What makes good balance - What will attract more players?

from Sins Forums

I've been in the gaming scene for along time i've been playing games for since I was in elementary school. As of right now I am someone who has just graduated out of high school a few months ago and i've been looking for work but not finding much. I have a calling that tells me that I want to work for a video game company as a Producer or someone who can work on game balance and has no idea where to get started. But just to move on I am writing this as I want to have a open discussion on ways we can improve sins its a game I care about and want to see work.

 

Lets look at other popular games for now Starcraft 2 and League of Legends are both popular games right now. They both have a huge competitive scene with shoutcasters (Day[9], Phreak, Jatt, Husky) a sort of voice for the community. Sins has virtually none any new player who has played this game cannot go onto youtube and look up "How to play as the TEC" because their is virtually no guides(If you type in how to play Protoss you'll get thousands). Matchmaking is deceiving look at both games league of legends and starcraft in both you have one account for which you can distinguish yourself from another person for example look up HotshotGG on league of legends he is a famous player almost everyone who has watched a league tournament knows him, the same could be said for Whitera(A starcraft 2 player). The same cannot be said for this community their are alot of people who have no idea who Auqia is despite being a professional player.

 

What I have listen right their are three major problems that don't involve balance that are a huge problem that effect the popularity of this game.

 

Checkpoint

  • We have no voice, no shoutcaster and no tournaments worth noting.
  • Along with no voice is no education, the tutorial is poor, and their is no youtube community to counteract this.
  • Poor matchmaking in which anyone who has an ICO account can make multiple profiles, this is bad as it leads to anonymity and smurfing.

 

Some of those problems can be fixed "easily" I see SINS as a sort of experiment that will lead into SINS 2. Stardock wants to see what works well and what doesn't I like this approach to be honest as SINS 2 will be much more organized and have an identity. But what is it that will fix said problems above, it isn't Stardocks fault for lack of tournaments exactly even if they were to include a tournament setting the community is to small. This is understandable and without tournaments it makes shoutcasting very difficult as a wide array of replays are hard to comeby.

 

But education is something the players can take into their own hands, anyone of us could open up a youtube channel and perhaps make educational videos on how to play SINS I have thought about it and I want to do it I just don't have the technological know-how. But it has crossed my mind, we need to help newer players find an understanding for the game.

 

Poor Matchmaking however is something that Stardock will have to fix. It could be in Sins or Sins 2. But we need to give our players identities individual profiles that shows our statistics, achievements(I just found my first space pony yesterday to bad I can't show anyone), our preferred race things like that. People like having cool things and medallions to show off to people. But if you have no identity you cannot do this.

 

This game has HUGE potential and I want to see it work out but it requires effort on our part and stardock to make this happen. I hate logging on at 11:30 in the morning and seeing nobody in the lobby to play with. But lets move onto my next topic I would like to tackle down the things stated above are things that will attract players. But good balance and a clean setup will attract people as well.

 

And what I mean by this isn't "nerf Phase Missles, imba". These are game balance problems that effect PvP directly(Although I may discuss this a little bit). What I mean is poor game balance is things such as noob traps or waste. Something like Resource Focus it sounds great on paper but in reality it is just terrible we dont want things like that in the game it needs to be removed or reworked(This has worked in other games I point to League of Legends old "malady" was a redundant item that was considered useless so it was reworked and SC2 I believe next expansion they are removing the mothership for its uselessness). You need to get rid of the slack from this game or rework it.

 

Another example I would like to present is artifacts I LOVE artifacts they add real flavor to the game, but its difficult to choose between should I research more tech and build a army or maybe I should look for artifacts and HOPE I get something. Randomness(Or RNG system) is a very difficult trait to use in RTS's because it goes outside of Macro and Micro(The ying and yang of RTS's). I like the idea of Artifacts but RNG is bad, fix this by making a planet perhaps always have something on it but 75% of the time its something minor and maybe 25% of the time its an artifact(of course the numbers would be different).

 

As for direct balance I think a way to attract players would make late game come sooner. It takes so long to get those massive armies up and operational this has to do with upkeep and credit income. Honestly for upkeep I think it should be lowered late game it just takes a huge amount of credits that you could have. And as for credit income this is done through, upgrading your planet, culture, and spamming trade posts. I want to go off on a tangent here and say I HATE trade post spamming it doesn't feel right this game is based on a large amount of realism and I find spamming trade ports to be kind of cheesy, my first online game I got the eco spot and I had no idea spamming trade ports was optimal, that is a huge burden of knowledge mistake.

