Old, overlooked firefall idea: In-depth tuning

203 · Sep 9, 2016

Back, before firefall received it's first coffin nail in the rather botched crafting upgrade with the irreversible breaking of equipment, I made this post in an effort to bring frames in line with their lore - simply equipping final parts with a more or less random stat spread was and is no "tuning" for me as opposed to the lines in the stories where 'gangers modified everything in their plattform.

The current technology choices are too narrow.
It's all off-the-shelf, despite the lore claiming survivors retrofit their holmgang frames to near lethal levels to survive.
All we can change is what lego block wie put on our toy.

Suggestion: provide more "parts" and pieces along the specialtys of the different producers instead of fully grown modules.
Their frames (T2+) are unlike the T1 holmgang frames military graded, though, so even a fully upper quality fitted accord frame shouldn't be able to hog a brand battleframe's limelight too much - they still are customizable like a T1.
The accord is more of a rag-tag resistánce of survivors employing guerilla tactics against the chosen oppression than a standing army after all.
This also takes looting into account, so in the future sometimes you can find that piston in a dead bug you couldn't print allowing you to finaly wear a better armor.

This list is not exhaustive yet. Make suggestions.

Frames
- Shell - modifies movement speed, jump height, weight, damage reduction, health
  Outer frame armor
- BioMesh - modifies movement speed, weight, power drain, cycles, health
  Inteligent meta textile interfacing with skin and nerves throughout the body for haptic feedback, health monitoring, injury treatment
- Servos - modifies movement speed, jump height, weight, power drain and cycles
  - Pistons
  - Cases
  - Electronics
- Reactors - modifies power output, weight and cycles
  - Fuel (crystite hybrid amalgam)
  - Inner frame
  - Outer frame
  - Control sub-core
- Core - mods power drain, weight, cycles
  - processor
  - case (mods weight)
  - cooling
  - software
- Jets
  - nozzle - ejection force, power drain, weight
  - chamber - power drain, weight
  - injector - cycles, weight, drain
Weapons
are from here on out fully accord controlled, corporations have no license to (re)produce them, only provide performance modifications
- Body - weight, RoF, accuracy, zoom, damage
- Magazine - weight, RoF, clipsize, max ammo, reloadspeed
- Ammo - weight, RoF, clipsize, accuracy, damage, range

except the core software, everything is printable - allowing you to further customize it utilizing different hybrids.
Software upgrades will be awarded through quests and pvp tournaments.

In general, the heavier a frame is, the slower it moves, the lower it's jump height, the higher it's health and damage reduction go.
The more surplus power you have, the better passive systems work (like recharging abilities or passive healing, longer sin range).
The more surplus cycles you have, the further away your SiN lights up foes, tracks them longer and the better your passive heal is.

Some pieces need to be interchangeable even between branded frames as the fundamental operation of a -for example- piston won't differ between two fabrications or -for example- a core could be retrofitted with different software.
As such, the core can be moved as single module between frames and is the only item you don't need to duplicate, everything else needs to be on storage to be able to activate the frame utilizing this item (meaning you can't put any other item on two frames at the same time).

Experience points for unlocking are used up learning and being tested for your or your team's knowledge (experience) with maintaining said part before you are allowed to tinker with it on the printer

Also, as nano fabrication is somewhat the holy grail for recyclers, eco-environmentalists and socio-economs alike, any printed part can be recycled at some crystite cost (the better the higher), but fully giving you the hybrid ore back.
That's the point of nanofabs: Using just what you need, returning everything used. Finalized, nanofabrication is 99,99% waste material free (not considering energy production).

It's existing only between the lines, but I intended to have two weight values, a total weight and bearing limit; "internal" components would have no weight, but exposed parts like armor, weapons, jets, reactor and the like would have either weight proportional to their worth or a higher draw of power and computer cycles where applicable.

i know half of the lore is not applicable anymore, but being a mech/tech nut I do really would like to see this system where fine tuning actually let's you customize handling your character to your preferences in a revolutionary way.

I do have seen games that give you some part modification that change your stats, but not extensive as this and it was more cosmetic than anything.

Daynen · Sep 9, 2016

I do like the idea of having a little more possible depth of tuning and swapping. I loved the Armored Core series and all the things you could affect; every time I see a mech game I subconsciously compare it's customization and tuning to the AC series. While I don't think THAT level of detail is strictly necessary for Ember, I DO want to do better than the tired old "weapon, armor, helm, boots" silliness. The main point is that we get some combinatoric effects without an undue level of fiddly-ness--a wide variety of results without a staggering array of knobs and buttons to have to fiddle with. It's a tough balancing act.

