Generic MG Refit Discussion (renamed)

[Zoythrus]

Really? Because competitive balance is one of the things that I love most about RTS's! I love seeing how all the factions differ, and how they are the same. I find it very intriguing seeing balanced factions duking it out using their variances.

And for those of you who find it stupid, I'm sorry to tell you that is the entire point of an RTS. (oh, and Seth, those guns are balanced, no, really)

[-Archmage-]

Really? Because competitive balance is one of the things that I love most about RTS's! I love seeing how all the factions differ, and how they are the same. I find it very intriguing seeing balanced factions duking it out using their variances.

And for those of you who find it stupid, I'm sorry to tell you that is the entire point of an RTS. (oh, and Seth, those guns are balanced, no, really)

Balance isn't the point of an RTS, strategy is the point. Balance makes games too predictable I think. If Rome was 'balanced' with the rest of the world, it would've sucked sh*t. The whole world would be a mess of completely balanced clans duelling endlessly. I think that's rather stupid....

(oh, and Seth, those guns are balanced, no, really)

So you think....you need to play the game some to realize that they aren't... at all.. You can spray with a barrett 50 cal, every shot is almost a guaranteed 1 hit kill if it hits, plus with extended mags you have 15 rounds. You can't spray with the intervention, it's bolt action, smaller clip of only 5 bullets, same recoil, same damage. It's basic style difference, truely the barrett is much more effective than the intervention in almost every way. That is not balance, that's realistic weaponry.
(It's Arch man..)

[MoLAoS]

Really? Because competitive balance is one of the things that I love most about RTS's! I love seeing how all the factions differ, and how they are the same. I find it very intriguing seeing balanced factions duking it out using their variances.

And for those of you who find it stupid, I'm sorry to tell you that is the entire point of an RTS. (oh, and Seth, those guns are balanced, no, really)

Balance is a function of boring clickfests. Like Starcraft 1 and 2. And its really only relevant for top tier play. Anyone not in the top 200 or so players couldn't tell the difference between obsessive balance and token balance. Its like how in chess white wins 53% of games but only grand masters give a shit because its a miniscule difference for regular players. Plus the AI doesn't exploit like a human anyway so balance isn't relevant. And no human can play the 8-16 hour games I like in an RTS game. Only a TBS one.

[ElimiNator]

Lets just say all the tech trees HAVE to be fairly balanced or it wont be fun because a certan faction will always win.

[Zoythrus]

Balance isn't the point of an RTS, strategy is the point. Balance makes games too predictable I think. If Rome was 'balanced' with the rest of the world, it would've sucked sh*t. The whole world would be a mess of completely balanced clans duelling endlessly. I think that's rather stupid....

IRL, the Romans had the greatest power and militaristic force, but their government was viciously corrupt. It's why they lost to the hands of Germanic barbarians (coupled with the fact that they became too complacent in their power). So, at that period in time, were they "balanced"? I guess you can say so.

Lets just say all the tech trees HAVE to be fairly balanced or it wont be fun because a certain faction will always win.

Yes, the whole point of balancing is to allow any one faction to beat any other faction on any given map. That's what I hate about many games out there, that not many people understand the concept of "balance," so often times one thing beats everything else - and that's not fun!

You guys had said that there's no strategy to a balanced game, but there is. The whole point is to become victorious with what's given to you, something that is differently equivalent to your opponent. All of the strategy is based off of the fact that you're equal, and that you could fight forever. That's what makes it so interesting.
Killing Goliath with David != "strategy."

[ElimiNator]

Balance isn't the point of an RTS, strategy is the point. Balance makes games too predictable I think. If Rome was 'balanced' with the rest of the world, it would've sucked sh*t. The whole world would be a mess of completely balanced clans duelling endlessly. I think that's rather stupid....

IRL, the Romans had the greatest power and militaristic force, but their government was viciously corrupt. It's why they lost to the hands of Germanic barbarians (coupled with the fact that they became too complacent in their power). So, at that period in time, were they "balanced"? I guess you can say so.

Like the USA is now?

[-Archmage-]

IRL, the Romans had the greatest power and militaristic force, but their government was viciously corrupt. It's why they lost to the hands of Germanic barbarians (coupled with the fact that they became too complacent in their power). So, at that period in time, were they "balanced"? I guess you can say so.

They became corrupt over time as all large nations do, but they were massively powerful in every way for a long time.

Quote
Lets just say all the tech trees HAVE to be fairly balanced or it wont be fun because a certain faction will always win.
Yes, the whole point of balancing is to allow any one faction to beat any other faction on any given map. That's what I hate about many games out there, that not many people understand the concept of "balance," so often times one thing beats everything else - and that's not fun!

