Something very disturbing happened in the last few days, a bunch of game developer’s blogs passed around discussions on balance (particularly in MMOs) and some of the conclusions that were made seem unsettling. A hilarious, and informative, summary can be found at WorldIV. The first part of the discussion I stumbled upon was at Psychochild’s site (link), where he was refuting a claim that balance in games is impossible. A bold statement to say the least, and I commend Psychochild on his avid defense (and publishing) on the topic of balance, but the part that really disturbed me was in the response to his post. The originator was Ryan over at Nerfbat, arguing at first that balance is impossible and then retorting with more of the same. The part that really inspired this response was something he said in his response:
Basically, to make a completely balanced game, everything would have to have a counterpart, or everyone would have to be perfectly identical. That, in my opinion, is entirely unfun. So truthfully, I shouldn’t be arguing that balance is or isn’t possible, because I feel that true balance shouldn’t be sought when developing a game.
I was already surprised that someone so seemingly familiar with balance as Psychochild would accuse Blizzard of being a developer that does not understand balance, and then I was hit by an employee at SOE making this statement! The above quote almost totally removes the speaker from having any understanding of balance whatsoever. Stating that things must be identical in order to be equivalent is like claiming that all liquids must be water. A lot of the comments made to the above linked posts talk about how people enjoy the diversity of RPG’s that are “not balanced”, but at least everyone in the discussions is smart enough to agree that the problem lies within the varied definitions of the word balance.
Thus, many of the replying posts have sought to provide a definition for the word, typically using examples of MMORPGs and how classes and skills can be balanced. These are good responses, but with statements like the ones Ryan is making you cannot simply argue with skills and classes, and semantics seems to be a tarrasque that no one really wants to let loose on the blog-world, so you have to argue logic.
I’ll quote a more specific part of his blog again:
to make a completely balanced game…everyone would have to be perfectly identical.
This is fundamentally and entirely incorrect. The easiest way to create balance is to make everyone identical, but this is in no sense the ONLY method. A ton of concrete weighs the exact same amount as a ton of feathers, yet the concrete and feathers themselves are quite different. To use a better, more videogame, analogy then that, I will turn to Blizzard. (despite how much I may be angry at them) For what I consider extremely good examples of games with amazing balance that feature very unique characters, I look to Starcraft (Brood War, more specifically) and Warcraft 3 (Frozen Throne, nat). The three races in Starcraft, Terrans, Protoss, and the Zerg, were all unique in several different ways and yet maintained a very delicate level of balance. This is especially noticeable when you look at its predecessor, Warcraft II, where the races were humans and orcs and the only differences between the two were purely aesthetic. Thankfully, with SC Blizzard decided to push themselves further and provide varying gameplay experiences while still allowing equal choices on all fronts.
To go a bit more in depth, just look at the lowest level units (beyond gatherers) in the game. The Terran Marine, the Zerg Zergling, and the Protoss Zealot. These three units are definitely not identical, and even one-to-one they are not even equal, but when you begin to consider the facts things come into focus a bit more. Zerglings spawn in pairs, Marines can attack at range, and Zealots have half of their health that regenerates but can also be alive with very little health above their shields. The real equating factor in the game, admittedly an RTS and a bit different from an MMORPG, is the cost and time invested into creating these units. A pair of zerglings is cheap and fast to make, so by the time a zealot would be paid for and completed, you can have upwards of 6 zerglings out. At some point, and I’m too out-of-practice to know the exact numbers, there is a specific number of zerglings/marines/zealots that balance out in the sense of attack, defense, speed, cost, and time to create that number. We know this is true because, if it weren’t, whenever you’d play Starcraft people would be that race 90% of the time and use that unit 90% of the time.
It’s true that if you like to control a swarm of tons of units, you’ll pick the Zerg right off, just as if you want an easy solo class in WoW you will most likely pick a hunter (as psychochild pointed out). This brings up the problem of defining balance again, because what hunters gain in soloing they lose in PvP / raiding / end-game, the same as other classes make up for their lack of easy soloing in those areas. I’ve played with a player who would play the protoss in Starcraft almost exactly as if he was playing with the Zerg, meaning cranking out a large number of the lower units and building tons of production buildings, it was eye-opening and very amazing. It helps to be a kick-ass player too, but still the you can play the Zerg style of play with the other races, just the same as you can play a mage and excel at soloing. I realize that this argument here brings into play (hah!) a lot of debate about the skill of the player, and the variations there and how they effect balance, but we can go further into those at a later date!
For now, my rant is done, and Ryan if you read this I mean no offense, I was simply set off by your statements about balance and my rampant disagreement with them.
