cRPG
cRPG => Suggestions Corner => Game Balance Discussion => Topic started by: Baskakov_Dima on December 11, 2013, 02:49:57 pm
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I play MMORPG since my 10 years, and I have changed mass of them.
The first thing I wonder is that developers rarely give boosts to any class, they normally nerf. It makes always sad when you see, that your favorite class is nerfed. Why not to boost classes, that are weaker?
The second thing is that developers ignore suggestions until they have something suggested 9001 times. What does it result in? Clever player suggests something writing 10 pages of text, he is ignored, and he stops suggesting at all. Second clever player has same ideas - but he finds old topic ignored. He bumps it, sees no answer, writes other topic, is ignored - it is so with all players, who really know, what to suggest. How does it go with stupid people? They just spam suggestion area and once admins agree with them.
The third thing. Admins ignore the fact, that some people don't ever go to the forum. Only developers of World of Tanks (Warplanes also) ignore the whine on the forum, and just gather statistics to make decisions whether to nerf, to boost or not to touch, and HOW. All other developers just mind the numbers and implement them.
So, the suggestions are: 1) Better to boost other classes than to nerf. 2) Better to get more admins to read all suggestions and just gather the ideas for those who make balance. 3) Make stats mechanism, that will help to balance things better.
Thank you for reading that.
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What makes you think anything at all is that way? Because it isn't.
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They do buffs and nerfs, how it should be done. Buffing isn't the only solution, you need both nerfs and buffs to balance. If you buff something then something else can get weaker, then you buff that and something else gets weaker and so on
You have to look at how classes work together too and balance around that. Having too many melee doesn't unbalance the mod, but having too much horse ranged or regular ranged can. The reason for that is there is a lack of natural counters for some classes and melee naturally counters itself and is weak against ranged for most of the round time, while ranged is good against melee and against ranged. Its not as simple as buffing their counter because that then unbalances intra melee balance. If shielders became godlike in order to make people think twice about playing ranged then why play without a shield? The natural counter to horse ranged is regular ranged, and buffing ranged would be insane at this point so what do you buff to weaken HA/HX? You end up being left with no option but to nerf things that have weak counters
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What makes you think anything at all is that way? Because it isn't.
OK, not so bad, it is true. I mean mostly the reaction to whine instead of to gathered statistics on test server with pros and automatically on public servers.
They do buffs and nerfs, how it should be done. Buffing isn't the only solution, you need both nerfs and buffs to balance. If you buff something then something else can get weaker, then you buff that and something else gets weaker and so on
You have to look at how classes work together too and balance around that. Having too many melee doesn't unbalance the mod, but having too much horse ranged or regular ranged can. The reason for that is there is a lack of natural counters for some classes and melee naturally counters itself and is weak against ranged for most of the round time, while ranged is good against melee and against ranged. Its not as simple as buffing their counter because that then unbalances intra melee balance. If shielders became godlike in order to make people think twice about playing ranged then why play without a shield? The natural counter to horse ranged is regular ranged, and buffing ranged would be insane at this point so what do you buff to weaken HA/HX? You end up being left with no option but to nerf things that have weak counters
I mean, why GENERALLY nerfs.
The counter to horse achers in real life was actually heavy cavalry, I think, as missile cavalry was normally heavy - archers need to move fast while on horseback. So, boost them. Not to godlike level, of course, better to give something like using horse weight against other cavalry. HC became too strong at all? Make Z-crouching, as in F&S with pikes or NW with bayonets, and they will fall on the pike walls of polearmers, who will actually have no boost from that against other infantry, etc. They became to strong? Then we have 15th century with pike walls and squares, congratulations. OK, it was a joke, make ranged more powerful against them, like it was actually IRL - spanish infantry overwhelmed landsknechts this way, using ranged. OMG, bows arrowspam the whole map? Crossbows buff - for the damage, accuracy and ranged. XBOWS WULE MAPS LOL? Then we really can use nerf, nerfing reload speed, so they will become vulnerable while reloading and will have to ask allies to cover them. ETC. You can generally use boosts, it is OK.
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What makes you think anything at all is that way? Because it isn't.
It is in my experience. So most of the nerfs over the years just coincided with the most people whining and bitching on the forums over and over and over? Most of the people who play the game (and most other games are the same way) don't read the forums, and even less share their opinions on the forums. The loudest whiners on the forums shouldn't dictate what happens in game. And they don't seem to until their bitching becomes so overpowering on the forums that there's dozens of threads and 100's of pages (mainly by the same 10-15 people) that it begins to look like a major problem for players. Even though that's 10-15 people out of 100's who play the game. Most people are able to adapt to what's going on in game, and don't feel that there's major imbalance between classes.
