Effective Balancing

[devout dagger]

If things are as bad as portrayed in this thread than the only way to fix it would be to fire all the balance team and make them apply (together with everyone else again).

And regarding the churn - that is perfectly fine, all the members are free to put down their torches at any time at which point the team lead will call for new members.

If however members become inactive then they will get the boot (you cannot maintain a crucial role in any organization for the prestige of that role alone)

Perhaps you could make a list of past contributers so that their assistance is acknowledged or something but the activity requirement should be non negotiable.

[inland rune]

I don't even think anyone necessarily needs to be fired, they can just make space for more people that are currently passionate/knowledgeable about the project

[devout dagger]

Of course people stepping down voluntarily is always better. But if they don't then there needs to be someone who goes and talks to them, tells them that they need to pick it back up or suggests (first gently then less so) they step down.

[inland rune]

therein is the problem, who tells them? they're the ones in charge. that's why we have 90% inactive balance team for years

I don't think actively removing people from roles is constructive, just adding some more people who have a current enthusiasm would be amazing, then when they move on to do other stuff with most of their time they can pass their torch, and so on

it's a much easier sell then 'hey, person in charge, you need to go' and honestly it's more fair, people have genuinely done a ton of work and like mitvit for example is a really well respected player

[devout dagger]

Resilient processes need a fallback in case things do not work - even if we manage to fix it this time you might encounter the same problem in a few years again (and who knows how that is going to end)

[inland rune]

Issue for me is just more activity and enthusiasm, there's so much ridiculous balance stuff that 1 person with firing neurons could fix solo in a couple of days and yet they have lingered for years, the team really needs some people with the will/energy to make these changes

[devout dagger]

I do tend to be to harsh on many things, and you're right that is likely a much harder sell than merely introducing new blood to the balance team. Perhaps that's enough, perhaps that will lead to balance team status being seen as an achievement more than an actual commitment. I know the hard road would likely work (once it's implemented) but any hybrid could work as well. Don't let great be the enemy of good or something.

I was mainly elaborating what I would do if I had ultimate power and were supposed to rebuild everything.

[inland rune]

honestly just 1 person that actually is willing to go 'yeah that sounds good lets try it' then merge it, that is online in rotato every day would be a complete paradigm shift and a true blessing

a whole balance team would be nice but like just someone daily active that will make tweaks would be truly incredible compared to current state of affairs, cos this is a game in alpha, it should be getting some serious iteration especially for all those weird broken units no one uses - if not now then when? after playerbase is 10* the size on steam? now is literally the time to be doing that stuff

Sadly recently the only thing I recall that gained some traction/acceptance from devs was the tech split which felt kinda like someone just trying to remake the entire game in their own image - which feels bizarre to me when there are still units like halberd just chilling, there's a mountain of low hanging fruit and it boggles the mind how it hasn't been addressed for multiple years, the standard response is always 'volunteer position' 'understaffed' like at some point you just have got to ask yourself if reins should be handed over to people that have the time/energy

[verbal basin]

Why do you think that?

There just isn't a ton of people interested in balance/game design in a serious way. There's ppl who talk balance naturally, with me or whoever else, but if there's some huge amount of people whove tried to reach out unsuccessfully idk where they'd be.

Looking at the last/current patch, most of the thoughtful input came from blodir and kuchy who participated in making it. Otherwise only a handful of people like chronopolize gave really analytic feedback.

Things go slowly, I agree with that and I hope it can improve, but that there'd be a ton of people just waiting to get involved if we let them, isn't true

[jagged valley]

Lmao game is complex but nevertheless it is sooooo easy to massively improve balance within few days and then after that do even finer adjustments that lead to a state of currently unimaginable good balance.

all you need is guy who

1. understands current balance in its entirety, in all modes. Have knowledge about all game mechanics and units. Must be strong player to make correct assumptions.
2. Works objectively, not biased and without ego with sole purpose of improving overall balance
3. Must have more or less free reign to release patches without the clueless negating his work

[inland rune]

Hi Mitvit, thanks for response, I appreciate the work you do and like many others really enjoy playing this game, but I have got to say the idea that you genuinely can't find a single active skilled/trusted player willing to make some PRs is very far fetched

With all due (genuine) respect

• To answer your question, it's just sentiment that has been shared with me a few times in DM's over the years, along the lines of '"there's no point in trying nothing will change/don't waste energy"', I hope you can prove them wrong

[jagged valley]

When the decision of implementing balance lies at those who have no understanding they can only rely on others to supplement their feedback, however the information required to make logical balance changes is to consider every aspect of every single unit and of every single map, mode and scenario . Simple words can not convey this knowledge it would need 100pages of text to give a full image.
So obviously balance is hard to make with such limited information as few simple feedback sentences by some people.

Only solution is to make truely capable people make balance themselves.

[inland rune]

what xFactor says is true I think to some extent if you had to create the perfect game and only had 1 try, but we are in alpha and there is room to iterate. But yes balancing is of course complex because there is a deep web of how units interact with one another in different circumstances and in different game modes.

[timid rain]

and 4. gets a nice hourly salary to justify spending vast amounts of time crafting spreadsheets and running specific ingame tests

[inland rune]

the current devs are volunteers, why would new blood not also volunteer?

[jagged valley]

Thats a personal requirement not the requirement for good balancing 😄

[timid rain]

the alternative is of course roughly eyeballing some numbers and then hoping it works out in beta test 🤷‍♂️

[inland rune]

I think that is an entirely satisfactory solution honestly, it's not like it has been perfectly sculpted from pure marble by Michelangelo as it is

I just mean, having actively playing balancer would be so good, someone who cares deeply /today/

[timid rain]

ye it's a viable strategy to release a patch every 2 weeks and always make a change that is smaller than you think is necessary, but at the same time that is also a lot of work, and it requires a lot more adjustment from the players

[inland rune]

I think Raikoh said they have played in a game with someone from balance team 20 games in 6700 or something?

[buoyant isle]

The first step to do this would be to write up a formal beta test process.

Something like

"Play as least x amount of games on a consistent map pool in 1v1, 4v4, 8v8 (or replicate agreed upon expected environment that resemble 8v8 game using cheat command).

Utilise the unit against the previous meta unit, against itself, against its counterparts, against what it suppose to counter and its own counter. In various gamestate.

Have it tested with tester of various different skills level.

etc etc"
That would be like as least 12 games per change if you want to be serious about it

[inland rune]

this has always been my thinking, just tweaks, no baseball bats like what happened with spybots - honestly LUA code is not difficult to write, I wrote a fairly large balance patch awhile back in 1 day with 0 experience in it

[devout dagger]

pretty much what i wanted to suggest with this statement above:
"Unit modifications suggested by the community can either go through the suggestions (where they can be discussed publicly and picked up at the balance teams leisure) or submitted directly with additional requirements such as (3-5 games played / with attached replay with the suggested patch deployed as a unit tweak). Direct submission would require the balance team to respond to the suggester. If the team feels the change is good (or after modifying the values) the patch then goes to the other team as above."

[verbal basin]

Makes sense to focus on changing 1 thing at a time, and not try everything at once. Both because it's easier to judge how it will affect the game, and also easier for other people to understand and adapt.

But those single things would just ideally get done faster

[jagged valley]

Bar doesnt have people to test changes to be for real. U need to create a strong patch from the get go and then when u release the mod option it is a final test before release. And people will test that as its low effort. Bit multiple tests and constantly adjusting is a failure. People dont do it and will not do it. The morale for that is also too low.

