The Problem with Game Balance

[Alwayslate]

[haha] What's the point of entering a thread about game balance and modes, just to crow 'go play solo, n00b!'? That's not an argument, it's not even making a point!

My point is that until recently I was actively seeking out human interaction, now I'm actively avoiding it. My point is that until recently I spent my time in the fascinating realm of pretend spaceships is situations where I was very much at risk of PvP of various types. I've been looking for a 'real' pirate for over four years now, I very much enjoy evading (to the point of trolling) salt miners, some CGs used to be fun and challenging competitions against other traders, amongst other activities. The trouble is there's no downside to engineering. My go fasts can't outrun battleships, my warships are outclassed by engineered fighters. Without engineering I'm at a terrific disadvantage. That means what time I have I spend on engineering, rather than flying fast ships, or competing with other players.

My point is the game is so unbalanced it's comical!

My point is I don't want to stop playing, so I'm grinding my Asp off, just to get back to the place we were all in before engineers hit. You remember? When some ships were fast enough to escape, where others were well armed and protected enough to stand and fight?

Engineering doesn't achieve anything against engineered ships, but it makes ships without engineering obsolete. That means spending obscene amounts of time 'upgrading' to a standard that was already there when the game began.

My interest is in spending my time competing with other players; engineering is preventing that from happening.

I don't have enough time to engineer my ships effectively, that means I'm not getting into PvP, that affects you and me both, Dekot!

But yeah, "ummm...ok".

How does anyone expect a casual PVEr to defeat a well dedicated experienced grindy PVPer, in competitive PVP activities? That's just like asking someone who doesn't play the game to defeat someone who does. Not gonna happen.

 

[UFO Reality]

As a possible fix for non-consensual PvP and BGS fair play, I think the game should all be in OPEN only mode.

Get rid of the other modes.

Have minor faction missions or PP rewards that award free insurance re-buy.

Simplify C&P by tying notoriety level with spawns of ATRs tracking and engaging wanted CMDRs accordingly and f'ing get rid of being unable to pay off at IF until level 0.

 

[Morbad]

The game has told me all the time that it's extremely grindy and a mere stroke of luck to get these ships.

The post 3.0 system has no randomness at all when it comes to secondaries, while the only randomness on the primaries is how far along you progress to a known end with each roll and that is generally in a rather tight range.

To get the equivalent of a full pre-3.0 'god rolled' module takes, on average, somewhere between 1/10th and 1/100th the number of rolls.

It may be easier now, but then again, I could do it out of the box before engineers so why would I bother grinding for stuff I already was able to do, just because they thought the power creep was a good idea? Waste of good time I can spend elsewhere.

If you don't need to compete with Engineered vessels, then you don't need Engineering, but if you do want to compete with Engineered vessels, the time requirement is at least an order of magnitude less than it originally was.

 

[Chaparral]

It is not possible to have a self-policing ecology with a p2p architecture, modes, clogging, menulogging etc.

NPCs are ineffectual vs. skilled players as a policing factor.

In the absence of a self-policing ecology, the game structure pits players 1v1 or 1v up to 4.

This game design therefore places all players in the roles of either evasion or conflict. In either case, other career choices cannot be optimized because of the need to conform to one of these two fundamental roles.

I doubt that FDEV had as a fundamental expectation that players would fall into these two bins since all ships don't have core build mechanics structured around these realities.

I think this is because FDEV understood settings far better than games. This "game" will never be balanced. It is kludged together stovepipe features. Maybe they'll hire some global design folks and game crafters for the next go around.

 

[Tarman]

The post 3.0 system has no randomness at all when it comes to secondaries, while the only randomness on the primaries is how far along you progress to a known end with each roll and that is generally in a rather tight range.

To get the equivalent of a full pre-3.0 'god rolled' module takes, on average, somewhere between 1/10th and 1/100th the number of rolls.



If you don't need to compete with Engineered vessels, then you don't need Engineering, but if you do want to compete with Engineered vessels, the time requirement is at least an order of magnitude less than it originally was.

