Does the average gamer really care about game balance?

[FatR]

No, an average player doesn't care, at least until some glaring imbalance totally ruins his day. Take a look around: all major RPGs are unbalanced, and RPGs that try to achieve balance to the detriment of other aspects are notably less successful than their precedessors (partially because they still fail to achieve it).

[cthulhu]

All this crap is about playing to win is totally retarded.

By which I mean, everyone in this thread using it to mean anything.

The first principle of "Playing to Win" is figuring out what 'Winning' actually is.

Sirlin largely talks about certain types of competitive games in which the answer is blatantly obvious.

To talk with any sense about "Playing to Win" in D&D, you first have to determine what you mean by Winning, and that's why statements about 'killing your party and taking their loot' are fucking retarded.

Actually one of his other points is that competitive games have clear definable metrics for success, otherwise you cannot run a competition. So you need a scoring system for D&D.

The only two possible scoring systems for D&D are A) Most loot or B) Most experience. Other stuff like 'beat the adventure' doesn't work because it is impossible to define degrees of success. You could make a team vs team competition, but that isn't in scope as it's not the standard format.

In both systems, it is clearly optimal to frag your team mates and take their stuff, because that will quadruple your net wealth and give you several levels.

Which is of course stupid, but there you go.

[RandomCasualty2]

In both systems, it is clearly optimal to frag your team mates and take their stuff, because that will quadruple your net wealth and give you several levels.

It also ends the game in a disqualification and gets you kicked out of the group.

A lot of groups will infact respond to that by just kicking the offending player and saying that his bout of treachery never happened.

[RobbyPants]

What don't I understand? Are we playing different games? Why is every strategy or tactic that beats everything called an exploit rather than a legitimate strategy that you'd be a fool not to do?

I think part of this comes from people who are "playing the same game" having entirely different ideas on what the game should be. Basically, the designers have an idea for a game they want to create, but they fuck up the implementation and actually create a different game all together.

So you end up with people who want to play the game as advertised and you have optimizers who have figured out how the game actually works. The first group is playing the game they would like to have, and the second is playing the game is it's printed.

So in a RTS, you get optimizers rolling over top of everyone else with their superior strategy. In TT RPGs, you either have optimizers doing the same thing or getting nerfed hard because the DM wants to play the game as advertised, not as it's written.

[shadzar]

Should people really be worrying about if what a Fighter can do is realistic when wizards are much much more powerful than Fighers?

What don't I understand? Are we playing different games? Why is every strategy or tactic that beats everything called an exploit rather than a legitimate strategy that you'd be a fool not to do?

Some people don't like fantasy mixed too much in their reality, while others prefer a fighter to fight within the confines of physics, and a wizard to yield unlimited power, in limited quantities.

Basically, yes. Everyone is playing a different game. The big problem with TTRPGs, is that you need to decide what game makes everyone the most happy by figuring out the table rules on top of the system rules.

In video games, be they RPGs, shooters, fighters, etc; everyone has decided upon the rules as well in the old days. Nobody gets to use M. Bison for example at the arcade. If someone was already playing, you just didn't challenge them if they had M. Bison already selected.

With newer games, there is little choice, and it annoys people as to some things they cannot choose, because things are hard coded, and you cannot even make table or arcade rules because you connect to so many people with the game, and have no control over it, unless you have an RTS that you can create the map, resources, etc on.

Exploits are seen because so many people use them now and read the strategy online to know how to do it. When it used to be a strategy, it wasn't shared, and people had to learn for themselves, now every strategy just suffers from being a "net deck". People only play to win at any cost, and not for fun. So they will use these "net decks" to beat someone else rather than enjoy the game, or learn it themselves.

In the past people were complained about just mashing buttons because they didn't know the combos to do things, and pulled off wins from it, and made people who practiced specific strategies mad. Was not chaos their theory with button mashing? Did they not have to do something to learn how to get good at it too? So why should the button mashers take such flak then? Just because they didn't use their own "net deck" of the time?

Exploits mainly come from that, and the fact that everyone is doing the same thing all the time, that it gets boring to go up against. Like the net deck, Enduring Bombardment or Mesa Craft from MtG history prior to the banning and restriction of cards.

If you just happen to figure it for yourself, and never looked it up, you are screwed.

So while everyone may be playing the same game, they are playing to to different ends. Some just for the fun, and others to win. In RPGs this could mean winning at the expense of your fellow gamers, and people don't understand the damage it does to the group or that players chance at remaining in the group. So balance is only really needed on the sides of a fight. In an RPG the players need not be balanced, because they shouldn't be working against each other when they have bigger enemies to worry about, so the wizard shouldn't care the fighter doesn't do as much damage, and the fighter shouldn't care the wizard does so much, as long as they all can contribute and survive. In fighting games, you just don't allow the overpowered character to be played so nobody gets M. Bison. It will really depend on whether it is a co-op or competitive game as to where the balance emphasis is needed.

