The Good ole Balance Debate - Page 2

Gandhi · 2011-07-12, 01:03 PM

Originally Posted by artifice

As far as I am concerned, classes, vehicles, and weapons don't need to be balanced. What needs balanced are the three teams. Easiest way to do that is just give all three sides every weapon and vehicle.

Eh, but that wouldn't be Planetside anymore.

artifice · 2011-07-12, 01:03 PM

Originally Posted by Gandhi

Eh, but that wouldn't be Planetside anymore.

Of course it isn't, it's Planetside 2.

Rbstr · 2011-07-12, 01:04 PM

Originally Posted by Logit

Having tons of cert points in the original meant you could have more stuff on you, but it certainly didn't make your gun faster, stronger, or give your vehicles more armor and speed.

But it did mean you could have self healing capability, situational weapons and implants that provide and enormous advantage compared to the poor noob that can only take HA + agile + basic medic or something with one of no implants (and I do forget the exact cert costs)

Personally I prefer the skills that directly effect weapons/hp and the like to mostly require tradeoffs. You get a more powerful rocket but lose the tracking capability. A longer range, higher damage rifle but lose ROF and ammo capacity.
I think then the command skills should be mostly secondary effects, radar rbonuses or enemy radar obfuscation. Orbital supply drops. Enhanced support class functionality. Perhaps minor combat bonuses.

Experienced players should hold certain advantages...but, just like EVE, a couple of noobs in 100million isk of ships can down a billion isk ship piloted by an old player with proper planning and coordination. It happens every day.

Rbstr · 2011-07-12, 01:05 PM

Originally Posted by artifice

As far as I am concerned, classes, vehicles, and weapons don't need to be balanced. What needs balanced are the three teams. Easiest way to do that is just give all three sides every weapon and vehicle.

Then there's no point to even having the three factions to begin with. I'd rather minor imbalances than boring homogenization.

Soothsayer · 2011-07-12, 01:06 PM

one of the big concepts of EVE Online's skill system as it relates to characters with or without large amounts of trained skillpoints is "you can only fly one ship at a time".

This key concept means that a character who is new can spec into a single ship, focus on that ship and fly it really well in a relatively short timeframe (that is to say, within the timeframe you might expect from EVE Online).

The character that has been training skillpoints nonstop for 6 years will have a lot of options (ships weapons and mods) available to them but receives diminishing returns on the time they invest into higher ranks of skills (rank 1 of a skill might take 10 minutes and give a 5% bonus... rank 5 of the same skill will take 25 days and only give an additional 5% bonus).

I think that introducing set classes into Planetside 2 will further reduce the skillpoint gap because it could be set up so that the skills you've trained in the heavy assault tree won't give you bonuses when you're playing as an engineer.

You can only fly one ship at a time in EVE, you can only play one class at a time in PS2.

Gandhi · 2011-07-12, 01:07 PM

Originally Posted by artifice

Of course it isn't, it's Planetside 2.

Sirisian · 2011-07-12, 01:16 PM

Originally Posted by artifice

As far as I am concerned, classes, vehicles, and weapons don't need to be balanced. What needs balanced are the three teams. Easiest way to do that is just give all three sides every weapon and vehicle.

yeah this is a discussion we had in the IRC chat. With damage locations on every vehicle the idea of balancing the striker, phoenix, or lancer type weapons becomes an almost absurd idea with insane complexity. (Headshots in a way play into this). I do not envy the person who has to balance all these weapons in a giant table especially if there are faction specific weapons.

Also I agree with you. I'd prefer no faction specific weapons, but we've already seen faction specific tanks with supposedly drastically different weapons so it's no surprise we'll see the return of faction specific weapons. (Unless they just reskin them all).

Logit · 2011-07-12, 01:21 PM

Originally Posted by Rbstr

But it did mean you could have self healing capability, situational weapons and implants that provide and enormous advantage compared to the poor noob that can only take HA + agile + basic medic or something with one of no implants (and I do forget the exact cert costs)

Personally I prefer the skills that directly effect weapons/hp and the like to mostly require tradeoffs. You get a more powerful rocket but lose the tracking capability. A longer range, higher damage rifle but lose ROF and ammo capacity.
I think then the command skills should be mostly secondary effects, radar rbonuses or enemy radar obfuscation. Orbital supply drops. Enhanced support class functionality. Perhaps minor combat bonuses.

