Balancing Theory

[Nome]

The Law of Concessions
This is not a real law--it's something I made up for this article. However, it is something you should follow at all times when using this method of balancing. To be exact, when building a skill from a balanced baseline, for everything you add, you must take something away. For example, if you add damage, then you must increase mana cost. If you remove cooldown, then you must decrease stun duration. On the other hand, if you increase damage, but lower cooldown, you create a direct imbalance in usefulness. Note however that there are certain exceptions to the rule--Magebane's Flash far outclasses Wretched Hag's Flash of Darkness in every respect. This stresses the importance of context--while Magebane is a single-target DPS survivalist carry, Wretched hag is a spell-casting DPS monster.

To illustrate the concept of the Law of Concessions, let's take a look at DotA's Sven the Rogue knight and Leoric the Skeleton King. DotA is used because there exists a large amount of redundancy in the skills, though IceFrog has been trying to differentiate heroes lately. Because DotA has been through years of playtesting and balancing, we can use its numbers as a baseline for what we wish to do. Historically, the two heroes played foil to one another. Both were strength melee DPS characters who shared an identical stun skill and heavy reliance on passive abilities and damage amps.


Rogue Knight's Storm Bolt (http://www.playdota.com/heroes/rogue-knight#skill125): single-target AoE, high cooldown, high damage.
Skeleton King's Hellfire Blast (http://www.playdota.com/heroes/skeleton-king#skill279): single-target, low cooldown, medium damage.

Older DotA players may remember that both the Rogue Knight and Skeleton King had Storm Bolt at one point, though the actual spell mechanics were identical to the current Hellfire Blast, while Rogue Knight's version was eventually changed to its current incarnation. Therefore, we take Hellfire Blast as the baseline, and balance from there.


The Rogue Knight previously had only one AoE spell, which was Great Cleave (http://www.playdota.com/heroes/rogue-knight#skill126). Therefore, his stun was given an AoE effect in order to synergize with the cleave and make him an effective group damage dealer.
The AoE is a huge buff, as it allows for the Rogue Knight to disable a group of heroes. Therefore, we must use the Law of Concessions--the cooldown is much higher, and to keep up his total DPS, the damage is also increased to make up for the much less frequent use of the spell.

These changes in effect make the two heroes incredibly different. Hellfire Blast remains a great ganking tool, as the effective cooldown is only 6 seconds. That means that if you fight a high-mana Leoric, you are effectively disabled 25% of the time. Storm Bolt on the other hand becomes much for useful as a team-fighting skill. Paired with heroes that can clump up enemies like Enigma or Magnus, it equates to a powerful full-team disable and damage. In effect, this change shakes up the roles of each character. Storm Bolt gained damage and AoE and conceded cooldown. The Skeleton King remains a single-target DPS with amazing tanking, while the Rogue Knight gains powerful physical and magical AoE capabilities, yet the overall balance remains sensible.

Let's make our own example now. Let's say we want to give our hero a big hero-killing ultimate meganuke. We have two baseline references for this:


Pyromancer's Blazing Strike (http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroview.php?hid=94)
Witch Slayer's Silver Bullet (http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroview.php?hid=120)

But we don't want to just add yet another big one-off nuke, do we? That's unoriginal. Let's say we already designed his other skills--he's going to be a tankish hero that does a ton of damage both to himself and to his enemies. We come up with a cool concept...

Vengeance: Deals X + Y*(%HP missing) in damage. Cap of Z total damage.

This skill essentially does more damage the more health you're missing. To make things simple, let's balance for LVL3 only. Silver Bullet does 850 magic damage at 55 second cooldown. Blazing Strike does 950 damage at 55 second cooldown. We may, for the purposes of this example, disregard mana, as these heroes are both INT and can largely be assumed to have a big enough mana pool to be able to use their ultimates at will. We must also remember that our two baseline references are INT, which means they become less effective as the game moves on. To spice things up, let's make our hero an AGI, which means he actually becomes more effective as the game moves on. Now let's begin to use the Law of Concessions to create and balance our skill.


Pyromancer's Blazing Strike deals more damage than Silver Bullet because Witch Slayer has a superior suite of disables, which become more effective the longer the game goes on. Because our AGI hero scales better as the game moves on, the absolute cap should max out at 850 for now, which is Silver Bullet's unboosted max.
Vengeance: Deals X + Y*(%HP missing) in damage. Cap of 850 total damage.
However, we don't want Vengeance to be doing THAT much damage all the time. Yet we don't want it to be worthless either. So let's give it 350 base damage--that is, if you're at full HP, it will do that much. 350 is a decent number, because it's just as good as a normal nuke, but stresses the fact that if you don't use it under the perfect conditions, it's just as bad as a normal nuke as well.
Vengeance: Deals 350 + Y*(%HP missing) in damage. Cap of 850 total damage.
Now for the multiplier, which depends on a hidden variable--the minimum HP reward. The maximum bonus damage is 500. However, you do not want to present the maximum reward at the minimum HP (1%). Heroes that are at 1% HP should not be rewarded any more than a heroes at 2%--this is because it presents a frustrating case for the enemies hitting him. Therefore, we want to set a minimum cap. 25% HP is a good one--heroes at 25% are considered low, but not so dangerously low that using Vengeance would make his opponents cry bull. Now that we have that, it's easy to set the multiplier and tweak the equation.
Vengeance: Deals 350 + 6.6*(%HP missing) in damage. Cap of 850 total damage.
But why stop there? Let's take it further. Not only do we want Vengeance to deal damage, but we want it to heal *you* for a portion of the damage dealt. To gain this immensely powerful effect, we must make concessions. First, we must acknowledge that the healing effect is worthless when you're at full HP--therefore, we should base it entirely on the bonus portion of the damage. Next, we should consider that if we add a healing effect, it shouldn't do as much damage, because that would make it too powerful. Therefore, we must lower the multiplier and the cap. We don't want to make the heal too low, but we don't want to make it too high either, and because we are lowering the multiplier and the cap, we can make the heal multiplier be 100% of the bonus damage. The most powerful single-target heal in the game belongs to Jeraziah, who heals and deals 360 true damage, and can be cast on anyone. Vengeance only affects your target and yourself. Because it is also an ultimate, it should be higher. Therefore, we come up with this:

Vengeance: Deals 350 + 5.0*(%HP missing) in damage. Cap of 725 total damage. Heals yourself for 100% of the bonus damage inflicted.

Hope you enjoyed the read, and happy suggesting!

[Vulpes]

Hope S2 reads this. I don't want any more "Slow and Nuke in an AoE, or Slow and heal yourself, or blink away"..

E: To actually comment on the Guide, pretty well written :) and should help some guys in the Suggestions board.

[Fidel]

good guide, Will come in usefull for any new chars and playermade ones too.

[Kietharr]

Good examples. Also notable are the stomps and claps that all share identical base skills, there are several from DotA:

The stomps:
Hoof Stomp (Centaur): 250dmg 2.75sec stun 15 second cd
Aftershock (ES): 115dmg 1.5sec stun, passive on spell cast
Slithereen Crush (Slardar): 200dmg 2.5sec stun, slows enemy by 20% afterwards for 2 seconds, 8sec cd

I'm not sure if the slow on slardar is current because I don't seem to remember that. But pretty decently balanced, ES gets his stomp free when he casts so it does much lower stun/dmg because it costs him nothing. Centaur's stomp may be only slightly better than Slardar's with almost twice the cd but Centaur also has a secondary nuke, Double Edge, which does like 400dmg at lv4 to both him and the enemy (But Centaur has a shitload of HP so it doesn't matter too much). So when he does his combo he puts out a lot more damage than Slardar. This shows in the fact that Slardar is a much better lategamer than Centaur, eventually the increased stun time becomes more valuable than the spell damage, but Centaur is still a solid hero that sees plenty of playtime.

