Discussion Corner: Overpowered...?

Sry... I'll try to be more constructive(those anger management classes are really paying off).

Balancing Pox and introducing diversity:
1-read rune usage data on top 10% active players to get the most efficient runes.
1b-Do small debuffs on those runes, weekly and keep doing until they usage goes to average usage level.
2-read rune usage data on top 30% less used runes.
2a-do a small buff to those runes themes.
2b-do a small buff to those runes


This method essentially uses the organically generated collective inteligence of the playerbase.

 

Note, @nynevening.
You are new here so we'll take some ignorance.

Sok can and does have graphs of data of multiple different things, on occasions he even posts them.

HOWEVER, runes used in the top 100 players are not always OP...

 

It's the fundamental distinction, the choice of words by which you make a distinction, with which I take issue. There are many ways to not understand someone, but I think the simple mechanics of your words are not at issue here.

"Purely playing it" -- that phrase takes a particular view of a game. I might as well "purely read" a book. Using "play" within that context asserts that there are other non-diegetic or even other diegetic elements which do not constitute play. Here at least, is how I see a game:

A game is a set of mechanics and images and sounds that together produce a goal, an idea, or even just suggest possibilities. Maybe the game focuses more on mechanics, a game like Chess or Go, or wants to create a deeper interaction with its ostensible narrative, such as Dark Souls. Whatever the case, a game brings some assumptions and values forward for a player to inspect, which a player may then accept or reject. Perhaps in Dark Souls, a player gets stuck on a boss and quits the game; they've tossed aside some assumed amount of progress and interaction with the game, and maybe the designers of Dark Souls accounted for that, and maybe they didn't. Games can also bring up ideas as would a movie or book, through dialogue and character development. Some players while playing through The Witcher 2 might become disgusted with Geralt's constant philandering, and refuse to engage with some parts of the story as a result -- like the inverse of putting down a book because you think all the characters are goody-two-shoes people who wouldn't exist in real life. Heck, maybe you decide to read the book differently, and instead continue on to mentally disparage the story and critique the writing. A person may engage with a work in any number of ways, depending upon how that work conveys and communicates what it assumes the audience believes, what it wants the audience to believe, what it values, and what it wants the audience to value. An audience member need neither explicitly accept nor reject those various facets of a work, but they're there, and any audience will interact with them in one way or another.

The same holds in a basic way for a game like Chess. The game comes with a set of rules for the players, which govern how players are expected to interact with the game and with each other. White moves first, players take turns, each piece moves in a particular pattern, and a player becomes the winner of the game when they check mate their opponent's king. In the way it normally functions, Chess also assumes that the desired end goal for any player is to win within the rules of the game. This is a basic, core value of the game which helps to drive and shape the interaction with the players. By just sitting down at a chess board with another player opposite and playing a game of chess, both players must make a decision about how much they respect, value, and believe in the explicit rules of the game. They must. Any action they take at that board exists in relation to the rules, either in deference or rejection, and those actions also exist in relation to the assumed values of the game. Those need not always be in perfect parallel; a player may remain exactly within the rules while making an intentional effort to lose. Think of a father and daughter playing a game of chess: the father may make moves that he knows would prevent him from winning the game, so that his daughter may have a better chance. By doing this, the father rejects a central assumption of the game, namely, that winning is the chief goal. In this case, the father values spending quality time with his daughter, talking with her, and helping her have fun above the values that the game supplies. Which is more than a legitimate way to play a game, it's a wonderful way to play a game! Heaven forbid we doom a generation of children to tears and fallen pieces because we demand that people follow the exact rules and values given to them. It's a different way of approaching a set of rules, beliefs, and assumptions. Not right or wrong, just different.

Thanks to that long introduction, that lets me talk about how I pick the games that I play, the ones with which I spend my free time. I look for games in whose explicit rules and implicit values I want to participate. This is why I play Legacy, Modern, and Standard in MtG, but will never touch Elder Dragon Highlander. EDH is a fundamentally different game in most contexts because the assumed values are different. Games are ultimately a construction of their players (and I could probably go for a couple more pages on that, but for now --), and when a group of players sit down to play EDH, they usually want to play some large creatures, get a lot of mana on the field, talk with their friends, and see weird interactions go off. Those aren't the exact same as winning, though, at least in the specific sense of the rules.

So I approach a game by asking "What does this look like when I take all its rules and values and jam them together? What does ostensible winning look like? What ideas and themes (literary, aesthetic) emerge from interacting with this game in the way it expects? Do I want to do what this game wants me to do?" Now, I certainly also enjoy games which may challenge those questions, or the assumptions in those questions. Sometimes, games assume things or say things that people don't like. Books and movies and poetry and sculpture do that too. But I don't have to like everything a work does to get something out of it, to appreciate it. I'll play games like Glitchhikers or Darkest Dungeon that may actually promote or suggest ideas that I don't like, that make me feel icky, or make me think, because in that case I'm bringing a new and different value to that interaction which supersedes the value of the game: I value understanding the game and its designer by temporarily experiencing what the games wants me to value and experience.

