Has Firaxis finally learned to balance the game?

Balance is overated and for wimps!!! History was not balanced, why should Civilization?

Thormodr said:

You didn't push any buttons really. I don't agree with your position or your general snotty tone and the need to blow your own horn. You got sarcasm in response. Congrats.

As someone has previously stated, designing ciV for MP would leave a lot of interesting and fun elements out all for the sake of balance such as city states or barbarians. It would make the game a lot duller in SP. Plus the fact that you'd have to balance 30 odd Civilizations/Leaders. (As compared to how many in Starcraft II?)

You may think you know better than Firaxis/2K games but I think you are sadly mistaken. MP players make up a tiny minority of Civ players. They made the correct choice catering to the vast majority of Civ players who actually like an interesting and varied game experience. Randomness leads to unique game situations that make players want to play again and again, trying different Civs, approaches and strategies. MP seeks to get rid of the randomness all in order to level the playing field.

You might as well design a flat plain (so there are no geographical advantages) with each player in a corner with exactly the same resources. All the traits and UU would be totally generic. That sounds perfectly balanced to me. Then you would see who is the better Civ player.

Well, except for it not really being Civ anymore. Not a game I'd be interested in.

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You're so cute when you post like this

If I "had the need" to brag about anything I would have done it 7 pages ago. You actually forced me say it by repeating the same thing over and over again. You're welcome to believe anything that makes you feel better of course.

And continuing the cycle you again point out arguments that someone else or I addressed several pages ago, more than once. So instead of making me quote older posts, do me a favor and read up the rest of the topic.

Infiltrator said:

You're so cute when you post like this

If I "had the need" to brag about anything I would have done it 7 pages ago. You actually forced me say it by repeating the same thing over and over again. You're welcome to believe anything that makes you feel better of course.

And continuing the cycle you again point out arguments that someone else or I addressed several pages ago, more than once. So instead of making me quote older posts, do me a favor and read up the rest of the topic.

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Glad to see that you have lost interest in the debate and now are reduced to posting pointless drivel. You and other people keep giving assurances that making the game MP orientated from the start won't change a thing. Of course, you and others have done nothing to back that argument up. There's a whole lot of "other game companies do it!" and "It would be so easy!" and not much actual substance.

So why don't you answer a few question for me then. If ciV was designed to be MP orientated would there be city states or barbarians in the game? What other changes might we expect? You have the extensive computer gaming pedigree so this should be fairly easy for you. Especially since you have stated that this would be very easy to design.

MrBanana said:

I don't really know if an improved mp would make them that much more money. TBS are naturally more SP then MP, and with civ making a map and some starting locations nautrally being better then others, it's hard to see Civ5 having a massive mp community like console games and RTSs.

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I'm not saying it would be massive like WoW or SC or CS, it is a deep TBS game after all, and kids just don't want to work that hard :-/

But it certainly can be alot better than it is now. How much more complex is Civ than AoE? maybe by a factor of 1.5 or 2 perhaps, but AoE was a huge MP game, with servers hosting 1000s of games.

So I'm not saying Civ needs to be the next WoW, but with a little more support and a Server/Client model I'm sure it would more than return the expended cash.

CS

And please lets return to a logical and polite debate here, there is no need to attack others personality, lets stick to debating ideas.

CS

CanuckSoldier said:

And please lets return to a logical and polite debate here, there is no need to attack others personality, lets stick to debating ideas.

CS

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Fair enough. Mea culpa.

I think it is 4:30 AM in Eastern Europe so I think Infiltrator has retired from the thread for a a little while so perhaps you can answer the question. Seeing what we have seen from ciV so far, what changes would have to be made to make it up to scratch MP wise? What would you cut out and what would you add?

From what I've gathered by reading CS's posts, may be MP can be done right like he wishes. Sure, common sense dictates that having MP hardwired from the start would mean less resources for SP during development, as well as several cool features being removed for balance's sake, like it tends to happen with most videogames these days. But if it's done right, with a parallel team to avoid delays, extra resources to kinda make it a proper second game within the whole thing, and having the cool imbalancing features easily checked out, it might just work. As long as the SP takes priority and is designed as if it was a stand alone game, the MP should be no threat. The downside is that MP might still end up being like an add-on that works with less features, but at least you're not alienating your core fan base, while still throwing a bone for the long forgotten MP players, by giving them a MP that's not last minute icing on the cake.

It may not even be that expensive, so even if the MP players are really few, it might still turn a profit. That's enough to give it a try.

I do wonder however, if developers/publishers are really going to turn away from their usual ways, and take a risk for a change. Civ V in general seems to be a step in the right direction, but they still didn't go all the way for MP.

