Anytime I'm chatting with someone in-game and they bring up balance. I ask one simple question:

"What FPS have you played that's completely balanced?"

I've yet to receive a good answer.

Anytime I'm chatting with someone in-game and they bring up balance. I ask one simple question:

"What FPS have you played that's completely balanced?"

I've yet to receive a good answer.

fallout 3

Anytime I'm chatting with someone in-game and they bring up balance. I ask one simple question:

"What FPS have you played that's completely balanced?"

I've yet to receive a good answer.

Indeed. The difference between DUST and titles like Call of Duty or Battlefield, is that those games rarely iterate heavily on their game balance. They simply change it up for the following year's new game, that's going to make you buy it all over again.

Anytime I'm chatting with someone in-game and they bring up balance. I ask one simple question:

"What FPS have you played that's completely balanced?"

I've yet to receive a good answer.

A short personal soapbox on game balance.

I hear a lot about the effects of balance changes on the game. Most of it is positive, but there's also a lot of commentary about "after the hotfixes are done" as if it's a one-time thing to make an MMO balanced, or suggestions that ongoing balance changes are just there to force people to buy AUR for boosters or gear to compensate for having to change roles to continue being the fit of the month, or what have you. Here's my thoughts:

World of Warcraft is about to celebrate it's ten-year anniversary. It has a massively higher budget, many more developers, and has had as many as 13 million subscribers at it's peak. It dwarfs EVE Online in playerbase, even though their age is similar.

But if you take a look at http://www.mmo-champion.com and see what the current beta patch notes are, as you scroll through. You'll notice something. Balance changes. They're still doing them. Ten years after the game was released.

True game balance is a magical space unicorn that does not exist. True game balance is pretty much impossible to achieve once your game is more complex than rock-paper-scissors. (Many games try to use that game as a setup for balance as well, but there's an inherent point that an MMO will always be more complicated than rock-paper-scissors, even if you use that game's general concept for some balance designs.) No matter how many developers, no matter how much money you throw at a game, balance will not be perfect.

As perfect game balance can never be achieved, game balance is iterative. A continual work in progress, always monitored, always tweaked. Always getting closer, but never reaching the goal. Often, combined with adding new content like items and skills, you will continue to make perfect balance harder to achieve as your game progresses as well.

Game balance will always be getting better, but it will never be done. So here's to Hotfix Alpha-Alpha, which I assume comes after Hotfix Zulu.

Anytime I'm chatting with someone in-game and they bring up balance. I ask one simple question:

"What FPS have you played that's completely balanced?"

I've yet to receive a good answer.

Anytime I'm chatting with someone in-game and they bring up balance. I ask one simple question:

"What FPS have you played that's completely balanced?"

I've yet to receive a good answer.

actually its only 7million subs latly

Any game/match with set parameters.

So games with matches set for actual competitive play.

Same health
Same weapons
Same everything

[...]

Perfect example of such a game is Halo. It's literally a like playing a chess game because no matter what armor abilities you install, no matter what weapon you pick up, no matter what you do, you are always on a level playing field with everyone else because your stats are pretty much equal to everyone else. The Covenant Carbine will always do the same total amount of damage as that of a UNSC Assault Rifle or that of a UNSC Battle Rifle or a Promethean Suppressor. I would know as I have played every Halo game in existence (except Halo Wars - I don't like it) and I still do play them.

One more thing. Anyone who knows anything about chess knows that the white pieces always have a higher probability of winning by virtue of the fact that they have first move advantage. That's also how it is in Halo. The first person to shoot, will always have a higher probability of winning by virtue of the fact that they have the first move advantage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e31OSVZF77w

Extra Credits makes a great point on the concept of "perfect imbalance".

There are obviously balance changes, they change the CORE gameplay of the characters every so often.
The last iteration is probably less than a year old.

Basically, whenever they deem the gameplay to have become too mechanical across the board, they switch it up.

One example is how soul Shards for warlocks used to be inventory items, used only for creation of objects/summons. Then they were changed to a form of energy, used to empower abilities, etc, while summons were changed to mana.

Think, changing the map from having Supply Depots, to having spawning ammo packs all around the map. Kind of the same jump.

Not going to lie, but that sounds horrible.

I was not a FPS player before Dust. My PS3 collected dust for years. I think CoD:BOII was that last game i purchased before Dust, and yes, I came here from EVE.

Since Fanfest, I've tried multiple games, Planetside 2, TF2, Destiny... none of them grab me like this game. Why? Because in this game, even if I get jumped I have a chance (albeit a slim one) to still win the fight. Someone messes up a shot, or over compensates for a jump and I still have a chance. In those other games, whoever gets the shot off first wins.

Destiny I've played longer than any of the games listed above. Unlike most, I kinda like the PvP, but it's still not as good as Dust because all I need is to run fast with a shotty or HMG and I can nearly guarantee a win (Man, that sounds familiar) At least in Dust, I have a scanner, or a rep tool, or passive scans, or a drop ship, or a plethora of options in the tool box to come back from the dead and say "alright F#CKER, it's on!"

Maybe it's just me, but why would I really want to play a match against someone with all the same stats? What's the point of even having different fits if that 'competitive' game play? Tactics (your chess example) don't come into play when you can ball up run through a tiny map, and Destiny's PVP arenas are even smaller than Dust's ambush maps, and considering we all get a OHK weapon every few minutes... well... talk about OP.

