Get the balance right

[IndiraLightfoot]

I've been pondering over balance. There are plenty of game features that need balancing, obviously. The question is: When's balancing going too far? When is it really needed, and when is it almost hampering gameplay and general fun?

 

I began thinking about it a bit more yesterday, when I was approaching what I knew was an important opponent in Might & Magic X Legacy. I guess, the game dev term for that guy is miniboss. Well, outside his abode, two weird guards were standing ominously. To make a long story short; the guards turned out to be a much harder encounter than the miniboss. When I later googled that, I saw lot of angry posts about Ubisoft not having gotten the balance right. To many players, a miniboss has to be more powerful than his bodyguards.

 

Well, I beg to differ!

Why? Well, first of all. It surprised me, and made my day, almost. Hey, it even got me thinking about this! I realized that the best games don't balance everything so that there are cannon fodder, elites, mini-bosses and bosses. Disclaimer: I realize ARPGs need to balance stuff like this pretty hard, because they are following an arcade game recipe, where the actions you take are almost e-sporty and sometimes money and ranking in ladders hinge on such balance.

 

But for CRPGs, I'd much prefer something of a balance light when it comes to encounter difficulty, and its pacing and frequency. For instance, two favourite encounters in NWN2 MotB, were unexpected and per se unbalanced: One with the gang on the docks in Shadow Mulsantir, and the other, a whole barbarian lodge in ordinary Mulsantir, which then takes a surprising turn for the worse, as a certain giant badger suddenly bursts in! Those are two of my favourite fights there. They were rather difficult and not expected at all.

 

I'm pretty sure Obsidian will disturb the flow of balanced encounters every now and then, but I still fear that they have gone a bit stricter this time, as they are preoccupied with building a new game system. I don't want to know how bad or dangerous enemies are as soon as I see them, especially not via some colour-marking (*shudder*). Some subtle clues or something in advance is always nice, but not a necessity. I bet Harry Potter didn't expect a huge troll when he was going for the toilets at school, nor should we know when there is a tough encounter around the bend.

 

Some other examples where too much balance easily can make the game drab instead of bad-ass:

-Dividing character classes into controller, defender, leader, striker, like in D&D 4e. Don't overdo this! It's great that classes are distinct and rather different from one another, but don't make them into hollow men and women

-Making all character classes good and most builds viable is commendable, but if taken too far it takes quite a bit of fun out of experimenting with different characters.

-The same goes for spells

-Making the areas in the game too specific for certain level ranges, or even blocking high-level content. I've already mentioned M&M X. You know what? You can take like 100 steps and stumble upon cursed ruins with horrors that wipe out your party in a heartbeat. Me like a lot!

 

TL;DR I fear that Obsidian is balancing various game aspects too hard, since they are building a new system

Edited February 11, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[ManifestedISO]

Straight down the middle until next Thursday

[IndiraLightfoot]

I couldn't help it. I love DM!

 

[Kjaamor]

Not that I disagree with your direction on this issue, but balancing is not the same as pacing or predictability.

 

I know what you mean about "cannon fodder, elites, mini-bosses and bosses"; it shows up worst in MMOs, but is prevelant in both crpgs and a great number of predesigned/hand-holding p&p games. To me, the existance of such groups isn't nearly so much of a problem as the pacing of them.

 

The worst single player (or largely single player) example of pacing with this system that I can immediate think of is Dungeon Siege II, which consistently threw two minutes of cannon fodder then mini-boss, until an hour had passed whereupon it threw in a boss. The predictability made it very boring very quickly.

 

In contrast, the mmo Lord of the Rings Online, a game firmly based in "cannon fodder, elites, etc" camp, has, in it's earlier areas, rare fodder/elite/mini-bosses/bosses who provide unexpected, often extremely difficult challenges to players. (Lotro's present company Turbine, in their less than infinite wisdom, decided not to bother to keep making these creatures and instead concentrate on the grind)

 

What I'm getting at, is that surprises are a good thing, but are best implemented into the design, rather than arriving as a result of botches of balance - something which would appear to be the case in your M&MX example. An unexpected large difficulty spike (The sword spiders+web spell in Larswood immediately springs to mind) is great, but an unexpected difficulty drop is much more likely to be disatisfying. Humourous, perhaps, should it occur once, but - dare I use a term I hate so much on these forums - immersion breaking when it occurs repeatedly.

