"continuous" and ""discrete" forms of balance

In this thread, we're going to discuss "continuous" and ""discrete" forms of balance.

First, we have continuous balance, in which in the entirety of balance is presented generally as asymmetry across the board. In this, balance is executed at higher levels. Teams may have a particularly good capability and a similarly noticeable weaker capability.

For example, let's say one team, bluefor, has good armored units and poor infantry units. When blown out in full scale versus combat with a team, opfor, that has poor armored units and good infantry units, the balance comes out to about even.

Let's draw this out a bit. Approximate strength is represented by color area.

On the upper half, bluefor is represented with having poor infantry units. Coming down to the lower half, bluefor compensates with its strong units. The sum of respective team strength is even.



This type of balance is very useful in team matchups that feature totally different combatants (Natural Selection) or force different types of gameplay (Insurgency). Other examples exist blah blah blah.

Generally, it's fun having two different playstyles clash. In this situation, game balance is heavily reliant on all these above factors being present for balanced gameplay to occur.


Next, we have discrete balance, in which corresponding/counterpart elements of gameplay are balanced within those same elements. In this, balance is executed at lower levels. Teams have relatively decent capabilities in most or all respects.

For example, bluefor uses a rifle with high rate of fire and low damage and opfor has a rifle with low rate of fire and high damage. Simultaneously, (ignore missile-cannon Empires balance) bluefor has armored vehicles with missiles and opfor has armored vehicles with cannons with their own nuances, but enough such that they're kind of balanced elements.

Similar shit, new image.

On the border, gameplay elements are divided by horizontal markers. Inside, you can see elements are balanced within this containment area. Within the areas, strengths come out equal. In total, the whole is equal and usually an element is a counter to a corresponding element.



This type of balance is useful in games that feature heavily symmetric forms of gameplay (Bad Company 2, DoD, CS, and other bluaohw).

The bottom line: it may not be as fun or have much variety to have really similar elements across an entire team, but it is very easy to balance especially when performing minor tweaks to elements. Additionally, one can play the game with separate elements and still have a balanced experience. For example, you have a plane-tank-man wargame. Pitting man vs man in one situation would not be a problem because balance is contained.

thoughts on this and how it applies to empires?


opinion

The latter should be applied in most balancing for Empires mod. For example, infantry weapons are pretty much the same except for when it comes down to rifleman weapons.

The balance appears to be shoddily thrown together and tweaks are only done writing prophecies on bird bones and throwing them in oracle fires or throwing sticks. There is no empirical method. All there is pseudo balance from toying with knobs and dials.

Rifleman weapons should be balanced by counterparts and measured in terms of general strength (output). At the simplest level, this can be equated with DPS. For example, not suggesting anything, just for discussion's sake, make the BEHR have high rate of fire and low damage and NFAR have low rate of fire and high damage. When the weapons are about evenly balanced, then you can start making changes safely and gradually without shitting all over interactions with other classes.

Another example, let's say riflemen have a combat rating of 5 and engineers have a rating of 3. Riflemen should only be modified such that they maintain a rating of 4, by whatever tweaking. That way, one does not have to delve into other classes and have to shit up the rest of balance.

Additionally, unintuitive nonsense like scout sabotage should have an in-class counter instead of oh how do i undo this damage done to me by scout oh i need to be an engineer oh my base is destroyed???? welp shit.

additional reading:
http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=8733

/opinion

hey mod get rid of the extra quotation marks in the title (thx)

 

opinion

Make your own infantry scripts to show us how it's done [optionally: LIKE A BOSS]

 

remove all weapons

all infantry have day of defeat 1.3 pistols

(really though copy/paste nfhr to bear and nfar to behr)









VVVVV

 

OuNin, you really love that brush don't you? You seem to use it in every image you make.

Edit: Oh yeah, sure OuNin, potentially making me double post.

 

Hot damn sounds like hours of work AMIRITE

 

the point is to work from a clear slate rather than playing jenga with current balance.

how many equations do you need to have to
even work out this system man

too many variables

why not try that for one version if it's only so many hours of work

 

1. Go talk to MOOtant about his Haskell project
2. Become main scripter for it
3. ???
4. PROFIT.

 

Good luck with this OuNin.

There are all sorts of clever mechanisms and algorithms which can be applied to control balance.. the problem is that most people round here won't have a clue what you're on about.

