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Heroes Community > Other Games Exist Too > Thread: The art of B-A-L-A-N-C-E
Thread: The art of B-A-L-A-N-C-E This thread is 3 pages long: 1 2 3 · NEXT»
Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted November 05, 2009 09:35 PM bonus applied by MightyMage on 14 Nov 2010.

The art of B-A-L-A-N-C-E

I had this topic in mind quite a long time - a place where I want to discuss balance in video games.

Yeah, balance. Something that is EXTREMELY important to me. Since this is heroes forum, I will give examples based on HoMM games, but won't limit myself only to those.

Ok, case one and most important: Cookie cutters. This is a term that describes a strategy that is overused simply because it's considered the easiest or most proficient way of playing the game. Extremely often, it abuses the system: In order to gain max efficiency in any competitive game, the players resort to buggy or plain broken (another video game term, describing something madly overpowered which cannot be beaten) tricks and strategies. You can see all kinds of bug-abuse. In games in which AI plays part, like heroes games, this includes tricks like defeating 300 chaos hydras with a single stack of mighty gorgons in HoMM3 or defeating 50 Archangels by abusing the AI's lack of ability to deal with gated units blocking the main stack in earlier patches of HoMM5. Cookie cutters are a blessing and a curse. They WILL inevitably rise, as people will simply ALWAYS find the best method over time, but their presence is a sign of subpar balance. A well-balanced game contains cookie-cutter builds, but offers you at least a dozen of them; a badly balanced game gives you one or maybe two "real" methods of playing which you HAVE to resort to, or you're in a serious disadvantage compared to the other player who uses them.

So, how do you battle cookie cutters? Is it necessary? In my opinion, yes, to some extent. Myself, if I were to balance such a problem, I'd prefer NOT to destroy the strategies by nerfing them into oblivion, though: The best and optimal way would be either to fix the broken mechanics or buff other builds. The reason is simple: there are people who enjoy the build. Why to make in inefficient? If it works and is fun (and is not based on a bug), it would be better to leave it alone. A serious issue that many game designers ignore.

However, if we want to fix such a balance issue, we have to ask ourselves: is the problem generated by numbers, or mechanics? The former is easy to fix. Say, a unit that offers 400 damage per week on average while the others offer 200. You can tone it down by just changing the damage output or increase the damage output by others, np. But what if its usefulness comes from the mechanics itself and changing them would essentially destroy the skill/strategy in process? Arcane Archers of HoMM5 are a good example: while strictly superior to Master Hunters, they are based on a simple "no distance penalty" and "DEF reduction" effect. There is no real way to change the "no distance penalty" modifier because the game doesn't implement partial distance modifiers. Thus, it's all or nothing. The problem's core lies in the mechanics which applies binary solution here. A REAL solution would be to change the game engine to give more possibilities: Complete distance modifier ignoring under certain conditions (total range, DEF, whatever - no need to go in detail here), for instance. The more you make the ability progress "fluid" and not "all or anything", the easier it is to make it balanced.

The binary problem is tightly connected to the distribution problem. You see, the worst mechanism of implementing a skill is to give a certain skill game-breaking effects, but to apply a very low chance of appearing. The infamous "when it triggers, the unit is awesome" problem. Spectral Dragons and Aging Attack, for instance. If a lucky player gets three or four aging attacks in a row, the outcome of the battle becomes unpredictable, heavily luck based, and has NOTHING to do with balance. Balance is meant to give players equal chances. On average, they have one because the low percentage of aging chance gives mathematically a balanced faction. But it doesn't take luck in consideration. The potential of the unit varies between - let's say - 50% and 300% due to the special. It is totally unpredictable and thus, you can't guarantee that the effect will be based on player's skill, but rather, on the luck factor instead. The solution is simple: Avoid strong effects with low chances of occuring. I don't like "chances on hit" totally as I prefer to remove ALL luck-based elements from games as a method of balancing: in other words, implement a weakened aging technique that works every time and balance the unit accordingly: lower the HP, damage, whatever. That way, luck doesn't really matter.

