Balance Philosophy Discussion

[Easy_Lee]

Out of all the heroes on the roster, about half almost never see competitive play. This has been the case for a long time, and I think it needs to be addressed.

Right now, we're getting a new hero once every 2-3 weeks. But there's a patch every Friday. Tweaking old heroes who don't see much use is much easier and can be done more more quickly than releasing new heroes.

When heroes are remade or severely tweaked, nobody knows how it's going to affect gameplay. Sometimes the changes result in an almost entirely new hero that people can play with, such as Krakken or Keeper of the Forest when they were remade. It's exciting, and everyone starts playing the hero again. People also start buying alternate costumes for the hero if they like the changes (I did this with Vindicator).

Some people won't like the changes, but it's still exciting. Even if it goes against the way the hero was originally designed, changes are still good because they spark interest. And they're easy to undo or redo if absolutely necessary.

In addition, if underused heroes get remakes, we may start seeing them in competitive play (again, like Krakken and Keeper). This makes competitive play more exciting and makes the metagame change faster. I personally get bored when I see the same heroes in every competitive game. I'd love to start seeing underused heroes like bloodhunter, moon queen, blacksmith, etc start getting used again based off some easy changes.

[Ekamo]

I will open this discussion for a short while simply because I feel this sort of mind-set in this forum needs to be addressed.

From this thread I expect a discussion on balancing philosophy, and will delete and infract all posts that do not attempt to follow this requirement. I let the first post open this discussion simply because a side is taken and a the post attempts to start a discussion which I feel this forum badly needs in order to be more unified in future discussions.

So basically the question of the thread is:
Should balance be undertaken incrementally with smaller changes at a time, or should the approach of more extreme remakes be taken instead? A proper justification needed in order for your post to not be deleted.

[`11411181]

I don't think there's a reason for them to be mutually exclusive options, Ekamo. In saying that, if you can demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that something is all-or-nothing in terms of the effect it has upon a hero AND it doesn't foster either good gameplay (a means to an end) or decisions made within the game - then I don't see the need to *****foot around playing with numbers to confirm what you already know.
Balance is about looking for gameplay solutions whilst preserving design intentions, but if a gameplay solution isn't forthcoming then design intentions must, of necessity, bend. Design is NEVER infallible at any point.

[rancewong]

Remake for heroes whose design concept / skill set are basically bad (eg:gemi:)
Number tweaking for heroes whose design is awesome but just bad in numbers (eg:soulr:)
2 different approaches should be applied together and there's no reason to select only one of them.

Recent balance patches are mostly "small changes" which is way too insig (eg -0.X agi gain/lv). Small changes are a good start for balance, but the steps are too small and make no "psychological" impact towards players perception on a hero. I don't mind S2 make bigger changes (say +10 base int for hero X), hear the comments and then tune it down if necessary.

[skeloperch]

The only heroes deserving of a remake are heroes that cannot be balanced after several attempts at doing so, IE Sand Wraith. If a hero can seemingly not be balanced, I think it should be time to go back to the drawing board for the offending skills, and/or the hero itself. There are certain cases were these heroes are just too Min/Max to fix properly via number changes, and that's when a design work around is a viable option.

[SomethingOdd]

Smaller changes are generally the better choice, because they can we be undone without ramifications. By tweaking the numbers, a problem can be fixed without possible making another, as a remake might do, scout for example: When disarm was remade, animation canceling would restart the cooldown without disarming.. Tweaking the skill a little bit wouldn't of had a problem like this afaik.
Bugs do affect heroes balance wise, until they are fixed, If monkey king's combo did too much damage, and no one noticed he could be considered OP.
Remakes can be risky, balance wise, it's better to play it safe.

[`11411181]

"When disarm was remade, animation canceling would restart the cooldown without disarming."
Attention to coding and proper RCT testing prevents this.

[SomethingOdd]

"When disarm was remade, animation canceling would restart the cooldown without disarming."
Attention to coding and proper RCT testing prevents this.

But, did they?
If it happened, it's going to happen again.

[PzKw]

That's just like saying that when HoN was made, it contained pathing errors, therefore no one should ever make new games.

[KawaiChan]

The thing is, S2 is very cautious about doing remake. Look what happen to Vindi and scout. A lot of issue and complains after its remake. My point is to bring back the DEV Mode so they can aggressively do the remake without affecting the current stable hero pool.

[Hsssh]

Problem with Dev mode is that you can't have it in MM obviously so only public games remain, but how many people will play dev mode? Only a fraction of them so in the end you have rather small userbase that tries it out.

[Farosarg]

Considering it's a game, the design and balance philosophy should rotate around the fun-factor too. Even if the hero could be balanced with numeral changes, in some cases a rework is the better course of action when the design just isn't either fun (Sandwraith is a good example of this for me.) or just too troublesome for the whole game (Old Vindicator aura.)

Small changes are always good to make when it is likely that the skill/hero is not a problem design-wise or when it comes to fun-factor. But reworks should not be shunned either when one is needed.

[SomethingOdd]

Considering it's a game, the design and balance philosophy should rotate around the fun-factor too. Even if the hero could be balanced with numeral changes, in some cases a rework is the better course of action when the design just isn't either fun (Sandwraith is a good example of this for me.) or just too troublesome for the whole game (Old Vindicator aura.)

Small changes are always good to make when it is likely that the skill/hero is not a problem design-wise or when it comes to fun-factor. But reworks should not be shunned either when one is needed.

S2 is not riot. Just because something isn't 'fun' doesn't mean we can change it, otherwise:
OMG GUSIE LOSING ISN'T FUN, LET'S REMOVE THAT!!!

[Reldnahc]

It is all within regard to the hero in question. Some designs create so many problems that balance will never be reasonably achieved in their state and thus partial or full remakes must take effect. Other times a design is so toxic that it creates an unhealthy game that isn't fun nor reasonable. Simplest thing I can think of off the top of my head is the OHKO moves in Pokemon. They have horrendous accuracy, but can instantly kill any pokemon. There is a balanced trade off with the skills, but the moves create an unhealthy game that is nothing more than a roll of the dice.

[Balls`n`Nuts]

Small changes are always good to make when it is likely that the skill/hero is not a problem design-wise or when it comes to fun-factor. But reworks should not be shunned either when one is needed.

I agree with everything but the "fun-factor"

I liked S2's approached with the in-game questionnaire and would love to see more of that. As it imo gives more adequate overall feedback.

If it is to be addressed why some heroes do not see play any real competitive play, S2 must work faster on the "small changes"
Imo there are to many heroes that are "stable heroes." One obvious solution is tweaking excising heroes. However that might take a while.
Suggestion has to be made, nerfs/buffs have to be implemented and discussions on if the correct nerfs/buffs where made simply takes to long.
However if S2 doesn't do things like they currently do, there is a chance of the balancing simply being out of place.

So meanwhile why doesn't s2 fix the real problem of competitive play and ad more bans to Banning Pick?
This should solve problems with unfair or recurring match-ups. They said they would rework the modes in the newsletter a while back, so why don't they?
107 heroes and still the same number of bans?
Doesn't make sense.

[Meconium]

I don't think the influx of "generic electric boogaloo" heroes is going to help anything much. If anything, it looks like S2 have adopted Riots "anti-fun" logic.

Then again, I can't really blame S2 for having poor viability. Trying to balance a game around Dota is not going to work despite what the IceFrog phallus suckers over at playdota say. The game was a compilation of throwing random **** together and it still reflects today.