[inland rune]

@verbal basin can I please respectfully propose then that the balance team pick up another member or two that play on a daily basis and are willing to engage with the playerbase and make changes

[jagged valley]

Balance team can recruit as much as they want. As long as people inside it have no say, nothing will change

[inland rune]

sorry yeah I assumed balance team was empowered, add that also ^

[timid rain]

yea agree this is a real problem, if there's some beta patch that's guaranteed to be deployed in 2 weeks, there's real urgency from people to test and also people do just default to playing games on new patch since it's the future anyways (be it to practice for tournys or whatever). But atm there's 4 patches and they don't necessarily feel like they will be deployed anytime soon if ever

[inland rune]

I agree multiple tests isn't good, for small iteration I was thinking just forego testing entirely - like lets say unit X is never built, you just try tweaking it, one week increase it's speed by 2 units - after a month is it used more? no, ok lets try increase its range by 10 units, etc

no amount of (realistically achievable) testing is ever gonna be enough to really see if balance tweak for a unit like commando is successful, you just gotta try stuff imo, and if you start small then you don't cause chaos

not every unit should be built in every game but it would be nice to have it so that you would see every unit in 10 or 20 games, there are some units I have not witnessed in over 200 recent games atm

[timid rain]

for some units it's really not clear what the direction should be. Like how would you change decoy coms or commandos?

[inland rune]

I think initially you just have to start on a basic level, of course as you immediately will recognise, commando balance also relies on transport balance for example, etc - but would it really hurt to just give it 10% hp buff to start off with? probably not, at some point you'd reach a threshold where despite the drawbacks, people are like hey this can be useful

[jagged valley]

There is so many no brainer things in bar rn. Like buff sprinter. It can be done in 5 minutes, but we dont see for months. Why? Is there conflict of opinion? No! Do stats say something else? No! Do pro player say he suck? Yes!

So why is there no update. Only explanation is a complete fail as institution. Where perhaps bureaucracy, inactivity or ego griefs the system.

there needs to be a fundamental change in how balance gets made

[inland rune]

I feel a bit out of my depth discussing balancing specifics with you two so I will stick to generalisation which is just I think we could iterate more and I really/really think it would be just amazing to have a couple of genuinely active/enthusiastic people empowered to do this stuff, and it could be done without taking any existing power or respect from current balance team

[polar locust]

You can’t beta test , and testing is the most expensive part of software development. So imo your approach is fine , hey have a sneak peak of new patch releasing in 2 weeks , any feedback / comments welcome

[timid rain]

yea i'd be interested in trying this out. Currently the balance team seems basically completely unstructured as well, though it's opaque to me anyways so i wouldnt know i suppose

[inland rune]

I think this is what I meant when I said it seems obfusticated to me as a player, perhaps I did not explain it well

[polar locust]

More imperative stuff

[timid rain]

tbf iirc sc2 balance team was always scuffed as well so issues exist in bigger projects too xd I guess the question is do you guys like the way tft does balancing if you've played that

[timid rain]

besides the spelling it also just doesn't fit the definition of obfuscation, just because something is not well communicated doesn't mean it's intentionally obtuse

[inland rune]

I think we should just remember not to let perfect be the enemy of good, I don't think there is perfect solution but I think it's difficult to imagine constructive reason that allowing some more active people be involved on a deeper level isn't good

[inland rune]

yeah as I said perhaps I did not explain it well, opaque is how it feels, edit: obfusticated is an archaic mode of obfuscated and not just gibberish, I assume probably only uttered in British-English

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/obfusticated_adj?tl=true (as per oxford english dictionary)

[jagged valley]

But here we are yapping as always the community does. And our talk is meaningless because no one in power listens, gives a shit and will not be arsed to do anything about it. Ahaha lmao.

[inland rune]

@verbal basin this is basically what I was alluding to earlier when you asked me why I had that notion

[verbal basin]

Ppl who have never tried to get involved, complain that nobody listens? So what

[jagged valley]

Must seem that way after ignoring lmao

[timid rain]

tbf i think nobody really knows how to get involved with balance if they tried

[verbal basin]

From what I remember you've not responded when I have asked you for feedback

[jagged valley]

True i didnt 1 time. And then i given feedback another 150 times regarding bar

[inland rune]

I think at this point some good/active players should be involved for more than feedback, they should be on the inside really as part of the team - there's no shortage of feedback but a shortage of action

[jagged valley]

But u are ok mitvit, u at least tried sometimes other people in balance team are just dead in coffin

[inland rune]

feedback is in endless supply, people that are in any way empowered to action feedback that seem truly invested in the game day to day is around 0

Surely that's the issue at hand?

[jagged valley]

I mean there is. Blodir and randy being balance consultant, surely someone said sprinter sux and need buff 10% hp or something else they came up with

[polar locust]

This is some first draft on how i see balance cycle

[timid rain]

there's a lot of stuff like that, ICS as well, but getting any changes deployed can take a long time so at the end of the day it doesn't seem worth the fight to propose changes there

[brave path]

No salary for you I think. You are one of the current advisors (I have to asume that has been going on for a considerable ammount of time) and therefore part of the reason why even the most basic balance has been off for a very long period of time. You are either not suggesting the right things or not barking at them if they get it wrong.

You can get the tourney moneys though

[inland rune]

@verbal basin who actually says if a patch can be deployed? like who can press the button? In your view what is it that takes so long? like why is halberd still the halberd after 5 years? genuinely trying to understand

[timid rain]

i choose to try to help rather than flame from the outside like you 🤷‍♂️ not sure why you think the flaming part is more valuable

[limpid tide]

Hounds being useless unit has been issue for ever since consul stopped making them. Whats the thought process behind not having it balanced id like to hear ngl

[jagged valley]

I thought flaming is only we thing we can do. Please enlighten us how our opinion can result in balance change

[polar locust]

Hound is indirectly buffed with mitvit patch now

[inland rune]

I think there needs to be some restructure/reorganisation of the pipeline that gets a change from concept to implementation because until then we can discuss specific balance all year long and it doesn't help

[timid rain]

yeah regular voice meetings would be great imo, that's what we did in faf (at least for some time). I think the balance team actually does some meetings sometimes but i'm not privy to that. I think meeting every week and patch every month is a bit intense though, probably more luck with biweekly meeting and bimonthly patch

[limpid tide]

Idk it's legit a fucking open source beta unreleased w/e and yet balance changes need 2yr or constant bitching and 2000 message threads only for scag to DM zecrus and change happens in 1 week gg

[polar locust]

with tzar, fatboy and sheldon nerf, not sure if it'll be enough to make hound shine but at least let's test it

[jagged valley]

We get more balance changes by engine changes kek. Before u think about 1 week per change try get at least 1 good patch in a month

[limpid tide]

Ye there's 99 shadow changes not listed in changes tab that's op af aswell

[brave path]

Have to subscribe all these 3 points, particularly the checking own bias thing and objectively trying to give somewhat equal (given the slight faction special units) opportunities to the three factions

[timid rain]

tbh i kinda disagree with hounds being useless (i build them all the time and somehow #2 in 8v8 lol), but they could use some small buff probably yea

[inland rune]

I just fear that any meaningful balance patch deployment pipeline restructure is basically off the cards and nothing is gonna change and like choice says the deploy pipeline will always just be scag sending zecrus a DM

[polar locust]

This is something that needs to change yes, i agree

[limpid tide]

You built hounds in 5v5 and I legit thought u were trolling no flame. Those hounds couldn't even push a t1 army u were 2v1ing and I got 2 ageo upgraded with 10 butlers meanwhile

[brave path]

