WHY Balance?

[Mered4]

Start with WHY, always.

I've been taught this simple principle for a few years now, but I've only recently been able to appreciate its value. Applying this principle to Starmade's balance and its design, I realized that the balance discussion is just a bunch of WHATs and HOWs. In essence, we all spend our time arguing over specific points in the balance that don't matter in the big picture. After all, Starmade is still in Alpha. If we keep nitpicking, we will get a balance that is dysfunctional and filled with quirks that hint at year-old "legacy" changes.

Let's nip that in the bud.

Instead of suggesting that we fix the things broken in the current balance, let's take a step back and look into the future. What do we want Starmade's combat to look like at release? Once you've got a clear picture (write it down to make this easier), quantify WHY you want that vision. That WHY is what we need to discuss. Not an end result - if we have a definite WHY, we can change that future vision when problems arise and still be on the right track.

This isn't an easy task to complete straight from scratch. Most of us will need to look outside our perspective, our 'lens' to find the WHY for Starmade's balance.

Here's a simple example of a WHY:

Balance should seek to enable each players' creative ability, not restrict it.

Now, take all of your ideas - compare them to a WHY. Which ones fit? Does the current balance fit within your WHY?

These questions are incredibly important, as they will decide what the balance looks like at release. If we let different people with multiple WHYs influence balance decisions, we'll have a balance divided against itself.

You can see it already in the current balance - people with different WHYs have fundamentally different viewpoints on which direction the balance should go in. We need to discuss a central WHY for Starmade's balance now, before we have to deal with more players that resist change.

That said, whatever Cal decides should be the WHY for Starmade's balance, the community should support that WHY. The game will have a better community for it.

What's your idea for Starmade's WHY?

 

[Comr4de]

The "why" behind the current config is mathematical balance. The issue is that the config assumes a 100% hitrate. This is... no feasible for a variety of reasons. This is why missiles are so dominant. They're minimum-skill weapons that completely eclipse the others in effectiveness. You're right that future systems need to be considered in how systems are balanced. But leaving things be in hopes that they'll be fixed by additional features down the line is naive at best.

My job as a councilor is to gauge public opinion and report back to schine. Combat is a major part of the game. I have noted intense satisfaction across the board about how the current config handles. The results of my survey are indicative enough of this. Had the "leave them as they are" been in the majority, it would be reasonable to assume that the people demanding change were a vocal minority. However, 90% of those polled indicated that they wanted something changed. I think it is safe to assume that something is horrifically wrong with the configs right now. Whether this can be patched with additions of features or a rework of the weapons system remains to be seen. There are rumors of new weapons systems coming out. If there are, we need to consider whether or not these systems need to be balanced towards the current config or if a retooling across the board is necessary. That is why I'm putting out those surveys.

It's really noble and unique to take an alternate view on the problem but at the end of the day the people in charge are going to need numbers and analysis. Why is simply a mission statement. What and How get the job done.

That said, whatever Cal decides should be the WHY for Starmade's balance, the community should support that WHY. The game will have a better community for it.

I don't like this. People make mistakes. Some have been made in the development of this game. If a mistake is made, I'm not going to dance around the problem and put on a smile so that everyone is happy. If something is wrong, it's your job to speak up. Refer to the 90% figure I mentioned earlier. What if cal decided that beams should have unlimited range and stupidly powerful damage? I'm not saying he would, but I'm asking what would happen if he did. This is obviously not balanced, and feedback would be necessary. Balance is what makes the game fun. When weapons aren't balanced, or some approaches are simply not viable compared to others, it limits how players can play. This is reflected in the game right now. What won starfade? A logic-operated heatseeker swarm ship. No offense to sven at all, but this is exactly the problem. Nobody spoke up about these glaring issues (or were ignored) and now we have literally zero skill ships outdoing everything else thrown against it.

Edit: a real life example of someone in charge coming up with a poorly balanced system that led to massive economic imbalances is the cubatom system. It has since been removed due to its susceptibility to extreme exploitation. Nobody questioned it on release; however as time went on, the negative effect it had on the player economy became incredibly noticeable.