I do believe that MP can and should be given more consideration for the Civ series; and I am sure there can be many improvements and greater "balance" that would be desirable for SP and MP. At this point it is hard to make any definitive statements to that fact since the final game has yet to even enter its final month of development. But as CS has been saying the goal of the players in MP are different than those in SP and some desirable SP features hinder MP; but balancing a game for SP should take into account those features even if - due to randomness - an opponent is "weaker than designed" in a particular game. In MP this would be fatal but in SP it adds to the enjoyment.

I personally am glad that Infiltrator has given us some background since it strengthens his position quite a bit; something his thread title does not.

I do tend to discount the "politics" factor when consider what and why other people do things and as such can definately see where the MP community may be taking issue not so much with the technical capabilities ("...finally learned to balance...") but with the politics of why the extra effort is not being given to incremental improve the game for MP while ensuring that the SP experience is indeed preserved. They may indeed find that the same "balance" can work for both worlds or at least explain why they feel certain changes should be left to an official MP mod.

Question; would the MP community have an issue if the "default" rules and "uniques" were different between official SP and MP versions of the game. More generally how the question that needs to be answered is how much cross-over is there likely to be and how sophisticated are those people when they cross-over. I could see a slight problem if the goal is to encourage people new to the series to try MP after they learn the game playing SP and now we go changing the rules on them without them understanding why such a difference exists between "official" versions of the game.

I guess they could approach it in reverse and balance to MP and then try to add things that do not break MP balance but add to the SP game; though that would seem more difficult.

I am indeed making the assumption that the best possible setups for SP and MP are not mutually inclusive but instead have some degree of required variation. I cannot prove or even fully support this assumption; nor honestly am I likely to recognize it when I see it as I would rate myself a casual player (occasional intense - marathon - sessions of Bts but rarely finish a game). But we can argue about subjective experiences all day but really testing of different "rule-sets" - and ideally some quantative/statistical method of evaluation a rule-set - would be the most useful tools to have. Whether these techniques and/or tools already exist (and are being used) I have no idea.

CanuckSoldier said:

In my opinion it is likely 2K that drove the move to Steamworks and it is the other way around, 2K would love to make money for their share holders( and make no mistake MP=Cash) and likely it is only the huge reputation that is Sid Meier that is defending the last PC game genre not to embrace MP.....but that is just my opinion.

CS

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What is it about this developer that drives people to write this fanfiction defending them from the sin of liking Steam.

Senethro said:

What is it about this developer that drives people to write this fanfiction defending them from the sin of liking Steam.

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I don't think anywere in that statement was I defending 2K's decison to use Steam, I was simply stating it as a fact. The point of my statement was to counter the argument that 2K thinks that SP is the only money maker and that therefore the choice to marginalize MP was the right thing to do.

However, Steam privacy issues aside, I don't think any MP player is mourning the departure of Gamespy and we all hope that Steamworks is a much better back end for p2p MP than GS ever was.

CS

ShaqFu said:

Indeed, although it is surprising. I figured that Steam was chosen from before coding work started as the base for any netcode to save time on trying to build their own APIs. Although, it is somewhat surprising that 2k would foot the bill for licensing two MP managers (GameSpy/Steam); surely those can't be cheap, although Steam probably saved money in the end.

I'm curious when the decision was made, since Steam integration has been known since Civ5 was announced.

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Yes but it has only been a matter of months since Civ5 was officially announced, and reportedly the Civ5 project at Firaxis started 3 years ago in 2007. This is stated by Jon Shafer himself in an interview. So there is lots of time between 2007 and the official announcment to change directions :-/

And yes I imagine that it cost money to cancel a contract with GS, although we are assuming that they are not using GS for anything, and that may not be the fact, as we know so little about what is going on under the hood of MP righrt now.

CS

Thormodr said:

Fair enough. Mea culpa.

I think it is 4:30 AM in Eastern Europe so I think Infiltrator has retired from the thread for a a little while so perhaps you can answer the question. Seeing what we have seen from ciV so far, what changes would have to be made to make it up to scratch MP wise? What would you cut out and what would you add?

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Sorry I went to bed too, catching up now.

CS

Thormodr said:

Fair enough. Mea culpa.

I think it is 4:30 AM in Eastern Europe so I think Infiltrator has retired from the thread for a a little while so perhaps you can answer the question. Seeing what we have seen from ciV so far, what changes would have to be made to make it up to scratch MP wise? What would you cut out and what would you add?

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Without seeing the entire game and how is it balanced now that is a tough question to speculate about. But Civ5 does seem to be the first Civ game to have Civs with traits specific to bonuses with AI parts of the game. Yes in the past Civ games some civs were definitely better in MP than others, but this is a whole new level of inbalance in civs for the MP players.