:twocents:

[RandomCasualty2]

Exploits are seen because so many people use them now and read the strategy online to know how to do it. When it used to be a strategy, it wasn't shared, and people had to learn for themselves, now every strategy just suffers from being a "net deck". People only play to win at any cost, and not for fun. So they will use these "net decks" to beat someone else rather than enjoy the game, or learn it themselves.

Yeah, this is a good argument for balance in RPGs. It's generally a bad idea to have a game that can be won literally before you come to the table. Good games, the lasting ones anyway, tend to be about strategy while playing the game.

You see that with games like chess, checkers, go, poker and even computer games like Starcraft.

Really, RPGs would be good to follow those models and design a game that's more about how you play, rather than what you play.

[Username17]

Civ is an incredibly shitty example for this, because literally the entire point of the game is to make your empire look the way you want it to.

This is like complaining about imbalances in Sim City or some shit. Things that make your population spike or whatever are not necessarily even desirable if they make your empire look "wrong."

-Username17

[Koumei]

Yeah, this is a good argument for balance in RPGs. It's generally a bad idea to have a game that can be won literally before you come to the table. Good games, the lasting ones anyway, tend to be about strategy while playing the game.

You see that with games like chess, checkers, go, poker and even computer games like Starcraft.

Really, RPGs would be good to follow those models and design a game that's more about how you play, rather than what you play.

I disagree. I'd far prefer to switch Easy Mode on by just putting the effort into making a good character at the start. Play with the options at the start, do the hard bit there, and watch the effort pay off. I'd be pissed off if someone else got same or better results just by randomly saying "I'll be an Awakened Animooted Lavatory Fighter 1/Bard 1/Diplomat 1". Likewise if no amount of character building actually made it easier. That would only encourage me to make characters as utterly stupid (in design) as possible, as a form of protest or an example as to why it's a bad idea.

"Why are you playing a panda mute pyrophonicist?"
"Eh, because it's just as valid as any other fucking option."

I know this is a disadvantage to people who haven't learned the rules, but I posit this solution: fuck 'em. They can learn it and remain in my presence, ask me (or whoever) to make their characters and remain in my presence, or fuck off and stop wasting time, leaving more screen time (and snacks) for the Phenomenal Kongming Koumei.

[shadzar]

Exploits are seen because so many people use them now and read the strategy online to know how to do it. When it used to be a strategy, it wasn't shared, and people had to learn for themselves, now every strategy just suffers from being a "net deck". People only play to win at any cost, and not for fun. So they will use these "net decks" to beat someone else rather than enjoy the game, or learn it themselves.

Yeah, this is a good argument for balance in RPGs. It's generally a bad idea to have a game that can be won literally before you come to the table. Good games, the lasting ones anyway, tend to be about strategy while playing the game.

You see that with games like chess, checkers, go, poker and even computer games like Starcraft.

Really, RPGs would be good to follow those models and design a game that's more about how you play, rather than what you play.

Sadly every RTS suffers from netdecks even though you have control close to RPG GM has with the game.

The things you don't have control over is the problem. I recall an edition of WarCraft where you could set the prices per unit/building, and have different ones for different people. Basically giving people with quicker machines, quicker hand-mouse coordination a bit of a handycap to make it more fair, like in Go, chess, etc where you have a handicap to compensate and put people on a level playing field.

So someone playing an RTS for the first time, and having playing many before this new one, will not fair as well as someone who may have been playing it for weeks to get the intricacies of the new game versus every other RTS on the market for the past 20+ years.

RPGs need less balance within the players, and more between the players and the GM. Since it is a cooperative effort, they need to ALWAYS work together to find where their strengths lie. I know a thread recently on one forum was talking about adventures not needing a spell to let people fly because of 4th edition doesn't offer it around the same time 3rd did...so an adventure just shouldn't count on it. This is where balance fails, because it shouldn't be up to this wizard to always have this spell on have. Not the fault of the adventure, but many times the players to think the only way to do something is with the spell that lets them fly. So a crevice exists between the party and where they are going, Fly is the quick and easy method, but there are other ways. You don't have to use fly, in this case the "net deck" solution; you can do anything else, since unlike the number of people allowed per resource to mine it in an RTS, you can work outside of the hardcoded rules and climb the tree that you cannot climb in EQ, play halfling toss with a rope tied around him, etc. Fly is not the only solution, and that is another problem with how to balance. Do you just assume everyone does it the same way, when some exploit or easy-way is found, or should you leave the game open, rather than hardcoding the balance in that gives less options because of an assumed ability within the game/adventure/etc.