Given that Ember is slated to be horizontal progression, I think we can expect at least a fair level of tuning and part swapping, since everything will be a trade-off from stock gear. Whether it's a satisfying level of tuning remains to be seen.

Ronyn · Sep 9, 2016

@203 I like the direction that youre thinking in here.

Daynen said:

There will be some small amount of vertical growth up from stock gear. Though it will be minimal in the grand scheme and the focus will primarily be on choice and trade-offs.

NitroMidgets · Sep 9, 2016

Min/Max can be fun but honestly it just gets tedious after a while. If there was true horizontal progression then it wouldn't be that big of a deal as there would be no reason to invest time in doing so as nobody would be getting an edge by doing it. That said, it isn't a bad idea but not sure how it would be added and maintain horizontal progression.

Daynen · Sep 9, 2016

NitroMidgets said:

Well the beauty of horizontal progression is that you DO get an edge from tuning, but it's not because your numbers are bigger or because you've played the game longer and found more gear or got more XP. It's because you're getting the machine to fit you better, allowing you to play to your strengths more.

Beemann · Sep 12, 2016

Daynen said:

This is always the case on paper, but never the case in the actual end product. One particular build or loadout, or set of builds/loadouts always edges out the competition, and once that is found any other loadout being used is a self-imposed disadvantage. The more options you give people, the harder it is to adequately balance all options, and then you just get stuff like "this weapon would be good if these two weapons didn't do nearly everything it did, but better"

Also @203 I dont know that tuning is an overlooked system. It feels like there's a new thread about it every couple of days

Ronyn · Sep 12, 2016

Daynen said:

Beemann said:

What daynen is referencing is correct.
Conceptually, horizontal options are what define the differences between roles and playstyles.
Do you build for heavy armor and high impact? Do you build for high speed and rapid fire?
These are different directions that should not be inherently better than each other.
Each will likely have it's place to shine brighter but with the variety of encounters it's rarely one version that is king in every situation.

What Beeman is referring to is the ongoing pursuit of balance. There will always be builds/roles/classes that over perform or under perform regardless of the system used (class based or classless). Though, because that's simply the nature of the beast, it should not be a reason not to build a system in a certain direction.

With every new option you create another new balance problem, but you also create another new way for the player to express themselves. That is the push and pull of it. The better designers will find smart way's to categorize said options when using a so called classless system so that each options can be properly weighed, measured and effectively balanced against other in their category. Then, of course, take that same approach when comparing categories against each other.

MattHunX · Sep 12, 2016

Ronyn said:

Lighter armor and the inherent fragility, but high-speed/mobility and low fire-rate with high-velocity projectiles, for me.

Ronyn · Sep 12, 2016

MattHunX said:

Sounds fun.

---------------------------------------------------

This is an example of a specific set of preferences. It is how this player wants to experience the game. Now if a heavy armored, slow moving, rapid fire weapon build was inherently more effective it isn't necessarily going to make a person want to play that entirely different way right? That person is just as likely to simply not want to play the game at all. This is a situation where a game has to be balanced well enough that using a build of each type is a viable option. Sure, there may be better and worse versions of that low fire-rate with high-velocity projectile weapon, but if that whole weapon category is an objectively weaker choice it dissuades a player from using an entire play-style which is can be a part of alienating an entire type of player.

Balancing such things is not easy, and it will never be perfect balance. It just has to be close enough. When it isn't the developers must re-tune until it is. It's an ongoing pursuit.

Torgue_Joey · Sep 12, 2016

Playstyle: switch the chicken feet with bigger bulky boots for more ground stability (might make me a tad slow). I'd rather remove the wings for bigger rocket pods or more rocket launcher.

ROCKET JUMP AND BOMB THE SHIT UNDER MY FEET.

Role: tank. Full armor, suck at aiming and fighting. aka BORING PUSSY.

Better have 1 char for different playstyle than 10 chars with different roles/class

Daynen · Sep 12, 2016

If a certain build in a pure horizontal system is "outperforming" all the others, that simply means there aren't enough different metrics by which to measure performance. In other words, the game is too linear. If 99% of the game's content revolves around killing enemies by dealing as much damage as quickly as possible, then yes, builds that favor the highest possible DPS will always "outperform" everything else. That's the key here: the game needs to fervently avoid being reduced to a DPS race and instead diversify it's objectives and challenges such that other kinds of builds will need to emerge and be used.

In other words, it's not that some builds are "better." It's that "better" is too easy to define; "better" needs to be more subjective to the challenge at hand.

