Forums » Suggestions
stop worrying about balance
ships with large yaw thrust, but poor front/back thrust. or vice versa.
ship with massive turbo, but extremely slow to turn.
more kinds of equipment. more diversity in energy layout/organization, multiple batteries, specialty batteries, special mining beams, special mining scanners, etc etc etc.
balance is boring. only whiners who benefit from the status quo care about it (ie, the top 5 PKers).
ship with massive turbo, but extremely slow to turn.
more kinds of equipment. more diversity in energy layout/organization, multiple batteries, specialty batteries, special mining beams, special mining scanners, etc etc etc.
balance is boring. only whiners who benefit from the status quo care about it (ie, the top 5 PKers).
I can't tell if this is troll material or not, but I shockingly agree with ananzi.
Life's unbalanced. Deal.
Life's unbalanced. Deal.
Personally, I think a huge number of items would result in balance.
Just giving us so much flexibility in design makes it so that good possibilities will likely exist, but will have counters.
I've argued for balance in the past because there was no sign that we were getting new stuff. And the stuff we DID get was balanced against the old stuff.
"Magic the Gathering" (TM), for example gets around balance problems by having a rough idea of balancing effects to a card, but then churning out so many different possibilities, that there are likely to be combos that can fight them.
When cards appear that just break the metagame, they're removed, tweaked, and placed in some later set. It doesn't break the game because we still have many other cards left.
So please, start distributing hordes of new weapons and devices,
take it as read that you don't know exactly what is going to happen, and that's where the fun will emerge.
Just giving us so much flexibility in design makes it so that good possibilities will likely exist, but will have counters.
I've argued for balance in the past because there was no sign that we were getting new stuff. And the stuff we DID get was balanced against the old stuff.
"Magic the Gathering" (TM), for example gets around balance problems by having a rough idea of balancing effects to a card, but then churning out so many different possibilities, that there are likely to be combos that can fight them.
When cards appear that just break the metagame, they're removed, tweaked, and placed in some later set. It doesn't break the game because we still have many other cards left.
So please, start distributing hordes of new weapons and devices,
take it as read that you don't know exactly what is going to happen, and that's where the fun will emerge.
oooo yeah! deluge of insane goodies of every shape and color would be awesome!! I vote for putting all 8 new ships in at once, along with 30 new weapons and pieces of equipment. Talk about fast times at VO high!!
> "Magic the Gathering" (TM), for example gets around balance problems by...
... Making each new generation of cards even more massively overpowered than the previous, resulting in the current Monty Hall-type situation. (See World of Warcraft for a similar sort of example.)
Magic(tm) and "game balance" don't belong in the same room together. :-\
... Making each new generation of cards even more massively overpowered than the previous, resulting in the current Monty Hall-type situation. (See World of Warcraft for a similar sort of example.)
Magic(tm) and "game balance" don't belong in the same room together. :-\
Actually, the older magic cards are more powerful and rule breaking than the new magic cards. I'd be a god at the moment, if I still played. But I've totally lost interest in sitting around a table with a bunch of whiney nerds who's only interest in life is to prove how much more intelligent then me they are. *Ahem* "I love chemestry! Everything seems so much simpler when you know that the valance shell only holds 8 electrons."
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"16, you american idiot."
PS: No offense to americans. Its just, your school system treats you like idiots.
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"16, you american idiot."
PS: No offense to americans. Its just, your school system treats you like idiots.
i've been advocating this for a long time.
the problem is, balance is obviously so much better than fun.
we need a street-fighter-esque scenario, where everyone has something awesomely broken, but theres always something to take care of it.
the problem is, balance is obviously so much better than fun.
we need a street-fighter-esque scenario, where everyone has something awesomely broken, but theres always something to take care of it.
Tons more items and ship configs would be awesome, you'd never know what you were going to face.
Before this update things were alot more diverse than this update is going to make things. That was good, this is bad
- The prom was a tank? so what! IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE
- The AGT annoys people? so what....sit far away until the AGT'er gets bored and goes after soemone more in their face.
- Can't catch the moth? well...that actually did suck for everyone but now it can be caught by newbs in busses which is worse
- Cent is too small? pfft no it was just right, I could kill it sometimes and I suck, so those who complained must be awfully terrible
- Everyone goes to fast! Well if **everyone** is going fast then really you shouldnt notice and therefore are making up the problem in your head! stop it! perhaps the combat speeds were too much for latency but i dont see the point to this turbo cap other than to destroy the pursuit abilities of a few ships and draining a bit more out of the diversity pool
Anyways, in conclusion. You shouldn't complain just cause you can't 1v1 every ship and that's usually the case and why this ridiculous balance thing gets done.