I think this guy is spot on.
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Only developers of World of Tanks...
No, that's the point when you stop reading this guys posts, ignore all future posts, and if possible mute him.
Worlds of Tanks is utter garbage. Dont use it as an example of ANYTHING, except as an example of how shit you can make a product and still get people to think it is worth their time.
Honestly, really: I played it for a long time, I tried to find something positive about it. But I cannot. It has no form of anti cheat, it has no skill based elements, it has no personalisation elements, it has no physics to speak of.
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I wouldn't mind seeing some specific cav buffs. They are countered by both ranged and infantry, similar to how infantry are countered.
They have their quirks though that makes it a bit awkward, like bump slash. Ideally cav should be a bit less "cheap" in how they kill people, but stronger when they outclass players. If they nerfed bump slash they could buff other things about cav, like make the horses cheaper, increase damage or range etc. Reason for that is bump slash is not a fair situation for a player to be in imo, its cheap and the weapon intercepts the player in the most unrealistic way imaginable. Its not intuitive, you just get bumped and are dead or severely wounded
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It is in my experience. So most of the nerfs over the years just coincided with the most people whining and bitching on the forums over and over and over? Most of the people who play the game (and most other games are the same way) don't read the forums, and even less share their opinions on the forums. The loudest whiners on the forums shouldn't dictate what happens in game. And they don't seem to until their bitching becomes so overpowering on the forums that there's dozens of threads and 100's of pages (mainly by the same 10-15 people) that it begins to look like a major problem for players. Even though that's 10-15 people out of 100's who play the game. Most people are able to adapt to what's going on in game, and don't feel that there's major imbalance between classes.
I think this guy is spot on.
My experience involves seeing the actual unbalancers talk stuff in IRC and seeing what actually happens. Quantity of complaint threads got nothing to do with balancer decisions.
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My experience involves seeing the actual unbalancers talk stuff in IRC and seeing what actually happens. Quantity of complaint threads got nothing to do with balancer decisions.
From an outside observer, it sure seemed like there was causation between the amount of whine threads and subsequent nerfs. Not necessarily in the last 6 months, but sure as hell seemed that way in the 2 years before that.
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The first thing I wonder is that developers rarely give boosts to any class, they normally nerf. It makes always sad when you see, that your favorite class is nerfed. Why not to boost classes, that are weaker?
If there is one weapon that is better than the others the easiest way to fix it is to make that weapon worse. You gotta understand that there is no 'buff all weapos by 3%' button. It is practically impossible to buff everything without creating tons of new imbalances, whereas nerfing one thing is very easy and directly has the desired effect. Also, there are no perfect counters in this game. Nearly any class can fight nearly any class to some extent, which means that buffing one class to counter a currently OP class will almost always have spillover effects that again create new imbalances.
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The third thing. Admins ignore the fact, that some people don't ever go to the forum. Only developers of World of Tanks (Warplanes also) ignore the whine on the forum, and just gather statistics to make decisions whether to nerf, to boost or not to touch, and HOW. All other developers just mind the numbers and implement them.
[citation needed]
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I think the op means that the mod needs a creative point of view as far as ballance goes. That would certainly be preferable to the buff/nerf/nerf/nerf routine. But many people are blinded by pride, inter-class hate, and overall ignorance, and possible solutions get shunned as a consequence.
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Well, current balance system seems to be:
"Hey guys, I just changed all this lot, too much work to waste so Im gonna implement it"
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[citation needed]
If considering logical proof, it is impossible to find at least one developer team calculating numbers for boosting/nerfing by gathering stats on public server.
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This game isn't rock, paper, scissors. Stats only show a certain side to the story. Devs need to observe and take part in the different classes themselves, not relly on stats that don't show the whole picture
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This game isn't rock, paper, scissors. Stats only show a certain side to the story. Devs need to observe and take part in the different classes themselves, not relly on stats that don't show the whole picture
or just listen to the same dozen whiners who refuse to change, have thin skin and constantly complain on the forums (over and over and over, all day every day). which seems more logical?
Most people who play crpg aren't bitching and complaining on the forums about how broken the game is. I'd say the incessant whiners don't even account for 1% of the total population of people who play the game. Yet they seem to have a large influence on game play changes due to the amount of whine they put out.
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This. Best example: "Turn-rate nerf". People whining over and over and over and over and over and over about like 15-20 people (or better: the weapons they were using) in this mod who were able to win situations of 1 vs 5, 6, or 8 or 10 and that EVEN with weapons like long spear or very big / slow polearms or 2 handed weapons.
