Balance Issues in Planetside 2

oosik · 2012-03-19, 07:26 PM

Hello,

In the original Planetside I was Zuvarg/Moongarm of the Dragonwolves. I left the game in spring 2004 due to a crashed computer and domestic/work issues. Now that I am retired I am looking forward to getting back into Planetside first, then on to Planetside 2.

One thing I hope the devs keep in mind as Planetside 2 moves towards commercial release is the issue of what to do with balance problems as they are revealed in game when thousands of users are playing and the full scope of problems pop up that not even a good beta exposes. Being TR I remember quite distinctly my disappointment when a number of TR weapons/effects were nerfed to provide "balance". Instead of nerfing one side or another, I think the superior way to provide balance would be to strengthen a weak team incrementally.

Zu

NCLynx · 2012-03-19, 07:28 PM

If you continually "balance" the game by giving power to the weakest team it just turns into who can one shot the other guy first.

StumpyTheOzzie · 2012-03-19, 07:39 PM

It's also super hard to "balance" a large, well trained, good outfit who uses superior tactics and strategy to achieve maximal results.

If the world is one colour because of superior strategy it's unfair to nerf their weapons. Also, if the world is one colour it encourages most people to join the winning side. When the Vanu are at their weakest (8% world pop) they only get +50% xp.

Being outnumbered almost 12:1 should get you +1200% xp. That'd encourage a lot of people to go Vanu. After a very short amount of time you'd have an effective fighting force again.

Exponential gain the further away from 33% your faction is will make server populations much more stable.

oosik · 2012-03-19, 07:39 PM

NCLynx,

I disagree, especially with a game as complex as Planetside. Especially if you go about things in an incremental fashion. And power does not always have to translate as destructive power. There will always be people who scream for the other side to be nerfed for a variety of reasons, some of which have to do with their own inability to adapt and think outside the box.

Originally Posted by NCLynx

If you continually "balance" the game by giving power to the weakest team it just turns into who can one shot the other guy first.

krnasaur · 2012-03-19, 07:39 PM

Balance should be achieved through gameplay style.

"Oh the jackhammer kills me in 2 shots at point blank, OP"
then dont get so close... jackhammer doesnt need to be nerfed

Thats a simple example, but you get the idea.

The competative SC2 community is good at this other games should take note

SteinB · 2012-03-19, 07:58 PM

The sidegrade adaptability of weapons will, I hope, go a long way to handling small balance issues derived from differing skill levels and styles.

sylphaen · 2012-03-19, 08:11 PM

Balance problems are solved in PS2. We will all have access to similar weapons.

**Malorn** · 2012-03-19, 08:17 PM

Ahh the classic "don't nerf stuff, buff the other stuff instead" argument.

While we hate when things we enjoy are nerfed, the sad truth is that it is necessary from time to time to meet game expectations.

The question of whether something is "balanced" is whether it is meeting the expectations and target metrics the designers had intended.

If something is under-performing the intended goal then the result is a buff.

If something is over-performing the intended goal then it the result is a nerf.

The reason you can't avoid nerfing things is because you can make something that is over-performing meet the goal by buffing something else. All you end up doing is putting more things over the intended goal and making the situation worse, further destroying balance.

To demonstrate this I'll provide a simple example inline with NCLynx's post. Suppose the intended TTK at medium range for a class of weapons against a specific target was 3 seconds. Now suppose due to the mechanics of one particular weapon it was possible to have a TTk of 1.5 seconds in certain circumstances.

The correct balance is to correct those certain circumstances so the retain the design intent of 3 seconds. That's a "nerf" relative to the current implementation.

If they instead gave every weapon TTK of 1.5 seconds in certain circumstances then their design intent of 3 seconds just got thrown out the window. That may in turn screw up other parts of the game where there was a design assumption made on that 3 seconds.

If they repeated that behavior for several different issues it wouldn't be long before the game was straying far from its intended performance and balance is way screwed up.