Before this update things were alot more diverse than this update is going to make things. That was good, this is bad
- The prom was a tank? so what! IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE
- The AGT annoys people? so what....sit far away until the AGT'er gets bored and goes after soemone more in their face.
- Can't catch the moth? well...that actually did suck for everyone but now it can be caught by newbs in busses which is worse
- Cent is too small? pfft no it was just right, I could kill it sometimes and I suck, so those who complained must be awfully terrible
- Everyone goes to fast! Well if **everyone** is going fast then really you shouldnt notice and therefore are making up the problem in your head! stop it! perhaps the combat speeds were too much for latency but i dont see the point to this turbo cap other than to destroy the pursuit abilities of a few ships and draining a bit more out of the diversity pool
Anyways, in conclusion. You shouldn't complain just cause you can't 1v1 every ship and that's usually the case and why this ridiculous balance thing gets done.
Yeah, the whole balance thing asumes that the game is a 1 v 1 deathmatch scenario, with evenly matched ships, none of which are really much better than the other, so that fights are "fair". Is Vendetta supposed to be solely duel after duel with a little chatting on the side?
Now don't get me wrong, 1 v 1 is FUN, but there's more to do and more to worry about. Some ships are better. Some are not.
The real problem is that (some) Prom pilots complain when they're constantly multi-ed. And (some) Cent and Vult pilots complain about not being to win against Proms. That's like the Battleship complaining that the patrol boats are ganking it, or the patrol boat complaining that they can never take out that Battleship solo. This is not really a game problem, but a human engineering problem. When a player has exhausted all possible combinations of ship, battery and weapons to bring down an opponent and cannot do it, they're faced with two options:
1) "Hey," they realize, "I'm not very good at this combat thing!"
or
2) "Hey," they complain, "My ship isn;t as good as that guy's!"
Whereupon they can either practice more and get better, or ask that the game be changed to suit their sense of fairness. Too bad we've all got a different sense of that.
If the devs do like they have indicated, like what Shape & tumble want, release a huge array of Stuff™ into the universe so that ship variations are as numerous as the stars, then I'll bet no one will really complain much about "balance", because there will be the endless min/max search for the "perfect" ship.
Variety is the spice of life.
Now don't get me wrong, 1 v 1 is FUN, but there's more to do and more to worry about. Some ships are better. Some are not.
The real problem is that (some) Prom pilots complain when they're constantly multi-ed. And (some) Cent and Vult pilots complain about not being to win against Proms. That's like the Battleship complaining that the patrol boats are ganking it, or the patrol boat complaining that they can never take out that Battleship solo. This is not really a game problem, but a human engineering problem. When a player has exhausted all possible combinations of ship, battery and weapons to bring down an opponent and cannot do it, they're faced with two options:
1) "Hey," they realize, "I'm not very good at this combat thing!"
or
2) "Hey," they complain, "My ship isn;t as good as that guy's!"
Whereupon they can either practice more and get better, or ask that the game be changed to suit their sense of fairness. Too bad we've all got a different sense of that.
If the devs do like they have indicated, like what Shape & tumble want, release a huge array of Stuff™ into the universe so that ship variations are as numerous as the stars, then I'll bet no one will really complain much about "balance", because there will be the endless min/max search for the "perfect" ship.
Variety is the spice of life.
LordofBlades: Regarding Magic, what you're referring to is not the kind that I really have any interest in. That's called "Type 1", and is basically a game for collectors. "Type 2" on the other hand is only played with the most recent sets, which are designed to be in balance. I don't really play that much or have a collection of my own, but I've got a good friend who's a pro, and occasionally we'll draft.
Re: the Prom
I think If I had more freedom to experiment against this, that would be great. But my issue is with the AGT. I find it a boring and uninteresting weapon, and its always bugged me that it can be more effective than truly practiced aim.
I feel that turrets should be manned by people. There shouldn't be any "Excellent autoaim". When you get into that realm, it should be another player aiming and firing.
More large port weapons would help the hog become a decent fighter again. But I think we have to give up on the idea of the
AGT hog.
