I recently read a book on how to turn your successful, 'good' business into a 'great' business. In other words, how to turn your family company from a household discussion into a nationwide household name. The differences between good and great are a little complex - but what it boils down to is a few simple ideas that also can be applied to our balance here in vanilla. I'll list those ideas here and go over how they can be applied to balance as a whole, to maybe iron out the issues once and for all. 1. Focus on a simple, concrete idea that is visible in every decision made. It has to be simple. If we go for complex, we lose focus. As I'm sure you've noticed with the recent rabbit trails, the UberBalance isn't sticking to a beaten path. The balance needs to have a clear-cut ending point, not just a *when it's done* cliche. 2. Bring together people willing to work together and who are passionate about this idea. Enter: Active community. Enter: Scathis and Metabolical, and whoever else helps them. I think we've got this locked down in our wonderful devs. Are there differences between the community and Uber? Sure. Can they be overcome? Absolutely. (Brad and nanolathe. I'm going to call you out here. Fix. It. Now. Or you could pull this train to a halt). 3. Consistently, coherently stride towards the goal - and surpass it. Don't expect a miracle moment. Balance isn't going to suddenly happen in one patch or another. It will be a series of steps, a mountain to climb. There is no *get rich quick* scheme. It takes time and hard work - and once we get there, it will be AWESOME, I guarantee it. My simple Idea - I'm not basing this on TA, or SupCom, or whatever. I'm going off what I've learned as an active and well-educated PA player. If you think I'm off target, feel free to post below with reasons. That's how we go from 'good' to 'great'. We discuss this till we have it nailed. Let's start here: The UberBalance should be about giving players at least four practical ways to solve any situation at any given time. Example: Tanks coming at your base? Solution 1: Send more tanks than the enemy Solution 2: Send bots to flank, let the defenses chew 'em up. Solution 3: Bomb them into hell Solution 4: Use bots to lure them close to a lake and shred them with naval. ----------- Simple example without context, I know. But you get the idea. The reasoning behind this idea is fairly complex - and would take too long to write down. Here's the short version: Four ways to puncture your enemies defenses makes it difficult to create impenetrable turtles, but also leaves plenty of room for the players to innovate with their strats early on. In addition, it can be a great tool for measuring if a unit is Overpowered or not - can it be practically countered by four different strategies/tactics? Don't think short term here - look to release and beyond. How is PA going to maintain popularity? Become a benchmark against which other games in the genre are compared? An important part of this is the game's balance. It's not everything - that's why we have marketing departments - but it will keep the vets happy. Discuss. Respect everyone's opinions. Eat burritos.
Ill take burritos...what exactly are we discussing? the idea that every unit must have 4 counters, (because that pretty much works, except anchors) or that every unit must have 4 counters like tanks and that we need to balance it out now? or the need to eat burritos i like the third option
Uber don't do design documents. Funny, we already had something like that called the Vanguard. It was an experiment Uber did not feel comfortable continuing because many of us were not happy evangelising every decision made by Uber. As soon as the interactions become 2-way, the game and the community will be much better off. See my above point about design documents.
A design document outlines some fundamental principles and explains reasoning and direction in a project (see RCBM's design document for an example). Uber's design philosophy with regards to balance is " throw **** at a wall and see what sticks ". That's a quote by the way from a not-so-distant-past Vanguard meeting.
In case you hadn't noticed, nanolathe, those three points aren't describing what the current policy is - they point to a more constructive direction.
Of course I've noticed. However, after almost a year of Uber sticking to the same guns they've been using this whole time, I doubt they're going to change their policies now; especially not with what " industry wisdom " is currently. Believe me, you're not the first to suggest something constructive to the Devs, and I'm sure you won't be the last.
Their stubbornness is part of the reason every single one of these developers is only in the 'good' category. None of them have reached the arena of greatness. The potential is there - these are some brilliant folks we have here. At some point, they will come to the light - until then, the more constructive stuff we force down their throats, the more often we get to say 'I told you so' later.
I really wish Uber would listen to and discuss things with the Community more. It seems that they're more than willing to talk to the Community when the Community agrees with Uber. But as soon as someone comes in talking about how they don't like one of Uber's ideas, Uber leaves the conversation, tells us to stop acting like jerks, or tells us to check our premises. We have an amazing community here. A very passionate community who has put many many hours into this game. Not only into playing the game, but into thinking about how the game could and should work. We're supposed to be beta testers after all. It also annoys me how often we have predicted the negative effects of Uber's balance changes. We've been correct pretty much every time, and Uber won't acknowledge that. Instead, they just tell us to check our premises and stop giving knee jerk reactions. Even when pretty much the entire community is complaining about a certain balance mechanic, it'll often take months for Uber to make a change. In short, there simply needs to be more open communication between the Community and Uber and Uber needs to realize that a lot of members of the Community really know what we're talking about. We know this game inside and out and we're really good at playing it.
Yeah, our high point was around the 3rd Newsletter, we were able to help the community understand things from Uber's perspective because they shared with us and discussed things with us but since that point they started locking down and we could barely get anything out of them at times. At least we tried to do our part. Mike
