it would be clever (if not necessary) to make someone skilled (especially in stealth) responsible for balance questions. most people on the dev team and on the ps forum are clearly unqualified for this. good players who come to my mind are spekkio, mr. mic, kronf, seefoo (random order, i'm not humblegay). i think this is really important. discuss...
when the time comes for such a person (ie. not now)
..when the time comes
Having one person responsible for balance, though it may sound like a good idea at first, is not a good way to achieve balance. It takes a variety of people of varying skill levels and play styles to achieve balance. Unfortunately (it would certainly make things easier) having one person making that decision would not result in a balanced game. Whether they like it or not, everyone has a bias and what is good for one is not necessarily good for all.
The Vision modes is a perfect example. Spekkio would go one route, I would go another when balance will more than likely be found somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. I don't remember who said this but someone posted an idea that took both viewpoints and found a middle ground that is actually reasonable. Not to my liking personally but it was suggested that the ghosting appear when moving slowly and the invisibility be only when perfectly stationary. Though I don't like it (Did I say that already?), it may be the best most balanced solution.
Pointless. When they are all working on it, spekkio, kronf, etc, it will be balanced.
Balance does not happen without play testing. Before that, its only speculation.
Normally in a game dev. studio, you have a professional game designer that works closely between the artists, programmers, and play testers.
But we dont have such a qualified person, neither do we need one because we are using CT as the game design instead of trying to create an entirely new concept. Balancing will be required only when we release a playable game.
Also, game design is not a democratic process, and if we try to run PS likes a democratic process, the only thing that is going to happen is flame wars.
What we WILL need at a much later dater is a QA manager, basically someone that collects all of the feedback from the playtesters. Probably the most important quality for this person is a non-biased opinion of the game because they need to understand the collective impression and filter out personal bias.
Right now is seems the most vocal people or the most argumentive people are getting their voices heard. This is exactly what I want to avoid.
democratic processes suck, because most times the result is a stupid compromise. one skilled person with dedication to the project is enough, if he's mature enough to listens to other skilled players' feedback.
it would be reasonable to find someone capable of estimating the gameplay at competitive level before implementing visions and equipment.
A well-balanced game is balanced at all levels of play. It would be counter-intuitive to restrict people from balance discussion based on their skill level.
Balance only happens with play testing.
general decisions on gameplay changes (mt for instance) not only change the balance, but also the gameplay. the effects on gameplay are hard to foresee, but i'd give an experienced player better chances.
Quote from: Spekkio on September 14, 2007, 06:06:11 PM
A well-balanced game is balanced at all levels of play. It would be counter-intuitive to restrict people from balance discussion based on their skill level.
the most important balancing happens on competitive level. if the game is balanced and fun for good players, the core of the community will stay alive for a long time. of course, it's good if it's balanced on all levels of skill, but this is secondary and should be no reason to diminish a coherent change that's great for the gameplay. if you care about getting a wider player base, the tutorials and a replay system are way more important than balance on low skill level (which is ridiculous anyways).
balance does not happen till the very end. We are all trying to argue about game balance before we are even ready.
Also, game balance is really about changing numbers not features.
things like bullet damage, explosion radius, animation speed are all changed with a few numbers.
Same things go with vision modes as long as the general visual concept does not change. So making the spy invisible in mt is just tweaking the shader for the spy.
Things like introducing new gadgets or animations are not so flexible, which is why we to keep as much of that as possible for a sequel.
Gawain, that "trickle down" effect of saying that a game balanced at top level of play is also balanced at lower levels of play doesn't work, simply because people at the top levels can pull off more stuff in general. If you need to pull off a 1337 pr0 maneuver to get around something, then it won't be balanced at anything but the top level of play, and this is a bad thing.
Furthermore, there are less omfg 1337 pr0 players than casual/average players. Most people aren't going to put the time and dedication in a game (or like it as much as we do) to get very good at it.
beta...
Alpha.