Sources: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1a_...cohqzkQJwdnTJQ/viewanalytics?usp=form_confirm

 

[jorgekorke]

Personally, what I want for Starmade is to have the word " meta " erased from the game. Having everyone using the same weapons, same tricks and ratios makes the game just as boring (wasting a lot of potential) as one of those MOBAs. Like the OP's example of "why" says, creativity to try different things should be encouraged.

 

[Ithirahad]

Personally, what I want for Starmade is to have the word " meta " erased from the game. Having everyone using the same weapons, same tricks and ratios makes the game just as boring (wasting a lot of potential) as one of those MOBAs. Like the OP's example of "why" says, creativity to try different things should be encouraged.

I think this sums up what should be the primary objective of balancing in this game... Not mathematical or theoretical weapons balancing, just making as many possibilities viable as possible.

 

[Megacrafter127]

Not mathematical or theoretical weapons balancing, just making as many possibilities viable as possible.

The problem is: we need math to make everything balanced. If a single weapon ends up dealing more effective damage per second (meaning missed shots were accounted for) than another, players will find out and we have the same problem again.
The difference must be minor enough to not be detectable at the scales it may be applied on, and we know in the case of starmade the scale is huge.

 

[Mered4]

The problem is: we need math to make everything balanced. If a single weapon ends up dealing more effective damage per second (meaning missed shots were accounted for) than another, players will find out and we have the same problem again.
The difference must be minor enough to not be detectable at the scales it may be applied on, and we know in the case of starmade the scale is huge.

Whoa guys slow down! I didn't expect actual constructiveness!

First off, this isn't about *balancing by feel or with math* or just using the feel-good tactic of looking at the big picture all the time to balance the game. This is setting a foundation for the future balance discussions that we will be having in detail for the next year or so. In MFleet, myself and my engineer (4plains, the best ever) love bouncing stats of eachother to make better ships, and use those discussions to analyze possible balance problems just through the math. Its an exceedingly useful way to analyze those problems.

The point of having a WHY is to analyze your options after you have identified a problem within the balance.

Here's an example that we saw *fixed* last patch:

Problem:
Missiles and other high-alpha weapons with large ranges are one-shotting other ships of similar size in battle.

Solutions:
1) Increase shield capacity per block
2) Increase Power consumption for high-alpha weapons
3) reduce the effectiveness of EXP and Punch-through effects that help chew through ships faster
4) Increase the EHP of armor blocks

They chose 1, 3, and 4 because they also solved 5-6 other issues people had with balance in the first place.

If, however, our WHY was the following:

Balance should encourage rapid combat tactics and hit'n'run battles.

Then we might only choose 2 or 4, because they have the smallest effect on our WHY but still (somewhat) solve the problem. If we were smart and committed to our WHY, we would notice that the problem itself isn't really a problem under this WHY.

"It's really noble and unique to take an alternate view on the problem but at the end of the day the people in charge are going to need numbers and analysis. Why is simply a mission statement. What and How get the job done."

I know how to swing my machete, I know what I am cutting down, but if I'm in the wrong jungle, I'm wasting my time.

 

[PizzaPress]

Personally, what I want for Starmade is to have the word " meta " erased from the game. Having everyone using the same weapons, same tricks and ratios makes the game just as boring (wasting a lot of potential) as one of those MOBAs. Like the OP's example of "why" says, creativity to try different things should be encouraged.

Not possible.
people will analyze and shred and test the game till they find whatever is absolutely best.
you can fight it, you can balance it better, but you can't completely stop it
youtube.com/watch?v=vXgpGBbh5r8
The existence of a metagame can't be stopped
You need numbers to really balance things as much as possible, in the end.
They just forgot some very important numbers, plus some features aren't 100 working%(lol ai, plus some missile AI weirdness).

 

[Bishamonten]

The problem with a static math formula is most people dont factor in differences in weapon abilities. A lazer that *might deal a million damage over a minute and a swarm of autolock missles that collectively deal a million damage upfront with little to interaction cant be formulated because the factors involve can't be adequately factored. What the devs should focus on are incomprables (apples vs oranges).