Nav's principal gameplay is making posts decrying Engineers, even in entirely unrelated threads. Probably could have done his entire fleet under both old and new paradigms with all the time spent on complaint posts. >__>

 

[Han_Zen]

This would mostly just turn every ship into a multi-purpose swiss army knife of a vessel, and casual combatants would still be getting their butts handed to them just as fast, if not faster.

TTK would go down though.

That's exactly what I want.

Fully combat capable ships should not be excluded from other activities. To much specialization hinders emergent game play. TTK is currently way to high on stacked ships. It's not good for the game that skill can be countered with a thick layer of blubber.

Stacking has also lead to a myriad of mysterious special effects and weapons that are specifically designed to counter aspects of the massive defensive hit point pool. These silly 'spells' are confusing to casual players. They don't know what killed them.

How you die is important to the experience. If a player dies because the other guy landed 5 times as many hits as him, it's feels OK.
If a player dies after a cryptic message and then a critical module goes pop, it's just leaves question marks.

ED isn't some wizards and warlocks mmo. Spells and counter spells needs to be removed.

 

[Wolf Starslayer]

That's exactly what I want.

Fully combat capable ships should not be excluded from other activities. To much specialization hinders emergent game play. TTK is currently way to high on stacked ships. It's not good for the game that skill can be countered with a thick layer of blubber.

Stacking has also lead to a myriad of mysterious special effects and weapons that are specifically designed to counter aspects of the massive defensive hit point pool. These silly 'spells' are confusing to casual players. They don't know what killed them.

How you die is important to the experience. If a player dies because the other guy landed 5 times as many hits as him, it's feels OK.
If a player dies after a cryptic message and then a critical module goes pop, it's just leaves question marks.

ED isn't some wizards and warlocks mmo. Spells and counter spells needs to be removed.

Agree with a lot of this, never liked the stacking of SCB when they first came out and further module stacking has made it worse.

+1 for not being a fan of the 'rock,paper,scissors' pvp game play that has been exaggerated further by the 'special effects' engineering.

However think the horse has bolted, so the best we can expect now is maybe some curbing of the current system maybe a greater penalty on stacking modules and reduced effectiveness of a few specials but in honesty I'm not hopeful as FD have never seemed to have that good a grip on the pvp mechanics; almost like no-one over there plays it.

 

[Han_Zen]

Agree with a lot of this, never liked the stacking of SCB when they first came out and further module stacking has made it worse.

+1 for not being a fan of the 'rock,paper,scissors' pvp game play that has been exaggerated further by the 'special effects' engineering.

However think the horse has bolted, so the best we can expect now is maybe some curbing of the current system maybe a greater penalty on stacking modules and reduced effectiveness of a few specials but in honesty I'm not hopeful as FD have never seemed to have that good a grip on the pvp mechanics; almost like no-one over there plays it.

I know that it's a lost cause.
FD has needed a complex ship building system, as a time-sink.
Massacre game-play has become the norm for PvE combat. All defensive add-ons are welcome, when cr/hr is the measure of success.
Thargoid combat has been put in a separate category, with it's own equipment.

This will probably never be changed. You cant take toys away from players.

Personally I have basically quit all combat activities. There is nothing left that makes it interesting for me.

 

[Sup3rfluiD]

I'm absolutely opposed to rebalancing engineering in relation to non-engineered ships, but wouldn't be opposed to some tweeks within engineering. The game progressed with new content, those who choose not to advance should not limit those who do.

I'm also really hesitant to get behind any balancing crusades, as I don't think good games require everything to be balanced, and have actually seen very fun games go downhill fast as everything was homogenized in the name of balance.

If something's broken, fix it, but don't assume it's broken because it is not balanced. I'm fine with a combat ship destroying a ship built with no consideration to combat survival, for instance.

As for modes, they made a game where everyone regardless of mode or platform influence the same universe. Buyer beware. It is core to the game, and I do not see a reason to change anything in the name of fairness or balance. It's a representation of a massive society spread across a galaxy, there will be influences out of your control, and I'm fine with that.

Amen to that.
Soooooooooooooo sick of people wanting contrived versions of "balance".
Beatles shouldn't be able to run with Porche's or Humvees.
Horses for courses.

 

[deleteduser]

Some questions for the OP:

[1] - What does balance look like to you? Is it where every ship is equally as good as every other ship at every in-game task? Where experienced players are somehow handicapped when fighting a new one?