They should always balance things to be in-line with the expected and intended performance. There are lots of tools these days for getting metrics on how certain things in the game are performing. The can use those metrics to determine if weapons are behaving the way they should and if the are as effective as they should be. If they aren't, that iwll result in changes - could be either good or bad, depending on whether something is over-performing or under-performing.

A new buzzword for balancing these days is "tuning", which implies minor adjustments that could go either direction to get something just right. That's a good way of looking at it.

NEWSKIS · 2012-03-19, 09:03 PM

Truthfully what the devs need to try to do is decide what is an actual balance problem and what is just people saying "nerf x because x killed me". It's not easy to do and I think that was some of the problem in PS1 with balance. There were a few cases where they listened to the complaining too much and they didnt really end up balancing the game properly.

Thoreaux · 2012-03-19, 09:34 PM

PS1 is pretty well balanced these days, although I wonder how many of you guys remember early/beta PS1? TR and VS (mainly vs) were laughably underpowered next to NC. If you don't remember trying to go up against surging quad-shot NC with the early versions of the MCG and Lasher, you've got no idea what I mean, probably. It was pretty apparent that the dev team generally favored and played NC, mostly ignored TR, and didn't know quite what to do with VS. We've gotten to a fairly balanced point by a long and painful process of chipping away at the NC, building up the TR in fits and starts (in the war known as forumside), and bouncing the VS all over the place like a fucking pin-ball. It sucked, frankly.

I'm seeing the same pattern all over again, and it's worrying. I'm really hoping the devs do a better job out of the gate this time around, because all the balance changes cost PS1 quite a few subscribers.

oosik · 2012-03-19, 10:46 PM

Thoreaux,

Well, that is not how I remember it. I do remember the VS feeling they were underpowered, and I remember people complaining about the jackhammer, but I never got the feeling while playing that overall the TR were underpowered relative to the NC, especially when it came to the Maxes. Initially the anti-vehicular TR Max with its grenades was a beast. Then they nerfed the grenades, then they switched the TR AV Max with the TR AI Max. And maybe back again, I forget. In between the TR AA Max was messed around with in a variety of ways. I remember quite distinctly finding an NC guy in a room who was just standing there (owner away from keyboard) and just for fun I wanted to test out whether the burster could actually hurt him. I fired several dozen rounds at point blank range into him and his health didn't diminish a whit.

I was more than willing to let the NC have their jackhammer if I could have kept the AV Max the way it was. I also remember several NC guys developing some really good tactics to take out TR AV Maxs too.

In my personal opinion, if the Vanu had early on received the upgrades they got later in the game, while keeping the NC and TR the same, things would have been pretty balanced. Tactically, of course, things would have to be adjusted as you faced particular weapons, units, terrain, and situations.

In any case, my hope is that the devs move very carefully on nerfing, do it very incrementally, and err on the side of adding power to a side instead of nerfing another side.

Zu

Originally Posted by Thoreaux

PS1 is pretty well balanced these days, although I wonder how many of you guys remember early/beta PS1? TR and VS (mainly vs) were laughably underpowered next to NC. If you don't remember trying to go up against surging quad-shot NC with the early versions of the MCG and Lasher, you've got no idea what I mean, probably. It was pretty apparent that the dev team generally favored and played NC, mostly ignored TR, and didn't know quite what to do with VS. We've gotten to a fairly balanced point by a long and painful process of chipping away at the NC, building up the TR in fits and starts (in the war known as forumside), and bouncing the VS all over the place like a fucking pin-ball. It sucked, frankly.

I'm seeing the same pattern all over again, and it's worrying. I'm really hoping the devs do a better job out of the gate this time around, because all the balance changes cost PS1 quite a few subscribers.

oosik · 2012-03-19, 11:00 PM

Malorn,

You make some valid points, but I think dev expectations are not necessarily the sine qua non once a game goes live. Its like having a baby. Your "expectation" may be that he is going to be a football quarterback, but instead you may wind up with a concert pianist. So should you force the kid to play little league football when he wants to stay indoors and play the piano?

