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The balancing should be done just like in SCCT, I think it was pretty much perfect.
If anybody thinks they don't want something in the game they can create a custom game,
but that must be CLEARLY shown in the lobby browser or that you only find the lobby if you activate to show custom games.
And if there will be ranked games later there should ofc only be one mode and not customizable.

No the balancing was not perfect. If you had higher latency than 75 ms, then your sniping becomes inconsistence and luck dependent and from 100 ms on sniping became completely useless. But when the ping was good, then sniping was much too strong. Regular fire had to be less than 50 ms to be effective at all and host would even then have a much better hitrate in general.

Also spies have too much HP. Too many spies had the mentality of "well if he sees me I'll just taze him and run away".
Much better would be "Oh damn, if he sees me I am dead".

Imo SCCT was rewarding merc's aim too much while disregarding lots of other things. i.e. "if you play lots of shooters and have at least a bit of brain in your head, then it is easy win".

I sort of agree with the shooting part. Shooting for the head mattered, and I liked that, but it was actually too easy. This could possibly because of netcode and hit detection, but it's hard to be 100% sure.

Since when has latency or lag anything to do with balancing lol. You will ALWAYS have a disadvantage if you or somebody else lags.

Networking doesn't have anything directly to do with balancing, no. But it is still important on making something too easy or too difficult to use.

I thought about my thread some more and what others have said about it, and I guess the problem is the fact that once you get good enough you start looking for the bigger challenge, and that was in the form of my game options. So the gap between noob and pro SCCT SvM players was massive. So once you got good enough, the majority of games you join aren't for you. So the options allowed me to play the game I wanted to play.

The challenge is how to close that gap without losing the SvM design, pacing, and formula that we loved in SCCT. Maybe with updated technology and improved networking it will help. I guess create a standard rule set that is rigorously tested for the perfect balance, and then allow players to set the options if they so choose, allowing games to be tailored to either hardcore or noob players. And in the filters add "Standard Rule Set" as an option. Again, basically my original point.

This phenomenon you are observing can be easily explained by the fact that most people who buy a splinter cell game and are new to SvM have much more experience playing online first person shooters than anything like the SvM spy (which is considerably different from the single player mode spy).

Therefore, since the merc from SvM more closely resembles other generic first person shooters, the average newbie has an easier time learning how to play merc than learning how to play as spy.

That is why you see an apparent imbalance in SvM gameplay. You must consider these outside factors. Your experiments with the SvM gameplay settings do not control for these kinds of factors.

Also, you should seriously consider teaching people how to play every once in a while and not being such a try hard always owning noobs balls deep like that. Cut the newb some slack every once in a while and teach them something and you will make friends and it benefits the SC community. More decent players = higher probability of finding a GG.

You dont have to be all like "Oh shit everybody sucks therefore I will give everybody lives and own them anyway without giving a shit about anything".

LOL...


Your method of "creating a GG" is arguably detrimental to the community, because it just prevents newbs from actually learning how to play the game. I just makes more noobs even noobier by giving them too many lives and restricting them from learning how to evade mines and spy traps etc.

None of this has anything to do with my post. A lot of you are trying to find all of the flaws in everything I said and argue offshoots of my conclusion. If arguing is what you came here for, you'll have to go somewhere else.

Maybe you guys think I'm trying to bash your favorite game. No one loves SCCT more than I do. It was the perfect game. I'm just bringing up my endgame issue here in hopes that it resonates with a future game that is claiming to throwback to the classic SvM. Because I do so hope I can get that old nostalgia back again, unlikely, but we'll see. Words are wind.

IMO your "custom mode" is pretty stupid.
Your entire ideal is based on a misunderstanding of the term "balanced gameplay". What you basically did is you "dumbed down" mercs and boosted spy lives so that newb spies "have a better chance of surviving during a match against good mercs".

