#game balancing

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 1038

When a lot of people talk about game balancing and video game mechanics, they’re often talking about fairness or difficulty. In really good games, it is actually a fascinating topic to read other people’s opinions on the matter if you enjoy game design at all. 

This is because game balancing is more than ‘fairness’ or ‘difficulty’, it is also about encouraging players to either think about or take certain actions in game. In games that are well thought out in terms of balancing their game mechanics this process works… most of the time.

As I’ve mentioned last year, when I started playing Infinity Nikki, and played Blue Prince, when you get players who are not familiar with the genre, difficulties happen.

But what happens when you get a game that is very well balanced, suits the player’s play style and the player is very familiar with the genre? Well, you get a fascinating playthrough where they will do actions in that game, they had not done in a previous similar game.

I will be very clear, I loved Stardew Valley and clocked over 76 hours in the game. However, I was not really interested in post-game content, or decorating my farm, and I certainly never got the upgrades that would have made me a super farmer in game. I simply did not care and it didn’t serve a large purpose to me. This doesn’t remove how great or influential the game was.

In fact, if you’ve played Stardew Valley and Coral Island, you’ll notice that Coral Island takes a lot of inspiration from it, and builds upon it. 

One of the things I just recently finished doing in Coral Island was automating as much of my farm as possible. Not only do I have automated systems to plant, fertilize and water my crops, but also to look after my animals and process my produce and animal products into more expensive items with little input from me. And I had done this because I knew there would be a second farm for me to look after, so I was incentivized to do this.

However, that wasn’t the only reason why I had gone out of my way to automate my farm in Coral Island, but I don’t think I would be able to fully explain well why I was motivated to do so. There are several mechanics within Coral Island that work in tandem with each other.

For starters the plotline of Coral Island is that you are bringing the town from an F rank to (at least) A rank to save it. The rank can be achieved by also raising the ranks of other categories like the museum, heritage sites and ocean. This means dividing your time among several other activities and getting the upgrades to help those activities along. Upgrades that can be very pricey and take quite a bit of money to get. So there are a lot of things working together to encourage you to expand the farm and get more effective.

But probably most importantly, once you get the recipe to make more of that upgrade, and unlock the special ability that makes rearranging your farm a breeze, it no longer becomes a daunting task to make an effective farm.

I’m so fascinated by what I am doing in this game that I just keep playing to see what I am going to end up doing next.

[mossedmonkey]

I love the design of the Heavy Edit Splatling and how awesome it plays, but it’s just a full blown balancing disaster!

The cut explains my thoughts

It nearly has the range of the Heavy Splatling, it moves faster than the Mini Splatling, and has the gimmick of firing as fast as the Ballpoint Splatling at short range mode, all while being accurate, painting aggressively, and having a really good ink efficiency.

Really it’s only cost is it’s slow charge up on its second charge. Second charge. That means you can run this thing using only your first charge and you’d still be better than the Heavy Splatling because of mobility.

The Mini Splatling’s main gimmick is its fast charge up and movement speed, but the cost is having a much shorter range and horrible ink efficiency in order to keep it from holding a choke point hostage forever.

The Hydra’s DPS increases on its second charge as well, as it’s damage value increases instead of its fire rate. It has a ridiculous damage output as a result. This comes with the cost of slow mobility and charge time, so it also has longer range than the Heavy.

The Edit has insane DPS and range for the mobility, efficiency, and charge time it has (about 1 second for heavy splatling range with mini mobility).

Sheldon mentions that the Heavy Edit has a lower damage value than the other splatlings but has a faster fire rate, but while it is lower than Heavy’s 30, it is still a 4 shot splat. I feel or think that a nerf to its damage value to become a 5 to 6 shot splat would make it feel better, considering how Edit basically has a 25% DPS boost for no real reason.

This makes it a very mobile weapon that can do it all: mobility, painting, range. However if someone were to surprise you, then it would take 6 shots to splat them, an abysmal 24 frames. It’s possible, sure, or maybe you shouldn’t have let them get so close before you got to your second charge, which flips the story on its back. It’s second charge fire rate turns that 6 shot TTK into a mere 18 frames. This is only 2 frames slower than the heavy, but considering how fast you move combined with how long you can pick off someone from, this is a good compromise. Now this is a splatling that is much more awkward to deal with sudden opponents than other splatling, but can completely dominate when it brings itself to the situation and not the other way around. It should maintain its really good accuracy, it makes tracking up close harder as well as compensating for its lower damage per shot.

Now it really is a Heavy Edit Splatling. Use its heavy fire rate to oppress any opposition back, giving the world to yourself and your teammates. Edit the battlefield with your presence, moving the frontline back and forth to your whim. And if someone would dare step out of line, it’s splat with a lingering satisfaction.

[dewfordtownhall]

Norman is the biggest asshole out of all the gym leaders in Hoenn. Sometimes he challenges you with two Slakings and a Vigoroth and then has the nerve to give you a badge called “Balance” if you win.