If anyone is serious about making a truly competitive AoS game today, it needs to be built from the ground up, and every hero designed from day 1. Right now its just about money-grabbing, so I would give up this pipe dream that all heroes will one day be completely viable.

[foxmindedguy]

S2 is not riot. Just because something isn't 'fun' doesn't mean we can change it, otherwise:
OMG GUSIE LOSING ISN'T FUN, LET'S REMOVE THAT!!!

Um... Riot doesn't practice "Remove Losing from game" either. Fun factor takes into account an imaginary ratio between fun to play a certain hero vs. anti-fun of playing against him.

Old Vindicator was not too much fun to play and was insanely annoying when against anyone generally (but combo heroes more so). Therefore, he was changed and made more generalized (because I believe HON is taking the route of less-specialized roles).

Back to your argument: If HON did not consider fun factor at all (coming from SBT, I know for a fact that they do pay special attention to it) then they might have ended up with a completely bland game, which almost no one would bother to play. GAMES ARE SUPPOSE TO BE FUN, that is the reason why Street Fighter IV has relatively less following than Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

[Farosarg]

S2 is not riot. Just because something isn't 'fun' doesn't mean we can change it, otherwise:
OMG GUSIE LOSING ISN'T FUN, LET'S REMOVE THAT!!!

Fun-factor. Meaning if the hero is just not played because no-one cares about the hero because it is just boring to play then what's the point of having such a hero, especially if it doesn't affect the meta in any way. And there have been tons of changes that have been made because of fun-factor, the big one being the focus of the meta turned away from the hard-carry super-late game farming matches.

Which is funny that you bring up Riot when their competitive meta is "3-6 score at 35min and teams are still gonna farm 10 more minutes before we start to see big movement" and I hear it's been like that for a long time...

[PlayeroJ]

Um... Riot doesn't practice "Remove Losing from game" either. Fun factor takes into account an imaginary ratio between fun to play a certain hero vs. anti-fun of playing against him.

Old Vindicator was not too much fun to play and was insanely annoying when against anyone generally (but combo heroes more so). Therefore, he was changed and made more generalized (because I believe HON is taking the route of less-specialized roles).

Back to your argument: If HON did not consider fun factor at all (coming from SBT, I know for a fact that they do pay special attention to it) then they might have ended up with a completely bland game, which almost no one would bother to play. GAMES ARE SUPPOSE TO BE FUN, that is the reason why Street Fighter IV has relatively less following than Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

That entire concept of fun factor is retarded. They re-worked vindi because he was too problematic for their new heroes; plenty of people including me found vindi to be fun to play as and what strong hero is fun to play against?

[Demonwing]

I don't think there's a reason for them to be mutually exclusive options, Ekamo. In saying that, if you can demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that something is all-or-nothing in terms of the effect it has upon a hero AND it doesn't foster either good gameplay (a means to an end) or decisions made within the game - then I don't see the need to *****foot around playing with numbers to confirm what you already know.
Balance is about looking for gameplay solutions whilst preserving design intentions, but if a gameplay solution isn't forthcoming then design intentions must, of necessity, bend. Design is NEVER infallible at any point.

How does one go about demonstrating such a thing without first "*****foot"ing around with numbers for verification?

You cannot have the latter without the former. As such, It is pretty clear that the focus of balancing efforts should be on number tweaking. Remakes cannot reasonably occur until such efforts have been made.

[Ekamo]

How does one go about demonstrating such a thing without first "*****foot"ing around with numbers for verification?

You cannot have the latter without the former. As such, It is pretty clear that the focus of balancing efforts should be on number tweaking. Remakes cannot reasonably occur until such efforts have been made.

For the record, I read your long posts in the other thread (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?425742-Community-Patch-Reception) and this is sort of a spin-off of that discussion.

If the current iteration of a hero does not achieve what the original design intent was, and there are clear solutions to promote that specific design intent, then I'd much rather see a well thought through remake of such rather than assuming that the original design was infallible in its creation. So many mistakes has been made in hero design in this genre's history, and examining heroes with problems and possibly revising such I do not necessarily see a problem with. Likewise, if the original design intent turns out to be flawed, and sub-optimal, similar reexaminations of heroes to assess their capability and role in the game are logical steps, at least according to me.
Problem arises when a certain view of design and its implementation actually is more detrimental to the game as whole than the small gains that are made in other areas. A great example of this is Vindicator where the reasons given to change him did not compensate for what was lost (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?403703-2-5-14-Vindicator&p=14993231&viewfull=1#post14993231). Obviously this is something which can be expanded on infinitely, but hopefully my point still was made clear.

I earlier wrote a post (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?420962-2-5-22-Thunderbringer&p=15127496&viewfull=1#post15127496) about this which was not directly related to this discussion, but which I feel covers certain aspects of the argument. Feel free to read.


How does one go about demonstrating such a thing without first "*****foot"ing around with numbers for verification?
By analyzing. Discussing by basing it off the few samples you have available, and then through objective argumentation trying to refute and support assertions made about a hero's design. This is partly what this forum is for.

It might not be as perfect as trying to achieve a certain design-goal by constantly tweaking numbers in a closed environment, run millions of simulations in a short amount of time and then examine all that data; unfortunately though that is not a tool any modern game developer has access to since the human factor restricts the amounts of runs you can do for each new tweak.

[Farosarg]

That entire concept of fun factor is retarded. They re-worked vindi because he was too problematic for their new heroes; plenty of people including me found vindi to be fun to play as and what strong hero is fun to play against?

Most strong heroes are fun to play against. Surprisingly it's the less picked heroes that are frustrating to play against (Martyr, Engineer, Rampage...) and when a new hero is designed and tested the hero needs to be interesting to play or there is no worth for it. (*coughDraconiscough*)

[`11411181]

How does one go about demonstrating such a thing without first "*****foot"ing around with numbers for verification?

You cannot have the latter without the former. As such, It is pretty clear that the focus of balancing efforts should be on number tweaking. Remakes cannot reasonably occur until such efforts have been made.

Design is never infallible, and you're rather zealously implying that there is no way of knowing whether design is flawed beforehand - despite it being a simple matter of measurement and analysis.
A lot of this stems from your apparent false belief of trial and error as the only way to balance a game; by implementing any solution and measuring its effects, rather than defining an end goal, analyzing the current effects and implementing an appropriate solution that satisfies the criteria set to achieve your end goal.

[PlayeroJ]

Most strong heroes are fun to play against. Surprisingly it's the less picked heroes that are frustrating to play against (Martyr, Engineer, Rampage...) and when a new hero is designed and tested the hero needs to be interesting to play or there is no worth for it. (*coughDraconiscough*)

Buy barbed armor and engi is fun to play against if he piles mines like most idiots, rampage just get void/tablet/ss with wards and tp's(important items to have always). Not sure what you mean by fun to play against because I'm not seeing as how silhouette beating me is more fun than rampage beating me? So is this thread a good placee for me to ask why devourer's back-swing got nerfed? Positioning against this hero has become a joke now...

[R4GE]

Personally I think S2 should lay off the new heroes. Try introducing no new heroes for a month or so, and the metagame will stabilise and the same heroes will be used again and again. Then tweak the pool until heroes are alot more balanced, and then instead of mindlessly creating a new hero, analysing the metagame and choosing a spot where something is missing (eg. when everyone ran the very boring trilane strat, eventually jungle heroes were buffed and the metagame changed. I think this sort of more careful introduction of new heroes and balancing would be alot more useful to the overall balance of the game.

