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+--- Thread: What are we balancing the mod against. Or more specifically, who? (/showthread.php?tid=116668)
What are we balancing the mod against. Or more specifically, who? - sindroms - 06-15-2014
VHFs, right?
But what level of player is the balance point?
RE: What are we balancing the mod against. Or more specifically, who? - Tyler - 06-15-2014
"They're" balancing the mod to satisfy the belief that quantity over quality is a "good" feature to have.
So, the balance point is to take Moderate Joe, basic PvP skills equipped with a better understanding of economics, and use that as the focus point.
RE: What are we balancing the mod against. Or more specifically, who? - sindroms - 06-15-2014
Fair enough.
But in the end, as the above-average joes get their hands on ships or equippment, they get fine tuned by "them".
Who are these group of players? Are there enough of them as a portion of our community to justify this?
Any examples?
RE: What are we balancing the mod against. Or more specifically, who? - Highland Laddie - 06-15-2014
You're asking if there are enough "average joes" out there?
Maybe you should say who you think they should be balancing things based upon and why, Sindroms, and then we can have the discussion from that point.
RE: What are we balancing the mod against. Or more specifically, who? - sindroms - 06-15-2014
More like, should balance be done by individuals or from raw data?
In other words, the balance team flies the ships (maybe) and then fine tunes them against the average joe (maybe)
Should they use raw data and numbers instead?
Should we bother?
Should we bother to have a balance team?
EDIT: So small.
EDIT 3: We need more balance eieres...
EDIT 4: I MIGHT be a little bit on the intoxicated side.
RE: What are we balancing the mod against. Or more specifically, who? - Haste - 06-15-2014
(06-15-2014, 03:55 PM)sindroms Wrote: Should they use raw data and numbers instead?
Raw data and numbers should always be used to some extent, but it's easy to overlook important ones. That, and it's hard to mathematically tell which attribute is more important than another.
How important is the size of a ship's model (and how do you mathematically describe a ship's shape / "hard-to-hit-ness")? Its powercore? Its armor? Will giving a ship 30% more armor and 30% less power core leave it just as powerful, or is one of the two stats more important? Seven guns or six - how much does that matter? Would having seven guns over six guns be as much of an advantage as having a large powercore instead of a small one, or more of advantage? Or less?
A lot of balance work is subjective and based on preference / flying styles.
As for who we should be balancing against - we should be balancing around players who are using ships "as they were designed to be used". They use fast ships to outturn slower ships. They fly slower ships in such a way that they don't end up permanently outturned. Balance around roughly equal performance at "ship mastery".
Why? Because this is a twitch-/skill-based arcade space shooter, and not an RTS where everyone is equal and the number of units / army composition is the only true factor.
Oh and because I'm kind of good at it.
Just noticed I didn't even go into the hard-to-predict effects of synergies between attributes. I.e. slim profile w/ high responsiveness but otherwise low stats.
RE: What are we balancing the mod against. Or more specifically, who? - sindroms - 06-15-2014
(06-15-2014, 04:12 PM)Haste Wrote:(06-15-2014, 03:55 PM)sindroms Wrote: Should they use raw data and numbers instead?
Raw data and numbers should always be used to some extent, but it's easy to overlook important ones. That, and it's hard to mathematically tell which attribute is more important than another.
How important is the size of a ship's model (and how do you mathematically describe a ship's shape / "hard-to-hit-ness")? Its powercore? Its armor? Will giving a ship 30% more armor and 30% less power core leave it just as powerful, or is one of the two stats more important? Seven guns or six - how much does that matter? Would having seven guns over six guns be as much of an advantage as having a large powercore instead of a small one, or more of advantage? Or less?
A lot of balance work is subjective and based on preference / flying styles.
As for who we should be balancing against - we should be balancing around players who are using ships "as they were designed to be used". They use fast ships to outturn slower ships. They fly slower ships in such a way that they don't end up permanently outturned. Balance around roughly equal performance at "ship mastery".
Why? Because this is a twitch-/skill-based arcade space shooter, and not an RTS where everyone is equal and the number of units / army composition is the only true factor.
Oh and because I'm kind of good at it.
Hue.
Shall we start right there then.
Who is in the balance team and is responsible for what?
EDIT: Because I am here for like...what...more than 6 years now and I have still no idea who are the four people we have faith in balancing the ships we fly and make decisions how to buff/nerf them for whatever reason.
Especially when those changes are then summarized as
Code:
- Fixes a few critical gameplay bugs.
- Reassigned projectile effects by Syrus.
- Various balance fixes.RE: What are we balancing the mod against. Or more specifically, who? - sindroms - 06-15-2014
(06-15-2014, 04:12 PM)Haste Wrote: Oh and because I'm kind of good at it.
Just noticed I didn't even go into the hard-to-predict effects of synergies between attributes. I.e. slim profile w/ high responsiveness but otherwise low stats.
So what you are saying is that we should not have faith in the balance team for taking too much effort in balancing our stuff, because perfect balance is impossible anyway.
So...
Why bother?
RE: What are we balancing the mod against. Or more specifically, who? - Haste - 06-15-2014
Perfect balance is impossible because perfection is always an unreachable goal. It doesn't mean however that we shouldn't strive to get as close to it as possible.
Why study if you'll never have an absolutely perfect and complete understanding of a subject?
Why develop a certain technology if it isn't the absolute perfect solution to a certain problem (as it'll be one-upped by a more advanced technology in the future)?
And so on and so forth.
RE: What are we balancing the mod against. Or more specifically, who? - sindroms - 06-15-2014
Well, the reason why I asked who is in charge of what is because I cannot physically believe that a handful of players, to who their balance duty on Disco is a secondary activity and an unpaid one at that, is regularly flying and balancing every single one of the ships we have in the mod right now.
My guess is that you guys focus your efforts, whatever they may be, to a handful of ships which get used a lot.
Mostly by skilled players.
So basically, the balance team is there not to balance the ships, but rather make sure that the best pvpers don't break things.
So technically, there is no balance. The rest of us essentially are playing whatever you guys ''bother'' to change alongside the seven snubs you constantly fly.