Well, one thing none of these numbers can crunch is how units are used. A swarm of lings was only effective if they could all move in and attack. Consequently the marines were only extremely effective in choke situations. Zealots were similar to the marines but more adaptable. What all this means is that terrain matters. One of the things I have found incredibly frustrating about WoW is that they never use terrain really. Hunters can shoot through the tops of hills, mobs can run straight down cliffs and return back up them, etc. Thus eliminating a balancing factor for the various classes.
Not sure your protoss analogy is really correct however, that is just an example of a player who understands macro using that race. The methodology of the protoss would still be very similar (they would still be outnumbered and can’t “swarm”) assuming their opponent was of equal skill level.
I can’t help but agree with the guy who says balance is impossible unless everything is identical. Balance doesn’t equate to fun though. Balance is also a tricky thing to calculate (see example above). What really matters is how outstripped other factions are in certain regards, do they get something to make up for their lack in one region? You make this point but I don’t think it can ever balance a game per se.
Oh, and alliance and horde were different in WC2. Horde had different casters which made them immensely superior (ogre-mage bloodlust).
Perhaps a lot of this comes about because of my skewed perception of whether or not a game is “perfectly balanced”. In my opinion, World of Warcraft is very well balanced, as a quote on one of the linked blogs says: “A game is balanced when all players are complaining equally.” To cater to the quote, I have heard so many complaints about every single class that I can’t help but think they are balanced.
I’ve read comments on the forums of paladins complaining that they lack the offensive capabilities of other classes, and that this goes against “what paladins are supposed to be”. Pretty much everything I’ve ever heard of paladins is that they aren’t supposed to be damage dealing machines, they just stay alive, and in doing so help everyone around them stay alive longer also. There are a lot of specific issues with each class, but as far as class-to-class balance they are, from my varied experiences, very well balanced in the end.
I may just be very non-picky about these things, I’m not sure. If I go back and re-read all the posts about this, people using words like “perfectly” and “completely” balanced is far too extreme for my tastes. It’s like trying to make a game that looks “exactly” like real life, you can get close, but you won’t get to that exact level. I feel the same way about balancing a game.
Oh, and the only difference in WC2 between the races was the spells, which is the shame that the one diverse element offset the balance completely. Do you at least agree that Starcraft pulled this off far better?
If I wanted to test Starcraft for balance, I’d have the computer play both sides at the same level of AI, race vs. race in a variety of terrain setups, do this, oh, 10,000 times, and record the results. This won’t give a completely accurate picture as people still beat AI and in games like this the AI tends to not be “smart” enough to exploit weaknesses whereas people usually will. But it’d be a start.
As for the original point… well, I don’t think it’s wrong to say that the only way a game can be COMPLETELY balanced is to make everyone identical or give them completely dichotomous positions. (Depending on how the game works- even Chess has a statistically registerable first player advantage with identical setups.)
I think it’s pretty obvious that WoW isn’t balanced… that’s why they keep releasing game tweaking (‘nerfing’) patches, a pratice I would expect to last for the entire lifespan of the game.
I think joshx0rz is right on the money- the question is more “is it fun” than “can it be done.” This is an old, old game design argument, most notably stretching back to the original versions of Cosmic Encounter.
The problem with that Starcraft idea would be that some race AIs are markedly better then others. Terrans take alot of finesse and aren’t just “build units and rush”, so they’d lose alot. This sort of problem could be applied to alot of things I think in automated testing.
Starcraft is very well balanced and the diversity is what makes the game so interesting.
As to the level of complaining, I think that’s a good observation.
I would say (cynically) WOW is purposefully unbalanced and patched as an economic issue. If a class is nerfed or enhanced it encourages new play options and keeps people hooked.
In Warcraft 2 the spells were NOT the only differences between the races. The upgrade costs for weapons and armor were also different (human upgrades cost more gold, orc upgrades cost more lumber). Moreover, if you bring in the WC2 expansion, the heroes for each side were also different.
More importantly, I would disagree that the spells “offset the balance completely”. Ogre Mage’s Bloodlust was a very good spell, but the best spell in the game was the Human Mage’s Slow. If there was an aspect of spell imbalance in the game, it was that Orc Deathknights started out with Death Coil (a good spell), as oppossed to Human Mages who started out with Fireball (a bad spell).
Plus, we’re assuming a multi-player environment here. Humans were WAY better than orcs in single player because of the Paladin’s Healing spell. I played through both single player games and both single player expansions and the Human campaigns were much easier – and it was entirely because of the Healing spell.
I got a little sidetracked in the last post. The point I was going to make was that Warcraft 2 is one of the most balanced games I have ever played (compared to others of its genre), and it accomplished this by making the races so similar that, even if they completely screwed up the differences (which they didn’t) they would still have a very balanced game.
And yet, I find that Starcraft is equally (or near enough) balanced despite having 3 races that are very different. IMHO, this goes to show that you can make a game balanced by making everything almost identical, or if you put a lot of effort into designing it, you can make a game where the sides/races/factions/classes are very different and still balanced.