Pvparanoia Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love 2V2

[Starmachine24]

Didnt they DE says in some livestream that they will never S#&$ to pvp as i ts main focus, and i think pvp in the dojos are quite fun because it is imbalanced as its fun to come up with a strategy to beat ex: rhino.

 

but i never really liked PvP in so i just hope it will stay as it is now in the dojo and those 2v2 duels because that is quite a nice addition for when you want to duke it out with some friends

Edited September 10, 2013 by Starmachine24

[Wiegraf]

Two words : vocal minority

 

I doubt that out of the 3-4 million players that subscribed to play Warframe, half of them approached Warframe, advertised as an ONLINE CO-OP SHOOTER EXPERIENCE, thinking "Man, the PvP is going to be AWESOME!".

 

Same goes for the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer; no PvP in it, only co-op. However, compared to ME3, here Warframe is a online co-op game primarily with a lot more content while ME3 MP was an added mode that tied in with the campaign's metagame. Add to that the crafting, clan dojos and resource gathering adds a lot more replay value than the random drops from ME3 and you might see why the game has longevity even for a co-op game.

 

However, don't expect the dev team's original intent to build an online co-op game to switch only because a few people ask for it. PvP right now in the game is an afterthought and will likely remain so as it only appeases those who can't their head around that the game is not what they want it to be.

[whitejackale]

@Morte_de_Angelis

I want him to name a game that was 'balanced' at release that players didn't find a combo that was more powerful than anything else (and therefor unbalanced), simply because the devs didn't think of what would happen if you combined these two weapons/effects/stat-builds/whatever.

I am going to go ahead and show you how someone would build a combat system from the ground up in order to make it impossible for there to be combos that no one can think of.

 

1) Start off with making every single weapon and ability having the same base damage and attack speed. Lets say that all of the weapons and abilities can damage once per second and do 100 damage.

2) Increase or reduce attacks per second on abilities and weapons in order for them to make sense. Lets say that you will make daggers attack every half second and two handed weapons attack once every half second. Then divide the daggers damage by 2, and multiply the two handed weapons damage by 2. Now you have a dagger that does 100 damage per second, and a two handed weapon that does 100 damage per second.

3) Create weapon buffs(poison, ice, electricity, fire) that will be based off of the weapons dps. This way there will be no enchantments that are superior throughout the game.

4) Treat mitigation in a similar way by increasing or decreasing damage against enemies depending on the weapon. Make sure that this mitigation is spread throughout the whole world so that each type of mitigation appears at the same rate.

 

You see how I have created a perfectly balanced game in which I know exactly what will happen in every combat situation? You can continue to increase the complexity of the system, but so long as the goal of the people in charge is to create a perfectly balanced game, there will be a perfectly balanced game.

 

So, how is it possible that players are subjected to imbalanced games all the time? Either the people in charge of balancing are not doing their job properly, or they are creating imbalances on purpose. I am going to end this with two links that give an explanation of how game balancing works. I am tired of trying to explain to people that game balancing is easy when compared to the actual creation of content, and so I will leave all of you with two links that give a basic explanation of how game balancing works and why so many games have terrible balancing.

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134768/understanding_balance_in_video_.php?print=1

 

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/balancing-multiplayer-games-part-1-definitions.html

Edited September 10, 2013 by whitejackale

[whitejackale]

Two words : vocal minority

 

 

Where did you find the statistics that show that only a minority of the warframe community is interested in pvp? 

[LeoAtKnight]

I am going to go ahead and show you how someone would build a combat system from the ground up in order to make it impossible for there to be combos that no one can think of.

 

1) Start off with making every single weapon and ability having the same base damage and attack speed. Lets say that all of the weapons and abilities can damage once per second and do 100 damage.

2) Increase or reduce attacks per second on abilities and weapons in order for them to make sense. Lets say that you will make daggers attack every half second and two handed weapons attack once every half second. Then divide the daggers damage by 2, and multiply the two handed weapons damage by 2. Now you have a dagger that does 100 damage per second, and a two handed weapon that does 100 damage per second.