Once a game goes live it has an existence all its own that people adapt to. People change their tactics and strategies relative to the situations they are faced with. By nerfing or buffing too much, you are treating the players like immature children. It's also like an author of a novel yanking a reader out of a story by making a mistake that destroys his "suspension of disbelief." The hand of God (the devs), changes the story line in an attempt at balance and you can lose as many or more people than you might attract.

Zu

Originally Posted by Malorn

Ahh the classic "don't nerf stuff, buff the other stuff instead" argument.

While we hate when things we enjoy are nerfed, the sad truth is that it is necessary from time to time to meet game expectations.

The question of whether something is "balanced" is whether it is meeting the expectations and target metrics the designers had intended.

If something is under-performing the intended goal then the result is a buff.

If something is over-performing the intended goal then it the result is a nerf.

The reason you can't avoid nerfing things is because you can make something that is over-performing meet the goal by buffing something else. All you end up doing is putting more things over the intended goal and making the situation worse, further destroying balance.

To demonstrate this I'll provide a simple example inline with NCLynx's post. Suppose the intended TTK at medium range for a class of weapons against a specific target was 3 seconds. Now suppose due to the mechanics of one particular weapon it was possible to have a TTk of 1.5 seconds in certain circumstances.

The correct balance is to correct those certain circumstances so the retain the design intent of 3 seconds. That's a "nerf" relative to the current implementation.

If they instead gave every weapon TTK of 1.5 seconds in certain circumstances then their design intent of 3 seconds just got thrown out the window. That may in turn screw up other parts of the game where there was a design assumption made on that 3 seconds.

If they repeated that behavior for several different issues it wouldn't be long before the game was straying far from its intended performance and balance is way screwed up.

They should always balance things to be in-line with the expected and intended performance. There are lots of tools these days for getting metrics on how certain things in the game are performing. The can use those metrics to determine if weapons are behaving the way they should and if the are as effective as they should be. If they aren't, that iwll result in changes - could be either good or bad, depending on whether something is over-performing or under-performing.

A new buzzword for balancing these days is "tuning", which implies minor adjustments that could go either direction to get something just right. That's a good way of looking at it.

Hamma · 2012-03-20, 12:11 AM

Here is the problem with Players when it comes to game balance.

No matter what people are going to feel that they are underpowered. I constantly see it in every game I play.. it is inevitable. It's just important the Devs use raw data and not player emotions to balance out these things.

Not much more that can be said about it other than that.

**Malorn** · 2012-03-20, 01:07 AM

I think the only real problems with balancing happen are when the following occur.

1) Changes are too drastic, resulting in swings.

Example here would be Lasher 2.0 where it went from performing poorly to being absurdly effective. Then, in order to fix it they naturally have to make drastic changes in the other direction.

Baby steps are important. Sometimes small changes have profound effects, and changing too many different parts of a weapon at once can easily lead to it being too good, such as the case of the Lasher 2.0. Swings are very bad, causing widespread frustration in the victims of the weapon, and then inevitably the users of the weapon get upset when the much-needed nerf happens. All players end up soured as a result.

Baby steps, small changes, if they aren't enough, make another small change. It's OK to incrementally make small improvements or nerfs, and if it doesn't achieve the desired result, do another in the following week or two. Just dont' do big swings.

2) Balance Issues Not Quickly Addressed

WAR had this problem. When balance issues that frustrate players exist, they need to be addressed reasonably quickly, at least acknowledging the problem. It's better to get out there and show that you're working on it with baby steps than to leave the playerbase in the dark while they get increasingly frustrated.

If too long goes on with a blatant issue unaddressed it will cost many players.

So frequent babysteps. Small tweaks, not drastic stuff once every three months. That's bad.

Skitrel · 2012-03-20, 03:47 AM

Baby steps are important.

All that needs to be said in my opinion. Never EVER listen to the community on balance changes, hear what they're saying by all means, but don't listen, take necessary steps towards changing things very gently.

The problem other games have always had is in applying nerfs, a nerf in my opinion is over balancing an item to the point at which it goes from unbalanced to unbalanced in completely the other direction. The key is to make very small changes little by little until the sweet spot is found.