is there such a thing as a balancing team?

[alre]

alpha 26 is sheduled for feature freeze in a few weeks and, as far as I know, there has not been a single balancing change committed to the game.

is this normal? is A26 really coming out so soon? is there anyone planning to make the balancing changes?

Personally, I know why I never worked on it, but what about the rest of the "balancing advisors"? how do you feel about this?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

AFAIK, "feature freeze" doesn't mean balance. If anything it seems like that's when balancing would be easiest, when all the features are frozen.

[Stan`]

@borg- launched an initiative, but I have yet to see anything committable come out of it.

Ideally feature freeze wouldn't last too long, the last one lasted 2 months, and it is frustrating for everyone.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

6 hours ago, alre said:

alpha 26 is sheduled for feature freeze in a few weeks and, as far as I know, there has not been a single balancing change committed to the game.

is this normal? is A26 really coming out so soon? is there anyone planning to make the balancing changes?

Personally, I know why I never worked on it, but what about the rest of the "balancing advisors"? how do you feel about this?

 

23 minutes ago, Stan` said:

@borg- launched an initiative, but I have yet to see anything committable come out of it.

Ideally feature freeze wouldn't last too long, the last one lasted 2 months, and it is frustrating for everyone.

The problem is even though borg launched an initiative, he was given no actual power (or didn't take it). 

There needs to be 1 person who says, okay, we've reached a decent consensus on this or that issue and then decide to lock it in with a specific value, then move on to the next thing. Once all issues are "locked in," a patch is created and put onto Phab. The patch is tested for bugs and holistic balance. Tweaks are agreed upon. Patch updated and tested again. Then when final approval is reached, committed by someone on the team who isn't afraid to commit balance patches.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@LetswaveaBook has a mod in "proposed features" discussion that is pretty universally liked. There has not been a great deal of testing, but the testing that has happened has been great.

A remaining point of uncertainty are the civ bonuses that might be changed or added. But its probably best to look at it separately.

[LetswaveaBook]

Some people have the role of balancing advisor.

It is not obvious if they constitute a bunch of individuals or a team.

If they are a team, they are at least a little disorganized.

 

I would suggest that for the next alpha development cycle, the balancing team appoints a scrum master type. This person keeps a list of topics in the balancing team and tags the topics as "Must have", "Should have", "might have" and "controversial". Before topics get discussed, they need a tag. The scrum master would get the final say about what tag a feature gets, how a feature is phrased and whether two topic are the same or separate. Features should be phrased such that balancing team members have the freedom to design their own solution around these topics.

(e.g: If "nerf sword merc cav" has the must have tag. A specific balancing team member thinks they are fine, then still some action is required. It does not specifiy how much action is required, so a minor action is enough. So a solution could be just to make units 20% slower to promote meaning merc cav get elite slower.)

 

Also we need to know what the contributions of each balancing advisor can bring. They could be divided in 5 groups (or more)

1. Code masters. Those who can understand the limits of the engine and how differentials for all things in the engine are made.

2. Differential Creators: Those who can make differentials where a few lines of code are changed.

3. Balancing team modders: Those who can make mods such that features can be tested for balance testing.

4. Advisors: Those who don't know how to make mods or differentials. They are supposed to both give feedback and as well help anything to get anything with the "should have" and "must have" tag tested. Also they should try to encourage players from the lobby to try/adapt changes.

5. People who have no role in the balancing team. They might not be even needed.

 

The balancing team should aim to address all "must have" topics for the next alpha. Then the scrum master would be responsible that an effort is made for those topics. The Scrum master should then probably also try to find someone that works on each should have topic. Depending on how many people there are in group 1 and 2, it should be judged which topics are "must have" and "should have".

 

 

[Stan`]

Maybe we could start now instead of the next alpha cycle?

[Lion.Kanzen]

no there is no such thing as balance team, but there is a gameplay advisor.

 

Not all gameplay is about balancing gameplay.

Sometimes we have to develop the planned features together with the programming team.

[alre]

9 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

Some people have the role of balancing advisor.

It is not obvious if they constitute a bunch of individuals or a team.

If they are a team, they are at least a little disorganized.

 

I would suggest that for the next alpha development cycle, the balancing team appoints a scrum master type. This person keeps a list of topics in the balancing team and tags the topics as "Must have", "Should have", "might have" and "controversial". Before topics get discussed, they need a tag. The scrum master would get the final say about what tag a feature gets, how a feature is phrased and whether two topic are the same or separate. Features should be phrased such that balancing team members have the freedom to design their own solution around these topics.

(e.g: If "nerf sword merc cav" has the must have tag. A specific balancing team member thinks they are fine, then still some action is required. It does not specifiy how much action is required, so a minor action is enough. So a solution could be just to make units 20% slower to promote meaning merc cav get elite slower.)

 

Also we need to know what the contributions of each balancing advisor can bring. They could be divided in 5 groups (or more)

1. Code masters. Those who can understand the limits of the engine and how differentials for all things in the engine are made.

2. Differential Creators: Those who can make differentials where a few lines of code are changed.

3. Balancing team modders: Those who can make mods such that features can be tested for balance testing.

4. Advisors: Those who don't know how to make mods or differentials. They are supposed to both give feedback and as well help anything to get anything with the "should have" and "must have" tag tested. Also they should try to encourage players from the lobby to try/adapt changes.

5. People who have no role in the balancing team. They might not be even needed.

 

The balancing team should aim to address all "must have" topics for the next alpha. Then the scrum master would be responsible that an effort is made for those topics. The Scrum master should then probably also try to find someone that works on each should have topic. Depending on how many people there are in group 1 and 2, it should be judged which topics are "must have" and "should have".

I like this way of thinking. In case, I can take some of those tasks on myself, whoever the scrubmaster is.

My biggest worry is the lack of testers using svn. Idrally, it would be best if changes like acceleration were introduced to the game with parameters making the change null, so that it's possible to test the game from release version.

[LetswaveaBook]

11 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

Some people have the role of balancing advisor.

It is not obvious if they constitute a bunch of individuals or a team.

If they are a team, they are at least a little disorganized.

I can tell a story about this.

@borg- wanted to discuss some civ differentiation. So he invited a few people to talk (I stated I wouldn't have access SVN until somewhere in february). So Athens was discussed. One thing to remark is that a lot of the effort for the discussion had to come from borg-'s side. Borg- stopped to give any input after a while and he actually had been the only one who had done anything at all. After that, nothing happened.

IMHO, a system where most of the effort comes from one person does not work. We should have a group where every member does some effort and then things become bearable. Also to keep motivation high, it is good if everyone knows which contribution other people are making.

2 hours ago, alre said:

My biggest worry is the lack of testers using svn.

You don't need SVN to conclude things like 35 attack is a lot for ships or that CS spear cav is hardly good for anything since it has horrible stats. Off course, having SVN is nice, but it is not like it is the strictly required.

[alre]

34 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

You don't need SVN to conclude things like 35 attack is a lot for ships or that CS spear cav is hardly good for anything since it has horrible stats. Off course, having SVN is nice, but it is not like it is the strictly required.

true but there's balance breaking changes that need svn to be tested, like acceleration. that's the point of my proposal.

[LetswaveaBook]

1 minute ago, alre said:

true but there's balance breaking changes that need svn to be tested, like acceleration. that's the point of my proposal.

Both are needed indeed. However if you don't have working SVN you can still do things.

[Stan`]

Just would like to point out that the Christmas Bundle had the acceleration feature.

And if there is enough incentive I can make another bundle.

[Lion.Kanzen]

33 minutes ago, Stan` said:

acceleration feature.

Acceleration?