3) Create weapon buffs(poison, ice, electricity, fire) that will be based off of the weapons dps. This way there will be no enchantments that are superior throughout the game.

4) Treat mitigation in a similar way by increasing or decreasing damage against enemies depending on the weapon. Make sure that this mitigation is spread throughout the whole world so that each type of mitigation appears at the same rate.

Great game. I want to play it some time. I'm gonna love playing that two handed axe that does the same exact damage as my two handed sword, or using my longsword that acts as an inbetween of the others.

So what's the difference between the dagger and the two handed sword? Range, and speed. The two handed sword would realistically have more range than the dagger, but the dagger would make it easy to get in and out. An easy theoretical balance, except that makes it incredibly boring.

And this is just an A vs B balance. How about an A vs B vs C vs D vs E vs F vs G balance? Are you going to do the same thing?

Will A always have an equal chance to beat E? And D? Will G be as equal to B? Yes, it's balanced, but it is incredibly boring. Even checkers has more depth than that.

You have to add interesting mechanics that cater to the different playstyles to keep people entertained. A needs to beat B easily, but lose to G easily. This could also accidentally make it easy to kill C, and even D, but it isn't impossible for G, C, or D to beat A.

See my point?

[whitejackale]

Great game. I want to play it some time. I'm gonna love playing that two handed axe that does the same exact damage as my two handed sword, or using my longsword that acts as an inbetween of the others.

So what's the difference between the dagger and the two handed sword? Range, and speed. The two handed sword would realistically have more range than the dagger, but the dagger would make it easy to get in and out. An easy theoretical balance, except that makes it incredibly boring.

And this is just an A vs B balance. How about an A vs B vs C vs D vs E vs F vs G balance? Are you going to do the same thing?

Will A always have an equal chance to beat E? And D? Will G be as equal to B? Yes, it's balanced, but it is incredibly boring. Even checkers has more depth than that.

 

That is the point that I was trying to make. People believe that imbalances in video games exist because it is so difficult to balance a game, but they actually exist because of either balancing ineptitude, or because the people in charge of balancing create imbalances on purpose.

 

You have to add interesting mechanics that cater to the different playstyles to keep people entertained. A needs to beat B easily, but lose to G easily. This could also accidentally make it easy to kill C, and even D, but it isn't impossible for G, C, or D to beat A.

 

You are basically restating what I said in part 4. If you reread part 4, you will see that I did include "interesting mechanics" in the combat system by making it so that different weapons will be better or worse against certain types of mitigation.  This can of course be expanded to give damage increases or decreases for having certain types of mitigation. For example, someone that has very high mitigation will lose damage as a result of a decrease in attack rates. Or someone will gain attack rate by choosing to use much weaker mitigation.

 

See my point? 

I saw your point, and it was basically what I was trying to explain. That creating a perfectly balanced game is very easy, and that imbalances are introduced either on purpose, or because of balancing ineptitude. The two links that I posted cover balance and why imbalance might be introduced into video games to add some "depth."

 

There is nothing wrong with a little bit of imbalances in video games because it can serve a purpose, but the people in charge of balancing are failing to do their job properly when they create situations in which players are forced to use a very limited amount of weapons/abilities because they are so much better than everything else. That, or they are doing it on purpose to make money off of those items/abilities by making people farm for those items/abilities while paying a subscription, or by selling those items directly to the players.

 

Alas, I am done discussing balancing because people continue to reply while not knowing how many more resources it takes to create content than to balance a video game.

Edited September 11, 2013 by whitejackale

[CloudPies]

That, or they are doing it on purpose to make money off of those items/abilities by making people farm for those items/abilities while paying a subscription, or by selling those items directly to the players.

Yes. So screw PVP or make your own rules and play with friends.

That and if you screw my PVE game because of your whining:

Edited September 11, 2013 by CloudPies

[LeoAtKnight]

I saw your point, and it was basically what I was trying to explain. That creating a perfectly balanced game is very easy, and that imbalances are introduced either on purpose, or because of balancing ineptitude. The two links that I posted cover balance and why imbalance might be introduced into video games to add some "depth."

