And If Your Heart Starts To Falter.
R2Sphinx
Join Date: 2003-08-04 Member: 18900Members
Join Date: 2003-08-04 Member: 18900Members
<div class="IPBDescription">balancing in general, not ns balance</div> Developers never balance a game with a closed beta.
It's just not possible, as balance is a reflection of how people play the game. A closed beta will naturally play very differently than an open beta. The social dynamics of a closed beta are usually very altruisic (and subsuquently odd). Moreover, by the sheer laws of statsitcs an open beta is bound to have people who are far more tactically brilliant, as well as more desperately inept than in a closed beta.
A 10 person closed beta playing for a month will put in much less man time time than a 10k open beta playing for a few days. Moreover, open betas naturally include a portion of people who are fully insane. They abuse the game in ways too mortally sick and twisted to be found in the closed beta team. Ie: The electrified arms lab.
An open beta allows for developers to observe how people play.
Usually first impressions are greatly respected, often with "First Impressions?" forum threads. Not that these will be the most educated views on the game, but through some careful observations here the initial (and usually subsuquent) impression can be greatly improved. Non intuitive things can be explained more clearly, and holes in the manual can be addressed.
Secondly, less staged balance issues can begin to be observed. Here it's important to note something, so I'll put it on it's own line.
Balance is dynamic, not static.
As people gain skill, develop strategies, discover exploits, form teams, hack, and generally evolve so will the balance. If you wish to maintain balance between all these factors, constant adapatations are needed. Look at any mmpog or rts.
In a closed beta, you can get a rough idea of what is balanced or not. But open betas introduce elements that through things out of wack and thus the balance must be readjusted. By joining games, observing public players, listening to them (not coaching or beating them) you can observe things about balance you couldn't first hand in a closed beta.
I'm not saying NS is horribly unbalanced here, I'm just saying a more realistic attitude needs to be taken towards balance besides "IT IS SO SUYF."
What needs to (and what naturally will) happen is for the game to be open to the public for a week or two, then tweaked. A few more weeks go by, and then another tweak. Eventually things settle. An exploit might crop up and require drastic change, but the process of settling as stated above can be repeated. There is no need to stifle claims of "it isn't balanced" because if they occur, people feel it wasn't (and isn't that what's important?)
Simply a measured reaction is needed. For example (don't flame me here...) if it's apparent some people feel that side A is too strong. Others argue that A and B are fine as they are. No one, however, is arguing for B being stronger than A. Therefore it is clear that B is weaker than A.
If the public sentiment about A and B persist in this manner for a while, tweak the game and observe the reaction.
Lastly (and this is more of a public relations issue) never claim that the game is balanced on release. Of course you hope it is, but never claim it. It's only becomes a target for the dissatisfaction of those who lose. Instead, say it is always in the process of being balanced (so please, public, be paitent) and wait for the public itself to award your game the praise of "balance."
It's just not possible, as balance is a reflection of how people play the game. A closed beta will naturally play very differently than an open beta. The social dynamics of a closed beta are usually very altruisic (and subsuquently odd). Moreover, by the sheer laws of statsitcs an open beta is bound to have people who are far more tactically brilliant, as well as more desperately inept than in a closed beta.
A 10 person closed beta playing for a month will put in much less man time time than a 10k open beta playing for a few days. Moreover, open betas naturally include a portion of people who are fully insane. They abuse the game in ways too mortally sick and twisted to be found in the closed beta team. Ie: The electrified arms lab.
An open beta allows for developers to observe how people play.
Usually first impressions are greatly respected, often with "First Impressions?" forum threads. Not that these will be the most educated views on the game, but through some careful observations here the initial (and usually subsuquent) impression can be greatly improved. Non intuitive things can be explained more clearly, and holes in the manual can be addressed.
Secondly, less staged balance issues can begin to be observed. Here it's important to note something, so I'll put it on it's own line.
Balance is dynamic, not static.
As people gain skill, develop strategies, discover exploits, form teams, hack, and generally evolve so will the balance. If you wish to maintain balance between all these factors, constant adapatations are needed. Look at any mmpog or rts.
In a closed beta, you can get a rough idea of what is balanced or not. But open betas introduce elements that through things out of wack and thus the balance must be readjusted. By joining games, observing public players, listening to them (not coaching or beating them) you can observe things about balance you couldn't first hand in a closed beta.
I'm not saying NS is horribly unbalanced here, I'm just saying a more realistic attitude needs to be taken towards balance besides "IT IS SO SUYF."
What needs to (and what naturally will) happen is for the game to be open to the public for a week or two, then tweaked. A few more weeks go by, and then another tweak. Eventually things settle. An exploit might crop up and require drastic change, but the process of settling as stated above can be repeated. There is no need to stifle claims of "it isn't balanced" because if they occur, people feel it wasn't (and isn't that what's important?)
Simply a measured reaction is needed. For example (don't flame me here...) if it's apparent some people feel that side A is too strong. Others argue that A and B are fine as they are. No one, however, is arguing for B being stronger than A. Therefore it is clear that B is weaker than A.
If the public sentiment about A and B persist in this manner for a while, tweak the game and observe the reaction.
Lastly (and this is more of a public relations issue) never claim that the game is balanced on release. Of course you hope it is, but never claim it. It's only becomes a target for the dissatisfaction of those who lose. Instead, say it is always in the process of being balanced (so please, public, be paitent) and wait for the public itself to award your game the praise of "balance."
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Silver Fox: Lots of people are jealous that you were in the closed beta, and therefore they are spiteful towards you. They could have done it better, surely...
However, it stands that if they were to have played it 5 months ago and compared that to how they played it now they would certainly agree you did your job.