 

In terms of your final suggestion, on the ability to walk into a party wipe from near the off, it's nice to be offered this opportunity, but you should be steered away from it. Best example of this to my mind is leaving the vault in Fallout 1. If you go east (where you're pointed), things will be easy. If you go south, things will be more difficult. If you go west (the opposite direction to where you're pointed), then you'll die.

Also, while its nice to be able to walk into a Lich-lair at level 6, such things have to be in the minority or else you end up punishing your player for exploration rather than rewarding them. Not that you were saying anything to the contrary, but just to be clear.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Kjaamor: You make excellent points, and I find myself agreeing with all of them!

Btw, even FNV had that, if you go take the wrong cardinal point, you'll die after three minutes, with no two minute warning.

[Bryy]

I couldn't help it. I love DM!

 

This post makes me Hungry Like The Wolf.

 

For sleep. Because it is 3am.

[Silent Winter]

Well, outside his abode, two weird guards were standing ominously. To make a long story short; the guards turned out to be a much harder encounter than the miniboss.

Sure - that's why he needed the bodyguards

(though maybe he could've joined in the fight to make the encounter hard without leading to underpowered miniboss complaints)(maybe joining in later once the bodyguards had softened you up a bit)

 

I agree on your points - pacing is important but so is a lack of predictabliity.

Edit: and yeah, 'balance', while good, should only be taken so far while considering 'is this fun to play'

Edited February 11, 2014 by Silent Winter

[rjshae]

 

I couldn't help it. I love DM!

 

This post makes me Hungry Like The Wolf.

 

For sleep. Because it is 3am.

 

Sure. *COUGH*Duran*COUGH*Duran*COUGH* Get some sleep, bro.

[Endrosz]

-Making all character classes good and most builds viable is commendable, but if taken too far it takes quite a bit of fun out of experimenting with different characters.

 

Actually it's the opposite, "making all character classes good and most builds viable" makes you want to experiment more. That's the lesson I learned from Guild Wars 1, which gave you free reign in setting your attributes, secondary class (it had dual-classing!) and 8-long skill bar chosen from over 1000 skills (thanks to selectable dual-classing) between adventures. In fact, there was a template save/load function, you could change your build within 5 seconds with 3 clicks, and over the years I built up a library of over 400 different builds, just like most of my fellow players. I think that most people who backed Eternity never played with a game system that offered as much freedom as GW1, which was built upon the foundation of Magic: the Gathering's deck building mechanic. It's mind-toxicating, addicting, just like MtG's deck building is. These images are from a dervish/ranger character of mine - but I could change her to dervish/any other class with just two clicks when in town.

 

 

 

 

When I support Sawyer&Co. in their attempts for so-called balanced core character and combat systems, I don't do it because he throws out some hipster words. I do it because I know how much fun you can have with experimenting when there are a lot of viable choices. (By the way, in this regard, GW2 is a huge disappointment compared to its predecessor.)

 

For the an example from the limited options side, I'll go back to the most quoted example, fighter in DnD editions. You figure out pretty fast that you can need Str and Con, maybe some Dex, and you can dump Cha and Wis and Int. After you realize this, there's basically no room for experimentation. (Role-playing choices are not relevant here).

 

TL;DR

 

Balanced systems allow for tons of experimentation, because more choices are viable.

[PrimeJunta]

@IndiraLightfoot I think you may be over-thinking this. 

 

What Josh et al have been going on about is systemic balance, i.e., attempting to make it so that there isn't any single obviously winning way to do stuff. That's good, from where I'm at, as it makes a broader range of strategies and tactics viable: instead of having "how do I make the most powerful wizard" we get "how do I play this particular wizard for maximum efficiency."

 

The only counterargument to that is IMO "it would be better if it was worse." While it sounds silly it's not always; sometimes things have a particular charm because of their rough edges. Most of the time, though, worse is just... worse.

 

What you seem mostly concerned about is pacing and encounter balancing. Oblivion was a horrid thing that should never have been because all the encounters felt the same, due to heavy-handed level scaling and lack of (more than cosmetic) variety in enemies. I don't see any indication that PoE will turn out anything like this. For one thing, Obs has never fallen into this trap before. For another, Josh has repeatedly said that there are some (optional) encounters that only a few of the devs -- the devs! -- are able to beat, and he intends to keep it that way.

[IndiraLightfoot]

@IndiraLightfoot I think you may be over-thinking this. 