Now look at the claps (nonstun PBAOE skills):
Thunder Clap (Brewmaster): 300dmg 55% slow (attack and movespeed) 12 second cd
Earthshock (Ursa): 220dmg 55% movement speed slow 7sec cd

Pretty easy to see the balance, Brew has more damage and an attack speed slow over Ursa (as slow synergizes with his miss chance debuff and evasion skill too) while Ursa's has about half the cd.

The ultimate stomps:
Reverse Polarity (Magnataur): 300dmg 4sec stun 100sec cd, has a pull in effect. Ultimate ability
Ravage (Tidehunter): 450dmg 2.5sec stun 150sec cd, HUGE ******* radius compared to other stomps. Ultimate ability.

Also quite balanced. Almost opposite situations facilitate these ults. Magna ult is a bit larger radius than normal stomp and pulls everything he hits to him, which is good because he has a damage buff and a cleave much like Hammerstorm/Sven. Also very long, one of the longest stuns in the game. On the other hand Ravage has the same stun time as a normal stun, but has extra damage and a HUGE radius to make up for it.

[sieneh]

Good examples and well thought out and written post.

[Ragnarok17]

Good posts guys :).

[Glorify1]

Your balance discussion is based on level 3 ultimates, where you justify the reasoning behind lion's ult being less.

This is most likely not the case, due to their level 1 ults being different, lion has the advantage here. This is likely due to add burst damage - lina has two nukes and an ultimate where as lion has one nuke and a disable you generally don't have.

Obviously it would be imbalanced to keep it scaling like that, since he does gain his hex around late mid-late game, which is why it scales the other way in relation to lina's ultimate.

Your assessment of Sven and SK are pretty off, they were similar in that they were melee strength heroes with a targetable stun(svens had a lesser cooldown, iirc), but their roles were completely different. SK was a hard carry, one that wasn't utilized much until they added armlet, and sven was always just a pseudo dps - and he still is. You can purge his ult, which makes him an unreliable source as a carry.

To end, your "carry" skill is broken. 700+ damage that heals you on a carry is far more devastating than a 950 damage nuke, made especially broken on the fact that carries are almost always targetted first.

[Nome]

Your balance discussion is based on level 3 ultimates, where you justify the reasoning behind lion's ult being less.

This is most likely not the case, due to their level 1 ults being different, lion has the advantage here. This is likely due to add burst damage - lina has two nukes and an ultimate where as lion has one nuke and a disable you generally don't have.

Obviously it would be imbalanced to keep it scaling like that, since he does gain his hex around late mid-late game, which is why it scales the other way in relation to lina's ultimate.

Your assessment of Sven and SK are pretty off, they were similar in that they were melee strength heroes with a targetable stun(svens had a lesser cooldown, iirc), but their roles were completely different. SK was a hard carry, one that wasn't utilized much until they added armlet, and sven was always just a pseudo dps - and he still is. You can purge his ult, which makes him an unreliable source as a carry.

To end, your "carry" skill is broken. 700+ damage that heals you on a carry is far more devastating than a 950 damage nuke, made especially broken on the fact that carries are almost always targetted first.

1. I'm aware of Sven and SK's roles. There was no need to go that deeply into it, because then I'd have to talk about how Sven's other skills were changed, which was irrelevant to the general discussion.
2. Agility does not imply carry.

[F8]

Too hard. Relativity, context etc. are important factors and those are very often subjective more than objective.

For example - how much range = damage? Is it fair to off-set the same base skill by 25 damage for 100 range? Or should it be 50? Or 75? Or 100? How much mana is one damage worth? All of this matters - but can only be answered in context, and subjectively.

[KnightDavion]

Nice read. Im very familiar with your "Law of Concessions" fans and developers alike use it to create new Magic card sets.

[GnarlyGoat]

The "Law Of Concessions" sounds a lot like the law of "Equivalent Exchange" from Full Metal Alchemist. Maybe I need to get out more

[jay`t]

Too hard. Relativity, context etc. are important factors and those are very often subjective more than objective.

>snip<


Agreed fully. Looking at the OP, we have no way of knowing whether his skill is overpowered or useless because essential factors such as cooldown, range, and mana cost are neglected. I am not a fan of this 'guide'.

I mean, obviously you can't have a skill that deals damage, heals you, acts as a blink, and can be toggled to turn into a nasty nuke. Oh wait - you can. The 'concession' here is that maliken's other skills are not super strong. Whether or not this is balanced is up for debate, but that brings me to my point - no matter how balanced things look on paper, things are arbitrary and unbalanced until they've been fleshed out by in-game testing.

[Nome]

What, would I need to talk about every single other factor? :P
The point of this guide was to illustrate the "law" using a single factor (damage). Obviously the others would follow the same idea.

[F8]

I'm not saying you should talk about every factor, I'm just saying that your guide is nearly useless unless you do.

[ShredderIV]

I think you guys are looking way too far into this....

His guide gives the ideas behind it, meaning it is giving a baseline, showing how balancing works, where you have to reduce one thing to increase another and such. Just because his one example only used damage does not make the entire guide crap lol.

[F8]

The decrease/increase balancing behind spells doesn't apply if you want something unique, which is what most people look for in well-designed heroes. If it's something as simple as nukes, stuns, and AoE's for every skill in a heroes lineup, then it probably wouldn't be interesting enough to have as a hero.

Sure, it works for basic spells. But when you look at the bigger picture, where things have uses based on what it is and not how much damage it does, things become incredibly difficult to balance out.

Of course, if some scientist decided to spend 10 years defining the balance of the game, it could be done mathematically. Math describes everything. However, this guide doesn't touch base with much of that math at all. It gives "rounded out" values and numbers out of thin air (350 for the base?). Therefore, it's nearly useless. It has logic without math, which makes very little sense.

[Nome]

The decrease/increase balancing behind spells doesn't apply if you want something unique, which is what most people look for in well-designed heroes. If it's something as simple as nukes, stuns, and AoE's for every skill in a heroes lineup, then it probably wouldn't be interesting enough to have as a hero.

Sure, it works for basic spells. But when you look at the bigger picture, where things have uses based on what it is and not how much damage it does, things become incredibly difficult to balance out.

Of course, if some scientist decided to spend 10 years defining the balance of the game, it could be done mathematically. Math describes everything. However, this guide doesn't touch base with much of that math at all. It gives "rounded out" values and numbers out of thin air (350 for the base?). Therefore, it's nearly useless. It has logic without math, which makes very little sense.

If it's unique, then there's no comparison... so you're talking about something that's completely out of the realm of this subject. You're welcome to write something better--that's what this forum is for.

[F8]

I can't post new threads in this forum. :)

[Nome]

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/forumdisplay.php?f=51
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=25792

[Extreme_Cake]

While you make the point well, isn't this fairly obvious? One would hope S2 already know this.

[Nome]

While you make the point well, isn't this fairly obvious? One would hope S2 already know this.

This is not for S2 ;)

[bittersweets]

I don't think we should be taking tips from someone who produced what is probably the most useless item in the game.

[Nome]

Shrug, haters gonna hate.

[Laster1]

swiftblade's spin should be physic dmg as blood hunter's ultimate should be physic too.

[jay`t]

I don't think we should be taking tips from someone who produced what is probably the most useless item in the game.

nomes is fine now

and things take time to balance

[Bobnintendo]

That spell reminds me of the ultimate of a hero in Eye of the Apocalypse, a Wc3 AoS, which was quite frankly pretty awesome.

But I think it's not good to compare single spells to each other, although yeah you included that Witch Slayer has better disables than Pyro.

[Tripwyr]

Outstanding article Nome, I love to read more theoretical views on balance.

