Basic game imbalances

[Joker86]

Basic imbalances of the game

Hi there!

First things first: this is not another whine thread, if anything it's the opposite.

I want to elaborate basic game mechanics, different relations between the classes and perhaps, if I don't write some bullshit here, this could make us all together see some new ways to improve the balance of the game.


"Counters"


First of all I want to start talking about a sentence that often drops: "But XYZ is the natural counter to ZYX!". In my eyes cRPG doesn't have any "counters", neither soft nor hard. A counter always implies that it's designed that way, which is wrong IMHO.Usually, if you design with counters, you have a closed circle, which looks like this:

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It's the famour rock-paper-siccors-system (RPSS). Everyone knows it, and it works very well.But cRPG bases on Mount & Blade, which bases on medieval warfare. And in medieval warfare noone took care that you could beat another weapon with yours, but also could be beaten well by a third one. You wanted a weapon that beats everything. You wanted to play rock-paper-siccors-shotgun.

Just as example: heavy cavalry wasn't meant to be beatable by anything, and for many hundred years it wasn't. Unlike the common belief it was not the firearm, but the disciplined infantry blocks with long polearms that initiated the descent of knighthood.

"But there we have it!" You could shout. Infantry beats cavalry, then cavalry beats archers, and thus the logical consequence would be that archers must beat infantry.

It would look this way:

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But as you can see on the question mark in the middle: does it work this way? Yes and no. Sometimes it does, in most cases it does not.

First of all we have way more classes than those 3 basic ones. Although cRPG is a game without class restrictions, you still have basic fighter types. This is what I found:

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Again we have a question mark in the middle, simply because you couldn't see anything any more if I really drew a line from every class to all other classes.

And here we stumple across our first problem: in every working RPSS you have the same amount of beaten things and beating things. I this requirement isn't met we have an imbalance, because there will be something that wins against more things than it loses.

But let's compare a poor pikeman (my favourite example for an underdog) with a horse archer (my favourite example for a my old friendgo.. I mean, versatile fighter ;-) ).

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I think it's obvious that the chances aren't distributed evenly, and indeed the horse archer can fight more enemies on the battle field, and he can fight them better. This is the first basic imbalance of the game, and I fear this one can never be evened out totally.

Participation


Then we have another basic imbalance, concerning the classes. For this imbalance it's enough to get back to our system with the three classes, which means infantry, archers and cavalry.

cRPG is a game, and we all play it. But WHEN exactly are you playing it? While spectating and waiting for respawn? Well, a little bit, I would say. While running around the battle field? Well, that's already better. While attacking an enemy, expecting him (or yourself) to die any moment? Yes, that's it. cRPG is not a Tycoon-game, it's not about building something, it's about fighting and killing others. That's what you want to do, it's the ultimative goal of the game.

Now let's have a look: WHEN do you fight someone?

As infantryman you fight someone when he approaches you, or you approach him. You have to walk, and you are slow. So you need to become faster.

That's why you put a horse under your butt and become cavalryman. This way you can inevitably reach anyone who hasn't got a (faster) horse himself or is hiding in a building. Which usually is most of the population on a server.

But the best method is to not even have to reach an enemy. So you decide to fight over range. You become archer, crossbowman, or perhaps thrower. What does this mean?

Let me try to show in a table WHEN you can attack WHOME:

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You read the table as follows:
Read it in the three lines "Infantry" "Cavalry" and "Archers", on the very left column. Reading from left to right shows you possible targets depending on the time on the map. Each time section is divided into the three possible enemy classes.

So the first line would be read as:

(click to show/hide)

After spawning infantry can't attack anyone (all three boxes are red). In the early game it can only attack cavalry, if it allows to do so (= approaches), its box is orange. The infantry still can't attack anyone else, so the other boxes are red. In the middle of the game, when the two forces clash, infantry can attack enemy infantry under fair conditions. It can barely attack archers, unless they allow it by approaching too closely, and they can barely attack cavalry, as it needs to do the same. At the end of the game infantry can attack other infantry at even chances, while the chances of infantry reaching an archer and killing him in melee should be about the same as the chances killing the infantry during the approach or after this in melee. Due to the superior speed of the cavalry latter still has an advantage over infantry.

