Is Real Ballance Possible
Maveric
Join Date: 2002-08-07 Member: 1101Members
Join Date: 2002-08-07 Member: 1101Members
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">With two different sides?</div> Before you make any assumptions (oh, wait, you probably did) about a religious or political post, i will state <b>but once and once alone</b> that this is a disscussion of a games ballance, between two <i>or more</i> different sides, where attempting to make all sides as fair as possible is the goal. I'll start it off:
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The most obvious of ballancing acts in games is to create a game where there are two sides, and those two sides are exactly the same with no differences. If you're thinking of chess, you are correct to assume that only a player of greater skill can over-come the other player. However, even in chess there is a imballance; being a turn based game, whomever goes first is "favoured" and is possibly more likely to win, even if the players are exactly at the same skill level. Out there somewhere on the web is a counter of all official chess game's wins/losses/ties, and in games where either white or black always went first, that side would win far more then the other. While if each side alternated, the win/loss of both sides evened out. Obviously, who goes first is just as important a factor in ballance as playing the game is.
Now, that's all well and good for a turn based real life game, but now we have computers and games on them, which allow us to do things we never could've done before without commiting a crime (murder, most likely <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> ) or were just plain impossible (fighting aliens). All the fairly good CGs are real-time; this means that where you could analyze a enemy's move for as long as you wanted to, you now have to make a split-second descision which either leads you to success or failure. This also alters heavilly how units and computer-controled enemies are handled. Now, you have to not only put in a health counter, but a damage, cooldown (cooldown = time between attacks) timer, and attack range, as well.
This real-time enviroment means that if two fighting units or players which cannot evade the attacks, means that the units have to have the exact same statistics in order to be ballanced. I'll ignore resources and other variables and focus only on the necessities - Lets take this example:
There is 1 unit with 2 HP, 1 attack, and a 1 second cool down with a melee range -- and each player has only one of these. This means that if both units attack at the exact same time, they kill eachother; however, this rarely happens, so one player will always be victorious. it's about 50/50. but, lets say we give player 1's unit a higher attack; a attack of 2. Now, when the units fight again, player 1 will always win on the first strike, which means that player 2 must have DOUBLE the amount of units to kill all of player 1's units. This is unballancing, simply because player 2 has to build TWICE as fast as player 1 does to try to keep up. However, as soon as we give player 2's units a new variable - armor - it is put back into ballance because 1 armor - 2 attack = 1 damage which means that that one damage is = to player 2's attack damage. So, the units look like:
Unit A - 2 HP, 1 Sec CoDwn, 2 dmg, 0 armor, melee
Unit B - 2 HP, 1 Sec CoDwn, 1 dmg, 1 armor, melee
which is very ballanced, because despite Unit A's 2 damage, it'll still do only 1 damage to Unit B because of unit B's 1 armor. (Ar-At=D Armor-Attack=Damage) The two units are different, but not very different; the only thing that is altered is the damage and armor between the two units. However, lets give one a ranged attack. lets say, a range of 2 tiles. I'll also give the units a tile-to-tile speed; a speed of 1 is 1 tile per second. Just for reference, a range of 2 tiles would look like:
XXS
With the first X being the target, and the last being the shooter. <b>The shot crosses over 1 tile to it's target on the last tile.</b> Melee would be XS. a range of 4 would be XXXXS Etc. (A range of 1 <i>is</i> melee, but i'll keep it simple and just say "melee". Melee, 2, 3, 4, etc)
Now the units look like:
Unit A - 2 HP, 1 Sec CoDwn, 2 dmg, 0 armor, 2 rng, 1 spd
Unit B - 2 HP, 1 Sec CoDwn, 1 dmg, 1 armor, melee, 1 spd
So, unit A now has 2 range and a speed of 1, while Unit B is stuck with melee range and a speed of 1. It'll get complicated abit after this, so strap yourself in...
Unit B is outside of Unit A's range. As long as B stays out of A's range, he wont take damage. However, every second B is in A's range he'll take 2 damage - 1 armor = <b>1 damage</b> from unit A. This means that Unit B will die within 2 seconds. This also means that if he'll die within 2 seconds, he can cross 2 tiles because of his 1 speed. BXXA is where the units are, B is outside of A's range. If B engages A, he'll die within melee range and maybe do 1 damage to him. Now, this is not good. We're back at square one. The player who uses Unit B will have to produce TWICE as much to kill Unit A. So, lets up Unit B's... Speed, and see how that turns out.
