"slippery slope"

[SwiftSpear]

@Eman

The problem with starting defense is that the game can get "moribund" (I forget who coined that term, but I love it) - that is, the game is won, but the attacker needs to tech up in order to make the kill. If home base has defenses, attacker eradicate's defender's army (but leaves home defenses) and claims surrounding territory, laying siege. He then has to wait to mount a force capable of breaking the home defenses.

The ol' bump in the slippery slope. The least fun construct in gaming , where one player has slipped already past the point of return, yet there is some large overbearing obstacle preventing the game from smoothly gliding to a finish.

[edit] ya, as pressureline says, it's a scalar thing, early base defense can just be centralized anti raiding. It doesn't have to be the end all stop all preventing the opponent from finishing you before they have teched to T2. That's one of the things I really disliked about evo, the early game citadel was just ridiculous.

[Pressure Line]

ran into the same thing in S44 testing. the German HQ was extremely hard to kill with infantry, so the main tactic was to place it in the most irritating position possible (if on start boxes start) so it could cover your infantry, and deny as much of the map to enemy infantry as possible. even though you could completely eliminate any chance of it ever produce any infantry with snipers, you couldnt actually kill it (with reasonable speed) with light units (mortars included, leig and packhow somewhat included) and would have to bring in tanks/heavy guns to finish it off.

but, afaik thats fixed now :)

*edit* but yeah, theres a fine line between "helps defend against early raids into the heart of your base" and "requires a massive assault force to take down"

[Eman]

In chess the phrase "playing for a mistake" is thrown around a fair bit. Once a material or positional advantage is established, unless the player with an advantage makes a gross error the outcome is consistent. Past a certain level of play, more often then not games of chess end with a forfeit.

I've spent more hours then I'd like to admit pounding away at the ladder rank system in age III, Starcraft, and LOTR II. Past a certain level of skill, in any game you assess your opponents faction and the map and choose an initial build. Build choice can be paper/rock/scissors-esk, but more often then not it is more simply a choice between risk levels - early defense vs early econ vs early aggression - pick 1 or 2.

In most games gross advantage is established to some degree during the "build" phase. In my experience, this usually means someone dies at 5-7 minutes. My experience may be biased by my own play; I tend to rush in most games.

To me, games where there are more viable early game choices and outcomes are more fun. If you end up with a choice between 2 builds that basically end in the same place as long as both parties know the game well enough, you might as well have just started the game at that point.

The other slope that tends to differentiate games is middle game scope of options. If you arrive in middle game with something like parity (advantage is not severe) games with fewer options tend to more heavily favor the player with the advantage. Fewer viable choices = fewer possible mistakes/upturns.

If you get to late game in a well built game, both players made few/equal mistakes and had decent luck. Advantage has shifted back and forth a few times. Next you race for finishing moves - someone wins. Most games like that I walk away from pleased; win or lose, you got to dance.

More viable options = more dancing. On the other hand, more viable options = greater issues with balance.

[SwiftSpear]

Mmm, balance is it's own whole new monster. Regarding issues with balance you could write books. There's at least 3 different balancing paradims you want too look at, and each of them can be immensely complicated. Good balance will also play into slippery slope, because if you have 5 options, and 1 will give you the best chance to win 95% of the time, while the enemy civ has no hard counter to it, your game really isn't balanced, even if the civ1 vs civ2 win loss ratio is at an even 50/50 on average. You need to middle and late game options that are fair to both teams.

That's one of the strength's of TA IMO, you can go bombers, you can go nuke spam, you can go LRPC, you can go krogoth, and each of those has it's own counters and weaknesses, you really can't afford to defend all 4 and still mount an effective offense of your own. Creates a very interesting defconesk play mechanic of the late game, where you are trying to muster a massive attack that the enemy won't expect and at the same time getting that attack in before your enemy has the chance to preempt you. It's not traditional RTS, but it's pretty damn fun anyways.

[Eman]

When you talk about TA and end games, it is important to talk about which TA you refer too. Cavedog TA vs. mod community TA vs. the different Spring TA's are different animals. One of the interesting things about "modern" TA is that its balance is an evolved and interpreted thing. TA in some forms is an archetypical example of a "more cheese for everyone" game. On others it is ... not.

It is refreshing to talk about games with people who have informed and thoughtful opinions. It is one of the things I missed a lot overseas - lots of gamers, not much depth.

I've been spending a lot of time of late looking at RTS balancing. It is a subject I am fairly sure I can drone on about until I am fairly well boring. When I got home me and Argh/Greg started working to make PURE more of a game and less of a collection of models. A few months later, it has gotten to a point where it can actually be fun - something that frankly it wasn't really when we began. One thing that I have come to see is that balancing a game is much like a term paper - there comes a point where you can't see it anymore. Applying theories and different forms of analysis help, but there comes a point of diminishing returns.

If you have had the time and inclination to mess with it enough to form an opinion, I appreciate whatever insight you can lend.

In case it is not clear, the above is intended as a request for help rather then a plug. There is a thread for that

[KDR_11k]

I recall some pro game dev saying that you aren't really in beta until your balance changes are no greater than 10% per iteration.

[SwiftSpear]

I recall some pro game dev saying that you aren't really in beta until your balance changes are no greater than 10% per iteration.

Mmm, I liked how starcraft would add 1 or 2 damage points or health points during patches, yet still everyone would say how different the game was.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

I guess when you play the game 70 hours a week those little extra points add up

[CarRepairer]

I recall some pro game dev saying that you aren't really in beta until your balance changes are no greater than 10% per iteration.

Mmm, I liked how starcraft would add 1 or 2 damage points or health points during patches, yet still everyone would say how different the game was.

In Starcraft, 1 or 2 damage points is like 20-40 damage points in *A. It's the diff between life and death in some cases.

[SwiftSpear]

Ya, it was absolutely the difference between life and death, in a certain scenario vs certain units... but 2 HP still is an increadibly minor change. I think the largest differential I ever saw tweaked in starcraft was like 6%

[Licho]

Starcraft is a lot more predictable game with no "physical" simulation.
Its different category game..

[smoth]

people here like comparing apples and kiwis.

[Pressure Line]

APPLES


AND KIWIS!


Incidentally... How to best prepare a kiwi for eating!

[MidKnight]

glad to know that others, like me, eat the kiwifruit with the skin on!

[Pressure Line]

*woosh*

Thats the sound of the last third of my post going over your head.

A Kiwi is a bird or the unofficial name for someone from New Zealand (in the same vein as an American being a yank, an Australian being an Aussie etc etc) So the joke in that picture is from people calling kiwifruit kiwis.

You wouldn't call a grapefruit a grape, so stop calling a kiwifruit a kiwi.

tldr: a kiwi is bird, not a fruit.

ps: you can all thank MidKnight for making that joke not funny.

[KDR_11k]

I don't think anybody gives a damn about that, PL.

[jellyman]

thats how I eat kiwis too.