I'm currently taking a Game Development course, and the best example of balancing I've seen so far is the use of a payoff matrix. A payoff matrix assigns numerical values to the outcome of a player's actions. Take a game of rock-paper-scissors with Alice and Bob for example. In a payoff matrix with numbers being assigned Alice, Bob; each outcome is assigned a value of Alice's result, Bob's result. For example, in the case of a tie, neither player has an advantage so we can assign equal values to their results. So if Alice and Bob both choose rock, the result would be 0,0.

This example can be illustrated using the following matrix, with Alice's options along the top and Bob's along the side.

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l199/Shadowalkerdk/Payoff_matrix_1.jpg

So if Alice chooses rock and Bob chooses paper, the result would be -1,1 for Alice, Bob as shown:

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l199/Shadowalkerdk/Payoff_matrix_2.jpg

Applying this to HoN, you could create a payoff matrix for a fight between Blood Hunter and Soul Reaper. In this case, each character will have two options: Blood Hunter can silence or Hemorrhage, and Soul Reaper can Judgement or run. The predicted outcome is illustrated below:

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l199/Shadowalkerdk/Payoff_matrix_3-1.jpg

The numbers reflect the utility of the skills. In the case of Blood hunter's silence versus Judgement, silence prevents Judgement but also boosts Soul Reaper's damage, causing a much closer win for Blood Hunter than in the case of Hemorrhage versus run where the Blood Hunter wins by a much greater margin.

Obviously this is a very basic example, but a payoff matrix can be very useful in designing and balancing heroes for individual encounters.

If enough interest is shown, I can expand this into Dominated/Dominant strategies and Nash Equilibrium. All of this information is from COMP1501: Introduction to Video Game Development in the BCS: Computer Game Development steam at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

[Nome]

Good stuff Tripwyr--you should write some more in-depth stuff at some point. We could all benefit from it!

[Tripwyr]

I'll write something more in-depth in a couple days. Been bored the last couple days with everyone playing MW2.

EDIT: To clarify, none of this is mine; it's all from a course I took this year. Currently all I have on game balancing is payoff matrices and some personal analysis. I'd be happy to post it if it helps, but I'm no expert =/

[Birdulon]

The stomps:
Hoof Stomp (Centaur): 250dmg 2.75sec stun 15 second cd
Aftershock (ES): 115dmg 1.5sec stun, passive on spell cast
Slithereen Crush (Slardar): 200dmg 2.5sec stun, slows enemy by 20% afterwards for 2 seconds, 8sec cd
IIRC Centaur's stomp also has a considerably smaller radius than Slithereen Crush.

[F8]

HoN is not a 1v1 battle, and therefore it is not like Rock Paper Scissors in the slightest. Also, numerical values would be completely meaningless in a 1v1 as each spell has a different effect. It's not possible to assign a spell a number to ascertain it's value. Puppet Master's Puppet Show is not nearly as useful on a Nymphora than it is on a Madman.

[Nome]

HoN is not a 1v1 battle, and therefore it is not like Rock Paper Scissors in the slightest. Also, numerical values would be completely meaningless in a 1v1 as each spell has a different effect. It's not possible to assign a spell a number to ascertain it's value. Puppet Master's Puppet Show is not nearly as useful on a Nymphora than it is on a Madman.

I think most of us are smart enough to understand that fact :P
Still waiting on your balancing novel!

[MrTortoise1]

you have to good arguments

hwowever you are assumign that things are balanced initally.

[F8]

Still waiting on your balancing novel!
I never said I'd write one. I will if you want me to, though.

[Tripwyr]

The draft for my article is still sitting in the TGElder forums waiting for me to do something with it. I've been busy reorganizing the FAQ, but when I'm finished with that I'll write the article I promised you Nome

[Isin]

This guide is something I'd expect from a professional game developer. Great job.

[PhishPaste]

Must take into consideration the current stock of heroes as well.

With that being said, many of the chosen heroes have those nifty Pseudo Blinks.

In DotA, not a lot of thought is put into their escape mechs. Out of the many made thus far, the most recent I can think of with a blink related ability is Puck. Everything else from Tauren Chieftan to the new Murloc thing, have no pseudo-blinks. DotA just implicates a system of stun n run, or stun n gun. IE Tauren Chieftan's 5 second AoE Incapacitate, or Alchemists 50% increased move speed while raged. Wind Runner's Wind Sprint or Dark Seer's speed up ability.

HoN has left this common trend and hopped into the "blink away," trend, which is only getting bolstered by the fact that their slowing system is additive as opposed to diminishing and negating.

In DotA, they are able to build heroes around a concept without having to throw in pseudo blinks or blinks them selves because the current atmosphere does not demand it. So abilities are balanced accordingly to what is going on with the game at the moment.

So in HoN many many heroes are being balanced around the Blinkccentric meta game and heroes. So most likely, many new heroes and balances(I can predict safely) will be related to the Pseudo-Blink and Blink meta game.

I'd call Nome's post the Give-and-Take theory.

[WSLaFleur]

I'm not saying you should talk about every factor, I'm just saying that your guide is nearly useless unless you do.

Incorrect, this guide merely suggests one way of approaching balance in an incredibly complex game, where it's improbable that you'd be able to keep track of all or even most of the variables.

It also provides helpful examples for those new to the conceptual realm.


I don't think we should be taking tips from someone who produced what is probably the most useless item in the game.

Because ranged, INT heroes had some other option for their ring.

[Kenneth]

HoN is not a 1v1 battle, and therefore it is not like Rock Paper Scissors in the slightest. Also, numerical values would be completely meaningless in a 1v1 as each spell has a different effect. It's not possible to assign a spell a number to ascertain it's value. Puppet Master's Puppet Show is not nearly as useful on a Nymphora than it is on a Madman.
Why are you saying other people's balancing rules are bad when you don't even have your own. Yes, I see your point, but if you add them all up of all the skills, it's even. The guy's -1 +1 theory says that it's for balancing heroes, not seeing if they are in a team fight. Let's say you make a hero. You want it to be balanced. No one cares about team clashes when you make a hero. It just has to be balanced. If you don't use that rule, you maybe will make a hero with 99999 dmg and 99999 armor, with a 9999 AoE 999999 dmg spell. It doesn't matter if he's in a team clash or not, he's just plain imba. However, that's just an example though. About the first theory, the Laws of Concession, its the same as this. It's a guideline to creating new heroes, and balancing them. It's just an EXAMPLE. Do you expect him to make to guide you to everything? Like write about Armor, Damage, Movement Speed, Attack Speed. No, it's just a guideline like I said. Zero sum game. +1 for each good factor, -1 for each bad one. You could replace his example with the Atk Speed and Atk one. Atk is high, atk speed is low. Like Pebbles. If IceFrog didn't follow his theory, then it might have been Atk speed high and Atk speed low. You see, I just used this theory on another factor other than skills. I don't see why you can't too.

[CHR0N0S]

What happens when a character is crearly overpowered and balance is aplied using this law?

Theres no balance then, just, the weight jumps from pillar to pillar?

[Linniz]

The Law of Concessions

I think Its a nice idea, but those are all minor details that is not lead to the current outcry of imbalances. These small details can be fixed over a long period of time.

Using your Idea to make a balanced hero you should instead of comparing stats or individual skill, compare their ability to disable, ranged / melle damage, tank, escape, chase.



forexsample, say you wanted to remake :zeph: Like an "barbed armor" tank such as :legi:, but with more utility.

So you start with the core of this hero, their spikeyness. So for blance matter you dont want to make :legi:<:zeph:.


So you compare their core concept ability:

Whirling blade and Cyclones,

Requirements are both need to be close to enemies, but legion require attacks to activate but zepth's are always on if you killed creeps before fight.

:zeph:wins

Damage Both are non burst except vary early game with legion,
:zeph:(average of half tornadoes under enemies at given time)
:zeph:4 x 30dps = 180 dps thats magic.
:legi:(averge of 1 spin per second)
:legi:1ias x 175 = 175 dps that true.