Luck plays a huge role in the game anyway because creatures use randomized damage. That one has some uses though, if there are spells that cause creatures to do max or min damage (and we obviously have those). It gives some strategic value of casting a correct spell at the correct time... but... yeah, it has no value when you don't have the spell. Which brings us to another problem. The randomness of loot and lucre. You may get the spell you need, but you may also end up with a worthless spell that has absolutely no effect on your enemy (holy word-type of spells against non-evil factions in HoMM, for instance). That essentially is the main problem in this game. By building magic guilds, you have like 50% chance of getting nothing and 50% chance of acquiring a spell that will, for instance, triple your creeping efficiency (like summon phoenix). What kind of "balance" it is when you can't even apply a core strategy because of the sheer randomness of the basic aspects of the game? It's more of a lotto draw, you get a useless spell, the opponent gets an awesome spell, if you're players of equal skill you lost nearly instantly because of that or at least got placed in a severe disadvantage. Of course, the map creators did a great job by either banning spells to prevent this dilemma or putting them in fixed locations, but the CORE of the game is simply BASED on a badly balanced "lotto draw". The solution is the simpliest of all: remove the random draw by either allowing a selection or give both spells at the same time whenever you construct a level 5 guild. This can be tweaked by increasing the guild's costs to reduce abuse, but this is another topic. The general idea is that randomness should NEVER play a big factor in a competitive game. The direction at which heroes games are heading is pretty depressing when it comes to this.

Finally, combinations. Factions are "balanced" usually because they are based on paper-rock-scissors strategy; this one is heavily used by modern RTS games. Machine guns counter infantry, infantry counters heavy vehicles, heavy vehicles counter light... and so on. The most problematic thing though is how those fare in combos. Even if A > B and C > D, A+C may be inferior to B+D if, say B covers 30% of your army and D covers 70%. A great example would be dryad+bear combo in Warcraft III, effectively countering everything with just two units because those units incredibly compliment each other. There is no real method of balancing this ; You may go extreme and make the units almost inefficient against their counters, like the C&C games try, but that leads to overpowered counter methods where a unit or two may slaughter a whole legion of units it technically counters. This means you can simply build the most effective all-around units with slight addition of counter-units to counter whatever methods the enemy tries to apply to stop you. Which usually ends up with either mass rocket infantry or mass tanks in C&C games. You may also make the counters only slightly better than the units they are meant to counter, like in warcraft, but that means a proper execution may actually defeat the counterunits by the units meant to be countered by them - players defeating mass gargoyles by massing bears, which are unable to attack flying units in Warcraft 3 are a great example: even though they can't really fight back, they can still destroy bases while the heroes take care of the pesky fliers.

Finally, effectiveness in time. What's badly balanced in many Hack'n'slash games is that certain skills give great returns early and nearly none at the endgame. That is caused by the nature of fixed damage and % damage: in general, fixed damage is much worse later and % damage is much worse earlier. I think the fix is actually simple: combine those. Rather than having a skill that does 200 damage and a skill that gives +80% damage, make one that has 100 damage and increases the damage by 50%. That way, it's effective early AND late.

The topic is long, but I'm really pissed at game designers. Most of the games are horrible in terms of balance. Notorious examples:

Arcanum: Probably worst balance I've ever seen in a RPG game. Just get two charged rings, cast haste and use a fire axe. Obviously, the creators missed the fact that you don't have to SPECIALIZE in either technology or magic and that you can combine BOTH to completely overpowered effects. The amount of useless spells is horrifying: seriously, has anyone ever played this game?

HoMM5: Based on luck almost entirely. If it wasn't for the custom made ToH maps the game would drown in the pit of snowiness ages ago. Those maps fixed it, but the core mechanics are horrible.