Their spitefulness doesn't, however, negate all their claims. It simply makes them rude. Detached reading and paitence must be used in order to seperate the obnoxiousness from the truth in order to acheive a finer balance that is more attuned to the public. Actually, I would suspect this has begun a new era in your job as beta tester, rather than the end and judgement of it.
Whoever posted about closed betas: The more complicated the game, the harder it is to balance. More accurately though, developers (specificially publishers) learned long ago it is cheaper to continue the beta to AFTER the sales release. Price, then patch.
Just HAD to say that <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
The problem is, some people who say that something is unbalanced, (for example, someone was claiming that the fact that marines could not build a cc after their last one was destroyed was unbalanced, because aliens could build hives, and therefore so should marines) usually add a lot of other useless crap as well, such as "and its not fair to have to wait all that time to respawn why can't marines respawn instantly." It comes to the point that people make the generalization that all people who say that the game is unbalanced (less than a week after release) are branded as idiots (for lack of a better word).
Closed betas have quite a bit of an advantage over open betas in some aspects.
You have better control over access to confidential files and less chance of leaks. Your bandwidth does not get destroyed when you have multiple updates and patches in close timeframes. You can make changes and keep them secret for suprises upon release.
Open betas only show that they are good for balancing the broken strats and fixing bugs. The closed beta really did a good job of making sure we didn't have any broken strats that weren't counterable in any reasonable fashion. (i.e. jetpacks before lerks or even fades, like in 1.04) Bug hunting wasn't 100%, as many can already attest to, but for the amount of change and new content, it can be expected.
<!--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-->Developers never balance a game with a closed beta.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I believe that Flayra did the correct thing the way he did it. Of course the game isn't 100% balanced. It never will be. But closed beta got us to work a system of checks and balances. Strategems and counters.
In the NS playtesting, it eventually got to a point where Flayra said, no real broken strats were going to be discovered, short of putting it in the hands of the masses. That and I'm of the assumption that he's quick to patch any 2.0 balance issues/bugs that are apparent.
In the case of NS, I have to say that an open beta would have been more trouble organizing to end up with the same positive result we got on release. NS 1.0 was one of the most complete Half-life total conversion mods. NS 2.0 is just that much more.
I all fairness and no disrespect, you cannot say you playtested this 2.0 for 5 months, the constant changes to the game, the complete OVERHAUL changes would have made it impossible for you guys to keep ontop of things, the latest change was 4 days before release was it not? Yet apparently you can say it is balanced after 4 days of playing this version of 2.0, I find it insulting that you will not even consider that the game isnt balanced, its like telling the entire world, "you are stupid and i know all."
I cant speak for everyone, but the majority of clans will, when a new version of anygame comes out, try their damndest to exploit (for testing purposes) every aspect of the game completely.
We play harder and longer than anyone else, I hear almost all the PTing was done under public conditions, tbh we dont care much for public conditions (they seemed balanced till i got the aliens to use a clan strat that even on public, we cant work out a counter for), the fact remains that even the best clans, who have used immense amounts of teamwork in 1.0, and still do now, cannot win a tourney mode match as marine.
The speed in these games the second hive starts to build is about 1:30 - 2 minutes into the game, by the time its finished the marines simply havent got the tech level to stop a multi species assault, ANYWHERE on the map, let alone their base. The people on here complain about onos being overpowered blah blah, wait untill the public alien teams work out to use 2 gorges and a lerk on that onos too, then you will be overwelmed by complaints.
All in all, 2nd hive tech is as it stands, a game ender, the same level of teamwork on either side, the aliens come out ontop. sorry to state the facts.
However, that said, I feel that in games such as this SO are OPEN betas. And that's what NS is right now, even if it isn't called such. The difference between an open beta and a final is the state of the balancing and bug testing. As things settle in the open beta finally can you with confidence declare things largly balaced and bug free without detractors. Attitudes towards people who complain should be restrained with the above in mind, as even the violent stupid flamers have some merit in everyones long term enjoyment of the game (after all, they will be your teammates). One needn't be so unhappy that people find flaws - for if they find flaws, it means they enjoyed the game itself enough to pick it apart and develop strong passions towards it.
Its like being on a island of 100 people. If everyone was split into their race/reglion/etc you'd find that some people(s) didn't even get on the island. But if you had 1000 or 10000 or even 100000 people you'd get a much more accurate number of peoples and would be able to get all of the ideas in. Same goes for PTing. If you have 100 PTs they cant all represent the ideas of the entire populace; though 1000 or 10000 regular players could.
PT and Player... i dont see much differance. We both play the game, we both find bugs (though PTs are MADE to find them, players just run into them by accident) on occasion, and we both want ballance in the game we play and love.
[e]I'm not saying closed betas are useless, im just saying that Closed betas should be "iron out all the B*" and then the open beta can take care of it. granted you'll always have those that will always say "but this is [weak/powerful]!!!1" no matter what happens.[/e]
If you boil down all the complaints.. the ACTUAL complaints, not simply the ones from people uncomfortable with having to adapt to a new revision of the game, then they seem to roughly balance each other out.
Now, this could just be me, but it would seem that this account was created specifically to make this post. Quite possibly by one of our other forum-members, who may or may not have been warned about making balance posts in general.
As it stands, the 'tweak-patch-tweak-tweak-fix' had happened already in v1.04, swinging the game balance back and forth a number of times. With v2.0, we are trying to avoid having that happen again. When something gets patched, it will be tested beforehand... and the tweaks should come in slow increments, rather than sweeping revisions.
Yet again...
<span style='color:red'>*LOCKED.*</span>