For most games, though, games with which I spend a great deal of time and from which I derive a different kind of enjoyment, I want something that makes an environment with its values that I enjoy. For me, that's Pox. Pox implies that players should want win, because that's how it's constructed, as a conflict between players. I like going through Pox as a competitive game. I take Pox at its face values, where winning is absolutely everything, where how you get there matters only as far as it works, where expression of an idea only matters as it is actually expressed within the rules and assumptions of the game; I won't play a concept BG that delivers on some abstract idea if it doesn't actually work. It's the working within the rules that I enjoy. For me, that's playing Pox, and that's all I do -- play. The fantastic part is seeing everything that emerges from the stresses and contortions and controls of a limited, definite, rules-based environment.

There is no pure competitor. This person that enjoys winning more than playing is a phantom, a linguistic trick of the light. Every player enjoys playing the game, or they stop playing. But to me, "playing the game" means interacting with the assumptions and values, both implicit and explicit, within a game, much as reading means to a book. Players may do different things with those initial emotional and intellectual objects, but it's play just the same.

And it's quite alright -- once more, more than alright -- for players to approach a game differently. Different people look for different things, not just in books or movies or in games. A businessman might come home and watch a light drama to get away from the trials of the office, a critic may watch the same show to delve into the director's intent and ideas, and yet a high school kid might watch the very same show because they empathize with the characters and feel they can learn something from them. They're all watching the show, just interacting with what it brings to the table in different ways.

Yes, players do look for and want different things. Sometimes, even, the same person wants different things from different games. Yes of course developers must make decisions. "Players want different things" and "Developers must make marketing decisions" are such straight and bland statements of fact that saying them does little. But it's how you build and talk about these ideas that provides them weight and substance, and I think framing anything as a playing-winning dichotomy, in any light, places two fundamentally different parts of the game, ones that inhabit different spheres entirely, in direct and false opposition. How a player sees a game, how they interact with one, comes from much more than just marketing, too, it comes from the mechanics at the heart of that game. Quite the contrary to balance having nothing to do with it, balance has everything to do with it. Nothing is balanced in the abstract, and nothing is overpowered in the abstract. They all require reference. Balanced upon what? What axis of action? In the case of Pox and any other game that professes to be competitive, along the axis of both players moving against each other to win the game. Neither is joy some abstract absolute, but something the game must assume and the players must decide. My real concern -- point of difference -- here has to do with how you have, through your choice of language and framing of ideas, structured the relationships between various ideas. Here's a quick chart that breaks down two different ways to structure a player's approach to a game.

1. Preferences
2. ->Choice of how to weigh and portion things based on preferences
3. winning - enjoying - learning (some people may be more or less about enjoying the game)

1. Establish personal definition of enjoyment
2. ->Decision on how to interact with game's values and rules based on definition
3. accept - reject - modify (note that fun is nowhere in here, it's already a given concept)

I feel that enjoyment is at its core not one option based on preferences but itself an element of a person's preference, because it doesn't exist as some abstract, whole concept but as a concrete experience in relation to a person's actions and ideas; it's too vague and personal to be a distinct choice. So really, really, -- really -- my main problem here is what words you used. It's a tiny problem and a lot of words, but that kind of problem needs a lot of words, because if just one word doesn't work between two people, you need a whole lot of backup to fill in that mental gulf.

To attempt to address the distinction I think you're bringing up, in the way I would frame it, because I certainly feel there's something there -- I think some players take a broad view of all games as fitting a certain set of values, which they themselves take into any experience and substitute for the game's values, where other players approach a game first on the game's own presented terms. That former group comprises those guys that kick watermelons across the continent in Skyrim, that play EDH to see how much mana they can spend on a commander. They're the goofballs and wildcards and re-makers who play by their own rules. Sometimes they expect others to do so as well (if anyone has heard of "honor" in Dark Souls PvP, it's those guys, in a different vein). The latter group, those who approach a game without any immediate rules of their own, often seem like the die-hard competitors, those who win at any cost, by any means. Power above all else, and damn the scrubs that don't try. And while I disagree with the way you set up that kind of split, it's darn useful to talk about those two different groups of people, and if you can't tell, I sure love to talk about stuff that so much as sneezes at useful. I would even bet, just based on comments you've made in this thread and one or two others, that we fall into different groups.

Done for now.

 

You totally are misconstruing what was said.
Never did i quantify fun for any of the people i described.
It's not about HOW MUCH fun. I can't possibly quantify that.


Its the motivation and goal for what they are doing. That translates into skill and concern.