It didnt take me a bast ammount of time to do my tweaks. They are just basic brief correction tweaks, not creating the whole game from scratch

[jagged valley]

@timid rain @verbal basin and @polar locust only people here with small influence who can truely start a change here

[timid rain]

i have no idea how good or bad your tweaks are (even if you link the numbers i'm not under the delusion that i can tell from numbers alone)

[limpid tide]

Idk just be like zecrus and implement the change who needs testing for shit like sprinter and hound buff

[brave path]

Multiple number of things can be modified (sensibly) at the same time as long as they are just being brought up to the general standard of performance of the category of unit / per unit cost

[timid rain]

i dont remember the game you're talking about specifically but they often get a bunch of value over time switching between lanes where they can freefarm. Anyway there's plenty of units that if i built as much as hounds i'd lose a lot more xd even like sumos

[limpid tide]

Just buff the speciality of unit if it's broken then it's broken w/e call it new meta and move on

[inland rune]

I agree with choice, like you don't need to do hours and hours of testing to increase sumo speed by 2 units and see how it goes if you feel it's underperforming

[jagged valley]

Lmao problem is games has balance problems from level 1 to 10. There is about 100s of problems in 1-9 and we are struggling to fix like 3 problems on level 10. Thats how messed up it is. We cant even do real balance because we struggling to change even the most obvious shit

[polar locust]

this is obvious, but for a big change like a weapon rework you need testing, you can break the game

[inland rune]

I think the issue is Inda there is so much low hanging fruit, stuff that sorta just feels obvious, like halberds - it's low effort and still it isn't fixed after years and years, like how, just how

[limpid tide]

P sure 1 recluse deals more damage than 5 hounds and u can compensate for movespeed by having a unit that actually has splash and extra range due to missiles flying like rocketbot gets extra range o missed shots

[inland rune]

I will make hounds rarely if a guy is getting 1v2 vs t1 or something and just needs a quick repreive before I can get a fatboy too him or whatever

[limpid tide]

Btw t2 transport xomdrop still a thing they just did -30 speed I couldn't even notice it

[brave path]

Do you really need feedback to sort the very basic stuff that is obvious to the naked eye?

[timid rain]

yeah except you don't want to increase the speed of a sumo too much since that's like the entire identity of the unit... or is it? Maybe speed can be higher if you keep low range high hp? Or maybe speed could be kept the same but range increased? So which change do we choose specifically?

[limpid tide]

Imo sumo is perfectly fine in it's niche. I think he's just giving example, like buffing sprinter with some turret turnrate would be a no brainer

[devout dagger]

considering other games: a lot of them have had terrible balance patches at times - but the community mostly was fine with it since they knew that within a reasonably short time things would get changed again (either as a hotfix if truly game breaking or with a regularly scheduled release). People who despised whatever meta was established simply took a 2/4 week break to come back later.

Frequency is much more important than quality. Because even if the perfect patch is coming in 2 years are you really going to be able to convince people to stick around long enough?

[jagged valley]

Buff its strengths, keep weaknesses, thats how to make unique fun units, if u fix the worst stats all units become the same

[limpid tide]

Alot of units have turret turnrate issues even when they're meant to be agile units, these are basic issues that don't need too much discussion

[inland rune]

I don't think we have to get it perfect the first time, as long as the tweak isn't insane - currently my feeling is that it's a bit on the crap side and it's most evident when you compare it to the centurion for example, cheaper, faster, more range, in many cases simply better antispam and it's T1 (granted my feeling isn't worth shit but this is just an example of a logic train an op player may follow and then say, hmm lets try giving it 5 more range or whatever)

[brave path]

Flaming happens when things are not working. I wouldnt have to be openly negative if you as the balance consultant got the house in order. (And the balance consultants shouldnt even be needed if the balance team actually played the game)

[timid rain]

recluse can be killed by t1 if your teammate doesn't defend you, hound is virtually invulnerable to t1, and it can rotate immediately when you see sheldons or whatever, and keep farming value somewhere else. It has legit uses in 8v8 where a lot of people are t1 gaming for a long time. In tourny gameplay it's pretty useless tho

[jagged valley]

What is hound.
I Never seen it this year

[limpid tide]

T2 transport is actually fucking useless for transporting stuff since they removed multi pickup btw,

[inland rune]

yeah I mean it doesn't need to be specifically sumo, or any unit really, I just mean that things can be tweaked in a small way and see if they feel more balanced / more used, etc and as long as iteration isn't insane you don't run the risk of breaking the game or anything

[limpid tide]

The $ investment in hounds often not worth the $ worth of damage it deals and then ur behind in $ while ur oppo has had time to make real units

[jagged valley]

Question is not what or how to balance. There is many low risk changes that improve game.

question is how to get balance update released

[inland rune]

agreed actually I wanna remain on this topic, feels like the most fundamental balance issue

ultimately I think the specifics of what is tweaked and how is unimportant until there is a realistic pipeline to even make those tweaks - what does it matter if hounds are ok, or if they need a small buff, if there's no way to give it a try?

[timid rain]

you are just reactively trying to justify it. Sound just like the guys who are like "it's their problem they are upset by what i say, i'm not doing anything wrong". Except it is your problem when nobody wants to work with you

[jagged valley]

We could give 20 page document of the most peak engineered and tested changes. But who gonna impelement it and also not butcher it with half gone or other way implemented changes

[limpid tide]

Imo 80%+ of the unit balancing in arm and cortex doesn't need much tinkering , should just be released by 1 guy after being fed info
Cba 1v1 t1 balancing

[polar locust]

there are some quick wins imo

[sour copper]

Blodir is too busy playing nice guy to turn game into faf lol

[timid rain]

this is fair yea, it does feel like as an outsider what motivation do you have to work hard when you have no idea if your work will be taken seriously

[inland rune]

tons, I think xfac is right that the topic should be how to make it so we can actually get these changes in the game, how to have someone active/invested with some empowerment

[mild beacon]

That's a lot of text so sorry if this is not on topic directly. I think we could have been on the Nov test patch, as just the Nov patch, and though we'd be arguing about different things right now, more ground would have been covered. But I do like that we put all that effort into discussion, proposal, test, then merging to the game.

And, definitely, no one is interested in working with people who only dip a toe into civility when they have to. It's a basic expectation to be able to talk to people.

[sour copper]

another yapping session like the 20 others before it that will lead to nothing but more "R word" decision from the non playing devs???
amazing

[inland rune]

arguing over the hound whilst no one here has any way to do anything about it is just the same old waste of our energy

[limpid tide]

Also thinking about the balance patches like jfc atleast just break the balance in a new way every 4 month so it's not same stale gameplay

Like been how many months since most maps are legit same unit composition

[inland rune]

you're not wrong Boneless it's a requirement that people should be civil to be involved I just want to add the sheer frustration level is a factor in this, ultimately the players are very passionate and seemingly the balance team are not even thinking about BAR on a day to day basis, it's a perfect brewing ground for some frustration to boil over, whilst there are some players who are playing 5, 6, 7 hours a day etc and there are genuinely balance team memebrs who have not played more than an hour all year AFAIK and it's december

[limpid tide]

Consul being able to make hound n recluse were a thing and it took like 1year of bitching to get it removed. The responsiveness ain't jt

[polar locust]

Consul-> Hound/Recluse meta was one of the most aids metas ever

[limpid tide]

And yet how many text walls for that to be fixed

[polar locust]

But it got fixed eventually, hopefully things can change in the future

[inland rune]

