An Art of Balance
posted on November 22nd, 2011, 5:34 pm
Balancing Fleet Operations is a delicate battle between semi-scientific testing and the almighty gut feeling.
Ironically, testing involves a great deal of writing and talking (to explain results, argue, and describe solutions). Of course, a vast quantity of games are necessary to back up those arguments.
Newly made units and abilities (as well as potentially problematic old features) are discussed in advance of playing with them in betas and possible balancing tests are considered and noted down within the team.
Balancing tests change based on the nature of the feature: if the affected unit is available in the early game, build orders can be sculpted around this new item and its effect can be measured fairly well - changes can be considered based on empirical data (aka, this ability simply p0wns) and/or on gut feeling (the unit ‘feels’ a bit too effective). Features must usually be tested with every faction and a large number of build orders, and their impact in all stages of the game has to be considered for usefulness.
Most improvements to early-game balance can be accomplished by simple number tweaks – damage is increased or decreased, the cost is altered, a warship’s speed is changed.
In fact, whenever possible, it is highly desirable to adjust balance based on these simple mechanics. Not only are these incremental changes relatively easy to test, but they are also quick to implement. For instance, should a unit’s build time increase, it is a “simple” matter of adjusting all the values for that unit and spreading them to testers. It is also easier to tweak such changes as testing proceeds, so that balancing approaches an ‘optimal’ solution.
Changing abilities and unit roles requires extensive coding changes, and may even require completely new commands which can take a long time (sometimes many versions) to carefully plan out, discuss, and implement. Likewise, such core changes mean that changes must meet not just basic balancing considerations, but usually also storyline and fun-factor points. As a result, these types of changes are usually considered for long term issues, with the simple value alterations being used as (relatively) temporary fixes.
However, there are also other - very important - factors to consider when balancing:
Even if a feature is neither too weak nor too powerful in the hands of capable players, it can be the case that the feature still creates problems for the majority of casual or new players. As a result it is important to consider the micromanagement and fun aspects of the feature - whether it takes too high a level of skill to use it, or whether it is too management intensive to defeat it, and whether it is just *yawn* boring.
Last, and certainly not least, the desires of the developer team must be considered when rebalancing a feature - it must be ‘cool’, it must be ‘fun’, and it must meet the goals that fit it into the Fleet Operations Star Trek Universe!
Next time we'll discuss some of the particulars of balancing!
Ironically, testing involves a great deal of writing and talking (to explain results, argue, and describe solutions). Of course, a vast quantity of games are necessary to back up those arguments.
Newly made units and abilities (as well as potentially problematic old features) are discussed in advance of playing with them in betas and possible balancing tests are considered and noted down within the team.
Balancing tests change based on the nature of the feature: if the affected unit is available in the early game, build orders can be sculpted around this new item and its effect can be measured fairly well - changes can be considered based on empirical data (aka, this ability simply p0wns) and/or on gut feeling (the unit ‘feels’ a bit too effective). Features must usually be tested with every faction and a large number of build orders, and their impact in all stages of the game has to be considered for usefulness.
Most improvements to early-game balance can be accomplished by simple number tweaks – damage is increased or decreased, the cost is altered, a warship’s speed is changed.
In fact, whenever possible, it is highly desirable to adjust balance based on these simple mechanics. Not only are these incremental changes relatively easy to test, but they are also quick to implement. For instance, should a unit’s build time increase, it is a “simple” matter of adjusting all the values for that unit and spreading them to testers. It is also easier to tweak such changes as testing proceeds, so that balancing approaches an ‘optimal’ solution.
Changing abilities and unit roles requires extensive coding changes, and may even require completely new commands which can take a long time (sometimes many versions) to carefully plan out, discuss, and implement. Likewise, such core changes mean that changes must meet not just basic balancing considerations, but usually also storyline and fun-factor points. As a result, these types of changes are usually considered for long term issues, with the simple value alterations being used as (relatively) temporary fixes.
However, there are also other - very important - factors to consider when balancing:
Even if a feature is neither too weak nor too powerful in the hands of capable players, it can be the case that the feature still creates problems for the majority of casual or new players. As a result it is important to consider the micromanagement and fun aspects of the feature - whether it takes too high a level of skill to use it, or whether it is too management intensive to defeat it, and whether it is just *yawn* boring.
Last, and certainly not least, the desires of the developer team must be considered when rebalancing a feature - it must be ‘cool’, it must be ‘fun’, and it must meet the goals that fit it into the Fleet Operations Star Trek Universe!
