A radical idea about balance discussion

[Sucky_Lord]

Lets rebalance it to "Ratio of skill at xta to number of games played in the last 2 months, expressed numerically." Hmm lets see, that puts me, ivory and AF at Ôê×, and the rest of you at some infinitely lower ratio. You see this system is just as good as yours because it ignores all other variables and doesn't even look at the quality of the input put in by us "loud mouths."

Go back to being a biologist.

[babbles]

hey you got the right forum this time, grats

[Tim-the-maniac]

upload more demos to http://replays.adune.nl/

+1
I wanted to do a 1v1 replay review in the style that noize (iirc) did for AA games ages ago. Only game currently uploaded is shift vs citrus

[pintle]

search youtube for the user "xtareplay"

[Tim-the-maniac]

Those are commentated videos not replays

[Gota]

First Off,
Games of XTA played in total:7 to 10
Games in total won: 1 or 2.
Number of XTA 1v1's I've played ever: 2
Last time I played XTA: Either this month or last month.
General Opinion of XTA: "pretty fun"


Just wanted to chime in with a question about balance in general.
If a game is well balanced in a 1v1 won't it be well balanced in team scenarios and if not, why is this the case?

It will be.
There is a difference between the 2 cases.
In 1v1 usually there is much less waste and of course in the majority of cases the forces and resources coordination is way better.
Of course there is another aspect and that is that in team games many times youll have many newbies while 1v1 is mostly played by experienced players.
Because of this inaacuracy of mixed teams usually with newbies and good players and the lesser coordination it is very hard to actually know why a team game was won..
Sometimes we see units that seem to have won the game for us and are extremely effective while actually something completely different effected out success like our superior economy randomly better coordination and mutual support and other very hard to spot factors.

The best way to check balancing is in 1v1 games.
It is much easier to inspect the outcome,because in most cases the reason is that one player, just played more effectively as oppose to in a team game,where a game could have been won because one team was just playing with a better coordination, something that has nothing to do with game balance.

A team's coordination can of course be intentionally better or, also randomly better, where people did things without much consideration of their allies' actions but still randomly managed to make moves that benefited their allies and the team as a whole more than the players in the enemy team.

[Gota]

i want to also add that most 1v1 games are actually played in much more "open" conditions.
the progression of map size compared to the progression of the number of players per team is much lower.

1v1's are usually played on 8x8 maps.
8x8=64
So lets say that a map needs to have roughly the same amount of space per player so it is as open for a 2v2 as the 8x8 was for the 1v1.
such a map would be between 11x11 and 12x12 in size.

Now lets ask ourselves how may xta 2v2 games are played on roughly a 11x11-12x12 maps?
Usually 2v2 games are played on the same 8x8 maps...

For a 3v3 game you'd need a (64X3=196) 14x14 map.
A 14 x 14 map is almost the size of DSD(10x20=200).

how many 3v3 games of xta are played on maps the size of DSD?

even a map like tabula(16x14) is too small for a 4v4 game if we want to preserve the same conditions to test balance as we had in your standard 8x8 map(you'd need a 256=16x16 map).
Not to mention the fact that many times tabula is played with more players.


Team games usually have newbies in them that prefer and can only function properly in a more porcy game as oppose to the more experienced players who feel comfortable with the pressure of the more open games.
This in turn and from the very beginning effected the creation of maps by map makers(team maps were and are made more crowded by map makers cause of the natural gut feeling that team maps need to be porcier otherwise they usually play bad).

you just cant balance a mod based on newbie team games that favor slower,longer ranged and more hp beefy units as opposed to faster shorter ranged and low hp units.

if you balance based on these porcier, more random, team games,faster units will immediately be buffed to become more useful.
such balancing will ruin 1v1 games and games with more open space(and team games with very high level teams) as fast units will completely dominate them after the said buffs.

However balancing for 1v1 will make 1v1, big open team games and high level team games great while newbie team games still remain fun to play as slower more noob friendly units are accentuated in these games.

[babbles]

I think it's best I ignore that logic than poke holes in it

[Gota]

I think it's best I ignore that logic than poke holes in it

plz poke,intelligently.

[babbles]

well you say Tabula is too small for 4v4, but you said few days ago that tabula was too big for 3v3.

so if you contradict yourself, I don't need to pick at your logic

[Gota]

well you say Tabula is too small for 4v4, but you said few days ago that tabula was too big for 3v3.

so if you contradict yourself, I don't need to pick at your logic

heh...
Tabula has 8 starting positions.
What i meant was that the map was clearly made for a 4 player game.
All the starting positions are evident and its clear where every one of the 8 starting positions is.
the map was MADE intentionally to be a 4v4 that is porcier and more crowded the standard 1v1 map.

I didnt mean it that it had too much room for a 3v3 i meant that it was planned for 4 players on each side.

edit:
and when i write intentionally porcier i mean that the map maker,hunter felt that this was the proper size for a 4v4 map, instictivly, based on his experiance of team games and the instinctively right size per player for a 4v4 is lower than the usual 1v1 map size cause team maps in most cases need to be porcier so that newbies dont perish after 3 minuts.

[raaar]

I haven't played that much xta lately. Maybe a dozen games in the last month.

It makes sense to value feedback from the most active players, but not much more than feedback from other players who played this for a long time, or just the random stranger that says something that makes sense...Heck, maybe some guys aren't active BECAUSE the mod does have balance problems..

two issues:
1- balance problems, either between factions or within ("useless" stuff)
2- game not playing the way people want

Imo arguments here about (1) may lead somewhere....but not about (2), which may be more important now. The xta community doesn't seem to have a consistant ideas on where the mod should go.

I think we need a dev (or a dev team) with a plan, and go forward with it. Some people would whine at first, but it would probably end up better in the future.

[manolo_]

no balance issue, but add the AO-"addon" of beherith to next release

[Citrus]

+1 for a dev (or at least an active dev) or a dev team...

[Gota]

I heard Blizzard East dont have a project ATM...

[1v0ry_k1ng]

prefix any post that discusses mod balance with amount of times that you played the mod online in the past 2 months, exact value isn't necessary, a simple order of magnitude will suffice
for example, in this thread we got:
1v0ry_k1ng: 0
...

1) find fire
2) go into
3) die