:zeph::legi: Ties.

Counters
vs:legi: Dont auto attack him.
vs:zeph: Slow or snare him. (dont think run away as that is true with everyhero)

So :zeph: wins this category as he is harder to avoid being damaged.

Surpize factor Dont exist for any. so tie.

Others

Farming - Zepth wins as his skills do not need to be attacked to be used, and cyclones last long enough to carry over next creepwave / spawn. :zeph:Minor win

Well legion don't heal from spinning so
:zeph:Major win.


His cyclones have to kind of keep up with him so
:legi: minor win.



Now you do this for every skill of the heros, also factor in synergies, then the hero stats.

Compare This with other heroes of its ilk. Such as tempest ult with zepth ult at controlling groupfights. etcetc

It seems to me whoever is making these hero changes are not factoring in the underpowered and used heroes.

Cuz when I do this against all the heroes that zepth can be compared to... Zepth wins! Only kraken comes close.

[will504]

It is retarded to see how people play hon no days. You have people create noob games just to kill them and get a better rating. Then after they are farm they concede to lower their psr so they can farm more noobs.

First of all, if all the new guys are getting owned like this, no one will buy this game. You guys will not make any money at all. And it is morale wrong for something like this to happen because you guys are unable to manage the balance of game status and fun factor.

Suggestion: when you concede, your kills and death rating does not count. Also, when you kill people below your certain psr or kill ratio, you don't gain any status.

[_Syphilis_]

It is retarded to see how people play hon no days. You have people create noob games just to kill them and get a better rating. Then after they are farm they concede to lower their psr so they can farm more noobs.

First of all, if all the new guys are getting owned like this, no one will buy this game. You guys will not make any money at all. And it is morale wrong for something like this to happen because you guys are unable to manage the balance of game status and fun factor.

Suggestion: when you concede, your kills and death rating does not count. Also, when you kill people below your certain psr or kill ratio, you don't gain any status.
just get rid of all stats
problem fixed

[SilverStars]

So you compare their core concept ability:

Whirling blade and Cyclones,

Damage Both are non burst except vary early game with legion,
:zeph:(average of half tornadoes under enemies at given time)
:zeph:4 x 30dps = 180 dps thats magic.
:legi:(averge of 1 spin per second)
:legi:1ias x 175 = 175 dps that true.



Incorrect. Legionnaire's Whirl does Physical Damage, and it's highly unlikely all 4 cyclones will be on the opponent at the same time unless you unitwalk someone.


Back ontopic:
It's a pretty awesome article (informative, especially if you haven't encountered balancing before), but take the example of a skill that instantly kills a random enemy with manacost 1000 and cooldown 600 seconds. Is it "balanced"? It doesn't seem right.

[Llama]

It might be balanced, but its boring and a stupid idea

There are concessions between balance and entertainment too

[Solidsneak]

2. Agility does not imply carry.

Nome you FOOL! If a hero is Agility, he HAS to be a carry![/sarcasm]

Nice guide again, hope that people keep their suggestions balanced and well-thought.

[OhBob]

Law of Concessions... cool name for what every smart guy does in here =)

And we don't need a lot of math, it doesn't have to be exactly balanced. DotA isn't.

[OhBob]

It might be balanced, but its boring and a stupid idea

There are concessions between balance and entertainment too

Carrying the game with an overpowered hero isn't entertaining, it just gives you the feeling of getting free psr. :s

[PeeBee]

very well written guide but this is kinda like soul reaper's ulti right but without the heal... wouldnt that mean soul would have to be buffed to counter this ulti making him useless? as his skills late game become useless such as heals and dejen.

[Mellow]

This should also include something about risk vs reward
In other words, the more risk something takes, the more rewards it should give.

For example, Valk arrow is very hard to hit, but can but up to a 5 second stun.

A targetted or aoe stun is harder to hit than a targetted stun, and should thus deal more damage/longer stun.

[Sheriff]

The Law of Concessions
This is not a real law--it's something I made up for this article. However, it is something you should follow at all times when using this method of balancing. To be exact, when building a skill from a balanced baseline, for everything you add, you must take something away. For example, if you add damage, then you must increase mana cost. If you remove cooldown, then you must decrease stun duration. On the other hand, if you increase damage, but lower cooldown, you create a direct imbalance in usefulness. Note however that there are certain exceptions to the rule--Magebane's Flash far outclasses Wretched Hag's Flash of Darkness in every respect. This stresses the importance of context--while Magebane is a single-target DPS survivalist carry, Wretched hag is a spell-casting DPS monster.

To illustrate the concept of the Law of Concessions, let's take a look at DotA's Sven the Rogue knight and Leoric the Skeleton King. DotA is used because there exists a large amount of redundancy in the skills, though IceFrog has been trying to differentiate heroes lately. Because DotA has been through years of playtesting and balancing, we can use its numbers as a baseline for what we wish to do. Historically, the two heroes played foil to one another. Both were strength melee DPS characters who shared an identical stun skill and heavy reliance on passive abilities and damage amps.


Rogue Knight's Storm Bolt (http://www.playdota.com/heroes/rogue-knight#skill125): single-target AoE, high cooldown, high damage.
Skeleton King's Hellfire Blast (http://www.playdota.com/heroes/skeleton-king#skill279): single-target, low cooldown, medium damage.

Older DotA players may remember that both the Rogue Knight and Skeleton King had Storm Bolt at one point, though the actual spell mechanics were identical to the current Hellfire Blast, while Rogue Knight's version was eventually changed to its current incarnation. Therefore, we take Hellfire Blast as the baseline, and balance from there.


The Rogue Knight previously had only one AoE spell, which was Great Cleave (http://www.playdota.com/heroes/rogue-knight#skill126). Therefore, his stun was given an AoE effect in order to synergize with the cleave and make him an effective group damage dealer.
The AoE is a huge buff, as it allows for the Rogue Knight to disable a group of heroes. Therefore, we must use the Law of Concessions--the cooldown is much higher, and to keep up his total DPS, the damage is also increased to make up for the much less frequent use of the spell.

These changes in effect make the two heroes incredibly different. Hellfire Blast remains a great ganking tool, as the effective cooldown is only 6 seconds. That means that if you fight a high-mana Leoric, you are effectively disabled 25% of the time. Storm Bolt on the other hand becomes much for useful as a team-fighting skill. Paired with heroes that can clump up enemies like Enigma or Magnus, it equates to a powerful full-team disable and damage. In effect, this change shakes up the roles of each character. Storm Bolt gained damage and AoE and conceded cooldown. The Skeleton King remains a single-target DPS with amazing tanking, while the Rogue Knight gains powerful physical and magical AoE capabilities, yet the overall balance remains sensible.

Let's make our own example now. Let's say we want to give our hero a big hero-killing ultimate meganuke. We have two baseline references for this:


Pyromancer's Blazing Strike (http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroview.php?hid=94)
Witch Slayer's Silver Bullet (http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroview.php?hid=120)

But we don't want to just add yet another big one-off nuke, do we? That's unoriginal. Let's say we already designed his other skills--he's going to be a tankish hero that does a ton of damage both to himself and to his enemies. We come up with a cool concept...

Vengeance: Deals X + Y*(%HP missing) in damage. Cap of Z total damage.

This skill essentially does more damage the more health you're missing. To make things simple, let's balance for LVL3 only. Silver Bullet does 850 magic damage at 55 second cooldown. Blazing Strike does 950 damage at 55 second cooldown. We may, for the purposes of this example, disregard mana, as these heroes are both INT and can largely be assumed to have a big enough mana pool to be able to use their ultimates at will. We must also remember that our two baseline references are INT, which means they become less effective as the game moves on. To spice things up, let's make our hero an AGI, which means he actually becomes more effective as the game moves on. Now let's begin to use the Law of Concessions to create and balance our skill.


