Ways to test changes

[FunkOff]

A lot of people here on the balance forum like to throw out the suggestion, stated like a requirement, that every single change be tested vigorously before implementation. There are a few ways to test changes, each with their own unique properties.

First, changes in the form of a mod. At most, this would allow 1 person, the change suggester and mod maker, to test the change. Nobody plays mods, nobody likes testing, and it's very easy to just lie and say "I tested it, this happened".

Second, changes with multi-person tests. These are hard to organize because nobody likes working for free are prone to sampling biases. Who's to say some new game-breaking imbalance doesn't exist with the new change that the small group of testers simply did not think of? Wouldn't it be awful if something got by them and ruined FA?

Third, making the change official. There's not really any way to definitively say how a change will impact the game and meta-game without actually putting the change in the game to try it out. Changes in FAF can be made fairly quickly and reverted just as easily. With no laborious publisher QA process to go through, it's actually really simple to change things or revert changes.

It seems like a lot of people are stuck in the mindset of begging GPG for one last patch, and are of the opinion that absolutely no bad changes must ever make it into the game because then they will be forever irreversible, like a scar on the visage, a permanent overpowered blight on FA's face. FAF is better than GPGnet, we can do better than GPG.

[Gowerly]

I will say some things. They may sound offensive, or provocative, but that's because I never got the hang of sugarcoating my words. Anyway, disclaimer over...
I can see where you think we can just release untested changes and revert them if they're stupid, but it's a terrible idea if we want to keep the community interested. You're also putting a lot of faith in your audience. Granted, the FA and FAF community is one of the better ones I've seen and I'm sure some, if not most of them will be happy that we're just doing something.
You suggest that making and unmaking changes is super-easy and this may be the case. However, the following is also true.
- It takes one mistake to put people off uses FAF,
- Making lots of changes quickly will also put people off as they will be fed up with the balance changing over and over again,
- I am one of thes best people I know at seeing problems with an idea. Even I miss things, though (e.g. I don't know what effects in the long run changing the DPS of ACUs would do. Which units are now that much worse against ACUs? Sure I know all the numbers but I can't recall them all in a list).

Speaking from my side. I will see an idea. I will automatically say it's bad for multiple reasons
- I want to know that you know what you're talking about.
- I generally hate change.
- Doing something like this opens discussion.

I would suggest having our own QA pool that can get versions of the patch before others and test them out for us. I'm sure there would be 5-10 people that would like to do that for us while we balance the game out.

Our time is not more precious than anyone else's. If we care about making this game better we won't just make a change and think "yeah, I've managed to solve a problem no-one in 3 years has, go me" and send it out to the public. People will lose faith in us. Make bad decisions and revert them and it gives out entirely the wrong message. We're the people in charge of this, we're really not allowed to make mistakes.

[FunkOff]

Speaking from my side. I will see an idea. I will automatically say it's bad for multiple reasons

Lol, that just makes you a d***.

[Lu_Xun_17]

- Making lots of changes quickly will also put people off as they will be fed up with the balance changing over and over again,

=> this is already happening :
some players try to come back on FA, after 2 years without playing this. Seeing only OC system is sometimes enough to make them going to an other game.

So i really wonder what will happen when they will see this kind of thing :



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[Ze_PilOt]

- Making lots of changes quickly will also put people off as they will be fed up with the balance changing over and over again,

=> this is already happening :
some players try to come back on FA, after 2 years without playing this. Seeing only OC system is sometimes enough to make them going to an other game.

So i really wonder what will happen when they will see this kind of thing :

If they don't like change, FAF is not the game they need, and it's indeed better than they don't come back.
Sorry to be harsh, but the goal is to make the game evolve (hopefully in a better way), not stagnant like GPGNet (because GPGNet already exists for that).

The question they should ask themselves is why they left the game, and why they are coming back to a new project if they want to play the exact same game they left.

Then second goal is to bring new players to the game, because they are more numerous than the old players. And FAF have a lot of success in that way too.

[Ze_PilOt]

About the way the balance will be made :

- This balance section exists for the only purpose of group thinking, and avoid balance discussions in the main chat.
It's not in any way a representation of the future of the game.

- A balance team *will* be formed (there is hidden section in the forum for that). Their goal is to test any idea in game, not fight with numbers.

- Until a balance team is formed, no balance change will be bring in. The ship wreckage was a feature I wanted, if a balance must be done around it, it will be done later. Same for bombers drop, it's only a bugfix. It can (and will) change balance, but it's a good change and will not be reverted, so if it became too powerful because of that, the stats will be changed later.

- All balances changes will be tested as follow :
A mod will be done with a couple of ideas for a future patch.
That mod will be available for anyone, so they can bring replay to the balance team.
That mod will of course change often, until a couple of changes are rated okay by the balance team.

Then, an announce will be made here about these changes.
The balance team is not god, so any player will be aware of the changes, and if they have any GOOD opposition to one change, they can bring replay (and only replays proving their point will be taken in consideration).

The balance team is not god, but they will have the final word.

And I want that any change for a patch can go further than 5% of the original value for any value of any unit, except it's well proven to be better with a higher percentage.

The game can evolve, but it will evolve slowly, with no rush decisions and extreme balancing. We will only go forward, or as gowerly said, it will only confuse players.

Also, balance patchs will be release a most every 3 months. Again, no need to rush and confuse players.

[Gowerly]

Speaking from my side. I will see an idea. I will automatically say it's bad for multiple reasons

Lol, that just makes you a d***.

Possibly. That's not my concern. As long as it makes you think.
I'm pretty confident a lot of the ideas have had not rearly enough thought put in.

If they don't like change, FAF is not the game they need, and it's indeed better than they don't come back.
Sorry to be harsh, but the goal is to make the game evolve (hopefully in a better way), not stagnant like GPGNet (because GPGNet already exists for that).

That's all well and good until it's the competitive and long standing players and supporters of FAF that start going.

[lebensnebel]

About the way the balance will be made :

- This balance section exists for the only purpose of group thinking, and avoid balance discussions in the main chat.
It's not in any way a representation of the future of the game.

- A balance team *will* be formed (there is hidden section in the forum for that). Their goal is to test any idea in game, not fight with numbers.

- Until a balance team is formed, no balance change will be bring in. The ship wreckage was a feature I wanted, if a balance must be done around it, it will be done later. Same for bombers drop, it's only a bugfix. It can (and will) change balance, but it's a good change and will not be reverted, so if it became too powerful because of that, the stats will be changed later.

- All balances changes will be tested as follow :
A mod will be done with a couple of ideas for a future patch.
That mod will be available for anyone, so they can bring replay to the balance team.
That mod will of course change often, until a couple of changes are rated okay by the balance team.

Then, an announce will be made here about these changes.
The balance team is not god, so any player will be aware of the changes, and if they have any GOOD opposition to one change, they can bring replay (and only replays proving their point will be taken in consideration).

The balance is not god, but they will have the final word.

And I want that any change for a patch can go further than 5% of the original value for any value of any unit, except it's well proven to be better with a higher percentage.

The game can evolve, but it will evolve slowly, with no rush decisions and extreme balancing. We will only go forward, or as gowerly said, it will only confuse players.

Also, balance patchs will be release a most every 3 months. Again, no need to rush and confuse players.

That sounds awesome. An idea, which would involve some work, is to make an extra balance tab in the faf lobby. There you put the link to the official balance thread which has always the same format (st like problem, proposed solution, concers) and the link to the mod with the proposed change. You could have a minimum time of two weeks where this has to be up before the change is made.
I think that would help make the balance process more transparent, user (and newb) friendly and more people will try the balance mod.