What does Balance mean to you in FAF?

[Azraeel]

Hi... :?

This is a tricky question for everyone. What does Balance truly mean in FAF. Most people would say well obviously keeping it competitive or fun.
Well thats not what i really mean...

I mean -

What makes something OP?
What makes something Trash?
What makes the game more interesting?
What makes people wanna use this unit over another unit?
Does Factional Diversity really matter?
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More Crazy Questions -

How radical do we ever get with changes?
How do we even know these are truly changes, we want?
How do these changes affect overrall gameplay?
Do some factions just suck in some areas?
Why are we even making these changes?
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The True Question -

What makes balance good (in your opinion)?







My Own Personal Meaning of Balance

What Does OP Mean To Me? -

As soon as something becomes obvious, most of the humans will naturally desire whatever it is - that's an important tool in balancing, just listening to a group of players actually playing the game. They inevitably have their own discussions about it. When something is OP - no one dicusses it much - they just ask for it as soon as they can.
While it would be nice if you had this real faction diversity - the fact is - the first thing that humans do is get an engineer from the Aeon player so they can build their own Paragon. And that's a key component of any OP unit really. (Not Saying Paragon is OP)

Now What I Think Balance Team Does or What Happens to Balance In-General Term -

Knee Jerk Reactions to balance issues, We need to fix something, because it looked like a problem.. We'll do many test against something in that sector we won't think about how it affects the entire gameplay but only 1 part of the gameplay. We will only react fast and quick and try to keep everyone happy which is impossible. Knee Jerk Reactions in my opinion, but not an insulting way, because i know you guys test and test balance tho.... You'll continue to change balance forever because u have no solid balance theory or idea.


I Guess the real Question is what is your Balance Theory or Idea, Kind of Balance.



NOW THIS IS OBVIOUSLY AN OPINION THREAD SO DONT GET ALL IN YOUR FEELINGS PLEASE!

[FtXCommando]

What makes something OP? It nearly always being a dominant strategy
What makes something Trash? It never being a dominant strategy
What makes the game more interesting? Not having constantly dominant strategies
What makes people wanna use this unit over another unit? It being more mass efficient
Does Factional Diversity really matter? Yes
--

More Crazy Questions -

How radical do we ever get with changes? As radical as needed.
How do we even know these are truly changes, we want? You don't.
How do these changes affect overrall gameplay? You play and figure it out.
Do some factions just suck in some areas? Yeah?
Why are we even making these changes? To balance the game?
--

The True Question -

What makes balance good (in your opinion)? Variance.

[armacham01]

Balance means that we experience diverse gameplay (i.e., we aren't stuck with just a very small number of dominant strategies)

It is more important that high-level games be balanced, than low-level games, because lower-level players are just going to try to copy what the high-level players do. If the high-level games are balanced, low-level games should also end up balanced.

If you don't like the current balance, you can make a balance mod. GalacticFear made one for Seton's, Blackheart made BHEdit, there is "Equilibrium," and probably other things.

That is also a way to test out your ideas for balance. If people try your mod and they like your ideas, it can be incorporated into the main game. I've heard that multiple changes first appeared in Equilibrium before being adopted into FAF.

FAF is actually very mature in terms of the balance and the kind of tweaks being made now are actually pretty small. It seems that it only takes a small change to alter the balance in a big way. If FAF was not well-balanced, small changes would make barely any impact on teh strategies people use. But if it is well-balanced, a small change can completely tilt how the game is played. Like the relatively small boost to mongoose, which had to be partially walked back.

[Elusive]

What makes something OP?
What makes something Trash?

The way I see it, often theese two are the same question, two sides of the same coin, if you want. For example, I belive that T4 air is underpowered, but not because T4 is weak, but because ASFs are overpowered.
To expand on that notion, balance is (when simplified down A LOT) either an A=B direct comparision, or a rock paper scisors situation where one thing is hard counted by another, but is not overpowered because it is hard counted its self. If you break either of theese paterns you end up in a sitation in which at least one option will in every meaningful situation be an objectivly better option than another.
To go back to ASFs as an example, there are three main types of AA, Fighters, Sams/flak, and Mobile AA. In proper balance each of theese options would be roughly equally effective in the same situation or have an equal share of situatns where one is the preferd option. But that isnt the case, as ASFs are the best way to kill enemy air units. Full stop. The other two options are auxilary mesures at best.
Yes you can make a bajaillion SAMs or whatever and win air, but your gimping yourself because it would be easier to just spam ASFs.

What makes the game more interesting?

This is a hard one, and I recon is even more subjective than balance discussions. I for one enjoy long games that often get into the late t3 stage, sometimes t4. Other people prefer quick games that end with someone getting T2 rushed. Both are valid, yet swap us around and I would find the short game frustraitiong and the other guy would find the long game boring.

Does Factional Diversity really matter?

Yes. And no.
To answer this question you need to ask what the spesific game wants to achive. Some RTS games have little or no faction divericty but still play wonderfully, because they are built around the understanding that everyone will have the same units. Some RTS games have lots of faction diversity because they wanted to... well, have diversity. And even then, you need to ask if the diversity was intended to be between vastly different setups (See, Gray Goo as a perfect example) or similar setups with medium to minor differences.
I personally greatly value faciton diversity in SupCom and do wish it to be increased, but the game is by no means the type of game where each faction is truly unique and people should definitely not try to aim for that goal.