[Rkey]

The way I see it, most competetive players want to play "safe" when it comes to tournaments, and seting something up with like a :devo: or something is risky.

I think that moste heroes have their usage, and to get this discussion further you would have to go hero specific. For example, I see the :bloo: nullfire-rush as a valid strat (you can purge the silence of a carry on your team and boom, free dd). I don't think what we need is more balance, but more players to test things out. Who knows, a roaming :behe: can set stuff up for :devo:, and my support :gaun: has had it's moments.

[trout0x]

For the record, I read your long posts in the other thread (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?425742-Community-Patch-Reception) and this is sort of a spin-off of that discussion.

If the current iteration of a hero does not achieve what the original design intent was, and there are clear solutions to promote that specific design intent, then I'd much rather see a well thought through remake of such rather than assuming that the original design was infallible in its creation. So many mistakes has been made in hero design in this genre's history, and examining heroes with problems and possibly revising such I do not necessarily see a problem with. Likewise, if the original design intent turns out to be flawed, and sub-optimal, similar reexaminations of heroes to assess their capability and role in the game are logical steps, at least according to me.
Problem arises when a certain view of design and its implementation actually is more detrimental to the game as whole than the small gains that are made in other areas. A great example of this is Vindicator where the reasons given to change him did not compensate for what was lost (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?403703-2-5-14-Vindicator&p=14993231&viewfull=1#post14993231). Obviously this is something which can be expanded on infinitely, but hopefully my point still was made clear.

I earlier wrote a post (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?420962-2-5-22-Thunderbringer&p=15127496&viewfull=1#post15127496) about this which was not directly related to this discussion, but which I feel covers certain aspects of the argument. Feel free to read.


By analyzing. Discussing by basing it off the few samples you have available, and then through objective argumentation trying to refute and support assertions made about a hero's design. This is partly what this forum is for.

It might not be as perfect as trying to achieve a certain design-goal by constantly tweaking numbers in a closed environment, run millions of simulations in a short amount of time and then examine all that data; unfortunately though that is not a tool any modern game developer has access to since the human factor restricts the amounts of runs you can do for each new tweak.

This is an excellent explanation. Cleared up some concerns I have had. I'm glad that remakes would aim to achieve what the original design was intended to achieve, I had all kinds of horrible misgivings about carries being turned into gankers or a unique hero being homogenised...

You know what, lol, some people seemed to hint that such data runs/simulations/empirical proof of flawed designs DID in fact exist, your explanation helps me understand that it's not that balance is impossible just that given the constraints involved a remake may be a more LOGICAL option. I felt as though people believed that certain things were in effect completely impossible to balance (which I couldn't wrap my head around); suggesting such a thing made me imagine a graph like this: Where a value of 10 would represent perfect balance, but was impossible to obtain.

http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/trout0r/graph.jpg

[Farosarg]

Personally I think S2 should lay off the new heroes. Try introducing no new heroes for a month or so, and the metagame will stabilise and the same heroes will be used again and again.

Jungle heroes weren't actually buffed. Actually they were nerfed when stacking leash-time was lowered, though that nerfed the trilane-meta as well when the supports weren't able to stack as effectively for the farming carry. Jungling meta was mostly re-discovered because of the huge xp lead they were able to get (SK-dual jungle strat.) Another thing you might not have noticed is that heroes released after Artesia? are disabled in Tournament mode. So that's last 11 heroes when you count in Ravenor.

Aside from that I agree with the rest.

[Demonwing]

If the current iteration of a hero does not achieve what the original design intent was. . .

This is where I disagree. I do not think original intent is entirely relevant. Many breakthroughs in genres have been from unintended mechanics (most glaring in DotA/HoN being creep pulling and stacking). If a hero's gameplay and mechanics are unintended yet still balanced and "fun", I do not see a reason why it should be changed.

Also, while theoretically your statement is quite reasonable, one must look at reality. If such analysis and thought was actually being put into hero reworks, it would be completely acceptable. When users who know little about what they are talking about continue to try to hammer home illogical and baseless "necessities" of hero reworks, however, is where issues begin to occur.

Reworks should be considered after a thorough, public analysis of the hero in its current forum. Balancing philosophy should not be "rework unless the original concept is proven good". It should be "No rework unless the concept is proven to be broken". There is way too much of the former going on.

Remember to not fall into the slippery slope where, technically, every design can be improved upon and reworked. Reworks should only be done in cases where a design is actually broken, not just "not quite as good as it could theoretically be in my head eventually".

[pewpewstar]

This is where I disagree. I do not think original intent is entirely relevant...

...Remember to not fall into the slippery slope where, technically, every design can be improved upon and reworked. Reworks should only be done in cases where a design is actually broken, not just "not quite as good as it could theoretically be in my head eventually".

While I agree that design intent isn't entirely relevant (in fact I think it's totally irrelevant to functionality), I don't think anyone has ever called for reworks because a hero design isn't PERFECT.

Identify problems and fix/improve, then escalate to design if it's beyond number tweaking - my simple balance principle. When external considerations such as intent get involved, things get unnecessarily complex; if design isn't infallible, intent much more so.

Just look at what Nome 'intended' and how they turned out ;p smileys ^_________^

[Antimodus]

As for the dissipation% power graph, do you guys really think there is that "tipping point" that suddenly turns him OP?
In my mind, it has always been the illusion orbs and lengthier ult duration that made him so strong lategame back then. The dissipate nerf seemed unnecessary to me and still does, tho SW has been since buffed in other areas.

[Demonwing]

Identify problems and fix/improve, then escalate to design if it's beyond number tweaking - my simple balance principle. When external considerations such as intent get involved, things get unnecessarily complex; if design isn't infallible, intent much more so.


I agree entirely

[PzKw]

Um... Riot doesn't practice "Remove Losing from game" either. Fun factor takes into account an imaginary ratio between fun to play a certain hero vs. anti-fun of playing against him.

Old Vindicator was not too much fun to play and was insanely annoying when against anyone generally (but combo heroes more so). Therefore, he was changed and made more generalized (because I believe HON is taking the route of less-specialized roles).

Back to your argument: If HON did not consider fun factor at all (coming from SBT, I know for a fact that they do pay special attention to it) then they might have ended up with a completely bland game, which almost no one would bother to play. GAMES ARE SUPPOSE TO BE FUN, that is the reason why Street Fighter IV has relatively less following than Marvel vs. Capcom 3.


This is an excellent explanation. Cleared up some concerns I have had. I'm glad that remakes would aim to achieve what the original design was intended to achieve, I had all kinds of horrible misgivings about carries being turned into gankers or a unique hero being homogenised...

You know what, lol, some people seemed to hint that such data runs/simulations/empirical proof of flawed designs DID in fact exist, your explanation helps me understand that it's not that balance is impossible just that given the constraints involved a remake may be a more LOGICAL option. I felt as though people believed that certain things were in effect completely impossible to balance (which I couldn't wrap my head around); suggesting such a thing made me imagine a graph like this: Where a value of 10 would represent perfect balance, but was impossible to obtain.

http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/trout0r/graph.jpg
Clearly a simplification, but not as far off as you'd think. I'll elaborate on it later.

