Suggestion Balance Team Rework

[Joka10]

REFORMED POST
Since I have recieved a lot of input from the community, I'm going to propose something else based more off of what people have been saying. A lot of people seemed to agree with what I suggested (9 yes, 4 no, 1 it's fine as is, 2 something needs to be changed, but not this), but, perhaps with this reformation, more will.

1. The polling requirement is removed. Polls are encouraged to make it easier to see whether or not an opinion is widely held as opposed to just widely debated, which is all one can tell from just glancing at a popular thread. No changes will be required based on poll results, but the poll will be a tool for the balance team to use in making changes.
2. The balance team are required to make a response as to what they are doing based on a suggestion, and why they are doing it, for any suggestion with more than a page of posts.
3. The private forum entitled 'Balance' is made visible (not editable) to the public so that they can see what the balance team is working on to better understand why things happen. No posts directly related to issues in the Balance forum are to be made (this excludes suggestions).
4. All balance-related suggestions still must be more detailed than "THIS IS OP NERF IT" in order to be considered. However, any and all topics that meet the standards listed must be looked at and responded to by the balance team.

These changes aren't nearly as drastic as what I wanted, but they will at least assure the community that the balance team is doing their job, inform them as to why they make the decisions they do, and give people more of an oppurtunity to actually make a difference in balance. I am modifying the poll to let people vote again based on this reformed suggestion. For some reason, I am unable to update the poll... make your opinion known in the form of a post, I guess.

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This is based around a well-liked post I made in a thread by @kevinlive, that has unfortunately been swallowed up by several other posts. I'm giving it its own thread so that a wider opinion can be made of it.

PROBLEMS

There are currently two main problems with the balance team, as far as I can tell. One of these is worse than the others, and I will list it first.

1. The ideas of overpowered, underpowered, and balanced are entirely based around opinion. You can mathematically compare the damage of one tool to another, but you cannot easily compare the functionality of skills that way. Attempting to compare, say, Strike and Forcepush, using numbers in such a way that one could determine which is more powerful in battle might even be impossible. In reality, skills can only truly be compared through opinions, and as with all opinions, they will be different. This is what happens right now with balance. However, very, very few opinions are actually being represented when balancing happens.

On a server like this, where there are 100-150 people logged in at any one time, there are a lot of opinions about skills floating around. However, the only opinions that are represented are those of the members of the balance team. These are people who have applied, met the requirements of, and been accepted to the balance team. They are the great minority. The only opinions that are represented are those from the suggestions they choose to pay attention to, the ideas of their friends, and their own ideas. I'm not accusing the balance team of corruption. One could argue that there is some, as if everyone's suggestions were really being taken into account, they would outweigh each other over and over to the point where the general opinion would be something resembling balance (which it certainly is not right now). There is also a good bit of natural bias in every human. It could be subconcious, and they might not even know it is there, but it will still influence their decisions a little bit.

Anyway, though, only 5 or 10, maybe 15 people are actually there tweaking balance. They listen to some opinions, but what we have with the current system is something a little worse than virtual representation. This was a term used in relation to the Parliament of the old British Empire. Parliament was supposed to represent the opinions of every citizen in the empire, because it consisted of elected officials, yet, only the people in England itself and maybe some people nearby actually got a say in the vote. Everyone else in the Americas, India, Australia, and so on, did not get a say, yet still had to follow the same restrictions and be represented by the same people. However, those people really didn't have much of an idea what anyone outside of England wanted. What exists in the balance team currently is just a little less effective than that. By this, I mean that not only are just select groups represented in the balance team (the members' friends and the occasional suggestions they take into account from the forums), but the members in the balance team aren't elected by the community at all. If the balance team members had no friends, then really, nobody would be represented except the balance team themselves. It's lucky that as many people are represented as there are now (and that's still a very small amount).

To boil it down into one point, the views of the balance team are naturally narrowed by the people they interact with ingame, their own personal biases (which, even if they make an effort to avoid them, will still influence them to some extent in an area like balance where opinions are the only data), and the suggestions they happen to read (many are overlooked). This needs to be changed.

