Oh, Tired is always like that. He consciously acts like non-TA mods don't exist / aren't playable.jcnossen wrote:This thread should be called TA Balance discussion theory if even the thread starter doesn't want any non-TA mod player to state his opinion.
TA Derivative Balancing Theory Discussion
Moderator: Moderators
People mostly play TA because they came here for TA. Until recently Spring was called TA Spring and people still call it that, basically creates the image of Spring being TA and only TA.
I dont know... nearly everyone whom Ive played it with and who has played it more than once.. has given me the feedback that it was indeed fun..LordMatt wrote:But is it fun? Do people want to play it? Maybe those would be worthwhile things to work on, rather than arguing in this thread.Fanger wrote:EE is balanced.. there are no glaring imbalances in it..
Also I doubt anyone "hates" EE, they may not have any desire to play it, and may find people associated with it irritating (though you could say that about BA too).
EE IS fun, from what I've seen... Saying it isn't just seems to be part of this forum's general hobby of pestering Fanger, so far as I've seen 
.
It's balanced, but the units aren't bland. The artillery units, main combat units, and laser units (to list a few varieties) are very different, and all serve complementary roles without being useless by themselves.
.It's balanced, but the units aren't bland. The artillery units, main combat units, and laser units (to list a few varieties) are very different, and all serve complementary roles without being useless by themselves.
People who dont play ba alote cant say if it is actually balanced or not.
But i played it plenty and i think its unbalanced.It does have flash gator spam.fact it its only suitable and balanced when units dont need to move alote...like in 8x8 1v1's and cramped team games.
You cant balanced a game with so many units that do so many things at different situations by just tweaking units that you suddenly notice are unbalanced.
BA is an excellent example.
and again:
You CANT balanced a game with so many units that do so many things at different situations by just tweaking units that you suddenly notice are unbalanced.
You have to first make a system to base ur balance upon and than tweak it a bit as nessesary.Sometimes restructure the basis if you see it cant work by just tweaking it endlessly.some balance issues will have no answer with a certain balance structure and categories.
If this was a competitive game like starcraft for example ba would have been considered to be crap.
By the way balance evolves as player skill evolves.
If you have a new game that was just released it will have a certain balance that will not need ot be changed until player reach a certian skill and feel of the game and start noticing imbalanced features.When thosew things are fixed the devs need to wait for players to reach another level of gameplay and so on till the players can go no further in terms of how much they can achieve with micro and control of the game.
than you have certain boundaries you could not have calculated with numbers before the release cause they are relater to hoew fast a player can click a mouse button and how good the best players will be able to control everything ingame.
With a stable community like spring where the maximum level of gameplay has been pretty much stable with 2-3 players being the best while not improving and another 20 being average-high.
With such arelativly stable level of maximum player capabilities and game contolr a solid balancing system should have already reached equilibrium.
But i played it plenty and i think its unbalanced.It does have flash gator spam.fact it its only suitable and balanced when units dont need to move alote...like in 8x8 1v1's and cramped team games.
You cant balanced a game with so many units that do so many things at different situations by just tweaking units that you suddenly notice are unbalanced.
BA is an excellent example.
and again:
You CANT balanced a game with so many units that do so many things at different situations by just tweaking units that you suddenly notice are unbalanced.
You have to first make a system to base ur balance upon and than tweak it a bit as nessesary.Sometimes restructure the basis if you see it cant work by just tweaking it endlessly.some balance issues will have no answer with a certain balance structure and categories.
If this was a competitive game like starcraft for example ba would have been considered to be crap.
By the way balance evolves as player skill evolves.
If you have a new game that was just released it will have a certain balance that will not need ot be changed until player reach a certian skill and feel of the game and start noticing imbalanced features.When thosew things are fixed the devs need to wait for players to reach another level of gameplay and so on till the players can go no further in terms of how much they can achieve with micro and control of the game.
than you have certain boundaries you could not have calculated with numbers before the release cause they are relater to hoew fast a player can click a mouse button and how good the best players will be able to control everything ingame.
With a stable community like spring where the maximum level of gameplay has been pretty much stable with 2-3 players being the best while not improving and another 20 being average-high.
With such arelativly stable level of maximum player capabilities and game contolr a solid balancing system should have already reached equilibrium.
