Agent of Kharma

Join Date 02/2008

+31

Balancing for the future of SoaSE

An idea who's time has come

DISCLAIMER1: Stated up-front for the devs, I do not advocate the following capabilities for the current version of Sins. I advocate this capability for either a NEW EXPANSION, or a NEW VERSION of the game.

DISCLAIMER2: If this has already been proposed (I haven't seen it, but I haven't been on these forums in a long time), please kindly ignore this post.

Most everyone agrees the devs made a great game. Unfortunately, the devs lacked the "traditional resources" (time, manpower, money, etc) needed to fine-balance the game for online multiplayer. This isn't a knock to them - they did the best they could do with what resources they had available.

But if "traditional resources" are lacking in the balancing of the game... what about "non-traditional resources?" What if the software sent information to the devs following each game on a myriad of statistics which could then be used to balance the game? The statistics should be COMPREHENSIVE, and include data such as which races were involved in the conflict, which races won/lost, numbers and types of units "spammed," various "macro" data such as economic and technology levels achieved, and importantly, "micro" data regarding individual unit-to-unit conflicts and outcomes.

It gets better than that. What if this data could be published for the community to download, look at, and analyse? This would allow the ingenious idea of the devs getting the community to do a large portion of work for them FOR FREE. Mathematically-inclined community members could post the results of their analysis of the data, and arguments as to why this or that should be nerfed or buffed, why this or that is UP/OP, etc. Other members could look at those arguments and data, run their own analysis, and post their retorts which might agree with another player's analysis, or which might in fact DEBUNK another player's analysis.

At the end of the day, a community consensus could be reached. This consensus, along with analysis, plus dissents and associated dissenting analysis, could be posted on a special place on the forums. The devs could look at this analysis before publishing patches, and if they agreed with the analysis they could make adjustments before putting a patch out there. If they disagreed with the analysis they might want to publish why, which would help the community "go back to the drawing board" (if necessary) and correct flaws in their analysis. Of course, the devs could also be doing their own "in-house analysis" to whatever extend their time and priorities allow.

Community members involved in analysis might even realize that additional data that isn't currently collected would be helpful for balancing if it was collected, and make a suggestion that a future patch include sending and collecting data on "X."

A separate but related idea - borrowing from Starcraft 2, the devs might even consider having a "sandbox mode" to play around in to test upcoming patches (what SC2 calls "PTRS" or "public test regions," I believe). This would allow for the nipping of certain debacles "in the bud" so to speak (Skirantra scramble bombers, etc).

This would be a far superior tool to sitting around discussing balancing issues ad nauseum for years, hoping that some ideas make it into some future patch and thus move the game towards a more balanced state in an ad hoc fashion. This idea would allow the devs to leverage cpu cycles and mathematics to balance the game (something we collectively have almost an infinite amount of), and also leverage man-hours of members of the community who will "work for free," in lieu of brute force developer manpower and associated money/time. Additionally, being a software developer myself allows me to state with some confidence that this type of capability would be relatively cheap to implement in terms of coding effort and time as compared with other aspects of game development (graphics, AI, game engine, etc).

Again, I do not advocate this capability for the current version of Sins. I advocate this capability for either a NEW EXPANSION, or a NEW VERSION of the game.

Discuss.

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Pbhead

Join Date 12/2008

+77

You could even have it be automatic. If a game is played where many, many lrms and almost nothing else are built, and this happens often enough, lrms will slowly be autonerfed. Say, a cost multiplier, that, increases their price until people stop buying stupid quantites of them. In the same way, LF cost would be slightly decreased untill people start using some of them as well.

Like supply and demand. or something.

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Kharma there is more to balancing the game then raw numbers I mean tell me who would win the following battle:

1 illum and 20 guardians with repulse vs 20 billion cobalts

The numbers are staggering on the side of the cobalts yet something tells me they wouldn't necessarily win

I realize that the above is an unrealistic scenario but I'm assuming you get my point.

You can have all the processing power on the earth for the next 100 years grind away to balance sins but there are most likely too many factors to calculate them all.

That being said it would be nice to have a sandbox mode to test various combination's of forces.

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rofl!

That battle would be an epic win haha

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Quoting master1a,

reply 2

Kharma there is more to balancing the game then raw numbers

Of course I know that. But it doesn't mean that headway can't be made with raw numbers, and it doesn't mean that raw numbers aren't important.