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This table is really rudimentary, and it shows only the majority of all cases on an average map. OF COURSE there can be different situations, but we are trying to get a picture of the whole thing, so this should do the job. For all of those who don't agree with a certain colour in a certain box, here is my reasoning:

(click to show/hide)

INFANTRY:

Spawn: While spawning you can't attack any enemies, as they are way too far away from you.
Early game: In an early game you can only attack cavalry, under the condition that it's attacking you. So it's rather "defending against" cavalry than really attacking. You are moving, and you have to look arround constantly, so you are lacking overview, at least a bit.
Mid game: You can attack enemy infantry as well as they can attack you. Archers are more difficult to attack, as you must break through the enemy infantry and usually they took a good position, so in most cases the archers must be very close to you to be attackable, which means he "allowed" you to attack him. Cavalry again is most dangerous now, as you are fighting enemy infantry now, so they can ride by, attack you and disappear again before you even know what has hit you. So again you can fight them rather bad.
End game: Usually at the end of a game chances are even between all fighters, although cavalry got an advantage due to its mobility.

CAVALRY:

Spawn: Same as infantry. You can't attack anyone.
Early game: if you rush forward, you can attack the advancing enemies, but the archers will most likely concentrate on you, while your chances against other cavalry are about even. infantry can only attack you when you approach them, and usually you only do so if they are unaware of you, so in most cases you will have the advantage.
Mid game: again infantry will be disturbed by your own infantry, so there will be a lot of easy (= unaware) targets. Archers will become more of a problem, as they will take safe positions, and many of them will concentrate on cavalry, as the enemies will be covered by your own infantry. Enemy cavalry still remains an equal match.
End game: at the end of the game your chances against cavalry and archers are about the same. Perhaps you hit them first, perhaps they hit you first. And unless you are the last man standing you should still have good chances against infantry, as they can only attack you within a short range, and only if you decide to approach them.


ARCHERS:

Spawn: Often enough you spawn with enemies on sight. So on many maps you can immediately start attacking, but the enemy archers can attack you, too!
Early game: The enemy infantry will still be approaching, so you can shoot them as you like, they can't do much about it. Enemy cavalry could be riding around, so you will probably watch out for them an engage them, while they will try to engage you as well. Your chances against enemy archers are equal, as you both have the same conditions.
Mid game: Now you have taken a safe position and stopped moving, you most of the time you will be rather aware of your sorroundings. Your infantry is protecting you, so you need to come really close or be rather unaware to be attacked by some Ninja. Due to your good position cavalry will be less of a threat, so you can engage them freely as they circle around the battle.
End game: Now this is more dangerous, as you won't have a line of infantry protecting you any more. Also you will be driven out of your position most likely. Now your chances against everyone should be about equal. Perhaps you hit them first, berhaps they hit you first.

As you can see on the legend, every colour has its own "value". This value can be named whatever you want, versatility, fun, participated time...

If you add the values of each line and calculate the averages, you get the following results:

Infantry: 0,83
Cavalry: 1,67
Archers: 2,67

As you can see, the values, WHEN you can attack WHOME and how WELL differ drastically. Of course you can't take those numbers as absolute values, because archers surely are not three times as effective/fun/whatever as infantry, but it's clear that there are heavy differences. I think arguing about particular boxes in on this table wouldn't change anything on the "ranking".


So what we can comprehend from this section is, that different classes can participate in the battle at different degrees.


But that's not everything!

Controls

Not only how much and how well you can participate is important, also the fact how difficult it is. It's a question of the needed controls for your toon. I could make another table, but I decided to spare you and instead I will try to keep it short:


While infantry needs to approach an enemy in melee, block his blows manually, while he can block yours, both fighters trying to dodge and get around each other (= footwork), with the constant danger of being shot or ridden down, I think it is the most difficult class to control.

