Is It Possible To Balance Fps Games?
Immacolata
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2140Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2140Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
<div class="IPBDescription">Imagine a game where it's only dice</div> Is Strategy and First person shooters a marriage made in hell or heaven? To date, Natural Selection is one of the most interesting projects in terms of remodelling how we perceive multiplayer games. But we've witnessed the delicate balancing act attempted with 1.0x version of Natural-Selection. But no matter how hard Flayra has tried, we are left with a game that currently favours players with super quake-skills far more than teams with good tactics and average quake skills. I play clan games, and we get slaughtered by the Quake players, not the tabletop generals. But is it at all possible to balance these things?
If you put too low a ceiling on skill you end up in an entirely different mess, one where people perhaps thinks it's too stupid to play. Or you implement artificial "skill dampeners" like teeth model, gun flare, recoil, jump stamina etc. Things that you can tamper with client side to remove them and thus give yourself a upper hand. IS there really any action game out there where team play after sound tactics will always outdo super individualists with mad rambo skills? The fragger will always win as long as fragging someone is the heart of the fps game. And fragging IS the way you win NS, there's no mucking about on that point. Frag the right guy at the right place in the right time. And do it more than they do it to you. Thats how you control NS maps. Or any of these games.
One kind of implementation of firefights that lacks in current games are suppression fire. The whole idea is to make the enemy not able to move, or move very slowly, but not actually killing them. Well you would want to kill them but you cant because they're too far away or hiding. In NS there is only suppression as so far that if you see a hmg marine crouching in a vent, you simply DONT GO DOWN THAT VENT. Or if a marine spams nades, you tend not to be near said nades when they detonate. But a hit is a hit. Perhaps it is too easy right now to kill people if you are skilled, but not possible to "suppress" skilled people with your average skills using weapons.
In the end skill will always be a boon, but is it possible to lessen the impact of rambo skills in a game like FPS, DOD, UT etc. at all, without risking to retard gameplay?
RANDOMIZER.
As it is there is some amount of randomizing in the game. Cone fire for instance. But to either dampen the impact of classic FPS skills or truly eliminate them, and put focus on tactics, you'd need to make any encounter entirely random. If skulk meets marine, each of their attacks damage and hit probability will be determined by random variables. That removes FPS skills as we know them and replaces them with cold hearted probability. Then proper positioning and sound tactics would matter more. But would it be fun? It would be true RTS then, not FPS. And thats what we love about NS, it has both.
So either you cap player's skills with artificial implants, that works on EVERYONE, also the unskilled or medium skilled. Or you remove skill from the equation by randomizer features. Or you make alternative goals for the game that does not rely on fragging other players or somehow revolve around the ability to frag while remaine unfragged.
In the end it is a concern about how to equalize the odds by quake skills having less of an impact in the game, but in current FPS games like Counter-strike there's probably too much of an infatuation with modelling proectile fires, realistic hitboxes etc. Really geared for 1vs1 fights.
This was just a thought I had, should've been posted in Discussions... but MonsE locked us out <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
If you put too low a ceiling on skill you end up in an entirely different mess, one where people perhaps thinks it's too stupid to play. Or you implement artificial "skill dampeners" like teeth model, gun flare, recoil, jump stamina etc. Things that you can tamper with client side to remove them and thus give yourself a upper hand. IS there really any action game out there where team play after sound tactics will always outdo super individualists with mad rambo skills? The fragger will always win as long as fragging someone is the heart of the fps game. And fragging IS the way you win NS, there's no mucking about on that point. Frag the right guy at the right place in the right time. And do it more than they do it to you. Thats how you control NS maps. Or any of these games.
One kind of implementation of firefights that lacks in current games are suppression fire. The whole idea is to make the enemy not able to move, or move very slowly, but not actually killing them. Well you would want to kill them but you cant because they're too far away or hiding. In NS there is only suppression as so far that if you see a hmg marine crouching in a vent, you simply DONT GO DOWN THAT VENT. Or if a marine spams nades, you tend not to be near said nades when they detonate. But a hit is a hit. Perhaps it is too easy right now to kill people if you are skilled, but not possible to "suppress" skilled people with your average skills using weapons.
In the end skill will always be a boon, but is it possible to lessen the impact of rambo skills in a game like FPS, DOD, UT etc. at all, without risking to retard gameplay?
RANDOMIZER.
As it is there is some amount of randomizing in the game. Cone fire for instance. But to either dampen the impact of classic FPS skills or truly eliminate them, and put focus on tactics, you'd need to make any encounter entirely random. If skulk meets marine, each of their attacks damage and hit probability will be determined by random variables. That removes FPS skills as we know them and replaces them with cold hearted probability. Then proper positioning and sound tactics would matter more. But would it be fun? It would be true RTS then, not FPS. And thats what we love about NS, it has both.
