Basic game imbalances

[Lennu]

Did anyone actually read through all that? 

[Lysander]

Did anyone actually read through all that? 

No.
Also not the Joker68 guy who wrote this. I think he copied it from anywhere!

[Ylca]

This is a great writeup, the only issue i saw (and i might have missed you addressing this as it was a long post) is your assumption about archer equipment value.

Since new upkeep i've played 2h, Thrower, Archer, Shielder, Light Cav, Heavy Cav.

Guess which two were by far my most expensive generations? Archer and HA absolutely molested my wallet to the point i had to sell looms after i was done with 1 gen of HA and cleaned me out after 1.5 gens of Archer. By comparison in almost every other build i make money with the exception of the times i decide to hop on a plated charger. There is already a hardcoded significant disadvantage to being an archer and i feel you should consider this in your future endeavors.

[Paul]

There is an extra break chance for arrows that increases archer upkeep.

[Lysander]

There is an extra break chance for arrows that increases archer upkeep.

Are you kidding me??

[Zerran]

+1 great idea. Would especially like it because I play light armor + support polearm = cheap so I could focus on attributes/skills 

Seriously though, this would be nice. Would let new players play with heavy armor, yet at the same time keep people in tin-can suits from taking 10 hits to kill while 1-shotting everyone. The one thing I don't like is getting rid of looms. Maybe it's just because I'm an rpg fan, but I like working towards something like that. Additionally looms don't give a terribly big bonus, and are technically hard-capped (player has all +3)

It would require a LOT of work though, mostly as far as balancing goes. From the little modding I've done to warband it's pretty easy to add new skills and attributes, the problem would be making all the classes balanced.

Loved the charts/graphs btw, you really put a lot of work into this post!

Finally, I apologize if I misunderstood anything. I'm about to fall asleep on my keyboard.

[Remy]

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.

Some brief input(from a dirty HA): 

Shielders are not "good/better chances to win" foe, in a normal battle they are "ignore/comeback later/engage when completely distracted" type of  target.

The same goes for anyone with decent armor or carrying anything beyond the most basic shield.

Furthermore, I find the "better" part to be very subjective. Pikeman and Horse Archers differ significantly in purpose, goals and tactics. Beyond of course the fact that both can do well in a support role and excel against undisciplined cavalry.

Finally, the biggest problem I think with your analysis is that it appears to based on a 1 vs 1 concept, whereas apart from duel mode, it is more important how a class performs in numbers/cohesion with other classes/etc.

[Overdriven]

Are you kidding me??

How did you not know? It's been around for a long time now (4-5 months maybe, if not more). It's why I don't use bodkins on horse back, because 3xbodkins with extra break chance, plus a courser, is crippling for the wallet.

Anyway joker...I don't particularly understand the point of this thread. I read your entire post and I simply wonder, why is there a need for change? I certainly don't see any need. The imbalances you point out aren't really imbalances, certainly not enough to cause any need for over haul of the upkeep system. A lot of what you say is also very unnecessary, biased, and not very well thought out, hidden by the fact that you wrote a huge amount and threw in some rather pointless graphs. Simple examples are your lack of understanding for controls and the difference between controlling each class, your assumption that HA's beat pikemen (which is just dumb in a battle situation) and the fact your budgets are also rather incorrect as well undermines your post.

Finally, your suggested changes really only relate to two of your points, and even then, under the skill set changes you said that they are already pretty fair, and in my opinion, require no drastic changes. Why did you write the entire first part if your suggested changes don't even really affect them? Particularly as that opening half is the least thought out and most biased part.

Also what Remy said ^

I don't mean to criticise quite so heavily, but I just have a lot of issues with what you say and unfortunately I don't have the time to point out every single one.

