Title: A Time For Change: FAF Community Balance Team

maudlin27

Going back maybe 1 year or more some of the complaints mentioned in this thread idve agreed with more:

balance discussions being a black box where points discussed in the forums seemed to be ignored while units no-one mentioned as being an issue were changed without warning, with no visibility of the reasoning
changes seemed focused in what was best for top level play in 1v1 games, with the impact in other popular parts of FAF and at lower ranks ignored

However Ive seen a notable improvement in both these areas - potential balance changes were highlighted in advance for discussion this time with the reasoning for then explained to some extent; planned changes that needed more time but were recognised as being required (eg GC nerf) were also noted.
Some changes were also clearly with a non-1v1 mindset (eg considering the power level of units and strategies in team game scenarios)

I still think things could be improved further (eg while I dont know how prevalent the view is in the balance team, Ive seen many people be automatically dismissive of the impact of a change on a dual gap game-however as one of the most commonly played games on FAF I think it should be considered as part of any balance decision). It’s also not always clear the extent to which feedback will be taken into account (but eg Tagada has often posted responses / explanations on points so this has improved from what I recall when I first came to FAF).

However I dont think balance by vote or user popularity is the way to go. Someone new to the game is going to have far less of an idea of what changes would be good/bad than someone with lots of games played at the highest skill levels, and if balance decisions become popularity contests it could result in very harmful changes and unintended consequences.

It sounds like FAF’s playerbase has been growing so I’d also caution against extreme balance changes for the sake of it/to try and mix things up, since they risk losing more players than they might gain.

Meanwhile if balance team members were voted for I expect it would lead FAF to being balanced around a handful of popular maps which would be worse long term for variety.

FtXCommando

It’s REALLY funny you want to do some democratic system and then say

“should I collaborate with these guys that don’t share my opinions? no”

What are you gonna do when some of them get elected, genius?

I enjoy your vague proposal getting even more vague solutions to problems. Now a jury exists? Who chooses the jury that decides the candidates? How do you decide when they are abusing authority? Can you be a jury member and a balance member? If not, doesn’t that mean the jury needs access to balance team talks to know what can be a good idea? Doesn’t that mean these guys are now unelected dictators you were just now schizoposting about?

“your sparky change would be instantly dismissed”

uh no cuz I would win a seat on the team with my natural charisma and then put it into patches not caring what a bunch of dudes that dunno what they’re talking about are saying. Nothing in my mandate said I had to work with guys that play essentially nothing but maps I don’t consider decent FAF environments.

I'm essentially never going to agree with dudes that are centered on dual gap/your map/astro/whatever in custom games because my point of reference is the matchmakers and I discount gameplay concerns that can be addressed by people simply adjusting the maps that were only originally created as a baby-proof variant of FAF meta 4-5-6 years ago. If the frame of reference is different, it makes massive amounts of discussion pointless because that is what decides your analysis of problematic units or game states. The nuke cost feedback is already an example of this. You can't compromise there, there are people that STILL think nukes are OP with the current change. You can only get somebody to see what you consider as the frame of reference and why it led to these changes.

Mach

@thecodemander said in Title: A Time For Change: FAF Community Balance Team:

its still at the very least keeping things fresh/new. Ie. changes for the sake of change is bad

I fail to see the difference between changing something to keep things fresh and change for sake of change, if you are changing something to keep things fresh, that is a change for the sake of change as far as I can tell

and I am not saying every change is bad, but all of them must have proper reason to improve existing gameplay, not just to do something "new", the change must not be to keep things fresh but solely to balance the game

FtXCommando

And to address this insane shit about "people I play with" do you know why I play with them? Because they're people that play near my skill level in the games I enjoy: matchmaker and just random high level custom games. The reason the balance team tends to be people that are friends are because it's a small community. Balance team members:

Have to have a similar framework to talk about changes coherently, t2 navy being good on astro is simply not a discussion that can happen.

What does that mean? They're often playing together.

Have to have a decent basis of understanding of the game to gauge the impact of adjustments on said agreed upon framework.

What does that mean? Either they have fairly large knowledge of the codebase to the extent they have played around with values theoretically or they have practical game experience which in turn correlates with higher rating.

So you're left with a bunch of people that play a similar type of games that are also all generally good at those games. Is it strange that dudes that invest their freetime into playing the same game in the same niche of that game would become friends? Especially if they then work to improve that game together through the years? Why is this some random conspiracy to you?