So either you cap player's skills with artificial implants, that works on EVERYONE, also the unskilled or medium skilled. Or you remove skill from the equation by randomizer features. Or you make alternative goals for the game that does not rely on fragging other players or somehow revolve around the ability to frag while remaine unfragged.
In the end it is a concern about how to equalize the odds by quake skills having less of an impact in the game, but in current FPS games like Counter-strike there's probably too much of an infatuation with modelling proectile fires, realistic hitboxes etc. Really geared for 1vs1 fights.
This was just a thought I had, should've been posted in Discussions... but MonsE locked us out <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
NS is based on FPS ... does this mean to nullify the FPS advantage to reach the RTS god?
GIVE ALL AIMBOTS... hehe (just joking lol)
Na, what I mean is that a good commander can win this even with average people. I have seen and I have also commanded many a game when the marines and alien score is like so : 34 - 80. The aliens get a lot more kills yet marines still win. It's impresssive and makes me proud to play this game. Not sure where you play mate but I see this a lot (but only if the commander has a brain)
ATM FPS skills are more important (IMO, due to the lack of viable strategies) but i'm sure future versions will deal with this issue.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->But no matter how hard Flayra has tried, we are left with a game that currently favours players with super quake-skills far more than teams with good tactics and average quake skills. I play clan games, and we get slaughtered by the Quake players, not the tabletop generals. But is it at all possible to balance these things? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A couple of points. Was SC balanced when it was released ? No, and thats from a fully financed and experienced team. There is no way on God's green Earth Flayra and his group of un-paid volunteers (i.e.part time) is going to achieve balance in NS in 5 months, especially whan you add the FPS aspect which makes every observation/conclusion about balance open to bias and mis-judgement due to player skill, also multiplied by the fact you have to work in a team.
In conclusion, yes, it can be 'balanced', but not in 5 months. TBH what has been achieved is awesome already, but it isn't perfect and Flay knows it, and will try his damndest to fix/improve it.
Edit: Congratulations on becoming a PT BTW <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
To put it in context, can you imagine a RTS where you only had limited control over your own army, and the opponent seemed to have a AI that was alternately brilliant and unfathomable?
The fusion of RTS and FPS is working well in NS IMO, but you will never achieve a true balance, because the people playing the game are selected from a random set of the population. Adding different elements to control various aspects (the aimbot suggestion) would only have the effect of shifting the pattern of skills, those that could run "better" or use a jp more effectively.
In summary: FPS are hard to balance, mainly because no two players are identical.
erm, no. Traditional FPS's are easy to balance. Produce a range of balanced weapons, make decent maps, job done.
It's only the RTS element which makes NS difficult to balance <b>and then</b> the FPS element muddies the waters so to speak.
ATM FPS skills are more important (IMO, due to the lack of viable strategies) but i'm sure future versions will deal with this
issue.
A couple of points. Was SC balanced when it was released ? No, and thats from a fully financed and experienced team. There is no way on God's green Earth Flayra and his group of un-paid volunteers (i.e.part time) is going to achieve balance in NS in 5 months, especially whan you add the FPS aspect which makes every observation/conclusion about balance open to bias and mis-judgement due to player skill, also multiplied by the fact you have to work in a team.
In conclusion, yes, it can be 'balanced', but not in 5 months. TBH what has been achieved is awesome already, but it isn't perfect and Flay knows it, and will try his damndest to fix/improve it.
Edit: Congratulations on becoming a PT BTW <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well first thing, agree upon balancing NS in retrospect is a lot easier than in advance. Only merciless gaming will reveal where there are problems and where there are not. But it is not a dissing of NS as a mod, I think it's the best mod ever and one of the darnedest fine games ever to see the light of day for online play. Otherwise I wouldn't have said yes to playtesting <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
But I am asking if it isn't a fundamental and intriniscal aspect of FPS games. They are all centeread around fragging, thus it will always be the most important. Have you asked yourself why many viable strategies are not viable in present 1.04? Because individual skills count for so much that you can waltz into a hive and take it down quite early in the game. And that can only happen because each marine player is proficient at his job. Notice how bad jp hmg rushes work with players who are not so skilled in using jp's.
I am not advocating for a game where skill is irrelevant, I am just in a debatey mode and asking out loud "What would it take for a DIFFERENT combination of FPS and RTS, that would put more into the analytical part and less into mad quake skillz? Randomness, lesser focus on fragging etc. I think it's really tough without removing the fun parts of the FPS half of the equation.