 

There is nothing wrong with a little bit of imbalances in video games because it can serve a purpose, but the people in charge of balancing are failing to do their job properly when they create situations in which players are forced to use a very limited amount of weapons/abilities because they are so much better than everything else. That, or they are doing it on purpose to make money off of those items/abilities by making people farm for those items/abilities while paying a subscription, or by selling those items directly to the players.

Before you go, answer me these two questions.

How would you balance a shotgun versus a sniper rifle?

How would you balance a carbine versus and automatic?

Feel free to post numbers to further increase credibility.

 **Edit**

You are basically restating what I said in part 4. If you reread part 4, you will see that I did include "interesting mechanics" in the combat system by making it so that different weapons will be better or worse against certain types of mitigation. This can of course be expanded to give damage increases or decreases for having certain types of mitigation. For example, someone that has very high mitigation will lose damage as a result of a decrease in attack rates. Or someone will gain attack rate by choosing to use much weaker mitigation.

Interesting mechanics is very vague. This could range from increased stealth damage but weak overall attacks to "x3 damage to light infested".. Wait...

I realize you are not an idiot, but please understand it is not so easy to balance a game perfectly; especially one with so many weapons. But there is more than just weapon damage that fits into this equation. Armor fits in there as well.

Our armor system is pretty bad right now. It scales at ridiculous rates which makes most weapons obsolete. The original intention was to make headshots more rewarding as the game progresses, but it took a turn for the worse when higher levels were introduced. I recall hearing the system was only meant to work up until level 60 or so, but people kept crying for more "challenge" so DE just kept upping the max level of enemies 'till it got to here. In hindsight they thought it was a good idea, but they realize the error in that now. That's why armor is being changed in update 10.

In any case, we have both made our points. No one will be convinced otherwise, and I'd really not have a flame war (I'm certain you wouldn't either). So I will drop the topic for now. Let's see how things turn out on update 10 when armor is revamped.

*editted to increase length*

Edited September 11, 2013 by ProfessorSnow

[Loswaith]

I am going to go ahead and show you how someone would build a combat system from the ground up in order to make it impossible for there to be combos that no one can think of.

 

1) Start off with making every single weapon and ability having the same base damage and attack speed. Lets say that all of the weapons and abilities can damage once per second and do 100 damage.

2) Increase or reduce attacks per second on abilities and weapons in order for them to make sense. Lets say that you will make daggers attack every half second and two handed weapons attack once every half second. Then divide the daggers damage by 2, and multiply the two handed weapons damage by 2. Now you have a dagger that does 100 damage per second, and a two handed weapon that does 100 damage per second.

3) Create weapon buffs(poison, ice, electricity, fire) that will be based off of the weapons dps. This way there will be no enchantments that are superior throughout the game.

4) Treat mitigation in a similar way by increasing or decreasing damage against enemies depending on the weapon. Make sure that this mitigation is spread throughout the whole world so that each type of mitigation appears at the same rate.

...

Actually here in you just made it actually unbalanced given point two.

 - dagger attack every half second

 - dagger is half average damage (since we are initially playing with 100 damage per second thus 25 damage per swing)

 = dagger deals 50 damage per second

-> if we assume you mean dual daggers (so 4 attacks per second), thats still only 100 damage per second

 

- two handed weapon attack once every half second

- two handed weapon is double average damage (again 100 DPS thus 100 damage per swing)

= two handed weapon is dealing 200 damage per second

 

Even in your simple example we dont have balance.

 

Even your linked article says that balance isnt simple (heres a few quotes relevent to the conversation)

... There isn't an easy way to balance a game; it's just a matter of putting in the hard work. ...

...  That's a major reason that balance in game design is so difficult to achieve -- it can be so difficult to perceive. There aren't always clean-cut, mathematical ways to balance your game; at the end of the day, it tends to come down to an educated guess on the part of the designers.