 

[jorgekorke]

Not possible.
people will analyze and shred and test the game till they find whatever is absolutely best.
you can fight it, you can balance it better, but you can't completely stop it
youtube.com/watch?v=vXgpGBbh5r8
The existence of a metagame can't be stopped
You need numbers to really balance things as much as possible, in the end.
They just forgot some very important numbers, plus some features aren't 100 working%(lol ai, plus some missile AI weirdness).

I know that.
It is an objective impossible to catch, yet the right thing is to always chase it.

 

[Mered4]

I know that.
It is an objective impossible to catch, yet the right thing is to always chase it.

Exactly. We can't always achieve perfection, but we can get damn close.

Just look at Super Smash Bros

Endless Legend is a more modern example of a fluid balance that works despite the ridiculous amount of factors involved.
Both games have definitive WHYs behind their balance. I'd say it paid off

 

[FullMetalFox]

Pretty much most important stuff has already been said, but one more thing.

That said, whatever Cal decides should be the WHY for Starmade's balance, the community should support that WHY. The game will have a better community for it.

Calbiri is just one human, nothing more. That means he is also subjected to to the human nature, which includes making mistakes and having a limited view on a subject. Him being a Schine member doesnt make him God, unfailable or anything else, hes still human, like every other Schine member.

And since every Schine member is just a human, they are all subjected to the human nature, which means us giving them constructive feedback on whats good and whats bad, or even how it could be improved, is the best support we can give them, as by doing so we provide them with different viewpoints they can use to further improve the game.

 

[NeonSturm]

Which tactics do we want?

1. Sniper
2. AOE dominator
   
3. 10000 needles
4. Destroyer (most damage+shields at front and max 2 adjacent sides to effectively attack a single target)

It will differ on different servers.
While in fleet battles peoples might want snipers with a high reload time (perhaps even focus on one target to overcome shield regen), RP servers will not want that.


You can't make 1 balance for all servers (which kind of servers do we want to support with default configs?)

You can't prepare against all tactics (how big should the difference have to be to always survive an enemy or kill the enemy?)

Should the target be alerted about a combat before it can start?


I think the best what's possible is to require both combatants of equally sized ships to sacrifice some blocks if they want to win.
In case of a sniper, ships may break into many small ones (once the main-part core overheats) and attack the sniper which is on reload.

 

[Ithirahad]

The problem is: we need math to make everything balanced. If a single weapon ends up dealing more effective damage per second (meaning missed shots were accounted for) than another, players will find out and we have the same problem again.
The difference must be minor enough to not be detectable at the scales it may be applied on, and we know in the case of starmade the scale is huge.

Accounting for missed shots requires numbers that "feel right," which isn't exact mathematical balancing anyway.

 

[Megacrafter127]

Accounting for missed shots requires numbers that "feel right," which isn't exact mathematical balancing anyway.

We can use statistics for that.

 

[Mered4]

We can use statistics for that.

And controlled combat testing.

Which tactics do we want?

1. Sniper
2. AOE dominator
   
3. 10000 needles
4. Destroyer (most damage+shields at front and max 2 adjacent sides to effectively attack a single target)

It will differ on different servers.
While in fleet battles peoples might want snipers with a high reload time (perhaps even focus on one target to overcome shield regen), RP servers will not want that.


You can't make 1 balance for all servers (which kind of servers do we want to support with default configs?)

You can't prepare against all tactics (how big should the difference have to be to always survive an enemy or kill the enemy?)

Should the target be alerted about a combat before it can start?


I think the best what's possible is to require both combatants of equally sized ships to sacrifice some blocks if they want to win.
In case of a sniper, ships may break into many small ones (once the main-part core overheats) and attack the sniper which is on reload.

Starmade is moddable. To a certain extent, you can make your own balance. That said, most people will be playing vanilla or a flavor of vanilla at release and beyond. It's important we get that right.

 

[Psy_commando]

Asking why is the beginning of getting to an answer. But its still a little too vague of a question. What might sound obvious to one, is not so obvious to another.