Pyromancer's Blazing Strike deals more damage than Silver Bullet because Witch Slayer has a superior suite of disables, which become more effective the longer the game goes on. Because our AGI hero scales better as the game moves on, the absolute cap should max out at 850 for now, which is Silver Bullet's unboosted max.
Vengeance: Deals X + Y*(%HP missing) in damage. Cap of 850 total damage.
However, we don't want Vengeance to be doing THAT much damage all the time. Yet we don't want it to be worthless either. So let's give it 350 base damage--that is, if you're at full HP, it will do that much. 350 is a decent number, because it's just as good as a normal nuke, but stresses the fact that if you don't use it under the perfect conditions, it's just as bad as a normal nuke as well.
Vengeance: Deals 350 + Y*(%HP missing) in damage. Cap of 850 total damage.
Now for the multiplier, which depends on a hidden variable--the minimum HP reward. The maximum bonus damage is 500. However, you do not want to present the maximum reward at the minimum HP (1%). Heroes that are at 1% HP should not be rewarded any more than a heroes at 2%--this is because it presents a frustrating case for the enemies hitting him. Therefore, we want to set a minimum cap. 25% HP is a good one--heroes at 25% are considered low, but not so dangerously low that using Vengeance would make his opponents cry bull. Now that we have that, it's easy to set the multiplier and tweak the equation.
Vengeance: Deals 350 + 6.6*(%HP missing) in damage. Cap of 850 total damage.
But why stop there? Let's take it further. Not only do we want Vengeance to deal damage, but we want it to heal *you* for a portion of the damage dealt. To gain this immensely powerful effect, we must make concessions. First, we must acknowledge that the healing effect is worthless when you're at full HP--therefore, we should base it entirely on the bonus portion of the damage. Next, we should consider that if we add a healing effect, it shouldn't do as much damage, because that would make it too powerful. Therefore, we must lower the multiplier and the cap. We don't want to make the heal too low, but we don't want to make it too high either, and because we are lowering the multiplier and the cap, we can make the heal multiplier be 100% of the bonus damage. The most powerful single-target heal in the game belongs to Jeraziah, who heals and deals 360 true damage, and can be cast on anyone. Vengeance only affects your target and yourself. Because it is also an ultimate, it should be higher. Therefore, we come up with this:

Vengeance: Deals 350 + 5.0*(%HP missing) in damage. Cap of 725 total damage. Heals yourself for 100% of the bonus damage inflicted.

Hope you enjoyed the read, and happy suggesting!

so now rather than soul reapers opening with demon execution we got people opening with vengeance at full health :)?


Hehe I kid

it sounds like a great idea to me

[HClCaSaT]

It might be balanced, but its boring and a stupid idea

There are concessions between balance and entertainment too

^Fails

Balance=Variety=Entertainment

[Stackz]

@Nome
Nice law.
Really helpfull on making things balanced.

@Tripwyr
Would love to see that comin ^^

@Linniz
Another good point here. Agreed!

[Penguinaway]

Can someone explain how scout and zeph are "balanced" the recent debuff on zephs cyclone's are decent although I would like to see a change in his third since it increases ms and evasion, scout has hardly been touched at all, Im not talking about him being another bd invis hero, im talking about him being missing for 40 min and dealing 3k dmg in half a second on less! Cronos seemed more balanced then scout

[Rooftrellen]

I think S2 should make more heros with all with AOE that contains a little bit of stun , a little bit of nuke , a little bit of slow , a little bit of silence and a whole lot of gay! Oh wait they are already doing that nevermind.

[pwn_U_fast]

I mean, obviously you can't have a skill that deals damage, heals you, acts as a blink, and can be toggled to turn into a nasty nuke. Oh wait - you can. The 'concession' here is that maliken's other skills are not super strong. Whether or not this is balanced is up for debate, but that brings me to my point - no matter how balanced things look on paper, things are arbitrary and unbalanced until they've been fleshed out by in-game testing.


I would say its balanced. His IAS skill is worthless until you get high dps liek riftshards or something. The only things that make sword throw good is that it can be toggled for heal vs dmg, and acts like a blink. overall in gameplay and most contexts its balanced. if however, you kick someone in game and give all that gold to mali, hes usually really op because he can solo farm like its going out of style.

[pwn_U_fast]

Balance=Variety=Entertainment
Law of Concessions for skills is like this very BASIC model:

Mana Cost vs. Damage and/or 1/Cooldown
Damage vs. Mana Cost and Cooldown
Cooldown vs. Damage or 1/Mana Cost

This means if you increase mana cost, you should either increase damage, or decrease cooldown to keep the equation balanced. If you increase damage you must increase manacost, or increase the cooldown. etc.

however when looking at the big picture and comparing balance to entertainment, CaSaT is right. Those are direct proportions. If you increase balance - variety should be increased and so should entertainment. If you decrease balance (OP hero) - variety is generally decreased (op skills), and entertainment value goes down (ruined games). The same doesn't hold true though when looking at individual heroes and their skill-sets. To balance one skill alone is a combination of direct and inverse proportions, and attempting to compare one heroes balance to another gets is even more proportions. Then when you take that to entire game balance, you can see that manipulating one heroes skills will effectively change the entire game.

[eYo]

there is "no" balancing theory - i allways get a team which finally sucks - whether in public nor in MM. I allways get the biggest newbs cuz my PSR constantly gets lower... there are no misses in my team and finally the enemies seems to play as a team... so i allways gets ****ed and my PSR will suck - even my K:D and EVERYTHING else will get ****ed - i cannot get em back because i allways have to play with newbs and there is just 1 who can play the game - so its 2on5 and just the "pro" dude out of my team cannot handle the whole game on his own. so please rewrite the "balance" theory and piss off that PSR thing. I like that mod "TSR" so you really see who rules and who sucks. Integrate TSR as balancing option instead of that fail PSR **** - PSR cannot tell whos "good" or "bad".

Thats my opinion - regards...

eYo

[pwn_U_fast]

there is "no" balancing theory - i allways get a team which finally sucks - whether in public nor in MM. I allways get the biggest newbs cuz my PSR constantly gets lower... there are no misses in my team and finally the enemies seems to play as a team... so i allways gets ****ed and my PSR will suck - even my K:D and EVERYTHING else will get ****ed - i cannot get em back because i allways have to play with newbs and there is just 1 who can play the game - so its 2on5 and just the "pro" dude out of my team cannot handle the whole game on his own. so please rewrite the "balance" theory and piss off that PSR thing. I like that mod "TSR" so you really see who rules and who sucks. Integrate TSR as balancing option instead of that fail PSR **** - PSR cannot tell whos "good" or "bad".

Thats my opinion - regards...

eYo

Umm....were not talking about using the balance button to balance games. We are talking about skills and how to balance a heroes skillsets to work within the meta game. I think you should move your suggestion elsewhere. Unfortunately, I do feel your pain. Bad teammates can ruin games, especially a bad support hero who says hes gonna help babysit you early game or you have a teammate that repeatedly fails to call multiple enemy mias.

[Theburned]

Nome you FOOL! If a hero is Agility, he HAS to be a carry![/sarcasm]

Nice guide again, hope that people keep their suggestions balanced and well-thought.

in fact all agi heroes can be built like carries some of them are semi, well engineer isnt longer a carry but he was before but some agi heroes should be built as support/ganker well zephyr can be built tank.
and this issue goes for str heroes = tank
not true either, as some str heroes are carries and stunners initiator pretty much everything but range

@OP says is interesting, anw is very hard to balance ANY game, and this isn't exactly the exception.

[PugnaBro]

This thread sucks tbh. Feels like it is aimed at the mentally handicapped.

[pwn_U_fast]

umm it actually provides decent insight on true balancing...but whatever.