Quote from: Spekkio on September 14, 2007, 07:13:09 PM
Gawain, that "trickle down" effect of saying that a game balanced at top level of play is also balanced at lower levels of play doesn't work, simply because people at the top levels can pull off more stuff in general. If you need to pull off a 1337 pr0 maneuver to get around something, then it won't be balanced at anything but the top level of play, and this is a bad thing.
Furthermore, there are less omfg 1337 pr0 players than casual/average players. Most people aren't going to put the time and dedication in a game (or like it as much as we do) to get very good at it.
it should be halfway balanced for middleskilled players, but i don't give a shit about noobs. the problem with most noobs is that they are noobs in every game because they don't get the concept of competitive gaming. they think better players use "lame" tactics, and think playing the game with their little selfmade rules in mind is more fun than actually learning something new and play at competitive level. they just can't imagine that it's way more interesting and fun once this level is reached. if a "pro" is new to a game, he won't be noob for long since he is open minded and constantly learns from better players.
I qualified my statement by saying "so long as the players are playing optimally."
If you're talking about a n00b who is shooting flares into a well-lit room, then you are correct that you can't balance the game around someone like that. They aren't playing the game optimally, so the solution to their problem is to learn the game, not to fix flares.
However, even non-"pros" can see balance issues and have problems with certain game mechanics. Again, the biggest example I can think of is MT: I don't find MT that bad anymore because I've learned to live with it and how to get around it. When I played in the tournament last year, none of the teams that went deep MT whored because people knew how to avoid it, and it is more optimal to switch visions frequently. However, this takes a lot of practice that the average person isn't going to put into this game. I stand by my statement that you shouldn't have to pull off insane maneuvers in order to make something "balanced."
Quote from: Spekkio on September 14, 2007, 09:59:47 PMI stand by my statement that you shouldn't have to pull off insane maneuvers in order to make something "balanced."
Agreed.
mt is the only unbalanced thing particularly for middle skilled players that comes to my mind (+bad players think it's op playing deftech lol).
Balancing will require hundreds of hours of playtesting for it to be of any use. You have to stress test everything, and when it comes to gadgets you really have to know how to use it well before you can say its balanced or not. The job is really overrated because lot of times you spend just looking for glitches and not having fun. If the entire community play tests, there wont be much suprise when the final comes out.
;)
oh i remember that in the beginning almost everyone used spy bullets and thought hbs was crap. nowadays, it's the other way round and hbs (or both together) is used in the standard eq of most good players.
If there is just one person responsible and it gets to be unbalanced, then that would be because it was only one person handling balance issues. Everyone needs to add input to balance it out. Plus if it turns out to be unbalanced, all of the blame would go to one guy rather than a bunch who could have fixed it before.
of course the responsible person needs to hear other opinions and get feedback from preferably lots of other players, but there must be someone that makes the decisions.
Quote from: goodkebab on September 15, 2007, 12:10:55 AM
Balancing will require hundreds of hours of playtesting for it to be of any use. You have to stress test everything, and when it comes to gadgets you really have to know how to use it well before you can say its balanced or not. The job is really overrated because lot of times you spend just looking for glitches and not having fun. If the entire community play tests, there wont be much suprise when the final comes out.
Well I don't really suspect much surprise in this case anyway... I mean, this is a game we've already played, just with a new coat of paint. We should pretty much know how almost everything works.
The way that the game functions will be far different in terms of animations and such. It isn't just a new coat of paint. Its an entirely new game with a similar concept. They way you maneuver a spy/merc will be very different compared to Chaos Theory. This is why its so important to beta test it. You can see how smooth and not smooth certain things are in both aspects.
Quote from: Gawain on September 15, 2007, 02:09:46 PM
of course the responsible person needs to hear other opinions and get feedback from preferably lots of other players, but there must be someone that makes the decisions.
Umm, aren't we already doing that? :P
Quote from: Papa Skull on September 17, 2007, 04:38:41 AM
Quote from: Gawain on September 15, 2007, 02:09:46 PM
of course the responsible person needs to hear other opinions and get feedback from preferably lots of other players, but there must be someone that makes the decisions.
Umm, aren't we already doing that? :P
no, because there is no responsible person (and no beta version).