Now yes our solution will be modding, but if I was the developer and wanted to solve this, I think the best way would be to increase the number of special traits from 3 to 4 per civ. That way if 1/4 traits is AI related, that is not as game breaking for the MP player as 1/3 is. And especially if you made one of the traits strong in MP, say like a discounted production cost for a early UU, then that Civ would still be a viable choice despite having one other trait that was not useful at all.

CS

CanuckSoldier said:

Without seeing the entire game and how is it balanced now that is a tough question to speculate about. But Civ5 does seem to be the first Civ game to have Civs with traits specific to bonuses with AI parts of the game. Yes in the past Civ games some civs were definitely better in MP than others, but this is a whole new level of inbalance in civs for the MP players.

Now yes our solution will be modding, but if I was the developer and wanted to solve this, I think the best way would be to increase the number of special traits from 3 to 4 per civ. That way if 1/4 traits is AI related, that is not as game breaking for the MP player as 1/3 is. And especially if you made one of the traits strong in MP, say like a discounted production cost for a early UU, then that Civ would still be a viable choice despite having one other trait that was not useful at all.

CS

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Wouldn't that lead to imbalance on the SP side, since you'd end up with civs with 2 relevant abilities? If the Greeks had a Hoplite/Companion discount on top of Hellenic League, it'd put them well above any other civ in the game, as they would have two relevant/powerful abilities instead of one. It may be fine for MP for the Greeks to dominate early wars, but for someone playing a long solo campaign, they'll have to handle an early military power and a diplomatic wizard. The only way I can see this being balanced for both sides would be to have an ability that's only useful in MP and irrelevant in SP, but unfortunately, I don't think one exists.

The obvious solution to this - make both abilities weaker - just brings us back to Civ4. Whether or not that's a good thing will vary between individuals, but Firaxis likes to take the game in new directions, so it's unlikely we'd see a rehash of Trait/Trait leaders again. Again, it's not an issue of whether one is better/worse, but just the design philosophy behind Civ games.

I'm still convinced that the best way to make the game balanced and, equally important, interesting for MP and SP is to have two sets of civ traits/UUs/UBs - one unique to SP, one, to MP - for the severely strong/irrelevant leaders. Furor Teutonicus may be worthless in MP, but Blood and Iron wouldn't - but it'd be a dull SP game if every leader had military traits, as huge aspects of the game would be left unexplored.

I play a lot of MP (haven't played SP in years unless I'm testing something really weird)

While I agree that there should be lots of options so MP players have choices, I feel 100% different on the statement that random aspects of the game negate skill.

I do understand their argument but I don't agree with it.

Take barbs out of the game, means you don't have to make choices on whether to build some early defenses. Once you're sure that no Humans are close enough you can take things easier.

Take huts out and now you only need to scout out general areas for your opponents and don't need to explore as much and can go with few units. If everyone gets 10 huts, the overall results even out. I'd say the same for events, but yes there are some that are unequal so in the short term they can make a big difference. (But I still enjoy them in MP games)

Granted starting on a river is usually better than not but everyone starting on exactly the same territory predetermined usually means a cookie cutter strat will work. Different strats are needed for different starts.

Removing all random elements takes out the need to plan for possible bad things. I count that as a skill. Adapting to circumstances is the ultimate skill. There is always going to be random elements. What, should the stronger unit always win a combat? Or should that not be random?

Saying you lost because you were unlucky by having a resource pillaged by a barb because you neglected early defenses usually had nothing to do with luck.

It was why we stopped playing using gamespy. Players would try risky strats and if they didn't work they scream how unlucky they were and drop. But if it worked, they'd spend the rest of the game saying how much more skillful they were at the game.

While I really wish MP was given more resources, I can understand the economics involved. I have no problem with the community taking the lead and appreciate all the hard work contributed.

And I do find it amusing to see all the discussion on how weak certain traits our without a thorough understanding of all the game concepts involved with people claiming their opinions a 100% correct.
Speculating is fun, but anything more that that is just hot air at this point, unless you can claim you've played the game. (not including traits good against the AI if you're planning on turning barbs off)

Yes I understand your opinion Rah, and yes there is skill in dealing with random elements. However, when we create a league with a glicko based ranking system like we have at CP, players don't want to know who is best at dealing with random game elements, they want to be fairly and equally compared to each other on a sliding scale. And it is that environment that I am framing my posts here with.

CS

ShaqFu said:

Wouldn't that lead to imbalance on the SP side, since you'd end up with civs with 2 relevant abilities? If the Greeks had a Hoplite/Companion discount on top of Hellenic League, it'd put them well above any other civ in the game, as they would have two relevant/powerful abilities instead of one. It may be fine for MP for the Greeks to dominate early wars, but for someone playing a long solo campaign, they'll have to handle an early military power and a diplomatic wizard. The only way I can see this being balanced for both sides would be to have an ability that's only useful in MP and irrelevant in SP, but unfortunately, I don't think one exists.

