What is Balance?

SouthPaw · Post by **SouthPaw** » Fri May 02, 2008 11:34 am

Ok, so the conversation about methods of balancing and what balancing should actually mean has been had in all of the cores. The difference of course is that all other examples have been arguments centred on the opinion of the core creator. This time, the community is to influence the direction of the core.

You can't agree the right direction with other people if you don't have the same idea where you are going.

Thus, I think some discussion of what kind of balance we are trying to achieve here. Maybe it will be one of these notions:Every faction can beat every otherEvery tech path can beat every otherEvery tech path of every faction can beat every otherEvery tech path of every faction has a CHANCE to beat every other, where that chance should equal 50%Every tech path of every faction has a CHANCE to beat every other, where the chance does not have to be 50%Some combination of the above
Personally I feel that, teams being even, then the penultimate option is my idea of balance. The factions and tech paths should be different, and Faction A, Tech A might have a chance to beat Faction B, Tech B greater or less that 50%. That is where factors such as comm and pilot skill come in to play and turn the tide against the 'odds'.

What say you?

Lykourgos · Post by **Lykourgos** » Fri May 02, 2008 5:07 pm

"Every tech path of every faction has a CHANCE to beat every other, where the chance does not have to be 50%"

Yup. This, and "every faction should win half of its games given a large enough sample size." It's fine for a faction to have an advantage based on map, settings, and opposing faction, so long as some other combination of those give it a disadvantage.

fuzzylunkin1 · Post by **fuzzylunkin1** » Sun May 04, 2008 5:06 am

Balance:

Each and every thing in the game has its own strengths an weaknesses, which are both equal.

aarmstrong · Post by **aarmstrong** » Sun May 04, 2008 7:34 am

Good thoughts. I agree with Lyk and I think the following statement sums it up:

QUOTE Each faction has a CHANCE to beat every other faction given even teams and commanders, differing maps, faction strengths, and varying techpaths, where the chance should be close to 50%.[/quote]

(Notice the absence of "Every tech path")

I'm not of the opinion that EVERY techpath from a given faciton should be able to beat another team 50% of the time. There are too many variables in play and certain techpaths should not be used against certain factions, period.

SouthPaw · Post by **SouthPaw** » Sun May 04, 2008 5:50 pm

I'm too new to know for sure, but that is similar to Noir's DN philosophy right? Balancing overall faction vs. faction aiming for 50% win ration regardless of tech-path...

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Ramaglor · Post by **Ramaglor** » Sun May 04, 2008 6:04 pm

The stats Noir uses are just overall win percentages. What we are saying is that all factions should be relatively matched vs any other faction. These stats are currently unavailable.

Here's an example of some of the data from earlier DN core versions.

Overall, Bios had a ~45% win ratio....and therefore were perked by Noir....but if you look at this, they won 56% of the games versus Rix, with the inclusion of the perk, this is likely even higher.

SouthPaw · Post by **SouthPaw** » Wed May 07, 2008 9:29 am

THat's very interesting, and I guess it could lead to some pretty in-depth discussion of what it is that causes some of the wilder deviations here. Aarm, are there plans to track stats such as this for the CC?

Grim_Reaper_4u · Post by **Grim_Reaper_4u** » Wed May 07, 2008 1:09 pm

Please don't use stats without modifying them for even teams and commanders. Stats mean nothing if teams and comms were uneven or if 1 team "doctors" the settings in its favour. If you wanna find out which factions are unbalanced versus other factions then check out which factions are used in the majority of squadgames /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

Vlymoxyd · Post by **Vlymoxyd** » Wed May 07, 2008 4:04 pm

I think that settings should have an impact as minimal as possible on faction choices, but I think it would be pretty hard to fix it without major changes.

I think that it would be great if every tech path of every factions could have a fair chance of winning against anything, but acheiving is very unlikely with how the factions are currently designed. Having differences is also fun. My point is that although having perfect balance could be interesting, I doubt it is possible and I think that just going for giving a fair chance to every factions to win against another on most standard settings(I.e not rix vs giga on brawl) is the way to go.

I don't think that any faction should be completely screwed up by rocks.

IB_ · Post by **IB_** » Wed May 07, 2008 5:18 pm

Grim_Reaper_4u wrote:QUOTE (Grim_Reaper_4u @ May 7 2008, 06:09 AM) Please don't use stats without modifying them for even teams and commanders. Stats mean nothing if teams and comms were uneven or if 1 team "doctors" the settings in its favour. If you wanna find out which factions are unbalanced versus other factions then check out which factions are used in the majority of squadgames /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

IC 99%
Other 1%