[Discuss] Balance Factor

[mist]

i'm aware that, privately or publically, a balance factor for individual ships has been suggested based on how much they're built, and declined as being too complex.

however, i think this round has demonstrated the possibility for some races in general to be better than others, so why not balance on a race by race basis? as races will, i'd imagine, be using their better ships this would then balance on a ship by ship basis by proxy.

actually implimenting the balance - i'd suggest that ships gain an attack/defence modification based on the amount of value there is of that race, less a constant amount per planet (ie, if the constant amount is 3K and a planet has 50K ships then it'll count 47K, anything under 3K won't count at all). the constant is included so that very small planets, whom i don't feel form an accurate representation of which ships are good or not, don't skew the results.

this bonus would be calculated every 24 hours, and the result defered by 24 hours so that it doesn't come as a surprise to people with ships in the air.

obviously, this balancing relies to a certain extent on people acting in self interest - if everyone goes for a crappy race then it won't work, however i think the danger of people doing this is small. i can see freebie accounts being exploited to tip the balance, so maybe only paid accounts would count.

obviously, the numbers need working out, but other than that would it work?

[edit]yes, this is rather ripped off from planetside, but thus is life[/edit]

-mist

[Tactitus]

I think this is a very bad idea. It effectively punishes those who pick the 'best' race by negating that advantage (and conversely it rewards those who pick the 'worst' race by inflating their stats). In fact, it makes picking a race a fairly meaningless exercise--you might as well assign them at random. :/

It would be a tacit admission that PA Team is no longer willing or able to balance the races. If that's ever the case, then I would humbly suggest replacing PA Team.

[Eol]

PA Team has *never* been capable of balancing ships/races. There's always been problems, no matter who's been behind the stats.

Kal mentioned in a chat on the Insomnia server that they were considering allowing for "race research events" in next round, where say "Cathaar has made a breakthrough in weapons technology, and the damage done by Tarantulas has been increased by 2".

I think this is a highly sensible move, allowing for improving on the inevitably broken stats in-round in a causal way. Good players will be able to adapt *anyway*.

[mist]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

I think this is a very bad idea. It effectively punishes those who pick the 'best' race by negating that advantage (and conversely it rewards those who pick the 'worst' race by inflating their stats). In fact, it makes picking a race a fairly meaningless exercise--you might as well assign them at random. :/

It would be a tacit admission that PA Team is no longer willing or able to balance the races. If that's ever the case, then I would humbly suggest replacing PA Team.

i think it's a good idea for the same reason as you think it's a bad one...
there should BE no best/worse race, and people certainly shouldn't be punished for picking a race they like the playstyle of - i thought that was rather the point

as for a tacit admission, when were all the races last balanced? it wouldn't be an admission, it would be a statement of the blatantly obvious!

-mist

[Cochese]

The round 7 stats (and arguably post pax, the round 11 stats) were as close to being "balanced" as I've seen.

[Eol]

Originally Posted by Cochese

The round 7 stats (and arguably post pax, the round 11 stats) were as close to being "balanced" as I've seen.

I agree, the r7 stats were pretty good.

[Gerbie]

When you make completely new stats they are likely to be unbalanced. They should have just tweaked the stats a bit instead.

[mist]

i thought r11 favoured xan? that asside, having to pick out the 'good ones' isn't ideal...

-mist

[Cochese]

r11 did favor xan, but otherwise were considered "good".

They simply needed some tweaking, not the mess we ended up with this round.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by mist

i think it's a good idea for the same reason as you think it's a bad one...
there should BE no best/worse race, and people certainly shouldn't be punished for picking a race they like the playstyle of - i thought that was rather the point

Why have races at all then? What point is there in offering a choice if ultimately it doesn't matter what you choose?

Race selection is one of the last remaining tactical aspects of the game (everything else has pretty much been automated and/or been trumped by 'activity'). And if you select a race for playstyle rather than balance--well, you made your choice.

as for a tacit admission, when were all the races last balanced? it wouldn't be an admission, it would be a statement of the blatantly obvious!

Races were reasonably well balanced when they were first introduced. They will never be perfectly balanced, but as long as they're close that should be sufficient. You study the stats and you make your choice--if your analysis is sound, you get some (small) benefit. If it isn't, you suffer some (small) disadvantage. That's how a real skill in action works.

i thought r11 favoured xan? that asside, having to pick out the 'good ones' isn't ideal...

It is ideal in a universe where your choices matter.

[jerome]

Originally Posted by mist

i thought r11 favoured xan? that asside, having to pick out the 'good ones' isn't ideal...

-mist

not necessarily, r11 stats favoured xand only because of the huge amount of terrans, (and fat ones) had there been more cathaar & ziks, the universe would have been much more free-for-all.

[Linkie]

r11 stats would be quite easy to tweak towards a better set. As jerome` said, they favoured xan mainly because of the large amount of fat terrans.

[mist]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

Why have races at all then? What point is there in offering a choice if ultimately it doesn't matter what you choose?

i thought races were included for variety. just because two things are equally effective doesn't mean that they have to be exactly the same.

i'd counter that if one race is better than the others then there's no point having races. if, like this round with zik, there's a best race then there's no point playing any others, they might as well not be included

-mist

[Banned]

This is a terrible idea, as is any form of stat changes mid-round. If you can't get it right in the first place, at least be consistently wrong.

[mist]

why?

-mist

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by mist

i thought races were included for variety. just because two things are equally effective doesn't mean that they have to be exactly the same.