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Warlord Zsinj
- Imperial Winter Developer
- Posts: 3742
- Joined: 24 Aug 2004, 08:59
DZ, that seems to lend itself to a very stringent gameplay system, such as an advanced RPS model, rather then an evolving gameplay dyanamic.
The advantage of having so many different attributes to play with is that it becomes almost impossible to purely predict what will be good and what won't be; but it also means that with such a large array of units, the gameplay has a chance for players to get at it and pick it to pieces, so that units dynamically have different purposes, strategies and tactics as players learn to use them differently, and different strategies and counter strategies evolve. A unit that the designer intended to do one thing may have a use that other players find for it that is just as useful. Is this a bad thing? Absolutely not! It is why TA offers far more depth then starcraft ever could.
Sure, having a guiding 'vision' design is important, but having messy, holistically approached balancing is one of the greatest attributes of a good TA-derivative.
That being said, I agree with you that one of the biggest flaws that I can perceive in many TA-derivatives is that they update far too quickly. They really need a strong person at the helm, or else players are more likely to take their balancing issues to the developer and scream the top of their lungs to get them fixed, rather then looking at the puzzle pieces that they have, and trying to put together a better strategy - or just picking up the strategy that works well and doing it better then the other player.
In other words, in many situations, I can see developers not allowing one of the greatest balancing strengths of their mods, that is, a dynamically evolving balance, to eventuate. I've seen many developers (and I'm not naming names; I think we've all done this before) throw bandaid solutions onto a problem because someone has screamed about it, when it might only be immediately overpowered because someone has just been spanked by it.
The best case study for this is OTA gameplay, and I know I'm preaching to the wrong crowd here (seeing as you're all obviously not satisfied with it, given that you're all playing/making altered versions of it).
TA gameplay has dynamically evolved over the years, and many strategies that were considered to be overpowered initially were quickly defeated by players working to discover how to beat them. Other strategies that were overpowered simply became standard methods of combat that in turn provided their own nuances for players to discover.
I think that many of the current modders do not have the courage to let their mod stew for a little bit in the current environment and seeing what happens, for fear of losing players to other, more constantly updated games. This is not something to be ashamed of, as it's a fear I can easily see myself succumbing too - but it is unfortunate, as I feel that it would be impossible for good players to really sink their teeth into a mod and digest what is there, let the gameplay settle into it's bones, as things are changed so quickly. I think it is important that things play out before you are able to make sound gameplay decisions.
The advantage of having so many different attributes to play with is that it becomes almost impossible to purely predict what will be good and what won't be; but it also means that with such a large array of units, the gameplay has a chance for players to get at it and pick it to pieces, so that units dynamically have different purposes, strategies and tactics as players learn to use them differently, and different strategies and counter strategies evolve. A unit that the designer intended to do one thing may have a use that other players find for it that is just as useful. Is this a bad thing? Absolutely not! It is why TA offers far more depth then starcraft ever could.
Sure, having a guiding 'vision' design is important, but having messy, holistically approached balancing is one of the greatest attributes of a good TA-derivative.
That being said, I agree with you that one of the biggest flaws that I can perceive in many TA-derivatives is that they update far too quickly. They really need a strong person at the helm, or else players are more likely to take their balancing issues to the developer and scream the top of their lungs to get them fixed, rather then looking at the puzzle pieces that they have, and trying to put together a better strategy - or just picking up the strategy that works well and doing it better then the other player.
In other words, in many situations, I can see developers not allowing one of the greatest balancing strengths of their mods, that is, a dynamically evolving balance, to eventuate. I've seen many developers (and I'm not naming names; I think we've all done this before) throw bandaid solutions onto a problem because someone has screamed about it, when it might only be immediately overpowered because someone has just been spanked by it.
The best case study for this is OTA gameplay, and I know I'm preaching to the wrong crowd here (seeing as you're all obviously not satisfied with it, given that you're all playing/making altered versions of it).
TA gameplay has dynamically evolved over the years, and many strategies that were considered to be overpowered initially were quickly defeated by players working to discover how to beat them. Other strategies that were overpowered simply became standard methods of combat that in turn provided their own nuances for players to discover.