You guys had said that there's no strategy to a balanced game, but there is. The whole point is to become victorious with what's given to you, something that is differently equivalent to your opponent. All of the strategy is based off of the fact that you're equal, and that you could fight forever. That's what makes it so interesting.
Killing Goliath with David != "strategy."

But you see.... that's not the point man, technically speaking there is always 'balance', it's just that the balance is NEVER equal. The point is it should be scary to face THE LEGION, because they are very powerful, not because they have (mega) next to their name, which only signifies that they cheat extra hard. I can argue that there is a LOT more strategy in battles where it isn't balanced. You should see my dad's personal tech tree, it's so far from balanced but he loves it, and he's a strategy freak he made it that way because he wants longer more strategic games.

[MoLAoS]

There is no such thing as balance. Its merely that the majority of players are not clever enough to exploit the design to the point where it appears that they have an unfair advantage. Games like LoL and WoW have to follow a constant cycle of buffs and nerfs because top players abuse certain combinations of classes and items and eventually due to the power of the internet that knowledge spreads out until everyone does this. Except of course there is only actually a difference among top level players.

Even Chess with its identical factions and its fame as long lasting and balanced experiences a meta because certain strategies are good against certain others in a rock paper scissors manner and a given player can only learn so many strategies and lesser players try to use the strategies that would put them ahead against a better player and the cycle goes around and around.

The game designer can never expend as much time as the thousands to millions of players to keep up with their new strategies, they can only nerf/buff in response to which strategies become popular. In fact LoL devs even talked about how they ignore some imbalance because it nevers reaches the critical mass to affect the game significantly and each change often leads to its own set of unforeseen exploits.

[ElimiNator]

Regardless if one faction is overpowered it will always win unless one player is better then another.

[-Archmage-]

Regardless if one faction is overpowered it will always win unless one player is better then another.

That's a point, you want a challenge against somebody play against them woodsmen vs legion. I want to turn MG to a more SP friendly area. The multiplayer is short and boring, those of us that want more involved and lengthy games usually play single player, with everything modded up. It doesn't make sense to balance the SP, and MP is as Molaos pointed out so difficult to completely balance and it really serves no point. You can't set the difficulty rating on a human player, but you can give them a choice of weaker or stronger factions.

[MoLAoS]

IRL, the Romans had the greatest power and militaristic force, but their government was viciously corrupt. It's why they lost to the hands of Germanic barbarians (coupled with the fact that they became too complacent in their power). So, at that period in time, were they "balanced"? I guess you can say so.

They became corrupt over time as all large nations do, but they were massively powerful in every way for a long time.

Quote
Lets just say all the tech trees HAVE to be fairly balanced or it wont be fun because a certain faction will always win.
Yes, the whole point of balancing is to allow any one faction to beat any other faction on any given map. That's what I hate about many games out there, that not many people understand the concept of "balance," so often times one thing beats everything else - and that's not fun!

You guys had said that there's no strategy to a balanced game, but there is. The whole point is to become victorious with what's given to you, something that is differently equivalent to your opponent. All of the strategy is based off of the fact that you're equal, and that you could fight forever. That's what makes it so interesting.
Killing Goliath with David != "strategy."

But you see.... that's not the point man, technically speaking there is always 'balance', it's just that the balance is NEVER equal. The point is it should be scary to face THE LEGION, because they are very powerful, not because they have (mega) next to their name, which only signifies that they cheat extra hard. I can argue that there is a LOT more strategy in battles where it isn't balanced. You should see my dad's personal tech tree, it's so far from balanced but he loves it, and he's a strategy freak he made it that way because he wants longer more strategic games.

If it is of interest to you, although I'm still doing my kingdom sim demo and have lots of engine work to do before this comes to pass:

A large part of my reason for making my own engine is to allow more freedom in faction power and gameplay. For instance you could have a rome-based faction with economic gameplay and supply lines and all sorts of things being raided by a group of nomadic factions and so forth. You could even have one faction on AI control like Majesty and then have the other ones play like a standard RTS. You could even explain this by saying that its a decadent imperial faction whose battle tactics are mired in tradition which is why they don't seem to exploit weaknesses that could otherwise make the game quite easy for them, as a theme related way of explaining AI.

Similarly you could play a Roman faction using the hierarchical control system while 7 other players play factions modeled after traditional roman enemies who use the standard micro heave RTS model of vanilla Glest.

I always wanted the freedom to break away from traditional RTS tropes like apm/micro crazy starcraft or pseudo-squad based Dawn of War, its the whole reason I am making my own engine. I feel like there is way more  meat to strategy games in crossing genre boundaries than sticking to tired conventions. Imagine making the game described in an engine made specifically for a city builder or for an RTS or even for an RPG and so forth.