BAR is not just some tiny game with like 20 players, I really think some tough decisions should be made for the betterment of the game and the benefit of the large playerbase

[limpid tide]

I mean it's same issue, discord is mostly 90% irrelevant even if u have proper feedback so just DM zecrus and wait till he's free or smth

[jagged valley]

Lmao unless u blodir or mitvit actively fight for change by messaging people in power to change things there is nothinf gonne change. All we peasanta can do is convince people like u to do something

[sour copper]

it got fixed coz zecrus was playing the game with us
also there was jaz and maybe teddy was still on also
all gone for a reason i guess

[inland rune]

the insane thing is the same people still control everything despite being 100% checked out

[limpid tide]

Idk why balance changes are overseen by so called people in power when they legit don't fucking play or watch or commentate on the game

My bad maybe they have smurfs and play the game can't tell

[jagged valley]

Question is why game admins dont care about game

[inland rune]

I honestly don't mind that they don't care, what I mind is that they don't pass the torch to people that do

[limpid tide]

Open source volunteer based development except everything is apparently greenlit through 4 guys who have never been seen ingame in last 3years of my gameplay

[inland rune]

Life circumstances change, people change, it's fine, just community of 70,000 players currently can't get even the most obvious changes though atm in a supposedly open source game

[brave path]

It is kind of bonkers because they are not even getting paid for the job they are not doing. If they were getting paid one would assume that they want to soak up money but that cant even be the excuse cause it is free labour of love. And they have no love left to give.

[inland rune]

I am not even saying people should step down, just add some others that have the motivation - the game and community deserve better

[limpid tide]

Like just make 2-3 guys who actually play the game and talk to community through playing the game incharge of greenlighting Balance changes.

[brave path]

@polar locust

[limpid tide]

lost me on the "legion"

[inland rune]

It's just genuinely so sad cos there's thousands of people that play this game every day and care about it, rip

[limpid tide]

It's legit not deep just put 2-3 guys who have played in tourneys+regular+in-good-eyes incharge of greenlighting along with zecrus or smth

Bcz clearly the engine side of dev team either doesn't have time or aren't specialized enough in balancing to spare resources for it

[inland rune]

yeah 500% that is the solution but is it gonna happen? prolly not no, that's why I think it's that deep

[limpid tide]

Also u can just ask the people you pick up to give up position and refer to someone else if they plan on taking a break

[inland rune]

if this was like new/novel suggestion or problem I would have more hope but it's not the first time afk balance team has been discussed and ultimately ignored

so yeah I agree in sofar as that the solution is simple, making it actually happen somehow is seemingly impossible

[sour copper]

the balance team was created after months of players complaining the balance wasn't moving
they made changes alright
but same issue just worse with the wallmart quality tho

[inland rune]

balance team should be people that actually play more than 20 games in 3 years

[sour copper]

if you track the changes made by newly created balance team you will find all they did is mostly unbalance many things
only the small patches with fixes to shuris, pawn AA dmg increased ect were any good
all the majors patches have been atrocious

[limpid tide]

I don't mind unbalancing if atleast it changes gameplay, but it's been mostly same except t1 meta in 8v8 changed from rocketbot to cent which is was a balance changes 1yr ago

[inland rune]

ah I am just getting frustrated now, see you in a years time for round #3

[sour copper]

idk how you can find it the same, they removed sneaky pete, spies, made core veh a no brainer 1 click ez win

[limpid tide]

Can basically tldr:

Balance team afk, put some new guys in, who can spare time (crazy idea that the volunteer driven game needs new volunteers bcz u can't slave away Zecrus for 15years)

[brave path]

Engine side of the team shouldnt be balancing (if they dont play the game), they should be facilitating/debugging/working with but not getting in the way of balance if that is not their expertise.

[inland rune]

who can actually make this change? ptaq?

Jaz?

[limpid tide]

Ye maybe if this thread crosses 50k msgs some admin may drop 1 line in here

[sour copper]

who do you think made those changes the complaints are about

[limpid tide]

U forget ptaq reversed comrework 5 billion years ago
Legendary save ngl

[sour copper]

legendary

[south obsidian]

i want only nerf shuri or add aa to tick

[sullen sequoia]

EMPOWER THE BLT
GREATER BLT AUTONOMY MOVEMENT

[fresh monolith]

Useful for com dropping a forward lab or something

[brave path]

"... but I will not be putting more time into BAR. It simply does not give me joy to keep headbutting the same wall over and over hoping for a different outcome. If they ever fix the situation where pawns are decent enough to compete in 1v1 meta I will give it another shot but right now the time I spent in the game is just not being rewarded, fun or even enjoyable."

"Also yeah of course (you can cite my message), though I doubt its something they haven't heard before. They should know this shit through and through."

We just had some of the high ranked player and clan leadership quit playing the game over the balance announcement following the continuous state of balance neglect. Not me though, I am still gonna be around to remind you. Hopefully manage to convince him one day to return and play with us.

[orchid path]

If anyone has serious balance suggestions, I've got pre-approval to add them as an experimental dropdown with an escalation mechanic after initial feedback. I just haven't recieved any pull requests yet

The last few times I saw momentum that would have resulted in something breaking the ice and going into that dropdown - it instead got inducted into the official potential balance patch. lol.

"How do I do?"
Meta Discussion thread > Lotta people likey? > Balance consultant vibe check > Make Pull Request for modoption dropdown (I or others will help) > get testing feedback and @ me

[brave path]

#1427309675065507992 message this but I need to make additions so will get back to you when it is updated

indeed, will report when finished

[orchid path]

Finished concepts plz

[orchid path]

@steel depot I'm not aware of any dedicated High skill balance testing play group. Are you?

Without such a group, the play testing feedback received is of similar quality and enthusiasm to what you have experienced so far with tech blocking and meow core

Sometimes there will be one really noisy guy with weird opinions that he advocates for as though he is the majority opinion. The correct opinion.

There's other compounding factors, but this mixed bag makes play test feedback sparse and unreliable.

"So what?"
Edit: the balancing pipeline is not smooth. There's obstacles game side, player side, and balance team side.

[orchid path]

Driving to work, skimmed through a few of these screenshots. They appear to be talking about talking about the thing, not the thing.
I didn't see a suggestion about the sumo in that or sprinter or some other unit. Or a specific reference to the specific balance changes that were bad.

This must be the aftermath of some other failed feedback venture (or of many) by the players to get the balance team to alter some changes.

Can I get the missing context?

[brave path]

Yeah, you can read upwards when you stop driving. Stop using the phone whilst driving, we need you alive.

[orchid path]

You will only ever get me when I'm sitting down operating equipment. Be at a vehicle, or a toilet. Take your pick lol

[urban cloak]

Toilets seem safe

[orchid path]

As an aside, shit posting on discord has trained my body to take many dumps.

[brave path]

Basically can not complain about lack of hands and lack of motivation whilst repeatedly dismissing help from concerned competent people and defending this by saying that questioning the level of competence of the BT after the chronic issues is lack of civility as Boneless said up there in a comment.

[orchid path]

Would you say that I'm pretty good with game design? Not balance, game design. Like for fun.

Zombies, the scavenger boss, territorial domination, some of the concepts I've pitched
Actually don't answer that. Let's just assume that I am.
Even as awesome and humble I am at game design, I still make mistakes and don't get things right first try.
A little amnesty will Grease the wheels

Also, What If instead of having a drop-down, it was a toggle that revealed other toggles?
We could make a community balance patch.

[brave path]

You cant have a 2 years amnesty when the fixes are 10 minute jobs + brief high level testing before mass testing. This literally takes less than a day to get done before releasing it for beta testing, particularly if the person doing the tweak is high level.