As archers don't need to be in melee at all, and most of the time indeed are not, the entire part with manual blocking falls away. The footwork remains, as you need to dodge the projectiles of enemy archers. Compared to the infantry the enemy can do less about your attacks, because only shields and dodging work, but no parrying. You can still be ridden or shot down. Aiming is added, as you need experience and instinct to hit an enemy. But if I compare the removed melee with the added aiming I say that under the line archer needs much less control inputs.

Cavalry doesn't need footwork at all, you constantly press W, correct the direction with A or D and sometimes slow down with S. From time to time you jump over obstacles. This can't really be called foot"work". Same counts for attacking. It's no realy melee, you chamber your blow, approach the enemy in high speed, release in the right moment and are gone before a real duel can even start. Sometimes you will hit something, sometimes you won't. You can still be shot, but not ridden down. Similar to the archer you need to be aware of enemy cavalry and archers, but not really of enemy infantry. All in all I would say cavalry needs the least control inputs.


Of course controls don't tell everything about how "difficult" a class is, but they definitely play an important role. In my eyes it is riskier to approach an enemy and kill him in melee than to shoot him from distance. I think modern tactitians would agree on that ;-)

Another important point is, what player THINK is easier. It doesn't matter how it is in reality, but most players should be afraid of manual blocking, and most of them should think it's easier to become a master archer with good aiming rather than a master infantryman with good blocking skills.


Now let's examine another possible source of imbalance in the game: the needed equipment!


Equipment prices

Infantry needs good armour and good weapons to be effective. Cavalry needs the same, plus a horse. Archers need a good weapon to be effective, while good (= heavier) armour would actually lower their effectivity again.

Of course the other two classes are slowed down by heavy armour, too, but the effects are nowhere near to the effect to archers.

Currently the most expensive Bow + Arrows cost 16.158 gold. The most expensive polearm is 15.634 gold, the most expensive two hander 18.777 gold, the most expensive sword + shield combo is even 20.856 gold. And in difference to the archers the other classes need medium or heavy armour, while archers do fine with light or even without armour at all!

Cavalry has really a disadvantage compared to infantry, as it needs the same equipment plus a horse, which renders only light cavalry sustainable.

Skills?

Another point, where I really don't dare to make a judgement are the skills. I am not sure if the amount of skills needed for each class is balanced or not, so perhaps one of you could elaborate this. I got the feeling it is pretty fair, but not perfect.

Summary

You can rejoice, we are close to the end of my elaboration. Let me post a last, short summary, which simultaneously represents

the tl;dr - version:

1. There is no (real) rock-paper-siccors-system in cRPG. Real "counters" don't exist in the initial meaning of the word, you only have things that work better or worse against others, but there is no balance in those relations.

2. Different classes can participate in the battle at different degrees (time, possible targets, etc.). Some more, some less.

3. The different classes need a different amount of control inputs, which definitely influences the "difficulty" of a class.

4. Different classes need different budgets for effective equipment. Great source for possible imbalances.

5. Different classes need different amounts of skill points spent. Another source for possible imbalances.


With these statements made my essay is more or less finished. I thought long about it, and I finally decided to bother you with my old alternative suggestion which was meant as alternative for the upkeep system, and again I see some advantages of it, so I will repeat it in a heavily shortened version.

Approach to a solution


Basically you can divide character development into two aspects: skills and equipment. You can use these aspects to represent two axes in a graph:

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Of course character's can't move along those axes endlessly, there are caps. Sooner or later you will reach the maximum equipment possible, and, depending on the cap, the level, too.

With the old cRPG things looked like this:

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The equipment was hard capped, as sooner or later you have farmed all of the best equipment you need for your class. Any further progression since then was made on the horizontal axis, by leveling up. There was some kind of soft cap, but we had many players that crossed it. The bright blue area is the potential a player could reach, and the more far away from (0|0) they are, the bigger the square is they create, the more powerful they are. Of course everyone tried to reach the point at the top right, so ultimatively everyone ended up at the same point.

It looked like this:

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As you can see, the different player (the coloured boxes) were all apporaching the top right corner, and when they reached the hard euipment cap they moved along the skill axis, leveling up their characters. Your either had "perfect" characters, or you were working on one. (the smaller boxes that didn't reach one cap yet).


