Is Balance Just Another way of Saying, "waaaaannnhhh, this Game is too hard"?

Werewolf13

Werewolf13
I read the the new patch notes and the one thing that caught my eye was that the Dolphin's generated heat was lowered. Then a note that stated the rate of damage it would take from heating up past the damage range had been increased. Balance. Freaking, forking, BALANCE! Why on Earth did the devs feel it necessary to do that?

Dad to SON: What's with the shiner son?
Son: BA kicked my rear end today. Really bad and that just isn't fair, he said with a tear slowly forming in his eye. BA is really big and he's older and fights all the time. I didn't have a chance, he whined.
Dad: Probably shud'a thought twice about fightin' him, son. It's stupid to fight battles you can't win.
Son: but it isn't fair that he's bigger and stronger than me, Dad. It isn't fair, sniff. And it really, really hurt when he hit me.
Dad: getting exasperated. Well son most of the time life isn't fair. That's just the way it is. If you don't learn to deal with that you're gonna have some real problems when you grow up.
Son: But Daaaaaaaadd! You need to fix it so it is fair.
Dad: Life's not fair.
Son: but it should be.
Dad: ...and if yur aunt had balls she'd by yur uncle: thinks to himself: gettin' tired of dealing with this: I tell ya what, son: How about I go out, find BA and chop off his legs and one arm (gotta leave 'im with something to eat with). Would that make it fair enough for you?
SON: YAY! You're the best dad. Do it! I'll kick his rear end then!
Dad: uh huh - walking away, head slowly turning right to left and back again, mumbling words best left unheard by his son.

Kind'a silly huh?

But that's exactly what I think about every time I hear or read someone whining about balance. I can only wonder if what they really want is a game with no challenge, a game where every hard thing has an opposing offset that effectively nerfs it. And every easy thing has no offset at all.

In ED terms using the Dolphin patch as an example: just because it produces less heat and what heat it does produce is managed efficiently doesn't mean that it will take damage faster when it does overheat. In point of fact it probably should have a lower rate of taking damage from over heating due to the very inherent efficiency of it's build and systems.

In a whiny crybaby voice laced with sarcasm:

But - but - what about BALANCE? It's not fair that the Dolphin is so heat efficient. Isn't BALANCE good? Shouldn't that demand that for every positive there has to be a negative. That's only fair.

So - until GOD starts handing out certificates of "Everything will be fair and balanced for you in your life, my son" all I have to say about BALANCE is: it's a fantasy and doesn't exist in real life - at least not to any great extent for humanity and honestly I can't think of a single instance (except in games as a way of appeasing the whiners) of a situation where it does.

Aside: actually - now that I think of it there is one example of an attempt to achieve balance that has probably created more whining, hate and discontent and efforts to achieve it than any other thing that has been said in all of history. "All men are created equal". LOL! NO - they're not and never will be. And it's senseless trying to achieve it - define equal. All smart, all strong, all beautiful? Or maybe all dumb, all weak and all ugly - now that's balance.

SCREW BALANCE!
 
Last edited:

Ganogati

Ganogati
The problem is that, without balance, you end up in a situation where you have 20+ choices and the vast, overwhelming, majority of your players pick 5. Suddenly your entire game is about just 5 ships, and taking any of the other ships is just a waste of time and effort for everyone involved.

Balancing a game system is the only reason that game system is playable. Simply tossing numbers on a wall and saying "Well, life's not fair so these numbers should be good enough" won't exactly help you get and keep new players. You need to try something, see if it works, and adjust as necessary. There's nothing wrong with them doing that.
 

Werewolf13

Werewolf13
@Ganogati...
The problem is that, without balance, you end up in a situation where you have 20+ choices and the vast, overwhelming, majority of your players pick 5
Click to expand...

That already exists in ED: The Multicannon is a perfect example. It is probably the number 1 weapon used in ED. Been playing ED for 5 years and to be honest - I don't see the downside to that.
 

Werewolf13

Werewolf13
@Ozric...

FYI - the thread isn't really about the dolphin - that's just what caught my attention and got me to thinking about balance - a subject that always spins me up.
 

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
Ozric
I know, but I don't see what the Dolphin changes have to do with balance. Adding taking more damage once it starts overheating, isn't done to balance the fact that it takes longer to overheat. Though you could argue the case that it makes sense.

Think of it like a shield tank. The Dolphin doesn't build up heat much at all, because it has really strong shields. But once you get past that point, the hull crumbles easily.

:D

Not that I think you'll be able to overheat it, you can charge the FSD while scooping without any issues.
 

Sylow

Sylow
So much predjudice in the OP. What do you make of all the "engineering effects are too powerful, they need to be tuned down to make the game more challenging again" postings? They also declare that in the name of balance.
 

dekot

D
What's your point? Are you saying your ship got nerfed so that means you're the child in your example and you want the game to be easier? You want them to revert the nerf that made the game harder for you?
 

Ezren

Ezren
Ozric said:
I know, but I don't see what the Dolphin changes have to do with balance. Adding taking more damage once it starts overheating, isn't done to balance the fact that it takes longer to overheat. Though you could argue the case that it makes sense.