I'd say the devs should at least ask themselves this about each weapons and weapon combinations:
- Why would I need this ? <- Usefulness, Purpose
- When do I use it ? <- Versatility
- Can anything else do the very same thing for less hassle ? <- Convenience.

No weapons has to be perfect in all those categories. No weapons should be perfect in all of those categories either !!
But there must be at least a minimal advantage to use a particular weapon in a good amount of "real-life" combat scenarios for a player to even consider using it and potentially be either defenseless or with a weapon less in scenarios where said weapon cannot be used effectively.

Also, going down to the basics, and rethinking how combat works might be a good idea at this point.

For instance, in order to defeat an enemy ship right now, one has to destroy the core. Its the only significant weak point in a ship that can disable it, and its a single tiny block amidst tons of them. This dictates what is a useful weapon. Because a weapon is still just a tool engineered for a purpose.

Though, logically, hitting a ships's powerplant, fuel reserve, amunition reserve, engines, command deck should all be viable options. But we're missing amunition and fuel. And command decks are often purely cosmetics, and there is often no crew to neutralize or important systems to disable in there.
And finally, because of the way the power system works, and how its fairly often spread around in long thin lines or large elaborate shapes to give out decent power, and because of the massive amount of blocks required to power large ships far exceeding the AoE of any weapons, its just simply not viable to target the power systems in most cases.. And that is if you even know where said power system system is in the first place..

But really, to put it bluntly, an important number of the game's mechanics are working against eachothers. And fixing each parts individually probably won't work very well. Because the devs would address some issues on one side, and create some more on the other, and it would go on like this..
Someone on the dev team is going to have to take a long hard look at how the game works right now, and work on making things play nice with eachothers. Just to get a bit of synergy and compatibility between mechanics, and to make systems that can be used in a typical context and not just against static blocks or in a controlled test environment. (PVE, PVP, etc..)

Another thing I couldn't fit above that tend to demonstrate what I meant when I say that things won't play together nicely:
Weapons that needs to be aimed also additionally suffer because of other small things that were possibly forgotten, such as the lack of a basic "gyroscopic sight" on the HUD to properly estimate projectile deflection required to hit a target(Its critical in space as both crafts can move in all 3 dimensions and there aren't any reliable frame of reference.(space dust is often innacurate) Besides, fighter planes have had those for ages. Ever since WW2 actually.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyro_gunsight ).

And there is also the aiming cursor that resets to the center of the screen when moving between chunks of space, which can happen a lot in a dogfight.. It both cancels your turning maneuvers and also makes you miss any shots you were taking.

And one of the other worst annoyance is the way the game figure out the "bullet crossing" distance when several cannons/dumbfire missiles and etc are fired using the focused fire button.
You need to have your cursor over the target to make the game adjust the firing position of each guns so the projectiles crosses where the enemy is.. But the thing is, your cursor will never be directly on the target, because you need to lead your shots to even hit it ! As a result, you'll have to compensate for that, and hit the enemy ship with less projectiles than you could.. Which means less DPS, and etc..
Those all make using things like a regular canon or worst, dumbfire missiles that much frustrating, as you don't have as many shots to waste on correcting your aim before shooting again..

Personally, what I want for Starmade is to have the word " meta " erased from the game. Having everyone using the same weapons, same tricks and ratios makes the game just as boring (wasting a lot of potential) as one of those MOBAs. Like the OP's example of "why" says, creativity to try different things should be encouraged.

Ironically, I'd think the solution would lie in defining an actual basic "meta". Just something to define how exactly a weapon has to work to be useful. Sort of like Rock/Paper/Scissor.. That way, you can predict a little better when a weapon is used, and balance it out based on that.

Because right now, one of the biggest issue with most weapon systems and variants is that, it appears the devs came up with more or less standard Gradius-like shooter weapon systems and thought they'd all find a purpose in a 3d world, against ship with shields, and a hull that take locational damages.(Not to mention having to hit the core to defeat an enemy craft adds a definite need for accuracy, area of effect and penetration, or all three, to an ideal weapons)

But the thing is very few of these weapons are relevant in the current game. There either wasn't a need for their existence, or they're redundant, require too many linked systems compared to others with similar or better performances, or they're too outclassed by other weapons to justify their presence on a ship over other weapon systems.