[2] - What does this "swinging together" harmony between PvP and PvE look like to you?

[3] - Stipulating that the sudden removal of an entire season's worth of content is unfeasible, what would be your solution for "fixing" things like engineers and the discrepancies caused by the modes? (I don't necessarily see that either are broken, to be honest- but you mentioned them)

[4] - Elite is a game of enormous complexity, played by a diverse community of wildly varying playstyles. I think- and this is merely my opinion- that any game can only cater to such a diverse crowd so much before rendering itself bland to the point of unplayability. Removing the consequences of eating a rebuy screen at the hands of another player or having a PvP toggle will appease some, yes- but how much hand-holding can a developer put into a game before it's been puffballed into irrelevance?

[5] - At the end of the day, I don't think that a game like Elite can ever be "balanced" in the sense that most people mean when they call for such. In a way, it's already balanced: the exact same tools and choices are present for each player, and each player will get from the game largely what they themselves invest into it. And if not, well...

TANSTAAFL.

1) - Although a fair question in general, I think it is mostly beside the point in this thread's context, and best left until after the discrepancies between PvE & PvP are fixed. As OP states, there's no way to rebalance any single area of this game 'correctly' (however that's understood by anyone) until the fundamental discrepancy between the PvE/PvP is either closed completely or, preferably, widened to the point that E: D is two separate games. I say 'preferably' because the alternative, simply making the game either [OpenPvPOnly] or [OpenPvEOnly], would ruin the game for almost everyone.

2) - From OP - "a full-fat & fully-featured PvPMode, next to a totally separate full-fat & fully-featured PvEMode". Two separate galaxies, one with PvP, one without.

3) - Again a fair question, but again one best left until after the fundamental problem is addressed. Only then will the actual issues of balance for a given playstyle be even perceivable, let-a-lone addressable, without impacting negatively on everyone else.

4) - I think we are in agreement here. The rebuy screen is, and should be, the ultimate motivator and deterrent and the idea of a [PvPToggle], will cause as many issues as it thinks it fixed. If you're in my instance or affecting my game (BGS), I should be able to kill you, and vice versa.

5) - I agree that 'balanced' is not something that can be achieved, and is not desirable. The fundamental problem though is not one of balance between two, for example, 'OpenOnly+PvP' CMDR's, but of two different CMDRs playing two different games in the same universe. Only after the discrepancy between PvE & PvP has been dealt with can any actual balance issue, should any exist, be dealt with, for either PvE or PvP.

 

[Morbad]

To much specialization hinders emergent game play.

Inability to specialize would do the same.

TTK is currently way to high on stacked ships.

Yes.

Stacking has also lead to a myriad of mysterious special effects and weapons that are specifically designed to counter aspects of the massive defensive hit point pool. These silly 'spells' are confusing to casual players. They don't know what killed them.

How you die is important to the experience. If a player dies because the other guy landed 5 times as many hits as him, it's feels OK.
If a player dies after a cryptic message and then a critical module goes pop, it's just leaves question marks.

They can learn.

While the precise implementation needs work, I consider combat coming down to more than raw damage in vs. out to be a very desirable thing that adds a lot of depth.

Prior to engineering, this was accomplished wholly through module damage, which could only occur after shields failed. TTK's were more reasonable, but combat was highly predictable, and certain defenses were absolute as long as they persisted. I like an element of uncertainty, and the ability to mitigate, but not eliminate, risks.

I actually enjoyed thermal load attacks being viable, for example. The initial implementation, where it was all that mattered, was far too extreme, but I thought it was in a good place when people were still using it and it still had to be taken into account.

Having even casual players immediately understand exactly what went wrong is not a good thing, IMO.

ED isn't some wizards and warlocks mmo. Spells and counter spells needs to be removed.

Real combat has counters and countermeasures; specialized attacks to overcome specialized defenses. Brute force can still work, attrition can still work, but there are always weaknesses to be exploited and tools that can make this easier. I very much want this sort of thing to be part of ED combat, though in a less rock-paper-scissors implementation.