[Ekamo]

This is where I disagree. I do not think original intent is entirely relevant. Many breakthroughs in genres have been from unintended mechanics (most glaring in DotA/HoN being creep pulling and stacking). If a hero's gameplay and mechanics are unintended yet still balanced and "fun", I do not see a reason why it should be changed.

Also, while theoretically your statement is quite reasonable, one must look at reality. If such analysis and thought was actually being put into hero reworks, it would be completely acceptable. When users who know little about what they are talking about continue to try to hammer home illogical and baseless "necessities" of hero reworks, however, is where issues begin to occur.

Reworks should be considered after a thorough, public analysis of the hero in its current forum. Balancing philosophy should not be "rework unless the original concept is proven good". It should be "No rework unless the concept is proven to be broken". There is way too much of the former going on.

Remember to not fall into the slippery slope where, technically, every design can be improved upon and reworked. Reworks should only be done in cases where a design is actually broken, not just "not quite as good as it could theoretically be in my head eventually".
Replace "original" with "broken", since I do in fact realize that the original intent is a flawed basis. In an optimal design environment, heroes would be put into the game to increase the diversity in the game's design, but with the current rate (edit: what WAS the current rate up until today :D ) of which heroes are produced, this type of analysis can not take place to the same extent as it should. I do realize the flaw in my initial premise, and instead want to base my argumentation on this "broken" basis.

The hard process is to discern what is a "broken" concept, and what is not, but it can actually be done in a manner where subjectiveness is minimized (but not completely eliminated). When it comes down to design-matters, there will always be some level of subjectiveness, since design is an intrinsically subjective concept. It is a matter of what things in the game you want to promote, and how to reach that specific goal. In order to discern what should be promoted, tons and tons of analysis and discussion must take place, where one leaves out their subjective opinion and instead focuses on what a hero actually brings to the table by looking at many different aspects such as uniqueness from other heroes, what drafting options the hero creates, type of gameplay it promotes, mechanics, and just generally the diversity the hero brings to the entire hero pool. Even though this is still a subjective matter, it becomes less and less so when the discussion about said hero has a great deal of people involved who are prepared to bring different viewpoints, and more importantly, admit that they are wrong. In a perfect world, matters should through extended discussions be able to be broken down into smaller parts where subjectiveness is reduced to logical approach, and in the end, some sort of consensus should be able to be reached. This process requires very extensive knowledge from all parts though, and more so, an open mind, which leads me to a quandary about the following statement:



Reworks should be considered after a thorough, public analysis of the hero in its current forum. Balancing philosophy should not be "rework unless the original concept is proven good". It should be "No rework unless the concept is proven to be broken". There is way too much of the former going on.
I might have misinterpreted what you meant by public, but I would greatly appreciate for you to expand on that, since I believe the entire general public is highly unsuitable for decision-making in matters of design and balance, and hence why this sub-forum tend to (and should!) have a very elitist approach.

[OJPhoenix]

Balance should incorperate both types of solutions, numbers should be tweaked, unless the numbers aren't the actual problem, in which case then design needs to be altered.

Gaunlet's old glove nuke buff allowed his old ultimate to deal unbelievably huge damage to all enemy heroes in a line, this is an example of design flaw. The numbers were a problem yes, but it was only because of the design that allowed them to interact they way they did.

Valkyrie's Javelin nerf was purely numbers, it was a bit too easy to land that 5 second stun at rank 1; now it feels like it scales incrementally like most abilities do.

It tends to be situational, sometimes the numbers are the problem and sometimes the design is the problem, its always case by case. That said, I still feel that a priority should go to altering numbers before altering a concept. That doesn't mean we need to see it, but the thought process should take that route. If I was to use the Gauntlet example again, reducing the numbers on his abilities would make them far too weak when used individually, which should not be the case. Therefore it was the interaction design that was the actual problem at hand.

I also feel however that a hero's theme or original intent should be kept in tact.
However the problem arises when decided what that might be. I always felt that Vindicator's theme was a "decision maker" in that you're opponent had to approach him by deciding which of the presented problems should be tackled. That he had carry potential, was part of the decision process: does the enemy team ignore Vindicator only to receive a pounding from his damage output; or do they focus Vindicator at the cost of being psudo-controlled so to make it easier for his team to back him up?
Of course though, that was simply how I felt about it, I don't know exactly what Vindicator was supposed to be doing in the first place, hence the problem of viewpoint.

As it was pointed out, Vindicator did not get compensation for his losses in the remake, but his numbers can be improved from here. He had a design flaw and was remade as a result. Personally I would have been okay had his Glyph of Silence only worked when someone cast a spell on Vindicator, as it would have enhanced the theme that I thought he was (and should still be?).

To properly attempt to assess the purpose behind a hero you need to see the play style(s), strengths and weaknesses at the very least.
The Thunderbringer thread has seen a fair amount of discussion without this assessment going on. Someone did point out though that people tend to point out the cons without saying the pros. Both are quite relevant, as cons are a means of balancing pros. Thunderbringer is designed to unleash a lot of damage and has pros to this extent, its designed that he be so good at this, that he has to lose other things.

[Demonwing]

I might have misinterpreted what you meant by public, but I would greatly appreciate for you to expand on that, since I believe the entire general public is highly unsuitable for decision-making in matters of design and balance, and hence why this sub-forum tend to (and should!) have a very elitist approach.

I have seen far too many (In my opinion soundly false) statements backed up by nothing more than "if you don't understand the logic then you are just stupid" or "we (aka him/her and 1 or 2 friends) analyzed this (privately) and determined that we are right. No need to repeat it."

It isn't like MSI is coming in and giving balance conclusions here. If that were the case, sure I would give a little benefit of the doubt because of reputation. When it's just a bunch of public players of random skill levels, however, they had better make their logic very clear and lay their argument out thoroughly. I should hope this forum isn't just a venue for "elitists" to flame others. Every single reasonable debate I've seen has turned into the "elitists" telling the "commoners" that they are just bad and don't deserve a rebuttal and the "commoners" telling the "elitists" to go stuff it.

There is no point in having a thread at all if everyone is expected to defer to the "elitists" regardless. In that case, it can't really be called a discussion.

[Hsssh]

If I was to use the Gauntlet example again, reducing the numbers on his abilities would make them far too weak when used individually, which should not be the case. Therefore it was the interaction design that was the actual problem at hand.

Good point imo. I believe some heroes do have this problem in HoN. Namely Blitz and Midas where "unhealthy" combos and forced synergies were kept in place while every other number got hit, as a result we have rather flawed heroes who aren't very strong unless they manage to combo their target. Obviously this is a bit of hyperbole, both heroes have some redeeming features but in the end are heavily hindered by these forced synergies.


I might have misinterpreted what you meant by public, but I would greatly appreciate for you to expand on that, since I believe the entire general public is highly unsuitable for decision-making in matters of design and balance, and hence why this sub-forum tend to (and should!) have a very elitist approach.

Nerf Swiftblade, dirty op.


You know what, lol, some people seemed to hint that such data runs/simulations/empirical proof of flawed designs DID in fact exist, your explanation helps me understand that it's not that balance is impossible just that given the constraints involved a remake may be a more LOGICAL option. I felt as though people believed that certain things were in effect completely impossible to balance (which I couldn't wrap my head around); suggesting such a thing made me imagine a graph like this: Where a value of 10 would represent perfect balance, but was impossible to obtain.