Beemann · Sep 13, 2016

Daynen said:

Except at the end of the day your objectives are going to build down to a different set of metrics. They also aren't going to necessarily affect minmaxing in the way you want. Maybe slow and steady buds were never very good. Now you have to contend with the fact that even in thumper missions, the ability to quickly do damage and escape is outperforming someone trying to base their build around essentially being a turret. Where do you go from there? Rebalance all the enemies? Come up with an even MORE static and tank-focused objective solely so that faster builds suck at something? No matter what your metrics are, there will eventually be a best and worst build, just as there are always best and worst weapons in games without builds. The trick is that by adding a giant tweaking system you make build viability a far more complicated/convoluted affair, and that alone can and will sour people's perspective of the game. If the game is all about burst damage and high armor because the enemies hit too fast, frequently and hard to do anything else, then your lightly armored build is just going to give you intimate knowledge of the game's respawn process in every objective you can come up with that passes through enemy-owned territory. These things are on the extreme end of the scale, but that's where things go when you try to scale things or just make more challenging enemies. As you increase the difficulty of an encounter, the need for minmaxing increases as well

This may as well be directed @Ronyn as well, now that I think about it.

Daynen · Sep 13, 2016

Beemann said:

You've actually demonstrated my point. In your mind, at least as I understand it from the content of the post, you were probably only thinking about combat encounters where you do indeed have to kill everything to win. Mind you, you've covered a lot of mechanical aspects of that process, such as respawn timers, agro ranges and relative progressions, but this is exactly what I'm talking about. You're only thinking about how builds and choices stack up against each other in the context of ONE objective: make things die as fast as possible.

I'll say it again with some emphasis: there need to be objectives besides killing things with damage.

The last decade of MMO's has drilled the concept of DPS into peoples' skulls so hard that many folks can't even imagine content outside of combat. Anyone who tries to make a build in any game that does something fun, quirky or interesting immediately gets shot down, ostracized and pushed to the margins because at the end of the day DPS is all that matters. If you don't do the maximum possible damage(or healing) for your class, you're a second-class citizen--nay, you are in fact GARBAGE--in the eyes of anyone who wants to progress.

This is what needs to change.

Designers need to create a game where other things are called for beyond maximizing our damage output and optimizing our "rotations" (yet another concept that's really wearing thin.) Every game that traps itself in the DPS box before it's even designed it's world is just an Everquest clone at this point and there really isn't any other way to say it. We need worlds where we have goals that don't involve mowing as many foes as possible. We need other demands placed on us by the game so that diversity is not simply fun or interesting, but required. No, before you even suggest it, I am not talking about the tank-heal-DPS trinity. I'm talking about movement, interaction with the world, obstacles, duties where not a shot is even fired, high-risk terrain, environmental hazards, and more.

If the only time our brains turn on is when we see a red lifebar, then no amount of horizontal progression and customization is going to mean squat. It's all just going to boil down to "meta or GTFO."

Ronyn · Sep 13, 2016

Beemann said:

If I am understanding you correctly, it sounds like you are essentially against seeing a so-called "classless" system in Ember due to your concerns that there will be too many possible combinations to balance to a good degree. You are welcome to that point of view. I won't seek to change your mind here. Playing games where you experience systems that work or don't work is a far more convincing argument than any words on a forum. Instead I will offer some thoughts to clear up a few common misconceptions on what makes the two systems different, and what makes them similar.

Role balance, in any system, will largely be based on the interactions between what the player can do and what the objective requires. The various factors (speed,resilience, damage output, crowd control) are more or less important based on those objectives. The greater variety of objective types the greater the variety of relevant class types or build directions. It's cause and effect. Whether using a class based system or a classless one, role variety is heavily dependent on objective variety.

As I expressed before, balance is an ongoing pursuit in any system. Any and everything in the game is in sight to be tweaked for the pursuit of balance. From weaponry, to enemy types, to terrain, to the objectives themselves. All of it. That is the nature of the beast.
In fact, the "giant tweaking system" is practically always there. The real question is how many of those dials the player has access to and how many of those dials the developers keep in house. Some players seek out systems where they have the option to personally fine tune things, some players seek out systems where they never have to or even have the option to.
As usual, what appeals to one person will push away another. No system will please every player nor should it be expected to.

It's true that, in a classless system, no matter what the metrics there will eventually be a builds that tend to prove better or worse for a majority of encounters. However it is not to say there would inherently be a smaller number of top tier builds in a classless system, then there would be the number of top tier classes in a class based system. In truth there are different schools of thought on what is easier to balance (some devs say free form builds make it easier to see which individual weapon or ability is off the curve), and different reasoning why some developers choose one or the other (some devs choose class based system primarily for readability in combat, not because of any balance concerns). That isn't the kind of thing where there is a true consensus among the professionals who make these games. So, of course, I would not expect to find a consensus among those who play them.