This reminds me of the conspiracy about how I was some evil dude that rigged tournies for his friends or only cared about the maps/ideas his friends made. Maybe it's because the people that I regularly need to associate with for things related to improving my area of FAF also end up becoming closer friends with me. I don't really get why this is so weird to understand. Do people not become friends with people at their workplace that they probably would have never spent a second thought thinking about in other environments?

IndexLibrorum

@evildrew said in Title: A Time For Change: FAF Community Balance Team:

The difference between several suggestions and the entirety of a set of changes getting implemented can be the difference between the overall idea behind the changes working or not working. If I did an extensive navy rework f.ex. and they then said 'yeah, we like half the changes let's do this but not that', the chances of many of the core concepts underpinning those changes would not be observed in game and it would not achieve its goal of enhancing gameplay to the intended extent.

To translate and summarize, your position seems to be essentially: "Unless all my suggestions are accepted, it is not worth making any suggestions. Also, this means the balance team is the greatest evil that has spawned since the fall of the Third Reich."

I have tried to read through all of ComradeStryker’s posts which I have seen before but to me those are mostly small proposed changes that do little to affect the game overall.

I guess this just reinforces the point above huh? "No changes are worth proposing until the whole system is adapted as you think is needed." We'll just ignore the fact that perhaps the existing playerbase does not like to see the game's balance do a 180, further ignore that gradual changes over time is the main method of game balancing across the industry, and just conclude by dismissing the 7 chapters of suggestions provided by Stryker.

Anyone can get small changes approved when they are obviously needed. That is not what is being discussed here.

Yes, and that's the problem.

I would be happily participating in a discussion about required changes, if you were to care to name specifics and propose solutions. But you've not been doing that, ostensibly because doing that takes actual work and is difficult. You'd rather dismiss this option entirely, even though you've seen that that is a proven and productive method of getting your proposed changes into the game.

Alternatively, I would have been very supportive of a proposal to open up the balance team's discussions and thought processes to the public. Others have mentioned that a lot of thought and planning has gone into these changes, and I for one would enjoy reading the details.

Yet, instead you've thrown a temper tantrum.
I suggest you put some thought into what exactly it is that you want to achieve, and what the best way would to to achieve that. Trying to incite a revolution against imagined tyrannical oppressors and accordingly getting publicly ridiculed might not be the best course of action.

NOC-

Man does not even dare to respond to my post.

Matches

This post is deleted!

FtXCommando

So to move the conversation to what would actually be required to see anything changed here:

The way the balance team works and operates is defined by the Statutes that define this as a team under the FAF umbrella. This was created after the last GM, same as pretty much every other team.

The Statutes define
A) how the Team Lead is chosen (balance team is an election between all members)
B) how to choose new members (balance team votes internally on new members)
C) how to change the statutes (afaik, balance team is a vote on that as well since basically every team operates that way)

So to get the balance team to actually become some democratic utopia then you need to get the team itself to agree with that premise leading to a better FAF, since they are in control of their own statute. You called them dictators with no capacity for thought beyond what benefits them, so you already failed on this one.

This leaves you with the nuclear option on FAF: using the Board to force a change on the balance team. This is something that everybody strongly disagrees with both in the Board and the Association as a general principle because this is a volunteer project. Motivation is currency and forcing huge change involuntarily is how everything dies in that area.

So you would need to get the Board to agree that this is not only a positive for FAF but so ridiculously necessary it must be thrust upon the team, which is pretty much a diagnosis that the team is incompetent making their statute baseless. This would not only require (I believe) a supermajority vote from the Board but more than likely an entire EGM meeting where the whole Association meets to discuss whether this action is correct because every other team does not want to feel like something similar is going to happen to them.

So not only are you getting the whole Board to agree with it, but you are going to have to make the Association, which basically includes some proportion of every team working on FAF, to agree with you.

I guess you have the option of trying to make yourself the new Board by electing your opinion as the majority. But if you do not follow the steps above, you would be more than likely removed through an EGM and the balance team would simply be reinstated.

Good luck with your game plan.

Skimming the people that responded, I'm not even sure you have more than like 2 people within the Association itself that expressed any level of a positive response about this, let alone anybody on the Board or balance team.