Fallout 2: It is good to offer certain possibilities, but the ability to get the best weapon and armor in the game right off the bat with some ingame knowledge is retarded. If it's possible and you are a powergamer, you WILL use it. It's not a cheat, after all. And it spoils the game TOTALLY.

Betrayal at Krondor: While a fantastic game, what in the holy mother of snow is wrong with the freezing spell? Isn't immobilizing the creature for 20 turns a LITTLE excessive? isn't 100% chance for blocking a bit over the top, too? There are so little enemies that can't be frozen by Grief of 1000 nights spell (and those can be frozen anyway with the iceball spell...), and the blocking makes it possible to draw enemies to one of your chars, freezing some and just whacking the rest while they constantly attack the character who defends, not being able to damage him at all... Also, a spell that gives 10 turns of immunity to all damage? Oh come on. Skin of the dragon is a retarded spell. How can you possibly LOSE with that kind of magical arsenal? That's right: you can't.

Dungeon Siege 2: Get a bow. Get high life drain. Get Ravaging shot. Right click. Bam, whole screen dead and your powers regenerate in a couple seconds later on. Who needs other classes seriously... just get 6 archers and give one some levels of melee so he can cast War Cry on bosses. Lmao. Has anybody ever played this before releasing it?

Baldur's Gate 2: -_- Have you ever died in this game? Lol seriously. Inquisitor -> instant purge of all spell effects via amplified version of Dispel Magic. From there you just attack. Melee attackers? Who cares, they will hopelessly bounce off the Stoneskin/Iron skins of your figher/mage or ranger/cleric character forever while your party slaughters them. Throne of Baal: Who the heck invented Spike Trap? Just put some of these and watch how everything dies in one big boom, including dragons. Oh, and why the hasted Planetar summon solos almost every creature in this game, also bosses?

Final Fantasy 8: Oh boy. A beautiful game, but a complete balance disaster. Zell being able to kill everything with just one limit AND being incredibly effective because someone didn't think that you can ignore the higher damage attacks and just repeatedly do the easiest moves, stacking dozens of them in every limit? Heck, even without Zell it's THE easiest game of all time. Win some bat cards at the minigame, change them to Drain spells and junction 100 of those (which takes only 5 cards... you can also get them by morphing the bats which conveniently are among the first creatures you meet in this game with the Card command...) to status attack... which ends up with your character restoring 100% damage he/she does with every attack. Now use one of the 847583749827 methods to obtain massive strength boost and use darkness command (also acquired fast) which triples your damage... here you go, you do 9999 damage each hit and you recover 9999 damage each hit. If you really want to go to extreme add auto haste, some status magic to Status Defense so nothing really affects you... oh come on, this game is such a joke when it comes to mechanics. Also the game is balanced in a way that a player that doesn't know any of the simple junction may beat the game. That means if you DO, you can junction 100 Curagas (acquired by buying a few tents from first shop and morphing them with a GF skill) and voila, 3k damage... which means your critical HP is around 800 hp... which means you can use limit breaks every turn while having a character that is as tough as regular non-junctioned character... Jesus. Seriously, wtf. Even Arcanum was 1000 times more difficult. Grand champion of horrible, abusable mechanics.


The Witcher: great game, but... Aard sign, if you focus on it, stuns every single creature in this game. So powerful creatures are instantly dead because once they stunned, you can OHKO them. Groups? Hey, no, prob, the group style is super-overpowered, it actually does more damage than all other styles combined because precise hit (an upgrade for group style) gives crazy criticals... So yeah, the bigger the group is, the faster they go down. On top of that you have Quen which makes you immortal AND reduces the health of the enemies that attack you while you are immortal (so when you fight them, they are at 25% HP remaining! ROTFL!) and Igni, which does a percentage of enemy HP... which means bosses go down after a couple casts... no, seriously, what a JOKE.