My experience with you is that you have crazy ideas (generally some good some arguably not meeting target as solutions) but you do like to gather information and explore all the options before starting, brownie points. Then you will code what you want to high quality with plenty of features, then if it involves vanilla-like gaming will have to call you out on the crazy ideas and you eventually did come to reason e.g. the build area on the quickstart.
100% will do it all again, good stuff

[brave path]

Yep that would be good, an experimental testing menu with stuff more alpha stage than approved beta modoptions

[devout dagger]

I think there is a big difference between balance and design.

What Seth is doing is design, thinking about new features, how they should be integrated and whether they are worthwhile at all - collecting feedback for this is crucial you don't want to invest a ton of time and effort for something that is not appreciated.

Balance should be different - there is no point collecting preemptive feedback on proposed changes (you obviously want feedback for the current state) because it is nearly impossible to say how something will turn out from numerical values alone (as some top level players pointed in this thread). For balance action is far more important - if a patch does not land then fix it next time (either as a hotfix if it is truly egregious, or with the next regular cycle). It's better to have an unbalanced game where balance shifts regularly than an unbalanced game where balance does not change at all. And if you try often enough, you will eventually get it right.

[neat sphinx]

its really tricky with rts, cents are a clear example of how long it can take for op things to be figured out, popularized and abused-the cents were bugged for a long time before they became popular to monospam

and sometimes something seems super OP but than later on players will figure out the counters and that same thing is regarded as underpowered

I would emphasize building out balance from a strong foundation and being very careful to not employ overcorrection, and that is why I am skeptical about shaking up the economy scaling meta since it will pull everything into a state of chaos

[inland rune]

@orchid path I think honestly the problem is there is no realistic pipeline to get all the sensible fixes into the game that take 10 mins and should have been done years ago, the 'balance team' is players that are literally not players, AFAIK most of them don't ever play the game and those that do play it seldom

it's bananas cos there's a huge number of passionate and talented players ready to step into these roles

[orchid path]

#1447954953481228529 message there is now.
Enough talk. Let's get er done.

<@&1384472305610260600> I am making you guys able to block meta discussions with a unanimous ❌ or qualify them unanimously with ✅

[neat sphinx]

making underused units more meta is more likely to make balance worse than better if you look at it realistically

[inland rune]

I think some different balance could be fun rather than it getting stale, but my opinion is it should be small buffs - not making things op

just starting small and seeing what happens, like 5% hp here, 2 movespeed there, etc

[neat sphinx]

yeah mainly i'm trying to point out that achieving more diverse gameplay and having good balance is not the same

[inland rune]

I dunno I would like to have more diverse but to a sensible extent, I don't think every unit should be made in every game obviously, and some units should appear more, like grunt or rocket bot

but atm like there are units I have not seen in over 100 games, I would like that to change

but you're right balance is not straightforward, like most of us know sprinter is pretty dogsh** - but then the Arm bot lab gets the fatboy and the sharpshooter, core gets nothing like the sharpshooter from any lab, so maybe it should be kinda dogsh*t, idk, and sprinter is not one of those units you literally never see.

This is problems for better players to worry about and suggest, op

[brave path]

You gotta be sensible and careful about things. Key is moderation and understanding. By moderation I dont mean inactivity or doing useless tweaks that dont solve the problem though. Do make sure the change is good before bringing it to public opinion.

[regal agate]

Have the the community reached a conclusion on what's the way to do effective balancing? I see a split between:

• 60os balance dictator with great grasp of all gamemodes, relevant BAR code, no ego and free time and motivation to work (doesn't exist)
• big committee of pro players voting on changes (so no direction, just watered down decisions)
• replace current team with more active and pro players (experience shows they become less active when they start spending time on dev work as its usually the same time they had for gaming)
• doesnt matter, Im not playing untill coop fix
• doesnt matter, game dead, can't be fixed

[jagged valley]

First 3 is fine to me, question is really what option bar administration is willing to implement. Wouldnt matter to vote for an option just to be declined and then have to do same process for next option.

[regal agate]

While they sound nice at face value, I'm not convinced any of these options are better, or more viable than the status quo considering all the tradeoffs. We have a small team of people active at dev work, with good understanding of the balance related code and a bigger team of consultants who play the game actively and have time to yap about balance and share feedback.

Of course I would like the team to play more actively (ftr one of them is fairly active), but I think understanding the code + their vast experience is more valuable imo, esp when they can be supported with feedback from active consultants.

Balance dictator is the only option which I would deem better than that, but it's also a utopia. I can't name a single person that fills this job description.

At this time, I think the best way forward is working on making the current setup more efficient. Can encourage members to game more, can give consultants more real leverage, work on new procedures like https://discord.com/channels/549281623154229250/1447954953481228529, etc.

I'm open to being convinced otherwise, the arguments brought up don't do it for me so far.

[jagged valley]

There is 2 additional potential options that can be considered:

1. People who balance and people who code the changes - split both areas, combine both strengths
2. Alternative teach potential new members the code to implement themselves

I think 1. Is quite good

[brave path]

Ideally you will have Ptaq´s high rank non-biased dictator doing what is best for the game but that doesnt currently exists as he says. Xfactor´s 1. is the next best option in line.

It is easy for me to know what parameter to touch and do quick tests for desirability with tweakunits, and even be part of high level testing and source people for testing, absolutely no problem on that and it is a very quick job. But I have no clue of interactions with engine or coding. Seth has been trying to get me to code for months and I am even failing to get chatgpt to do it for me.

I am sure there are also more people that have the desired good qualities (intuition for balance, keeping bias in check, regular competitive players, playing different game modes and team sizes to get the whole picture) and are in the same situation. Ideally you get small group of them to watch out for latest issues and come together for greenlighting at high level.

Same with helpful desirable widgets ideas that could easily make it to vanilla without meddling with balance, absolutely no idea how to see them through by coding and no pickup from the widget request section.

• Rangefinder - display distance elevation between two points
• Hold groung control - unit remains in position until manually released (command or individual click)
• Resurrection before repair - Alternative command replicating the bug behaviour to res to minimal health

This is what the current full team of people and high level consultants have come with in 2 months of time with and a further background of 2 years of cortex imbalance. #1447323521662455910 message

[jagged valley]

what u linked, is that what balance team is planning to release?

[brave path]

That is the full list of changes
https://gist.github.com/Mitvit/66d5061f88fb1bd7558aa728be225052

It is live - out for modoption testing called Season 3 changes

[south obsidian]

cheaper t2 labs cheaper fus (t1 units )

[limpid tide]

Better than

• some guy who hasn't played BAR in 2 years

Currently ur balance team or w/e it is literally has no capacity of collecting balance feedback and has insane fucking changes in season 3 patch that when set into lobby, the lobby goes from 16/16+6 queue to 12/16 and when removed goes back to 16/16+2queue in under 2minutes

[limpid tide]

1 doesn't matter u had raghna gg

Comupdate gg

[inland rune]

ptaq in response to point 3 I think that is the whole point, it should not be a permanent role it should be a role for people who are active, when they move on they hang up their hat

it's a false equivalence the option is not 'replace afk people for other afk people' the choice is > 'keep replacing whoever goes afk with someone that isn't'

and honestly 'learning the code' is basically not even a thing, I figured out how to make a large balance patch from scratch in like 3 hours one time

[regal agate]

thats one of the points of having balance consultants - vetting future potential BLT members, I don't wanna just grab pros from the street who have no idea what they are doing and how balance code works

[inland rune]

man this is an alpha game stuff should move at some pace, AFK balance team for like 2-3 years is truly ludicrous, it should be panic situation not more wait and see

All I will say is balance team members should be people that are happy to work for the people, not people that wanna remake the game in their own way of how they think it should work

[limpid tide]

who is pro at this game anyway? anyone getting paid?