NS is very simplistic from a strategy point of view. Most games are, even supposed "strategy" games. After 5 months of playing NS people have got to the point where they understand what works and what doesn't at that level, the gameplay/playerbase is maturing and we're seeing how the game really is in its present state. There are 2 things you can observe from the current situation -
Firstly, it didn't take very long for the game to stagnate strategy wise. We're 5 months down the line and clans are at the point where they pretty much know what to expect from their opponents. (Note, this in itself isnt a bad thing, however we have reached this point very quickly).
Secondly, NS's matured gameplay has shown itself to be very limited. I would say that vannilla Warcraft 3 is also reaching this matured state of gameplay now, however wc3 has ended up with more strategic variations than NS has. WC3, like any game of this type, has boiled down to a small selection of general strategies that are much more potent than the other available strategies. The difference between this matured WC3 gameplay and NS's gameplay is that in WC3, differing strategies co-exist with each other because one strategy can counter another. For example, mass HU/ORC casters is the general dominant team strategy. However there are some early game harrassment/rush builds that can give these caster tech's a hard time and force people to adapt their build in order to counter. This sort of strategic interaction means that although the playerbase has weeded out 95% of possible strategies and stuck to the ones that work, among these workable strats there is still variety and adaptation.
In NS, we have rushing and early game pressure/res gathering leading on to JP/HMG. Versus the aliens best efforts to stop it. That's basically it, there is no adapted strategy the aliens can pull that will cause the marines to significantly alter their strat. So at the strategic level, the marines are doing more or less the same thing every time. Which is more or less the reason the gameplay has matured so quickly, and why it is so simple now that it has matured.
That is not to say that the game itself is simplistic or extremely shallow, just its strategic layer. The game still has depth and space for clans to practice and excel at it, but you can probably guess where all this depth lies after the strategic elements have stagnated. Currently topclans are mostly seperated by their "Quake-skill" and their micro-tactics. By micro-tactics i'm referring to team decisions which work on a narrower level than overall game strategy, such as how to spread marines out between pressuring/defending/capping res. Or how to time that gathered rush to hit at just the right moment. That, and FPS ability is now what the game is about.
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we are left with a game that currently favours players with super quake-skills far more than teams with good tactics and average quake skills.
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The reason i believe you are looking at this the wrong way comes from this sentance. The problem is not that weak strategy and strong fps skills are beating strong strategy and weak fps skills. If sYn dropped TFs in the marine start, tried to defend every res node they capped with a turret farm or went sensory first in every game they wouldn't be a dominant clan. FPS skills or no FPS skills. The problem is we have reached the point where strategy is almost standardized, and the strategies of all clans are so similar because it is quite clear what works. Under these circumstances, the few tiny differences between one clan's strat and another's are not significant enough to overcome differences in FPS skill and micro-tactics. Quake players are not beating table-top generals, because there are no table-top generals to beat, no one is doing anything amazing strategy wise because there is no scope for it.
Having said that, understand we shouldn't be trying to cripple the FPS segment of NS. We should be trying to enhance the strategy segment instead. Allow the aliens options in the early game that can force the marines to adapt to them. Crippling the FPS segment of the game so that highly skilled individual players perform identically to people who learnt to aim in HLDM, does not suddenly fix NS's problems with strategy. It just makes the game much more shallow than it currently is.
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IS there really any action game out there where team play after sound tactics will always outdo super individualists with mad rambo skills?
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Well.... by specifying action game you're automatically limiting the sample size to games traditionally based around individual skill. It's not as if there are many games such as NS that try to mix first person shooter and strategy genres. I also think this common type of question is missplaced. In most cases where there is a hybrid game, the players with 'mad rambo skills' are also at least competant if not stronger tactically than johnny HL player. If 2 teams of players are comparable tactically, is it that wrong for the team with greater individual skill to come out on top? How often do you really see teams with very high individual skill and very weak strategy?
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RANDOMIZER.
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I find the concept of this absolutely revolting :)
But i see what you are trying to discuss, it is not necessary for fights to be random in order to 'level the playing field'. That is just one way of achieving it. Infact it is better for random elements kept to a minimum. All you have to do is remove the player's ability to significantly effect the outcome of the fight, the suggestion of giving everybody an aimbot for example, achieves this with very few random elements. You also seem to suggest that random combat is a hallmark of RTS, i don't believe this is true at all. While they commonly use some element of chance in damage figures, the outcome of a fight in most RTS games is (and should be) pretty predictable. For example the decision in WC3 to use slightly random damage calculation is not done for the purpose of making battles a matter of chance. The calculation for hits happens so frequently over the course of a battle that the small element of chance is more or less eliminated. The random damage on wc3 units is only there to avoid a situation from previous blizzard games, where there existed a 'magic number' of units you could stack up, that would always kill a particular unit in a single round of focus fire. Having the magic number of units in a focus fire group would be significantly more effective than having 1 unit less or 1 unit more than the 'magic number'. In wc3 you can not guaruntee the damage dealt in a single round of fire, despite the fact that it evens out over a full confrontation.
