Title: A Time For Change: FAF Community Balance Team
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I wonder if a lot of confusion/anger about balance would get resolved if some sort of FAQ post about how unit balance and maps relate to one another. For unit balance to be coherent, you need to set up a consistent frame of reference for these units to interact. For FAF, that used to just be the 1v1 pool and a few teamgame maps. Nowadays, since the matchmaker exists, you have a catalog of maps that are considered decent gameplay and can be used to talk about unit balance. across several sizes of games.
Obviously big communities for other stuff exist in custom games, but these maps spawned organically out of conditions of FAF balance and there is no real responsibility for FAF to ensure these maps stay at their current level of "enjoyability" or whatever you want to say. The maps can be adjusted to fit the balance just as the balance is adjusted to fit maps. It is unrealistic to expect unit balance to accommodate specific, niche communities in custom games.
Like this t1 bomber stuff, what is this based on? I can only assume it isn't based on anything in the matchmakers because they are pretty much always getting decent utility in games unless you just rally them into the enemy base.
This also gets into why a public vote is just stupid as well. Everybody begins using their own games as the frame of reference and working to make their map the default state rather than anything agreed upon by a larger group of people to be a healthy environment for FAF gameplay. That's why balance team is a peer selected group, same as why the matchmaker team that selects the maps is also peer selected.
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Lots of people have lots of ideas about balance. But what we don't see happening is a single coherent balance mod (a la BHEdit or Equilibrium) gaining real traction. Everyone is free to make a mod with 1 or 10 or 100 balance changes in it and see if the community is interested in playing.
It is true that such games would be deranked. If people in the community who normally play ranked games are interested enough in the new balance to play deranked games, that would suggest there is a real need for different balance or at least a ranked balance option. If you can get 200 people to play 400 unranked matches using the "EvilDrewBalance" mod, that would suggest that the balance team or other admins should look at whitelisting the "EvilDrewBalance" mod for ranked play.
If you can't get people to play with alternate balance, that suggests there is no need for alternative balance options.
Also, I would be interested in some kind of comprehensive survey of FAF players as to whether they think balance is getting worse or better over time. It's not really scientific, you're asking people about their opinions and memories, but it would be useful to know whether the community is happy or sad or whatever with the balance changes over the last 5+ years. Even if the balance team is convinced that the community is "wrong" to be unhappy, it's important to gauge how people feel.
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Balance mods will never see play because of the size of FAF. It's an answer intentionally built to be a nonsolution and mostly just a way for balance team to farm code changes they don't need to implement themselves.
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The game is kinda uninteresting since 99% of the time you just follow the same linear path through 3 the tech levels. Maybe you decide if you want to get T2 air or T2 land first on some maps. You decide which tech levels you are going to be aggressive vs defensive on, and if neither player messes up too bad you go to the next one. The balance seems to be flattening the power curve so that every faction competes pretty evenly on every tech level, land units get more normalized (blazes and obsidians have been buffed, rhinos buffed, pillars nerfed, selen was made into a lab, aurora made more tank like, jesters useless, zthuee nerfed), strengths are nerfed and weaknesses buffed. It makes the game more "balanced", but also more boring. It is especially boring when there's over a year from one patch to the next. The changes brought with patches are almost never things that you change your gameplay around, the patches are instead designed to make your existing gameplay "more balanced."
At the time many of these changes seemed good, and I was in favor of many of them, but I'd rather go back to having steeper power curves and each faction having some unique overpowered stuff, even if it's sometimes frustrating it's also more fun. Could also just be that I played the game too much and look too favorably at the past. I never have to be feel fear of xerxes amassing a hidden jester snipe, and I never get to feel the risk and adrenaline rush of using a pre-OC nerf ACU to take out a dozen percies on the frontlines, or the power of your first Harb coming out prior to the T3 nerfs.
The linearity of the game is pretty much baked into the design, so is not really a balance issue, but since SACUs are not really viable at the moment they are free to be radically changed in ways that could make the game less linear. Everything I have seen regarding SACU changes indicates they will be placed linearly between T3 and T4 though.
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Two things I wanna say:
You can't argue "Reeee unit X is completely bullshit!" while playing lower ranked lobbies. Reminds me of the one discussion where Aeon Gun, Auroras and Mercies should get a buff since lower ranks are simply not able to use them yet. Sadly many players follow that idea to have those mid-ranked-oriented balance patches and don't realise how fucking stupid that is.
Unironically. Watch Farms and Yudi more often. Especially after those patches they often speak about balance and you can ask specific shit. I still get tons of new information / explanation by asking and I'm certainly not one of the most liked players so you are not just getting roasted unless you don't want to understand it 4head. Most recent example being the t3 land vs t3 air impact (yeah okay tbf.. I didn't get his point. But he took his time to explain it)
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@sladow-noob said in Title: A Time For Change: FAF Community Balance Team:
I still get tons of new information
I never get any useful information from them.
The embodiment of depression...
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@thomashiatt said in Title: A Time For Change: FAF Community Balance Team:
The linearity of the game is pretty much baked into the design, so is not really a balance issue, but since SACUs are not really viable at the moment they are free to be radically changed in ways that could make the game less linear. Everything I have seen regarding SACU changes indicates they will be placed linearly between T3 and T4 though.
I agree that the game feels really linear, but I do think it's "fixable" with just changing numbers around. However there's a big questionmark in terms of are the players ready for radical change? How drastic changes is the general faf population ready for?
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@balanceslave yeah but you don't count. Go back and train some people smh
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How is it that a guy who plays valhalla 10000000000 times in a row and thinks all other maps are trash suddenly gives a crap about any of this? Why does the opinion of such a guy matter?