2. The balance team currently seems to be, plain and simply, inactive. Very few suggestions actually seem to get balance team responses, and if they do, they are rarely actually acted on. This apathy of the team's members should not be tolerated; even if a change isn't made to the system, they should still be required to actually do stuff, I think. All other staff have to be active; why don't they?

SOLUTION

Now, to fix the first (and the second, really) problem, I propose an entire system overhaul.

1. The balance team is completely purged. Members who wish to join again will reapply. This was already done within the past month, and should be disregarded. The rest still applys, however.
2. A new section of the forums is created called "Balance".
3. A player who wishes for something to be re-balanced will post a thread with a title that sums up the goal of the post, a post that describes their opinion in an intelligent fashion, and a poll. This poll is required in every post, and the questions within it must be suggestions of specific changes (i.e. "Dragoon's damage should be lowered by 5","Dragoon's damage should remain the same", "Dragoon's damage should be buffed by two", not "Dragoon should be nerfed/buffed" or "Is Dragoon OP?").
4. Polls with a certain amount of votes in them will be acted upon by the balance team in the fashion desired by the community, as long as it is a) possible, and b) remotely realistic. If the balance team majorly decides that the change desired should not be implemented, they must post why they are vetoing it if they decide to do that. If the community is extremely bothered by this, they may continue to push the issue, and other staff may get involved if neccessary.
5. Extremely controversial polls will have their threads stickied so that a larger portion of the community will get involved. Other methods may be taken to get the community involved more.

The primary change here is that all suggestions with a sufficient amount of interest must be considered and acted upon by the balance team. Unless there is nearly a unanimous opinion against a suggestion by the balance team, they must act on said suggestion. The only effect the opinions of members of the balance team may have other than that is that members may vote in the polls. Under normal circumstances, the balance team would not be able to veto an idea.

This system would ensure that all players who are willing to take the time to make a balance post or cast a vote would actually have a guaranteed effect come from their contribution. Nobody would make a post, have it become popular, and get skipped over by the balance team. Everyone could have a voice; everyone's opinion on balance would be represented (well, everyone who was willing to vote).

The effect of this would be quite drastic over time. The best example I can compare it to is the upcoming Karma mechanic. With this mechanic, a player who went out killing everyone they saw would theoretically kill a similar amount of good-karma people as to the amount of neutral and evil-karma people. This would cause their own karmic balance to gradually drift towards neutral. Each good kill would cancel out an evil kill, slowly making the number decay into zero, or neutral. The new balance team setup would have a similar effect towards balance. Each post made nerfing a skill would cancel out each post made buffing a skill, gradually causing everything to reach the area of balance.

Of course, as I mentioned in the beginning, OP, UP, and balance are all opinions. Thus, someone would always be dissatisfied. However, since this system would work off of the majority vote, theoretically, the majority of people would see skills as balanced after a few months of this system. The majority-voted nerfs would cancel out the majority-voted buffs, gradually decaying to balance.





tl;dr: No more virtual representation; rather, true democracy. If that makes no sense, it's your own fault for skipping to the tl;dr.

 

[Carbash]

I havent been on the server long enough to begin recognizing differences in balance through application. What I can say is that theoretically some classes are better than others, the question needs to be is this acceptable. Example a paladin fights a rougue class, beats said rogue class, then the forums get bogged down by rogues saying nerf pallies. Same goes for caster fighting a rogue. So on and so on. If everything becomes balanced, then all classes will be the same. There is a reason paper rock scissors method works. To try to balance everything would take away from that, and in my opinion, take away from classes as a whole. The question is do you want that? How do you make it work? Even if enough people vote on a subject, the numbers would be skewed. Consider that one ability would effect warrior classes the most so they want a potential nerf. Now consider that the majority of players are warrior classes, since they are the majority then they would be heard. I would say that in theory this would work if each class had an even number of people in it to properly represent themselves, but they dont.

 

[Kainzo]

@Joka10 - we have already purged the balance team and @Alator appointed @c12095 as the balance lead to reform the team. There already is a private forum called "Balance" that we post / test things on. If I felt someone was only looking out for XYZ class, they wouldnt be on the team.