The point of balancing an online game is to make changes to gadgets/gameplay so that people that actually know how to play the game can have a GG. You dont "balance gamplay" assuming one side/team doesnt know how to play and the other one does. Just because the game is asymmetrical and spies have a steeper learning curve, doesnt mean the game is unbalanced. Learning curve is one thing, gamplay balance is another.

For example, imagine call of duty multiplayer mode where defenders have more health and lives and attackers (bomb planters) have less than half of the lives and die with less shots. This would only produce a GG in a scenario where the attackers are a team of pro players and the defenders are a team of noobs. Otherwise, if both teams are at same skill level it would be extremely unbalanced.

You are "balancing gameplay" making all the wrong assumptions. Your premise is that the merc will always be a good player and the spy will always be a bad player, or that the same person will be very good at merc and very bad at spy ALWAYS. That is just false. You also gave all the noob spies a bunch of lives and took off all of your merc gadgets so that you dont "own them" so easily, yet you conveniently left EMF on and took MT off just to give the illusion that you are at a disadvantage, when in reality you are probably just gonna "ghost snipe" the shit out of those noob spies.

In short, when "balancing a game" you must assume IDEAL CONDITIONS, and by that I mean that you must assume that all players on both teams have a fricking clue about what the hell they are doing while playing the game. Balance a game for people that know how to play. NOT FOR PEOPLE THAT DONT KNOW HOW TO PLAY playing against people that DO KNOW HOW TO PLAY.

You missed my point, but that's fine. This isn't the ONLY match settings I ever went with obviously, but this was the most extreme case and it had results that showed the Mercs still retaining a biased win/loss ratio even though they are nerfed to hell. If an experienced Merc player can dominate with such stacked odds, against countless other players, you have a balancing issue.

Do you then disagree that Project Stealth should omit the options for disabling equipment, techniques, and adjusting the ratio to lives? Otherwise you will find that once a player becomes good enough, you run the risk of having a huge skill gap in the player base making the online experience crap for them and their opponents. Imagine how easy the game was for my friend and I on the standard rule set played by the community of SCCT. Spies would be shredded to pieces. Regardless of being good at Spies as well, we had a much harder time winning, which was fine for us. It's just that when we switched back to Mercs it felt like we knew the outcome, we would win, there really was no denying it. Even without my main partner, I had no problem winning as Merc. That was my point. There is always a median formula that the majority will like. 12 Merc lives vs 20 Spy lives was always a good standard. But isn't that saying something in itself?

As far as Host Advantage goes, there are ways to remedy it and I would expect no less from a game in 2014.

[escpacially]

Sadly no matter what, in the end bugs always get into the way. Things like back-elbows or front-grabs will happen sooner or later and can decide the whole game.

Also host advantage is a very unfair component of SCCT. My win rate when I hosted games, or my mate was hosts was clearly noticable, escpacially in Intercontinental games.


Don't get me wrong though, I do agree that mercs were OP in most cases in SCCT. I think PS can prevent that. There are things that I always had in mind, for example to buff regular merc gun shots (more damage and/or higher firerate and/or higher precision), but weaken sniper fire (not lowering damage, but instead increasing the delay when changing from normal mode into sniper mode and/or lowering firerate in sniper mode).

Yeah I particularly didn't like the fact that you could look through your partner's flashlight beam and see in the shadows. I never noticed the host advantage. The host varied and we often played against each other. Of course I don't recall playing with many people outside of the US. I can see it happening on an international level, that is a given.

I never head someone talking so harshly about the balancing of the Versus, I played it from release until the server were to emtpy to be able to play regulary.
In my opinion the versus is very well balanced as far as an asymetrical game can be balanced, it is VERY hard to balance something like Spy vs. Merc, gameplay and map design wise.
Giving the players rights to disable perks and items should only be able to an extend, I don't want to see every game having disabled 90% of the gameplay just because they think its more balanced (which by the way is also only based on your opinion and skill). I never had the feeling that the versus is so unbalanced as you think, I never had problems of mercs playing shotgun. In the end you can counter it by staying away from the mercs by using your own items like heartbeat or tracking sensors. I never changed anything when I created rooms and my mate and I were quite successfull with it.