All the people that complained about it were simply jelly because they sucked ass compared to those they were complaining about, and they blamed animations/weapon stats/turn rate values for it, rather to just see how those players just are/were dozens of times more skilled than them.
But the voices of the whining masses always win, especially in cRPG.
Agreed totally
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That's funny because it happened like this if I remember correctly:
cmp: iz make turn rate stuff nao
balancers: would be nice if individual weapon length, weight and type would determine turn rate because of realism
cmp: gib formular
*balancers gibs formular*
I don't remember the forum being involved in any way. We don't need the forum to fuck up stuff.
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I for one wouldn't want to see the old turn rate back. Go spin somewhere else, ballerinas!
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I for one wouldn't want to see the old turn rate back. Go spin somewhere else, ballerinas!
Because instant stabs are better?
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Not being able to spin makes stabs instant? I'm not quite sure I follow.
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Not being able to spin makes stabs instant? I'm not quite sure I follow.
They changed how the stab worked after they fucked with the turn-rate, making instant stabs and sky-stabs the new stuff to handle instead (they made it reach top damage much faster). I preferred stabs from the sides which weren't instant myself.
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If that is true, why do you fuck up working and perfectly fine things in the first place?
This game was alot more fun before the turn-rate nerf, it lost alot of it uniqueness and it lost its fluid fighting, which is now replaced by some unresponsive, sluggish and laggard hullabaloo rather than exciting fighting.
And I know that alot players, especially old my old friends, feel exactly the same.
I adapted a long time ago, so did everyone who loves this game/mod, but it was just an uneccesary and shitty thing to implement from you, devs. :|
bulshit
lolstab is way around every mechanice in that game
in 1, 2, 3, 10 meters I will stab because i can, because abusing lortab lets me to land faster and stronger hits,
who give fuck about footwork when I can jump back and roflcopter stab someone behind me in 720 roflcopter combo
pike as weapon in 1v6 situation is bulshit
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They changed how the stab worked after they fucked with the turn-rate, making instant stabs and sky-stabs the new stuff to handle instead (they made it reach top damage much faster). I preferred stabs from the sides which weren't instant myself.
This. I was even getting comments in ts that there weren't any instastabs and it was just my imagination.
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The first thing I wonder is that developers rarely give boosts to any class, they normally nerf. It makes always sad when you see, that your favorite class is nerfed. Why not to boost classes, that are weaker?
You should read the past patch notes. Every single patch has positive and negative changes to a number of items and skills. They never implement a patch that only nerfs items.
The third thing. Admins ignore the fact, that some people don't ever go to the forum. Only developers of World of Tanks (Warplanes also) ignore the whine on the forum, and just gather statistics to make decisions whether to nerf, to boost or not to touch, and HOW. All other developers just mind the numbers and implement them.
Besides the fact that you said balancers don't read the forums (they do), balancing on stats alone is a terrible idea. There is a metagame outside of stats. The biggest example I can think of is the current horse archer/xbow situation. Even if they don't top charts and do better than enemy players, ranged cavalry is awful to play against as melee infantry. By the nature of their class they draw out rounds and lots of players will leave the server if a group of ranged cavalry starts "delaying" (they are engaging enemy fighters, but the rounds last forever due to the way ranged cavalry works). Even without getting damage/kills/points, they are having a HUGE effect on in-game play. Balancers are aware of this as well as the stats of items.
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They changed how the stab worked after they fucked with the turn-rate, making instant stabs and sky-stabs the new stuff to handle instead (they made it reach top damage much faster). I preferred stabs from the sides which weren't instant myself.
This might be nitpicking, but that's because they changed the stabs, not the turn rate itself. Why couldn't we have slower stabs and a turn rate cap?
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Because the thrusts would be a steaming pile of horseshit then
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You should read the past patch notes. Every single patch has positive and negative changes to a number of items and skills. They never implement a patch that only nerfs items.
Besides the fact that you said balancers don't read the forums (they do), balancing on stats alone is a terrible idea. There is a metagame outside of stats. The biggest example I can think of is the current horse archer/xbow situation. Even if they don't top charts and do better than enemy players, ranged cavalry is awful to play against as melee infantry. By the nature of their class they draw out rounds and lots of players will leave the server if a group of ranged cavalry starts "delaying" (they are engaging enemy fighters, but the rounds last forever due to the way ranged cavalry works). Even without getting damage/kills/points, they are having a HUGE effect on in-game play. Balancers are aware of this as well as the stats of items.
I did not say, they don't read at all.