At the end of the day the real opinion comes after you get something in your hands. Hopefully we get the chance to follow the path we are on to truly make Ember....and you like it.

203 · Sep 13, 2016

To that end, balancing this system would come from the drawbacks.
obvious is health/damage immunity from armor, increasing weight, slowing you down, increasing power draw from jets, but once you manage to get to a decent height a stomp ability will be real deadly.

Though the selection has to be made carefully or people stack on stuff that makes them untouchable, or are constricted in red tape trying to reach their dream build. Suffocating in a web of restrictions.

Beemann · Sep 14, 2016

Ronyn said:

Is it still merely a concern when its been an observed constant in every title I've played that has such a system? I would suggest that if 10 people got a small shock touching a particular fence, you as the 11th can expect the same experience

Ronyn said:

I don't see why you shouldn't. Persuasive speaking and argumentation are an important part of testing and strengthening the positions you have. They aren't an inherently negative thing and should not be viewed or treated as such.

Ronyn said:

My argument directly stems from such games

Ronyn said:

True in theory, but not in practice. As difficulty scales (and it should) certain types of output will become more valuable- typically healers and damage dealers. This is, again, observable in other titles. Ember is not built in a vacuum

Ronyn said:

This is actually untrue. There are many games still played competitively that have not had rules changes in 10+ years. The trick is that many of those games give both players equal options, rather than relegating one player to a pure damage dealer and the other to a harasser

Ronyn said:

And this will be a system of constant rotation between optimal choices, just like many of the hero based games on display nowadays. Changes are made, not to alter viability, but to change the meta so as to keep it from getting stale. However this is a result of the design of the game's and not an inherent part of online play

Ronyn said:

A system where the creator has full control over the numbers will come out with predictable results. There are no unknowns in pong or tic tac toe, and chess, to my knowledge, has been mapped out fairly well. A system where the player can change a pawn for another piece at the start of the game has exponentially more balance considerations, and this produces more work for the creator.
Ember has a small team, and the sort of system requested will require a lot of work to get up and running in a way that is not detrimentally imbalanced at the highest levels of play, unless those highest levels are trivially easy.

You can see this effect in Warframe, where customization and a variety of weapons have led to "play one of these frames and use a crit weapon with these mods". Variety is only permissible when the content has been trivialized, and so the community grows bored. The developers are probably not capable of producing new, unique content at a faster rate than the "endgame" players can complete it to the point of it getting stale, let alone balance out the system to provide more options so that those players aren't locked into a subset of weapons, builds and frames

Ronyn said:

I can almost guarantee there won't be as many
In a class based system, you can enforce drawbacks. Class A doesn't do enough CC but has an excess of damage, Class B doesn't do enough raw damage but has amazing CC. Maybe those are the only two stats relevant for a piece of content (which would be awful, but this is clearly just an example). Class A and Class B would be easily replaced with a class that does only as much damage as is necessary, with as much CC as can be afforded with the leftover resources/capacity. You will not get viable waste in a tuning system. Nobody will go faster or hit harder than is needed if the content requires proper loadouts. You will not get highly specialized abilities because those are no longer in place

How many people would take Nova's 1 if it wasn't forced to be part of the frame? How many people would actually want to use Saryn's abilities to debuff when they could just trade out for a straight damage ability? Why would I choose a loadout with a shotgun if I can take a rocket launcher and it's simply better

Worse still, if your number of viable options is equal to or less than a class based system, then your system adds nothing, while making the experience all the more tedious and convoluted for new players. It leads to people having awful builds unless they look up a guide before playing the game, and that guide ultimately won't introduce them to a new level of play so much as optimize their current actions.

Ronyn said:

I'd argue that the reasons behind the choice matter less than the results. The highest level of balance you can achieve is in a mirrored fight, and the further you move away from that, the worse balance gets, all other factors being equal

Ronyn said:

One does not need to play another iteration of the same system to see it has problems. Many people accurately predicted the issues that titles like FireFall, Hawken, etc. would run into before they happened. This is because, contrary to the rhetoric used on the forums in each of these games, they are not built in a vacuum, and are not incomparable to other titles.

Ronyn · Sep 14, 2016

Beemann said:

The above three points put together say it best. You are open to hear me out but you have already come to a decision based on your own personal experiences. This conversation, like the games we discuss, do not exist in a vacuum.
This discussion is largely about which games each of us has played and what we feel we learned from them. So the best I can hope for is to tie my words to some experiences you have had.

