Multiplayer balancing issues--discussion (plese be civil and constructive)

I was noticing that with new RTS coming out, and a few more 4x TBS games coming out, with supported multiplayer incluing Sins, there has been a lot of talks of games being need to be "balanced" Call me naive or some of us who really never have issues with mulitplayer experiences naive. So just what is this elusive concept call "balance"

I will give examples. In the most simplest of all games between 2 players, Chess is balanced period. Another example where you might consider as having strategy involved and psychology and probability playing a significant is Poker.

In a computer strategy games, RTS or TBS, obviously there has to be fairless between players in the sense that one side are not giving unfair advantage over another, unbalancing units allowing for massive quick builds. achieving such a balance can be done in many different ways.

Another issue is take the classic example of Starcraft 1, or many other example you can come up with, that game has been consider very balance for multiplayer in the sense that for every type of unit, there is a counter unit.

If you don't like RTS, take any avalon hill type computer converted table top war games as examples, I myself never has played much of those. But are those games balanced for both single or multiplayer???

Also if a game is balanced in single player, can the same techniques or principles applying to the single player balancing issue can be successfully applied to multiplayer. This question definitely applies to co-op play.

Finally, can a game be it both mulitplayer and single player be ever be perfectly balanced, or what does the term balanced mean really.

It would be good to hear you people's suggestion. please keep your discussion civil. Thank you

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So just what is this elusive concept call "balance"

Balance is going to mean different things to different people. For some, it's a statistical nightmare that will involve no faction being able to get ahead of another in any conceivable way at a given stage in the game. This sort of balance is an endless struggle and in all my years of gaming, I've never seen a game reach this in a way that made everyone happy.

For others like myself, it's simply a matter of every unit/feature included in the game having a legitimate and worthwhile use.

And for more casual types, it's an annoying buzzword that has no meaning whatsoever because the single-player AI wouldn't know how to play properly if the game were balanced anyway.

Also if a game is balanced in single player, can the same techniques or principles applying to the single player balancing issue can be successfully applied to multiplayer.

Assuming the single and multiplayer games are the exact same experience (in terms of what's available to the players), of course. The AI may not know how to use units effectively but that doesn't change what they're capable of.

Finally, can a game be it both mulitplayer and single player be ever be perfectly balanced

I'd say no, simply because it's impossible to please everyone. Conversations about balance are never going to go away unless the forum mods adopt an iron-fist policy and delete any thread that pops up on the subject. For those who are bothered by such things, my advice is to simply enjoy the game and stop taking it all so bloody personally.

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Balance is going to mean different things to different people. For some, it's a statistical nightmare that will involve no faction being able to get ahead of another in any conceivable way at a given stage in the game. (1)

For others like myself, it's simply a matter of every unit/feature included in the game having a legitimate and worthwhile use. (2)

I'd say no, simply because it's impossible to please everyone. Conversations about balance are never going to go away unless the forum mods adopt an iron-fist policy and delete any thread that pops up on the subject. (3)

For those who are bothered by such things, my advice is to simply enjoy the game and stop taking it all so bloody personally. (4)

(1) I have seen some designers attempt this brute force naive method of balance, and you're right. It isn't pretty. Thankfully, most game designers have gone away from this in general.

(2) This is the de facto 'standard' for balancing games these days. It's both the easiest and most effective way and gets away from a lot of game theory problems, keeps redundancies out etc. The key technique to do doing this is to not have every consideration in your game be based on math. If your game consists of two robots fighting and one has 10 health and does 5 damage and the other has 6 health and does 11 damage - it's very easy to see that to balance the robots, they have to be exactly the same. You can complicate this by giving them different numerical statistics and bogging down your game with numbers, but there are easier and more effective ways.

A great deal of this game IS based on math, but the racial tech trees and the different techs (in effect, different game rules for each race) add a bit to the mix. Also many abilities are either not math-heavy or 'break' rules found elsewhere in the game. Gravity wells have a... complex and subtle affect on gameplay that I'm not sure has quite been explored yet. There are non-mathematical effects in the game like chokepoints which affect overall gameplay to a degree that can't be given a number. Etc. etc. etc.

But in general, it is pretty much EXACTLY like you said. The key is to have so many and diverse paths to victory that there isn't necessarily an optimal path - and if there is an optimal path, maybe an only-slightly-less optimal path is the 'counter' or at least very good against the optimal one. Diversity also has the nice effect of making the game more strategic and more interesting at every point along the progression.

(3) The perfect is the enemy of the good. Even the head Blizzard guys (infamous for delays) have this as their mantra. However, I would make a note that a lot of people use this point to argue that balance isn't worth trying for. So I'd add a corollary: the bad is also the enemy of the good.

(4) QFT. Even if we all disagree, we can at least be civil and agree to disagree.

By the way, very good OP with good examples

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And for more casual types, it's an annoying buzzword that has no meaning whatsoever because the single-player AI wouldn't know how to play properly if the game were balanced anyway.Also if a game is balanced in single player, can the same techniques or principles applying to the single player balancing issue can be successfully applied to multiplayer.

The reason why devs are usually a little timid to alter unit values in an RTS is that if the single player and multiplayer aspects share the same unit database, and if you have a whole pile of scripts and events and triggers that depend on a unit being in such and such a state after so much time or so many hits or whatever in your big single player campaign, then changing the units for multiplayer can potentially flow on and break thousands of hours of work on the SP campaign. In Sins, however, there is no cutscene in the single player campaign which depends on the advent mothership being alive for 5 minutes, triggering a big speech at 95% damage and then being able to stay alive while it warps out.

The only reason 'balancing' between SP and MP could come up in Sins is if someone decides to 'fix' the AI through a series of unit database altering kludges. But that's just silly, as well as begging for a massive headache.

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