Has Firaxis finally learned to balance the game?
- Thread starter Infiltrator
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I think you should look at all of the robust MP games and see how good the SP was. I can't think of any MP centric games that had anything more than a paltry SP bit so people had something to do for a couple of hours before jumping online. Look at Modern Warfare since it's a perfect example, the MP players will exclaim that it had an incredible SP campaign but the reality is that it had a cutscene heavy linear treadmill that was more of an interractive (and only barely) movie with pretty much zero replay value. Sure, it looked really cool... once.
It's only irrational when it's opposed to your own preferences (and not you specifically, that's just how people are). You can see the exact same argument on any given MMO forum as the PvP and PvE crowds clash over just about everything. You may not see it but to the people that don't want PvP (MP in Civ) it's only because that always means balance and from a PvE (SP) perspective that balance is generally boring. From the PvE (SP) perspective this is because the PvP (MP) crowd will argue back and forth with each other until that game reaches a point when balance has been achieved and everything is essentially the same. That is not likely your desire as a PvP (MP) player but since you can never please everybody more often then not that is the result.
I can't speak for everbody but over the past several years I've been driven to quit playing a few online games because of the 'PvP blance' changes that broke the game. I have never been driven away from a SP game because of a patch, maybe I'm just lucky.
Three words for you on AoE: Crappy Single Player
Every once in a great while you'll get a gem that is good in both but that's so rare I wouldn't count on it. The MP and SP crowds want entirely different things out of their games (incidentally, I group coop and 'rp' players with SP players before that sparks another debate). The desires really are very strongly opposed even if you don't see it that way and arguing the importance of the MP community in Civ is going to be hurt by the strong prevelance of 'instant grattification' members in those communities for other games, that is what marketing people look at and see. Just because you know a 'lot' of Civ players that love MP games doesn't mean they make up a significant portion of the playerbase. Consider your '50 games at once' comment a few pages back, at the same time how many SP games do you think were being played at the same time?
But that very balance, the equalization, is what a lot of people do not want to ever see happen with Civ, ever. Personally, I play Civ because I find Chess to be boring, chess has no random element and is purely a test of 'skill' although it's more like a test of memory since it reduces combination down to a lesser, finite amount. This is what a lot of Civ players will call 'dumbed down' or 'over simplified' but it is also what lets you finish a game in less than 8 hours.
Now you can continue to argue over developer resources and the evil producer that's forcing them to neglect your community but that won't change what Civ is and has always been. You can look on the bright side too, you won't have to wait for 'Play the World' to get your MP fix, you merely have to wait another 35 days like the rest of us.
As much as you may not want to hear or accept it, you will be better off with community developed mods to get you exactly what you're looking for. I will be waiting for mods to get exactly what I want because Civ 5 out of the box will not 'do it' for me. The advantage is that I can get exactly what I want regardless of what anybody does or doesn't want and nobody can argue that what I want for the game has any impact on their experience. So if the competetive MP community really does seek a balanced game that will benefit them all it shouldn't take much to get them to agree on what needs to be changed and put together a team of trusted people to make it happen. Or, they may be no different tham PvP players on other games and never agree on anything, that much remains to be seen. At least with mods you can force them to use it if they want to participate in your league and sleep well at night knowing that the people who refuse probably weren't really interested in a fair and balanced test of skill.
Well said sir.
You summed up a lot of points that I totally agree with and you did it in a non-offensive and even handed way.
MP really is the great equalizer and balancer because it demands that. Equality and balance = boredom for SP in my opinion.
You summed up a lot of points that I totally agree with and you did it in a non-offensive and even handed way.
MP really is the great equalizer and balancer because it demands that. Equality and balance = boredom for SP in my opinion.
CanuckSoldier
Emperor
Seven, yes in the end I am fine with community developed mods as the solution to the balance in MP vs SP debate. But the problem is not that we can not develop mods for MP balance, we can and have.
The problem is that we as a community can't recode the game from being a peer to peer game into a Server based game, we can't integrate our league directly into the core code of the game, etc. There are things that only the developer and publisher can do to support MP robustly, only they can give us the tools to turn Civ from a niche MP game that only hardcore MP Civ fanatics take part in too, something that is easy for the casual MPer to have that same experience.