I don't want to turn this discussion into a dissection of warframe ( I feel much of it's approach to balance is heavily flawed actually) but it seems to be a good example of something we have both played so I will refer to it when I can.

As I expressed in an earlier post, there is a push and pull between choice/expression and balance/simplicity.
You are right that a mirror system is indeed the most balanced version of a system but then it lacks in choice and personal expression. Likewise a system with complete freedom of choice and expression would be nearly impossible to balance to a reasonable degree. Both are important parts of the equation to making a fun game. One must find a reasonable point in between the two extremes.

To clarify a point, a game like Chess may have little to nothing unknown now but it's not to say the creator of chess knew every potential outcome of a game. It is far more likely that the various strategies developed over time. Such a game may be considered relatively simple in terms of moving parts but even it had outcomes the creator would not have predicted once people started playing them. When it comes to that moment when the game meets the players hands, knowing all of the ingredients going in does not guarantee foreknowledge of everything that may come out. Playtesting remains a needed element for understanding.

Now it is true that the more variables you are working with the larger chance something unpredictable will happen. Which can serve to make a so called classless system confusing. So many different possible combinations. At the same time, it's also true that when looking at a single ability that is always part of a pre-set kit it can be harder to distinguish what that particular ability, in itself, would need to be made viable and comparable to others. There is a certain clarity in opening the floodgates on choice and seeing what gets selected. Each system has it's advantages during the learning and testing phase. Each system has it's fans and it's protractors within the professional gaming community. There is also the issue of alternate forms of classifications which I will dig into later on the post.

To use the "more variables means more work to balance" argument as a basis to say that "Ember is being made with a small team so it should stick with classes" would be far too over simplified. Like I said, and this was important...when it comes to how to balance things there is not a consensus among those who make these games.

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What I mentioned about objectives having so much to do with the roll balance (particularly as difficulty increases) is demonstrably true in practice. In fact it is quite present in the example of Warframe. Depending on the mission type, things like Crowd control, damage output, movement speed, personal resilience, etc will become a primary or background attribute. This is most obvious in the more unique expressions of these mission types as displayed during certain events or rank up tests. It is why there is such a meta about what frame to take for what mission types. That exists alongside the obvious a meta about which frames are better vs worse overall. (Ex: Valkyr is FAR better for survival than defemse. Frost adds little to capture but is awesome at defense)

Also, if we look at the shooter genre as a whole, there are plenty of situations where the differences between ranges makes a huge difference in the ability to complete a mission. Most of us have experienced missions that are far harder without grabbing that sniper rifle, or missions that are way more troublesome if you don't grab the shotgun. etc. The terrain and enemy type alone have proven to shift the ideal loadouts in dozens of games. In action shooters even within the concept of "dealing damage", there are many ways that can be expressed. As such there are often multiple rolls for it.

Then there are various pvp based examples in games. Like, say, tribes ascend CTF. In that mode capping speed (and so the old pathfinder class) is far more integral to the team than it is in a mode like deathmatch. Objective effects roll balance.

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You say that in a class based system you can force drawbacks. You're absolutely right. Which, funny enough, is my problem with the so called "class-less" system terminology, as it is largely a misnomer. While a system may not feature "character classes", it may still feature classes of items or gear. For example, in the armored core series the legs you choose come with some rather prominent advantages and disadvantages. Tank treads allow you to fire heavy weapons while moving when any other type of legs requires that you stop in place to fire. The draw back is tank treads are rather slow and have a poor flight ceiling. That is a clear and profound drawback to go along with it's unique capability. Essentially, there are "classes" of legs that a player must account for. Like you said, with a class system you fan force drawbacks.

The idea of gear or item "class" based drawbacks is important to apply to the so called class-less systems.
To use warframe as an example again: You mentioned Nova's 1 power not being selected if folks could avoid it. I do not disagree. That begs two questions.
1: If it is so clearly a weaker choice why isn't it adjusted? Is there some reason why keeping some powers practically un-used (widely considered a waste of energy) makes sense in a class system? I don't believe so.
2: If we are talking about a "class-less" system, would there be a reason to put sometimes a weaker power in certain slots? The kind of thing that could be enforced from a gear based drawback? I believe there could be.

Questions like "would a person use a debuff over straight damage?" depend on the specific debuff, the specific enemies, and the potential advantages based on hypothetical team compositions.
Questions like "Why would a person take a shotgun if they could take a rocket launcher and it was simply better"...I'd point out how many shooter games have solved that issue by not making one weapon better than the other by smart limitations. Commonly stuff like limited ammo available for rocket launchers.