Don't forget my point was that the options to manually balance the game are almost necessary for this type of game. You also gave affirmation to this by saying how difficult it is to balance such a game.

All your formula proved was that:

1. People who you played against were not accostumed to your "kind" of game mode
2. People who never bother to set the alternative filters would never join

I don't think your idea is bad, but did you actually try it on more maps than just club, aqua and mus? Also I agree with dYnAm1c about shotguns. If someone wants to use shotgun in Factory, just let them  ;)

Wait... no Gasmask? Well with that it is possible to block narrow paths of the mercs 5 cam uses long, which amounts to 15+ seconds and no defense against Spy HOST CAMS (which going by your description were always 1 of you guys!) No, with no Gasmask this is not doable. As long as there is a narrow path spies can block mercs almost endlessly.

Haha yeah, I probably had Gasmasks enabled, it has been a long time.

All in all, there were too many advantages to the Mercs, if my friend and I could win game after game as Mercs with that setup, something was wrong in my eyes. We didn't just play on one map either, though we obviously had our favorites. I believe there was only one map we generally avoided and that was Factory. Without regulation it gave a predictable result. That is the case I wanted to make.

I played countless hours of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Spies vs Mercs back in the day. Addicting, and utterly fun. Every time I think of the unique atmosphere and interaction of the levels, the ground breaking features, and ridiculous amount of ways to play and defeat your enemies...I get overwhelmed with nostalgia and a deep longing for those long nights of SCCT mutliplayer. Yet there was a horrible issue of balancing. 8 out of 10 times, Mercs dominated. A seasoned Spy can get the mercs down pretty far in lives, but the game was just too unbalanced to allow the Spies to pull off very many victories. Thankfully, Ubisoft delivered a solution by allowing the host to disable items and techniques. My friend and I got tired of the balancing issues, so I basically took out everything that didn't really require skill. I also adjusted the lives to be more fair. This is basically the list of how my friend and I would play with the public, the results, and what we learned.

Mercs: Disabled EVERYTHING except Charge, laser, grenades, and EMF. Forbid players from using the Shotgun. Gave them two lives each for a total of four lives.

Spies: Disabled lethal drop technique, gave them the max number of lives. I can't remember for sure since it was so long ago, but I think it was 10 lives each for a total of 20. Whatever the max was.

I know what you're thinking, 4 vs 20!? Madness! No, this is Splinter Cell. The only times we lost as Mercs were against seasoned players, which were VERY hard to come by. As long as we used teamwork and were careful, we were unstoppable with this setup, but it was still a challenge, something lacking from every other public game. Always having 12-20 lives, all the gear and techniques, made it too easy and not fun as a Merc and a nightmare as a Spy.

So how did we fair as Spies? No problem. It was actually fun. Against a good player we would have a good fight on our hands, but we were good enough as Spies that it was pretty easy against players who were used to having super overpowered Mercs. When they got their second chance to be the Mercs, they would tighten up and take it more seriously and would increase their kills. That is if they stayed in our game long enough after we destroyed them as Mercs ourselves ;) For some reason they would get really upset that we beat them when they had everything unlocked except for Lethal Drop Tech and had 20 lives to our four.

What did we learn? Well, my formula was hardcore, but it proved the point that Mercs were overpowered beyond belief, as long as the player was relatively smart. I literally made them as weak as I could without removing EVERYTHING, and they were still deadly and hella fun to play as. When we would be playing with friends, we would lighten things up and adjust the lives and gear as needed depending on their level of skills. It made the game fun for all of us.

So what was my point of this thread? Give the options to balance the game to the players. So everyone from noob to the hardcore veterans can enjoy it. Long live the classic SCCT multiplayer experience, and may it come out of the dreadful shadows cast by Double Agent, Conviction and even Blacklist to make a triumphant return in the form of Project Stealth.

Thanks for reading.