 

What Josh et al have been going on about is systemic balance, i.e., attempting to make it so that there isn't any single obviously winning way to do stuff. That's good, from where I'm at, as it makes a broader range of strategies and tactics viable: instead of having "how do I make the most powerful wizard" we get "how do I play this particular wizard for maximum efficiency."

 

The only counterargument to that is IMO "it would be better if it was worse." While it sounds silly it's not always; sometimes things have a particular charm because of their rough edges. Most of the time, though, worse is just... worse.

 

What you seem mostly concerned about is pacing and encounter balancing. Oblivion was a horrid thing that should never have been because all the encounters felt the same, due to heavy-handed level scaling and lack of (more than cosmetic) variety in enemies. I don't see any indication that PoE will turn out anything like this. For one thing, Obs has never fallen into this trap before. For another, Josh has repeatedly said that there are some (optional) encounters that only a few of the devs -- the devs! -- are able to beat, and he intends to keep it that way.

Thank you for that great post!

I probably have worried all for nothing here! I mean the more solid a system is, the better it can take the load when people start tinkering with it. Any system has fun loopholes to play around with. It's inevitable.

 

Perhaps the thing that I fear the most is the classes and how flexible they will be. So far, they sound a bit rigid. Still, I don't know anything about the talents, for instance.

Edited February 11, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[PrimeJunta]

The classes are a good deal more flexible than in D&D. Of course D&D had multiclassing and prestige classes, but the former was IMO pretty badly broken in all editions for a variety of reasons, and I think of the latter more as an attempt to address a weakness in the system that shouldn't have been there in the first place. From what we've heard of the PoE system, it'll be possible to play character concepts similar to most D&D3 prestige classes just by picking a suitable mix of stats and playing to those strengths. So I wouldn't be too concerned about that either.

[NikoBolas]

I agree balance is important. But its difficult in a crpg to give people what they want. For instance, if I encounter something that is not related to the main story, I can save and attempt to fight it. If I lose, I can reload and probably not try again unless I was very close to winning. There is essentially no penalty for trying. In an actual pnp game, this is rarely case. I think a game that did this exact thing beautifully is FFXIII. There are many areas with regular monsters that are more difficult than the other regular monsters, usually they are avoidable. However, due to the nature of 13's system, you can take a long time to win a fight you shouldn't be attempting, you just get less rewards than if you were more properly prepared for the fight.

 

I'd like to dream that they can find a combat simulation that encourages mid-combat strategy changes that are the difference between winning and losing. As opposed to combats that check to make sure you have the right equipment or spells memorized ><.

[Bryy]

 

 

I couldn't help it. I love DM!

 

This post makes me Hungry Like The Wolf.

 

For sleep. Because it is 3am.

 

Sure. *COUGH*Duran*COUGH*Duran*COUGH* Get some sleep, bro.

 

Your face is Duran Duran.

[Lephys]

The word "balance" is used for a lot of things. Like that miniboss's strength versus his guards', for example. Which, I honestly find nothing wrong with. If, however, you could fight them completely separately, and the two guards (super tough) have jack crap on them, and the comparatively ultra easy miniboss guy has jewel-encrusted magical equipment of awesomeness +infinity, then, yeah, that is somewhat of an imbalance. Or could be, rather. See, that's more of something that's important/significant throughout a game's entire design, in general, so it's really hard to say "THAT ONE ENCOUNTER IS IMBALANCED IN TERMS OF DIFFICULTY VERSUS LOOT!".

 

It really depends on the intent of the design, there. Maybe that miniboss had his stupid/gullible guards convinced he was some horrible creature to be feared, but he was super stingy and went all "THE PRECIOUS!" on all the best relics/equipment they had found. It's nice to have that surprise, as Kjaamor said. The only thing I could be definite of, in terms of what should and should not be, is that if every single thing in the game that ever presented you with quality loot (to put it simply) was ridiculously feeble/easy, and everything in the game that was tough provided you with nothing, that would be a clear imbalance. That would be similar to having all the quest/story-related threats in the game world being ridiculously feeble, and all the powerful (actually threatening) creatures be good and protectors of the world. That's inherently problematic. Again, though, you could always have some ruler who uses his charisma or the power of control over others to get everything done, such that when you actually face him down, he's a pansy. Even though "he" is threatening the realm.