 

[Powderpanic]

I wrote this in the suggestions forum but that place is mostly a ghost town.. Enjoy

The biggest issues I see around Open is the huge gap between a PVP Meta ship and everything else.

The main issue is around hull reinforcement stacking. Since even a trader, in theory, could decide to carry a strong shield and weapons.

My suggestion would be to make hull reinforcements limited to each ship and address the stacking.
Which really in the immersion of the game makes sense.
Replacing your cargo hold with a lump of iron, shouldn't make your ship strong to external damage. It makes no sense.

The end result is that a PVP meta ship would still carry an edge over a ship that chose other slots rather than hull reinforcement, but the edge would not be anywhere near as great as it is at the moment.

Changes could be made to base hull points on hull tank ships to balance this loss of stacking.
The result would give strong build multipurpose ship, at least a change against a PVP build.
Like it used to be before engineering and HRP stacking.

The result I think would lead to a more balanced open and more player community.

For the PVP bro's, their skill would be the winning attribute, rather than their build.
Traders would at least have a chance to fight back against gankers and indeed pirates.
Pirates would have a chance vs gank/defence wings.

Skill vs Build would be greatly reduced.

Everything would just make more sense.

I have even produced a graph, because really, who doesn't love a good graph

Powderpanic
The Voice of Graphing

 

[Morbad]

The main issue is around hull reinforcement stacking. Since even a trader, in theory, could decide to carry a strong shield and weapons.

A trader can easily devote their smallest optional internals to HRPs (small HRPs are vastly more efficient in their protection to size/mass ratio) and gain significant hull integrity while losing a very modest amount of cargo capacity.

I've flown shieldless traders that can take quite a beating and still carry more cargo than most adequately shielded ones because of this. Indeed, I did most of my trade rank while smuggling, in Open, in a 208T cargo Krait Mk II that still had 2.1k hull with good resists and an MRP.

Replacing your cargo hold with a lump of iron, shouldn't make your ship strong to external damage. It makes no sense.

I'm pretty sure hull reinforcements are supposed to represent both internal and external bracing and up-armoring; including such things as spaced armor or a torpedo belt, as well as areas stripped of redundant cargo handling, power delivery, and life support vulnerabilities. It's an abstraction and not a bad one, all things considered.

My only real issue with it is how much protection can be added to smaller ships relative to larger ones. I have a Viper III with 2k hull, and can get a Cobra IV to hull integrity values that rival my hybrid corvette.

 

[Krash]

I wrote this in the suggestions forum but that place is mostly a ghost town.. Enjoy

The biggest issues I see around Open is the huge gap between a PVP Meta ship and everything else.

The main issue is around hull reinforcement stacking. Since even a trader, in theory, could decide to carry a strong shield and weapons.

My suggestion would be to make hull reinforcements limited to each ship and address the stacking.
Which really in the immersion of the game makes sense.
Replacing your cargo hold with a lump of iron, shouldn't make your ship strong to external damage. It makes no sense.

The end result is that a PVP meta ship would still carry an edge over a ship that chose other slots rather than hull reinforcement, but the edge would not be anywhere near as great as it is at the moment.

Changes could be made to base hull points on hull tank ships to balance this loss of stacking.
The result would give strong build multipurpose ship, at least a change against a PVP build.
Like it used to be before engineering and HRP stacking.

The result I think would lead to a more balanced open and more player community.

For the PVP bro's, their skill would be the winning attribute, rather than their build.
Traders would at least have a chance to fight back against gankers and indeed pirates.
Pirates would have a chance vs gank/defence wings.

Skill vs Build would be greatly reduced.

Everything would just make more sense.

I have even produced a graph, because really, who doesn't love a good graph



Powderpanic
The Voice of Graphing

I'm conflicted over whether this is a good idea or not. Coming from a griefer, isn't this just a scheme to make it easier/faster to destroy lawfuls? I admit most griefers hold the edge on piloting skill, so removing hull stacking would only tip the scales more in favor of griefers?

 

[Powderpanic]

It reduces the gap for griefers running meta ships.

This will make it easier to beat a pvp meta boi. So it certainly won’t make griefing easier.