Alternatively a game with character classes may still allow customization without the proper drawbacks between classes that can homogenize the differences down below where they should be. Which, I want to stress, I do not feel warframe is a good example of balance in general.

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To my earlier statement about balance being "an ongoing pursuit in any system". To be clear, that was not meant to be an absolute statement that all developers keep on trying to get it. It's more of a general understanding that balance (as in "perfect balance") is likely to never be achieved. To seek it would be an ongoing pursuit, but one can certainly just stop tweaking and go with what you have. As I also mentioned, balance doesn't need to be perfect it just needs to be close enough. Take just about any of the games that have had a competitive scene for many years yet remained unchanged, it's not that the developers generally think they achieved perfect balance. It's that it is close enough to provide an enjoyable competitive experience.

While it is true that not all changes to games are based on balance, as there are many reasons for just about anything, it remains true that perfect balance is more of a pursuit than a reasonable destination.

Speaking to hero games in particular, the developers of games like LOL have repeatedly stated that they make many changes for the specific purpose of achieving a better (or more appropriate type of) balance, only then to have to do it again and and again and so on. The addition of a new character or item may often exist to alter the meta at least in part, but the response is still often the need to re-balance things. Since we are talking about balance in Ember (a persistent world game) the same basic concept applies. Add something to reinvigorate the meta, other things may need to balanced in response.

Which reminds me: Content doesn't have to be entirely trivial to allow success with sub optimal builds, it just has to have a wide enough margin for error that a potential skill variance can over take it. Realistically a designer can never fully account for variance of player skill in a skill based game, there will always be certain ends of the skill spectrum that find difficult what was meant to be easy, and find easy what was meant to be difficult.

and saying "another iteration of the same system" is unfair IMO.

In short-
Objectives being integral to roll balance has long-since been proven true in practice.
The concept of "classes with drawbacks" can be applied to many systems not just character class.
Different developers approach the question of balance differently and hold different opinions on it.
Balance and expression are both important but push and pull against each other, a game must find a mid point between them.

Beemann · Sep 14, 2016

Ronyn said:

Untrue. Personal expression is hindered by low depth. A game like Q3CPM has the ability to display each player's unique take on the game using only 8 weapons, a handful of power ups and a given map. This is an extremely simplistic setup and both players are given the same set of options, yet you'll find a match played with Hal_9000 to be very different from a match played against Gaiia. On the flip side, I find most of the top-end Warframe players tend to play the game in a similar manner. There's more options, but there's less to do with each individual option.

Additionally, your chess analogy is poor. The creator of a game won't ever know whether a player will win or lose because they aren't psychic. An imaginary designer of what is the modern version of chess, however, would not necessarily be surprised by any permutation of moves. He may wonder at the moves, but there will not be a case where it turns out that pawns are overpowered. The system is straightforward and clean, and the depth of the game comes from the plans players come up with and attempt to predict/identify.

Ronyn said:

It is not, however, a solution to the problem I proposed. I have the option between every leg, arm, weapon, core, etc. part in the game. There will be a small number of optimal combinations that result from this. If I picked the legs as part of a package -maybe the optimal weapon but suboptimal legs, and good radar- then I have many considerations but ultimately one of a few large decisions. To go back to Warframe, my point was that Nova's position as a top-tier frame is not threatened by the lack of a good first ability. Even if it was worth using, but not often, the lack of strong 1 does not hinder the game's overall viability. In a freeform system, Nova's 1 has to match up against either every other ability, or every other 1, in the game. In this system, the choice you'd make for a class is instead made for every individual component, and while it is easy to make two imbalanced things balanced by tweaking some of a larger sum of values, it is much harder to keep multiple visibly unique options in the same category that are all viable.

It's not a question of debuff vs DPS, but a specific question of Saryn's kit vs the efficacy of her individual abilities

The shotgun vs rocket launcher thing if ores that both are vying for the same weapon slot, and both must be balanced with every other weapon in mind.

Even if you add a constraint system in which weaker options are available, you must also lock down where those points are spent, or else balance weak options not only against other items in the same category, but all other options with the same cost

Re: perfect balance
This is ultimately reframing the argument. I did not suggest that a class based system allowed for perfect balance, but rather is inherently easier to balance by virtue of having fewer permutations to worry about. If I added a points system to chess and gave each piece a point value, the game would be much harder to balance than chess currently is. There are simply more results to balance for, and the only solution is to abandon a large portion of those results to the garbage pile, meaning they're now simply newbie traps (for endless newbie traps, see: Warframe)

The concept of adding new things to reinvigorate the meta is only really necessary when your game doesn't have enough depth to it. When most of your game is learning what the right options are, you have to keep changing the solutions or people will get bored

Ronyn said:

You say, in a thread about one of FireFall's customization systems. In what way is another take on a customization system not an iteration, short of being extremely nitpicky? Nothing suggested or discussed so far has not been definitively iterative or the reuse of an old idea.