[Glyph]

great post and spent time for the comunity! +1

though what i don't get is that you said that if you get a higher level, you can get more expensive stuff right? and if you are a lower level, you've less wealth points, so equipment of less value, which will translate into high players getting better equipment, which in that case your drawing doesn't really shows what the real scenario would be like. then it would be more of a strait line towards the top-right corner, because the players with high levels(right side) will be able to take expensive equipment because of their high wealth.

please correct me if i'm wrong

thx

[Kaoklai]

While people are busy jizzing themselves over OP's presentation and conciliatory tone, I thought the whole thing reeked of the sort of armchair game-design, that, if followed, would destroy the game.  I would almost be afraid of the overwhelming support it has received if I didn't have faith that it will mostly be ignored by the developers, who, despite being lazy, corrupt eurotrash, are intelligent enough to recognize garbage ideas when they see them. 

You couch your argument in numerical terms that you arrived at with some very basic arithmetic, but the original values were assigned through an individual's arbitrary judgment.  Your methodology is so loosely defined that the results are meaningless.  It is just your opinion being paraded around with the facade of real analysis. 

As others have noted, you mostly consider one vs one situations and do not take the holistic approach to balance required in a predominantly team-based game. 

Your whom can attack who key is simply ridiculous.  When archers and cavalry die to melee infantry, it isn't because they "allowed" themselves to be killed.  This is borderline insulting to infantry. 

This doesn't make any sense, "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."

Your proposed equipment system does not promote player diversity, but restricts it.  Making a tradeoff between skill/attributes and "budget" means that everyone who chooses to trade the same amount (every "veteran warrior" infantry for example) will have similar gear because your balance would entail similar items having similar budget requirements.  Simply put, you are restricting the item pool for each build and therefore users of each build will be more alike.  You're just creating arbitrary build divisions that reinforce similarities within themselves, and then pointing to the multiple builds you created unnecessarily and yelling diversity.  Different builds and loadouts already occur organically. 

Furthermore, you erroneously conflate equipment effectiveness with price.  Not explicitly, as I'm sure you'll strenuously deny, but that is the story your graphs tell, while the "best" equipment is only what people prefer to use and personal preferences vary widely, even with identical character builds. 

I disagree with your methodology, pretty much everything it tries to prove, and your "solutions."  I hope people will actually read your post and come to their own conclusions instead of being dazzled by numbers and graphs. 

[Bobthehero]

There was veteran nobles too.

And nobles were trained in the art of war.

And veteran soldiers tend to loot equipement.

[Joker86]

Okay, this is WAY too much to answer everything, even by making a "quote barrage post", so I will try to shortly answer a few points which are either important or simply quick to answer 

- My solution doesn't exclude the use of heirlooms. The entire retiring mechanics would still work with it.

- Some of you complain about the fact that I was looking at 1 on 1 situations only. And you are right, that's exactly what I did. I understand that you can't compare the situation on a duel server with the situation on the battlefield. But once a player decides to fight another one, it is something very SIMILAR to a 1 on 1 fight, and there WILL be a difference between an archer and a pikeman if both decide to attack an enemy horse archer. And there will also be a difference for a 1hd+shield infantry in being attacked by an archer and being attacked by a 2hd infantry. The fact, that there is a battle going on around them doesn't change a lot. Especially, as teamplay on public servers is close to not existant, so that it would be plain retarded to rely on your teammates.

I seriously hope we agree that the average archer is dangerous to "more" enemies than the average pikeman. And the other way round, most of the time the pikeman has more dangerous enemies than the archer has. (Especially if latter is sitting on a rooftop for almost the entire round, and only has to come down because a) noone else from his team is on the ground or b) he runs out of arrows *cough cough*)

Which leads to the idea that an archer could have a slightly higher "value" for the team than a pikeman. Like 1.1 and 0.9. Sure, together they again could have an average value of 1, but this doesn't say the classes are balanced. I hope you know what I want to say.

On a battlefield there are so many situations you can imagine, that you can always argument against a certain "relation" of classes to each other.

All I wanted to do is to take a look at the "life" of every class, and to see how much "fun" it is. And there are really a lot of factors, e.g. the effectivity of the class, the time you can engage enemies actively, your defensive capabilities against certain enemies, the average kills you score, the difficulty of mastering the class, how often your class decides a round, how flexible you are in what you do, how independant from certain maps you are, how many choices you got in creating an effective build of this class or at least a hybrid, in short: how well most of your rounds go.