 

[c12095]

As Kainzo said, the team was purged and I was placed at the lead. As much as you all think, there is no class balance around player preference. On multipule occasions I have requested nerfs on my own class and I refuse to let anyone on this team try to save their class for the sake of personal preference. They has all agreed to this statement and if they break that agreement they will be removed immediately.

The balance team is not inactive and suggestions are not being ignored. Most suggestions from the player base are biased or forget thre are after effects and are left be. I read all suggestion threads, you are not being overlooked your suggestions are either tested, or left where they were but I check it all.

 

[Joka10]

As Kainzo said, the team was purged and I was placed at the lead. As much as you all think, there is no class balance around player preference. On multipule occasions I have requested nerfs on my own class and I refuse to let anyone on this team try to save their class for the sake of personal preference. They has all agreed to this statement and if they break that agreement they will be removed immediately.

The balance team is not inactive and suggestions are not being ignored. Most suggestions from the player base are biased or forget thre are after effects and are left be. I read all suggestion threads, you are not being overlooked your suggestions are either tested, or left where they were but I check it all.

The thing is, balance doesn't exist without using player preference. It's not something you can determine based solely on statistics, math, and hard facts. You can look at Wizard's damage, and look at Ranger's damage, and say "Hmm, those seem a little off", but you can't modify Strike's damage based on the distance Forcepull launches you, or the duration of Root based on the range of Cleave. They just aren't compatible. Using that ancient example of math teachers the world over, you can't add apples to oranges.

Without player preference, you're just sampling a bunch of fights and seeing who wins. That doesn't take into account the skill of the testers, or the fly that buzzes past their line of sight, or the misclick with the bind.

When people look at underpowered, overpowered, and balanced, they all have different views. The tendency of a Paladin will be to say that his class is either just fine or underpowered. The classes that kill him will generally be called overpowered, and the classes he kills are either just fine or maybe even overpowered, to make his kills seem even better. There is a natural bias based on class towards what is underpowered, overpowered, and balanced. When A is killed by B and says "B OP", that's not the same response C will have upon killing B, most likely. It's not a definite fact, and therefore, the determination of balance should be based on the popular opinion.

Ignoring suggestions due to personal bias is the opiniative equivalent to ignoring facts because they contain the number 5. Bias is something that is just going to be there. The general bias should be what balance is based around, like how many forms of measurement are based around the properties of water.

Kainzo mentioned that there is a private forum called "Balance", where things are posted and tested. Like I have explained above, balance is based around opinion, not facts. Thus, the opinions represented when it comes to balance should be those of the entire server. Make this private forum public, so that larger opinions may be directly added to it, rather than by picking and choosing. At the very least, make it visible, so people can see what is being worked on, and what is determined in those tests.

This is only the second map I've played on. I don't have all the experience you do, and certainly not as much as Kainzo. However, having seen countless "x OP", "y UP", and similar complaints ingame, I'm fairly confident that the whole idea of OP, UP, and balance is based on opinion. Math beyond comparing polls will not be very helpful there. I would like to see the opinions of the community play a bigger part in balance.

 

[c12095]

Believe me @Joka10 I account for everything. I don't just do a single test and make a decision, I have been doing this for a little while now, I know how to do my job. The forum is private due to the fact that the forum is used for professional discussion, we don't need the entire server commenting because in all honesty, over half the server has no idea how to begin balancing. The thread is used by the team and the higher staff members to organize test and changes. I realize this might not seem fair from an outside standpoint, but you trust the staff to take care of players breaking rules, trust us to make the right decisions.

 

[Joka10]

The right decisions cannot be made without the proper data, and, even as current suggestions being made now go, that data is not being made available for the balance team to actually use. You guys can make changes, but they won't be made using the resources required.

 

[kevinlive]

@Joka10
You are an argumentation god.

 

[Dazureus]

Kainzo mentioned that there is a private forum called "Balance", where things are posted and tested. Like I have explained above, balance is based around opinion, not facts. Thus, the opinions represented when it comes to balance should be those of the entire server. Make this private forum public, so that larger opinions may be directly added to it, rather than by picking and choosing. At the very least, make it visible, so people can see what is being worked on, and what is determined in those tests.