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The devs have data with what weapons are used the most and deal the most damage. I do not remember the post, but some time ago they even posted it on forums (before the greatswords rework, when 2h was dominated by 2 weapons).
Also, have you considered that you may be switching cause and effect? A class is becoming too strong, the devs see it, and are planning on doing something. The players also realise it and post on the forums (apart from the same old "I want this" who never change in their discourse), so the amount of posts with "nerf X" increase. And then a new patch is released, but it takes some time for it to be ready, so it happens after the abundance of posts, giving certain people the idea that they were what caused the reworks instead of the actual state of the servers.
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From an outside observer, it sure seemed like there was causation between the amount of whine threads and subsequent nerfs. Not necessarily in the last 6 months, but sure as hell seemed that way in the 2 years before that.
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Also, balanced class statistics don't guarantee the game is fun to play. It's not currently possible to automatically assess whether the game is fun to play and fair for everybody. You have to rely on player feedback or direct ingame experience of the balancers to see what doesn't work as it should.
It is in my experience. So most of the nerfs over the years just coincided with the most people whining and bitching on the forums over and over and over? Most of the people who play the game (and most other games are the same way) don't read the forums, and even less share their opinions on the forums. The loudest whiners on the forums shouldn't dictate what happens in game. And they don't seem to until their bitching becomes so overpowering on the forums that there's dozens of threads and 100's of pages (mainly by the same 10-15 people) that it begins to look like a major problem for players. Even though that's 10-15 people out of 100's who play the game. Most people are able to adapt to what's going on in game, and don't feel that there's major imbalance between classes.
I think this guy is spot on.
Would that "loud minority" thing be true, why do we not see more of you, complaining about others trying to improve the game ? Why do we see 10-15 people out of 100 complaining about game mechanics, yet we see 1 out of 100 complaining about those that complain ? It seems to me you are the even more vocal and even smaller minority of conservatives.
Also, was the game perfectly fine, it would be very illogical that 10-15 people would argue ranged needs to to be looked at, yet 1 or maybe 2 actually argue in the opposite direction.
Assuming half the complete population is "anti-ranged" and half the population is "pro-ranged" to represent a balanced game. Somehow, a greater proportion of "anti-ranged" would be vocal than "pro-ranged" ? Why don't we have very loud people saying ranged need buffs ?
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Assuming half the complete population is "anti-ranged" and half the population is "pro-ranged" to represent a balanced game. Somehow, a greater proportion of "anti-ranged" would be vocal than "pro-ranged" ? Why don't we have very loud people saying ranged need buffs ?
BUFF RANGED? That happens in Crpg?....I thought ranged was only nerf nerf nerf. I didn't see BUFF in Ranged Dictionary....Are you sure you're using the proper CRPG Dictionary?
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Kafein people don't go on the forums and say "HOMG this game is awesome, don't touch a thing". That's not what people do. Humans mainly voice their opinion when they are unhappy. This is my experience with human nature. This is why most IT Support is a "thankless" job. You're only directly interacting with people when they have a problem that needs to be fixed. The 99% of the time you are making sure everything is running smooth behind the scenes, people just think it's normal, they have no reason to give you feedback. The people who play the game have no reason to go to forums and pronounce over and over (as much as the whiners) how much this game rocks, and to leave it as it is/classes are balanced. You clearly are an illogical fellow if you believe otherwise.
The only reason I'm here calling you whiners out, is because I sit at a computer all day trying to look busy at work, and I spend a lot of that time being a forum whore.
10-15 people shouldn't speak for all of the crpg community, they shouldn't be the ones dictating how balance happens. I don't think your chart is accurate. I don't think a lot of the "problems" developers have tried to fix (in regards to balance) over the years, were problems at all. I think a lot of the time it was a perceived problem that was perpetuated by the amount of whine on the forums.
A better team balance system would have fixed most of these "issues". Or people just sucking it up and realizing that there will be counters to their play styles, and they need to adapt (teamwork is my favorite way to overcome obstacles and disadvantages).
Half the population isn't "anti-ranged" and half isn't "pro-ranged". I'd say most people fall in the "the game is good as it is" category. To me, it seems like a lot of the complainers just want to be able to rambo charge straight ahead and not have to worry about teammates, or surroundings, or what the enemy team is doing. And I think that's why they have such a problem with ranged, and always will (unless it's removed).
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Half the population isn't "anti-ranged" and half isn't "pro-ranged". I'd say most people fall in the "the game is good as it is" category.