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@blodir said in Title: A Time For Change: FAF Community Balance Team:
I agree that the game feels really linear, but I do think it's "fixable" with just changing numbers around. However there's a big questionmark in terms of are the players ready for radical change? How drastic changes is the general faf population ready for?
A lot can be changed just with numbers since in the past some tech levels for factions were practically intended to be skipped over, but that was considered a problem. Now the balance tries to force you to stay on each tech level for some period of time and the units are normalized accordingly. The fact that there's only 3 tech levels means there isn't much room to play around though. SCUs could be used as a remedy here. A cheaper quantum gate buildable by T2 engies with "T2 Experimental" tier SCUs could make up for power level variations and also make the game less linear.
The FAF community are not ready for radical change, and they shouldn't be, since this whole project is about keeping some old game alive with minor improvements, but mostly the same. It's an open source project, so it's explicitly design by committee and resistant to change by default.
Making significant changes would be difficult and take time, and anyone with the skill and motivation to do it would be far better off making their own game. You cannot make money from FAF, you cannot grow the community through balance changes, only potentially shrink it, you won't gain any respect or notoriety for your work, and The project is 99.9% guaranteed to die at some point soon, either through it's own stagnation, some technical issue, or a better game being released (hasn't happened for 16 years, but it's got to happen someday soon, right?).
The way it is now is the only way it can be, but we can dream about cool ideas and write them on the forum while we wait for someone with ambition to make the next game.
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And tbf if someone really wants to play completely different, there is also the Loud-client. Definitely not my favorite... But it clearly doesn't involve the FAF-strategies and focuses on longer games...
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I am not a supporter of balance in the opinion of the theme creator and would not like to see him in the balance manager, since he does not play this game professionally and looks more like a sid. But I agree with his wrote.
I also want to draw your attention! Not everything that can change will be for the better. They overthrew Ftx-a from the post of the community manager and now we have a poor quality of tournaments (Yudi loves Russians), tournaments once a year and the same lot, a rainbow stacked in my opinion, and an attempt to rectify the situation SWOKL Seasonal Tournaments. As a result, the ladder is abandoned, like leagues and other things. There is a double-edged sword here.
Give FTX the POWER!
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Damn you lot have a lot of spare time
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I agree FAF and its balance being run like a black box oligarchy is bad, but it is working for now and what you are proposing would be far worse than current system (all the gappers (90% of playerbase) voting to balance around gap on every change and even asking for new changes based only on gap)
last patch did some unneeded changes for no reason too in my opinion (nerf air crash damage from experimentals for example), the problem with current system is that changes seem to come from nothing, and to outsiders it looks like no one has any say whatsoever about any of the changes except for the few people who are already part of this secret society controlling the balance, we are just expected to accept anything that comes out of the black box without question
like will anything on the feedback thread or anywhere else (that wasn't said by a member of this secret society) ever have any effect on the balance changes at all or is the thread's and balance forums in general's existence just to give us that illusion and let us talk about the now-set-in-stone balance that we cannot do anything about, like it is some kind of natural phenomenon that can't be effected by the likes of us and we can only accept it, and in best case scenario possibly what we say may be heard by one of members of secret society so that they can consider it if they feel like it?
not that I know a better system to replace it with but this is what it looks like from outside
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I concur 100% with the OP. Out with the old, in with the new.
Balance changes are bordering on ridiculous now, and we need to fire the entire balance team, immediately. Public elections held quarterly or bi-annually would be optimal, with back to back term limits implemented. I would like to see a two concurrent term maximum limit imposed, with the option of overriding by supermajority vote, should a councilor prove their mettle.
Far too long have nonsensical balance changes persisted. FAF needs a change.
Make it so.
p.s. For clarification a supermajority vote is one that is 67% - 90%(this could be adjusted in this range before making law).
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The possibility of forking FAF is one of the best things about FAF. If somehow the community self-destructs, it can be born anew.
Asking wild mobs to adjust RTS balance through democratic votes is nonsensical. It would destroy any possibility of proper competitive matches. People would have to just learn how to exploit every new meta. Since every balance would be broken, we would get more and more balance changes to try to fix the brokenness, but without a coherent vision, it would just be random inexperienced mobs, every fix is likely to make things worse.
If you lock the top people out of having a say in FAF balance through "term limits" you can't expect them to sit back and quietly watch everything burn. Especially if you kick them all out at the same time.
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A bad job is a bad job, arma473. Just because they have a high rating doesn't excuse them from poor choices. There are no excuses here. Change is due now.
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@mr_blastman A bad job? What makes u someone who is able to claim changes are a bad job?
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I think the balance team is overly conservative and too biased towards how balance impacts high-level play compared to how they impact most players. However, I think the balance team puts more thought into things than a lot of people realize. Part of the problem is that the balance team appears like this black box with seemingly sudden changes that can appear quite detached from what the general community thinks the focus should be. There should be more transparency. FWIW, while I still disagree with a number of the balance team's perspectives, after being able to view their discussion channel, my understanding of and respect for their thought-processes increased. Additionally, I think the situation would be greatly improved by the addition of several active lower/mid-rated non-voting members to the balance team. They could help guide the team's focus to better consider regular players' perspectives and concerns, while also helping out and connecting the balance team with the community more.
PS: FAF has been growing for years and is continuing to do so. With a relatively recent average of something like 5,000+ games per day, I'd expect it to continue to exist for many more years, even if good new games come out.
PPS: It would be nice if we could figure out some system for an alternative balance mod that doesn't have the practical disadvantages that regular mods do of getting people to join them. For example, if we could have a balance mod that is presented to players more like how featured mods are, but without the backend issues, that could be a helpful solution to the conservative versus progressive balance divide.