Also the current balance team pulls out shit like this with 0 demand

[sour copper]

kinda like the snake eating his own tale, 95% of people that could have helped things already left and the ones left already kown it's cooked coz of dumb (i hope it's friendly even word) decisions making and having low quality balance team have the authority to rewrite the whole balance after 3 months of being created.

[inland rune]

I sorta see choice's point, this feels like someone has an opinion of how the game should be paced without consulting other players as from what I can tell this is unpopular change on the whole

[limpid tide]

legit 0 person ever asked for fusion to be an earlier building, and someone is trying to make anti-coop balance by nerfing t2+ Buildcost as a whole

[inland rune]

I am a bit confused about that one, doesn't making T2 slower mean that combined BP etc just becomes more rather than less effective?

[regal agate]

please share this feedback where it belongs

[limpid tide]

this wasnt feedback it was "why is this even a direction of balance?"

[buoyant isle]

not in this thread please

[regal agate]

we have balance consultants looking into these decisions, why do you think they didnt stop them if they are so unwanted?

[limpid tide]

ye assuming ur balance consultants have already looked into the decision + tested them (nobody has because no lobby wants to use it after reading)

[regal agate]

what if they were actually positive about these ideas and encouraged them?

[limpid tide]

they suck then (objectively)

peakness of BLT following the "no exception" game design rule from GDT

[buoyant isle]

are you here to contribute to anything or just to ragebait? And no, don't reply . It's rhetorical.

[rapid island]

Its an exception to adjustments in build power cost, which is nothing but a unit buff in a certain stat. Its not a unit specific exception to any established game rule. I dont think this game design rule applies here.

[inland rune]

I don't think choice juist here to ragebait, he does have very antagonistic style of communication granted but it's obvious he does care,

[limpid tide]

this community suhhs dihh

[mild beacon]

The formula is relative to current stats, so there's no reason not to allow exceptions to it. This remark, like your others, has nothing to do with balance as practice except to be antisocial.

[jagged valley]

i just made this in last hour, its my balance take based on intuition

[vale atlas]

pawn is at 87 tho

[mild beacon]

Okay. Maybe missing some cost adjustments? Just trying to note the top stats to change?

[inland rune]

cost doesn't always have to change, if a unit is not built at it's current cost then buffing it but also increasing the cost the same amount will leave it in similar bad state potentially

[mild beacon]

Yeah just asking if this is a summary view or no

[jagged valley]

this is complete view currently

[inland rune]

xf I would like to see slight range/speed buff to sumo, or fire rate or something (compare it to Arm cent for amusement purposes) maybe also salamander ROF increase as core t2 just has shit antispam, also maybe make termite and halberd playable

[fast skiff]

i mean there is a big halberd range buff in there

[inland rune]

like I said yesterday whilst I agree in vacuum sprinter buff seems very obvious, bear in mind core bots has no sharpshooter or fatboy, maybe it has to be shit, edit: I missed halberd change

[jagged valley]

i tried to make most changes, based on buffing strengths, keeping weaknesses, try to make units fun to play. and obviously fixing core issues if it has some

[inland rune]

fair and you deffo have better grasp of this than I do, just bear in mind ARM actually has higher winrate in 8v8 as things stand /currently/ so I am a bit confused by all the rhetoric about core dominance lately, range is still king like always and arm got sharpshooters and starlights

[jagged valley]

ill also create thread so list dont get lost here

[vale atlas]

this may be subjective, but inc vs pawn may feel frustrating with both range and speed reduction

[sour copper]

not bad changes

[jagged valley]

well the inc range nerf will bring it on par with grunts, allowing grunts to fight much better into inc. pawn with slight bp buff should equalize with grunts small range nerf. pawn and inc should be competitive too, much more chance to pick off some inc, but inc with good micro probably still on top. blitz the main benefactor gets easier time vs all 3 match ups. vs inc and grunt should be competitive. tho blitz vs pawn will still lose, tho a bit less

[sour copper]

lots of kissing ass gonna be needed tho

[jagged valley]

First need people to check it over and give feedback, who knows maybe I had a pepega moment

[sour copper]

that's lot more of something that would be expected from a season balance patch

[pallid surge]

To bring some context.
Incisors current speed is 85,5

It seem a little excessive to me, make incisor same speed with grunt, why ?

For grunt range little nerf, why not

About weapons

[jagged valley]

its to allow units to engage more easiely into an incisor ball

[inland rune]

if inc ball stops being a death ball why does it still have to be so much slower than blitz?

[jagged valley]

its still death ball just not as unfair

[brave path]

Some good (most), some a bit drastic/I would go around it with different stat change, some bad (few). Cant just swing stats like that (big changes towards the end of the log), meant to be fine tuning. But that basically means it definitely doesnt take 2 months or 2 years to solve the game problems with common sense when you know the game.

[urban cloak]

1st thank you for actually stepping up and do what was supposed to be done 8 years ago: ellysaw being faster than riptide.
Ellysaw and riptides had been designed together and ellysaw, due to its double tower design and firing arc WAS supposed to be faster and i dont even know at which point did i fuck up its stats back then.
I had made a thread about some sea changes that i wanted to propose but it remained just a thread with no real activity.
I'm just glad someone steps up and just says it out loud: its stat is just wrong.

I did have a couple changes in mind there. Just the speed change was about 99% of it.

There was a proposal of faster ellysaw plasma proj speed aswell, armroy aoe nerf (48-> 32) and corroy range slight nerf (-20). While retaining their respective damages.

That slight gap would barely be noticeable in large packs due to the aoe, but in small amounts there might be slightly more room for armada outmicro.

I had hoped to gather opinions on that, but it stayed dead since then and i didnt really get an opportunity to tweak units test these outside of some closed 1v1s...

Anyways, seeing someone that doesnt forget sea in his "balance ideas" reassures me. It will, i hope, not remain untouched for 8 more years (or maybe 6, i dont really remember how much years passed since then, too much irl stuff came before i could joind back this community 🙁 )

[brave path]

actually arm sea has made a comeback on its own (unless someone changed stuff and I didnt notice), I had tested sea changes myself and then a bit down the line have realised that the disparity that was there really wasnt that much and that sea can be not 100% cor as I used to think and deleted them from my patch

t1 arm subs still a bit down so that is the only think I have kept and the change is mostly about ability to maneuvre and firing angle to bring it closer to the cortex sub which also had firing angle a bit trimmed, very moderate reasonable changes

[urban cloak]

It's not as bad as i thought it was, i believe a good patch is stilll wanted, but the tweaks arent as major as i thought. Unless the map is clearly favoring slow high burstxaoe destroyer like 7 rivers. In which case dont even bother picking armada sea imo.
But most played map supreme, its not as bad. Still not "balanced" though

I still do pick armada even then, the micro is way more demanding but i have the most fun with it.
So maybe i'm biased towards wanting to win more rofl.

