How do we define balance?

[ThutmoseV]

Balance in a game is a huge topic, but I will discuss it here in terms of GSF, since that is the competitve computer game I am most familiar with. How is balance defined? I will give several options, and we need to decide which option we should pursue.

 

First of all, balance is complex because the game is complex. There are 139968 combinations of t1 gunship builds, not counting crew passives and upgrade tier choices. T2 scouts have 559872 combinations. It is not easy to predict how all of these combinations would perform against each other, and a lot of what we know about it is from practical experience of many pilots playing many matches.

 

Here is one possible definition of balance in GSF terms:

 

A ship is balanced if it is as good of a choice as other ships in any map and match mode and with any set of friendly and opposition ships.

 

I do not think it is possible or desirable to meet this definition of balance. The only way to approach this would probably involve making the ships more and more like each other.

 

Another possible definition:

 

A ship is balanced if it is as good a choice as any other ship in a particular map and match mode, with any set of friendly and opposition ships.

 

This is a bit more possible. Currently a Rampart/Razorwire bomber will always be competitive on any domination map, but not as much in a deathmatch. But other types might depend on what the opposition is doing. A scout might not be able to do much against a bomber ball, and you might do better in a gunship in that situation, but without bombers a scout might be very effective against gunships.

 

Yet another possibility:

 

A ship is balanced if it is as good a choice as any other ship given a particular map, match mode, set of friendly ships, and set of opposition ships.

 

This is probably what we will end up having to do given the complexities of so many ship types and builds. What this implies is that for every ship to be balanced, there must be at least one situation where it is as effective as any other ship type. That is why the strike fighter is not balanced right now, there is no situation where there is not a better choice. One problem is that experience might lead to particular choices of ship mix that end up excluding a type of ship. Also, a particular mix of ships might be very strong if the team has very good coordination, such as voice chat.

 

I would be interested if anyone can point to other games where they feel the issue of balance has been handled very well, to see if there are any lessons for GSF.

 

I do think that attempts to balance GSF should assume that there are a lot of solo queueing,and that if possible many types of ship mixes are viable, so that ship choice will depend more on play style. But I do think that everyone will need to be able to fly at least 2 different ship types so they can adapt to different situations.

 

I do have a few particular suggestions for changes.

 

For strike fighters:

 

1. Make concussion missiles have the same lock on time, cool down time, and lock on radius as clusters, but have a longer range and more damage than clusters. This will probably require making concussion missiles only available on strikes.

 

2. Make quad lasers do more damage than they do now, but only make them available on strikes. This is a slight nerf on t2 scouts, but most scout pilots use BLC, or least are comfortable using BLC.

 

3. Give strikes a larger engine power pool, so that they can boost at least as long as scouts, maybe longer. Scouts will still be faster, but strike mobility will improve.

 

For bombers:

 

I think bombers can slow down the game, reducing the number of wild furball dogfights that I enjoy engaging in. So my suggestion is:

 

Make the damage dealing mines and drones easy to kill, 2 hits for any ship with stock lasers, one hit for geared ships. Leave the support drones (repair, beacon) as they are. This would make it easier for scouts to fight against bombers. The only problem with this is it might make it too easy for ion railguns with AoE upgrade to destroy them.