Mach

@maudlin27 said in Title: A Time For Change: FAF Community Balance Team:

potential balance changes were highlighted in advance for discussion this time with the reasoning for then explained to some extent; planned changes that needed more time but were recognised as being required (eg GC nerf) were also noted.

even if the changes are announced ahead of time, does any feedback from anyone who isn't on balance team have any effect on them or are they just early patch notes that nothing anyone (not on balance team) says can change

FtXCommando

Beyond the obvious UEF stuff I gave feedback on, an adjustment to hive I suggested like 3 days before the patch was released got implemented (making bp efficiency go down as it increases in tiers).

Robustness

if someone wants to change something, let them throw a picture of a unit or a building before/after

it's easier to discuss the idea of the player, his vision, maybe it will work.

Robustness

the main thing is that the changes in the figures are objective enough (no nonsense)

Anachronism_

@ftxcommando said in Title: A Time For Change: FAF Community Balance Team:

So to move the conversation to what would actually be required to see anything changed here:

The way the balance team works and operates is defined by the Statutes that define this as a team under the FAF umbrella. This was created after the last GM, same as pretty much every other team.

The Statutes define
A) how the Team Lead is chosen (balance team is an election between all members)
B) how to choose new members (balance team votes internally on new members)
C) how to change the statutes (afaik, balance team is a vote on that as well since basically every team operates that way)

So to get the balance team to actually become some democratic utopia then you need to get the team itself to agree with that premise leading to a better FAF, since they are in control of their own statute. You called them dictators with no capacity for thought beyond what benefits them, so you already failed on this one.

This leaves you with the nuclear option on FAF: using the Board to force a change on the balance team. This is something that everybody strongly disagrees with both in the Board and the Association as a general principle because this is a volunteer project. Motivation is currency and forcing huge change involuntarily is how everything dies in that area.

So you would need to get the Board to agree that this is not only a positive for FAF but so ridiculously necessary it must be thrust upon the team, which is pretty much a diagnosis that the team is incompetent making their statute baseless. This would not only require (I believe) a supermajority vote from the Board but more than likely an entire EGM meeting where the whole Association meets to discuss whether this action is correct because every other team does not want to feel like something similar is going to happen to them.

So not only are you getting the whole Board to agree with it, but you are going to have to make the Association, which basically includes some proportion of every team working on FAF, to agree with you.

I guess you have the option of trying to make yourself the new Board by electing your opinion as the majority. But if you do not follow the steps above, you would be more than likely removed through an EGM and the balance team would simply be reinstated.

Good luck with your game plan.

Skimming the people that responded, I'm not even sure you have more than like 2 people within the Association itself that expressed any level of a positive response about this, let alone anybody on the Board or balance team.

To avoid misinformation being spread, I just want to clarify that some of what FTX said here is wrong. For reference, you can read the FAF Statutes of the Association and the proposal that was passed regarding FAF's teams (you can also read some additional information regarding the balance team on the wiki, but the wiki can be inaccurate). Basically, it is my understanding that the balance team could theoretically be changed via internal balance team decisions, FAF Board intervertion, and or proposals that are passed by the FAF Association (at the General Meeting). All Association members may submit proposals, and the General Meeting decides on proposals by simple majority vote.

PS: I am not suggesting a course of action here. My motivation for this post was to lessen the spread of misinformation and to encourage more people who care about FAF to join the FAF Association.

Femboy

If I know something, is to let people do the work they want to do and learn from their betters. If your ideas don’t get accepted then you need to learn more probably. Most contributors will happily take new people, just don’t expect to have your every change accepted.

The moment you make it a popularity contest, the people doing real work leave and some kids with thirst for control come in

TheWeakie

@mach said in Title: A Time For Change: FAF Community Balance Team:

@maudlin27 said in Title: A Time For Change: FAF Community Balance Team:

potential balance changes were highlighted in advance for discussion this time with the reasoning for then explained to some extent; planned changes that needed more time but were recognised as being required (eg GC nerf) were also noted.

even if the changes are announced ahead of time, does any feedback from anyone who isn't on balance team have any effect on them or are they just early patch notes that nothing anyone (not on balance team) says can change

Not saying communication is perfect but most things suggested (that are worth discussing) are actually discussed.

I wouldn't mind doing some live Q&A from time to time if enough people are interested in it.

MazorNoob

I'll make a hot take: the reason this thread exists is because posting standards on the balance subforum were raised to the point of requiring a dissertation on why something should be changed. This meant that people with bad balance ideas weren't posting and weren't being corrected, so their ideas and resentment towards the balance team grew until this thread happened.
How about we change posting rules again? Remove the "you need a 3 A4 page essay with data on why the idea is good" requirement, make it clear that the balance team is not obliged to read or respond to any of the threads, and lock threads that flame the balance team.