[Azura]

You'd think with this much knowledge on balancing, s2 would have everything balanced by now

[Gorb]

This thread sucks tbh. Feels like it is aimed at the mentally handicapped.
Welcome to the forums? :p

You'd think with this much knowledge on balancing, s2 would have everything balanced by now
That just shows how much you didn't read the OP. Or Nome's subsequent post where he said this wasn't aimed at S2. Nome detailed a singular method by which certain things can be balanced. Balance is so complex in games such as this (especially considering how much difference skill makes) that to cover it in any detail Nome would have to make twenty or more posts like the one he made in the OP.

Any then some troll like yourself would go "tl;dr".

6/10

I was gonna rate you lower but hey, I fell for it so I suppose you deserve marks for that.

[Whitesock]

Well I can see why balancing is difficult, though I'd really like to see S2 try to work from the other end of the balancing theory, as now they keep adding more powerful spells and heroes. I'd like to see them start lower and work it up, as I think that will allow them to see how the hero fits in before he's "OP" and lead them to make more interesting mechanics to make the hero fit into the current metagame. It seems like it might help them adapt to a lot of the heavy criticism that they are receiving right now and would allow them to make the game more interesting than it already is.

[pwn_U_fast]

tbh, i don't think a lot of the balancing needs to be done hero side as of present. as the game sits now, there isn'ta hero you can pick and guarantee a win everytime. that is good for balancing, and as long as that holds true, i think as far as hero balance is concerned the game is good to go. obviously certain heroes will be stronger than others, and certain strats will ultimately work better, but that is true for any game.

as far as i can tell, i think items need to be invented and reworked to make the game more interesting. the items thus far are primarily pre-exisiting dota equivalents (which is good), but i would like to see new and better items. more items with active abilities, more 'core on every hero items' like marchers, more role specific items, such as a good TANK item, or a good new SUPPORT item (stay away from dps items on this, we already have a lot of them).

[clim15]

According to balancing theory, Flint Beastwood is overpowered because:
1. His ultimate has a much lower mana cost than Blazing Strike / Silver Bullet
2. His ultimate is only slightly less damage than Silver Bullet (I'm not really sure off the top of my head, but I'm still pretty sure it's higher DPS than silver bullet at all levels taking into account cooldowns)
3. His ultimate has a MUCH higher range and tracks the target, which makes up for its channeling time since you can cast it while you aren't even seen
4. He's an agi hero so he scales as time goes on, compared to WS/Pyro who are int heroes who generally get relatively weaker than agis as the game goes on. That should mean Money Shot should be much weaker/less useful than blazing strike/silver bullet because flint has much more power in other aspects than the int heroes.

So what, according to balance theory, makes him balanced? I'm not saying I think Flint is overpowered, because I don't think he is, I'm just saying that in theory, looking at his skills, he should be considered overpowered.

[Vulpes]

1) He has 3 other Skills, and having one overpowered Skill doesn't make the whole hero too strong
2) His Ult being channeling is a much bigger downside than you think it is
3) Even a 0 CD wouldn't matter much, as there is a virtual CD coming from the Manacost
4) Bullet is MUCH more Damage. The amount of fights in which you get 2 Moneyshots off is low, so the lower CD doesn't matter
5) Lategame it becomes useless (unlike Strike/Bullet), as the Channeling time leads to LESS damage than by simply autoattacking

[pwn_U_fast]

^^ that and this:

Flint Beastwood: base strength is 16 & str per level is 1.7 (mushy), has one slow + has item dependance + very mushy = low survivability, can be killed before ult gets off.

Witch Slayer: base str is 16 & str per level is 1.7 (mushy), has 2 disables + does not depend on items + very mushy = higher, but still low survivability because he can disable an opponent twice, and then ult him for a kill.

[clim15]

"Item dependence"?

How is item dependence a disadvantage? It's not a disadvantage. Flint Beastwood benefits MORE from items than Witch Slayer. It's an advantage. Heroes, when not playing a support role (imagine witch slayer on the same team as a glacius or voodoo who took over support), all benefit from items. The fact that Flint benefits MORE from items is an advantage, not a disadvantage. Flint gets more benefit per amount of gold farmed. If "item dependence" was a disadvantage, everyone would run all-int lineups because hey, all our heroes don't need items to be good!

And what kind of witch slayer disables twice then ults for a kill? In general, a witch slayer will ult as soon as a teamfight begins, or BETWEEN a hex/graveyard depending on which was cast first in the situation.

The amount of fights where you could get two moneyshots off is actually quite high. If an enemy is pushing into your base, you can easily get 2-3 moneyshots off while they're pushing, making it do much more than a single silver bullet at a much safer range. Maybe it isn't considered a "teamfight" yet because they haven't initiated, but being able to snipe their Vindicator or Voodoo Jester and drop them to half life before the fight begins is invaluable for turtling and defending a base overall.

Money Shot/Bullet doing less dps than simply autoattacking isn't a downside to the skill. It shows that Flint has an advantage in that area as well. You usually use moneyshot when you're out of autoattack range anyway though so it's not really much of a deal.

You're also ignoring Flint's other skills as well. His hollowpoint shells offer much more survivability than you'd think vs someone like a Soulstealer (which is probably why someone would pick Flint) since it cancels his animation, and his range is probably one of the only reasons he survives as long as he does in the first place. So I wouldn't say his other skills are bad at all. He has 4 good skills vs Witch Slayer's 3. Any good Witch Slayer will get max 1 level in power drain to cancel a nullstone and go stats instead because draining mana is essentially giving your opponent a 400 mana cost spell that stuns you for 4 seconds while you stupidly channel doing no damage during a teamfight on a hero that already used his spells.

[Sku1l]

"Item dependence"?

How is item dependence a disadvantage? It's not a disadvantage. Flint Beastwood benefits MORE from items than Witch Slayer. It's an advantage. Heroes, when not playing a support role (imagine witch slayer on the same team as a glacius or voodoo who took over support), all benefit from items. The fact that Flint benefits MORE from items is an advantage, not a disadvantage. Flint gets more benefit per amount of gold farmed. If "item dependence" was a disadvantage, everyone would run all-int lineups because hey, all our heroes don't need items to be good!


Item dependence is a disadvantage early game , but it is an advantage late game .

If "all your hero do not need item to be good" you are scrweed after 40 min.

[pwn_U_fast]

yeah dude youre talking about scaling now nto my point at all. and i don't think it's very easy to explain in text. basically i was trying to point out the utility of each ult. yes flints is a little more 'spammable' but it isn't really effective.

item dependence is a disadvantage for this discussion, because without items flint is ineffective. if he got no items, late game, he would be able to nuke and ult and then hed have to run. thats why its balanced. hes worthless if thats how you play him, so you use his ult to build his autoattack and then once ur auto is high, u dont ult anymore.

thus his ult is balanced because he doesnt need it to be a good a hero. he needs items. his other skills add utility to his auto-attack which is where he shines. hes a high dps hero, that scales better than witch.

their oles aren't really comparable but their ults are. balancing it off witch slayer is fine because of the CD on both spells total to about the same (2x for flint ~= 1x for witch), mana cost is about the same (using the 2:1) and damage is about the same (using the 2:1). then when you take into other balances (involving other skills and items) you see the utility aspect.

flint doesn't really need active skills at all to be effective (they aid him).
no skills - dps needs items
thus spamming his ult isn't very effective

where as witch relies solely on his active skills (well he also doesn't have any passive skills).
needs skill - disabler/ganker doesn't need items
spamming this ult is more effective.

[KSlidz]

Hope S2 reads this. I don't want any more "Slow and Nuke in an AoE, or Slow and heal yourself, or blink away"..

E: To actually comment on the Guide, pretty well written :) and should help some guys in the Suggestions board.

dude op is a staff member.

nice post by the way. interesting read, lets us know S2 is thinking

[Vulpes]

He wasn't back then.

