[Concept] Balance through Balance Intervals

I had posted this in Burn's Community Patch Notes Thread.
Since this is not merely another buff or nerf, but a completely different principle on how to achieve balance, I thought it would be justified to make a new thread to discuss this concept. I really would like to hear your thoughts about this idea.

Instead of attempting to achieve perfect balance between all
factions, we willingly introduce changing imbalances.

The format would be the following:

• Let M and N be non-zero natural numbers.
• For each faction, N Themes are identified.
• A list of M buffs is compiled.
• For each Theme in Faction A, all Factions receive some Anti-Theme Runes.
• Each week, all Themes receive one of the M buffs for this week.

Thereby, we would create the following scenario:

Theme Rune would no longer have a definite strength. Their power value would become fuzzy. Their strength would be an interval [worst buff for this Rune; strongest buff for this Rune]. Balancing would become easier, as Themes could be balanced with regard to the strong relation: Theme A is strictly better than Theme B, if and only if A is better with its weakest buff than B with its strongest buff.

Because the balancing is shifted towards a different set of Themes each new week, balance would only be an issue
if a certain Theme would prevail even if it is not a Theme-of-the-Week.

Edit: State of the discussion edited in orange.

 

Any idea that takes away nerf power from council and that reintroduces creativity is a good idea.

 

^ For referance poll has been abusing a BG built around AA and is very annoyed he has to try playing the actual game now.

 

Creating a cyclical pattern of buffs that encourage (or force) players to constantly rotate to themes they may or may not want to play is frustrating at best. I would stop playing if I knew that the only time I could play the themes I enjoy was when they had their week in the spotlight. The current resentment towards Trees would simply rotate to the chosen themes, week after week.

Players usually tolerate imbalanced content in games because they expect that eventually something will be done to adjust said content. It is when that expectation isn't met that they begin to take offense to the imbalance. Your system doesn't come with this unspoken understanding. I read this as "every week we guarantee that certain themes will be frustrating/unfair to play against unless you run specific counters or pick a bandwagon.

I can only imagine how upsetting this will be to new players who discover that being competitive will require obtaining new runes every week in a certain faction until they have all of the runes required for the various themes in rotation. Then imagine how disappointed they'll be to realize it's impossible to apply this system for every conceivable theme. In other words, creating a BG that doesn't utilize one of the chosen themes is to intentionally lower one's chances of winning.

 

I was anticipating high rankers to abuse my comments and I was right. For your info I was having an AA deck, but was just playing it like 10 games... I was playing the rapid growth thing instead and this one actually needed a big nerf.

 

I agree, if u make a good BG it should be good until the next update of the game, not u til next week. It may take some players a very long time to make a good BG (getti g runes, testing and adjusting, reading about runes and abilities etc). This idea is good only for top rankers who have almost every rune and knows everything by heart already.

 

While I like the concept, I don't know if this is the best idea for Pox.

I am concerned about rune availability. It basically means most runes from a faction if I want to play that faction through every cycle and remain competitive. When "near percect balance" is achieved, in theory one could only play it's favorite theme(s). Which would result in not trading every other week or not having to collect twice as many runes.

Just my two cents.

 

I don't see this working out for Pox Nora at all.

One reason for that is that "casual" player love their runes. And I use the term casual very loosely here since I don't have a better term for the common player who sticks to either one faction or just a selected few factions. All I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of people who really love their Ferren, or their Stitched, or Sharptoothes or whatever else there is in the game. And those would not be happy during the weeks where their preferred theme is not in the list of randomly buffed themes. In fact it cause a "Well I'll just come back next week to play what I like!" mentality which would not be healthy for the game.

The other issue would be needless complexity. The game is already hard enough to get into as it is. Having the rules change every week would be something that especially newcomers would struggle with. Not only do you have to learn and know more things with such a dynamic balance structure but you are also required to have more runes available to be able to be semi competitive at all times. Which again leads to the "I'll just play next week!" thing which just really is not good for the game.

