Could Server Mods be the Fastest Way to an Effective Balance?

Discussion in 'Balance Discussions' started by wondible, April 3, 2014.

  1. wondible

    wondible Post Master General

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    Uber isn't a large company, and they can have only a handful of people trying out one balance theory at any given time. If the community could effectively run a giant genetic experiment on different balance ideas, a couple would likely become popular, and Uber could then evaluate and tweak proven concepts for their official blessed version of the game.

    Meanwhile, players would be able to test out some (many still require code changes) of their ideas and then have experience-based discussions about the real impact.

    I realize that we probably won't get a full server from Uber any time soon, but if they could just extend the engine a bit, we would have enough power to try our own balance experiments (or try to duplicate Uber's) The game would need to be able to fetch unit stats from a remote location, and provide an API call for a host to set the location of the /pa folder.
    seanbo likes this.
  2. cwarner7264

    cwarner7264 Moderator Alumni

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    Like this? :) (link removed because WIP)
    Last edited: April 3, 2014
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  3. brianpurkiss

    brianpurkiss Post Master General

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    I'd love to get stuff like this, but unfortunately we probably won't get it until 1.0 release.
  4. nanolathe

    nanolathe Post Master General

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    Apologies, but we don't have the Project lead's go ahead on releasing the rebalance information just yet. ;)
    Soon though. It'll be public soon.
  5. madmecha

    madmecha Active Member

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    As always 1000 people trying something out will fine the pros/cons of it faster then 10 trying them. If they would be willing I'm sure the players could help out greatly.
  6. stormingkiwi

    stormingkiwi Post Master General

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    Yes. It would. There are already a number of people within the community who are actively thinking about providing their own balance solutions, and have made that decision independently of one another.
  7. godde

    godde Well-Known Member

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    I don't think this is a good approach to balancing vanilla PA. Balance is a really sensitive thing and small changes easily add up so it is hard to really the see the effect of small balance changes.
    How are we even gonna decide what is a good change and what is a bad change if people are playing 10 different balance mods at the same time?
    I think you can try different concepts with server mods like adding units and new gamefeatures which could you could then show the devs how this unit or gamemechanic makes the game deeper and more interesting.
    Like take the simple example of nerfing laser defense towers. There are so many viable ways to nerf them.
    You can nerf them with single attributes as cost, damage, health and range or combination of these attributes. Which nerf is the correct one of these? All of them, some of them or 1 of them? It is hard to tell.
    If people are playing different version with different balance you can't just pick all the single changes from each version. Like in 1 version laser defense towers have been nerfed and in another t1 mobile units have been buffed and you put them together and suddenly, laser defense towers are useless.
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  8. wondible

    wondible Post Master General

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    I was expecting it to be mostly single mods that control everything. Combination would happen through authors looking at each other's mods and sharing ideas, hopefully with some reflection on conflicts.

    It would dilute the testing of any particular combination. I'd expect the ones that work to gradually gain popularity and get more testing as a result.
    stormingkiwi likes this.
  9. godde

    godde Well-Known Member

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    Well, already we see that this would require a lot of time to iterate over. Like the authors look at each others work, pick their changes and make a new mod. I think this could really fracture the community pretty quickly. Like look at the top players and most 1v1 tournaments. Multiplanet systems are usually avoided because they/we are afraid of stalemates and they think that orbital haven't been polished enough. People generally evolve a taste of their own and devour mods that are to their liking or set up special rules like no nuke.
    People have different preferences and the popularity of certain mods might come down to just that, their taste.
    I don't think there is anything bad in modding but what makes a game or mod stand out is the vision. I don't think the vision have been that clearly defined for PA so different potential mod developers are likely to have very varied visions of what PA should become and then it might be hard to come together to balance the main game of PA in such a fashion as proposed by you.
    I'd rather see the devs define their vision more clearly before we, as a community, can help them achieve that.
    dom314 and stormingkiwi like this.

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