Next time we'll discuss some of the particulars of balancing!
posted on November 22nd, 2011, 5:49 pm
posted on November 22nd, 2011, 5:55 pm
Um.... very interesting Dominus, but what exactly are we supposed to get from this? 
posted on November 22nd, 2011, 6:02 pm
The topic here is simply to give some an idea of what goes on behind the scenes ^-^ . In later newsposts I hope to cover more about how we are progressing through the faction redoes and why decisions were made
@Drrr: Balancing will always be a more sensitive issue than (most) other types of news posts - you are of course privy to your own opinion, but you also know quite well that everybody has their own opinion of what constitutes strength and weakness
For the time being we are not comfortable with public statistics - not only because it would require a dedicated server - but also because Fleet Ops players are not in a community large enough or competitive enough to cause little more than hard feelings. That of course may change down the road ^-^. Likewise, while public statistics might seem to offer some way of measuring metagame stuff, there are far too few players to come up with any reasonable measure of balance (and far too few players who play all the factions, or play regularly). If you wish to discuss this further, I suggest opening a new thread
@Drrr: Balancing will always be a more sensitive issue than (most) other types of news posts - you are of course privy to your own opinion, but you also know quite well that everybody has their own opinion of what constitutes strength and weakness
For the time being we are not comfortable with public statistics - not only because it would require a dedicated server - but also because Fleet Ops players are not in a community large enough or competitive enough to cause little more than hard feelings. That of course may change down the road ^-^. Likewise, while public statistics might seem to offer some way of measuring metagame stuff, there are far too few players to come up with any reasonable measure of balance (and far too few players who play all the factions, or play regularly). If you wish to discuss this further, I suggest opening a new thread
posted on November 22nd, 2011, 7:38 pm
Drrrrrr wrote:I don't really get what you want to tell us. What you wrote sounds like an excuse why things are not improved right now and we still have to deal with numerous inbalances. Rather than explaining why things not happened it would be wise to talk about a way out of this issue. You could, for example, tell us that the devs are going to implement public statistics for each played online game...that way we can recognize inbalances easier and then discuss on the counter-measures.
Someone needs to invent a machine that Drrr can strap to his face. A machine full of sugar that his word will pass through to become sweeter and kinder
.I think, Drrrr that Dom is trying to illustrate better the way in which the mod evolves and why new content put into new patches takes longer to balance than just "wait and see".
Unless you'd like another 3.1 Kvort or a 3.0.7 Sensor Blackout
posted on November 22nd, 2011, 9:57 pm
Boggz wrote:Unless you'd like another 3.1 Kvort or a 3.0.7 Sensor Blackout
Oh... no... Don't speak those words! I can still remember the nightmares! Mercy! Mercy!
posted on November 22nd, 2011, 10:51 pm
posted on November 22nd, 2011, 11:09 pm
posted on November 22nd, 2011, 11:40 pm
posted on November 23rd, 2011, 12:31 am
posted on November 23rd, 2011, 1:14 am
Njm1983 wrote:I found this very insightful. Its not often that people think about how much a change they suggest could cause the team to have to edit.
I imagine the process is like the "Year of hell" you just try and pull one tiny thread out and "poof!" its thrown the whole thing outta whack.
Glad to hear some good came of it
. That reasoning is just about right - a lot of the time little tweaks can have big cascading consequences across many other faction match ups - even those that aren't used that often are still a valid point of concern.
posted on November 23rd, 2011, 3:30 am
Boggz wrote: Someone needs to invent a machine that Drrr can strap to his face. A machine full of sugar that his word will pass through to become sweeter and kinder
posted on November 23rd, 2011, 6:41 am
Boggz wrote:Unless you'd like another 3.1 Kvort or a 3.0.7 Sensor Blackout
*shiver* I remember those. Since I didn't play as either of those races at that time, I was usually obliterated when I came across one of those strategies
posted on November 23rd, 2011, 7:15 am
Old Plasma coil was the beast..... though there were some other fun balancing issues in older patches, in fact I do recall this one game I played with dom and mal............
Nice post dom, good to remind people of all the intricate parts that do go on behind the scenes, especially with balancing. Maybe you could talk about how the devs test things as well? I always here about balance forumulas and such? Do the devs have fleetops dates and such? Where they order some pizza and just play fleetops to figure out which units are balanced? Is there a board full of fleetops ideas? And most importantly, am I asking to many questions?
Nice post dom, good to remind people of all the intricate parts that do go on behind the scenes, especially with balancing. Maybe you could talk about how the devs test things as well? I always here about balance forumulas and such? Do the devs have fleetops dates and such? Where they order some pizza and just play fleetops to figure out which units are balanced? Is there a board full of fleetops ideas? And most importantly, am I asking to many questions?
posted on November 23rd, 2011, 12:19 pm
Dont forget about the warp in which required only engineering (not science also) and 25 perc faster build times for mason if i remember correctly. Or the wonderfull full firing arc e2 with extra acuracy against medium i think, and was faster also.
What i would actually like to see is some replays how things are tested. They ofcourse dont have to be commented. You know a picture is worth a thousand words. So lets SEE stuff!
Some of us "old" players consider certain race matchups to be almost imposible to win for certain races (if certain strategies are used) , and some ships i almost have never seen in game. I would like to see them used effectivly. Obviously we are missing something. As you said that you have to consider that certain strategies are too microintensive or just too hard to counter for most of the regular or new players, so people evade them. So the best thing you can do is to show us!
What i would actually like to see is some replays how things are tested. They ofcourse dont have to be commented. You know a picture is worth a thousand words. So lets SEE stuff!
Some of us "old" players consider certain race matchups to be almost imposible to win for certain races (if certain strategies are used) , and some ships i almost have never seen in game. I would like to see them used effectivly. Obviously we are missing something. As you said that you have to consider that certain strategies are too microintensive or just too hard to counter for most of the regular or new players, so people evade them. So the best thing you can do is to show us!
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