 

"Burden of Knowledge
This is a VERY common pattern amongst hardcore novice game designers. This pattern is when you do a complex mechanic that creates gameplay -- ONLY IF the victim understands what is going on. Rupture is a great example -- with Rupture in DOTA, you receive a DOT that triggers if you, the victim, choose to move. However, you have no way of knowing this is happening unless someone tells you or unless you read up on it online... So the initial response is extreme frustration. We believe that giving the victim counter gameplay is VERY fun -- but that we should not place a 'burden of knowledge' on them figuring out what that gameplay might be. That's why we like Dark Binding and Black Shield (both of which have bait and/or 'dodge' counter gameplay that is VERY obvious), but not Rupture, which is not obvious.

In a sense, ALL abilities have some burden of knowledge, but some have _a lot more_ -- the ones that force the opponent to know about a specific interaction to 'enjoy' the gameplay have it worst.

Good particle work and sound -- good 'salesmanship' -- will reduce burden of knowledge (but not eliminate it). We still would not do Rupture as is in LoL ever, but I would say that the HON version of Rupture, with it's really distinct sound effect when you move, greatly reduces the burden of knowledge on it.

In summary, all mechanics have some burden of knowledge, and as game designers, we seek to design skills in a way that gives us a lot of gameplay, for not too much burden of knowledge. If we get a lot more gameplay from something, we are willing to take on more burden of knowledge -- but for a given mechanic, we want to have as little burden of knowledge as possible. "

 

Checkpoint

  • Cut the fat from the game their is a lot of unneeded parts to this game, economy makes sense with Trade Ports and Culture. But then adding refineries and resource focus while a seemingly good idea falls short because lots of trade ports means lots of credits which means black market deals.
  • Remove the RNG elements to the game I don't mean abilities such as Vertigo, Vertigo makes sense. However artifact researching doesn't. its almost always hit or miss.
  • Getting to late game faster will help, as it will quicken the pace of the game I suggest increasing gains from planet trade, tax, and perhaps buff culture with every upgrade. I also recommend decreasing upkeep cost to perhaps the amount you acquire with upgrades to mining/trade. Or similar.
  • Burden of Knowledge one reason I say buff trade income is because I purpose the removal of trade port stacking, its not something that is used through intuition it is something that has to be taught. 

 

We've covered a lot here I think the bulk of this text is just ideas from myself its nothing  official but it is something I hope people would heed and take attention to especially stardock. I WANT to see this game succeed and I hope my opinion is taken into consideration their is also a lot of smaller things that bug me but this cant be overlooked as they are small such as the late game cost of tech is very difficult to achieve when you have high upkeep. But if anyone is interested in starting a program to help increase the communities awareness of this game and create youtube guides or something let me know:D

10,499 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I apologize a head of time, I read the first half of that and mainly skimmed the rest.

 

But education is something the players can take into their own hands, anyone of us could open up a youtube channel and perhaps make educational videos on how to play SINS I have thought about it and I want to do it I just don't have the technological know-how. But it has crossed my mind, we need to help newer players find an understanding for the game.

 

I see a couple things with Sins.

1. ICO has mainly one strategy for nearly all the games played, doesn't matter if you're tec, vasari, or advent, the rush is the same. Sure, you start with different capital ships depending on the size of map or your play style. But it always boils down to a quick lrf rush followed by a bomber rush. Nearly every game I have watched or played recently, that's the strategy (and it's a good one when the game is set to faster settings.)

2. I think that the only way to get a VERY diverse set of strategies for the different races is for people (and I know they dont want to) to play at normal speeds on smaller maps. Sure, it's slower but the way it is now, your economy does not scale properly with the number of ships you should be loosing, you wind up with these tiny empires with a huge horde of cash, that's what hurts the online community for me * note that is just my personal preference. By playing at a slower game speed it allows for strategy. It doesn't boil down to a click fest like Starcraft 2 has. It would really force players to play to their race's strengths rather than just ignore them by spamming fleets with their over scaled economy.