If you combine all these factors and everything else that comes into your mind to a value that we could call "fun", I think we wouldn't receive the same value for all classes. Which, in my eyes is unfair, and should be taken into account as much and as far as possible. (Some basic imbalances never will be fixed, at one point you have to stop and just accept what the middle ages left for the game)

- I got accused of limiting several builds to several setups of equipment. The mechanics that were mentioned, that similar builds with similar budgets would also have similar equipment are perfectly right. The big difference is, that there would be more different builds in general, because with the current system everybody has the same budget for equipment, and thus the same "budget" for skills. Which leads to more similar builds for similar classes. Just take a look at most of the 2hd infantry. Most of the top players in this class use a Danish or German great sword, a good heavy armour (only a bit ligther than the first plate armour) and a good helmet (often enough a closed one). And most of them will have similar strength/agility-relations and thus similar skills.

If my system would apply for them, you would have players with the same equipment like before, but they would have to pay it with a few skill points, thus being "weaker". Other players would keep the skills they had before, but would have to limit themselves on lighter armour or cheaper weapons. Yes, both the "rich noobs" and the "poor veterans" would use similar equipment and skills within their "kind", but all in all you would have MORE variety than before.

I hope I could express what I want to say. 

[Remy]

- Some of you complain about the fact that I was looking at 1 on 1 situations only. And you are right, that's exactly what I did. I understand that you can't compare the situation on a duel server with the situation on the battlefield. But once a player decides to fight another one, it is something very SIMILAR to a 1 on 1 fight, and there WILL be a difference between an archer and a pikeman if both decide to attack an enemy horse archer. And there will also be a difference for a 1hd+shield infantry in being attacked by an archer and being attacked by a 2hd infantry. The fact, that there is a battle going on around them doesn't change a lot. Especially, as teamplay on public servers is close to not existant, so that it would be plain retarded to rely on your teammates.

I disagree completely with this portion.

The fact that there is a battle occurring does change everything. Suddenly you have to consider other players, classes, etc. It is a completely different dynamic from a rather static one vs one.

Teamplay on a grandscale does not always occur on a public server but there is always small group/squad teamwork. Where two players will naturally work together against a common foe.

[Glyph]

joxer, could you take a look at my question?


thx

[Joker86]

great post and spent time for the comunity! +1

though what i don't get is that you said that if you get a higher level, you can get more expensive stuff right? and if you are a lower level, you've less wealth points, so equipment of less value, which will translate into high players getting better equipment, which in that case your drawing doesn't really shows what the real scenario would be like. then it would be more of a strait line towards the top-right corner, because the players with high levels(right side) will be able to take expensive equipment because of their high wealth.

please correct me if i'm wrong

thx

You are right about this assumption, but only as far as both players are playing the same build.

I will repost the graphic so it's easier for me to explain:

(click to show/hide)

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Both players will move along the same "diagonal" (which is their personal build diagonal, determined by their combination of equipment and skills), so that the higher level character will be better in both skills and equipment. But as soon as he reaches the line of the quarter circle, the maximum potential, he must stop, and the lower level player will sooner or later reach him. (Examples: the red and the green squares, or the grey and the brown squares (more or less, the latter two are not exactly on one diagonal, but that's natural, as on one point you level one aspect, at the other point you level the other one, it rather goes up like a "snake"))

If a player of a high level decides to use expensive equipment, he will have lower skills, which would be represented by the pink square. The other extreme would be to go for skills with cheaper equipment, looking like the yellow square.

The point is: not everyone who has a higher level has (considerably) more wealth than someone on a lower level (compare the yellow and the red square, for example). Of course the higher level player has some more advantages in general, that's why you want to level up, but in the end it's always a question of the two builds you are using.

I hope this answers your question. If not, please rephrase it, so I can have another try