[joe-verwatch]

The Difference

What saddens me is that, looking at the official Overwatch forums, there is a noticeable difference between how people talk about D.va’s changes and how they talk about Mercy’s. When you look at the D.va threads there are numbers. Data. Experimentation. Testing. Technical discussions. Her primary fire hitscan versus the lead in needed for her missiles. Cooldowns. They are looking at her as a tank versus as a DPS. People are figuring out what works and what doesn’t work by looking at the game itself. Mercy is a different story. People aren’t bringing up in-game data. Mercy is about conflicting mindsets. Personalities. Values being projected onto others. “She’s always hiding.” “She’s useless.” “Her Rez is the ONLY THING OF VALUE.” “She tells me to die on point only so she can get Play of the Game and a ton of SR!” DPS players love her new Valkyrie mode, and why wouldn’t they? She can “participate in battle.” To them it’s about the fight. Mercy isn’t about the fight. Mercy is about her team. Keeping them alive, even after they have died. Her gameplay isn’t about glory, it’s about compassion. The complaints against her that provoked this radical change are not about her inability to care for her team. It’s that she cares too much, and people are offended.

There are 25 characters in Overwatch. They all are capable of damage. Half of them are capable of wiping out an enemy team with their Ultimate. A few, in the right hands, don’t even need their ultimate to accomplish this. There have been complaints about Bastion’s turret griefing entire teams, Roadhog’s hook allowing a 1-2 instant kill, etc. Fine.

One of Mercy’s strategies (but far from her primary strategy) is to allow her team to die. It’s terrible, but true. The fact of the matter is that there are limitations to what Mercy can accomplish, just as there are limitations to what Widowmaker can do, or Reinherdt, or any other character. That’s why support characters exists: to counter the enemy team’s ability to exploit their team’s weaknesses. Unfortunately, Mercy can only fill up one character’s health at a time like someone standing at a gas pump while cowboys and ninja are trying to murder them. Sometimes you need to halt your progress one one health bar to fill another. Sometimes you need to flee to keep yourself alive because you can’t heal anyone if you’re dead. Sometimes your team is so weak that they can’t possibly stand up on their own, and you are in no position to save them. Any of them. If you try, you too will die. There’s only one thing to do. Resurrection, as it has been since the beginning, is an immensely powerful ability. It allows Mercy to instantly respawn characters who recently died in her immediate vicinity exactly where they were, and with full health. To make it easier to rescue as many of these downed allies as possible, Mercys with the benefit of a microphone will plead with their teammates to coordinate their inevitable deaths so that they all die at one specified location. Usually the objective. ”Die on the point!” they cry in the heat of battle, with Genji’s shuriken tucked neatly inside of their shoulder blades. The fight ends. Resurrection. The fight resumes. There are two problems with this strategy that Blizzard is attempting to address, neither of which have been or can be solved by recent changes. The first is the “Hiding Mercy” complaint. When Mercy has Ult charged she hides until she has an opportunity to use it. Wait, no, that’s not right. When Mercy players have Ult, they hide until... No, hold on. When SOME Mercy players have Ult they hide until they can... Okay. Okay. I’ve got this. When some, but not all, but occasionally all players at some point in their careers have ultimate, they will hide until an opportunity to use it arises. Including: D.va, Reaper, McCree, Junkrat, Hanzo, Sombra, Soldier 76,  etc, etc. This trait, as folks have pointed out in several threads, is not exclusive to Mercy. If you are dead: you cannot use your ultimate. If you are seen: you may die. Simple logic. It only stands out when Mercys do this because they are vocal about it. They tell others they they are retreating. They don’t want to die. If they die, so will their team. Most FPS gamers have accepted death as an inevitability and will go charging in for glory. 1 for 1 trades are preferable to not getting a kill at all. Not Mercy though. Mercy needs to keep her team alive, and to do so, she herself must live. There is no trade. Death is unacceptable. So, she hides. She calls out to her team. Some listen. Some do not. Fine. She works with what she has. By removing the potential for Huge Rez, Blizzard hopes Mercys will spend more time actively healing than hiding. They won’t. They will do as they always have, and as all players of all characters have since the game was in beta. They will bide their time. They will wait. They will survive. This isn’t a Mercy specific problem. This is a problem with the game. One, frankly, no one really cares about. The other issue is that Mercy’s “Undo Button” undermines the hard work and coordination of a team who worked very hard to kill anywhere from one to five characters. Well, yeah, but what about the hard work support characters put in to prevent that wipe in the first place? Or the hard work of the Soldier who was shooting right into D.va’s face only to get taken out from behind by Reaper? What about the hard work the team that died put into not dying? Why not just make everyone immortal, or take away everyone’s ability to deal damage? I’m sure that would be fair and balanced. Here is what the proposed changes in the PTR do not address, and what bothers me most about, well... life. People are competitive. Humans, by nature, are competitive. We have organized sports. We have hotdog eating contests. We have businesses whose internal structures built around the idea that some people are better than others, but they need to prove it.