Neverwinter nights 2: Lol, just lol. Get weapon master. He does massive criticals which nearly instantly kill things and make him also a frenzied berserker, so he supreme-cleaves after kill, each of the cleaves can go critical ofc meaning more cleaves... yeah, one chop and everything is dead. MotB... sure, the Weapon master is weak, so let's add a special rapier to the game that pierces critical damage immunity (making it enchantable)... and let's give a possibility to get a mask that makes it possible to cast Premonition (a super-stoneskin spell available only to high level mages) on yourself... what else we can do, make him fly?


Ok, that is enough. I'm so fed up with this. Yes, I'm a powergamer and yes, I quickly discover abusable methods in games. But come on, those are so OBVIOUS and it doesn't take ANY effort to balance them... maybe to hire a guy like me and let me play a couple hours. Seriously, those games, while great, seem as if they were never beta-tested for balance, only for bugs. And it ends up with me whining that every game is so easy, I can practically beat it while riding a damn unicycle while doing a headstand with my hands tied behind my back and my monitor turned off while I recite the Koran in original Arabian language backwards and juggle with glass using my legs. What a joke.
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TheDeath
TheDeath


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
posted November 05, 2009 10:02 PM

Quote:
However, if we want to fix such a balance issue, we have to ask ourselves: is the problem generated by numbers, or mechanics? The former is easy to fix. Say, a unit that offers 400 damage per week on average while the others offer 200. You can tone it down by just changing the damage output or increase the damage output by others, np. But what if its usefulness comes from the mechanics itself and changing them would essentially destroy the skill/strategy in process? Arcane Archers of HoMM5 are a good example: while strictly superior to Master Hunters, they are based on a simple "no distance penalty" and "DEF reduction" effect. There is no real way to change the "no distance penalty" modifier because the game doesn't implement partial distance modifiers. Thus, it's all or nothing. The problem's core lies in the mechanics which applies binary solution here. A REAL solution would be to change the game engine to give more possibilities: Complete distance modifier ignoring under certain conditions (total range, DEF, whatever - no need to go in detail here), for instance. The more you make the ability progress "fluid" and not "all or anything", the easier it is to make it balanced.
For the Arcane Archers I have to say that simply reducing the "numbers" (damage) would be a solution. Many things can be solved by simply doing STATISTICAL FAIR ANALYSIS. What I mean by this is:

* No such thing as "Arcane Archers are overpowered because the Sylvan Town is underpowered otherwise", which is the most idiotic thing to say (I heard it a lot when I was arguing about balance, not you Doom ), the root of ALL balance problems. Unit-on-unit have to be balanced in a statistical way, not town-on-town or some other interpretation, otherwise the imbalance would likely arise because of player's choice to favor certain units which they know are better than "average" because others are sub "average". This is NOT strategy, this is ABUSE.

* Statistically everything has a certain chance. yes even special abilities: the aim is to set a given "average" scenario over which everything is based. Notice that this is probably the hardest part to choose -- i.e what is "average scenario"?

Let's take an example. Suppose there's a unit with No-Range-Penalty and another one without, but which shoots twice (for double damage in total! note this is not how it's in Heroes...). The imbalance here is clearly visible, and it's not because of the abilities. The double-shot unit is overpowered, because in ANY scenario we pick, it will do the same damage from far away, but more damage from close up.

Now how can we balance the numbers? Well obviously here's where the "average scenario" comes into play (mind you this "average scenario" is universal and used for ALL units when balancing, so as to give a fair statistical result). Let's suppose we think that the average scenario, based upon numerous testing, is that far range happens 60% of the time, close up range with average strategy happens 40% of the time. (meaning, both sides take proper strategic measures to attract the enemy & stay away, respectively).

This would mean that we have to reduce the damage of the double-shot creature by an amount, which depends on the chances that the enemy is found to be in "close range". If the enemy is, on average (see "average scenario"), 40% of the time close (means double damage compared to the other creature), and 60% of the time far (means same damage as the creature with no range penalty), then the damage has to be reduced by 40% (divide by 1.4).