Unit A - 2 HP, 1 Sec CoDwn, 2 dmg, 0 armor, 2 rng, 1 spd
Unit B - 2 HP, 1 Sec CoDwn, 1 dmg, 1 armor, melee, 2 spd
Unit B will now cross 1 tile in half a second (or two tiles within one second!) This means that unit B will be back in business and reach unit A fast enough to ensure 1 damage is done... possibly a kill. As long as unit B doesn't get hit first, unit B should certainly win. Time progresses and people are getting bored of the game. The devs have to think of something new and exciting, so they decide to put another unit in!
Unit C - 3 HP, 1 Sec CoDwn, -1 dmg (healing) , 0 armor, melee, 0.5 spd
Unit C, as you can see, is a healer. Now, lets compare them to the other units. Unit C moves 1 tile for every 2 seconds, so it's twice as slow as unit A, and even slower then unit B. no armor means that i'll die from 3 hits from unit B and 2 shots from Unit A. Unit C and B do the inverse number of damage of eachother, so if unit C can heal itself, that means that unit B will <b>never</b> kill unit C because -1 + 1 = 0!!! Now, this is a very bad blunder made by the devs, because they didn't test it and released it! Fortunetly, there's more then one way to skin a cat, and the developers can take afew paths:
1 - Increase the amount of time it takes for Unit C to fire it's healing shot (1.5 second cool down)
2 - Make it heal less (-0.5 HP)
3 - Make it take more damage from melee (+1 damage from melee)
4 - Increase Unit B's damage by 0.5 (Unit B's damage would be 1.5, and kill unit C in about 3 hits, while still taking 2 hits to kill Unit A.)
What i hope to discover with the rest of you is how developers go through the process of identifying problems, thinking up solutions, and placing those solutions into the game, while still maintaining to implement new features. You can think up other solutions on how to solve the medic problem, the one's i've given were just basic outlines. I also encourage you to step outside the box, look at it, and step back in and share what you see simply because we can't see the outside of the box at that moment -- try to point out something others or myself have missed or could improve upon this "game".
And no, i wont use this thread to make a 100% ballanced game... <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> and please, use examples from other games if it'll help your idea. also remember that we're dealing with a 2D world, where you cannot dodge shots unless the unit has the ability to do so, and that unit conflicts are largely 1 on 1. Multi-unit "battle tests" can get complicated, unless you're innovative enough in text to make it uncomplicated.
So...
Get solving. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
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The most obvious of ballancing acts in games is to create a game where there are two sides, and those two sides are exactly the same with no differences. If you're thinking of chess, you are correct to assume that only a player of greater skill can over-come the other player. However, even in chess there is a imballance; being a turn based game, whomever goes first is "favoured" and is possibly more likely to win, even if the players are exactly at the same skill level. Out there somewhere on the web is a counter of all official chess game's wins/losses/ties, and in games where either white or black always went first, that side would win far more then the other. While if each side alternated, the win/loss of both sides evened out. Obviously, who goes first is just as important a factor in ballance as playing the game is.
Now, that's all well and good for a turn based real life game, but now we have computers and games on them, which allow us to do things we never could've done before without commiting a crime (murder, most likely <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> ) or were just plain impossible (fighting aliens). All the fairly good CGs are real-time; this means that where you could analyze a enemy's move for as long as you wanted to, you now have to make a split-second descision which either leads you to success or failure. This also alters heavilly how units and computer-controled enemies are handled. Now, you have to not only put in a health counter, but a damage, cooldown (cooldown = time between attacks) timer, and attack range, as well.
This real-time enviroment means that if two fighting units or players which cannot evade the attacks, means that the units have to have the exact same statistics in order to be ballanced. I'll ignore resources and other variables and focus only on the necessities - Lets take this example:
There is 1 unit with 2 HP, 1 attack, and a 1 second cool down with a melee range -- and each player has only one of these. This means that if both units attack at the exact same time, they kill eachother; however, this rarely happens, so one player will always be victorious. it's about 50/50. but, lets say we give player 1's unit a higher attack; a attack of 2. Now, when the units fight again, player 1 will always win on the first strike, which means that player 2 must have DOUBLE the amount of units to kill all of player 1's units. This is unballancing, simply because player 2 has to build TWICE as fast as player 1 does to try to keep up. However, as soon as we give player 2's units a new variable - armor - it is put back into ballance because 1 armor - 2 attack = 1 damage which means that that one damage is = to player 2's attack damage. So, the units look like:
Unit A - 2 HP, 1 Sec CoDwn, 2 dmg, 0 armor, melee
Unit B - 2 HP, 1 Sec CoDwn, 1 dmg, 1 armor, melee
which is very ballanced, because despite Unit A's 2 damage, it'll still do only 1 damage to Unit B because of unit B's 1 armor. (Ar-At=D Armor-Attack=Damage) The two units are different, but not very different; the only thing that is altered is the damage and armor between the two units. However, lets give one a ranged attack. lets say, a range of 2 tiles. I'll also give the units a tile-to-tile speed; a speed of 1 is 1 tile per second. Just for reference, a range of 2 tiles would look like:
XXS
With the first X being the target, and the last being the shooter. <b>The shot crosses over 1 tile to it's target on the last tile.</b> Melee would be XS. a range of 4 would be XXXXS Etc. (A range of 1 <i>is</i> melee, but i'll keep it simple and just say "melee". Melee, 2, 3, 4, etc)
Now the units look like:
Unit A - 2 HP, 1 Sec CoDwn, 2 dmg, 0 armor, 2 rng, 1 spd
Unit B - 2 HP, 1 Sec CoDwn, 1 dmg, 1 armor, melee, 1 spd
So, unit A now has 2 range and a speed of 1, while Unit B is stuck with melee range and a speed of 1. It'll get complicated abit after this, so strap yourself in...