Well its hard to properly explain stuff when a) We are not sure how much exactly we can tell about process b) people come from different backgrounds and English isn't native language for some so there is slightly different understanding in what exactly some concepts mean. So there is nothing strange that there was some misunderstanding.

Also i believe that numbers and exceptions can "balance" everything. But i don't think that this is right thing to do. I work with software developments for example, with smart code/numbers here and there and some exceptions thrown in we can make work pretty much anything. But usually people try to avoid these things and would rather just rewrite whole method instead of trying to patch it up, why? Because it will be hard to understand how exactly it works, because it will be hard to maintain and because changes in working environment might have unforeseen consequences. Where i'm going with this is that even if we balance every hero by numbers to "perfect state" then some of them will look like card houses, new hero/item released or some functionally changed might blow this house away and we'll end up with broken hero, then good luck in fixing him and trying to understand what effect all these strange exceptions and weird numbers have on overall game.

Better to make hero "cleaner" and easier to maintain in the long run.

[PzKw]

I have seen far too many (In my opinion soundly false) statements backed up by nothing more than "if you don't understand the logic then you are just stupid" or "we (aka him/her and 1 or 2 friends) analyzed this (privately) and determined that we are right. No need to repeat it."

It isn't like MSI is coming in and giving balance conclusions here. If that were the case, sure I would give a little benefit of the doubt because of reputation. When it's just a bunch of public players of random skill levels, however, they had better make their logic very clear and lay their argument out thoroughly. I should hope this forum isn't just a venue for "elitists" to flame others. Every single reasonable debate I've seen has turned into the "elitists" telling the "commoners" that they are just bad and don't deserve a rebuttal and the "commoners" telling the "elitists" to go stuff it.

There is no point in having a thread at all if everyone is expected to defer to the "elitists" regardless. In that case, it can't really be called a discussion.

These are mostly valid concerns that I share. That's why last time I left the forum, when I came back I tore someone apart for elitism and intellectual laziness.

The flip side is that you can only explain the same thing so many times before you get sick of it and recognise that you're massively wasting your time.

[Hsssh]

I have seen far too many (In my opinion soundly false) statements backed up by nothing more than "if you don't understand the logic then you are just stupid" or "we (aka him/her and 1 or 2 friends) analyzed this (privately) and determined that we are right. No need to repeat it."

Purpose of this forum is not to educate people but to try to have meaningful discussion about balance. If we start writing long and detailed explanation on why it might not be a good idea to buff Glacius or why "1+1=2 so rampage is op" is not a valid argument then we are going to drown in filler posts without achieving anything. I agree that sometimes some people say too much or too little but its not like anyone is being a jerk because he enjoys being a jerk.


Every single reasonable debate I've seen has turned into the "elitists" telling the "commoners" that they are just bad and don't deserve a rebuttal and the "commoners" telling the "elitists" to go stuff it.

Please give examples.


There is no point in having a thread at all if everyone is expected to defer to the "elitists" regardless. In that case, it can't really be called a discussion.

Missing the point. By saying "elitists" Ekamo means that this forums is not for regular posters, like GD or C&C is infested with, who post "nerf threads" every time they lose to something, obviously we still have some special people here but percentage is much lower. Nobody wants anyone to defer to something, some people just want reasonable discussion to happen here.

And you failed to explain why making everything public is a good thing asides of "i don't trust them". Should S2 also make all their inner forums public too? Because god knows they have people of different skill levels and some people with power in their hands are "questionable" to say the least.

[Killroy]

Here is my view on balance patches and new heroes. In the old days with dota where no new hero was introduced and 10 or something heroes got small changes I got all excited again to play them. I remember one patch where morph got +8 base damage. That was just it. Pretty huge early game and it made me play him a lot again. Same now with MQ. Bounce to 20%. I still laugh about this because it can simply cut through creeps like mad. Her farming capabilty with enough creeps present went up from 320% to 460%. That is a lot of damage on bounce.

I wouldn't mind not seeing new heroes introduced for a month or 2 but just patches with small changes in them. Once a month so the effects can be noted and analysed. Find out if the changes were right or not. Also if you get a balance patch it should be a little party. Stuff that was overpower nerfed and weak skills buffed. Gives a better feeling of reward then a new hero. It is all in the reward feeling and the feeling of playing something exciting and changed. Right now every 2 weeks we get a new hero but I am not getting that exciting feeling anymore over new heroes. Now it is more like "arf another new hero, what now again". People need to learn the game and the heroes properly first before you introduce new stuff again. It is going to fast right now.

[Doomhammar]

Balancing, and how?

Balancing should be done from top to bottom, not the other way around. By this I mean that balancing should not be performed by buffing or reworking unused/bad heroes, but by reducing the power of "god tier" heroes. Following this philosophy it would be nice to see how much disable stacking would get nerfed. And less disables on ranged carry heroes.

[sharbarachu]

Enhancing older heroes to fit into the modern meta-game so there's less useless ones, while making new, cool looking, alt avatars for said heroes, would probably make money. Combine that with reducing new releases to once a month or so, and I think HoN would be doing better.

Other things might be premium purchases you can buy. Stuff like you automatically get thrown to the top of the queue list for faster games (you'd pay money for this premium).

Really, just anything to make it so S2 stops adding tons of new heroes to a game that's already plagued with balance issues (ie, half the hero pool consists of bad picks in almost any scenario).

[Demonwing]

Purpose of this forum is not to educate people but to try to have meaningful discussion about balance. If we start writing long and detailed explanation on why it might not be a good idea to buff Glacius or why "1+1=2 so rampage is op" is not a valid argument then we are going to drown in filler posts without achieving anything. I agree that sometimes some people say too much or too little but its not like anyone is being a jerk because he enjoys being a jerk.

If there were a Glacius thread, it would be expected that you fully articulate any reasoning that you used to reach your conclusion. Simpler problems naturally have simpler explanations and solutions. Also, I would say "Wow that's so dumb it doesn't even deserve a response" way more filler and nonconstructive than an actual explanation and just serve to cause hostility and conflict.








And you failed to explain why making everything public is a good thing asides of "i don't trust them". Should S2 also make all their inner forums public too? Because god knows they have people of different skill levels and some people with power in their hands are "questionable" to say the least.

S2 can do whatever they want. This is not about them. People on this forum, on the other hand, should not post conclusions unless they are willing to provide the reasoning and logic behind it. Otherwise, a bare conclusion given by a random player is worthless.

[Farosarg]

I have seen far too many (In my opinion soundly false) statements backed up by nothing more than "if you don't understand the logic then you are just stupid" or "we (aka him/her and 1 or 2 friends) analyzed this (privately) and determined that we are right. No need to repeat it."

It isn't like MSI is coming in and giving balance conclusions here. If that were the case, sure I would give a little benefit of the doubt because of reputation. When it's just a bunch of public players of random skill levels, however, they had better make their logic very clear and lay their argument out thoroughly. I should hope this forum isn't just a venue for "elitists" to flame others. Every single reasonable debate I've seen has turned into the "elitists" telling the "commoners" that they are just bad and don't deserve a rebuttal and the "commoners" telling the "elitists" to go stuff it.

There is no point in having a thread at all if everyone is expected to defer to the "elitists" regardless. In that case, it can't really be called a discussion.

This is what I feel about the whole sub-forum as well. It is not always easy to find anything other than "This is how it's been going for me so that is what I think" but there should be more to it than that. I'm also not sure if "elitist" is the right term in this case but... Morelike the post needs to be more thorough for it to have useful value.