 

So, yeah, there are objectively inherent truths (or at least significant effects) when it comes to "balance" (used generally for design aspects of games), but it's really hard to judge every individual thing as balanced or unbalanced, without considering the context of the rest of the game's design.

 

One thing that IS pretty unavoidable is approaches. Not just plain "choices," (as you should have some choices that achieve things easier/better, and some choices that make things tougher/slower/worse, in any given situation) but approaches (things such as class choice in relation to combat viability throughout the game -- as you cannot change your class at any point throughout the game, etc.).

 

Some people say "there's no reason to balance things like this in a singleplayer game," but that isn't true. It's true that you CAN just allow some classes to be way worse at combat, in general, than others. But, especially in a party-based game, it's very prudent to make sure that any class is bringing something to the table for the whole party, in terms of overall ability to overcome combat encounters (especially in a game in which most of the combat won't be optional). So, with things like that, yeah. There's really no downside to a design approach like "Let's make all the classes and their various builds viable for progressing through the game."

 

Also, with a game, even a singleplayer one, you want approach choices like class to offer the player roughly the same "quantity" of gameplay experience, throughout. For example, you wouldn't want the story to be 30 hours long if you picked a Druid, but 5 hours long if you picked a Rogue, clearly. Also, you don't want the Rogue to have 2 ability options in combat (total, ever), while a Druid gets 70. Not that they have to be the same, but those would be blatant "imbalances."

 

So, yeah... long story short, balance is more of an idea. It's really just the objective side of design. It's really just kind of governance. It's almost logistics. Like putting up a traffic light to control an intersection, etc. "We want cars to go in both these directions, but how do we make sure they don't run into each other?" Etc. It's not about making everything the same. It's about making sure the variance doesn't cause blatant, objective issues. Reigning it in a bit.

Edited February 11, 2014 by Lephys

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I generally don't enjoy balance in games. I find every item, skill, ability, and foe perched upon the pinnicle of the proverbial bell curve for whatever level you're "supposed" to be at tedious. In terms of abilities/skills/items, I prefer them to be narrowly defined but incredibly potent at what they do whether it be proactive or reactionary in effects.

 

The same applies to foes. The ogre that slaughters me as a newbile adventurer should not still be a challenge half-way through the game because of "balance". This is mostly an area design dilemia, but I'm ok with that. I like the notion that I can come across something that may not be worth my time or a death-trap of which I have no hope. That's what makes it an adventure--the unknown.

 

This feeds into how I prefer abilities to be "unbalanced". Few victories are so sweet as the challenges above your weight class that you barely overcame because you creatively used a skill or talent. When abilities are "balanced" to their cooresponding level or portion of the campaign their intended to be used in, these sorts of accomplishments and wild victories are much less possible.

[Lephys]

I generally don't enjoy balance in games. I find every item, skill, ability, and foe perched upon the pinnicle of the proverbial bell curve for whatever level you're "supposed" to be at tedious. In terms of abilities/skills/items, I prefer them to be narrowly defined but incredibly potent at what they do whether it be proactive or reactionary in effects.

 

The same applies to foes. The ogre that slaughters me as a newbile adventurer should not still be a challenge half-way through the game because of "balance". This is mostly an area design dilemia, but I'm ok with that. I like the notion that I can come across something that may not be worth my time or a death-trap of which I have no hope. That's what makes it an adventure--the unknown.

Perfect examples of Balance Gone Wrong, or When Balance Attacks!

 

You can't pluck any two things that are similar and balance them in isolation. But, it often gets used like that. There's no reason for a foe's difficulty to be directly balanced against you the whole game, or for one foe to be balanced against one other foe, or for some Priest ability that does damage to be balanced against some Fighter ability that does damage.

 

It's a lot more general than that. Using the class-balance example, you have to make sure the best ability a Priest gets in the whole game isn't "Pick Own Nose" while the Fighter gets "Cleave Mountains." But, that's more about the complete lack of necessity or benefit for the Fighter to be able to be so sheerly powerful, and about the complete lack of utility or capability in the Priest's ability to pick his own nose. Basically, you just want to make sure the Priest can be as useful in progressing through the game as any other class. Not necessarily as damaging, or as armored, or as survivable on his own, or as loot-centric, etc.