Then the upkeep patch came. Its biggest difference was, that the hard equipment cap was moved lower and changed to a soft one. Now it was the price of your items, that represented the cap, instead of the mere unexistance of better equipment. But still, things remained more or less the same. Again you first farmed the best possible equipment (determined by the combined price in relation to the effectivity), and then you work on breaking the level cap. Characters of same classes developed the same.

The new potential looks like this:

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Basically like before, with some small changes (lower equipment cap, changed to a soft one).

So again leveling looks like this:

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Again it's the best to try to reach the top right corner. Again you have many similar builds.


Balancing is done by changing item stats, balancing the different classes by their equipment. The only balancing by skills was achieved by changing the difficulty of an item. I think this is where we need to start, as you could also use the skills to balance classes.

Another problem are the item prices, which becomes especially obvious in the case of archers. You can't make bows as expensive as it would be needed, as players would need to long to farm them and thus lose motivation. An important part of the motivation of cRPG is buying and using new items, so we must allow players to constantly "reward" themselves by buying items, while taking care that their usage on the battlefield is always balanced.

The only solution I found for this was to seperate the item price in the shop and the item value on the battlefield. This is why I will start now to use the expressions "price" and "value" with two different meanings deliberately.

The price is what you pay on the webside in the shop while purchasing an item. The value is the amount of gold that's shown in your ingame inventory, with absolutely the same mechanics like in native. If your overall equipment value exceeds your budget, the number will turn red and you can't spawn/spawn without some items. You can call this budget "prosperity" or "wealth" or whatever.

Your wealth is a fix number determined by your level. Every new level your wealth grows a little bit. Additionally we need a hard level cap introduced.

An important new feature would be the ability, to turn both skill and attribute points to wealth points. The relation stays the same, which means 2 budget points = 2 skill points = 1 attribute point.

With this system, the new conditions for character development would look like this:
(Notice that the soft level cap on the right side is a mistake, it's a hard one)

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The maximum development line (it's actually a radius) is created by the simple fact that you can either maximize equipment OR skills, but never both, creating some kind of "quarter circle" around (0|0).

Creating a potential that looks this way:

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(There you see this quarter circle)


Basically players would have the same problem like with the upkeep system: "What is the best equipment I can get for a certain value?", but in difference to the upkeep this value would remain constant, thus making your character development more predictable. If someone wants better equipment he is free to do so, but he will have to pay it with worse skills. With this change, the different characters would hopefully look like this:

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You would have both more possibilities and more variety.

To finally achieve some kind of balancing, I would suggest to remove any penalties of respeccing the characters, and heirloom points should be freely distributable. You could implement some cooldown timer or gold cost to prevent players of testing all builds within an afternoon and losing motivation due to this.

The purpose of this change is having the player base adapt much faster to balance changes, so that you can see within a week where the server population would develop to with the current item stats. Once a good balance is achieved, the changes above get reverted, respeccing costs XP again and heirlooms remain final, as usual.

My idea surely doesn't solve all problems, but at least the effects of Nr. 4 and Nr. 5 (see above, "Summary") get lowered.

I hope I don't get too many "tl;dr", because in fact i don't care who didn't read it. I want you guys to correct me if I said/assumed something wrong, and I want you to think about what I wrote, to decide whether you support it or not, and if not, whether you have an alternative/superior suggestion or not. Feel free to discuss every little point, I will do my best to try to stay open minded. I know ofen enough I behave simple minded, and this can become really tiresome for you, but this time I will really try to accept different opinions and allow people to convince me of their beliefs. 

[RandomDude]

Holy shit. I might actually read your post when i have a spare hour or two. For now I skipped to the conclusion and still didnt understand the point of it

[Paul]

tl;dr archery OP, cav easymode but ok (cause he's a pikeman), inf is for real men

[Joker86]

tl;dr archery OP, cav easymode but ok (cause he's a pikeman), inf is for real men

Impressive how someone can disqualify oneself from a discussion in only 1 sentence.