The math is simple, we note the damage 'd', and we have to find out 'x', which is the coefficient we have to multiply the damage by to get the statistically fair result:

x * (2*d*40% + d*60%) = d*100%

this can be read as, twice damage 40% of the time, plus same damage 60% of the time has to equal normal damage 100% of the time. So we have to find out 'x' in this case, to realize how much we have to reduce the damage of the unit with Double-Shot. Easy.

Please note that finding the "average scenario" is the most important thing here, not the statistical math.

Quote:
The binary problem is tightly connected to the distribution problem. You see, the worst mechanism of implementing a skill is to give a certain skill game-breaking effects, but to apply a very low chance of appearing.
I have nothing to add to this except





I didn't read the rest of it as I don't have time now, so please forgive if I missed something essential.
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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted November 05, 2009 10:21 PM

No prob, come back later and comment

The Arcane Archers were just an example. Not the best, I agree, but for some reason I couldn't think of anything better at the moment. Right now I think I can give a better example for a HoMM game.

Necromancy in HoMM3.

You can tweak the numbers as much as you wish, but the skill will still end up moderately useful early and horribly overpowered at large maps.

If you tweak the numbers too hard, the skill will become useless throughout 90% of the game time, thus it won't matter anymore later because you will fail to make a proper use of it (at that point of the game it won't matter anymore).

If you leave it as it is... well, yeah. It will be like it is.

You would have to change the mechanics of the necromancy to make it balanced. Simple X% creatures is raised is weak. It's simply not complex enough to make it balanced.

Fine example of a mechanical tweak.

There are however, more horrible balance issues that I call "core tweaks". For example, in Warcraft 3, the game was meant to be all about clashes of small, strong groups and micro. The problem is, the game mechanics and engine pretty much BEG for mass expending and some factions are better for that (humans and night elves), which turns the micro-based game into a huge mass-and-conquer game. You can't change the numbers and you can't really change the way it works, you'd have to re-design the game: gold per second, max expansions, maps, expanding, seriously, change it hard-corely to fix the issue. That's a complex, "core" balance issue.

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TheDeath
TheDeath


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
posted November 05, 2009 10:31 PM

Yes of course, I was talking about the Arcane Archer as an example where number tweaking is enough -- just because I said that statistically we can calculate chances of almost all abilities, it doesn't mean they can be solved by tweaking numbers only. The necromancy example is a good one.
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Corribus
Corribus

Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
posted November 05, 2009 10:36 PM
Edited by Corribus at 22:57, 05 Nov 2009.

Nice post, Doom, though the rants about individual games were a little superfluous.

Just a few comments about your "philosophy" section:

Quote:
I prefer to remove ALL luck-based elements from games as a method of balancing: in other words, implement a weakened aging technique that works every time and balance the unit accordingly

I totally disagree.  I think luck should play a role in every game.  That's not to say I want the outcome to be completely determined by chance; however, if everything is completely predictable - even if the game is very complex - then the game becomes too deterministic.  I like having an element of chance in games.  Surprises are, for the most part, good things, as long as they aren't so completely unbalanced as to ruin the game.  

I mean, compare the two games of chess and bridge.

Chess - no chance involved whatsoever, and as a result the game is very mathematical but also, to my mind, very boring.  Bridge on the other hand has some element of chance (i.e., what cards are you going to be dealt?), which makes the game more dynamic because there will be times when you are forced to deal with unexpected adversity.  

Look at it this way - anyone can devise a strategy to win a game that is completely predictable.  You don't need a human mind to do that - a computer is sufficient AND superior.  It takes much more skill to devise a flexible strategy which is able to deal with unexpected contingencies.  I agree, chance elements that can lose (or win) a game in one fell swoop are to be avoided, but I like having to incorporate a little bit of uncertainty into my process of weighing pros and cons of a future action.  It makes decision making more interesting and more realistic.  It also adds tension and excitement.  Chance is, after all, a part of life.