[brave path]

the fact that you even think about own bias is already plenty good, most important is to stay objective and sometimes gotta admit when own opinion proven wrong, reality is reality

[inland rune]

on that note, I believe if you restrict 1v1 winrates to 30+ os, Arm actually pulls ahead of core believe it or not

I know there's some reasons that could be, but it's interesting and maybe means the 1v1 balance is not quite as bad as it appears at face value

[brave path]

believe it or not, double the ammount of people pick cortex in 1v1, arm wr is marginally higher, the reason is because the dudes trying to make arm work are specialist and have higher skill gained through eating sh t for some time and have higher apm

what happens is that at the very top, the apm difference is so minimal that you 100% eat sh t because of the unit imbalance

this isnt new science or a discovery just dropped, 2 literal years

lets aim for better parity between factions so they are both very much playable at all levels

[true pebble]

Balancing a complex RTS game such as this should be an iterative process that relies ideally on a combination of mathematical modeling, extensive playtesting, data analysis, and community feedback.

Four Core Philosophy which the core design team might want to establish before going forward in any discussion with the community:

1. Balance through Asymmetry (or "balance of imbalance"): Key units of the 3 factions should remain powerful and unique, but ensure they have clear counters or strength/weaknesses. This creates meaningful choices and a dynamic meta-game. The goal isn't that every unit is equally strong in a vacuum, but that a skilled player can find a viable counter to any strategy. This can be the most controversial as there will always be some form of imbalance depending on a player's skill and knowledge level application of said units.

2. Focus on Fairness, not Perfect Equality: Ensure players of similar skill have a fair chance of winning with different strategies, even if specific game elements are situationally powerful. Again this can be very tough as maps also dictate game strategies so it is important to differentiate Map Strategy from overall Faction Strategy and maybe tweaks can be made map-side to factions instead of trying to globally balance factions on all maps.

3. Simplicity in Complexity: Keep core mechanics and rules as simple as possible. The complexity should arise from the interaction of these simple mechanics, not from convoluted mechanics. I think this is very important, but some complexity in having 2 options is not always a bad thing. Eg: Hounds firing mode.

4. Mathematical modelling of units stats, eg. hp, damage, etc and interaction. Start with the maths and see expected design interaction vs battlefield interaction. There should be a giant spreadsheet where every unit values are laid out, design parameters of how the unit should perform, and how it can tweaked with some sanity to facilitate balance or imbalance. Some units can be strong, some units can be weak, but there should be a baseline somewhere of ALL units in a faction..then you compare the mathematical values between the factions and tweak with a BIG PICTURE perspective.

Establish the basis of your balance so everyone is on the same page. That I feel is the key moving forward, and stick to one vision. If it doesn't work, change it another few months down the road..my humble suggestion.

[regal agate]

Why this reads like chatgpt

[buoyant isle]

the numbered listing style of writing

[true pebble]

Its obvious there's some influence but putting forth concise points in yr own writing is not difficult if u actually played through many different iterations of strategy games since the DOS era, and a love of RTS games in general.

Stick with the main pts and get things moving in the right direction. Will be interesting to see how the game will evolve in future. I will be around as long as the game is alive

[south obsidian]

most things look good

[sinful idol]

I just really wish to see an AI trained to play BAR to show us Exactly how the game should be played. Then we may have a near concreate, unbiased insight on the current state of balance and an easy way to test changes. unrealistic to train one tho i'm sure.

[inland rune]

AI does not do well at RTS games sadly, they are just too complex

[sinful idol]

You haven't seen AlphaStar play StarCraft have you?

[timid rain]

alphastar was like low gm, so very far from showing exactly how the game is played

[strong rapids]

Numbered list with perfect capitalization

[strong rapids]

It was beating up pro gamers by using no screen limitation 360 blink stalker micro I think. The only odd thing was it overbuilt workers, perhaps preemptively expecting harass?

[mild tundra]

It probably expected alphastar-level harassment but it didnt lose many because it was against humans so it looked overbuilt lmao

"I overestimated you" xD

[urban cloak]

Found the moment "i fucked up":https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/Beyond-All-Reason/commit/5403532339b509440cc28e7125b4f9c02288c079

clearly labelled a +3% increase in frigates speed yet only actually applied to cortex. That explains the 3% diff that is now in action haha

[hardy sail]

This entire list has been stated in various ways at least 30 times across at least three threads ive seen, including this one and the old tech split thread and even the quick start development thread. People are aware of what is most optimal. They just don't do it for whatever combination of reasons that exist in the fog of GDT magic. At least some of the reason is the higher os players trolling constantly as if they have sole rights to demand changes in a game that is free to play and played by thousands, and at least some of the reason is that the current group of people in gdt just don't like to enact changes, either quickly or at all. But there are certainly other reasons, from lack of motivation to simply having more important things to do than balance a game for which their efforts are not particularly compensated

[lost kraken]

the current balancing doesnt weight uncertainty propperly. player uncertainty, aka experience needs to be weighted much much stronger

currently you can have balances where 1 team has hundreds of hours of experience, vs the other team with basically zero experience.

[buoyant isle]

not what this thread is about

[median acorn]

Why trying to.fix 1 aspec.of.coop via balance. Noone asked for it. Its crazy. Is not.balance. its.fixing an issue with engine via unit stats

This is mot effective balancing.

[wispy pier]

In response to the valid criticisms highlighted in this thread, I've started the BAR Express initiative: #🔩｜dev-main message

We are currently on the step of determining the rules for who is qualified to be on the BAR Express approver list/panel, with its focus naturally on game design/balancing.

[restive hawk]

Tbh it's amazing to me how such as complicated RTS is balanced to begin with.

[wispy pier]

Damgam is asking for evidence for where the current balance team is struggling:

[dense hawk]

No reading that thread I think he was trying to suss out what exactly you're trying to achieve, and I'm confused as well. If your only goal is to make balance changes faster then fine getting more people to approve patches is fine

What I think you want is to have an actual rigorous process where balance patches are tested and approved within a proper framework with clear purpose and direction. Adding more approvers doesnt fix that at all...

Xfactors quote which youre using to justify this express thing should be balanced (heh) with their balance thread where they want to change dozens of units in one patch based on some pretty good reasoning but mostly a lot of vibes. That's not something you want to regular whiplash every two weeks because some high os player has strong opinions

If you want to actually institute meaningful change, don't add another broken process

[wispy pier]

If 40 reputable players including Raghna (on game design team) and Blodir (balance team consultant) agree on a change, AND both game design team and balance team are not intending to veto that change, then we should either deploy that change immediately OR queue up that change for the next batch deployment.

[wispy pier]

The first step in a rigorous process is having people willing and appointed to design and perform said rigorous process in a peer-verifiable way.

BAR Express is not just a list of reputable people. It's a pipeline for reviewing/testing/approving changes to ultimately land at strong change proposals.

[dense hawk]

So if you have approval from all of those parties write a PR and submit it, there's no need for an additional process in that scenario

[dense hawk]

This is where you're losing people, how is this different

[wispy pier]

The current problem is the PR never gets accepted with the current process.

[stray jacinth]

how are you going to determine whether 40 people agree on a change, and determine the intention of various teams?

[wispy pier]

Currently there is no rule that says "repo power holder, you are authorized to accept PRs that meet X conditions" beyond X = someone on balance team said so

[dense hawk]

I don't pay attention to the actual back and forth on development so forgive me for the dumb question, but was there an actual scenario where the game design team, the balance team, and the consultants agreed on a change and the change was rejected by a 4th party or are you strictly talking hypothetically

[wispy pier]

Yes there was a huge amount of work repulsed by lack of process

[dense hawk]

That's so vague, what huge amount of work and repulsed by what?

Also to googlefrogs point, how does adding more decision makers to that process make it more effective

[wispy pier]

I don't want to put a spotlight on it because it's an ongoing problem and I don't want to stir up office politics.