I think it could be a good idea to make the forum visible but not public, so long as there was a rule that nobody makes threads in other forums for the sole purpose of commenting on a Balance thread. People are prone to complaining about things they don't understand, dontcha know. Maybe just making a thread about new developments from the Balance Team would be good.

I also think you're wrong about balance being 'not facts'. Opinion is always an element (no matter whose opinion it is), but if it isn't tempered by facts you are going to have a badly balanced game.

 

[Joka10]

I think it could be a good idea to make the forum visible but not public, so long as there was a rule that nobody makes threads in other forums for the sole purpose of commenting on a Balance thread. People are prone to complaining about things they don't understand, dontcha know. Maybe having one unified sticky thread would mitigate that. Maybe just making a thread about new developments from the Balance Team would be good.

I also think you're wrong about balance being 'not facts'. Opinion is always an element (no matter whose opinion it is), but if it isn't tempered by facts you are going to have a badly balanced game.

I should elaborate on that, then. Facts DO have a place, but it is a much less important on than with opinions. Comparing damage rates is very neccessary, as well as durations, and things like that, but those mathematical details only work from a theoretical standpoint. Players will have different ways they choose to use skills and tools in the game, and therefore they will form different opinions about balance. The facts involved create skills and damages based on theories, and then the opinions are formed based on how those theories actually function in the game for players. In a way, using solely facts is like using only certain pieces of an unfinished product to try to make observations about the finished product. It won't work nearly as well as when you actually have the finished product (the opinions). You'll still need to know what facts you used to get those opinions, but without a very wide array of opinions also being made available, you will never reach balance with facts.

 

[MrPapodopolus]

Your argument of saying bias is human nature is invalid. you are complaining of balance team biased, but you yourself are being biased by making this thread. You do not like the balance team, therefore you posted here. But that's just my two cents.
I do agree with the fact that there should be a section of the forums where balances can be suggested. But your ideas of purging the balance team, again, are blasphemy. The ideas suggested above would only work in a picture perfect scenario, and on paper, it does seem like a good idea. much like the "British Parliament" of the early world, a lot of there suggestions that looked good on paper, were indeed disastrous in the end. If you have problems with the overall balance of classes in-game, then apply for the balance team.

 

[Joka10]

Your argument of saying bias is human nature is invalid. you are complaining of balance team biased, but you yourself are being biased by making this thread. You do not like the balance team, therefore you posted here. But that's just my two cents.

Of course I have bias. If I didn't, I wouldn't be human. However, I'm not writing this out of any grudge against the balance team. I'm writing this because the entire system of the balance team does not work right now. If I wanted people out of the balance team, I would make a post asking for someone to be removed with some form of proof to support it. That's not what this is. Granted, I did ask for a purge, but as explained below, that was because I didn't actually know that had already been done within the past month.

I do agree with the fact that there should be a section of the forums where balances can be suggested. But your ideas of purging the balance team, again, are blasphemy. The ideas suggested above would only work in a picture perfect scenario, and on paper, it does seem like a good idea. much like the "British Parliament" of the early world, a lot of there suggestions that looked good on paper, were indeed disastrous in the end. If you have problems with the overall balance of classes in-game, then apply for the balance team.

The part about purging the balance team was made not knowing that that has already been done within the past month, and I should probably remove it. And the ideas suggested above are democracy, which has worked quite well for many societies that certainly aren't in a picture perfect scenario. I will not apply for the balance team because I will be unable to do anything more than what they are doing right now. The entire system needs to be overhauled, as I see it. That is the entire purpose of this thread. Nobody who joins the balance team currently can hope to achieve balance without changes to the system itself. Nothing productive can really be done without that. If I applied, I would just be contributing to the malarky called 'balance' that supposedly exists right now. That's not what I want.