FtXCommando

The reason that rule exists is because, quite literally, nobody in the balance team was reading a single post in those forums and any regular user there was either shitposting the bad threads or creating the bad threads.

If you don't know how to use a unit or what the point of a unit is, then you got the help subforum or the training channel on the discord. The balance forum is supposed to be more involved.

SpikeyNoob

I like the idea of adding a balance discussion channel is the discord, that way anyone can join the conversation in an informal way. The gameplay and training channel serves that purpose rn but conversations are quickly lost in the traffic unrelated to balance.

Anachronism_

@spikeynoob said in Title: A Time For Change: FAF Community Balance Team:

I like the idea of adding a balance discussion channel is the discord, that way anyone can join the conversation in an informal way. The gameplay and training channel serves that purpose rn but conversations are quickly lost in the traffic unrelated to balance.

Agreed. An additional balance discussion channel that a lot more players could participate in would be so easy to add and would probably improve the situation a lot (assuming the balance team interacts there a reasonable amount).

Evildrew

@Mach @mauldin27
I think if a candidate laid out a comprehensive road map and a vision and the community commented on it, then the candidate may revisit and refine his/her/their/its proposal before the final vote. There will always be some who like change A and others who don't like change A, at the end of the day, you can't please all and have to make a decision to stick with change A or alter it, you may gain some, you may lose others. I do believe though that better solutions can be found that satisfy a maximum.
Let's take the Nuke changes f.ex. This is another example of nerfing first nuke without considering the impact on the second nuke. Increasing cost and load time should improve the balance on Seton's between SML and SMD I assume since you probably need at least 3 SMD to cover your bases, but this solution does not work well for Dual Gap and certainly not for most 10x10 maps where 2 SMDs cover all bases. The imbalance between SML and SMD is not rooted in cost or load time, it comes from the difference in range. An SML with a range of 700-725 instead of 20,000 would still allow Nukes to reach just about anywhere on a 10x10 map but would mean you would need a forward nuke on or accept reaching less bases on 20x20 or 20x10 maps. It would also increase the relevance of Nuke Subs/BS at the same time on larger navy maps like Setons.
So lets say a candidate proposes to repeal the nuke changes from the last patch and replace them with an adjustment to the range to prevent its utility scaling up with map size while SMDs go the opposite direction, some may say that is a better solution that doesn't just solve the nuke issue around 1 map (i.e. Setons). Others will cling to the current more expensive nukes because they hate getting nuked.
There are a multitude of issues that need addressing and of course many possible solutions. I do not think past and present balance teams have a good track record in dealing with them a high rating coming from perfectly memorized BOs and faster clicking speeds are not relevant.
@Tagada
Your math is technically correct but your methodology is wrong. You take Mexes with storage and Pgens connected to Mass Fabs as a given. This is simply the wrong way to look at it. I have never seen storages on an underwater Mex, it's not possible. Should we ignore these Mexes? Adjacency bonus is a feature that enhances a building's value like the SACU with its HP. mobility and other features enhances the RAS upgrade.
Also as you scale up your Mass Fab and Pgen farm, you need to keep adding Engineering power from either a factory or making Kennels/Hives. RAS SACUs have the equivalent of say 600 mass of T3 Engineering power to keep the math simple (nerfing the bp aspect to 400 wont do much in the sum of things as shown below). There is a difference in the upfront cost to supply that buildpower, i.e. Quantum gatewy vs T3 Factory. There are other factors that are relevant such as pathfinding as you scale the Mass Fab Pgen grid. You can't keep reinvesting your full income into one building at a time and therefore compounding at the same rate with engineers alone after a certain point. Also you would at one point have to put expensive shields up repeatedly to protect say every 2nd cluster of 4 building to protect them from arty.
So what it really comes down to is the methodology, you start from the point of people only build T3 Pgens and T3 Mass Fabs in grids of 4. That is like if I asked you 'where does milk come from' and you say 'from the bottle', and I ask 'well where does that bottle come from' and you then say 'oh yes, from the supermarket'. You have to look at buildings as stand alones when balancing the game overall not just in terms of efficiency at completion but also in terms of the path to reinvest and compound long term, transitioning, weighing risk and reward aspects, etc.
Lets list some relevant facts:
Mass Fabs
Advantages:

Adjacency bonus with Pgen
Adjacency bonus with Factory
Adjacency bonus with Mass Storage
Disadvantages:
Low HP
Takes up a lot of space
AOE of explosion is huge (14) and damage is huge too (5,500)
Needs power to produce mass
HP of adjacent buildings (listed above) is lost (Your 2 Pgen 2 Mass Fabs basically has 6,000 HP instead of 24,000 when connected)
Can only keep up in efficiency with RAS upgrade on SACU when using its adjacency advantage.
On a stand alone basis less efficient than RAS SACUs.