Again it comes back to strategy and what one person is able to do versus another. Balance shouldn't handicap one at the expense of another, but when a game replies on using your wits to get through it, RPG/RTS/etc; then you have to have some and it is assumed and hoped that you do in order to play it without needing a chart to roll a d20 on to tell you what to do, or that you can do next when something happens, like "Your village is under attack!", "Red fighter needs food badly!", or worse "Blue wizard has died!".

These are the obstacles that must be overcome as part of the game being in a sense living, rather than just checkers where you have only the ability to move forward until you get Kinged.

[Murtak]

I don't know whether my gaming groups qualify as average players ... anyways, as a group we largely only care about balance (in RPGs) until everyone is contributing something useful. In a 4player party a 15/30/30/25 % split of contribution is fine and the rest is up to the DM, who should be able to turn that split into an even one. So DnD fighter vs wizard does not work, because it is next to impossible to tune adventures to make both of them contribute about the same. Fighter vs bard on the other hand is doable.

So we do care about balance, up to the point where player and DM decisions overshadow imbalance. After that point, better balancing is fine, but not really important.

[shadzar]

Fighter vs bard on the other hand is doable.

Never been a fan of bards, so you might have to explain that one to me. Feel free to start a new thread and I will find it so as to no derail this one further.

[RandomCasualty2]

I disagree. I'd far prefer to switch Easy Mode on by just putting the effort into making a good character at the start.

I wonder why you just wouldn't want to have easy mode as a campaign option from the start, just like every other computer game does it. Instead of playing Halo on normal and wasting hours coding an aimbot to make it easier, why not just play it on easy mode from the beginning?

Given that the game has no fixed difficulty, and the quests are whatever the DM decides, it's a lot easier to just have all the classes be balanced and then the DM can just set the difficulty level based on what the PCs want to play.

You can have easy games without having broken and overpowered options. You just do the simple thing and have the DM throw out easy encounters, as opposed to standard encounters made easy by bad rules. Really the only reason to include unbalanced rules is if you intentionally want some PCs to be sidekicks and some to be made of awesome. Overall difficulty is best handled through encounter design.

Sadly every RTS suffers from netdecks even though you have control close to RPG GM has with the game.

Well no. There are build orders and strategies, but against any decent player, a starting build order alone is not going to win you the game. Beyond early game, you must adapt, and that's where netdecks are no longer an option, because you have to factor in the variables of that specific game and that specific opponent, as opposed to just running through a build order in a vacuum.

A good RTS like Starcraft can do that. Poorly designed RTS can't. It's really a big determining factor in what makes a good RTS game.

[shadzar]

I don't know. I have seen many an early-game war of attrition end very quickly.

Once you have lost many a resource collecting body, you cannot keep up with the combat units to defend, and then pretty much screwed. I haven't seen an RTS game that this doesn't work in yet.

So while someone builds for the long term, the player building waves for a short game have much better chance at winning their game than the opponents long-term game.

I haven't played Starcraft in years, so don't recall specifically, but every other RTS from Age of Empires, Warcraft, Star Trek Armada, etc have the same thing. Quick attacking means victory while the defender cannot make a comeback.

[Tequila Sunrise]

Why is every strategy or tactic that beats everything called an exploit rather than a legitimate strategy that you'd be a fool not to do?

Because a single dominant strategy heavy-handedly encourages everyone to use the same strategy, and everyone using the same strategy gets boring quick. I loved Risk when I was a kid, but after I played a dozen games or so I realized that Australia + aggressive tactics = win. I gave away my Risk game a while ago, and hardly ever play anymore because it's just not much fun now that I've seen the man behind the curtain; if I play with other Risk veterans it's boring because we all use the same strategy and whoever manages to take Australia [or sometimes S America] wins; if I play with rookies I'm certain to win because I know the winning strategy. I'm trying to argue myself out of buying LotR Risk because while I'm sure to enjoy at least the first game, as soon as I figure out the winning strategy it'll become a bore.

That said, amazingly few players seem to care about game balance IME. Most players don't seem to grasp the balance issues with whatever game they're playing, and those who do consider them unimportant within the game's larger context or they have your attitude: FIND THE BEST STRATEGY AND THEN CRUSH EVERYONE! For example I've never met anyone IRL who understood and really cared why primary casters in 3e D&D can be overpowered. They all either thought that spells and per round abilities ultimately balance out somehow or they understood the problem but considered it an endearing quirk of the game. I'm the only gamer I know who actively corrects balance problems in my own games.