There are a lot of ways to solve this issue.
But I still think that by defining what is better to use against what and in what context would tremendously help the devs figure out how to make effective, balanced and varied weapon systems.

At the very least, making a simple "this weapon beat this defense" kind of system, where certain weapons have increased efficiency against certain defenses, or excel in certain context, could be a nice starting point.
Something like :
Canon > Armor and Missile counter-measures
Missile > Armor
Beam > Shields
(That's actually all wrong/random, but its just for demonstration purpose)

This is a very cheap and simple way of creating purpose for a weapon. And the system can then be expanded upon, and variants and etc can be introduced so that people can come up with a relatively different battle strategy for their weapon selection.

An example of a game that took this route and made something simple that works with it, is mass effect. In that game, there are 3 types of defenses an enemy can have. HPs only, Armor, or Shields/Barrier. Each of these is particularly weak against a type of weapon or ability. Which gives those weapons and ability a purpose / place in the "foodchain".

As for variety, a good way to create some would probably be to create side-grade weapons. Or weapons that work in a similar fashion as another one, achieve nearly the same results, but that actually works a little bit differently, and better or worse under some circumstances.
That difference can be as simple as changing the perks and disadvantages of the base weapon to something just as meaningful and that would fit in more with some people's play style and build style.

Take a look at TeamFortress2's weapons selection for example. All the non-stock weapons can be matched by the stock ones in a lot of cases. They only offer slight but meaningful differences, for the most part. But those differences are still significant enough for some players to find something to like in them, and to make them want and be able to actually use them.

I guess that's what the devs initially wanted to do with the effect and linking system. But, it cannot be a sidegrade if some combinations are completely useless, or completely inferior to the base weapon.

 

[Mered4]

Asking why is the beginning of getting to an answer. But its still a little too vague of a question. What might sound obvious to one, is not so obvious to another.

I'll stop you there

The WHY is the foundation. You cannot build the house without the foundation. The point is to build a foundation here. We've got enough material to write a book on HOW or WHAT to balance in Starmade. What we do not have is WHY.

It's not a vague question because it isn't a question. The WHY is a statement. Finding that WHY takes time and effort and requires questions (and their answers). The foundation must be strong.

 

[Psy_commando]

I'll stop you there

The WHY is the foundation. You cannot build the house without the foundation. The point is to build a foundation here. We've got enough material to write a book on HOW or WHAT to balance in Starmade. What we do not have is WHY.

It's not a vague question because it isn't a question. The WHY is a statement. Finding that WHY takes time and effort and requires questions (and their answers). The foundation must be strong.

I strongly disagree.
The "why" has been figured out years ago, and now we're renovating. The interior decorators already all figured the looks for us, we just need to get our hands dirty and help out the contractors.
And, that sounds like a challenge. I can very well build a house without foundations.. A house of card for one. Or maybe a treehouse, or a house on a boat, etc.. There are endless possibilities really, you just gotta be.. open minded.
I can throw metaphors around instead of answering anything too you know.

No offense but, you sound a tad bit creepy insisting on that whole "why" thing so much.. Game design isn't done through fortunate magical thinking. Actual game designers don't just throw statements at eachothers and meditate on them to balance a game :
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/PeterQum...r_Games__Opportunity_Power_and_Relativity.php
http://pqumsieh.com/2014/01/27/balancing-multiplayer-games-part-1/

You're not going to achieve much results or convince anyone by sounding all mythical and stuff, dispensing half answers, half truth, idioms, logical fallacies, parables and metaphors in guise of replies to criticism. And neither will you by criticizing several others that brought valid arguments in this thread for not approaching the issues the exact same way as you are demanding..

Not to mention, I actually tried to go along with your line of thinking in the first part of my message, going right down to the very basics. Yet, you still just ignored 99% of it, insisting on my nuance on the merit of your approach, literally the introduction, to tell me I'm wrong to not put as much emphasis on the "why" as you'd like..