 

[Carbash]

Ill say it again, you are suggesting an opinioned based balancing plan which could only work if every class had equal representation. Your view would make the less played classes voice obselete. A balance team allows for equal representation for all classes. I am 100% sure they take all the things you are arguing into consideration, as well as test them thoroughly. Let them do their job. If you have a specific balance concern post it, thats what the suggestions forum is for. Everything you are suggesting takes place here in this forum already. It is their job to weed out all the biased opinions and come to a logical descision through testing.

 

[macura]

I havent been on the server long enough to begin recognizing differences in balance through application. What I can say is that theoretically some classes are better than others, the question needs to be is this acceptable. Example a paladin fights a rougue class, beats said rogue class, then the forums get bogged down by rogues saying nerf pallies. Same goes for caster fighting a rogue. So on and so on. If everything becomes balanced, then all classes will be the same. There is a reason paper rock scissors method works. To try to balance everything would take away from that, and in my opinion, take away from classes as a whole. The question is do you want that? How do you make it work? Even if enough people vote on a subject, the numbers would be skewed. Consider that one ability would effect warrior classes the most so they want a potential nerf. Now consider that the majority of players are warrior classes, since they are the majority then they would be heard. I would say that in theory this would work if each class had an even number of people in it to properly represent themselves, but they dont.

You are incredibly insightful for having only been here for 2 weeks lol.

 

[Carbash]

You are incredibly insightful for having only been here for 2 weeks lol.

I try. I feel you guys are doing a great job, keep it up. Rome wasnt built in a day.

 

[Roadkill909]

--snip--

4. Polls with a certain amount of votes in them will be acted upon by the balance team in the fashion desired by the community, as long as it is a) possible, and b) remotely realistic. If the balance team majorly decides that the change desired should not be implemented, they must post why they are vetoing it if they decide to do that. If the community is extremely bothered by this, they may continue to push the issue, and other staff may get involved if neccessary.

--snip--

tl;dr: No more virtual representation; rather, true democracy. If that makes no sense, it's your own fault for skipping to the tl;dr.

Our system is not a virtual representation and your system is not a true democracy. The current system is a Meritocracy, and your system is also a Meritocracy that has power over a Democracy. The problem is the democratic features of your system will instantly deteriorate into a Ochlocracy.

"Tyranny of the Majority" is the Achilles's heal of democracies and republics, and it will break your system. Normally, the common voter is biased, and they will vote in favor of their interest, not for what works or for what is right. Some classes are more popular than others, and this problem will never be solved.

There is a golden idea buried in your post that I like and I wish you would push for that more. The idea is staff responses on balance suggestions and I'd like to add to it. It would be nice if each post was locked after a decision is made and got a short simple response like:
* Yes
* Yes, but we are tweaking your idea and here's why
* No and here's why
* We are reviewing the idea, we'll get back to you in a week.

There is one problem with this though, and that is overloading the staff. A time-based limit on the number of balance suggestions per week per individual might be a nice idea. I always take around a week or more to sit on an idea and think it over before posting, and I encourage you to do the same.

 

[Joka10]

Our system is not a virtual representation and your system is not a true democracy. The current system is a Meritocracy, and your system is also a Meritocracy that has power over a Democracy. The problem is the democratic features of your system will instantly deteriorate into a Ochlocracy.

"Tyranny of the Majority" is the Achilles's heal of democracies and republics, and it will break your system. Normally, the common voter is biased, and they will vote in favor of their interest, not for what works or for what is right. Some classes are more popular than others, and this problem will never be solved.

There is a golden idea buried in your post that I like and I wish you would push for that more. The idea is staff responses on balance suggestions and I'd like to add to it. It would be nice if each post was locked after a decision is made and got a short simple response like:
* Yes
* Yes, but we are tweaking your idea and here's why
* No and here's why
* We are reviewing the idea, we'll get back to you in a week.

There is one problem with this though, and that is overloading the staff. A time-based limit on the number of balance suggestions per week per individual might be a nice idea. I always take around a week or more to sit on an idea and think it over before posting, and I encourage you to do the same.

As far as the first paragraph goes, I'm sorry to say I haven't studied government enough to be familiar with Meritocracies and Ochlocracies.

