Profile of DasDoomTurtle

Jump back to quoted post6 Apr 2015, 13:51 PMJadame!

From 4th minute like okw if they go med truck first after kubel+2 volks or 3 volks?

Jump back to quoted post2 Apr 2015, 19:13 PMInverse

That's the wrong way to approach game balance in competitive games, however. The problem is people often have trouble distinguishing game balance and game design. Balance and design are two entirely different aspects of multiplayer games, and they influence the game in very different ways.

Game design in multiplayer games is all about making the game fun and engaging for as many people as possible, regardless of skill level or the degree to which they decide to dedicate themselves to the game. Good game design results in games that are fun and engaging regardless of any balance issues, since perfect balance is an unattainable ideal. Dota 2 is a great example of a game that excels in this area. The game is so complex that even approaching perfect balance is difficult, yet it's designed in such a way that there's so many ways for people to outplay their opponents in spite of perhaps being at a technical disadvantage because of imbalanced gameplay elements. Even though it constantly has balance issues and is balanced pretty much exclusively for tournament play, so many people play that game because it's just as fun when you're a 2k scrub as it is when you're 5k and getting matched against pros.

Game design is something every single player could and should voice their opinions on, because it's an important aspect of the game that affects all players equally. Things like the merits of call-in-focused gameplay, the lack of global upgrades, and the stale metagame are issues that every player could and should weigh in on, because they're the direct result of deliberate game design decisions on the part of the developers. Game design feedback should come from everyone because the purpose of good design is to appeal to the most people as possible.

Balance, on the other hand, is entirely different. The key fact of balance that people refuse to accept is how little it actually affects the outcome of games except at the absolute highest level of play. The vast majority of players have so much room for improvement that any perceived imbalances can easily be overcome with superior play. If the game isn't fun at lower levels, we shouldn't be looking to fix balance, we should be looking to fix design.

The main reason we should be looking at design instead of balance if we want to fix low-level play is because the only effective way to balance a multiplayer game is to balance it for players at the highest possible level of play. This seems entirely obvious to me, but it's a point that people constantly resist. The reason balance needs to be done for the highest level possible is because that is the level with the least complicating factors. Things like skill, dedication, and time spent are complicating factors when talking about balance in the context of low-level play because ranges are so great and there's no baseline. High-level players are separated by very little in terms of skill, and are affected far more severely by balance issues as a result.

Let's manufacture a little scenario. Say we break down CoH into two "skill areas" of micro and macro decision-making, and assign every player a value between 0 and 100 for each. That means a theoretical perfect player would have a micro score of 100 and a macro score of 100.

The complication, of course, is the fact that there's really no way to easily tell what a player's relative strengths and weaknesses are, so instead of seeing this breakdown all we're essentially seeing is the aggregate skill rating. So if you see a rating of 200, you know the player is a perfect 100 in each of the rating categories. But what if the aggregate skill is 100? You could have breakdowns of 100/0, 0/100, 50/50, or anything in between. This adds a degree of uncertainty that is far beyond that of theoretical perfect players.

Say we make two of these perfect players face off; we know they represent the absolute maximum possible level of skill, and because of that we can entirely eliminate skill as a contributing factor when analyzing the outcomes of their games, thus giving us theoretically perfect data on the balance of the two factions they played. Next, we get two players with aggregate scores of 100 to face off. These players could have micro/macro skill splits of 100/0, 0/100, 50/50, or anything in between. Though they may technically be of equal skill, the data they generate will be extremely different based on their relative skill disparities in certain areas. A match between two 100/0 micro/macro players would generate entirely different data than a match between two 0/100 players, or a match between a 100/0 player and a 0/100 player.

We don't have perfect players, of course, but the closest we have are high-level tournament competitors, and those are the players who should be looked to for balance because they play at a level where skill gaps are tiny and the effects of balance are large. At a lower level, game enjoyment is all about design. If people aren't having fun at those levels, they need to frame their complaints in the context of design, rather than pushing for balance changes when they know very little about how said balance changes would impact the game beyond their personal sphere of familiarity.

Jump back to quoted post1 Apr 2015, 13:40 PMAmiPolizeiFunk

Why does COH2 need 20 GIGS of "buffer space" to install? I'm just curious.

Jump back to quoted post30 Mar 2015, 17:21 PMMajorBloodnok

There are several 'offshoots' now which could be developed in new threads. But this is about the OP's GreatGrandfather. Please let us to stick to that?

We have have been asked to moderate this sub-forum strictly, since there are some posters who may choose to use it as a political platform, rather than discuss issues of an historical nature. Nor do I want posters who post personal reminiscences, to have their threads spread out beyond that.

For that reason, I am have excised some posts which may be valid in this forum, but not in this thread. I have allowed in some stuff, without which this thread will shrink right down, but kindly to try to exercise a self-discipline in this sub-section of the Forum.

@OP : this is your thread - if you want other posts invised, which you think I have missed, please report them.