Well it reduces races to being equivalent to skins.

i'd counter that if one race is better than the others then there's no point having races. if, like this round with zik, there's a best race then there's no point playing any others, they might as well not be included

If the races are so out of balance that no one chooses any but one, then yeah, you'd have a point. The many who went non-Zik this round are proof that we're not there yet, even as imbalanced as the races are now. [For the record, I think the races should be more balanced than they are now, but needn't be perfectly balanced]

[mist]

not really, even given equal value, cathaar play differently to terrans, etc.

if you think the races don't need to be totally balanced, but need to be better than they are now, there's no reason for a balancing factor to completely even out the game, it would require practical tuning to be at a suitable level regardless of how great an effect was desired

-mist

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by mist

if you think the races don't need to be totally balanced, but need to be better than they are now, there's no reason for a balancing factor to completely even out the game, it would require practical tuning to be at a suitable level regardless of how great an effect was desired

Now it seems we just disagree on the means to the same end (close but not perfectly balanced races).

I think this end can be achieved without any changes to the game--just more intelligent effort towards creating the stats. My view is that this round is an outlier (vis-a-vis race balance). Therefore, implementing a "balancing factor" in the game is unnecessary.

[mist]

you apparently have more faith than i do :P

-mist

[Banned]

This round isn't too bad really, Cath and Zik are both overpowered, but it's possible for Xan to roid top10 planets and Terran have some of the best podflak (on armor mind you). The problem is that the balance this round was built on a flawed design: that each race should have a single 'target' race. The problem is that this wasn't done consistently the other way. That is, the other 3 races weren't balanced to be able to defend.

Rock/scissor/paper is the way to go, but it has to be done the other way: three victims and one defender.

The reason stat changes during the middle of the round are bad should be obvious: voiding large amounts of spent resources for seemingly arbitrary reasons punishes people for being clever. That's not often a good thing to do in a game.

[Kal]

I like the idea for ways to change things during a round that are predecided, but I don;t like the idea of having it done in an automated way, however I think thsi deserves further discussion.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Kal

I like the idea for ways to change things during a round that are predecided, but I don;t like the idea of having it done in an automated way, however I think thsi deserves further discussion.

There is already a bunch of predecided change in the game.

[demiGOD]

baaaaaaaaaad bad bad baaaaad bad idea.. i didnt play last round (r11) so i wouldnt know what the stats were last round.. but i know way back in the earlier rounds, ships were a little bit balanced.. so winning battles only depended on who has more ships.. which is kinda "jurassic" and barbaric just thinking about it now (its like agamemnon and his kingdoms, led by achilles overpowering by number over hector and the small elites of troy - uh huh, very barbaric) - BUT, with these modern rounds of Pa, and these races with their pro's and cons, is way better and made the game more realistic and emotional at the same time - leaving a sense of fear to better races, respect to the same race, and an overwhelming sense of violence over weaker races (or races that you think are weaker than u anyways - besides, racism has always been a state of mind) - its really better with different races who are uniquely stronger on some and weaker on the other aspects of the game

[Proxi]

Having better stats is the way to go imo, half the fun and effort of pre round activity goes into analysing the development of stats and picking who you think will be the best for that round.

The actual stats are only a part of balancing though. As was mentioned earlier, the rnd11 xan owned mainly because they had lurvly targets they could roid relatively easily (in addition to decent stats)

However, the % spread of races in the universe will ofc depend mostly on the stats in the first place, so thats a bit of a circular argument

[agincourt]

I am relatively new to the game but I think having one well rounded race which any noob can play and learn with is important. The other three should have more advantages and disadvantages which good players can exploit. It should also be stated which is the well rounded race so that new players can choose that one. I played Cath last half of last round and I really disliked them, so I played xan this round. Lol took me til tick 400 to figure out how to successfully roid, and that was because I finally got into a good alliance and people helped me. If it weren't for a very nice guy helping me out last round (a guy that had just roided me) by explaining some things I probably wouldn't have come back for this round. It is a delicate balance that always needs to be struck between making the game challenging for experienced players yet still manageable for us noobs. Race balancing is one way to do that.

[Iceman]

Kal mentioned in a chat on the Insomnia server that they were considering allowing for "race research events" in next round, where say "Cathaar has made a breakthrough in weapons technology, and the damage done by Tarantulas has been increased by 2".

i like this, its at the admins discresion

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Iceman

i like this, its at the admins discresion

Oh dear god no. The only value to mist's suggestion is that the balancing is automatic, via some predetermined algorithm. Putting it at PA Team's discretion just reopens the old Pandora's Box of large alliances and 'influential' players lobbying PA Team for mid-round stat tweaks.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

Oh dear god no. The only value to mist's suggestion is that the balancing is automatic, via some predetermined algorithm. Putting it at PA Team's discretion just reopens the old Pandora's Box of large alliances and 'influential' players lobbying PA Team for mid-round stat tweaks.

and here was me thinking we had quite clearly shown we listened to no one at all

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Kal

and here was me thinking we had quite clearly shown we listened to no one at all

No, just the wrong people.

[Envious]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

In fact, it makes picking a race a fairly meaningless exercise--you might as well assign them at random. :/

IMO, thats exactly the desired effect.. no matter what race you choose, you should have the same chance to be "good", but with different tactics.

[Envious]

Originally Posted by Cochese

r11 did favor xan, but otherwise were considered "good".

They simply needed some tweaking, not the mess we ended up with this round.

there must be some reason why they discarded the idea of Zik generally having lower initiative than Cath for r12 tho. and Zik wasn't too good itself. no i really don't think r11 was very balanced. i actually was surprised they managed to make it even less balanced for r12.