Quote:
Finally, effectiveness in time. What's badly balanced in many Hack'n'slash games is that certain skills give great returns early and nearly none at the endgame. That is caused by the nature of fixed damage and % damage: in general, fixed damage is much worse later and % damage is much worse earlier. I think the fix is actually simple: combine those. Rather than having a skill that does 200 damage and a skill that gives +80% damage, make one that has 100 damage and increases the damage by 50%. That way, it's effective early AND late.

In the case of some games, I would agree with you here, but in the case of others, not so much.  After all, in H2 the factions were balanced in a dynamic way that favored some factions in the long run (i.e., wizard, warlock) and others in the short game (knight, barbarian).  Other factions were sort of middle of the road factions that could cope well in any situation.  Compare this to H3, which was well balanced, true, but which didn't allow for every different faction-specific strategies.  I think it's a fine line, of course.  You don't want to make it so restricting that in a certain circumstance a certain faction will win all the time.  But I see no problem in giving certain factions a little bit of an edge in specific environments as long as overall the factions are balanced over all conditions.

If that makes sense...
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winterfate
winterfate


Supreme Hero
Water-marked Champion!
posted November 06, 2009 02:46 AM

Quote:
Fallout 2: It is good to offer certain possibilities, but the ability to get the best weapon and armor in the game right off the bat with some ingame knowledge is retarded. If it's possible and you are a powergamer, you WILL use it. It's not a cheat, after all. And it spoils the game TOTALLY.



Ah, the good old San Francisco speed run.
Get a high Steal %, go to San Fran, steal goodies.
Go to Navarro, bluff your way in, get Advanced Power Armor.
GG.

Did I mention I liked Fallout 1 more?


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Azagal
Azagal


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Smooth Snake
posted November 06, 2009 02:48 AM

Quote:
If it's possible and you are a powergamer, you WILL use it. It's not a cheat, after all. And it spoils the game TOTALLY.

Then why do it...? You play to be challenged have fun, no? So why would you mess that up for yourself?
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winterfate
winterfate


Supreme Hero
Water-marked Champion!
posted November 06, 2009 02:54 AM

@Azagal: Part of the powergaming creed IS precisely finding details like that, to maximize your <insert game objective priority here> (chances of winning or character strength, for two examples).
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If you supposedly care about someone, then don't push them out of your life. Acting like you're not doing it doesn't exempt you from what I just said. - Winterfate

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Azagal
Azagal


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Smooth Snake
posted November 06, 2009 02:58 AM

So you'd rather finish a game and not be challenged than finish the game while being challenged? Sorry but the idea of "powergaming" just seems quite opposed to the idea of "gaming".
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"All I can see is what's in front of me. And all I can do is keep moving forward" - The Heir Wielder of Names, Seeker of Thrones, King of Swords, Breaker of Infinities, Wheel Smashing Lord

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Corribus
Corribus

Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
posted November 06, 2009 02:58 AM

So let me get this straight: you make a purposeful effort to find exploits that unbalance games and then use those exploits to beat the game as efficiently as possible for some sort of bragging rights; and then you complain that those exploits exist?  Sorry, but I don't quite get it.

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mvassilev
mvassilev


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted November 06, 2009 03:00 AM

No, it makes perfect sense. All players should play to the fullest of their ability - that's what makes the game the most fun. But if there's a game-breaker that makes it so there's only one way to win, then the game is poorly designed.
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TheDeath
TheDeath


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
posted November 06, 2009 03:04 AM

@Azagal & Corribus: the game is fun when you are doing your best. It's human nature. If you know there are exploits but don't use them, the fun will decrease because you're not giving your best and you know it.

...and then you find out it is too easy. That's why it's bad
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winterfate
winterfate


Supreme Hero
Water-marked Champion!
posted November 06, 2009 03:04 AM

Quote:
So you'd rather finish a game and not be challenged than finish the game while being challenged? Sorry but the idea of "powergaming" just seems quite opposed to the idea of "gaming".