Re: the Prom
I think If I had more freedom to experiment against this, that would be great. But my issue is with the AGT. I find it a boring and uninteresting weapon, and its always bugged me that it can be more effective than truly practiced aim.
I feel that turrets should be manned by people. There shouldn't be any "Excellent autoaim". When you get into that realm, it should be another player aiming and firing.
More large port weapons would help the hog become a decent fighter again. But I think we have to give up on the idea of the
AGT hog.
I keep thinking of Armored Core when talking about balance.
For those of you who don't know, Armored Core is a walking robot game.
You can customize:
head - which has radar and stuff
torso (or core) - which holds generators and determines how heavy your arms can be
legs - which determines maneuverability, and the total weight of the AC
arms - determines aiming accuracy, as well as the maximum possible weapons you can hold
generator - how much power the AC generates, as well as how much heat
radiator - how much heat the AC can get rid of in a given amount of time
boosters - whether your AC can rocket up into the air, and how quickly you can rise
targeting sensors - how many missiles can lock on at once, range, etc
internal parts - decoys, ecm, mines, etc
right and left arm weapons - guns, bazookas, shields, blades, etc
right and left shoulder weapons - missiles, guns, drones, radars, additional ammo, etc
right and left extensions - anti-missile weapons, energy shields, additional boosters, etc
There are some other additional points of modification for your mech, depending on the game, but you get the idea. And there are usually 15+ items for each section (there are fewer generators and radiators, andarms, legs, and weapons have a lot more). So already, you have over a trillion different viable and non-viable combinations (although the number of viable combinations is significantly less). While people could copy each other's combinations, that still means that there are many more people who would come up with their own.
So for VO, what if we had:
Chassis - The basic hull, so a Centurion, a Marauder, etc. Also how many armor units can be mounted, where, etc (so a smaller ship has less units than a larger one)
Engines - How much thrust, how much turbo, turbo drain, etc
Thrusters - How quickly you can spin and turn
Batteries - How much power you can generate, and how quickly
Sensors - Radars and the like - how far away you can detect enemies
Targeting - What type of auto-aim, auto-aim accuracy, missile lock-on bonus(or penalty)
Armor - How much damage a ship can absorb. Sold in units with absolute strength values per unit.
Weapons Ports - Determines what types of weapons you can mount (s-gun, m-gun, l-gun, s-missile, s-turret that kind of thing)
Weapons - more categories and more weapons in each category
If there's an average of 15 items for each category, that's over 38 billion combinations, more given that most ships have more than one weapon port, and given that people could put different strengths of armor in different places on their ships (once location damage is implemented, this would be important)
For those of you who don't know, Armored Core is a walking robot game.
You can customize:
head - which has radar and stuff
torso (or core) - which holds generators and determines how heavy your arms can be
legs - which determines maneuverability, and the total weight of the AC
arms - determines aiming accuracy, as well as the maximum possible weapons you can hold
generator - how much power the AC generates, as well as how much heat
radiator - how much heat the AC can get rid of in a given amount of time
boosters - whether your AC can rocket up into the air, and how quickly you can rise
targeting sensors - how many missiles can lock on at once, range, etc
internal parts - decoys, ecm, mines, etc
right and left arm weapons - guns, bazookas, shields, blades, etc
right and left shoulder weapons - missiles, guns, drones, radars, additional ammo, etc
right and left extensions - anti-missile weapons, energy shields, additional boosters, etc
There are some other additional points of modification for your mech, depending on the game, but you get the idea. And there are usually 15+ items for each section (there are fewer generators and radiators, andarms, legs, and weapons have a lot more). So already, you have over a trillion different viable and non-viable combinations (although the number of viable combinations is significantly less). While people could copy each other's combinations, that still means that there are many more people who would come up with their own.
So for VO, what if we had:
Chassis - The basic hull, so a Centurion, a Marauder, etc. Also how many armor units can be mounted, where, etc (so a smaller ship has less units than a larger one)
Engines - How much thrust, how much turbo, turbo drain, etc
Thrusters - How quickly you can spin and turn
Batteries - How much power you can generate, and how quickly
Sensors - Radars and the like - how far away you can detect enemies
Targeting - What type of auto-aim, auto-aim accuracy, missile lock-on bonus(or penalty)
Armor - How much damage a ship can absorb. Sold in units with absolute strength values per unit.