The idea of the majority being satisfied is core to the idea. Nobody can ever satisfy everybody, and if the majority is satisfied, at least more people are satisfied than are now. Classes will always have varying levels of popularity, I understand that. I understood that when making the post. The satisfaction of the majority is preferable to the satisfaction of few, if you ask me.

Not everything in the post has to be implemented. That's my ideal system, but there are individual pieces that would be very helpful on their own. The thing about staff responding is one of them. I don't agree with them getting locked after being responded to. People should be able to rework their ideas based on what the staff say, and that can't really be done with a locked thread.

Responding to the threads shouldn't be that big of a deal. Actually implementing the stuff could take time, but if people know that changes are going to take place even if it is a while from when the post is made, they'll still be happier than if they never get a response and the thing is implemented six months later.

Ill say it again, you are suggesting an opinioned based balancing plan which could only work if every class had equal representation. Your view would make the less played classes voice obselete. A balance team allows for equal representation for all classes. I am 100% sure they take all the things you are arguing into consideration, as well as test them thoroughly. Let them do their job. If you have a specific balance concern post it, thats what the suggestions forum is for. Everything you are suggesting takes place here in this forum already. It is their job to weed out all the biased opinions and come to a logical descision through testing.

The balance team is not an equal representation of all classes as it stands; there is not one member for each class. Some classes have more members representing them, some have less, and some have none at all. In this proposed system, every person on the server at least gets some form of contribution. It is an improvement on what is there now. Once again, bias is the primary thing which balance is based around. Differing opinions of multiple parties cancel one another out until something resembling balance is reached. "to weed out all the biased opinions" would imply that all opinions be weeded out, as every opinion is biased. To be biased is to have an opinion on a matter.

Specific balance concerns posted right now have a low chance of actually being implemented, because everything is supposed to be based on fact, according to the members of the balance team who have posted here.

That is really the basis of the problem, as I see it. Everyone says "The balance team are all biased!", which is absolutely true (not saying this in a bad way), just as it is for every person on this server. However, the issue does not lie there currently, but rather in that everything is apparently based off of hard mathematical data and statistics, which only represent everything from a theoretical standpoint. The opinions formed when those theories are implemented are at the core of overpowered, underpowered, and balanced. The balance team needs to work based off of opinion, but not their own; rather, the opinions of everyone on the server. That is the only way to reach balance. Bias needs to play a role here, but it needs to be the community's bias, not the balance team's alone.

You've only been here a couple weeks, but I've seen you make a lot of intelligent posts. That's pretty cool, and it is a good way to start off on the server. However, if you had been around longer, you would probably have different ideas about balance. Almost all of last map, the class Bloodmage was considered incredibly underpowered by many people. No action was taken to fix this until just a couple months before the map ended. Suggestions really aren't being taken into account like they should be.

 

[Joka10]

I have updated the thread with a reformed suggestion based on user input, but unfortunately I cannot seem to modify the poll to allow for input on it. Disappointing

 

[ShizzDawgg]

Majority vote = Republic.
I.e. we'll end up like the Republic of Congo.
Fuck that shit. I'm not a savage.
Leave it as is, we're actually getting shit done.
To sum it all it up, Kainzo wants an unbiased opinion when taking class balancing into effect. Majority vote is sooooooo fuckingggggg faillll in this situation.
For example: Level 15 rogue gets hit by a level 60 wizards fireball and is at half health. "OP!! NERF IT!! THAT DOES TOO MUCH DAMAGE!"
^ We don't want to run into shit like this.


Edit: To add to that, in order for all of the good skill ideas to be implemented, we'll need a shit load more coders. Go find some and hit me up.

 

[leftovers5]

From what I saw on my time on balance was that @c12095 had it handled pretty well and was relatively organized and flexible when it came to testing. It is difficult if not impossible to produce equilibrium without one side having a slight (albeit negligible at times) advantage over another.

I think the problem you are experiencing is one more that you're incapable of seeing the actual work and changes put into the classes, augmenting (not necessarily bettering them, but bettering upon them) them. This is the way it was meant to be. Wait for the dev notes and look at the changes, and you should be good. I do not see another "rework" of the balance team any time soon.