Unit B is outside of Unit A's range. As long as B stays out of A's range, he wont take damage. However, every second B is in A's range he'll take 2 damage - 1 armor = <b>1 damage</b> from unit A. This means that Unit B will die within 2 seconds. This also means that if he'll die within 2 seconds, he can cross 2 tiles because of his 1 speed. BXXA is where the units are, B is outside of A's range. If B engages A, he'll die within melee range and maybe do 1 damage to him. Now, this is not good. We're back at square one. The player who uses Unit B will have to produce TWICE as much to kill Unit A. So, lets up Unit B's... Speed, and see how that turns out.
Unit A - 2 HP, 1 Sec CoDwn, 2 dmg, 0 armor, 2 rng, 1 spd
Unit B - 2 HP, 1 Sec CoDwn, 1 dmg, 1 armor, melee, 2 spd
Unit B will now cross 1 tile in half a second (or two tiles within one second!) This means that unit B will be back in business and reach unit A fast enough to ensure 1 damage is done... possibly a kill. As long as unit B doesn't get hit first, unit B should certainly win. Time progresses and people are getting bored of the game. The devs have to think of something new and exciting, so they decide to put another unit in!
Unit C - 3 HP, 1 Sec CoDwn, -1 dmg (healing) , 0 armor, melee, 0.5 spd
Unit C, as you can see, is a healer. Now, lets compare them to the other units. Unit C moves 1 tile for every 2 seconds, so it's twice as slow as unit A, and even slower then unit B. no armor means that i'll die from 3 hits from unit B and 2 shots from Unit A. Unit C and B do the inverse number of damage of eachother, so if unit C can heal itself, that means that unit B will <b>never</b> kill unit C because -1 + 1 = 0!!! Now, this is a very bad blunder made by the devs, because they didn't test it and released it! Fortunetly, there's more then one way to skin a cat, and the developers can take afew paths:
1 - Increase the amount of time it takes for Unit C to fire it's healing shot (1.5 second cool down)
2 - Make it heal less (-0.5 HP)
3 - Make it take more damage from melee (+1 damage from melee)
4 - Increase Unit B's damage by 0.5 (Unit B's damage would be 1.5, and kill unit C in about 3 hits, while still taking 2 hits to kill Unit A.)
What i hope to discover with the rest of you is how developers go through the process of identifying problems, thinking up solutions, and placing those solutions into the game, while still maintaining to implement new features. You can think up other solutions on how to solve the medic problem, the one's i've given were just basic outlines. I also encourage you to step outside the box, look at it, and step back in and share what you see simply because we can't see the outside of the box at that moment -- try to point out something others or myself have missed or could improve upon this "game".
And no, i wont use this thread to make a 100% ballanced game... <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> and please, use examples from other games if it'll help your idea. also remember that we're dealing with a 2D world, where you cannot dodge shots unless the unit has the ability to do so, and that unit conflicts are largely 1 on 1. Multi-unit "battle tests" can get complicated, unless you're innovative enough in text to make it uncomplicated.
So...
Get solving. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Comments
Sounds just like Protoss (high powered), Terran (accurate) and Zerg (fast firing), though of course that's a gross generalisation.
However, Starcraft: Brood War was successfully able to balance 3 races that were extreamly differant. it shows that it can be done, though the question must be how does one arrive at said balance. I'll say more later, right now it's cheap sushi night and my ride is leaving <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
And please, bring up any aspect of ballance from any Genre of games. RPGs, RTSs, FPSs, anything that has gameplay has a certain amount of ballance. We just have to find out what makes those games so ballanced in one aspect and unballanced in another. Then we can apply that model to unballanced games and locate the problem reasonably well, without relying on the person saying "OMG N00B HAXXOR INBULLANCED!!1" <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->