Experienced players should hold certain advantages...but, just like EVE, a couple of noobs in 100million isk of ships can down a billion isk ship piloted by an old player with proper planning and coordination. It happens every day.

I have zero experience with EVE, so I'm having a hard time comparing it to Planetside.

Again, obviously progression needs to be in the game. If these kind of trade-offs are the only bonuses than it would be fine. But I don't believe thats how it is with the way the quote is worded in the original post.

Logit · 2011-07-12, 01:29 PM

Originally Posted by Rbstr

Then there's no point to even having the three factions to begin with. I'd rather minor imbalances than boring homogenization.

This.

I'm sad they took hacking vehicles out of the game. If anything I thought that was a feature that helped out with balance, at least a little bit.

Rbstr · 2011-07-12, 01:39 PM

Originally Posted by Logit

I have zero experience with EVE, so I'm having a hard time comparing it to Planetside.

You've got two routes of equipment access balance: Skills needed to fly the things and the cash needed to buy it.
A noob can very easily be as skilled as a vet in a number of useful ship classes, they can also fairly readily make tons and tons of money. And buy fancy rare crap...that's where the majority of EVE imbalance comes from, fancy expensive shit (besides the ship/weaponry balance itself...but everyone can train everything).
Many many noobs have more money than I have ever had. I don't care for that part as much.

So, I, being a old player with 90million skill points, go out in my ship that cost a few months of play time, can easily be destroyed by two noobs, nearly fresh out of the gate with a couple of ships that cost a tenth of mine.
I may be unprepared, my ship may simply be crappy for shooing their type of ships. They may have a really good plan.
If I'm prepared for the fight, I might also simply slaughter them in an instant. But then I might be unprepared for a mid level guy in the same ship-class as me.
All of these can happen.

2coolforu · 2011-07-12, 01:40 PM

Removing all the variety of the empires isn't fixing the probem it's just removing everything. That's like setting your car on fire when the radio doesn't tune correctly then walking in and thinking you are a mechanical genius - or killing your spouse because you forgot your anniversary gift then boasting about it to your mates.

CutterJohn · 2011-07-12, 02:11 PM

Originally Posted by 2coolforu

Removing all the variety of the empires isn't fixing the probem it's just removing everything. That's like setting your car on fire when the radio doesn't tune correctly then walking in and thinking you are a mechanical genius - or killing your spouse because you forgot your anniversary gift then boasting about it to your mates.

Its nothing like that, but thanks for playing.

Removing all the variety of the empires gives everyone everything. You'd get more variety, since every time you go up against an empire you have no clue what they are going to use. There are 50% more weapons to fight against, and 200% more weapons to fight with.

And you aren't stuck with a specific set of weapons for ever because you can never switch sides with your character.

And your team can never again bitch about how the other side has all the best weapons.

At any rate, pointless to bitch about. That at least will never change, its pretty core to their ideals of PS, even if I think its pretty silly. Maybe one day we can convince them to have an alternate rules server.

xcel · 2011-07-12, 02:21 PM

THERE ARE ALWAYS GOING TO BE PLAYERS WITH MORE TIME ON THERE HANDS THAN OTHERS. THERE IS NO ESCAPING IT, trying to fix that to a point of super balance and super fairness is a bit ignorant and naive...

Hamma · 2011-07-12, 02:21 PM

The skill system trains offline, I don't see how someone plays more has a major advantage. Their skills will train a bit quicker than someone offline but I can't imagine there will be a massive difference.

While I am skeptical about increasing damage with skills it's likely something we will have to learn to deal with. Hopefully its balanced enough someone feels like they are getting their time worth and someone on the other end doesn't feel powerless against them.

Soothsayer · 2011-07-12, 02:26 PM

Someone who puts more time in should have something to show for it at the end of any given time period.

Its not about hardcore or casual, its more about a return on the investment of time and effort.

The offline training is fine with me, but if I'm logging serious hours I want to see that pay off more so than the person who queues up their skills ten minutes a day.