I never said archery would be OP. All I said was, that it has the better starting conditions, which you have to take into concern.

I didn't say cav was easymode either. All I said was that it is not threatened as much as infantry, and the controls are easier. Doesn't mean that the game with the current balance automatically lets you be successfull because of this.

And finally, I am 2hd inf, no pikeman.

Unfortunately I can even understand how you got the impression this is another "OMG look how unbalanced everything is"-thread, because that's what you usually read in these forums. But I didn't say anything about CURRENT BALANCE PROBLEMS, I was speaking about BASIC GAME IMBALANCES, which, if I think properly about it, all derive from the fact that Mount & Blade simulates medieval warfare. Which wasn't balanced at all.

Compared with those starting conditions the current balance is much much MUCH better, but still needs improvement. This is what this topic is about, it shows WHY some classes should be buffed/nerfed more/differently than others, but not HOW. If you are not aware of the basic game mechanics, you can't solve the basic problem.

[cmp]

ITT: Joker trying to peddle his opinions as facts. Make your own mod/game already, goddamnit.

[Joker86]

ITT: Joker trying to peddle his opinions as facts. Make your own mod/game already, goddamnit.

Show me where I do this (and I bet I do, often I did not have anything else to base on than personal perception), and I will think about it.

[Son Of Odin]

Holy shit. I might actually read your post when i have a spare hour or two. For now I skipped to the conclusion and still didnt understand the point of it

Are you implying his posts have a point?

Your posts are just random sentences put together, it makes me want to cut myself

EDIT: But joker, seems like you have used quite a lot of time to write this, so I try to read it. If I start to feel like Vibe I'll have to start searching for some blades .

[Joker86]

But joker, seems like you have used quite a lot of time to write this, so I try to read it. If I start to feel like Vibe I'll have to start searching for some blades .

Hope you don't. Generally I don't want people to hurt themselves, neither Vibe nor you (okay, Balton hurting himself would be sweet, I admit), and additionally I hope it wasn't written that confusingly that I let the Emo-community grow even bigger... 

[KaMiKaZe_JoE]

A OP who put lots of time and effort into creating what he thought was a post, the purpose of which was to prompt pertinent discussion on the topic of several aspects of game imbalance which he, through careful observation, noted?!

Complete with graphs and pictures?!?

I don't have the time to read it--yet--but I will. Why? Because I just finished making a 10 minute presentation for one of my classes. The timing is such that I cannot help but appreciate the good, honest work you put into presenting your own ideas to an audience far less mature and thoughtful than mine, and what's more, you did so on your own initiative.

If you do not read this, or plan on reading it, and do post--particularly in order to condemn the OP--you deserve nothing less than the violent rape of your entire family and/or family pets.

At this point I don't give a fuck if you're completely and utterly wrong Joker--I respect the initiative.

[Kajia]

Oi! nice effort, +1
joker you seem to waste as much time as I on this mod - yes I said waste. we really should make our own mod, you're in?

okay seriously, the stuff you wrote seem to be logical to me.
but I miss the consideration of teamplay - the pike for instance is a supporting weapon, not meant for duelling.

did you read my babbling about strat/crpg balance a while back? the link is in my signature.

[Joker86]

[...]

Tanks mate, saved my day 

but I miss the consideration of teamplay - the pike for instance is a supporting weapon, not meant for duelling.

You are right on this point, although I think that other classes can play in a team aswell, while they are not as helpless as pikemen when found on their own.

But after taking a look on the servers my answer is:

"You miss the consideration of WHHHAAAAAAAT?" 

P.S.: I will read into your link.

[Kafein]

Only a few differences with the giant post you did short after the upkeep patch came out, and as I see most of it still holds true.

Most (good) multiplayer games with evolution force players into making compromises between mutually-conflictual (even exclusive in some cases) parts of character evolution.

The str/agi balance is one perfect example of these good designs. If we assume the attributes are balanced, you achieve diversity without making one choice better than the other. Even better, to make it more exploit-safe, the return of each spent point decreases. That way, even with attribute imbalances, unbalanced builds aren't that good. This is not explicitly done in cRPG, even though we can argue that currently, it's best to have both attributes in the 15-21 range.