 

My 2 cents, I'm curious what the others will say.

 

EDIT: 

 

I suppose what I am trying to say is that anyone who is looking for educational material on sins will probably read through the forum. The only time I looked on youtube for sins was looking for the game trailer to see if it was a pretty as promised. Most of it is easily picked up if you've ever played an RTS before...

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

read the whole thing.

 

I totally agree we need youtube stuff.  casters. tournys, all that awesome stuff.

Unfortunatly, you mentioned the RNG, on artifacts, well, that is one of three itmes that the RNG does to kill any hope of sins being a legitimate rts with casters, tournys and all that awesome stuff.   

 

Planet bonuses (and arties)

Militia counts.

Resource rock counts. (on both planets and neutrals)

 

Nothing is just plain 'not cool' as your opponent getting a 2 metal, 1 crystal starting roid with the frequent impacts bonus, and a 4 rock ice, min militia, and you getting stuck with a 1,1 roid, and a 2 rock volcanic, with max militia.

 

I so desire a toury-mode which guarentees certain settings, such that it becomes impossible for players to be favored, or even in some cases, games desided as the game begins.

 

 

I do not think refinaries and resource focus needs to be dumped (though, some things prolly do need to be), instead buffed, or trade nerfed.    trade needs to be nerfed, really. the window to punish a player going trade is far to small currently, expecially tec.

 

 

 

 

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Pbhead, reply 2
read the whole thing.

 

I totally agree we need youtube stuff.  casters. tournys, all that awesome stuff.

Unfortunatly, you mentioned the RNG, on artifacts, well, that is one of three itmes that the RNG does to kill any hope of sins being a legitimate rts with casters, tournys and all that awesome stuff.   

 

Planet bonuses (and arties)

Militia counts.

Resource rock counts. (on both planets and neutrals)

 

Nothing is just plain 'not cool' as your opponent getting a 2 metal, 1 crystal starting roid with the frequent impacts bonus, and a 4 rock ice, min militia, and you getting stuck with a 1,1 roid, and a 2 rock volcanic, with max militia.

 

I so desire a toury-mode which guarentees certain settings, such that it becomes impossible for players to be favored, or even in some cases, games desided as the game begins.

 

 

I do not think refinaries and resource focus needs to be dumped (though, some things prolly do need to be), instead buffed, or trade nerfed.    trade needs to be nerfed, really. the window to punish a player going trade is far to small currently, expecially tec.


 
End of Pbhead's quote

Fixing the RNG system

 

As stated before by PBhead a lot of the times certain faction can win just because they had a lucky start. This is in fault due to how some of the random maps are designed it’s nice to have flavor this is a good thing. But anyone who has opened a match knows that it’s unfair when all you get is an asteroid with 1-2 metal extractors and the enemy gets 2 metal 1 crystal that’s no fun at all. And it disrupts balance, this is easily fixed by giving the map maker an algorithm when randomizing maps. You have a Terran homeworld, next to you is a asteroid. The same goes to all your opponents, make that asteroid have the same amount of Extractors as the enemies. The next set of planets will be decided by an RNG system, Volcanic, Ice, Whatever. And it does this until all planets have been decided it will set the competitive aspect not based on luck but who can actually macro better.

 

The next problem is Militia its random some people have to fight harder to claim those Terran or Desert worlds. Easily fixed, much like the system described above actually.

 

And as for planet bonuses I like them the way they are but they should almost be guaranteed upon upgrade just getting an artifact should be more rare because you at least invest into getting something instead of maybe getting something. RNG is bad for RTS’s.

 

Fixing the Burden of Knowledge Problem

 

The best way to fix this is to just nerf Trade into having only one space port per planet. This will fix trade port stacking however to help speed up the game, you could buff the amount of income that is received from a single trade port, or have it multiply per trade port’s around a system. So if you have a planet that leads to four other planets with trade ports income is increased on that planets trade by 4. This might even give a place to actually use refineries, of course there would need to be something done about resource focusing.

 

Another form of Burden of Knowledge is the Diplomacy menu I have no idea what Diplomatic Inclination is unless I look it up online. This can be fixed by giving descriptions when you scroll over the points(This would mean you would have to create a side menu for this however).