[pwn_U_fast]

it is a really well written guide and a lot of people don't understand this at all.

[DooMensen]

nice:)

[eRageInc]

No offense, and not sure if this has been said before, but while this guide looks good at first glance, it is essentially useless.

Unless you are starting with perfect balance, this "Law of Consessions" does not help balance at all.

Balancing a game is about buffing underpowered heroes while bringing overpowered heroes down to par, not about keeping their skills at the same level, just altering their affects (turning a 1000 dmg nuke with 10s cd into a 500 dmg nuke with 5s cd doesn't make it any less overpowered).

New hero introduction cannot be balanced without extensive testing.

Sorry, but Nome's Wisdom is a bad item. :blac:


The only thing this guide is good for (other than printing it out to wipe your ass with; which, in retrospect, it is not very useful for either) is for adding flavor to pre-balanced skills.

This guide has actually nothing to do with attaining balance, moreof maintaining balance when changing a skill to add/change effects.

[LolYouReDead]

Very nice post. But I can pretty much tell you that noobs won't understand worth a s*&t on this post. This also doesn't accurately describe those spells that do waay more damage, as they are there to be OP in a sense, but really add to the game.

[pwn_U_fast]

like what ability?

[Shaddox]

You guys have a flawed thinking method. Balance isn't relative, it's absolute. :jera:

Have a nice day.

[IGaNkNuBz]

No offense, and not sure if this has been said before, but while this guide looks good at first glance, it is essentially useless.

Unless you are starting with perfect balance, this "Law of Consessions" does not help balance at all.

Balancing a game is about buffing underpowered heroes while bringing overpowered heroes down to par, not about keeping their skills at the same level, just altering their affects (turning a 1000 dmg nuke with 10s cd into a 500 dmg nuke with 5s cd doesn't make it any less overpowered).

New hero introduction cannot be balanced without extensive testing.

Sorry, but Nome's Wisdom is a bad item. :blac:


The only thing this guide is good for (other than printing it out to wipe your ass with; which, in retrospect, it is not very useful for either) is for adding flavor to pre-balanced skills.

This guide has actually nothing to do with attaining balance, moreof maintaining balance when changing a skill to add/change effects.
i agree with this dude."balancing the skills by decreasing the damage seems pointless, if i work hard to get to lvl 16 to get my lvl 3 ult i dont want my damage to go down. what is the point your char will be so usless late game what you are suggesting could only be possible with a complete remake of the game engine.
balance is fine, balance the heros nerf them boost them. but to make their skills deacrease will make the game identical at all levels and there fore ruin it nice try but wont work.. guess that is why its a theorie?

[pwn_U_fast]

what you just said is the idea of laws of concessions. boost and nerf them as balance is appropriate. when you boost somewhere you have to nerf somewhere else.

is it really that complicated to see that you agree?

[WSLaFleur]

concessions are sometimes unnecessary when an imbalance is overwhelmingly apparent - also concessions are sometimes difficult to keep track of when you're shooting for innovation. two unlike variables are difficult to compare, similar to how things should be assessed in context.

if you force people into this framework then you'll find people whittling down their suggestions into simple ideas that are easier to keep track of, which destroys a lot of interesting potential ideas. addition is simpler than multiplication after all, but we can't achieve as much with addition alone.

[spacegiraffe]

i agree with this dude."balancing the skills by decreasing the damage seems pointless, if i work hard to get to lvl 16 to get my lvl 3 ult i dont want my damage to go down. what is the point your char will be so usless late game what you are suggesting could only be possible with a complete remake of the game engine.
balance is fine, balance the heros nerf them boost them. but to make their skills deacrease will make the game identical at all levels and there fore ruin it nice try but wont work.. guess that is why its a theorie?

Though I completely disagree with this guide [as you do] I must point out that you have completely misunderstood it and the post you are in agreement with.

His point was that an ult with 1000dmg and 5s cd is just as overpowered as an ult with 500dmg and 5s cd. You thought he was talking about a hero with a lvl 2 ult doing 1000dmg and 5s cd and a lvl 3 ult that goes down by 500dmg. This is not the case. What he was trying to point out was that this balancing method is flawed because you cannot make an ability less overpowered simply by nerfing damage. Though this would logically make the ability less overpowered, the cd has been overlooked. What made the ability overpowered might have been the cd which would mean that the nerfed ability is still overpowered it just inflicts half as much damage.

The only instance where nerfing the damage of an overpowered ability is logical is when the ability only inflicts damage or does the exact opposite, it heals.

This guide is also incorrect for many reasons, one of these being that some heroes rely on poor play from the other team in order to be effective. :myrm: for example is slightly overpowered because his stuns are easy to avoid and thus when it comes down to simple logic his stuns are given extra damage that they shouldn't have. Though the damage on his second ability is justifiable, the damage that his first ability inflicts is too high and the short cool down on both abilities is a joke. Many would argue that his first ability can easily be avoided but I and many others would argue that his first ability is unavoidable when using both of his abilities together. When both his stuns are used in consecutively then it is impossible to avoid both of them even if you're a pro player with over 2000psr. :myrm: is a hero that is justifiable on paper but isn't in-game due to conditions that require incredibly skilled mathematicians to be calculated mathematically. This is exactly why this guide is flawed and why many heroes are imba and all over the place.

Another factor that is not considered is the success of a hero's abilities in combination with another hero's. Certain combinations of heroes are overpowered as a result of this poor balancing system. :pebb::myrm: is a great example of this. :pebb: on his own can have 2 stuns by lvl 2 [in this instance I am classifying throw as a stun] which in total can stun someone for around 3s. This can possibly do a maximum of 250dmg at lvl 2 nowhere near enough to 2 shot any hero. This looks fine on paper but say if we introduced :myrm: to the scene. :myrm: two stuns stun for a maximum of 2s at lvl 2 and inflict a maximum of 225dmg. If you look at the combo they can inflict a maximum of 475dmg and stun for a maximum of 5s at lvl 2. This is almost as much damage as :myrm: using both lvl 4 stuns and an extra second more of stun. The damage alone from this combo can kill almost any lvl 2 hero and :myrm: stuns in combination are unavoidable. When you look at the damage inflicted by auto attacks over those 5s :myrm: can get in 3 hits at a maximum of 50 dmg each and :pebb: can get in 1 hit at a maximum of 67 dmg. In total the damage inflicted during the 5s of stun would be 167dmg making the abilities inflict a total damage of 692 dmg, enough to kill most lvl 2 heroes in the game. What still hasn't been taken into consideration is the auto attacks that would be dealt when the enemy hero is trying to escape. Since this is very situational it is better to look at the amount of auto attacks required to kill a hero with 800 health. If myrmidon was the only one in auto attack range then it would require 3 auto attacks in order to kill the hero. This would take just under 5s in the most optimal conditions. If :pebb: got 1 auto attack in then it would take only 1 auto attack from myrmidon to finish the hero off. This would take just over 1.5s meaning that even keeper of the forest cannot even pop his first ability in time to escape.

This guide completely overlooks how different heroes spells and heroes work together and if S2 actually nerfs/buffs heroes based on the method shown in this guide.


S2 should really start bringing out mini patches to trial small changes made to heroes instead of making huge changes once or twice a month. Trial and error is something that a game like HoN heavily relies upon when it comes to balancing as it is much quicker than trying to solve balancing issues in the approach shown in this guide. Please take note of this S2 if you haven't already.

[Eeks]

Spoke to my good mate at S2 and he told me the real story...

*hits the bong*

"Duuuuuude like, lets make brood and he like, goes invisible and stuff, and like, can tp from base, so like, you can't out level him if his 0-3"

*hits bong*

"Yeh and make his slow skill go through Magic immunity, lets give him an ulti that can smash supports 1v1 too"



S2 is the biggest troll on the internet. Laughing at us by shitting up the game we support with stupid balances

[L0LTROLL]

Spoke to my good mate at S2 and he told me the real story...