So yeah, I did the smart thing of reading the OP, composing a reply and then reading what others have commented to the subject. I then realized that Entrepidus pretty much stated everything I wrote already and more, making my post useless. But since I already wrote it I might as well hit the Post button anyway. <_<; Hope you enjoy the redundancy!

 

Thank you all for your answers.
The main problems I could read out of your responses are:

1. Players would be offended if they had to play the Theme of the Week to remain competitive.
2. The proposed concept would favor players with many Runes (making this a "pay to win" option).
3. A Theme would only be viable while it has its week in the limelight, which would lead to "I'll play it when it's in the limelight again".
4. Too complicated.

Is it possible to change the concept to make it work?
What, for example, if all Themes would always receive one M buffs. But because some buffs are more beneficial for a certain Theme than others, those would still benefit more. Do you think this would work?

What would that do to the game? Currently, each Rune and each Theme has a definite strength that could be assigned to it. This strength would be replaced by an interval (worst bonus; best bonus), which would make it fuzzy. This would improve balancing insofar, as the strong relation would be easier to identify and to fix: Rune A is obviously stronger than Rune B, if the maximum of Rune B is still weaker than the minimum of Rune A.

 

In a game with a good balance you do not need "flavor of the week" things to create that shifting meta game described in the Opening Post. If you put a lot of work into it you end up having that happening more or less by itself.

I LOVE Extra Credits, the YouTube channel. Coming back to this thread made me remember watching an episode that covers the concept of balance through imbalance. It's only six minutes long and really worth the watch:



(Really all of the videos on that channel are informative and a pleasure to watch, so hit that subscribe button already! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCODtTcd5M1JavPCOr_Uydg )

 

Thanks for your post Hiyashi. I liked the video (although I recall Sokolov warning us to take Extra Credits too serious**).
For your argument: In a game with good balance, "flavor of the week" may not be needed. But do we have good balance*?
Whenever I come to the forums, I see balance threads.

I edited the OP to reflect the current state of the discussion.


* -- This is an honest question, not a rhetorical question. I am happy with the state of the game. I liked the game under Octopi, under CorpsE, under Sokolov and I still like it now that it has been revamped; but then again, I don't count, I don't play the game to beat other players, I play the game to beat the game itself.

** -- gramatically ... if I want to express that Sok told us that we should not take Extra Credits too serious, do I say "although I recall Sokolov warning us to take Extra Credits too serious" or although I recall Sokolov warning us not to take Extra Credits too serious"?

 

IMO all it needs is removing blatantly op stuff, then shaking up the meta once in a while just to keep it fresh.

Even if the game was perfectly balanced it would only be fun until it became stale. That's why meta needs to be shaken.

But there is some stuff which is way out of line right now, and that should be fixed first.

 

Atm ppl are playing UD and fire to kill trees. Perfect imbalanced?

 

So what you are trying to say is:

Stop of troll, the meta is kill or die.

 

"Although I recall Sokolov warning us to not take Extra Credits too seriously"

"Although I recall Sokolov warning us about taking Extra Credits too seriously"

 

And what does Sokolov have on his resume that I should listen to him over the guy in Extra Credits?

serious question

 

I would rather ask the other question, I don't actually know much about any of the authors of Extra Credits, can someone please link me their resume's so I can examine their experience in independent and/or strategy game development and design?

 

since you wont answer my question, ill try to answer yours
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra_Credits
http://news.digipen.edu/academics/the-many-roles-of-james-portnow/#.U9UtP5V0zIU
http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/...ndustry-you-should-know-who-arent-developers/
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/james-portnow/5/636/150

 

I would point out that the natural flow of buff/nerf as online games attempt to correct their imbalances (because perfect balance is impossible) is more or less what @iPox has described but accelerated and much more on purpose. I think the core problem with it is the fact that you need to be running the counter each week to be competitive and I personally don't enjoy having to run something just to counter one thing. Also, there's a great burden in this system on the developers to be continually rewriting runes which is time that could be better spent improving the client or developing new content (either new expansions or new game modes or tournament stuff etcetera).

 

on topic: I think a game that was designed (and priced) around ipox's concept would be interesting and fun to play.