No, but then again, I don't powergame much. I do glitch hunt though once I've beaten a game at least once. Glitches can be hilarious.

(If you go check out old console games, you'd be surprised how many bugs they had. )

Glitch Hunting forevah!

(And Glitch Hunting isn't necessarily powergaming either. Depends on whether the glitch lets you beat the game easier or not.)

My favorite glitchy games of all time:

Pokémon Red/Blue (who HASN'T heard of that mess of pixels that most call Missigno. ?)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - You can break the story continuity by way of a certain glitch and beat 90% of the game with the first sword you get, or alternately use the Hammer to beat a boss that comes BEFORE you being able to get the hammer.

@Corribus: You know...I never noticed the irony until you mentioned it. I must be really tired today.
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mamgaeater
mamgaeater


Legendary Hero
Shroud, Flying, Trample, Haste
posted November 06, 2009 03:40 AM
Edited by mamgaeater at 03:46, 06 Nov 2009.

Ahh the politics of balancing, My natural nemesis> You hit the Nail on the head but didn't go into detail about other things


Also you mis used cookie cutter. (it isn't cookie cutter if a game has 12 different  main strategies. Likewise it isn't a cookie cutter move to choose rock, paper or scissors in rock, paper, scissors)


Another thing you didn't mention about balance is First Turn Advantage.
Very few games have a system in place to stop FTA.

Some games have such massive amounts of it that mapmakers had to make maps with things to prevent FTA.

You touched on assymetrical balance but then went around to bash it later on with this statement.

Quote:
Finally, effectiveness in time. What's badly balanced in many Hack'n'slash games is that certain skills give great returns early and nearly none at the endgame. That is caused by the nature of fixed damage and % damage: in general, fixed damage is much worse later and % damage is much worse earlier. I think the fix is actually simple: combine those. Rather than having a skill that does 200 damage and a skill that gives +80% damage, make one that has 100 damage and increases the damage by 50%. That way, it's effective early AND late.


yes a skill being narrow is bad but it makes the player make choices.
Should the player waste points on a skill that will help out now or try to benefit in the long run.

players need to have choices to make. it ensures cookie cutter strats stay out, because if the choice is actually balanced there will be a variety of gameplay.

Look at Homm 3 and its Capitol vs Creatures debate. More Money helps in the long run but more creatures helps a player get out faster and get even more resources in the long run.

This isn't a choice. There are extremely few situations where it is wise to buy the Capitol First. You don't have to weight risks and benefits. This is an imbalance in benefit of The NOW choice.

NOW choices do tend to be more popular with noobs. While Experts will usually prefer late game benefits.

A good game should make you make choices, 'Should i get the angry flaming spin attack so i can get to the endgame faster or should i take it slow and Have an easy time in the endgame' There shouldn't be a right choice. There can be a middle but having only a middle destroys balance.

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Corribus
Corribus

Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
posted November 06, 2009 03:45 AM

Quote:
No, it makes perfect sense. All players should play to the fullest of their ability - that's what makes the game the most fun. But if there's a game-breaker that makes it so there's only one way to win, then the game is poorly designed.

Then why not cheat if the object is just to win?

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mvassilev
mvassilev


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted November 06, 2009 03:51 AM

Cheating is disabled in multiplayer, so it doesn't matter anyway.
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kipshasz
kipshasz


Undefeatable Hero
Elvin's Darkside
posted November 06, 2009 05:28 AM

About Arcanum: My char never used melee weapons. I make sure I get a Looking Glass Rifle or an Elephant Gun fast. Also used explosives to make quick cash.
First aquiring a fine revolver and bullets schematic. After getting the first fate point I use it to steal a Hand Cannon from a halfling in Tarant(Killing him works too, but that way you get in trouble ) and usually my char has the main firepower before going to BMC mines.

