Blodir wrote:I think the approach to faction diversity that the current balance team took in patch 3655 Beta is counterproductive. Below I will try to explain why in a short manner. I also put up some links to related game design articles if you are interested. I apologize for not going to much more detail about the concepts, but I'm sure you will get the gist of what I'm talking about. I trust the balance team to reconsider the direction they are taking with faction diversity based on community feedback that is coming in abundance.
If a unit costs the same amount of resources and fills the same purpose its stats should also be the same.What is faction diversityThe aim of faction diversity is to create interest in the form of gameplay variance. We want each faction to feel and play different and offer a different array of choices for each matchup to keep the game fresh and interesting.
How faction diversity was implemented in 3655 BetaFactory HQs, T3 Mexes and Walls were given significantly different hitpoints. Cybran getting the least, Aeon and Seraphim about the same and UEF the most.
However3655 approach creates very little interest, since the difference in gameplay opportunities is negligible. Essentially the role and purpose of each subject has remained the same. They are used in the same way, in the same situations, to a varying degree of success.
Besides the lack of faction diversity provided by the changes, they also introduce a number of problems;
IntuitivenessThey look the same, they feel the same, they smell the same, but they are not the same. It's difficult for a player to differentiate between things that are so similar in every way. The unintuitiveness adds in a big way to unfairness and burden of knowledge that are described below
http://www.gatheryourparty.com/2014/11/25/getting-to-grips-with-intuitive-design/FairnessHaving an unit/structure fill the exact purpose of another while being objectively better feels unfair, even if the factions are balanced as a whole.
http://www.whatgamesare.com/2013/01/choose-fairness-over-balance-game-design.htmlBurden of KnowledgeLearning how many strats you need to kill mexes for each faction individually etc. forces a lot of unnecessary memorization of trivial knowledge
http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=293417So what should be done instead?When diversifying the rather homogeneous unit base of SupCom it's a good rule of thumb to make each unit a tradeoff: a unit that is better than it's counterpart in one respect, should be weaker in another.
Hi,
It's been a while but here is the promised response. Also nice to see some of the pretty good articles linked that i've been reading too.
Yet, i draw different conclusions:
If a unit costs the same amount of resources and fills the same purpose its stats should also be the same.
When diversifying the rather homogeneous unit base of SupCom it's a good rule of thumb to make each unit a tradeoff: a unit that is better than it's counterpart in one respect, should be weaker in another.
First this two essential assumptions, if this concept were to be enforced, a large amount of units in the game would need to be reworked. There is no real reason units with the same stats and purpose can't be more or less good at this purpose in line with the desired weakness or strenght for the faction. It is true that more differences between the factions increases the "Burden of Knowledge", but that applies just as much or even more if units would have different cost or other kind of tradeoffs, it applies to many changes that were done in the past, and is a natural part of the game. A part that needs to be considered carefully with any change, but not a reason against change by itself. There is no way to increase faction diversity without requiring people to learn about the differences. Here is where intuitiveness plays a major role to make the required information easy to learn.
But a few examples of units with the same cost and role, but different power, without tradeoff:
-the already existing hp differences on structures (that are useless, but if you are learning the game you dont actually know that)
-t1 bombers
-hover flak
-sera transports
-percy/brick (even though percy has a tradeoff to be worse against t1, but it is purely theoretical)
-hoplite/mongoose
-TMD (Aeon is a tradeoff, but uef is plain worse)
-Stealth (cheaper AND better, no tradeoff at all)
Are all this things bad for the game? I don't agree.
I don't want to say that i would't agree to tradeoffs being often nicer, more diverse and more interesting than plane advantages or disadvantages. However just because they are often nicer, it does not mean any other way for faction diversity is bad.
Giving factions unique strengths across several units in fact follows the same idea: The faction gets some advantage in one area, but a disadvantage in another. The concept is not limited to single units, but can be applied across several units, tech levels or more.
For example cybran has weaker defences, but more offensive capability, they have the worst shields but get better stealth in return.
The point is: Having some limited diversity is better than none, if the disadvantages of the change don't outweight it of course. The difference in gameplay is not extreme, but it will matter in several of situations and can give UEF the edge or give cybran trouble where they were equal before, making the factions better in specific situations also changes how they play because it makes them more inclined to create or avoid this situations.
Now are the disadvantages, as you named named intuitiveness, fairness and burden of knowledge (though there are more) so large?
All this points are very arguable. UEF Is supposed to be the "durable turtle faction". Is it so unintuitive that their buildings have more HP? Cybran is the offensive, sneaky and tricky faction, is it so unintuitive that their buildings have less when they are based on offense rather than defence? It fits very well to the design of the faction, and thus i believe it is very intuitive to learn together with the "style" of the faction.
And in contrast to differences between most units, HP changes are something that is very easy to see, as it is directly displayed in the game. If this hp differences are unintuitive, so would be e.g. the differences in Shields, point defences, and about every type of faction diversity we have currently.
Fairness is a very related area. What is fair, and what not is a feeling that is different for everyone and thus hard to argue about. If this is bad or not, supcom is designed around unfairness between factions in different areas, stages of the game or situations. Best example is the cybran TML, is it just unfair cybran got such a nice tool or is it ok, because its increasing the deversity between the factions?
About the burden of knowledge i always tried in all changes to not increase it unreasonable, or to reduce it (which is quite hard). Similar with this changes, as mentioned, once a change is intuitive enough, it is rather easy to learn. So what is required to learn about this changes for a new, or medium, or a good player?
a) UEF buildings have more HP
b) Cybran buildings have less
This two facts should be enough for every new player to be perfectly fine. There is no need to know the details about how many tmls, bombers or other units you need to kill buildings in one pass. This are optional knowledges, that can be optioned to become a good player, but not even necessary. I have no idea how many strat bombers you need to kill a t3 pg currently, and i'm perfectly fine without knowing this. It is possible to gain advantages with such knowledge however, but since it is not required to play, this is not making the game harder to get into, it is just increasing its skillcap for the top percent.
However even for this kind of knowledge i finetuned the values to not require to learn how many strat a mex needs, even the optional knowledge is following some easy rules rather then requiring to learn arbitary values:
-UEF eco buildings need 1 more strat to die
-Cybran eco buildings need 1 less strat to die
-UEF needs one less strat to kill eco
-Cybran needs one more strat to kill eco (which is not even a new thing to learn, because its already the case for t2 mex and you just need to expand this knowledge to other buildings)
While it would be nice to have more diversity, with tradeoffs and more impactful changes, this is nothing i believe we want to do, as it would change the game too much from the original, and would be very hard to balance on top. This does not mean that some limited diversity is a bad idea, and its always possible to expand this changes a bit more in the future, if they work well and are liked.
The proposed idea in this thread of giving cybran some regen, stealth on mex or something else in return to the weakness is not bad though.
To keep the changes intuitive, they should probably expand more to t1 and t2 stage aswell, but this could easily go way beyond the desired nerf for cybran and buff for uef that we currently want, and has to wait until this changes are tested more to see their impact on balance, and to find out if we want them at all.