[Koumei]

Yeah, I dislike RTS games. Tacticals for the win.

As for the methods behind my madness:

1. I enjoy building characters. Why waste the opportunity?

2. If it's a 1-on-1 game I can basically get whatever I want, so I can indeed say "I want easy mode". If it isn't, then the DM isn't going to be doing me any favours, I can trust them as far as I can throw them (hint: low upper body strength, no soft martial art training, bad back) and it's up to me to forcefully adjust the difficulty slider pre-game. See previous comment about other players in this situation.

[RandomCasualty2]

1. I enjoy building characters. Why waste the opportunity?

Yeah, I mean some people actually enjoy the character building process, and I suppose that would be another reason for having a complicated character creation process. Of course, just because the creation process is complex doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be unbalanced, it may simply mean that it's possible to make odd concepts work. Things like blind swordsmen, and summoning only mages.

Ultimately I'd like to see a character creation system with options (I think everyone wants that), but without many broken loopholes, since honestly, the broken things tend to limit what you can make rather than expand it. Once you get those top tier powerful concepts, you have to play one and everything else becomes crap.

2. If it's a 1-on-1 game I can basically get whatever I want, so I can indeed say "I want easy mode". If it isn't, then the DM isn't going to be doing me any favours, I can trust them as far as I can throw them (hint: low upper body strength, no soft martial art training, bad back) and it's up to me to forcefully adjust the difficulty slider pre-game. See previous comment about other players in this situation.

I'm generally opposed to trying to force the DM and the other PCs to play a game they may not want to play. It's a lot better to just get everyone together beforehand and agree on what kind of game people want to play. It saves you the trouble of dealing with a lot of drama later that may well end up killing the campaign. Bad things generally happen when everyone isn't on the same page. It's like the guy who makes a cavalier in a pirate campaign.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I clearly remember games where one or more PCs were dramatically more powerful than the DM or other players expected. Generally, this resulted in one of two things.

1. The other PCs sending the super-PC(s) to do all the fighting off-camera while they took up new hobbies or made humorous quips.
2. The DM paraphrases the following: "Awesome. You kill all the bad guys. Even the crime lord you were expected to slowly destabilize over the next 3 levels. You just walk into his lair and hit things until they stop moving. You win D&D, so it's your turn to write the next campaign."

[shadzar]

I clearly remember games where one or more PCs were dramatically more powerful than the DM or other players expected.

There is a problem there beyond game balance. The DM should always know what the PCs power level is, otherwise they have sort of caused a problem no different than a system causing it.

[souran]

Civ is an incredibly shitty example for this, because literally the entire point of the game is to make your empire look the way you want it to.

This is like complaining about imbalances in Sim City or some shit. Things that make your population spike or whatever are not necessarily even desirable if they make your empire look "wrong."

-Username17

This kind of goes along with the other stuff after this post but the winning strategy in all the civ games and alpha centauri is the exact same as well.

BE BIG. Have a huge empire with as high a population as you can. More people is always better than less people. Grow like its a biblical commandment.

Hell, even the games creators figured out that this is what the game is all about. Why else have a 3 button keyboard command to instantly restart the game on a new map with all your other settings captured? Its to let you flip through maps till you a tigress/euphraties setup.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Because a single dominant strategy heavy-handedly encourages everyone to use the same strategy, and everyone using the same strategy gets boring quick. I loved Risk when I was a kid, but after I played a dozen games or so I realized that Australia + aggressive tactics = win. I gave away my Risk game a while ago, and hardly ever play anymore because it's just not much fun now that I've seen the man behind the curtain; if I play with other Risk veterans it's boring because we all use the same strategy and whoever manages to take Australia [or sometimes S America] wins; if I play with rookies I'm certain to win because I know the winning strategy. I'm trying to argue myself out of buying LotR Risk because while I'm sure to enjoy at least the first game, as soon as I figure out the winning strategy it'll become a bore.

I always thought that the winning strategy, at least in games with 4 or more people in it, was to hang out in Asia (especially North Asia) and farm cards. Don't bother going for the continent bonus; you capture only one territory a turn.

Then when two continents start fighting and one is about to be annihilated, you swoop in and kill the weak people, getting their cards. Then you kill the 'victor' of this conflict. Then you consolidate. Usually by crushing two people in a row you have enough troops to win the game or at least hold onto a large swatch of territory.

The reason for this is that Australia only gives out +2 territories a turn, and in a 5-6 turn game with a lot of people in it that's just not enough to make up for the bonus from cards. Also turtling in Australia makes it very hard to strike at someone who is weak.