I think that many of the current modders do not have the courage to let their mod stew for a little bit in the current environment and seeing what happens, for fear of losing players to other, more constantly updated games. This is not something to be ashamed of, as it's a fear I can easily see myself succumbing too - but it is unfortunate, as I feel that it would be impossible for good players to really sink their teeth into a mod and digest what is there, let the gameplay settle into it's bones, as things are changed so quickly. I think it is important that things play out before you are able to make sound gameplay decisions.
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Felix the Cat
- Posts: 2383
- Joined: 15 Jun 2005, 17:30
When I play DSD the game generally ends quite early, when my flashes penetrate the enemy like a ten-dollar hooker and they scream "omg u rush omg i r quite" and ragequit.Otherside wrote:u beg to differ want me to dig up 5 DSD replays and take a screen of mid battle (altho i could prolly find it in any DSD replay)
and all ull see is goli sumo bulldogs ?
and in the first 5 mins gator/flash..
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Lindir The Green
- Posts: 815
- Joined: 04 May 2005, 15:09
I just stumbled into this thread.
*paradigm shift*
That is the most interesting thing I've ever read online. I saved it to a text file.
I always thought of strategy as when people know the game and try to outguess each other R/P/S style, but it's more.
A game becomes much more fun when instead of outguessing you need to come up with your own strategic ideas. When there are enough diverse units for the game to be impossible to analyze, victory can be through creativity instead of just psychology.
The real fun of Stratego is not the outguessing, it's the creating a game plan and deciding where to set up the pieces. But at some point Stratego can be analyzed, reducing the fun of the first part. A RTS game takes much longer to analyze, and more units increases that time exponentially.
I always thought that lots of units detracted from the experience by hindering perfect-information R/P/S gameplay, but the analyzation is where the real fun resides. The real fun is not in getting to know players and using your knowledge to outguess them; that's very difficult online. The real (strategic) fun is in sitting and thinking and trying to come up with an unbalanced strategy and an algorithm for maximizing returns on micromanagement. The problem with games that have constantly shifting balance is that when an unbalanced strategy is discovered it is shortly patched up. What should happen is that everyone should start to use it, and then people should start looking for counters, and then certain people become able to beat it, and then it stops being as powerful.
Balance should be constantly shifting even when unit statistics remain static.
I look forward to playing SWS.
*lightbulb appears above my head*Warlord Zsinj wrote:stuff
*paradigm shift*
That is the most interesting thing I've ever read online. I saved it to a text file.
I always thought of strategy as when people know the game and try to outguess each other R/P/S style, but it's more.
A game becomes much more fun when instead of outguessing you need to come up with your own strategic ideas. When there are enough diverse units for the game to be impossible to analyze, victory can be through creativity instead of just psychology.
The real fun of Stratego is not the outguessing, it's the creating a game plan and deciding where to set up the pieces. But at some point Stratego can be analyzed, reducing the fun of the first part. A RTS game takes much longer to analyze, and more units increases that time exponentially.
I always thought that lots of units detracted from the experience by hindering perfect-information R/P/S gameplay, but the analyzation is where the real fun resides. The real fun is not in getting to know players and using your knowledge to outguess them; that's very difficult online. The real (strategic) fun is in sitting and thinking and trying to come up with an unbalanced strategy and an algorithm for maximizing returns on micromanagement. The problem with games that have constantly shifting balance is that when an unbalanced strategy is discovered it is shortly patched up. What should happen is that everyone should start to use it, and then people should start looking for counters, and then certain people become able to beat it, and then it stops being as powerful.
Balance should be constantly shifting even when unit statistics remain static.
I look forward to playing SWS.
+100000 MEGA GIGAThey really need a strong person at the helm, or else players are more likely to take their balancing issues to the developer and scream the top of their lungs to get them fixed, rather then looking at the puzzle pieces that they have, and trying to put together a better strategy - or just picking up the strategy that works well and doing it better then the other player.
In other words, in many situations, I can see developers not allowing one of the greatest balancing strengths of their mods, that is, a dynamically evolving balance, to eventuate. I've seen many developers (and I'm not naming names; I think we've all done this before) throw bandaid solutions onto a problem because someone has screamed about it, when it might only be immediately overpowered because someone has just been spanked by it.