Ronyn · Sep 14, 2016

@Beemann This is an interesting discussion.

Beemann said:

To say that without choices you limit personal expression is absolutely true. Understand that choice can come in many forms. As an example: A single weapon with multiple ways to use it OR a large variety of weaponry from which to select. Both are forms of choice. Both can potentially allow for expression. Both can be representative of a systems depth. That is what I am talking about.

I do understand what you are getting at though. Your core concern here. The type of system where there are tons of options but some are so much better than others, at the end of the day, only a few of the options are ever actually used. Essentially meaning there arent many REAL options after all. yes that does sound bad. Indeed some games with more open customization systems fall prey to that. I am not suggesting that doesn't happen at times I am suggesting that a game doesn't have to.
Just as some games with class based systems don't find solid balance either.

Beemann said:

I think chess is a poor analogy for this conversation all around but I went with it. lol. For whatever it is worth my chess analogy illustrated that creating the combination of pieces and knowing their individual moves does not mean you know every way they will be used in concert. So you won't know every potential strategy in the game, which combos will be stronger or weaker, etc. In other words: Knowing every variable going in does not negate the unpredictability of what comes out. To get to that point takes play time.

Beemann said:

It is a solution to that problem, if you take the same principal to it's logical conclusion throughout the whole system. As in, every piece of gear has both advantage and disadvantage. In such a system the idea of "optimal" is difficult to reach. Because what you gain from X you loose from Y.

In such a system slotting a "weaker" ability serves a purpose if you built yourself in a way that conserving power for abilities makes sense. Each ability does not need to be entirely equal in every way, it simply needs a reason to exist in ones build.

Think of it like one of those highly successful card game where stronger cards cost more resources tan weaker cards. Each card isn't apples-to-apples "just as good" as every other but can be an integral part of ones personal deck. Sometimes it's about fitting into the economy of ones overall loadout, sometimes it's about the synergy with something else slotted. The give and take, the high cost and low cost, the various classing of items, gear and weaponry...can all act as dials to create a form of balance.

The trick to that though is keep it simple where you can. What do I mean by that?
In armored core tank treads arent better or worse than reverse joint legs. They are different, ideal for certain build directions and not others. Depending on who you ask or what mission you are playing one style will prove to be the preferred choice. It's a good system.

Where balance goes off kilter is in the granularity. The 25+ different versions of tank treads and the 25+ different versions of reverse joint legs. That is where the clear "better and worse" versions of each reveal themselves. But that isn't because the system is free in letting you choose the legs you want, its because the system got too darn granular. It took solid classes of legs and added on a bloated system of numbers. (mostly to add vertical progression btw) I am certainly not championing bloat, I am however, a big fan of letting those larger choices that can define playstyles be more freely swapped than full on "character classes". At least for a game like Ember where it's about open world PVE.

That is not to say I don't like character class based games as well. The point is that I am a fan of both. I believe that both can and do work, just as both can and do sometimes not work. What I am trying to avoid here is an automatic dismissal of a "class-less" system based on the perception that it's too hard to balance to a solid degree for the team involved.

Beemann said:

I'm aware of what points you have been stressing. My talk of perfect balance was not re-framing the argument, I was clarifying a point I made earlier about the ongoing pursuit of balance. It was but a single piece out of this larger discussion.

Beemann said:

"necessary" is an interesting choice in word here. A game like LOL has become extremely successful in part due to reinvigorating their meta consistently. I would not say that game lacks depth. Alternatively team fortress 2 has done quite well with minimal additions over the years. I would not say that game has more depth or less than LOL, its just a different kind of depth.
Honestly I don't think there is just one way to go on how to keep a game going strong.

Beemann said:

Oh. I though the conversation between you and I was more about the broader concepts of class based verses classless systems. Perhaps it was my mistake on that.