Adding trustable decision makers speeds up making decisions when you have a non-consensus-based framework. For example, if decision makers A B C are slow, decision makers X Y Z can just do it. Obviously if A B C want more time to actually think about the problem then they can delay it

[dense hawk]

I think you've already opened that can of worms, and seemingly out of no good reason other than the generic balance bad take that pops up every 3rd thread

That makes no sense at all, adding more decision makers with veto power creates a more dysfunctional system that will eventually lead to conflict between those teams

[wispy pier]

That's getting a bit excessive on the antagonism no? I've been a BAR contributor for a while, including tooling that was used directly by the official teams.

[dense hawk]

So I reiterate then, why not just write PRs and submit them if you see a gap in the process.

You haven't articulated a good reason for adding additional process that would very likely just compound the indecision you're trying to combat

[wispy pier]

Because the PR is not the problem. It's about getting the PR accepted.

It's tremendously harder to get consensus from multiple BAR teams with volunteer schedules, than it is to have a BAR Express list of vetted people trusted to decide on high-confidence changes then allow a 3-day veto period from other teams.

[dense hawk]

I'm going in circles with you, how is adding more decision makers going to solve the problem of too many vetoes

[wispy pier]

No circles yet. See: #1427309675065507992 message Elevated proposals cause vetoes to be held more accountable.

Aside from vetoes, a major problem to be addressed is simply initiative. We would love an open-minded, yet objective and reasonably skeptical member from each team to really help facilitate changes. But we don't see it happening, let alone in a sufficiently organized way.

[dense hawk]

No adding vetoes makes it more likely to be vetoed, you're under the assumption that you can put together a group of people that will come to universally accepted changes quickly without issue which is... there's an xkcd for this

https://xkcd.com/927/

xkcd: Standards

Fortunately, the charging one has been solved now that we've all standardized on mini-USB. Or is it micro-USB? Shit.

[wispy pier]

Yeah I've seen that. Deeply familiar with technical and organizational nuances. I've worked with non-profits and startups to 7-figure grants and even a 9-figure IPO. Too much office politics. I'm closer to Seth's style of I like things that just work. Right now things are not working and I want BAR to do better in 2026.

[dense hawk]

Like you say that, yet you're proposing to add more systemic dysfunction. If you truly see the balance cycle as broken your proposal should be to replace it entirely not amend more dysfunction. Go stir the office or wtv

I personally think the only team to affect balance should be the balance team, I don't see why there's any reason to have 4 parties sign off on numerical tweaks nor why the numerically focused balance team should have input on the game design principles

[wispy pier]

In practice, it's much more complicated. For example, moving numbers too far (or not enough relative to other changes) start infringing on game design principles. So now there's a tie between design team and balance team. We've seen this play out frequently. Also I'm trying to avoid office politics by stepping on less toes as necessary. Also, qualified people who want to support game design/balance but not necessarily commit to full on team member (ex. Blodir), it's a common pattern but we're not elevating their feedback formally yet. The list goes on...

[dense hawk]

If there are qualified people who want to be on the balance team then let them, if they don't want to be on the team then they get some consideration but ultimately they chose to not be involved meaningfully

Also if the design team gives them a clear mandate and the balance team operates outside of it then you get a new balance team... departments need to operate within their mandate

[wispy pier]

For current example, the BAR art leader wants a say in balancing units that use their artwork, which is generally reasonable, but see reality can run counter to the "within mandate" prescribed model.

[verbal basin]

What kind of (gameplay) changes do you see not getting done due to lack of process, that should get in?

[wanton gyro]

lol

[wispy pier]

For example, streamlining the factory-to-unit mappings, but that's one of many, many. As @meager pilot mentioned, there currently is barely any game design vision for BAR, the smoking gun being the absence of a "game design" channel on this discord. This is a root cause of GDT inertia.

[meager pilot]

There is actually, there must be a google docs link somewhere

[wispy pier]

You mean the GDD? The beginning is ok but it quickly enumerates mechanics which isn't really vision: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XdTLPgvAr7e1_PKf536Qomsa-3Mj67FVYRBBoK3oINg/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.8dnijd1mynd

[wispy pier]

Vision is having a concrete opinion on to what extent Armada and Cortex should be similar or different. Intellectually honest initiative is grappling with the thematic inconsistency of Cortex having Shurikens. Constructive open-mindedness is willingness to objectively consider community feedback beyond a vibey "I like it" vs "I don't like it" compared to "can you elaborate on how that would work/be better" vs "we'd have to solve Y adjacent problem first" vs "let's try it in X limited way first". And it takes a special type of intelligence to think about design, in the same way that it takes a special type to think about art or social, and it's even different from typical technical/engineering intelligence.

Vision is deciding whether competitive 1v1 early-game should stay scout/infantry spam-micro APM fiesta or have alternative viable playstyles (ex. base-building focused). Visionary intelligence is the ability to forecast the effects of changes without/before any testing is done.

There's a very apt saying: "A practical understanding of any vision of the future must acknowledge the necessity, complexity, and difficulty of bridging the gap between abstract ideals and actual experiences."

[hallow shore]

spybots

[verbal basin]

Factory to unit mappings as in keybinds, or smth else? Not sure I understand what you mean by that

Lack of (unified) vision is definitely an issue, but is that really about lack of proper process?
There is a game development forum, it's just not public. But that doesn't tell much about vision or lack of it, either.

[regal agate]

I already said no to the proposal, please stop beating a dead horse.

[orchid path]

I have seen work repelled by excessive process, too

[orchid path]

This is enforced by reputational risk.
I now have the ability to merge anything. I don't merge just anything because if it sucks then people think I'm not cool and might take my privileges away.

If Johannas says some balance change goes in, I would put it in because his reputation is at risk. The rest of the team would tattle on him if he did things they took issue with.

The whole organization works this way. Reputational relational trust.

There is a loose hierarchy that's recently been established. The relationship trusts stuff is the glue that holds it all together

[hallow shore]

wait is this towards seth or me

[mild beacon]

Neither

[hallow shore]

confusion

[wispy pier]

Correct. I noted reputational risk is the typical psychological baseline early in my discussion with Sprung too. This is common in small businesses. You do your daily work; if something is outside your regular scope AND seems significant beyond a feels-like-it threshold, you get approval from the business owner. See, there's always a sort of "implicit process", whether we like it or not. For example, the quality assurance team may want all PRs to be reviewed at least once by at least one member of the QA team before it gets merged. Or maybe they're fine being loose-reactive. Or allowing certain people to be the exception to the rule. Some team leaders might feel they have unilateral power, other leaders may see themselves as only a facilitator and tiebreaker. Contributors outside the official teams have wasted over 1000 hours because they're not in the inner circle and get no incidental exposure to the hidden implicit processes. There is significant, proven value in making some implicit processes more explicit to avoid guessing, misunderstandings, and decision paralysis. Interpersonal Trust is necessary glue; Process Clarity is necessary structure.

[orchid path]

The introduction of yet more process will not yield adherence to that process. Additionally, process for the sake of process slows down the process.

[wispy pier]

I strongly recommend all official BAR team members read: https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution

[wispy pier]

I agree that we must avoid too much process. The answer, as usual, lays in finding the right balance.

[orchid path]

I used to be team Process, but it's been a year and I've seen how partial attention volunteer spir of the moment weekend warrior energy interfaces with process. It stinks.

I have found the majority of people that complain about the process are people that have not established necessary relationships, or who don't see relational decision-making as a valid process. Often because they don't have the relationships and don't want to spend a year earning them.