IMO, both a full-information game (What typically gets referred to as R-P-S gameplay in an RTS) and a more dynamic, evolutionary game both have merits - remember that I'm speaking of the player-environment information level, and the bespoke structure of the game, and not the player-player information level, since almost all games can be considered sequential games except for the initial starting choice - if you have no information about the enemy past moves, it is your fault for not scouting, for example.Lindir The Green wrote:stuffWarlord Zsinj wrote:stuff
Anyway, I think both are fun, and the area where they blur is also interesting - hypothetically (and not so hypothetically, most packages for spring have this affect to some degree) I can have a mod balanced partially evolutionarily, and partially counter-counter, and that introduces a meta layer of trying to determine what the information level of the game even is. Not only information about the enemy tactics, but also information about the enemies information - about information, ad naseum! becomes important.
RTS's have created an entire generation of intuitive game theorists.
EDIT: Also, I meant to mention this - I think Zsinj's more theoretical posts contain deep insights into the stuff that makes games interesting - I too look forward to what SWS produces.
Last edited by Erom on 06 Nov 2007, 19:45, edited 1 time in total.
Very well written postLindir The Green wrote:I just stumbled into this thread.
*lightbulb appears above my head*Warlord Zsinj wrote:stuff
*paradigm shift*
That is the most interesting thing I've ever read online. I saved it to a text file.
I always thought of strategy as when people know the game and try to outguess each other R/P/S style, but it's more.
A game becomes much more fun when instead of outguessing you need to come up with your own strategic ideas. When there are enough diverse units for the game to be impossible to analyze, victory can be through creativity instead of just psychology.
The real fun of Stratego is not the outguessing, it's the creating a game plan and deciding where to set up the pieces. But at some point Stratego can be analyzed, reducing the fun of the first part. A RTS game takes much longer to analyze, and more units increases that time exponentially.
I always thought that lots of units detracted from the experience by hindering perfect-information R/P/S gameplay, but the analyzation is where the real fun resides. The real fun is not in getting to know players and using your knowledge to outguess them; that's very difficult online. The real (strategic) fun is in sitting and thinking and trying to come up with an unbalanced strategy and an algorithm for maximizing returns on micromanagement. The problem with games that have constantly shifting balance is that when an unbalanced strategy is discovered it is shortly patched up. What should happen is that everyone should start to use it, and then people should start looking for counters, and then certain people become able to beat it, and then it stops being as powerful.
Balance should be constantly shifting even when unit statistics remain static.
I look forward to playing SWS.
apart from the many units that TA Has to offer the other thing ta does which not many other rts do is decreasing build time via ur ecos and con units hence sumthing very good can be built in meer seconds if u rush it fast enuff and have decent eco so thats sumthing else to balance..
having so many units makes it hard but having some units which serve no purpose is pointless i think that if ta has a diverse array of units each shud be useful or a combination should be used to win hence this is were peoples play style comes in..
A good player would anayalze his options by wat tech is good for the map and position he is playing and wat his allies r plannign to do in a team game from then on depending on how expansion goes and if battle lines are drawn (early rush hasnt ended game and both sides r evenly matched and have perimeter defense on the lines) this is were co ordination takes place and diversity should come into play.. Now this is were games can get rilly porcy or one strat for win atm
The thing is atm im using BA as example cos its most played u can read ur enemies strats b4 even scouting cos if u played enuff u know wats good and wats not so the whole mindgame of whos gonna send wat is gone rilly... once u know whos air the rest are vehicles and one core player might be kbots (and thats a fact)
and sure it might be balanced to a degree (not totally) but i know this is a balance discussion but u might aswell play with half the units currently in game.. cos half dont get used
CA has a different approach to balance and a harder one making every unit viable in its own rite.. (sure it might not be as balanced as BA yet but its getting there) every unit is viable and thru a standard game ull see people use every unit they can make in there labs no1 sticks to one unit cos one unit wont win u the game. not even 2 u need variation
then comes the mindgames and varied strats and CA pulls it off and it works i know BA dusnt wanna change and ive been saying this all the time but Balance means u balance all units so everything is viable i know its a hard task in TA but u might aswell scrap some of the units..
variation and viability shud be included in balance and if more units r viable it also in a way makes less units OP'd just harder to balance at first
Last edited by Otherside on 06 Nov 2007, 20:33, edited 2 times in total.