Here's a conversation:

A) " Hey! You're finally on man! Can't believe i never knew you played League!"
B) " Yea bro, been playing for about a year now. What do you play? " " I sent the invite"
A)" Oh! Sorry" " There we go, accepted" " So you've been playing for a year?" " I just started a few months ago, i play Tryndamere mostly"
B)"Tryn! lol" " He sucks bro, you should pick up Riven, Jax, or Gnar. They're topping LCS right now"
A)"Tryn sucks?! What! I dunno man, he's just cool. He has a big sword, he spins, and he doesn't even die when you try to kill him! Boss!"
B)"Lol. Whatever man. He still sucks! lol. You ready?"
A)"Hold on. Give me invite, i have a buddy that wants to play. He's really good at Zac!"
B)"Zac? Oh hell no! He aint playing Zac with me!" " Whats up with you guys and playing suck champs?!"
A)" Awe, Come on man!" " He's really good with Zac. Plus he bounces, its funny as hell!"
B)" Psssh. Fine. Invite him." "NOBODY is good at Zac! lol" " You can't be good with a terrible champs!"
A)" Awe. Nevermind, he said he's gonna wait to play one with his friend who's about to get on"
B)" Ok. Ready up"
A)" Hey! Lets do Bravery!"
B)"What? What the Firk is that?"
A)" You go to Ultimate Bravery dot com and they randomize a champ and build for you! lol" " Its alot of fun!"
B) " The Firk. Hell no. Im not doing that stupid Bane Shift." " What would i lose on purpose!?"
A)" Its just fun man!" " Its a challenge and you see a lot of silly Bane Shift happen lol" " Its funny as hell when you see an AD Soraka! lol" "BANANA of Doom!"
B)"Bro im not doing that dumb Bane Shift. Im tryna win!"
A)"Come on man, its just for fun!"
B)"Losing is not Firking fun! Id rather you play trash ass Tryndamere!"
A)" Psssh, Fine Fine Fine. I'll play Tryn, lets go"


I could make a whole dialogue of the entire game sequence of how these two are different and one clearly enjoys the game with out much concern for winning and the other is motivated more by winning.

Its not HOW MUCH they enjoy the game or IF they have fun.
Its the scale at which FUN or WINNING motivates them to play.

 

I'm simply here to announce on my behalf and on behalf of all the other SP players that don't post. I've probably read on this thread more than I read my entire public education record combined.

 

Are you telling me that guys like Tiny use runes on ranked because they like the story behind them?

If you really believe that then ure the ignorant.


PS: The algoritm I've suggested solves the balance problem. It does so matematically so there is no discussion on that. I know this intuitivelly but if you pay me enough I can spend some research hours and prove it to you.

PS2: oh... and i have some books to suggest on collective intelligence to suggest if u guys are interested.

 

You've stated right there at the end the exact idea I was disagreeing with. "FUN or WINNING." The two aren't opposed to each other, and that's an artificial distinction that makes it sound as though winning is an alternative to fun, rather than an element of the game that different people value more or less highly than others. Winning is not a separate motivator than fun, and saying that it is puts an implied value judgment on those two different types of players.

 

Tiny played moga when it was 'bad'

 

wut... What does this have to do with being an SP player? o.o

 

This has been done before in Pox's history. It was helpful in some ways, but it brought its own set of problems.

 

Like what?

 

That does not prove anything.
The guys who are successful on ranked always play, when ranked, with the most efficient runes.

So using those guys rune usage data will show how to make the most efficient champs less efficient. It will bring balance and throught that diversity.

 

no matter, it's soks fault

 

There are several issues with this approach for me.

1. Runes aren't always used because they are especially strong, but rather because they are the best or only option for the role. For example, when this was tried before 'fireblast' was one of the most popular runes in UD, so in your system would be nerfed - but if you actually look at fire blast it is worse than most other factions AoEs which are much less popular. It is run so much because it is the only direct damage AoE UD has.

2. Having an especially strong rune can give factions a particular flavour - UD wouldn't be UD without sacrifice or retribution.

 

While there is certainly a grain of truth to what you say it isnt the whole story. The majority of the top players (Top25-50) are guys (mebe a few gals) that have been playing the game for a very long time with thousands of hours of time spent on playing or observing matches.
There are maybe 5 guys that play at a legit competitive level and need to worry about min/maxing the efficincy of their deck and only for facing each other. There are maybe a dozen guys that can give them a challenge and even then almost all of them, have runes in their deck simply because they like them. They dont need to streamline their decks becauase frankly they can snooze through their matches and still have a 75% w/l rate.
The ones that are running hyper efficiency decks are the 100 or so guys outside the top ranks trying to immitate the top 5 guys in a hope of being in the top 100.

 

This distortion can happen on specific cases but not in general.

You may have a very skilled player who can actually play with anything and still win. But he will be an exception, not the rule.

 

Yeah, but no rune should be auto-include. Sacrifice should not be better, nor worst, than any other rune in UD.

A lot of players will use ret/sac for flavor reasons but on competitive level guys will only use it runes for it cost/benefit.

 

no