However, what really cRPG really lacks is a negative link between equipment and level. Currently, they aren't linked negatively at all (they are linked positively as you need levels to use equipment). You can maximise both without any problem (the "north-east corner"). What could offer more diversity while actually allowing more expensive items to be more effective (unlike now. There are countless examples of expensive stuff being inferior to cheaper stuff) is using a skill for determining the max equipment you can use. Or having to use part of you pay to "train" and being higher level with less gold.

That would introduce more choices during the evolution process. Are you a veteran soldier, or a young noble ?

[Joker86]

What could offer more diversity while actually allowing more expensive items to be more effective is using a skill for determining the max equipment you can use.

Well, that's actually what I wanted to achieve with the wealth/item values. You can have a Gothic Plate and a Flamberge, but as it will exceed the basic wealth value of your level, you will have to spend skill or attribute points to be able to wield those items. Which effectively puts you on a lower character level.

Did you mean this?

Or having to use part of you pay to "train" and being higher level with less gold.

That would introduce more choices during the evolution process. Are you a veteran soldier, or a young noble ?

This is basically connected to the wealth-system: you either have good stats and bad equipment (veteran warrior) or vice versa (rich noble), or of course something in between (average professional soldier).

But the point of having to train to access higher levels with gold seems to be interesting to me. I just don't know what I would use as "price" to raise the personal level cap, as gold doesn't seem right to me (just farm, time is on your side). I would like something that actually "hurts", something that lowers your fighting abilities a bit, but the additional level making it still viable, as you gain stronger a little tiny bit. Just make it not well farmable... I think I have to sleep over this one 

[Kafein]

Well, that's actually what I wanted to achieve with the wealth/item values. You can have a Gothic Plate and a Flamberge, but as it will exceed the basic wealth value of your level, you will have to spend skill or attribute points to be able to wield those items. Which effectively puts you on a lower character level.

Did you mean this?

This is basically connected to the wealth-system: you either have good stats and bad equipment (veteran warrior) or vice versa (rich noble), or of course something in between (average professional soldier).

But the point of having to train to access higher levels with gold seems to be interesting to me. I just don't know what I would use as "price" to raise the personal level cap, as gold doesn't seem right to me (just farm, time is on your side). I would like something that actually "hurts", something that lowers your fighting abilities a bit, but the additional level making it still viable, as you gain stronger a little tiny bit. Just make it not well farmable... I think I have to sleep over this one 

Hey, my post was intended to be a tl;dr version of yours

By "buying levels with gold", I was assuming that gold was only a balance factor. Once per time unit, you get a fixed sum (salary), you pay your equipment upkeep and any training you were doing. Training requires you to pay a fixed amount each unit of time, to keep the level bonus. This only does exactly the same thing as saying there's a skill that gives you money, but the other way around : with money you can get more skills.

[Skysong]

Nice effort still:

1. There is no (real) rock-paper-siccors-system in cRPG. Real "counters" don't exist in the initial meaning of the word, you only have things that work better or worse against others, but there is no balance in those relations.

Reducing everything to rock-paper-siccors  is like a spreading plague among gamers since Sega took over publishing total war series.
Some melees are more offensive while some are supporting. Some has more survival against ranged while others are hunted so.
I'd hate a game when i say "Here is X class i'll kill him easy!" or  "Omg Y class i have no chance, i should lay down and die"
Also suggesting balancing with active atack periods is just wrong. You can't punish archers because they have range atack.

2. Different classes can participate in the battle at different degrees (time, possible targets, etc.). Some more, some less.

3. The different classes need a different amount of control inputs, which definitely influences the "difficulty" of a class.

Actualy those add variety to gameplay and are alot realistic than vice versa. I'd hate a game where each class had same difficulty to play.

4. Different classes need different budgets for effective equipment. Great source for possible imbalances.

5. Different classes need different amounts of skill points spent. Another source for possible imbalances.

I agree. Some has too many free skill points to convert to attribute points also.