I'm sorry, but I find this attitude on your part rude and patronizing. Not just because of the way you replied to my post, but the way you replied to everyone else. You asked a question, people came and took the time to reply. And you tried to preach to nearly all of them instead of listening truly to what they had to say, even though they had merit in their replies..
Like Comr4de's excellent post that you conveniently dismissed with a single parable that made no sense, and didn't do anything to help your case in that context.

I'll politely leave you with this rhetorical question:
"WHY start a discussion about a way to approach balancing if you're not willing to take any criticism on it ?"

 

[Mered4]

I strongly disagree.
The "why" has been figured out years ago, and now we're renovating. The interior decorators already all figured the looks for us, we just need to get our hands dirty and help out the contractors.
And, that sounds like a challenge. I can very well build a house without foundations.. A house of card for one. Or maybe a treehouse, or a house on a boat, etc.. There are endless possibilities really, you just gotta be.. open minded.
I can throw metaphors around instead of answering anything too you know.

No offense but, you sound a tad bit creepy insisting on that whole "why" thing so much.. Game design isn't done through fortunate magical thinking. Actual game designers don't just throw statements at eachothers and meditate on them to balance a game :
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/PeterQum...r_Games__Opportunity_Power_and_Relativity.php
http://pqumsieh.com/2014/01/27/balancing-multiplayer-games-part-1/

You're not going to achieve much results or convince anyone by sounding all mythical and stuff, dispensing half answers, half truth, idioms, logical fallacies, parables and metaphors in guise of replies to criticism. And neither will you by criticizing several others that brought valid arguments in this thread for not approaching the issues the exact same way as you are demanding..

Not to mention, I actually tried to go along with your line of thinking in the first part of my message, going right down to the very basics. Yet, you still just ignored 99% of it, insisting on my nuance on the merit of your approach, literally the introduction, to tell me I'm wrong to not put as much emphasis on the "why" as you'd like..

I'm sorry, but I find this attitude on your part rude and patronizing. Not just because of the way you replied to my post, but the way you replied to everyone else. You asked a question, people came and took the time to reply. And you tried to preach to nearly all of them instead of listening truly to what they had to say, even though they had merit in their replies..
Like Comr4de's excellent post that you conveniently dismissed with a single parable that made no sense, and didn't do anything to help your case in that context.

I'll politely leave you with this rhetorical question:
"WHY start a discussion about a way to approach balancing if you're not willing to take any criticism on it ?"

Let me first apologize for presenting the image of someone who doesn't take criticism well. I meant to argue a point, not shut people out.

You can't build a house to last without a foundation. It's that simple. The WHY is your foundation.

That's what I'm getting at here in response to what ya'll said. You aren't even in the same ballpark yet because (from what I understand), most of the replies assume we use this very broad WHY to make every single balance decision till release. In a way that's true, but not in the manner you are thinking.

Let me explain:

There are three parts to achieving a goal or solving a problem or running a company or whatever: WHY, HOW, and WHAT. These are described in many different ways depending on what leadership book you read or who you talk to, but they are constant. The WHY is where you start: Why set the goal or start the company in the first place? Why balance the game? What's your point? Etc.. The WHAT is the end of your journey - the vision of what you want the future to look like. That's the balance itself. The HOW is the process that connects the two. That's the discussions on the forums, balance testing and analysis, and whatever else the devs throw in the mix.

Specifics are irrelevant at this stage of development. We are in the Alpha of Starmade. Gameplay doesn't have all the features it will have at release. Thus, the best we can do is discuss the problems with the current, changing balance and decide on a WHY for it. We are waiting for the WHAT to come along in the form of gameplay content updates. It's also best to get the WHY discussion out of the way so we don't get super attached to the current balance.

 

[Kaamio]

From what I can gather, WHY which you seek is pretty small thing, on which WHAT is based on. How does it differ from a tl;dr version of what?

More to the point, I agree that currently mechanics have little cohesion or synergy, but isn't it the goal, or WHAT that needs to be clarified for us to focus on how to get there?

My personal tl;dr of the goal:

Having a balance system that encourages finished ship designs, enables multiple ship shapes to achieve most efficient performance and provides several almost equally effective methods to approach a problem.