#Where to focus balance

27 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

subtle token
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Moving this Topic here from Alpha feed back. Debate I have been having with @vast tinsel is if balance should be focused on the Average game play or the top players.

Method 1. Focus on the Average gameplay, Let MMR sort our the new players and casuals. Competitive leagues will naturally form which will fine tune balance for the top of the top players.

Method 2. Focus on Top players. MMR will sort low and mid players.

Both methods have a lot of value. Method 1 will rely on 3rd party leagues to keep the game interesting for the top players, but should result in the most amount of players enjoying the game.

Method 2 allows the game to be more self contained, but MAY result in new players not sticking with the game.

vast tinsel
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Damn, I was just finishing creating a thread )

subtle token
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sorry, Im getting my day started and wanted to get this up. I do think this is an important debate to have. I hope I para-phased your side accuratly.

sturdy mist
subtle token
vast tinsel
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Lets keep it clean, with choice and opinion)
I personally choose 2nd variant. There will be a reason to actually master the game. Because in the first variant, there is literally no reason to master the game - boring for one side and too hard for another side in the end.
I believe people will stick with the game if they find it interesting for themselves (which includes a lot of variables inside this), so it is hard to say which balance mode will turn them off more.

subtle token
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In my experience those that really want to master the game will play in comp leagues.

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The issue I see with my idea, is it relies heavy on 3rd parties. However, Leagues have kept games alive and helped grow them. I know this game will have at least 1 league, because if no one else makes one I will.

vast tinsel
subtle token
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Thats going to depend on the leagues more than anything. In GBSU the leagues had skrims players could jump in on, and even during off seasons we were still playing games against each other using league rules. This mostly came down to the game being dead. I was a ghost main. Playing a pub match was just me floating around trolling people, so I joined GBSUL. Had a steady flow of games. This was without Dev support. Now the GBSU league is EGBL. Its seriously the only thing keeping that game on life support. lol

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You add in support from the game devs/staff/mods and it has the potential to be a major part of end game game play

vast tinsel
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Yea, in older games, I bet you remember, we had really wide options to customize server configs, adding mods, etc. Nowadays it is not really common. And I think that it will not be possible for Carnival Hunt as well. Things are getting simplified and restricted. So it became a bit harder to make a custom league/to fulfill the rules during the match, etc.

subtle token
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GBSU isn't the best example since the game is dead but the leagues really pushed alot of players to master their skills beyond what they could in pub matches. Look at a more successful asym game, DbD. Those leagues are big enough where there are cash prizes. Both game leagues have ALOT of rules and restriction on what can and cannot be used during official matches. This is largely due to both games being more balanced for the average gameplay.

vast tinsel
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Yeah, I totally agree that leagues can grow and even provide cash prizes and can "improve the balance" by strict rules. But I am focusing on how the game is played itself. If it will be balanced on a high level, only when we are playing in league official matches or some kind of preparation matches between participants, it feels awkward to play just simple matchmaking at all.

subtle token
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Thats why I was playing more with people in GBSU leagues than pub matches. I played so much GBSU that pub matches were just too easy. Solo busting as a buster and giving my self challenges like never leaving the spawn room as a ghost just to get some challenge out of gameplay. Some of this could be due to how low pop the game was and the fact they didn't have a true MMR system (regardless of what they kept telling us).

vast tinsel
vast tinsel
sturdy mist
vast tinsel
# sturdy mist ill wait untill EA then it would be clear

Okay, just saying, in case you are going to make a choice, depending on the number of players, we omit that part for now. Like imagine you have an infinite amount of players, servers, other possible variables are all fulfilled, etc.

wooden stirrup
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More or less, you are both right. For example, I drifted away from DbD because I was basically spending too much time on a game that did not really give much back in return. The only real option was joining external leagues, and honestly I just did not feel like doing that.

Here, a Ladder split by roles, and even by each Killer/Hunter, is already the key without needing to do anything else. If Bunnies happened to be much more unbalanced than the Killer, that would be true for every Hunter. So if on average I can only kill 2, but the rest of the world averages at most 1.9 or 1.8, then as a Hunter I would already know that I am a better Hunter. I would not need to compare myself to Bunnies. Same for Bunnies: if escaping is easy, then I should aim to escape every time, because even just one death would put me behind other Bunnies. This is a simple example, but it gets the point across. Just having a separate Ladder for each character already balances everything naturally. Then, if one side is stronger than the other at higher levels, you can balance that separately, but what keeps you playing a game even when it keeps slapping you in the face is having a goal, no matter how silly that goal may seem. You need a goal.

Asymmetrical games are multiplayer games just like MOBAs or shooters. They need a goal that resets, something I can focus on and try to reach if I want to. Take that away, and after a while people lose the desire to even get into the game. DbD, no matter how much the devs want to treat it as a for-fun game and not a competitive one, has had its foundations since 2016 in a Rank system that resets every month. Reaching Rank 1 is within everyone’s reach now, but it has always been there. DbD without separate Survivor/Killer ranks would not be where it is today.

vast tinsel
# wooden stirrup More or less, you are both right. For example, I drifted away from DbD because I...

Thanks for replying in this thread; it seemed lost in this channel and mostly dialoge
I can probably try to summarize in short your opinion: you want to compare your performance with others in the same role and don't care that much about the result itself. And you are not against some additional goals, like seasonal ones, for example (if we get seasons). Correct me if I am wrong.
So to make it "work", we need to add an additional column in the leaderboard, which will show average kills for the killer and average escapes for the bunny for each player. And filters for MMR and average kills/escapes to sort it. Or an additional separate table with such info.
I can honestly say, and as you probably saw from my comments, that I have a bit of a different vision. Maybe Clockwork will add your variant as an option to choose from too; it would be nice.
Just in case, I want to add that, if someone else will read this thread, we don't have some kind of race between me and Clockwork. I believe it's just really important to see which "target" most people are leaning towards as soon as possible, until we hit EA.

marble moss
vast tinsel
# marble moss

Popcorn enjoyer magicianlaugh you are welcomed to make a choice/discuss with us 🫵

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You choose, or others choose instead of you, you know this_is_fine

subtle token
vast tinsel
subtle token