Beemann · Sep 15, 2016

@Ronyn
Re: Choice
When choice comes before the fight, one's play style tends to be based moreso on those choices than on one's own personality. For instance, there is one way to play Saryn right now, there was one way to play high burst A Mechs in Hawken, etc. What ultimately differed was your efficacy in playing to the strengths of your class. The reason why I brought up Quake and Chess is because they're both examples of games where people's styles and mindsets show through in a far clearer/purer form, because all else is about as close to equal as one could conceivably get. In essence, personality shines through better in the actions you take, rather than the suboptimal build that you picked out yourself

Re: Customization
I'd suggest that all customization-heavy systems fall prey to this issue. The vast majority of combinations simply aren't optimal, and the only way to really expand the number of options used is to expand what is absolutely necessary (as with a holy trinity system vs say pure DPS.)
This, however, cuts down on the level of choice one has in both gameplay style and in terms of customization. You have to have a tank to get past the flame-spewing swamp beast so someone will always set up a tank loadout

And the thing with chess is that, while you won't predict every conceivable move used at any point in time, you can get a read on the efficacy of one side of the board vs the other, because they have the same pieces and one side moves first. Again, in a game where people customized their own sides of the board using a points system, there would be a far greater level of imbalance. The thing is that when you're competing (and PvE is still competition) or when you're trying to balance for an entire population, having the smallest gap between strongest and weakest in terms of baseline efficacy is important. If you want to look at this from another PvE-first perspective, consider the issue of minmaxing in Pen and Paper RPGs. One might think one player knowing the rules and making a stacked character is fine, or even a good thing, but when you have one character who tumble+sneak attacks every round and another who misses constantly and rarely does good damage on a hit, you run into a few issues
1. You cannot make a challenge fair for player 2 and not trivial for player 1.
2. Likewise, anything that challenges player 1 will demolish player 2
3. Constantly splitting the party takes away from the primary cooperative/social aspect of a game

People have attempted to houserule this stuff out, and I have yet to hear of a method of success. Some things are, by their very nature, better than others in every system. Generally though this issue is solved by heavily utilizing roles. In Shadowrun a group generally expects to have someone who can deal with astral, someone who can geek mages fast and create distractions, someone who can sweet talk Mr. Johnson for that advance payment, and someone who can hack. Similarly, Wolfenstein Enemy Territory makes all classes necessary by having class specific objectives.

Re: Solutions
Changing the parameters of an ability, or adding an objective, does not change the fact that certain combinations will be better than others, it merely has the ability to change what those combinations are. If you take the strongest gun in the game and tack on penalties to make it worse, a gun that better fits it's prior role will take its place, even if both weapons have massive downsides. If a burst projectile weapon is no longer good because of low reliability, then it'll get passed up for the weapon with lower damage and higher reliability. If DE nerfs the Tonkor, there's plenty of crit weapons to take its place. If Adhesive nerfed burst A's, burst B's were prepped to take that spot. When HiRez nerfed the magmalance, a lot of people just went roamer or picked up the tremor launcher. When you have a system with exponentially more categories of customization, you have the same balance issues but with many more factors.

And again, with such a system comes many more unavoidable newbie traps, which are terrible design-wise.

Re: Perfect balance
My point was moreso that the pursuit of balance is less a "every option is perfectly equal" and more "everything has a purpose and will be useful". And that the closer you can get to the latter, the better. It's much easier to get to the latter when you're balancing 10 things rather than 100 things, and we're already talking about a game that has to have good (or at least adequate) gunplay, a full open world, dynamic events, a full base building system, a full crafting system, and needs a good pipeline for introducing content at a fast enough rate to not run into the Warframe/MMO problem. I dont expect them to have a huge amount of time to dedicate to rebalancing in the same way the much larger Riot does when it comes to balancing their main 1 map focus. That is, unless you're looking for the many painful reworks of FireFall

Re: LoL
DotA and it's spawn are far more based around knowledge than execution. If you want to be top notch, how good does your APM/aim have to be compared to your knowledge of items, characters, map positions and their counters? You're not going to see Quake level aim or CPM/Xon weapon combos. You're not going to see SF frame links or parries. You're not going to see StarCraft level micro. It's not that there's no execution skill involved, but moreso that your knowledge base is going to play a far larger part. People can watch a pro player and mimic their strat (poorly) but it's going to take you more time and effort to even begin to hit that circle jump, properly micro, complete that combo etc. There's still the knowledge of what to do, but there's a higher level of difficulty when actually doing it.

When your game is based around knowledge first and execution second, it is easier to have optimal plays. Pro players can get flustered and miss Aerowalk's red armor jump, but they generally aren't going to forget to ward, or forget what their escape options are. It's not that they forgot the jump, it's that their execution was poor. Nobody needed to change the distance of the RA platform or the length of the stairs to produce that effect

Re: the discussion as a whole
The first line was just poking fun, but I really do fail to see how the customization will not be reuse or an iteration

Old, overlooked firefall idea: In-depth tuning

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