CS
The problem is that we as a community can't recode the game from being a peer to peer game into a Server based game, we can't integrate our league directly into the core code of the game, etc. There are things that only the developer and publisher can do to support MP robustly, only they can give us the tools to turn Civ from a niche MP game that only hardcore MP Civ fanatics take part in too, something that is easy for the casual MPer to have that same experience.
CS
Well, I must have missed the technical part of the discussion, everything I saw was arguing about balance (and barbarians, city states, etc).
I did catch your bit about the GameSpy lobby and my guess on that is that the GameSpy people jumped the gun when they heard Civ 5 was announced rather than Firaxis suddenly switching from using them to using Steam. Either is just as likely as the other though so it really doesn't matter.
Well, I must have missed the technical part of the discussion, everything I saw was arguing about balance (and barbarians, city states, etc).
I did catch your bit about the GameSpy lobby and my guess on that is that the GameSpy people jumped the gun when they heard Civ 5 was announced rather than Firaxis suddenly switching from using them to using Steam. Either is just as likely as the other though so it really doesn't matter.
Yeah I'm pretty sure most of the argument was over whether balancing MP would affect SP, and I think you made a very convincing argument that it would.
CanuckSoldier
Emperor
Well, I must have missed the technical part of the discussion, everything I saw was arguing about balance (and barbarians, city states, etc).
I did catch your bit about the GameSpy lobby and my guess on that is that the GameSpy people jumped the gun when they heard Civ 5 was announced rather than Firaxis suddenly switching from using them to using Steam. Either is just as likely as the other though so it really doesn't matter.
Well I admit that I hijacked the original topic a bit, but going from MP/SP balance to just general MP/SP requirements is not a huge step.
As to Gamespy, I don't think you know them very well, they wouldn't lift a finger without cash in their pocket. The reason the Civ3 and Civ4 lobbies are not moderated by GS is because Firaxis would not pay them to do that, and even though it is their servers they can't even be bothered to inforce their own terms of service without be paid to do so. So if there is an GS Civ5 lobby, used or not, beleive me money changed hands.
As to the debate on MP/SP balance, I still think it is possible to do both in one game with nothing more than a more robust Advanced Settings screen, to give both communities what they want. I'm not saying there is a cooky cutter solution that can work for both requirements, but that doesn't mean one set of goals has to override the other set of goals. It does require company with more than a small amount of vision for the game to invest upfront the resources required to do this.
CS
Does the unusually heavy Steam integration mitigate any of this? My intuition says that it should, if only a tiny bit, as the game is more online-focused than ever before; then again, given how little information we have, it's entirely possible I'm wrong.
CanuckSoldier
Emperor
Steam is a plus for MP for sure. And Steamworks does support both p2p and S-C systems. But the server has to be provided by the developers/publishers, and Steam just provides the API, and hooks to the server. And the user interface as always.
Now whether or not Steam will give the MP community greater numbers funelling into the MP game is what we are hoping for, but time will tell what effect Steam has on a the grand daddy of TBS games.
CS
Infiltrator
Warlord
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I can see your points Seven05 but truth to the matter there are some very good MP and SP games - All HoM&M series have great SP & MP (except H4, which was made before 3do bankrupt), All blizzard games - SC/WC/Diablo have exceptional SP & MP. You might say "that's only several games" - yes, it is. But does Civ have the bar set high to match the standard? I am positive about that.
Blizzard games tend to have few classes that you can play so the balancing issues are not as severe as Civ in my opinion. It's easier to balance 5-6 classes rather than 18 civs in my opinion.
I played a lot of Diablo and Diablo 2 and they are pretty balanced I admit for SP and MP. Blizzard does put a heck of a lot of time and money into their games.
BTW, how long have they been developing Diablo 3 for? I am curious as I'd love to play it and it seems like they have been working on it for years and years.
Blizzard undoubtedly is the gold standard for computer game companies. They have a lot of resources that Firaxis or 2K games frankly doesn't have. I am not sure if it's possible for them to match their standards of excellence.