I have a funnny feeling there was something else i wanted to say. Nevermind
What your actually saying is something I touched on in the Clan base discussion, that FPS skills are ATM way more important then any strategic or teamwork skills.
Your asking how we can make them equal or reverse this 'problem' ?
With difficulty I imagine. To a point FPS are always gonna be more important then anything else. Having the best plan in the world doesn't help if your marines can't get out of base. Or to put it an other way, a shortcoming in tactics can be made up for by simply killing everything on sight. A lack of FPS can't be compensated by anything really, you just killed when you try anything.
However, and in contridication to myself, I think this over-reliance on FPS skills will be pretty short lived.
All clan matches ATM seem to revolve around JP/HMGs, either enacting it and countering it, so strategy goes out the window. Teamwork can be assumed in clans to be fairly equal, especially when the're doing something they're accustomed to. So the outcome is largely determined by FPS skills.
Coming to my point...
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->More diversity of tactics, along with more play-time at the 2 and 3 hive stages<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
From the news page. So whatevers happening in 1.1, it seems as if the number of viable tactics will improve. So strategy will again become a deciding factor in a game. Teamwork will have to be good as the clans won't be doing things by rota as with JP/HMG.
No matter what though, if you can't shoot straight your gonna lose. Period. This is a RTS/<b>FPS</b> game after all.
But I am asking if it isn't a fundamental and intriniscal aspect of FPS games. They are all centeread around fragging, thus it will always be the most important. Have you asked yourself why many viable strategies are not viable in present 1.04? Because individual skills count for so much that you can waltz into a hive and take it down quite early in the game. And that can only happen because each marine player is proficient at his job. Notice how bad jp hmg rushes work with players who are not so skilled in using jp's.
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Ok, that about summed up the point I was trying to make.
and Pheonix, I'm sure if you put a n00b in a one on one with an experience player, he would feel the game was unfair, its not, its the players that are unfair.
What I was trying to say is that it honestly doesn't matter what checks or balances you throw in - same teams even, some players will always be better, I think Immacolata was trying to see if there was a way to reduce the impact of the fps random skill element/desire to FRAG! I personally think it would reduce the fun and player involvement. However, I suspect that this is because I am usually a grunt, not a commander. Ask yourself which you would prefer, a group of super rambos, that scattered in random directions, or average players that followed orders to the letter? I know which a commander would find easier to command. I guess having thought about it like that the hardest balance in a FPS/RTS crossover isn't between sides, or skills or even the proportion of RTS/FPS in the mix, its balancing the enjoyment of the players. Total obedience (for a TRUE RTS) or total rambo (for a true FPS) either CAN be enjoyable, but not for the player thats left out. Any measure that adds to one will invariably detract from the other. I, for one would be upset if I never missed - how would I know what kind of shot I was?
Again I'm not completely happy with this, I knw the point I'm trying to make, but I can't put it eloquently, I'm afraid.
?
Your thinking about this wrong. If I get beaten by someone whos better then me skill-wise, how is that unfair ? He shouldn't attack me because i'm not as good ? That would make it fair ?
The point TeoH and myself have made is that it isn't that FPS skills have <b>too</b> much of an impact on the game as such, but that strategic skill doesn't have <b>enough</b> of an impact.
And the names Phoenix BTW <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Ok, your team has never played NS before. You have, however played CS and consider yourself to be pretty good at fps games. You get owned. repeatedly.
Your though proces goes
I was owned
but I am good.
I am therefore not at fault.
It is not my fault I got owned.
Its not the other team's fault I got owned, because I'm good
ergo: The game itself must be flawed.
It isn't. Its just that the skillset doesn't match. NS is a mod unlike practically any other.
What I was saying is that ANY marine can have an impact on the level of tactics in a game. I'm a good grunt. I'm given orders, I do em until I can't. if I can't I try to make useful suggestions, or wait for new orders. By the definition, I am improving the impact of the RTS element. Agreed. I enjoy that.
BUT
You can't make ALL fps players do this. Some players will Rambo, because, well....they want to, these are harcore fps players, they don't WANT any involvement in the tactical aspect.
ANOTHER BUT
Should there be a theoritical way of levelling teh palying field, the hardcore fps player would see it as TOO tactics based, and not enough personal involvement, not enough fps.
oh, and I usually spell phoenix like that too <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->