 

A game being "balanced" is also always, at best, a rough approximation. No game is truly perfectly balanced -- even in chess, one player gets to go first. A game being "in balance" is like a person being "in shape"; there's no strict, defined line at which a game goes from being in balance to out of balance, it's a gradual continuum. ...

 

One that could be used against PvP being developed further (Im not against Dueling for the fun, just agaisnt developing/balancing for a fully fledged PvP)

... So why are so many games so poorly balanced these days? There are many reasons, but the largest ones are very clear. Above all else, it's that we live in a world of "more is more". It's in our cultural DNA at this time in history that the more stuff in a game, the better the game must be.

 

In reality, this is not the case. Games are a delicate, intricate web-like machinery of cogs and pulleys, and throwing one new cog into the mix can cause the whole contraption to grind to a halt. We should be building our games with as few elements as is possible to create the experience we wish, while reducing the chance of the machine falling apart, but instead, a quick glance at the back of the box announces proudly that this new game contains "8,000 moving parts". ...

Edited September 11, 2013 by Loswaith

[whitejackale]

Actually here in you just made it actually unbalanced given point two.

 - dagger attack every half second

 - dagger is half average damage (since we are initially playing with 100 damage per second thus 25 damage per swing)

 = dagger deals 50 damage per second

-> if we assume you mean dual daggers (so 4 attacks per second), thats still only 100 damage per second

 

- two handed weapon attack once every half second

- two handed weapon is double average damage (again 100 DPS thus 100 damage per swing)

= two handed weapon is dealing 200 damage per second

 

Even in your simple example we dont have balance.

 

Even your linked article says that balance isnt simple (heres a few quotes relevent to the conversation)

 

One that could be used against PvP being developed further (Im not against Dueling for the fun, just agaisnt developing/balancing for a fully fledged PvP)

I said that I was done with the whole balance argument, but I feel like I need to clarify a mistake that I made.

 

I meant to say that the dagger would do two 50 damage attacks per second, while the two handed weapon would be doing one 200 damage attack every two seconds.

 

Since I already bothered to correct my earlier mistake, I am going to go ahead and finish up with one last thing: When I said that balancing a game is very easy, I was comparing the amount of resources that are required to balance a game versus the amount of resources that are required to create content for a game. Remember, difficulty is relative, and I am just comparing resources required for balancing a game(very little) to the resources required to create content.(most of the resources)

 

But yeah, go ahead and read the whole article, specifically the part about developers choosing to create imbalances on purpose in order to reach certain goals.

[CaptainohCaptain]

Since I already bothered to correct my earlier mistake, I am going to go ahead and finish up with one last thing: When I said that balancing a game is very easy, I was comparing the amount of resources that are required to balance a game versus the amount of resources that are required to create content for a game. Remember, difficulty is relative, and I am just comparing resources required for balancing a game(very little) to the resources required to create content.(most of the resources)

And you failed again so hard we can nominate you for a 2nd place in the fail contest. Because resources for creating new content is already obtained, since developers needed them for basis. The only resource is time, which is pretty relative (You've lost 60 hours for creating a concept. This concept gives you full spectre of weapon: Pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle, assault rifle, probably some melee stuff, probably enemy AND the piece of tileset).

Then comes the balancing. First draw for element takes seconds. Then, about 8-12 hours (Note: 8-12 of monkeys doing it, every monkey spends this time, making it a 64-144) to polish it a bit. Then comes the forums with S#&$ NERF or S#&$ BUFF DIS PIECE OF CRAP I WANT REFUND. They have to make difference between standart whinners and person who actually useful, change stats again and field test it (With these 8-12 monkeys again) for 3-5 hours. Then, it's good to go. But nothing is guaranteed, it could take a lot of fixes, 10-12 is far from the limit.

 

Typical game barely got 2-3 fixes for item and that's why you won't see good balanced games.

[Volume]

PvP won't ruin the game if they keep it in its current, special, sort of out-of-the-way place.

 

Just don't make it the main focus, and we're good. My thoughts were expressed here, and many of them have come to fruition in one way or another and I couldn't be happier. Dojo duels are wonderful.

Edited September 12, 2013 by Volume