To each his own, i suppose, but what you see as a PRO I see as a CON.

Edit: And to expand on competitive game play. Starcraft 2 is probably the best know competitive game there is, but depending on what race I play and how I level the characters, I can still have an advantage. It might not last for long as the other team may level the counter, but it's still an advantage.

Perfect Dark for the N64!

My favorite FPS... :)

Although the SuperDragon was was a bit ridiculous...

And the Slayer...

And the CMP150...

Not to mention the Falcon 2's fire-rate with turbo controller users...

Then there was that Golden Magnum...

Then there were players who were able to strafe with the truok-esque 1.2 control style like they were playing a dual analog shooter (like me), totally unfair to people who learned to play with GoldenEye's 1.1 style.

And that damn FarSight...

And the proximity explosives when they were laid behind doors...

And the Reaper and Cyclone- no aim required.

And the cloaking device...

And the poison knives...

Not to mention the laptop sentry gun.

And the Reaper.

And the N-Bombs.

Dem Maulers.

The K7 Avenger and it's damn firepower AND a threat detector? Seriously, give it one or the other.

And the Shotgun with it's double blast.

And the phoenix with it's explosive rounds.

And the blur effect from melee attacks.

And the FarSight... Seriously... The FarSight.

And the ricocheting grenades.

But, most of all... That little floating box that you could grab and hold onto to use as cover in that one multiplayer map. Seriously. What was that about?

Anytime I'm chatting with someone in-game and they bring up balance. I ask one simple question:

"What FPS have you played that's completely balanced?"

I've yet to receive a good answer.

Because the point would be that know I would have to rely on my pure skill instead of more factors that can be uncontrollable . A lot of games don't do that much any more instead of restricting certain abilities/weapons but give still freedom for playstyles in more competitive matches. Also to me Dust kill times are actually pretty low and is closer to BF and COD and the individual battles themselves last relatively short , but they are also very inconsistent because of the RPG mechanics




In general,there is no game that is perfectly "balanced" besides maybe pong.Usually games now designed for counters(countering other playstyles/weapons/abilities/etc) or something like that. Dust imo has been very poor at achieving anything balanced whatsoever since in nearly update something becomes op or too good and sometimes up or not very useful.

Lastly WoW has changed the classes mechanically usually during a expansion release , so a Fury Warrior now is much different before in Burning Crusade,the first expansion. Pretty much from what another person said. Still Dust is primary a PVP game so a balance changes effects a the entire population.

A short personal soapbox on game balance.

I hear a lot about the effects of balance changes on the game. Most of it is positive, but there's also a lot of commentary about "after the hotfixes are done" as if it's a one-time thing to make an MMO balanced, or suggestions that ongoing balance changes are just there to force people to buy AUR for boosters or gear to compensate for having to change roles to continue being the fit of the month, or what have you. Here's my thoughts:

World of Warcraft is about to celebrate it's ten-year anniversary. It has a massively higher budget, many more developers, and has had as many as 13 million subscribers at it's peak. It dwarfs EVE Online in playerbase, even though their age is similar.

But if you take a look at http://www.mmo-champion.com and see what the current beta patch notes are, as you scroll through. You'll notice something. Balance changes. They're still doing them. Ten years after the game was released.

True game balance is a magical space unicorn that does not exist. True game balance is pretty much impossible to achieve once your game is more complex than rock-paper-scissors. (Many games try to use that game as a setup for balance as well, but there's an inherent point that an MMO will always be more complicated than rock-paper-scissors, even if you use that game's general concept for some balance designs.) No matter how many developers, no matter how much money you throw at a game, balance will not be perfect.

As perfect game balance can never be achieved, game balance is iterative. A continual work in progress, always monitored, always tweaked. Always getting closer, but never reaching the goal. Often, combined with adding new content like items and skills, you will continue to make perfect balance harder to achieve as your game progresses as well.

Game balance will always be getting better, but it will never be done. So here's to Hotfix Alpha-Alpha, which I assume comes after Hotfix Zulu.

lol. when everything is OP, than all is balanced.

My favorite FPS... :)

Although the SuperDragon was was a bit ridiculous...

And the Slayer...

And the CMP150...

Not to mention the Falcon 2's fire-rate with turbo controller users...

Then there was that Golden Magnum...

Then there were players who were able to strafe with the truok-esque 1.2 control style like they were playing a dual analog shooter (like me), totally unfair to people who learned to play with GoldenEye's 1.1 style.

And that damn FarSight...

And the proximity explosives when they were laid behind doors...

And the Reaper and Cyclone- no aim required.

And the cloaking device...

And the poison knives...

Not to mention the laptop sentry gun.

And the Reaper.

And the N-Bombs.

Dem Maulers.

The K7 Avenger and it's damn firepower AND a threat detector? Seriously, give it one or the other.

And the Shotgun with it's double blast.

And the phoenix with it's explosive rounds.

And the blur effect from melee attacks.

And the FarSight... Seriously... The FarSight.

And the ricocheting grenades.

But, most of all... That little floating box that you could grab and hold onto to use as cover in that one multiplayer map. Seriously. What was that about?