[`11411181]

I feel there are some things that are self-evident enough to not bother with explanation. A random example: Glacius' individual non-ultimate nuke damage numbers being relatively low (260 and 210 at level 4).
Is this worth spelling out? Not really.
Is anyone with any experience of the game really going to contest this? Not really.
I could spend 25min mathing out the nuke damage levels on everyone, getting a mean average and showing standard deviations, but realistically - I think I can expect people to let that slide in favour of making a bigger point.

[Demonwing]

I feel there are some things that are self-evident enough to not bother with explanation. A random example: Glacius' individual non-ultimate nuke damage numbers being relatively low (260 and 210 at level 4).
Is this worth spelling out? Not really.
Is anyone with any experience of the game really going to contest this? Not really.
I could spend 25min mathing out the nuke damage levels on everyone, getting a mean average and showing standard deviations, but realistically - I think I can expect people to let that slide in favour of making a bigger point.

It is fine to state simple statistics and objective game mechanics without citing game files and individual numbers (although you should be aware of where they are yourself). You are simply taking my statement to ridiculousness. You know there is a big difference between "Thunderbringer has high nuking power" and "Thunderbringer needs a rework". The first is simply statistical common knowledge. The second requires thorough and in-depth explanation and analysis. Something people on this forum general don't feel like doing.

[Hsssh]

If there were a Glacius thread, it would be expected that you fully articulate any reasoning that you used to reach your conclusion.

So to "Buff glacius" one liner i should respond with 2 pages of analysis why he shouldn't be buffed?


Also, I would say "Wow that's so dumb it doesn't even deserve a response" way more filler and nonconstructive than an actual explanation and just serve to cause hostility and conflict.

I already said that i don't disagree that there should be less such flame baits in this forum. And filler is filler, it doesn't matter if its one line response or few paragraphs, in first case it might be even easier to skip it/takes less time to read.


You know there is a big difference between "Thunderbringer has high nuking power" and "Thunderbringer needs a rework".

Every old timer here shuns such "X needs a rework" posts, Ekamo even has it in forum rules that such things shouldn't be posted. I'm not sure against what you are arguing here.

[Demonwing]

So to "Buff glacius" one liner i should respond with 2 pages of analysis why he shouldn't be buffed?

No. One-liners do not deserve large rebuttals. Original, well-intentioned posts and thorough posts (no matter how much you disagree with them for whatever reason) deserve thorough responses (or a citation as to where your argument has been given before. Saying "this has already been discussed before" by itself is rather pointless).


Every old timer here shuns such "X needs a rework" posts, Ekamo even has it in forum rules that such things shouldn't be posted. I'm not sure against what you are arguing here.

Gemini thread.

Also, my last post was grammatically and structurally atrocious. I need some sleep :/

[Gdemami]

Out of all the heroes on the roster, about half almost never see competitive play. This has been the case for a long time, and I think it needs to be addressed.

You are mixing several thing up in your post and mistake Viability for Balance.

Just because heroes are not used does not necessarily make them imbalanced or weak, they as well just might be not viable - they do not offer traits that are desired by current play.


What needs to be done about balancing is to focus more on internal balance of the heroes and certain mechanics - many heroes lack drawbacks for their extraordinary traits they posses.

[Ekamo]

Also, my last post was grammatically and structurally atrocious. I need some sleep :/

If you are assuming that call for reworks is a staple part of this forum and that they should be allowed, you're wrong. If there is any confusion about this in the Balance Rules (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?393760-Balance-Forum-Rules), suggestions on how to make that more clear would be very much appreciated.

If you have problem with how any separate thread is dealt with, I strongly suggest that you use the Report Button next to posts that violate the aforementioned rules. That directly brings the problematic post to a moderator's attention so it can be properly dealt with. This also benefits you since you then don't have to give a rebuttal to a poster that clearly does not respect or is aware of the rules of this sub-forum, but instead you can just ignore said poster after your report and move on to focus on responding to the posts with a higher standard of quality, and thus continue the more advanced discussion on this forum.

Honestly, I think we're sort of arguing the same thing here anyway, just with different approaches, and some misconceptions from both sides.

[Vomijaunatre]

I think you guys are so preoccupied by sounding smart, embodying grammatical and rhetorical perfection that you sometimes miss the point and argue about non-factors. And that's to be nice because nothing comes out of this section most of the time. It's endless bashing and nit-picking.
That section is infected with uselessness. Why not having synthesis of the debates ? What about deadlines ? What about multiple deadlines with definite goals ? Nothing comes out of here because it is just a series of undocumented opinions with no practical application. Threads never have have any kind of conclusion where you can actually read clear propositions. The logical consequence is that knowledge never grows. You just repeat yourself again and again in the hope of being heard.
If you just want a section where people "state their opinion" (and clearly nobody gives a damn most of the time), you might as well erase that section because it looks like the "champion feedback" section in LoL. If you want a section where actual problems get addressed with polished propositions, then it's time for some changes around here.
And quite frankly, this is too bad. There are some smart people around here. All that theorycrafting should be synthesized and assembled. You cannot dive into such a subject as balance without trying to build guidelines, goals, etc... and put it somewhere like a wiki, a FAQ or something else so that people can get a clue a of what they're doing.

So, to answer (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/member.php?137885-Doomhammar)that :


Balancing, and how?

Well, method is the first step in the right direction. Then, maybe, you can start talking about "balance philosophy".

[Reldnahc]

I think you guys are so preoccupied by sounding smart, embodying grammatical and rhetorical perfection that you sometimes miss the point and argue about non-factors. And that's to be nice because nothing comes out of this section most of the time. It's endless bashing and nit-picking.
That section is infected with uselessness. Why not having synthesis of the debates ? What about deadlines ? What about multiple deadlines with definite goals ? Nothing comes out of here because it is just a series of undocumented opinions with no practical application. Threads never have have any kind of conclusion where you can actually read clear propositions. The logical consequence is that knowledge never grows. You just repeat yourself again and again in the hope of being heard.
If you just want a section where people "state their opinion" (and clearly nobody gives a damn most of the time), you might as well erase that section because it looks like the "champion feedback" section in LoL. If you want a section where actual problems get addressed with polished propositions, then it's time for some changes around here.
And quite frankly, this is too bad. There are some smart people around here. All that theorycrafting should be synthesized and assembled. You cannot dive into such a subject as balance without trying to build guidelines, goals, etc... and put it somewhere like a wiki, a FAQ or something else so that people can get a clue a of what they're doing.

So, to answer that :



Well, method is the first step in the right direction. Then, maybe, you can start talking about "balance philosophy".

All we can do is analyze and discuss in hopes of getting heard. This forum is for discussing what potential issues regarding balance a hero may have. I don't understand the point of having goals and deadlines in such an open forum. I'm sure S2's SBT balancers and stuff get their own private forum where they handle things in such a manner, but this is more of the public discussion and isn't S2's main source of feedback regarding balance. The problem is that people aren't really discussing much in these threads.

[Gdemami]

Well, method is the first step in the right direction. Then, maybe, you can start talking about "balance philosophy".

In order to setup a method, you need a goal and conditions that needs to be met. That is often started with philosophy shaping those methods.


Forums is not about providing solutions but feedback. People provide opinions and moderators filter and pass the message from forum posters to developers.



I am not familiar with internal process of balancing but I would like to know more as it seems to me that some of your points have a merit there...