RAS SACU
Advantages:

No power stall affecting Mass production
Submersible
Able to defend themselves (several T1 PD equivalent worth of resources)
More HP
Mobile
Scale more consistenly
Build power (almost 2 T3 Engies worth)
Disadvantages:
I honestly don't see any - 1,000 damage on death - the other SACU around it are laughing
So if you rate all advantages and disadvantages positive and negative values (subjective I know) you would see that RAS SACU are by far superior, especially in an arty war. I am sure the Gap crowd would agree with that from their own experience.
So lets try to rate 2 Mass Fabs + 2 Pgen vs 3 RAS SACU to determine balance in a wider scope. I will put some values in and yes they are my opinion based on almost a decade of playing the game.
*The efficiency of the RAS upgrade is 101.5% as efficiency as 2 T3 Mass Fabs and Pgens in producing mass and 98% as efficient at producing E, so lets say near equal with a small immaterial advantage to the RAS upgrade.
Mass Fab Pgen grid vs RAS SACU comparisson:
-Space (-2)
-AOE Explosion (-3)
-Power Stalling (-2)
-Indirect HP Loss when adjacent (-5)
-Superior return on investment (+5)
-Diseconomies of scale due to pathfinding (-2)
-Self defence (-2)
-Not submersible (-3)
-Immobility (-3)
-No build power (-1)

I get -18 but maybe someone else gets -12 or -25, I dont think the number itself matters.
Basically it all comes down to how many points you want to give to a 30% superior rate of return on the Mass Fab Pgen grid with adjacency but you would have to value that extremely highly just to overcome all the other disadvantages of a RAS SACU. Notice that the RAS upgrade is an income stream without adjacency bonus enhancing it.
I looked at it purely from a stand alone perspective on Github which would give you similar results to this methodology and I think intuitively anyone who frequently plays the late game eco war will tell you that it feels like RAS SACU are way better overall, why else would they build them.
I know this is a scathing review but it is not personal, I am only addressing the limitations of your methodology. I can't make you change your mind. You can stick by your methodology but I am telling you, you are missing the bigger picture of the strategic nature of the game as a whole.
Also you have listed those changes to SACU in that PR, I read it when it first appeared. I do not think those nerfs are good changes but what bothers me is that you say they are out for testing and WILL be in the next patch. You already decided they are going into the game...

@Wheelie
A live Q&A would definitively be more interactive than the silly back and forth posting comments on a forum that no one reads especially if you do it at the conception stage before embarking on a course that will make a mess of the game in many unintended ways. Will just be an organizational mess if too many people want to jump in and all talk over each other...
@Femboy
Thanks for tuning down your tone. I know some people will never get along but that is life. Some contributors over the years left because of the status quo at the time and more may come and eventually leave. If FAF goes on forever then that wont matter, there are toddlers out there who may come to our community one day.
@FtXCommando
I never said what you are quoting me saying.
“should I collaborate with these guys that don’t share my opinions? no”
You are misrepresenting my words and infilling your own made up facts. I will leave it at that. You write so much but say so little.
@Penguin_
Thank you for clarify this. I would still prefer though that this could be sorted peacefully. It would be a step forward if the Balance Team would just agree to an election in which they as a group or individuals would lay out their exact vision of how to improve the game while keeping it balanced and specify which changes are needed to achieve a better game overall. Addressing one small aspect at a time as they have in the past with no end in sight just doesn't cut it for me.
@Lord_Asmodeus
5 Fire Beetles doing 5x1100 damage taking out an entire airgrid when a T3 Pgen has at least 6000 HP.
Building Fire Beetles to take out upgrading mexes or clearing large armies.
Making false assumptions about me and my playstyle, etc...
Come on dude, get real...

Title: A Time For Change: FAF Community Balance Team

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