My point is that more people want to change ranged closer to the way I want to see it changed than people want to change it in the other direction. If the game was more balanced, don't you think more archers would be vocal about the problems they are facing when dealing with e.g. shielders ?
That's why I usually consider internal melee balance to be more or less fine, despite the ridiculous amounts of text me and others write about it. Some things might be improved to make it better for all the involved parties, but nothing seems to get an inordinate amount of flak compared to everything else.
That's why assuming the game is perfectly balanced, it is very surprising that ranged do not complain about being defenseless against shielders in the same way shieldless infantry complains about being defenseless against ranged.
I also would like to add that people that come here to discuss balance are usually more concerned about the game than those that don't. They like the game more than other activities and will therefore spend energy to participate in its development rather than quitting when the quality decreases. When you argue for no change your motives are not very different it's just that the problems you perceive with the game, or lack thereof, are different. Furthermore, you can't dismiss balance arguments as being self-serving lobbying (except if we include having fun) when those that discuss balance and the community at large have repeatedly shown otherwise.
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I will concede that infantry should be the main focus of the mod, and should be the class that is "catered to" the most. I don't like straight up "nerf" solutions, there's been quite a few creative and good solutions to fix the problem with too many ranged classes on the battlefield (without an actual hard nerf). I still contend that a proper team balance system (doesn't have to balance exactly even) would solve a lot of the issues faced in game. If there's 7 horse archers/crossbows on a 80 population server, and they are all on the same team, of course people are going to bitch and complain (rightfully so). But the problem isn't horse ranged, it's the balance system that allows them to be all on the same team. And I think that's been the case for the past 2 years in regards to most of the complaints.
But back to the OP, I still think that lobbying has a direct impact on what happens in game. It seems like that has been the case ever since I started playing the mod (because I'm probably as big of a forum whore as anyone, I see a direct correlation between lobbying and changes to the game).
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I will concede that infantry should be the main focus of the mod, and should be the class that is "catered to" the most. I don't like straight up "nerf" solutions, there's been quite a few creative and good solutions to fix the problem with too many ranged classes on the battlefield (without an actual hard nerf). I still contend that a proper team balance system (doesn't have to balance exactly even) would solve a lot of the issues faced in game. If there's 7 horse archers/crossbows on a 80 population server, and they are all on the same team, of course people are going to bitch and complain (rightfully so). But the problem isn't horse ranged, it's the balance system that allows them to be all on the same team.
In my opinion, class balance would hide the symptoms of the problem without actually solving the problem. Teams with unbalanced amounts of certain classes should not be more powerful than balanced teams. That's where the problem is.
For example, a balanced team can easily deal with a team with a large melee force if that threat is actually perceived by the balanced team, as it is relatively easy to downplay a melee advantage on most battle maps through positioning and "tactics" (read: setting up on hilltops, kiting, harassing flanks with cav and spreading out to delay the fight). But the same isn't true of mounted ranged for example.
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It's really all subjective. The devs can have a completely seperate vision then what you personally are feeling. Every class may feel that this is overpowered or that is underpowered, when other classes could feel the opposite. Then you have different skill levels of players who feel one way or another. A player will refer to others that disagree with him as trolls or whiners and state that what they personally feel should happen is "balanced".
The few times that banner balance was disabled(albeit it on accident), all of the maps were 4 to 3 victories. And even when it was so close and at least somewhat skill balanced, people bitched that they never saw x5's. So you will never satisfy players, ever. A lot of people are only happy when they have a reason to complain. It gives them something to talk about.
I would rather the dev's just label everyone as complainers and keep going off of an overall vision along with data. But at the same time looking over the forums and taking whats on there with a grain of salt. Even though I may feel that there's something wrong with another class, I know that the classes need to be different. That's what makes the game good, everything plays differently but in the end it all comes together pretty well.
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Part of the problem is the devs we have now don't actually see the game as it is. We have Tydeus who plays NA, and I believe he plays seige? We have Paul who's hate of 2 handers is palpable with his "2hers are retards" kind of comments. He doesn't even play the game, when he does he mains with a shield class. The main devs are working on a new game
If we had proper representation like chadz said we would have like a year ago we wouldn't have as much complaining. We would know we had someone who at least saw things from our position even if they couldn't convince other guys on the team.
The devs do a lot of stuff that makes no sense. We have 1 handers getting totally over buffed. We have no requirements for xbowers. We have more WPF for 18+agi. Double whammy buff/nerf to anyone with less/more than 18 agi
I could write a list of more bad balancing that pushes the game towards the ranged fest we have, but that will do for now
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I read it all but ''World Of Tanks'' is not really a good example. I'm not talking about gameplay.