DUST Search - Weapon Roles

Fizzer94 wrote:

Read this.

Perfect Imbalance/Balancing for Skill is the way forward for Dust. I will summarize each main point of imperfect balance and balancing for skill in the bold sections below.

JOAT(Jack of all trades) Weapons (thanks for this acronym) are 'good enough' at almost everything, but even they have a small, and abscure weakness or two. This basically means that weapons such as rifles, can do fairly well at almost every role, but if a JOAT(again, I love this acronym!) comes across a weapon such as a Laser Rifle user workng their optimal,the JOAT should lose the engagement almost every time, simply because the Laser Rifle will greatly outperform the JOAT at that specific range.

Niche weapons are the most powerful weapons in their respective niches, but have powerful weakness that the user must work around to get the most from their weapons. This is saying that powerful niche weapons, such as the Laser Rifle (I'm using the LR a lot because it is a great example of a niche weapon) have strong weaknesses that can be easily countered with a small amount of tactical play, but, the weaknesses can be worked around with a bit of tactics as well. An example of this is a Laser Rifle use on a 50-60m high roof. The Laser Rifle user is strongly withing their niche at this point and countering them is difficult, but not impossible.

Every weapon or item in the game should have a counter. Something, that once used against them, will win almost all of the time. Sometimes these counters should be hard-counters, and win 10/10 times, but these hard counters should come with drawbacks and fairly strong counters themself. We don't really have an example of this in Dust yet, but a possible example may be something such as an equipment that is specifically designed to disrupt/destroy other equipment in a certain area. It should destroy all equioment, but it should also have a counter as well, such as equipment variants that are specifically designed to withstand the use of this item.

Now we move on to "Balancing for Skill", something many people from EVE are not aware of simply because EVE has never had to balance for skill. These people seem to think that EVE balancing would work in Dust, when it really wouldn't. This is because EVE has never had to balance for skill, as every item in the game is just as hard to use as the next. This has made EVE turret balancing an easy job for the devs, the only problem is that it took them a long time to find the right range to damage ratio to use. I could give countless examples of this taking place in all of the best shooters for of the past 15 years, but I will leave it to you to look for those examples.

Balancing for skill is, essentially, judging how much player skill is require to use an item, and how many drawbacks that the player must work around, along with how strong these drawbacks are; then making that item more powerful depending on how much skill is required to effectively use the weapon. As such, it can be a difficult job and is largely a trial and error affair.
An example of this is the Scrambler Rifle and Combat Rifle compared to the Rail Rilfe and the Assault Rifle. Both the ScR and CR require a larger input of skill from the player to reach their maximum effectivenesses, as such, their maximum effectivenesses should be higher than those of the AR and RR.
These "Balanced for Skill" items should not have hard counters, but should still have strong counters, and oftentimes the strong counters should be easy counters as well. For instance, an AR should be better than an ScR at close range, provided the skill level of both users is equal. However, if the skill level of the ScR user is greater than the skill level of the AR user, the ScR user should have the edge, but not a large edge, just a small one. Enough of an edge for the ScR user to use to their advantage should they realize the edge, but small enough for the AR user to have a chance to win the encounter with blind luck.

If CCP were to take these thoughts into mind with every item they make, we would have a rich, engaging experience, instead of the unbalanced mess we have today.

TL;DR... I bolded the important bits.


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Awry Barux New Eden Blades Of The Azure Zero-Day 539	Posted - 2014.02.13 17:50:00 - [1] - Quote Fizzer94 wrote: Read this. Perfect Imbalance/Balancing for Skill is the way forward for Dust. I will summarize each main point of imperfect balance and balancing for skill in the bold sections below. JOAT(Jack of all trades) Weapons (thanks for this acronym) are 'good enough' at almost everything, but even they have a small, and abscure weakness or two. This basically means that weapons such as rifles, can do fairly well at almost every role, but if a JOAT(again, I love this acronym!) comes across a weapon such as a Laser Rifle user workng their optimal,the JOAT should lose the engagement almost every time, simply because the Laser Rifle will greatly outperform the JOAT at that specific range. Niche weapons are the most powerful weapons in their respective niches, but have powerful weakness that the user must work around to get the most from their weapons. This is saying that powerful niche weapons, such as the Laser Rifle (I'm using the LR a lot because it is a great example of a niche weapon) have strong weaknesses that can be easily countered with a small amount of tactical play, but, the weaknesses can be worked around with a bit of tactics as well. An example of this is a Laser Rifle use on a 50-60m high roof. The Laser Rifle user is strongly withing their niche at this point and countering them is difficult, but not impossible. Every weapon or item in the game should have a counter. Something, that once used against them, will win almost all of the time. Sometimes these counters should be hard-counters, and win 10/10 times, but these hard counters should come with drawbacks and fairly strong counters themself. We don't really have an example of this in Dust yet, but a possible example may be something such as an equipment that is specifically designed to disrupt/destroy other equipment in a certain area. It should destroy all equioment, but it should also have a counter as well, such as equipment variants that are specifically designed to withstand the use of this item. Now we move on to "Balancing for Skill", something many people from EVE are not aware of simply because EVE has never had to balance for skill. These people seem to think that EVE balancing would work in Dust, when it really wouldn't. This is because EVE has never had to balance for skill, as every item in the game is just as hard to use as the next. This has made EVE turret balancing an easy job for the devs, the only problem is that it took them a long time to find the right range to damage ratio to use. I could give countless examples of this taking place in all of the best shooters for of the past 15 years, but I will leave it to you to look for those examples. Balancing for skill is, essentially, judging how much player skill is require to use an item, and how many drawbacks that the player must work around, along with how strong these drawbacks are; then making that item more powerful depending on how much skill is required to effectively use the weapon. As such, it can be a difficult job and is largely a trial and error affair. An example of this is the Scrambler Rifle and Combat Rifle compared to the Rail Rilfe and the Assault Rifle. Both the ScR and CR require a larger input of skill from the player to reach their maximum effectivenesses, as such, their maximum effectivenesses should be higher than those of the AR and RR. These "Balanced for Skill" items should not have hard counters, but should still have strong counters, and oftentimes the strong counters should be easy counters as well. For instance, an AR should be better than an ScR at close range, provided the skill level of both users is equal. However, if the skill level of the ScR user is greater than the skill level of the AR user, the ScR user should have the edge, but not a large edge, just a small one. Enough of an edge for the ScR user to use to their advantage should they realize the edge, but small enough for the AR user to have a chance to win the encounter with blind luck. If CCP were to take these thoughts into mind with every item they make, we would have a rich, engaging experience, instead of the unbalanced mess we have today. TL;DR... I bolded the important bits. While I agree conceptually with every single word you said, this semantics game is pissing me off- what you're describing is perfect balance, not imbalance. The balancing of niche vs JOAT is like levers- a big weight (strong advantage) close to the fulcrum (having less versatility) is perfectly balanced against a lighter weight (minimal advantage) further from the fulcrum (more versatile). The weights are different (what you're calling imbalance), but system as a whole is balanced. The reason this is irritating me is that now we have people shooting down calls for proper game balance by using this semantic straw-man of balance meaning sameness and imbalance being desirable.