If the balance keeps on changing at the rate it has been there won't be robust balance at launch. I fear gameplaywise PA will start out halfbaked and only get good after 1-2 years.
It went a LONG way in the last patch. I don't agree with all the balance direction but recognize the amount of balance changes. If they continue in the direction of their last patch, they will get everything done fairly soon. What you are measuring, the the time since the game was in alpha. Didn't see much balance change then, because they were still designing the engine, and you were very lucky to have even gotten to play on that engine that early. Measuring balance changes from like a month ago since it started, Scathis got a month to really look over the units and the role they fit and power they need to accomplish it on a grand scale with one another, and now he is actually adjusting full scale. It has been a month, a single month, so give it some time for pete's sake.
AFAIK Scathis' methodology is to make large balance changes to test where the boundaries are then refine. But that doesn't mean it'll be a linear process of changes going from large -> small. If something looks like it's heading the wrong direction, or a change elsewhere impacts something dramatically, then it could swing back to the wild changes in that area for a bit. I've yet to see a game with robust balance at launch, and the whole concept of launch is kinda arbitrary in the digital distro area anyway, things will settle down eventually and they'll think twice before making big changes but until then enjoy the ride.
They cant balance the game properly until everything is in, all units, all buildings, and all mechanics. I doubt they will release it fully until its actually complete, which could take quite a while. The names of the phases really mean very little. This 'Gamma phase' is basically just beta, and beta was closer to an alpha anyway.
This was a huge balance up date as far as basic gameplay goes. Yeah few units are op. But these are more specific type units like the anchor and vanguard.
Balance is usually done logarithmically, in that you first tune the knobs a LOT and then do some finetuning. yes, finetuning can take years, but we're through the roughest balance storm.
Strictly speaking, I think "alpha" was an alpha, "beta" was still an alpha and "gamma" is really beta. In software development vernacular, "alpha" means the software is not feature-complete. "Beta" means it's feature-complete but may be buggy. There is no such thing as "Gamma".
Balance will always be in flux. Even post-launch. Look at games like LoL and StarCraft. Balance changes still being made years after launch. That said, we will hit a 'stable' point sometime before we launch.
Hey, scathis, hop onto the uber stream sometime today and I'll show you the issue with the balance. peregrines
That you can know that before hand means you are going to force it to remain stable. Not that any stability would be reached naturally by then. It going to be freezed at it's lacking state. Also the balancing of interplanetary war hasn't begun yet which I think is not trivial part of the balance.