Gamers are very competitive, as some of you may have noticed. Competition is built around being better than other. Proving yourself. Raising your skill. Honor. Justice. Reinherdt-Reinherdt-Reinherdt! Violence is accepted. Killing is accepted. It’s a game. You kill. You die. If you die more than you kill, then “Get Gud.” Even Mario follows this rule. Why is healing not accepted? What is wrong with competitive healing? Why are team wipes acceptable as part of the game, but team revives are not? I’m not even talking about the enemy team and the hard work they put into destroying my precious little army that I’m struggling to protect from their own poor choices. I’m talking about my own team. Some people, when they hear “Die on the point,” interpret the words as, “Help me get PotG and tons of SR.” They don’t hear the request as an assist. They don’t see the Mercy as benefiting the team. They see the Mercy as seeking personal glory. Incorrect interpretation or not, it shows a huge bias against support. Nobody complains about Junkrat getting team wipe after team wipe on his own, or Reaper, or D.va. Suddenly Mercy wants to save the team from destruction and it’s, “No way, glory hog!” What does this healer know about combat? Why does she deserve such prestige? Burn her! Burn the witch! It’s frustrating that these cries of foul play are being heard, but competitive, self-minded people are often the loudest. This isn’t just in Overwatch, or gaming. This is the world. Compassion and cooperation are frowned upon. Acceptance of others is offensive. The simple act of giving two hoots about a stranger is met with suspicion. I will tell you right now: I play support because I care. Shooting’s fun and all, but I want my team to succeed more than I want myself to succeed, and the best and most fulfilling way I can do that is by aiding them directly. I don’t have an ulterior motive. My goal (while arguably selfish if you want to get all Nietzschean me) is success for all. I think new new changes to Mercy’s ultimate will be fine with severe tweaking. As I’ve said before: keep mobility, keep regeneration buffs, lose the pistol buffs, reduce beam buffs, reduce cooldown on new solo Rez. She may not even need a Rez in her normal pre-Ult state. Fine. I don’t care. It’s a game. What can you do to encourage teamwork and cooperation? What can you do to reduce toxicity? What can you do to fix people? I’m not just putting that weight on Blizzard’s shoulders, mind you. I’m talking to the world here. Fix humanity. That’s the balancing patch that I want. Play nice. Play fair.

[bees-moth]

So, a few friends and I were talking about Pokémon, specifically how horribly unbalanced Fairy and Bug Types are (one too OP, the other a laughing stock) And here's what I propose to help some.

Fairy and Grass be Not Very Effective to one another, and BOTH be weak to Bug for balancing reasons due to the following: 1. Holy/Light energy is effected by Darkness in real life just as much as Darkness is effected by Holy/Light. Since they have made Fairy strong against Dark Type (literally called Evil Type in Japan), and Fairy is the closest we will be getting to a Holy/Light Type in this franchise, then we're going to the next best thing: the creatures that dwell best within darkness. Bug is already strong against Psychic and Dark, so why not Fairy, too?

and 2. the Fae are strongly tied to nature. The plants in particular. They are so entuned to one another there is almost no difference. Bugs love to eat plants though. They tear away and strip leaf and root alike as they please, especially if their numbers are left unchecked. Bonus to the fact this pops up a LOT in fairytales, with evil fae-like forces often depicted in a bug-like manner, versus the softer, lighter and warmer fae proper (movies like that one animated film Epic are a good example. Also the not very good guilty-pleasure-of-mine-personally animated film, Strange Magic).

That alone would add a bit of balance, and it would be nice to bump the importance of the Bug Type while also adding another check to Fairy Type.

Also, if I was a Gym Leader, I would absolutely be a late game Bug Type. Last time we got a Bug user that was actually a challenge is Guzma (the GOAT), and that was all the way back in Sun/Moon. The only other one that had some kind of punch to him was Aaron from Diamond/Pearl/Platinum/the [sorry] remakes. I would go with Fairy, but frankly if it had this balance change I would be more inclined to Bug on top of my love for them/the Type AND being able to get creative with the Gym's design/puzzle itself. Finally, if I want that Fairy edge I like too, I could just have a Ribombee in my party (preferably programmed to be a Shiny in reference to the one I actually found/caught back in Sun version).

[fogaminghub]

https://www.fogaminghub.com/post/tricks-and-treats-for-overwatch-2-season-13-hero-adjustments

🍂💥 Hey, Overwatch fans! Big things are happening this Autumn in Overwatch 2! Season 13 is brimming with upgrades like new hero adjustments, fun skins, and matchmaking tweaks to enhance your gaming experience. 

Dive into our latest blog to catch all the juicy details about what’s coming your way!

[suakkomarigamichibitarulumity]

"The devs don't even play their own game, only relying on statistics for balance decisions-"

THAT IS LITERALLY HOW GAME BALANCE FOR COMPETITIVE VIDEOGAMES WORKS, YOU DIPSHIT

[seven-very-hot-fish]

I love spreadsheets. Putting in data and then making charts and graphs to see how wack the data is and then changing shit until the numbers in the little charts all look nice and then do it all again!