*hits the bong*

"Duuuuuude like, lets make brood and he like, goes invisible and stuff, and like, can tp from base, so like, you can't out level him if his 0-3"

*hits bong*

"Yeh and make his slow skill go through Magic immunity, lets give him an ulti that can smash supports 1v1 too"



S2 is the biggest troll on the internet. Laughing at us by shitting up the game we support with stupid balances

true story

New hero is completely retarded, not gonna play this stupid game seriously until he's nerfed.
his ulti pet does 100 dmg + the impale slow with 1400 hp. This is like wildsoul's pet + arachna's pet all put together. Why doesn't S2 actually test out the heroes before actually implementing them into a patch? I can't wait till DOTA 2 comes out, then HoN will just nothing more than a lil cash pick up between wc3 and the steam dota

[`Lucky``]

wow looking back at the dota heroes they added a lot of bonus effects to previously generic skills- like reincarnation now slowing enemies and hellfire containing a lingering slow.

after about 70-80 heroes it becomes hard to think of skills that are both original as well as balanced.

[Oops_My_Bad]

Balance Theory:
Many games apply a rock paper scissors utility to balancing.
Actually this is kind of the root of most games.

Rock: Strength
Scissors: Agility
Paper: Intelligence

Or D&D
Warrior
Rogue
Mage


The base theory that a STR/Warrior has high but slow damage output, and hit points to allow him to beat a rogue on equal footing.
A rogue/agi, does damage fast enough to take down a mage/int.

And finally an int has high enough burst damage to stop a warrior.

Of course this is over simplified but basically STR>SPEED>INT>STR
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The problem with rock paper scissors is that you always know the outcome. To get rid of this, and add excitement and factor player skill, game designers/creators create things like brittle rocks with razors, or metal paper.
Basically allowing there to be occasions when the Rock may beat paper or Paper may beat scissors.

The key to balanced design, isn't so much the strength, but rather the weaknesses. Or what I like to refer to as the Why not? factor.

The why not factor, is basically asking why wouldn't you pick that hero.
A hero with no weakness is the one that everybody will play. What reason do people have for not choosing that hero.

If you give a hero a good ability, what is the reason you wouldn't use that ability at absolutely every single opportunity?

Game balance is the intersection of the why and the why not.

Taking a basic hero like Blacksmith as an example.
A simple ability, like blacksmiths fireball. Is a Stun and reasonably good damage. He also has a slow, armor debuff, DoT, attack speed and movement speed bonus. His ult makes everything he does even better.

He sounds pretty awesome. He does almost everything. Now why wouldnt you play him.

Low int,Low Mana pool, high mana cost, melee range, long cooldowns.

These weaknesses are what make him a hero you might pick, versus a hero you must pick.

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In addition to the why and why not scale, we also have the cost/reward model.
Basically this is how much you invest, and what you get out of it.

Taking Blacksmith for this example again for simplicity.

His Fireball is a Guaranteed amount of damage for a specific mana cost.
Now his mana cost is about the same as other int heroes until he gets his ult even though his mana pool is much smaller.
Once he gets his ult, his mana costs increase significantly, and here is where we see risk/cost vs. reward.
He is investing much more mana, for the chance of doing significantly more damage. This huge mana cost to mana pool ratio, ensure that while he may prove really powerful in a single fight, if he goes against multiple opponents at once, or one after another, he'll soon find himself drained.
A high burst damage, but cannot sustain it.

-
As a correlation this forces certain build considerations to allow him to utilize his abilities to maximize their potential, or he can use his abilities passively and instead rely on his items as his primary foundation, with his skills as support.


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Abilities and Interplay.

One of the considerations key to avoiding OP situations is the interplay of abilities. This is where the designer goes against their creation to see how to counter them. A designer should always be extremely wary about creation potential for situations with no counter.

The key here being that the designer is aware they are creating the situation. This is a -be careful when doing it- warning label, not a don't do it. This may also be called a double whammy or a no lose situation.

examples: Blood hunter silence + hemorage.
(The recent nerf addressed some of this imbalance)
Silencing the target forces them to rely ONLY on their base attack abilities.
Hemorage penalizes them for moving.
This means its both an excellent escape and chase ability.
So blood hunter can create a situation where not only cant they use abilities on him, but also they are punished for trying to escape from the situation.
The why not being, is there any possible reason you wouldnt always use the two skills together in this pairing to force the situation? (No reason)

Mage Bane: Mana Burn Plus Ult
Basically his passive ability increases the effectiveness of his ult.
Deals extra damage to the target and removes their ability to counter by stealing their mana, then penalizes the target for the mana they have lost in the encoutner.



The counter for these heroes, is don't allow them to get strong which is really not that much of a counter. But at least they are squishy early on.

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Well, thats the end of my introduction to design balance. Maybe I'll find some time to put up the rest of the balance theory later if work doesnt attempt to kill me first.

[AtamanGanja]

just a thought. probly wrong thread too haha

[Anakin]

i play from beta and i will talk about just a few thinks...
1) new heroes: ok nice! but before nerf them(im tired to see Raa immortal stun and get 1000 dmg aoe for example)
2) balance the mmr system. 3 days i played with newbies dont know nothing.i had 1670 mmr 3 days ago, now i have 1530 with 0.81 kd(im support or roamer generaly not a pro but i know the BASIC rules to play like "dont go alone or you are so raped" but the newbies this dont know(like russian people no offense but raraly i win with them)
3) balance the mmr system with KD sistem. i cant play with people like my mmr and had 0.5 kd...0.6...and the opponents have 1.8 kd...2.2 in the same team. The verified sistem is also useless.

Today,for expample, i played with valkirie(my favorite heroe) i dominate solo bot(from legion side) with a good farm (and legionarie also in woods) and kill my opponents lane 2 times. at min 10(more or less), the top enemy miss(with obv no call for my allies) and going bot to gank me...ok i die, and can happenend, but the top lane enemies level was the same, or high to me solo lane?? (like me level 8 them 9-10)I realize the top lane falls but ok i thought not is totaly lost the match can be take with a minimun of teamplay.(result 11-15 for them) and i see our ninphora teleport in outside map woods and refuse to play, bombardier in base just to try the steal with his ulti...anyway we lost and feed because we was 3 vs 5. I report the guys refuse to play with hopeless ban them. (and concede the match but the problem not is this time but too times)

Sorry for the whine and for my poor english i dont know if this is a topic for this kind of discussion but it's just to talk about my ideas and i hope can be fixed. i love this game but i cant play more with this unbalance system. Really-.-

[w3wStarBoy]

Need to balance there hero:

Fayde: Neft Need exspecial
Frist, the burning shadow, have a long range and give ilusion attack 4 time in 10 seconds (so long, ilusion in ealy need 4s to finish, and 2-2.5s in late). With magebane, combo 2 skill will destroy 24% mana + 256 mana,With pesti , ilusion can bash?? i wonder why S2 still dont fix it
Seconds, his ulti is fk imba, how can counter the one who can hide in tree and have 1200 true sight and +30% movement speed. Buy eyes, dear sir, it still cant counter fayde or Hope the fayde in stand of you is noob

Aluna: Buff need
The forgotten hero, someone like her, someone not, but pick her for fun only. Why? Her ulti so useless, Power thrown always miss with global cast range and waste 200 mana for nothing. The one way to use good is farm creep. His 3rd skill is hard to use and take a long cooldown. In the past, nefted BAT make her more useless. Easy to kill, need farm like carry and lose to all carry enemy

Gladiator: Buff Need
this hero still be good in sometimes but need more buff. His skill require luck, exp but his combo deal normal damage ( or weak ). And well, plz show his ulti AOE to teamate