Another balancing issue is in Far Cry. Those mutants never made sense. After all those great encounters with the mercs, I was truelly disapointed. Mutants sucked in that game. A great FPS with an awesome AI was turned into a simple serious sam like fps. And boy those creeps were imba.
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"Ashan to the Trashcan", "I got PTSD from H7. " - LizardWarrior

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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted November 06, 2009 11:05 AM
Edited by Doomforge at 11:06, 06 Nov 2009.

Corribus, Azzie: You don't understand powergaming? Never mind powergaming then, the balance is as much of issue for non-powergamers as for powergamers imho. Well, let me put it that way. You have a rifle in a FPS game that is just too good. Great range, good damage, etc. Using it makes the game easy. Will you throw it away or just use it?

I use whatever tools the game designers give me. If they by any chance make the game no challenge, I have the rights to complain.


Mamga: In Diablo, each char has its "cookie cutter build". So actually you can have more than one. The word evolved a bit in modern multiplayer gaming and each race or character has its own cookie cutter build/style now.

Also, the fact that I proposed to combine skills doesn't mean I don't advise other skills at the same level INSTEAD of one of the former that would be a) original b) gave a choice. Making two damage skills just gives you the choice of taking the one that works early or the one that works late; with a respec skill you make use of both at the proper time. But making one good combined damage skill and, say, a good summoning skill gives you a choice.

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Fauch
Fauch


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted November 06, 2009 03:58 PM

in FPS, what about the "vacuum cleaner" gun from half life?
in story mode that was kinda fine, since you found it near the end of the game, but in multiplayer that thing was just super imba, anyone who got it had a high chance of owning the game, as this weapon was the most powerful, most accurate, easiest to use and had the biggest magazine.

in red faction, you had the railgun. it killed in one hit and bots were dreadfully accurate with it. in easy mode, all bots were helpless against you, but those using the railgun could still kill you from behind a wall before you could do a damn thing. in impossible mode that was less of a problem since any weapon could kill you before you could do anything
when I played multiplayer with some friends, a bots getting the railgun was always the primary target as he could kill anyone from across the map and would never miss a shot.

in timesplitters, weapons were overall very powerful, so there wasn't too much problems, but the shotgun and the spas 12 had the same power in long range that in short range. (spas 12 killed in 1 or 2 hits, shotgun almost always killed in one, even at very long range)

timesplitters 2 had one of the worst weapon I have seen in a FPS. the homing launcher. that thing allowed you to fire 30 homing missiles without reloading. you were supposed to lock the target and shoot to see the missile go straight on it. the only problem is that most of the time, missiles would dodge the target for no reason and hit a wall instead.
in another hand, bots using this weapon would get you almost all the time. even if they are on the other side of the map and can't see you, or the missile has to manoeuvrate through tight corridors, it would still kill you 90% of the time.

timesplitters 3 has the mag charger. like the railgun, that thing can shoot through walls. but whereas it is far less powerful, it has the auto aim, making it easy for a camper to kill anyone while staying completely safe.

in XIII, despite the big recoil of some guns, bots had 100% accuracy, even on lowest difficulties. vicious bots were like super imba, because they could instantly evaluate your level of armour (body and head) and they instantly knew where to shoot to kill you the fastest. add to that that they could also bunny hop without losing any accuracy

in far cry 2, the MGL 140 is a pure weapon of mass destruction, allowing you to fire 4 grenades without reloading and wipe out checkpoints within seconds. you can carry like 20 grenades at once, which is the main reason why it's so imba. in another hand, it's the hardest weapon to get.

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TheDeath
TheDeath


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
posted November 06, 2009 04:58 PM

Quote:
in FPS, what about the "vacuum cleaner" gun from half life?
in story mode that was kinda fine, since you found it near the end of the game, but in multiplayer that thing was just super imba, anyone who got it had a high chance of owning the game, as this weapon was the most powerful, most accurate, easiest to use and had the biggest magazine.
If you were a pro with the crossbow you owned everyone. Imba but with skill
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