 

I believe these are the only two problems that actually involve burden of knowledge.

 

Cutting fat from the game, the tech trees, and speeding up the game

 

As I had said before there is much that needs to be done involving cutting fat from the game. I think this doesn’t need to gone into too much depth. But providing a list for stardock would help, looking at the Advent tree a lot of it actually makes sense. The hostility tree provides the basic essentials this is a good tree. I should say the same about the other races equivalent trees. The Vasari and Advent tech trees however suffer from a lack of items in their trees. This is easily solved by moving some of the other research abilities into the security tree as they imply defense but are in a harmony or oppression tree.

  • Advent: Phase Jump Inhibitor, Augmented Defense Grid, Hardened Cities.
  • Vasari: Phase Jump Inhibitor, Power Draining Nanites, Fortification Specialist

All these abilities imply defense but are not in their respective trees. I understand this may leave the Harmony tree a little bare. But this is also fixed as they are adding new research abilities into these trees at least is was indicated in one of the interviews.

And then there is a speed problem, this game can move incredibly slow. And even when you get to the late game there is no guarantee you will get all those late game techs such as Allure of the Unity, the main problem is that the costs are so high for these research upgrades. My opinion is lower the costs dramatically. And there is some reasoning behind this a lot of late game tech can cost you 3000 credits, 800 metal and crystal you are better off just macroing an army.  The better solution to this is just to dramatically decrease the cost. Of many of the abilities based on what they do not what their tier in the list in. Optimized construction is not worth the actual cost of researching; yes it is late game tier but even just getting their cost a lot of investment in Tech labs.

Notice this is not a rant on game balance it’s a rant on cleaning up the game giving it a more professional look to it.

 

Tournament Mode

Also I feel as though the size of the game may be a bit too big at a max fleet not to many computers can handle all those ships.  This can be changed, but there is no actual standard mode for a tournament to be had. Things need to be sharpened up and this is a huge change I want everyone to discuss. This would be my purposed settings.

[Upon creating a game you can select between normal which gives you free reign over whatever settings you want to put into play. There is also tournament mode which is a locked setting you cannot change any settings, but it works in a way so that should you host a tournament at least you will have something standardized think of it like in league there is Blind Pick which has practically no rules or restrictions as there are no bans. And then there is draft pick which lets you see what the enemy is picking and has bans.]

  • Locked Teams – this is a tournament and I feel as though there should be no betrayals or anything that can influence a loss on your teams part.
  • Small Fleet Size – It keeps the game running smooth, and makes looking at the game from a spectator’s position much easier.
  • Pirates Inactive – I am not to sure about this as I like the idea of pirates it would add interesting gameplay. But could also heavily influence the game in an unbalanced way as a TEC player would have a much easier time handling pirates than say the Advent.
  • Diplomatic Victory Off – It’s a tournament its about bloodshed not peaceful endings!!!
  • Quickstart – yup no explanation needed.
  • And all game speed increasers are on the fastest.

    This would also perhaps come with player profiles and perhaps even a ladder!

 

Pet Peeves

 

There are some small things that do bother me about this game.  But I will just go through a short list.

 

  • Ai Relationship boost: Remove this from PC view.
  • Insurgency:  Yes its cool that this ability is a viable ability that is also a culture ability. But “eyes of the converted” is only useable if culture is in the enemy territory. Instead of having insurgency work anywhere make it work on planets with low allegiance.  Or the lower the Allegiance the higher the chance of insurgence popping up.
  • Envoys: More of a change I think would be appropriate just because it makes sense. Should you offer or be offered a trade alliance, make colonization vessels and envoys invulnerable to said factions because it kind of makes sense. Both are harmless and civilian operated and both open up avenues to diplomacy. It would also broaden the use of the Trade alliance option. I only bring this up because I would think anyone who would want a trade alliance is clearly looking for a diplomatic approach. And the colonization vessels I just added for flavor as I kind of feel bad for attacking a bunch of civilians.
  • Add Better Descriptions to upkeep upgrades: This is a small one but I want it just for flavor. You have for the TEC when you want to build another capital ships. Basic Officer Training, give it a description as stated before.
  • Basic Officers Training – Your empire begins a new Officers training program to provide more experienced commanders for your fleet and enables you to build one capitalship.
  • Basic Provisioning – A new program rushes for huge amounts of food and supplies to be made to provide for more soldiers increasing your fleet capacity.

