Skihids
Bullet Cluster
3171
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Posted - 2014.03.27 16:55:00 -
[3] - Quote
There's the quick fix, and then there is the long term balance problem. Yes quick fix, neuter redline rails with range reduction, spool time, etc. but that's very short term.
For real balance you need to step way back and consider the mission of each asset first. You balance around the mission. What is it, and what is it for? Does it even have a purpose in the game as it exists?
For example:
Tank
What is it:
This is a hardened asset immune to light infantry weapons. Operated by one player, it has significantly greater defense, damage, and mobility than a dropsuit.
What it's for:
To break through heavy defenses. It can take a short term beating that infantry cannot.
Strengths to support the mission:
Hardeners, high eHP, powerful main guns
Disadvantages:
Requires infantry support to suppress AV which will take it own in any concentration.
Places that mission exists:
Nowhere. There is no scenerio in the game that can't be handled by a squad of infantry. There are no choke points to break through, there are no walls to breach, there are no towers to topple.
The result is we have a solution looking for a problem. Tanks wander the field taking pot shots at individual infantry because there is no need for them in their mission. Their default mission becomes indiscriminate slaughter. Rolling around they no longer have the disadvantage of needing infantry support because they don't have to hunker down and attack a hardened defense for a significant period of time.
If you lose track of the original mission you start balancing around the default mission, and that is impossible without altering what the asset is in the first place. Change the mission and you are forced to change the asset.
If you balance tanks around the mission of infantry combat you need to give them the same strengths and disadvantages as dropsuits. You need to make them just as vulnerable as dropsuits. That means a 1v1 balance. They must be soloable. The tank ceases being a tank as we know it.
The overarching problem is that you are adding assets with no mission to match. Dropships are another clear example. What are they for? Troop transport. Does that need exist? No. The maps are too small for them to be of any use. So their default mission becomes infantry slaughter. Now you start balancing around that mission and they change. When they might have been high eHP low damage to survive a hot drop zone, they are now weak enough to be easily driven off. So they are no longer able to perform their original mission should that ever come to be needed.
You are just tossing in more stuff without thought. Before CCP Blam left he was creating a dropship bomber. Did he have any notion what it was for in the larger aspect of the game, or was he simply thinking it would be a great way to slaughter infantry?
TL/DR
Start with the real mission, then balance around that. Don't get distracted by the default mission and balance for that. |