[PzKw]

I'll talk about that graph since Ekamo is calling me on it. I really didn't want to do it because I'm feeling lazy.

So the graph isn't far off. The main problem is that any graph like that doesn't have enough axis to accurately describe how the ability or hero interracts at different phases of the game, with different items, with different heroes and so on. The issue with an ability like Dissipate is that there are a couple of triggers to turn it from a very below par skill into a very above par skill that necessarily punishes sound and intuitive play. The graph doesn't go form the hypothetical 0 to 20 when the ability goes from 18-19%, but through a variety of factors its relative usefulness follows a parametric curve where it only sits in the "desirable" range for a very short time.

The first trigger is SW getting enough EHP to outlast the burst that the 2-3 heroes that the other team can afford to use to gank in their stunlock time. At this point, the investment of time and effort required to address a farming SW is disproportionate to the chance of success no matter how well co-ordinated you are. The only workaround for this is having extremely farmed scaling gankers which are then really unhealthy for the rest of the hero pool. Where SW differs to other carries in this respect is that by virtue of his ultimate, he can always be farming until absolute last safe moment, so the other team is forced to address the SW, and forcing the SW into teamfights by pressuring his team offers no real net gain for the other team.

The second trigger is when SW gets enough EHP relative to the other team that it becomes a net loss to hit him. This is the only real example of a skill that doesn't actually have any real counter that I actually buy into being very ordinary design. This is where the graph really kicks in, since the ability is only ever going to realistically be too weak or too strong. If it is too weak, then the damage is negligible to the outcome of the fight. If it is too strong, then the hero becomes virtually uncounterable with farm. The middle ground is a sliver, but it's so dependant on variables mentioned above that it would be different in every game. There are enough levers on the skill to actually avoid this, however they would all actually remake the concept of the skill completely. This is where you talk about an ability that is conceptually imbalanced and no matter what you do with it, it's never going to function in an intuitive matter.

Every other damage return spell in the game has reasonable and finite limitations. On the time that it's "up" for, on the damage sources it reflects, on the range it works over. All of these limitations give these abilities tactics that reasonably counter them, but how do you counter a flat percentage in a huge aoe that's always on, on a hero who is always with your team when he wants to be and will always buy an item that also deals damage to everyone near him if he's not attacked? The problem is that if you change any of those axis, you've essentially remade the ability or the hero anyway.

So concisely, the fundamental concept of an ability like dissipate isn't bad, it's just that all the characteristics the ability has in its execution mean that it can't be balanced in any conventional sense without actually remaking it somewhere along the line, either deliberately or incidently.

[Vomijaunatre]

In order to setup a method, you need a goal and conditions that needs to be met. That is often started with philosophy shaping those methods.


Forums is not about providing solutions but feedback. People provide opinions and moderators filter and pass the message from forum posters to developers.



I am not familiar with internal process of balancing but I would like to know more as it seems to me that some of your points have a merit there...

All of that seems good on paper though in facts, it's clearly not the case. Just read the patch notes. And that is because their is no general agreement. Furthermore, there is never several developped propositions to even chose from or get some insight. What's the interest of that section ? Clearly, when people wanna whine, they go in general discussion. So you would expect actual content coming out from here.
Forums are not only for feedback. I use a forum to coordinate a musical project and it works pretty well. The forum is about providing insight, debates, solutions and feedback. Here, I see none or it's hidden behind a forest of unecessary talking.

Also, think about it : if a moderator has propositions with detailed argumentations that several people have been polishing over a week or two (maybe more) and he gives that to the balance department (Dogkaiser ?), they'll be able to judge of their quality way easily.
There are so much people here spending litteraly hours arguing about what's right or not and nothing comes out. It's pointless. Some others have adopted a "i've reached sufficient knowledge to just drop a few words in each debate like I don't care because i know best" attitude (anakha if you read). I think having more productive and constructives debates would actually bring back a lot of people and maybe some new ones ready to contributes. Even if the propositions are not accepted by S2, at least, they are easy to read, easy to transfer and they actually have some subtance. It's not a full black and white picture leading, as always, to chaos.

So it seems to me that actually having a better organization, a method and some archives would actually be a good start for that thread to lead to a good balance philosophy. It's not that much work and it could have a great impact.

Ps : may I also say that the Mechanics and the Training ground sections have more than a feedback purpose ? They all provide good content (except some part of C&C). The solid organization they have helped a lot of theorycrafting and reserach. There is enough knowledge over there to improve one's gameplay. How come that section doesn't provide anything besides endless arguments made pointless after each patch note ?

Pps : sorry for the mistakes. My english is a little sloppy.

[`11411181]

Also, think about it : if a moderator has propositions with detailed argumentations that several people have been polishing over a week or two (maybe more) and he gives that to the balance department (Dogkaiser ?), they'll be able to judge of their quality way easily.
There are so much people here spending litteraly hours arguing about what's right or not and nothing comes out. It's pointless. Some others have adopted a "i've reached sufficient knowledge to just drop a few words in each debate like I don't care because i know best" attitude (anakha if you read)


If only you knew. Either way, you're sooking for changes yet the only people who consistently contribute are those everyone has a problem with. Salt and light, be the change you wish to see.

[Vomijaunatre]

If only you knew. Either way, you're sooking for changes yet the only people who consistently contribute are those everyone has a problem with. Salt and light, be the change you wish to see.

Well, this is exactly what i'm talking about. You probably read the whole thing so you should know i'm not giving out blames. It's more because I like reading your posts and seeing you don't even bother anymore always leaves me on a cliffhanger. So I'll ask : what do I don't know ?
On the same note, my point is that people who contributes like you or PzKw among others should have a place where the debates actually leads somewhere. I can understand desperation when you tried to elaborate on a subject and it's instantly burrowed under a pile of horse ****. I actually contributed a lot on another game. But really, there is no point to make any effort posting around here if it's just to waste kilobytes.

Either this post is the place were that sections moves forward or we might as well just end the subject now and just let it all loose. No point in discussing a balancing philosophy in a place that tends to clean itself up after each patch note without any archive to store valuable arguments. There is no knowledge growth.

[LordTroll]

On the same note, my point is that people who contributes like you or PzKw among others should have a place where the debates actually leads somewhere.

He already does. In theory, at least.

[`11411181]

The reason that was underlined is because that already happens, and has been happening for a good while now. There's just no point advertising it because nobody at s2 needs more mindless drones sucking up.

[Hsssh]

But really, there is no point to make any effort posting around here if it's just to waste kilobytes.

This place is read by certain people who forward good analysis/ideas towards S2. So its not a waste, unless you want instant gratification.

I understand that you'd want something more formal and Ekamo is certainly trying to move towards that with his active moderation of this forum. Problem is that there are lots of people who don't care, they lost to something and want it nerfed so they post here. Ekamo deletes their posts then they post again their ****, then someone calls them out for posting **** and they start arguing about their posts being not **** and others being elitist jerks. As a result we have threads that go nowhere. In other words people who post in this sub forum have to level up a bit more before something like what you describe could be actually done in public forum. Otherwise we'd just have bunch of people a) flaming s2 b) posting **** c) sucking it up to S2 d) few posters actually posting something of quality.

[Gdemami]

All of that seems good on paper though in facts, it's clearly not the case.


Clearly? Do you mind to elaborate? Just to point out before you start - whether there is "general consensus" among forum posters is irrelevant. General consensus does not mean the opinion is correct nor it implies any value.