The reason why you farm in Asia is so that you have a convenient location to strike at anyone who is weak. You also have access to a lot of territories to farm without getting in anyone's way. If you consolidate all of your armies into one mass there's no way anyone will be able to take you out without annihilating themselves.

[cthulhu]

In both systems, it is clearly optimal to frag your team mates and take their stuff, because that will quadruple your net wealth and give you several levels.

It also ends the game in a disqualification and gets you kicked out of the group.

A lot of groups will infact respond to that by just kicking the offending player and saying that his bout of treachery never happened.

One of his other points is that arbitrary rules like this are uniformly bad, and any tactic that can be done should be permissible. This is exactly the scrub behaviour he spends the entire time ranting against.

Why cite someone who is anti scrub, then when the problem is pointed out, suggest scrub rules to fix the problem.

It's just not a competitive game, so applying 'play to win' to it is just not possible.

Edit: Wait... you've actually been agreeing with. No idea!

[Username17]

Playing to win in D&D tournaments is scored by how far you get and how many players you lose. At no time is it optimal to frag teammates. In team PvE it is almost never optimal to shrink your group size, and when it is, one can be fairly certain you are looking at a flawed scoring system.

Frankly, I find those Street Fighter articles inane, and the generalizations taken from them even worse. The "scrub" nomenclature is completely valueless because it is used in precisely the manner he is complaining about people using the word "cheap." The "scrub" is anyone and everyone who makes a declaration about a game that he personally doesn't approve of. Fuck that, and fuck him.

-Username17

[Murtak]

I think he still has a point, as long as you are talking about somewhat balanced competitive games. Case in point: L5R diamond era raiding decks. When I first built a really aggressive raiding deck it completely stomped every other deck in my playgroup. Honor rockets, Dueling, Control, Speed Military, everything. And by "stomped" I mean there were quite a few games where the other player did not get to play a single action.

We might have, at that point, declared raiding to be broken and simply not played the deck. Instead we chose to find out how to beat it. Turns out raiding dies the second it's forward momentum stops. It is pretty much the only deck type against which it is worth it to lose half your hand and a couple of personalities to win a single battle (not save a province, just win the battle). There are a couple of cards you can play to help out, but in many cases all that is needed to have a fair chance of winning is to play differently.

I would imagine the same holds true for figuring out how to beat Zergling rushes in Starcraft or Scout rushes in Dawn of War, both of which I have seen hundreds of complaints about.

[PhoneLobster]

"Try Harder to find a meta solution to balance problems" is NOT a helpful comment to make.

Because you can make that comment about anything without any actual certainty a meta solution can be found by the people in question, or even exists at all.

Essentially you are just telling people having a bad gaming experience to go suck on it it's their fault for not outsmarting the balance issue personally.

That's wrong.

Game balance problems are NOT best fixed by some damnable accidental emergent behavior of the rules that you spend six months unearthing because...

A) It might not exist

B)Being accidental and emergent fuck knows how it effects game play as it was intended to be and

C) you had to spend 6 months unearthing the damn thing.

Don't be stupid.

[cthulhu]

Playing to win in D&D tournaments is scored by how far you get and how many players you lose. At no time is it optimal to frag teammates. In team PvE it is almost never optimal to shrink your group size, and when it is, one can be fairly certain you are looking at a flawed scoring system.

Frankly, I find those Street Fighter articles inane, and the generalizations taken from them even worse. The "scrub" nomenclature is completely valueless because it is used in precisely the manner he is complaining about people using the word "cheap." The "scrub" is anyone and everyone who makes a declaration about a game that he personally doesn't approve of. Fuck that, and fuck him.

-Username17

Oh yeah, if you're playing duplicate format, it totally works, but then just like bridge you can have asymetric and unbalanced scenarios and consider the score differential in the for and against scores.

But that's not really how it is played.

I would imagine the same holds true for figuring out how to beat Zergling rushes in Starcraft or Scout rushes in Dawn of War, both of which I have seen hundreds of complaints about.

As you point out, these are games that sacrifice long term efficency for short term power, and if they cannot create and ride an inital advantage to victory, they lose.

So betting zerg rushes is just a matter of investing slightly less than the other guy in defensive/screening forces, and slightly more in the economy, then riding that advantage to the win.

The problem (and the reason for the complaints) is that most RTS players are actually playing Sim City, except that after they've built their city, they go kill the other guys, rather than summoning godzilla on their own city.

So people complain when someone else decides to go kill them really early rather than sim city it up. The AI doesn't help in single player where it doesn't attack you for 5 minutes or whatever. It should start straight away with low level stuff.