The new balance frontier: Modes and settings
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Here's my latest disruptive idea: FAF could "freeze" balance changes to units and core mechanics in favor of changing maps and modes.
What does this mean? Assuming a static unit/faction balance, maps and modes can vary to improve gameplay balance.
Let's summarize what we know already about maps:
- Maps with lots of islands favor amphibious units
- Maps with lots of water favor ships
- Large maps favor air units and strategic weapons
- Small maps with few players favor T1 spam
- Maps with many players but few choke points favor turtling and strategic weapons
- Team maps with same-team spawns close together also favor turtling
- Mex points close together in few clusters favor tech and ACU upgrades. Mex points spread evenly over the map favors quick T1 aggression.
All that only applies to "standard" games with standard resources, fog, and assassination with full share. Let's talk about how different modes change balance:
- Team games with "share until death" greatly favor assassinating the ACU and do not disfavor, but greatly penalize ACU aggression.
- Full vision disadvantages Cybran which has stealth and strategic weapons which can rely on surprise (nukes).
- 2x resources favors teching up quickly and spamming late-game resource generators (SCU, massfabs)
Now for the fun part, conjecture. Here is how adding new gameplay modes can change balance:
- 1.5x Increase all unit speed: Buffs T1 spam and tank spam, also buffs air units.
- 0.67x Nerf to all unit speed: Buffs static defenses, indirect-combat units, teching and turtling.
- 2.0x Increase to firepower: Buffs assassination, indirect combat units, surprise attacks, early aggression.
- 0.1x Nerf to all resource generation: Much longer games, more T1 spam, less tech, more emphasis on small engagements, greater emphasis on reclamation/wrecks.
- Pre-built T1 bases: Slightly shorter games
- Vampire rules (kill converts unit to your Army): Games spiral more quickly and take less time as comeback effect of wrecks is reversed.
For even more fun, we can change modes in more complex ways:
- Metagame (Galactic War): The balance of how pre-deployed assets are purchased and how other buffs/nerfs are applied to a specific match greatly exceeds the relevance of small changes to unit/faction balance.
- Player handicaps (e.g. 0.9x Resource cost/build time reduction for 200 rating difference): Reduces the need to balance obsessively, allows high rating players to play against low rating players on otherwise even terms.
- FFA: Greatly favors teching/turtling and minimal aggression, favors diplomacy and secret pacts, favors assassination (or otherwise killing each enemy in a single, quick strike)
- Time limit/victory based on kills/mex controlled/other metric: Can favor caution or map control, depending on what is counted in the final victory tally.
- Defense object: Favors teching/turtling
- Moving defense object: Favors ACU upgrades
- High-tech pre-built base with 0.2x resource regeneration: Favors sustained aggression with T3 units, elongation of T3 combat stage
- King of the Hill: It's complicated, but it usually favors teching into a quick last-minute strike on the hill converting into a turtle on the hill.
And now for the most fun of all, some suggestions for complex new modes:
- Drone assassination: Standard team game a resource generation nerf (0.5x) to reduce aggression and eco-whoring. After 5 minutes, a "target" unit will be selected for each team. This unit will be highlighted to the enemy team. Upon destruction of said unit, enemy team gains 1 point, +0.1x to their resource multiplier, and a new unit is designated as the target.
- Asymetrical start: Team A starts with a large pre-built base, Team B starts with a large army.
- Ion Storm: Standard game, but starting at 5 minutes, all units (except ACU) no longer accept new orders for 60 seconds (representing failure of ACU communications). This effective is applied on and off, periodically.
These are just a few of my ideas, and certainly the ones that are simpler to explain. FAF is now a mature game, it's time to start acting like it.
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- Why? What does this solve?
- Balance patches have consistently improved the game, I seen no reason to freeze them
- All of these options would be better as mods
- This would require massive dev time
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"faf is now a mature game, it's time to start acting like it"
explain uef teleport upgrade
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- New modes achieve balance through variety.
- It's fine if balance patches continue, I'm just saying they don't have to.
- Yes, new modes can achieve new modes.
- Also true.
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@deribus Maybe I should provide an analogy. Advance Wars By Web has three league modes: Standard, Fog, and High Funds. These are all 1v1 modes.
Standard is fog off. Fog has fog on, obviously. High funds has 2x resources. I think it's interesting that FAF's matchmaker only varies on team size, 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4, when it could present
If you imagine a balance problem, such as air being overpowered, you could take some actions that nerf air indirectly:
1- 1v1 mode with hydro-less, high mass density maps.
2- 3v3 mode with wide maps wherein same-team allies are far apart, but opposite-team enemies are close together. (In AWBW terms, this would be called a "mixed base map" because there are many smaller fronts instead of a single, larger front.) -
The introduction of the 3v3 queue has cannibalized a lot of the activity of the 4v4 queue. I think this shows pretty well that we can't sustain many parallel queues
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- That doesn't answer why. What problem exists that this is attempting to solve? And how would it solve it better than balance changes?
- So... make these mods and play them as mods. Why push them to default game?