 

When you start zooming in too far, balance loses all significance. That's why I stressed approaches as a pretty good thing to look at. Picking a Priest as your class should be balanced against picking some other class. Not all their individual abilities. Not their DPS. The overall approach. Beating the game as a Priest should be just as viable (note I didn't say "easy", although it should be roughly as easy, just because of how things work) as beating the game with a Fighter. But then, playing as 6 Priests might be much more difficult than playing as 6 Fighters. Not to mention the fact that viability simply means you're ABLE to do what is necessary. So, again, with 6 Priests, you're going to have to do some figuring out how to build the Priests differently to cover all the capabilities you need. Simply picking Priests doesn't make you succeed at tasks. Being able to overcome obstacles, and overcoming obstacles are not the same thing.

 

So, I dare say balance isn't bad. But, just like anything else, when used improperly, it's terrible.

[ItinerantNomad]

"balancing" makes choices actually choices where there were none previously. it effectively gives you a wider range of options to pick because they become viable.

 

also *degenerate*

 

 

 

... /e waits for the usual crowd to show up...

Edited February 13, 2014 by ItinerantNomad

[IndiraLightfoot]

"balancing" makes choices actually choices where there were none previously. it effectively gives you a wider range of options to pick because they become viable.

 

also *degenerate*

 

 

 

... /e waits for the usual crowd to show up...

Ideally, you are right. If the system is fun and challenging in itself, a balanced one could be a game working for centuries, like chess. But if done bad, everything gets bad across the board. No loopholes or outcroppings to take hold of to salvage the gameplay.

[TrashMan]

 

I began thinking about it a bit more yesterday, when I was approaching what I knew was an important opponent in Might & Magic X Legacy. I guess, the game dev term for that guy is miniboss. Well, outside his abode, two weird guards were standing ominously. To make a long story short; the guards turned out to be a much harder encounter than the miniboss. When I later googled that, I saw lot of angry posts about Ubisoft not having gotten the balance right. To many players, a miniboss has to be more powerful than his bodyguards.

 

Well, I beg to differ!

 

I agree.

Frak I hate it when games "force" bosses on you.

 

 

Even some good games did it.

DA:O had Earl Howe - a an old man in leather armor with a 100000HP life bar that you had to bash on his head a thousand times with a giant axe for him to finally die.

 

It's bloody redicolous. Opponents should ALWAYS be as strong and durable as it makes sense for them.

I don't care if Bob is a "Boss" or the leader of an evil organization. Just because you're a leader doesn't mean you're a good fighter, or durable or anything for that matter.

[Lephys]

It's bloody redicolous. Opponents should ALWAYS be as strong and durable as it makes sense for them.

I don't care if Bob is a "Boss" or the leader of an evil organization. Just because you're a leader doesn't mean you're a good fighter, or durable or anything for that matter.

Hear hear!

 

It SHOULD mean that he's probably set up a lot more advantages for himself than the average joe. i.e., he can send all 30 of his lackeys after you, and/or he has an escape route and an abode full of traps, and/or he gets the home-field advantage because you're fighting him where he lives, and/or he's been doing this for a while so he's accumulated some nice things such as magical weapons or spells or protective armor and is pretty deadly.

 

None of that increases his ability to take axes to the face and laugh about it. Now... a huge Ogre versus a reg'lar little human, sure. But, that's more that you're physically less capable of affecting him (your words are like small daggers compared to his larger size, thicker layers of skin, etc.). But if a fireball hits him in the face, his face should burn just like any other face.

 

If you wanna make a boss "tough":

 

A) give him a reason to be ("He's a boss" doesn't count), and

B) Make him complicate the act of successfully striking him before you die and/or reduce the effects of your attacks in a feasible fashion.

 

There's no need for "My 30 damage was really good against almost everything else in the world, but this guy's dealing in a completely different currency, and 30 damage is NOTHING to him!"

[AGX-17]

When I support Sawyer&Co. in their attempts for so-called balanced core character and combat systems, I don't do it because he throws out some hipster words.

 

Ehhhh?! Why wouldn't you do it for superficial reasons like hipster words?

 

I mean, sure, I'm a gushing fan of how Sawyer improved Fallout 3's systems in NV, but if he didn't bike to work in cold weather and have reasonably in-depth knowledge about bicycle design and maintenance, I would have thought NV was terrible. Also he likes cats, so that's, like, +5 to growing your own organic vegetables in an adobe/recycled glass bottle house in the Arizona desert whose entire water supply is derived from efficiently used condensation.

 

 

That die has a lot of sides. It's mathematically not a sphere, though. JUST SAYIN'

Edited February 14, 2014 by AGX-17