Think of it like a shield tank. The Dolphin doesn't build up heat much at all, because it has really strong shields. But once you get past that point, the hull crumbles easily.

:D

Not that I think you'll be able to overheat it, you can charge the FSD while scooping without any issues.
Click to expand...
So like how the FDL one was, then.
 

Kelster87

Kelster87
I can kinda see where the OP is coming from. Balance in games is a delicate balance and it's hard to get right. Players tend to want things 'balanced' their way, dev's then have the joy of balancing the wants of players with the intentions of the dev team. The playerbase in ED clearly has had too much sway at some points, as some of what has been done in the name of balance has done nothing really other than appease some whiners.
 

Darth Wonko

Darth Wonko
What I don't get is since Blizzard decided to increase the cast time of Flame Strike, the entire DPS balance is thrown off even though they SAY the splash damage more than makes up for the cast time. I don't really care. I play a Fire Mage for the DoT and single target DPS; not for AoE DPS...

... oh wait. Am I complaining about the wrong game?

Sorry. I thought I was reading a World of Warcraft rant about tweaks made to character classes for the sake of "Balance".

WAAAAH!! My DPS is too low!
WAAAAH!! <Pick Class That Always KIlls Me in PvP or Does Better Heals/DPS in Raids> is totally OP!!!

Geez. I swear. Different game. Different developer. Same freakin' player complaints.

Here's an idea... Maybe... JUST MAYBE... the developers have some sort of actual data that about game balance so they make tweaks here and there to even things out. I know it's easier to believe the software architects and engineers just sit around pulling stuff out of their asses in hopes that maybe it will work okay. But, there is probably a better than even chance they know more about their own game than we do.

You guys want some balance and not have the game be about just a couple of ships? Take the Anaconda out of the game or nerf it.

Then, let the complaining really begin...
 

CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost

C
Morbad said:
I do find the changes to the Dolphin to be an exemplar of a long standing and, IMO, distressing, precedent where inconveniences, and the gameplay they provide through having to make trade-offs, are smoothed over so that nothing has any real downsides.
Click to expand...

I think the bigger problem is that FDev apparently fixed the symptom and not the cause.
The Dolphin had/has the problem of ridiculous overheating over the surface of planets/moons. The problem is not the heat management of the Dolphin, the problem is the reason why it overheats so fast.
Other ships have the same problem, but not so ridiculous like the Dolphin.
 

Morbad

Morbad
CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost said:
I think the bigger problem is that FDev apparently fixed the symptom and not the cause.
The Dolphin had/has the problem of ridiculous overheating over the surface of planets/moons. The problem is not the heat management of the Dolphin, the problem is the reason why it overheats so fast.
Other ships have the same problem, but not so ridiculous like the Dolphin.
Click to expand...

The reason the Dolphin overheated over planets is that it has horrible vertical/lateral thrust and the thruster output the planetary landing suite has to apply to make the ship controllable during maneuvering while simultaneously countering gravity is quite extreme.

They 'fixed' this the only way they could, without changing the entire flight model of the ship or the way planetary flight works, they dramatically increased the Dolphin's heat dissipation rate, to the point it will essentially never overheat in any other circumstance.

The mechanisms that determine heat production are and were working as intended. The Dolphin is simply not a ship suited to high-g manuvers.

The problem is was that this was considered a problem at all.
 

CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost

C
Morbad said:
… The Dolphin is simply not a ship suited to high-g manuvers.
…
Click to expand...

It had nothing to do with high-g.
The Dolphin overheated over 0.1 g moons while flying a slight turn without being absolutely perfectly level to the horizon. It made the Dolphin one of the worst choices for passenger missions to surface POIs. It simply overheated by flying over any object no matter how high or low the gravity of that object was.
 

Morbad

Morbad
CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost said:
It had nothing to do with high-g.
The Dolphin overheated over 0.1 g moons while flying a slight turn without being absolutely perfectly level to the horizon. It made the Dolphin one of the worst choices for passenger missions to surface POIs.
Click to expand...

I wasn't referring to just planetary gravity, but any situation where significant thruster acceleration would be applied.

If there is any external gravity at all, almost any maneuver that exceeds the very limited output of the dorsal or lateral thrusters is going to have a greatly amplified heat load. This is how planetary flight works.

CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost said:
It simply overheated by flying over any object no matter how high or low the gravity of that object was.
Click to expand...

If the gravity was low, FA Off was a perfectly viable way to keep the vessel from overheating, because the planetary landing suite's modifications do not apply to FA Off flight.

If gravity was higher than what the thrusters could comfortably apply FA Off (about a third of a g, in the case of the Dolphin), then very gentile turns and keeping the ship level also worked.

All the flight mechanisms in place say a ship with the Dolphin's flight model should produce enormous heat when maneuvering FA On over planets, even ones with very mild gravity. They weren't going to change the whole game because some people insisted on flying the ship incorrectly in the situations it was not remotely well suited for.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom