have seemed like a worse choice than some other engines, it gave the devs much experience in the area and is now allowing them to develop it further and much better with the Spark 2 engine in Future Perfect. Everyone has to start somewhere and I think the Spark engine was a good long-term investment.

    They also abandoned it to try and make another game. I think that they learned an engine design takes more resources than they have. Idk computer engines, but I'm pretty sure this relates to physical engines too

    They used Unity for Subnautica less because of resources and more because Unity could fit the needs for that game more than Spark could. Also they didnt abandon the idea of developing their own engine because like I said, they are developing Spark 2 for Future Perfect.

    ... why would they start on a derivative version of Spark when Spark itself feels more like an engine in late Alpha, maybe early Beta at best?

    Spark 2, from what I understand, was mostly re-written to better use Lua-JIT, so it runs much much better than the version of Spark in NS2.
  • UncleCrunchUncleCrunch Mayonnaise land Join Date: 2005-02-16 Member: 41365Members, Reinforced - Onos
    If there's a new iteration of Spark on the way, it's a little bit early to talk about it while nobody has the final specs and all that is included/shipped with it (tools etc.)
  • Cannon_FodderAUSCannon_FodderAUS Brisbane, AU Join Date: 2013-06-23 Member: 185664Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    I wonder if a Unity port of NS2 might be on something we can think about?? Just thinking out loud
  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    If there's a new iteration of Spark on the way, it's a little bit early to talk about it while nobody has the final specs and all that is included/shipped with it (tools etc.)

    Future Perfect is/was on the new spark engine. By reading up on that, you can see what spark 2.0 looks like a bit.
  • Shoot_meShoot_me Join Date: 2002-11-15 Member: 8696Members
    edited July 2015
    BeigeAlert wrote: »
    Shoot_me wrote: »
    coolitic wrote: »
    mattji104 wrote: »
    coolitic wrote: »
    It's there first attempt at building their own engine. While spark may have seemed like a worse choice than some other engines, it gave the devs much experience in the area and is now allowing them to develop it further and much better with the Spark 2 engine in Future Perfect. Everyone has to start somewhere and I think the Spark engine was a good long-term investment.

    They also abandoned it to try and make another game. I think that they learned an engine design takes more resources than they have. Idk computer engines, but I'm pretty sure this relates to physical engines too

    They used Unity for Subnautica less because of resources and more because Unity could fit the needs for that game more than Spark could. Also they didnt abandon the idea of developing their own engine because like I said, they are developing Spark 2 for Future Perfect.

    ... why would they start on a derivative version of Spark when Spark itself feels more like an engine in late Alpha, maybe early Beta at best?

    Spark 2, from what I understand, was mostly re-written to better use Lua-JIT, so it runs much much better than the version of Spark in NS2.

    I'm way off topic now... I know... but unless UWE or someone ever gives Spark some love, I can't help but feel like UWE has pulled an EA move on the community. Spark does some interesting and cool things, but running well isn't one of them... it's like running a mediocre console port.

    That said, I'm not exactly excited about Spark "take-two", even if in all likelihood it'll run much better than Spark.
  • UncleCrunchUncleCrunch Mayonnaise land Join Date: 2005-02-16 Member: 41365Members, Reinforced - Onos
    Nordic wrote: »
    If there's a new iteration of Spark on the way, it's a little bit early to talk about it while nobody has the final specs and all that is included/shipped with it (tools etc.)

    Future Perfect is/was on the new spark engine. By reading up on that, you can see what spark 2.0 looks like a bit.

    I'm only interested in the final version. No dreams or hopes. Before it's out anything can happen (romiving x or y on the last minute ). My evaluation shouldn't be done differently than pure cold facts. What can we do, what is not possible,etc. Got my list.
  • OnosFactoryOnosFactory New Zealand Join Date: 2008-07-16 Member: 64637Members
    "Spark some love" - Please tell me this isn't the usual NS2 runs slow due to Spark, oops I forgot about real time Lua to Spark conversion" statement. Please.
  • dusterduster michigan, US Join Date: 2014-01-19 Member: 193329Members
    edited August 2015
    You can nurture a competitive community with enough affirmation. See league, sc2, dota, cs:go. Ranked ladders tied in with seasonal resets, advertising and occasional random balance changes scale very well with skilled gameplay. Alternatively you could just dumb down the game and feed out affirmation much more easilly, but even today that's not an amazing idea. With overwatch, hi-rez moba fps, that moba fps nobody cares about from e3, tf2 and bethesda new fps the market for simple fps is extremely saturated.

    You don't get a pile of money handed to you for making a video game that's balanced or easy and you shouldn't look at that for determining why a game is successful or not.
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