 

I myself am holding out on a script system rewrite, so I can agree with a couple of aspects. But as the person actually doing the weapons, I can only say that it simply isn't worth it for me to do an overhaul yet, because if the system was redone them I'd only end up having to do it all again. I'd love to start adding some more asymmetrical balance, but it would only be wasted to do it now.

 

Trickster, the first thing you should do is nerf Gren's ability at killing infantry.
Something surely is going wrong somewhere when sometimes Grenadier kills infantry even better and faster than rifleman.
So here's my opinionsThey'll be ignored most likely but I'll type them anyway.)
Slow down the grenadier considering they are wearing heavy armor and are carrying REALLY heavy shits.
Decrease the mowtar damage but increase the explosion radius.
And this is highly impossible but you should consider extending the time it takes to set mowtar up, maybe just 0.5 second.
..etc

 

It might be me playing on a (for me as european) horrible laggy 200 ping server but I usually die from rifle bullets while my first mortar round is still in the air.

 

Or we could make riflemen hilariously good against vehicles.

 

Just don't go where I go :D

That is what supposed to be happening even when you are fighting a n00b rifleman anyway.

 

And in a page a thread about a more systematic method of balancing has returned to the traditional "make <something> stronger/weaker" format.

 

Ok, now I'm not using my phone, I can reply properly.

I want to start off and actually agree with the first part you said. The example you used, good infantry & bad tanks, vs bad infantry & good tanks. The problem here, with any larger form of "balance" like that, is simply that half of the time it doesn't actually benefit the game in any way. People use games like Starcraft as an example of where asymmetrical balance works, but the difference is that in Starcraft, you can go whichever faction you want. Issues like the NF APC not having a hatch, NF jeep having stupid roll bars, BE RPG having a stupid shield. They may well be examples of what you call "discrete" balance, but the fact of the matter is, they don't enhance gameplay in any way shape or form, they just make playing one team less fun. And the same goes for a lot of what you've said. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have more differences between the sides, but literally everything you mentioned there will simply add differences at the expense of the enjoyment of playing on that team.

Either way, the intention is, as you said, to balance weapons with their counterparts. SMGs are balanced with respect to eachother, as are the rifles. The balance is by no means perfect, nor is it particularly fantastic, but it does the job until we have a simpler system. The issue currently is the amount of dependencies. Change one thing, 5 other things change at the same time as a result. This isn't something that can be fixed without a do-over, which I've been saying I'll do when the option is there for months. Because honestly speaking, these scripts were ported from 2.12 and edited from there, and half the shit that goes on even I don't understand. I don't think anyone does.

So yeah, I agree with the thread, but I don't particularly see the point in it. It's basically just saying what Empires already is, fairly symmetrical with a few differences. I don't really understand what you're getting at that we don't already know and see every time we play the game.

 

If you make riflemans (alot) better than the other classes at killing infantry you dont need players at all. You could put Bots into the map because the outcome of a confrontation is decided bevor you start the fight. The skill of the player doesnt matter anymore.

 

every rifleman thinks grens are too stronk

 

Its the mortar, they see it and it reminds them of someting they dont have.

 

PINGAS

 

grens are unbreakable, it's just cause we're badass though

gren v rifle is pretty good atm, just learn to A) never prone in front of me or complete lamer B) keep watching the skies (get it?)

Empires wants discrete balance, it seems, and it seems to be achieving that, imo. Rifles are always balanced in context with other rifles, for example. What really needs work is the tank balance, Rockets v Cannons isn't quite right yet. Fortunately Empires is far more about getting your respective killy tanks first and not relying on being better.

Balance should be looked at in regards to phases of the game, imo. The initial land grab: are riflemen OP at range against enemies with no cover? (yes)
The WWI trench warfare confrontation at slaughtered or canyon south: are grens too killy against clumped enemies humping ammoz?
Im sure you can fill in the rest.

IMO regarding balance, anything that ensures the game moves from one phase to the next quickly should be prioritized over anything that is stronger in turtling. Empires needs to move fast.

By that logic, Riflemen need a nerf because they are stronger when sitting still, camping, and Grens need a buff because they should be pushing up and mortaring turrets, walls and engies.

We need the special weapons to be buffed, like concussion nades, those sound like the ideal thing to help break a fortified rax/vf base, stun all their turrets? And they don't bind my teammates anymore? woot?
Conc nades not used, but are theoretically awesome? Buff them.