The obvious solution to this - make both abilities weaker - just brings us back to Civ4. Whether or not that's a good thing will vary between individuals, but Firaxis likes to take the game in new directions, so it's unlikely we'd see a rehash of Trait/Trait leaders again. Again, it's not an issue of whether one is better/worse, but just the design philosophy behind Civ games.

I'm still convinced that the best way to make the game balanced and, equally important, interesting for MP and SP is to have two sets of civ traits/UUs/UBs - one unique to SP, one, to MP - for the severely strong/irrelevant leaders. Furor Teutonicus may be worthless in MP, but Blood and Iron wouldn't - but it'd be a dull SP game if every leader had military traits, as huge aspects of the game would be left unexplored.

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Yes you may be correct. If the devs really want to include AI centric Civ traits for a good SP experience the only viable solution for that may very well be a set of SP traits and a set of MP traits(wth a sizeable overlap likely) and have a check box in the Advanced options screen to switch to the MP set of traits.

And there is nothing wrong with doing this to accomodate the few circumstances were you can't attain a mid point between MP and SP balance issues that work with both groups. And there is certainly nothing wrong with options, you can never have too many options for players.

CS

CanuckSoldier said:

Yes I understand your opinion Rah, and yes there is skill in dealing with random elements. However, when we create a league with a glicko based ranking system like we have at CP, players don't want to know who is best at dealing with random game elements, they want to be fairly and equally compared to each other on a sliding scale. And it is that environment that I am framing my posts here with.

CS

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I understand and highly respect that but still disagree.
Combat is random also. Games are won and lost in combat and the result does not always favor the most skilled player so it's my opinion that those comparisons you talk about may not be as fair and equal as you claim. And if its your argument that over time, combat results will wash, I will make the same claim on barbs, huts and events. (not as much on events )

Which is the main reason why I don't participate in those ranking systems.
I have yet to see a ranking system that takes everything into account.
The person that is highest ranked is just the best player IN THAT SYSTEM.
In my experiences, it also encourages people trying to cheat and some egos translate into really poor sportsmanship. (IV was much tighter on cheats than II was)

In IV, I've played with over a hundred different people without a strict scoring system and the people have a pretty good idea who the better players were.

Granted I'm on the older side so my ego doesn't need quite the stroking it did when I was younger. If civ had come out 20 years earlier, I'd probably have joined every competitive league available. And I do support your work in this area because I know what it means to the diehards.

rah said:

I understand and highly respect that but still disagree.
Combat is random also. Games are won and lost in combat and the result does not always favor the most skilled player so it's my opinion that those comparisons you talk about may not be as fair and equal as you claim. And if its your argument that over time, combat results will wash, I will make the same claim on barbs, huts and events. (not as much on events )

Which is the main reason why I don't participate in those ranking systems.
I have yet to see a ranking system that takes everything into account.
The person that is highest ranked is just the best player IN THAT SYSTEM.
In my experiences, it also encourages people trying to cheat and some egos translate into really poor sportsmanship. (IV was much tighter on cheats than II was)

In IV, I've played with over a hundred different people without a strict scoring system and the people have a pretty good idea who the better players were.

Granted I'm on the older side so my ego doesn't need quite the stroking it did when I was younger. If civ had come out 20 years earlier, I'd probably have joined every competitive league available. And I do support your work in this area because I know what it means to the diehards.

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Yes for sure no ranking system can be perfect. But we have designed one that is as good as it can get within the human limitations we have to deal with.

Yes combat can induce randomess too. But as you stated, I believe combat does even out over time, and in my opinion alot better than the effects of barbs, city states, and natural wonders etc. Maybe in the long epic games they do, but in the 4-6 hour games people play in the lobby the snow ball effect on those is significant.

Also in my years of playing MP it is a true statement that the good players don't put themselves in the situations were they are taking high risk combat decisions, so in a ranking system the top playes really do rise to the top over time.

Yes putting "peoples names in lights" does have a negative side for sure, that is just human nature, but we do have rules and policies to try and mitigate that as much as humanly posible.

But we also use that human nature to encourage players not to quit and to not try and cheat, peer presure and official sanction when players ego's are at stake is a powerful mechanism as well. In fact the league first formed within a month of Civ3PTW, driven by the very need to curtail quiters that were and still are a rampant problem in open lobby games.

I do also appreciate that the leagues competitive nature is not for everyone and that groups like the ones you play in are a good and healthy fun MP experience as well. It's just not one I can replicate with 1000+ players

CS

Ok, after the group hug we can all make fun of DIPLO Game Players.
j/k