 

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Pbhead, reply 2
Planet bonuses (and arties)

Militia counts.

Resource rock counts. (on both planets and neutrals)

End of Pbhead's quote

 

All fixable. with user created maps. or even user tweaked versions of the stock maps.

 

Any balance issue can be fixed with a mod. There been several great attempts but they run out of steam b/c the ICO crowd refused to accept the standard use of a mod or even a map pack.

Hell trying to play a non 3-5s on Large Random Map (not the best map for balanced starts after all), Fastest Settings (others have metioned this before. It does more harm to gameplay than good. All for a "quicker" game.) doesnt ever work unless you got friends or wait an hour or two, till someone gets bored enough to join(if they dont bitch at your choice in settings first)

 

 

People want a SC2, style gameplay shoved into a game Not even designed to be that fast play RTS. 

 

Remember Sins has sold several milllion copies. Only a tiny fraction of that post here on the forums or ever logs on to ICO. This game is popular, but not for the style of PvP represnted by any ICO game. You want to increase the online presence of this game... it requires a change in perception and play style. 

 

Sins is not a standard RTS, its got 4x in it. Its ment to be slower, yet more complex. It is, if you let it.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting -Ue_Carbon, reply 4

Quoting Pbhead, reply 2Planet bonuses (and arties)

Militia counts.

Resource rock counts. (on both planets and neutrals)



 

All fixable. with user created maps. or even user tweaked versions of the stock maps.

 

Any balance issue can be fixed with a mod. There been several great attempts but they run out of steam b/c the ICO crowd refused to accept the standard use of a mod or even a map pack.

Hell trying to play a non 3-5s on Large Random Map (not the best map for balanced starts after all), Fastest Settings (others have metioned this before. It does more harm to gameplay than good. All for a "quicker" game.) doesnt ever work unless you got friends or wait an hour or two, till someone gets bored enough to join(if they dont bitch at your choice in settings first)

 

 

People want a SC2, style gameplay shoved into a game Not even designed to be that fast play RTS. 

 

Remember Sins has sold several milllion copies. Only a tiny fraction of that post here on the forums or ever logs on to ICO. This game is popular, but not for the style of PvP represnted by any ICO game. You want to increase the online presence of this game... it requires a change in perception and play style. 

 

Sins is not a standard RTS, its got 4x in it. Its ment to be slower, yet more complex. It is, if you let it.
End of -Ue_Carbon's quote

 

I think you may be missing the point of my actual post, i'll try to analyze what you did section by section.

1. Its not that all are fixable with user created maps its just a majority of the maps are imbalanced.

2. You are confusing quicker gameplay with faster gameplay(Unless this wasn't referring to my post but im going to go in detail on this). A quicker game is something that would end fast or be resolved by rushing, this is caused by imbalanced maps where enemy factions get more resources due to the amount of resources they get at the beginning. A faster game is one that progresses at a smooth rate allowing you to reach late game tech earlier. Please tell me when was the last time you saw allure of the unity upgraded outside of single player.

3. The problem with mods is, as a modder you see it as strange why we ICO users do not use mods. This comes because of standardization, why doesn't SC2 use mods to fix the imbalance of marines, or even other RTS games. Because they are no official fixes they do not belong in a competitive environment. And it isn't accessible to a wide variety of people either this goes back to the burden of knowledge. If everyone used said mod and some newbie went online and he saw no one online he would be stumped thinking it was a dead game. Using a mod as an official patch would create more problems than actually fixing them.

4. Its not trying to make it like sc2, sc2 has a quick paced imbalanced mindfuck that where you have to focus on Macro. Sc2 has no heart to it at all like Sins does. So many units are imbalanced, but they are left imbalanced knowingly to keep the metagame the same.

5. You are also confusing complexity with uniqueness. Having different amounts of Insurgence isn't unique, nor is a different amount of extractors on your asteroid vs their asteroid. Its unique yes, but its imbalanced.

6. I wouldent say its meant to be slower, online I see games ending around the 30 minute mark thats pretty standard for RTS games even hour long games are pretty standard.

 

Watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM&feature=related