You can say the same thing you just said with anything. You can tell some pro quarterback "there's more to football than passing." You can tell some porno star "there's more to XXX movies than having a big dick shooting a big load." You can tell Bill Gates "there's more to life than having billions of dollars." You can tell a college student "there's more to learning than just doing well on a test." On and on.

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you and pbhead are almost talking about an mmo. obviously, not the regular kind. but i think thats more work to organize all that and decide whats relevent.

I have seen other games where developers listened too much to what people told them they wanted. The game loses its direction and its unique vision. If everyone gets their say as to what game they want, it ends up being a game no one wants.

Now, community expansions /w some stardock approval/help (for things like AI tweaks) and impulse distribution is something I could totally get behind and see becoming a reality.

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This sort of data-gathering isn't unprecedented. You can get some pretty in-depth reports regarding the Warcraft III ladder (you'll get flamed to hell on the forums for saying it, but the Death Knight is fricken overpowered) regarding match lengths, racial win % by map, hero usage, and so on. There's no reason why such a system wouldn't be possible in Sins.

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Quoting SithLordAJ,

reply 5

I have seen other games where developers listened too much to what people told them they wanted. The game loses its direction and its unique vision. If everyone gets their say as to what game they want, it ends up being a game no one wants.

Actually, you misunderstood. It's not about listening to the fans, or giving the fans what they want. It's just about balancing the game. The devs lack the "traditional" resources to do it. I am simply proposing "nontraditional" resources. You are mistaking fan involvement here for "giving fans what they want." The fan involvement is simply free labor for the devs for balancing the game. I am proposing nothing else but that.

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Quoting Agent of Kharma,

reply 7

You are mistaking fan involvement here for "giving fans what they want." The fan involvement is simply free labor for the devs for balancing the game. I am proposing nothing else but that.

Well, I feel that simply involving the fans at that level brings with it too many opinions and thus leads to the point I made about them changing the game. I guess I left that implicit. Im guessing that you dont agree, but what happens when people get involved is they get very opinionated. Just look at how some members already are drastically opinionated with the limited info they have and they argue over the statistics and what they mean and 'how it should be'. Heck, im guilty of some of that (though i try to just say 'heres an idea', not 'heres how it should be').

Btw, I do not want to argue about this. Bottom line, I disagree and doubt it would happen anyhow.

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Well, disagree all you want I guess. It doesn't change the fact that it's a no-brainer as far as something the devs would want to do. It's such a no brainer that the only way it wouldn't be implemented is due to time/budget constraints on their part.

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sareth01

Join Date 08/2008

+50

To simplify kharma's idea to the basics, it seems that he wants to have a data collection program that will record statistical data in the game that shows exactly what is going on with numbers in every game situation.

By using statistical analysis things like repulse could actually be given an actual value than what is otherwise a difficult ability to estimate exactly HOW good it is. People usually complain about this ability because it lends itself to player skill more than anything. Individual player ratios of using the repulse ability and then taking a look at statistical information regarding damage output of both fleets, fleet compositions and other variables could be used to provide a baseline average if enough players in the online community were analyzed. Then, this could be compared with other "super" racial abilities that would over time lend itself to a well balanced game. The accuracy of the results would depend heavily upon the players analyzed, and in no way should an balance decision be made when there is little data on which to make a good decision.

The game needs MORE abilities like repulse. that is to say, more abilities that require a players skill and creativity to execute. In this way, players can show their skill and feel free to express their own creativity.

Statistical analysis could go farther in improving the games randomizing system, something that doesn't get as much forum attention as it should. Not having access to an early almost undefended desert planet when all your adversaries do get one can be a very big disadvantage at the very start of the game. Also, one Eco "pocket" could have a killer economy possibility, while the other eco "pocket" could have magnetic clouds in all of the critical phase lanes to set up trade. This alone can doom your entire team.

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Or the devs include a new system in the next version of sins aka sins 2 is to limit the number of ships not by ship supply alont but by limiting the number of certain ships a player can have. Ok, some say that is communism, but what i mean is this. Say you have a maximum of 100 scout but you decide you want to go over. So instead having a pure limit, limit the damage each ship after 100 can do, perhaps 75% of the damage of a ship's damage. And the damage reduction rate will fall with a function, either linearly or quadratic, either way it should be fast.

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