Weapons Ports - Determines what types of weapons you can mount (s-gun, m-gun, l-gun, s-missile, s-turret that kind of thing)
Weapons - more categories and more weapons in each category
If there's an average of 15 items for each category, that's over 38 billion combinations, more given that most ships have more than one weapon port, and given that people could put different strengths of armor in different places on their ships (once location damage is implemented, this would be important)
the problem with that is there has to be some advantage to the various addons in each catagory. otherwise the options would quickely go away as there is no reason to put a 200N engin on a ship as opposed to a 300N engin. if i recall that was the reason engin ports were moved to a behind the scenes region of the game.
now obviously there could be an inverse relationship between thrust and top speed or turbo drain. but what would that balance be for thrusters?
and more inmportantly how much more dificult will this make learbning the game vs how much custamisation would it realy add?
anyway as far as balance goes in general:
i'd say balance should be a consern in that no one ship should be the absolute best. every ship should have stren gths and weekneses and it's level requeirnmenst should reflect those sthrengths and weekneses. so the best combat ships will be less comon because they require higher lisence levels, and the same for the best trade ships and the best mining ships, etc. The issue isn't so much "is ship x able to beat ship Y in a fair fight?" so much as "is there something ship x can't do?"
now obviously there could be an inverse relationship between thrust and top speed or turbo drain. but what would that balance be for thrusters?
and more inmportantly how much more dificult will this make learbning the game vs how much custamisation would it realy add?
anyway as far as balance goes in general:
i'd say balance should be a consern in that no one ship should be the absolute best. every ship should have stren gths and weekneses and it's level requeirnmenst should reflect those sthrengths and weekneses. so the best combat ships will be less comon because they require higher lisence levels, and the same for the best trade ships and the best mining ships, etc. The issue isn't so much "is ship x able to beat ship Y in a fair fight?" so much as "is there something ship x can't do?"
Umm, I'm not trying to perfectly balance everything 1v1. The balance changes I did last week were a whole laundry list of crap I had wanted to do for ages. I intend to do some more tweaking, and I'm sure there'll be balancing as we introduce more content (ships, plus weapons and addons of other types), but balance is not what my world is revolving around or anything. I'm mostly focusing on actually, you know, making new content, and getting it into the game.
Even though there is no perfect balance, it's not that hard to tell when things are "bad". I try and make those things better as I go along, and shuffle the game towards my goal of "fun, sometimes challenging, never impossible". I think that's reasonable.
Even though there is no perfect balance, it's not that hard to tell when things are "bad". I try and make those things better as I go along, and shuffle the game towards my goal of "fun, sometimes challenging, never impossible". I think that's reasonable.
besides the nerfing of 1 item and the boosting of another turns into a different metagame... in stead of cookie cutter shipbuilds.
It's not just the ships you know, in this game you can calaculate the data all you want, DPE, thrust, kg. Even if a ship is supposed to be better on paper it doesn't mean that the human piloting it won't have a significant impact on the performance of the ship in combat.
Therefore I am formally requesting an upgrade in my piloting skills to coincide with the recent ship modifications. Unless I also get improved PvP skills it will never be a balanced game because some players consistently beat me even in unarmed combat.
Therefore I am formally requesting an upgrade in my piloting skills to coincide with the recent ship modifications. Unless I also get improved PvP skills it will never be a balanced game because some players consistently beat me even in unarmed combat.
sarahanne stop using a vult then and wingbugging it :D
OK yeah I'd like sarahanne's upgrade as well. Hook me up!
*I know kung-fu!* ... Whoa!
*I know kung-fu!* ... Whoa!
but are you the one?
Yay ananzi!
I'm glad to hear that the balancing isn't towards 1v1s, because if all ships are "1v1 balanced", the game gets boring. Proms *should* be hard to take out, what is the point otherwise? Even station guards and SF should IMHO use different ships, even if that would make the Itani IBG lawgun guards harder than the UIT TD GT+sunflare ones.
Here's to variation, fun and player freedom! *quaffs a corvus slammer*
I'm glad to hear that the balancing isn't towards 1v1s, because if all ships are "1v1 balanced", the game gets boring. Proms *should* be hard to take out, what is the point otherwise? Even station guards and SF should IMHO use different ships, even if that would make the Itani IBG lawgun guards harder than the UIT TD GT+sunflare ones.
Here's to variation, fun and player freedom! *quaffs a corvus slammer*