How radical do we ever get with changes?

Personally... I think that the changes made are not radical enough. No one likes haveing thier favorate stratergy changed or nerfed, their favorate unit shuffled around, but sometimes big sweeping changes are for the better, and to delay them just ends up hurting more in the long run. FAF balance does have its problems, and some of them cant be fixed with small number tweaks.

How do we even know these are truly changes, we want?

I know what I want from this game. And im fairly sure everyone else does as well.
But what we want is often not what we need. I want faction diversity to be increased a great deal, I know this for sure. But I do not know if it would actally make the game better.

Do some factions just suck in some areas?

This is all about scope. Seraphim dont have a T2 mobile shield, so their ablity to protect their land units from fire worse than the Aeon, UEFs and even Cybrans to a lesser extent. But no one cares about that because that is zooming in too close to see the bigger picture, which in this case is that the overall T2 land of the Seraphim is as good as any other faction. It 'sucks' at t2 shielding but makes up for it in other ways.
It is ok for a faction to suck in an area, or even several, as long as its overall strength is maintained.

What makes balance good (in your opinion)?

To be entirely honest, I cant really answer this. Balance at the grand scale is someone of such a rediculious complexity and intracy that any way I put it to words will sound downright insane.
A balanced game must reward player skill. But also must alow someone of lower skill to beat a higher skill person.
A balanced game must let every unit within the game to be viable. But also must force you to use spesific units.
A balanced game must alow a loseing player to win. But also must prevent a player who is loseing to win.

[MrTBSC]

ballance in general to me means that the unitpool i am offered has options to allow varied playstyles, strategies and intresting tactics preferably at any stage of the match ... i feel that FAF as it is now simply does not offer that and is too limited ..


what makes things OP?

you just need to look at either t3 units or experimentals and FAF´s general ballancephilosophy ... t3 units are simply more power behind larger ammounts of armor, one t3 unit can have just 10% of its health it´s still as powerful as 20 t1 units ...

what makes something trash?
lower tier units in lategame matches unless the players bombed eachother back to tier1

what makes the game more intresting?
i would say the addition of a few more specialty units like the firebeatle and mercy and ballancing hightier units and structures to not be this superspongy on taking damage that lowertier units merely tickle them ..

what makes people wanna use this unit over other units?
example beatle ... it´s a microunit with a big blast that when ballanced right would allow for fun tacticts to either snipe keystructures or use vs an army to significantly damage it or reduce its numbers ..
also deciver ...

units like the mongoose and hoplite break the mold of simply throwing out units and throwing them at one another as with these you have to play a bit smarter cause they are not as dmgspongy ..

does faction diversaty matter?
sure does otherwise we could just play mirrormatches all day long (if it doesn´t matter why are so many people against playing planetary annihilation?)
if a game like command and conquer: tiberian dawn and red alert from 20+ years back can offer factiondiversaty even with a mere handfull of units with just 2 factions i bloody expect FAF to do so too ... (you guys seriously may gonna try openRedAlert, it´s free and you don´t need an account ... IT ALSO GETS A ZOOMFEATURE ... though no strategic icons.... (yet?))...

pure cosmetic and identification isn´t realy enough to make a faction intresting ..

[biass]

https://www.grammarly.com/grammar-check ... hAQAvD_BwE

anyway

What makes balance good (in your opinion)?
In short, balance is good when if I am clearly playing level or better than an opponent, i'm not suddenly penalised by building a unit or using strategy - that is applicable for the task at hand - but too statistically weak to work at my level of play.

What makes something OP?
A unit is overpowered when I can get anywhere from a huge advantage to a game win by building that specific unit.
Old firebeetles was a classic example, despite my opponent having a better start, a clear lead, and anticipated the snipe (it was a "coach helps you tourney" and I had Tokyto as a coach...) with an overly large investment in it's counters - I still got away with the snipe quite easily.

What makes something Trash?
A unit is underpowered when I am unfarily penalized for making the unit.
Old Titans is the easy example; making Loyalists - the other unit of their power level, was met with success while making titans sometimes netted you an immediate game loss at higher rating.

What makes the game more interesting?
A good variety of none of the above two.

What makes people wanna use this unit over another unit?
It's statistcally better to use.

Does Factional Diversity really matter?
I'm not going to humor this question with an answer.
--

More Crazy Questions -

How radical do we ever get with changes?
Sometimes the balance team gets "so radical" that they get shit on for making a unit both under AND overpowered at the same time.

How do we even know these are truly changes, we want?
Testing.

How do these changes affect overral gameplay?
You test it.

Do some factions just suck in some areas?
Yes, intentionally.

Why are we even making these changes?
We do live in a society, after all.
--

[Little Miss Murder]

For me it's simple - every opposing gambit needs to have a counter that is equivalent in resource cost.

[Morax]

It means that as many units, strategies, utilities, etc. have purpose and are not greatly superior or inferior over others.

Best example progress I can think of in balance is the nerfing of t3 land, in particular the loyalist.

I got so bored of seeing cybran loyalist rush in 1v1 it nearly drove me away from the game.

[Azraeel]

For me it's simple - every opposing gambit needs to have a counter that is equivalent in resource cost.

In my opinion, everything doesnt need a counter.

[Little Miss Murder]

For me it's simple - every opposing gambit needs to have a counter that is equivalent in resource cost.

In my opinion, everything doesnt need a counter.

What so you can spam it?