The plan is to make pve and non meta builds a viable fighter by making the apex predator weaker and not really affecting anything else

Powderpanic
The Voice of Griefing

 

[dekot]

My only real issue with it is how much protection can be added to smaller ships relative to larger ones. I have a Viper III with 2k hull, and can get a Cobra IV to hull integrity values that rival my hybrid corvette.

That's one of the few things that make small ships viable. A lot of things in Elite don't make sense and we all just go with it. And to get a viper to 2k hull means you have no MRPs, and hull HP that high is useless when all your modules are blown up. Your corvette probably has MRPs.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

The post 3.0 system has no randomness at all when it comes to secondaries, while the only randomness on the primaries is how far along you progress to a known end with each roll and that is generally in a rather tight range.

To get the equivalent of a full pre-3.0 'god rolled' module takes, on average, somewhere between 1/10th and 1/100th the number of rolls.



If you don't need to compete with Engineered vessels, then you don't need Engineering, but if you do want to compete with Engineered vessels, the time requirement is at least an order of magnitude less than it originally was.

At least with PvP I can choose not to partake. But since they spawn bulletsponged AI in my face, well - I just can't be bothered.

 

[Bill Clement]

Man just go engineer your ships, it's not that bad. At this point, your refusal to do so is based purely on principle.

How does anyone expect a casual PVEr to defeat a well dedicated experienced grindy PVPer, in competitive PVP activities? That's just like asking someone who doesn't play the game to defeat someone who does. Not gonna happen.

Do you guys have a problem with reading comprehension, or are you just trolling because I say mean things about griefers?

Look, if it's the former, I apologise unreservedly. That must really suck.

If it's the latter, gg, you got me! [haha]

I've been playing in open since beta. Inevitably, it follows that I've spent that time in PvP! Dekot, I'm not keen on just throwing my hand in and playing exclusively in solo. It's a good mode when you just can't be bothered with other people, but CGs and organised events are a great craic, I'm not willing to turn my back on them.

I'm a regular player of most types of PvP*, so no, that's not something I want to avoid, either.

I've already stated I'm almost exclusively engineering in my game time these days.

And Alwayslate, I'm hardly a 'casual PvEer'. I'm time constrained, not new or inexperienced. Prior to engineering it didn't really matter, the game rewarded insight into game mechanics and effective tactics, rather than twitch reflexes and the latest meta build. Now engineering has made legacy ships obsolete it doesn't really matter how good someone in a standard ship is, they can't compensate for the stupidly overpowered abilities of engineered builds.

Fellas, you're replying to things I didn't write. I'm dripping about being forced into wasting valuable game time grinding out engineering mats, rather than enjoying actually flying my toy spaceship and partaking in the multitude of activities we have to enjoy in the game, not about whatever you think I wrote.

*No powerplay. Lots of reasons...

 

[Morbad]

That's one of the few things that make small ships viable.

Yes, and this is silly.

If a small ship is supposed to be viable fighting much larger and more powerful vessels, it should not be largely because it can achieve a significant fraction of their durability.

And to get a viper to 2k hull means you have no MRPs

It's got a D2 MRP (on top of good resistances and high integrity critical internals), it just doesn't have any shields.

 

[Han_Zen]

A trader can easily devote their smallest optional internals to HRPs (small HRPs are vastly more efficient in their protection to size/mass ratio) and gain significant hull integrity while losing a very modest amount of cargo capacity.

I've flown shieldless traders that can take quite a beating and still carry more cargo than most adequately shielded ones because of this. Indeed, I did most of my trade rank while smuggling, in Open, in a 208T cargo Krait Mk II that still had 2.1k hull with good resists and an MRP.


I'm pretty sure hull reinforcements are supposed to represent both internal and external bracing and up-armoring; including such things as spaced armor or a torpedo belt, as well as areas stripped of redundant cargo handling, power delivery, and life support vulnerabilities. It's an abstraction and not a bad one, all things considered.

My only real issue with it is how much protection can be added to smaller ships relative to larger ones. I have a Viper III with 2k hull, and can get a Cobra IV to hull integrity values that rival my hybrid corvette.

The weight penalty on HRPs is supid low, compared to armour.
Armour has it right. Would be better to ditch the HRPs and add more types of it.