Better balance in game design

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edited November 2014 in MPQ General Discussion
Came across the article below. I really enjoy this designer's philosophy on tiers in competitive games. He makes an elegant case for improving the worst characters in a game, which is something I've long advocated for in mpq. (Cough cough baglady)

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/balancing-multiplayer-games-part-3-fairness

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  • homeinvasion
    homeinvasion Posts: 415 Mover and Shaker
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    I found this interesting and relevant to MPQ

    0) God tier (no character should be in this tier, if they are, you are forced to play them to be competitive)
    1) Top tier (don't be afraid to put your favorite characters here. Being top tier does not necessarily mean any nerfs are needed)
    2) Middle tier (pretty good, not quite as good as top)
    3) Bottom tier (I can still win with them, but it's hard)
    4) Garbage tier (no one should be in this. Not reasonable to play this character at all.)
  • NorthernPolarity
    NorthernPolarity Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
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    It's a great article as is most of Sirlin's stuff, but I'm not sure if comparing MPQ to a synchronous multiplayer game like street fighter really makes too much sense.
  • over_clocked
    over_clocked Posts: 3,961
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    My first goal of balancing is to get the god tier empty. Of course some character will end up strongest, or tied for strongest, and that is ok. But a “god tier” character is so strong as to make the rest of the game obsolete. We have to fix that immediately because it ruins the whole playtest (and the game). Also, the power level of anything in the god tier is so high, that we can’t even hope to balance the rest of the game around it.
    Sentry warps the top game, but doesn't warp the middle game (Patchneto did a bit I believe), so maybe that's the reason he's not balanced already? Still, his balance can't come soon enough!
  • atomzed
    atomzed Posts: 1,753 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I found this portion especially true.
    There are psychological factors that I saw over and over again while making these adjustments. The first is that whenever I make a move or character worse (aka “nerfing”), players overreact. Sometimes that top tier creeps a little too high in power, or an otherwise average character ends up having something unexpected that’s crazily good, or a character has a move that really reduces the strategy in the game and needs to lose that in exchange for gaining something else. There’s lots of reasons for nerfs.

    I’ll use some made-up numbers to convey the general idea here. Imagine a move is at power level 9 out of 10, and that’s just too good for that character. Time and time again, I saw that if I made the power level an 8 out of 10, playtesters would complain that the move was worthless and put the character down at least one tier. This happened consistently, and even in the cases where 8 out of 10 was still too powerful and it really needed to be a 7. For some reason, players in every game seem unable to grasp the concept that a top tier character who is made slightly worse can still be a top tier character.

    This is one of the cases where I think you just can’t listen to the playtesters. Ignore their first reactions to nerfs, let them play it more and get used to it, let them see if they can still be successful with the new version of the move, then take their feedback on that move or character more seriously.

    The nerf part is pertinent to cmag. When he was changed, there were huge outcry about his nerf. But eventually, people recognised that he was still in a good tier. Sometimes the developers have to stick to their guns.... (The difficult part is knowing when to listen to players)

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