Also, think about it : if a moderator has propositions with detailed argumentations that several people have been polishing over a week or two (maybe more) and he gives that to the balance department (Dogkaiser ?), they'll be able to judge of their quality way easily.

Like I said in my previous post, that is what forum moderators do - they collect those tidbits and in structured manner they hand them over to devs.



Imo, further the "community" stays away from development and balancing, the better...

[PzKw]

There's someone who gets paid to do that and only that.

[Fen__]

I got a question somewhat concerning balance philisophy discussion:

Whats the purpose of this forum section ? I wont even pretend that i was reading/commenting most or even half of threads that we had on the balance discussion forum, but i probably visited more threads than a regular HoN player does. Some were longer, some shorter but i cant recall any situation where S2 balance change would be taken from this forum.

Im wondering if this section was created to let people talk and create some image of a company that actually care bout their players opinions, or we are just to dumb to point out any suggestions that could actually work and be usefull in terms of making the game better?

Not judging S2 just wandering whats the purpose of this place.

[`11411181]

Someone needs instant gratification.

[Xinlitik]

I completely agree that we should focus more on older heroes. With such a robust patch process (ie every week), I don't see why we aren't constantly tweaking heroes in small ways and analyzing the effects (in terms of games played, win %, and so on). The only reason not to that comes to mind is that it would destabilize competitive play because potential imbalances could "ruin" a week. I think this would easily be fixed by making tournament mode have a 1 week delay on balance changes.

That said, major redesigns are of course needed sometimes when a hero undergoes a reimagining, but I think the main focus should be constant tweaks. Weeks of no changes, followed by a patch changing 15 heroes is a bit too chaotic and obscures to some degree the effects of each individual change. A slow, progressive tweaking of a hero makes more sense-- raise the base damage by one this week. Did we see an increase in play/win%? No? Raise it by another next week. Still no? Maybe we should be looking at other aspects of the hero...

[Typhy]

I completely agree that we should focus more on older heroes. With such a robust patch process (ie every week), I don't see why we aren't constantly tweaking heroes in small ways and analyzing the effects (in terms of games played, win %, and so on). The only reason not to that comes to mind is that it would destabilize competitive play because potential imbalances could "ruin" a week. I think this would easily be fixed by making tournament mode have a 1 week delay on balance changes.

That said, major redesigns are of course needed sometimes when a hero undergoes a reimagining, but I think the main focus should be constant tweaks. Weeks of no changes, followed by a patch changing 15 heroes is a bit too chaotic and obscures to some degree the effects of each individual change. A slow, progressive tweaking of a hero makes more sense-- raise the base damage by one this week. Did we see an increase in play/win%? No? Raise it by another next week. Still no? Maybe we should be looking at other aspects of the hero...

Then people who want to play tournament mode will have to have a brand new client. Patches change your game data, you can't just have a patch but then work on a different patch inside (I'm not particularly good at explaining that).

I agree that we should have a better stream of adjustments than just one big one every so often, but it might not be the best way to handle it. As said, it would destabilize comp play, put more work on the balancers and SBTs, and a higher chance of ruining a week. It's safer to put out a big patch with moderate changes, and release hotfixes if anything is ridiculously broken within a day.

[Brannock]

There are several major problems with Xinlitik's proposal.



He's proposing that balance be done based on shifts in hero effectiveness in public games. Buff a hero, watch their win rate, it doesn't go up? Buff him some more. This has SEVERE PROBLEMS with implementation - one that should be immediately obvious and a few others that's not as obvious. The first being that balance is not based on how well a hero succeeds in a non-competitive environment. Or are you saying Sand Wraith and Emerald Warden need nerfs given that they have 55% and 57% win rate in pubs? Soulstealer, Defiler, and Kinesis - all sitting at 46-44% - need buffs? Soulstealer has been picking up in popularity lately in competitive matches, especially with tDM. What would buffing him do to the competitive scene.



The others, which are not as obvious - pub players don't always play a hero to their full effectiveness (Soulstealer being the easy example here), and even when a hero is buffed pubs tend to not remember that they even exist (Balphagore and Ophelia - two of the strongest heroes right now - being great examples). And on top of that, when a hero IS played presumably to their maximum effect, that doesn't always mean that there aren't hidden strengths of the hero. Remember Electrician?

Basing balance on this is unreliable.




Constant balance patches means that you can't ever fully discover the implications of that balance patch, since it'll be changed again before you have a chance to adjust and explore it. To be honest, biweekly balance patches (the current MO) are pushing it a bit. There's a reason those biweekly balance patches involve small changes and number adjustments.



What if there was a change that sent a hero over the top, but no one managed to discover how exactly to ab/use that change before the next balance patch arrived? And the balance team went "Well, this hero didn't change at all in effectiveness and stats despite our recent buff, so we're going to buff him again". Yikes.




Building upon that last point, after enough rapid balance patches in a row, you have no idea what you're doing anymore. There needs to be time to let the dust settle and have people figure out the new state of the game. Right now for example there are several heroes who Probably need nerfs, and several heroes who Probably need buffs. So you do that, and then... what? What next? Can you accurately predict how the changes to those heroes will shake out in the metagame? Oops, time's up, this week's balance patch needs to come through. And it turns out by nerfing Parasite (for example) suddenly jungling is totally out of control since there's one less powerful and aggressive anti-jungler. And you didn't anticipate this (for example) and you continue on with your balance changes... see where this is going?


That said: it's not completely a bad idea, and that's why it's already implemented in a certain manner. Rapid changes are done in SBT, where there is a dedicated group of testers committed to figuring out potential implications of the changes.

[gwkalrod]

slow changes are better because min/max is a fun thing to do

[Farosarg]

That said: it's not completely a bad idea, and that's why it's already implemented in a certain manner. Rapid changes are done in SBT, where there is a dedicated group of testers committed to figuring out potential implications of the changes.

Exactly why there is an actual buffer for the rapid balance changes that we don't actually see before they are somewhat explored. Unfortunate thing is that even with this buffer there needs to be time for "dust to settle" because there is only so much that relatively small group of players can do compared to what ways the whole community and competitive community can achieve once they get their hands on it. That is just how it goes. Testers won't be able to catch everything and when large enough amount of people gets to play around with it, someone figures out how to break things (Brized's Electrician).

[Reldnahc]

That said: it's not completely a bad idea, and that's why it's already implemented in a certain manner. Rapid changes are done in SBT, where there is a dedicated group of testers committed to figuring out potential implications of the changes.

But from what I'm aware, only 20% of the changes put into SBT make it into the game so there is this implicit faulty testing method somewhat that potentially huge changes that never make it in could have some sort of effect on forthcoming changes. I'm unsure if they only test certain things at a time or if it all is meshed together at once, but if it is the latter, then you can see how problems arise. For a basic example, I know they have new items in SBT and all it took to make Thunderbringer top tier for a while was Spellshards. Imagine if Spellshards hadn't made it into the game and potential changes to TB were improperly tested because TB was doing amazing in SBT.

But for the main question at hand. It all depends obviously on the situation. You obviously aren't going to remake every single tiny issue and you can't expect to stat and number pad every single hero. It all depends on the hero and what is most fitting for them and their design. Figure out where the problems arise and how to fix them, not going into headfirst with the notion of "this is how we're going to fix x" without knowing what the problem is.