Infiltrator
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Like I said before, they do have less to balance in blizzard but its harder imo because each class/race is 100% unique, unlike civs which are 90% the same, even though there are 18 of them, which means they just need to balance out what makes them unique.
Diablo 3 began development as soon as D2 was dome, afaik.
Diablo 3 began development as soon as D2 was dome, afaik.
The difference between Starcraft and Civ is what ultimately causes the inability to balnce civ.
From starcraft 1 to 2, they really only changed a couple of features. They added the special minerals, xel naga watch towers, breakable barricades and the ability for some units to jump over ledges. Their game isn't one based on features and immersions. It's much more like a sport in that it takes a simple concept and perfects it. This perfection is obtained through balance.
Civ on the other hand takes an extremely complex concept, the history of the world and attempts to simplify it. Their game relies much more on immersion. Features are also an essential part of the game. If you read these forums you see a lot of fans asking for things even more complex that would cause even more difficulty in balancing the game.
The comparison, imo, between Starcraft 2 and CiV is moot.
Tarkhan
King
True, but if starcraft was anything other than starcraft, and it hadnt taken ten years - the sequel probably wouldve been slammed in the reviews for being like an expansion pack.
Nah, I won't argue about specific titles because it's very opinionated. Although I disagree with your definition of 'excpetional SP' from that list. Perhaps from somebody who prefers competetive multiplayer games those would qualify as 'exceptional SP' but from the other side of the spectrum... not so much. I can't offer a reverse comparison though because most of the really good single player games have no multiplayer support at all. Then again, my idea of 'really good' may not fit yours.
I'm pretty sure it would be impossible for you or anybody else to find even one multiplayer focused game with a single player side that I enjoy as much as Civ though, which brings us back to the start of this whole debate
Infiltrator
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First, SC2 is very, very different from SC1. Multiple building selection is in for SC2, which changes the game so much it's incomprehensible unless you've played both. What about new units? Just the sentry for protoss changes their game so much they play ENTIRELY different than they used to. Next up, macro mechanics, non-present in the original - larvae injections, chrono, mules all add a layer that wasnt there before. Air units behave differently. Not to mention warp in mechanic, reactor/techlab mechanic, speedcreep. You can't stack mutas with an overlord selected in the other corner of the map either. There's so much more that changes the game I really don't have to write an essay here about it.
So for a reviewer that has seldom played sc or just beat the campaign, yea it might seem like there's "little new", but in truth, apart from the same races and some units, EVERYTHING has changed. And they balanced it again. Not perfectly, of course, but pretty damn good for release.
While civ is a lot more complex, again I must stress that you are fighting against an equally complex opponent, who has a couple of quirks/units that you don't have and vice versa. That means that all Firaxis needs to do is make sure that the VERY FEW features that define a civ's uniqueness are balanced. This is NOT something that takes a long time to do at all.
Tarkhan - most of Starcraft's development was testing various mechanics they've done away with (such as cover) and making cinematics. What we're discussing here is balance, which obviously is more important to starcraft than civ, but again I would never imagine Firaxis releasing an open beta just to test MP either. My request is far more modest - just don't make it as imbalanced as civ4 when it comes to civs/leaders/traits/units and the metagame in general. I never asked nor hoped for perfect balanced, but it's not hard to do better than civ4 when it comes to that.
Those 'very few' features are very significant in the game world of a Civilization game though. It's pretty apparent that certain countries, or Civilizations if you prefer, have performed better than others throughout history. There is a reason why Great Britan, France and a few others had colonies spanning the globe while others had very little impact on a global scale. To 'balance' that is to take away what Civ is. If Rome was no more potent than the Aztecs then it really isn't Rome anymore, is it? Or did I miss the part of world histroy where the Aztec Empire spanned most of the 'known world' at the time, creating impressive feats of engineering that are still in use today.
But you see, that's what makes civ fun, the challenge of taking the underdog and conquering the world against all odds. Balance it and you have no underdog, may as well go play Starcraft
If you want civilizations to be no more than a name and a flag because they're all perfectly balanced, than you're saying you want to ruin my game and everything I like about it. Expect me to try to prevent that from happening.
I don't mean to call Starcraft a simple game, per say, but rather that it's scope is small. There really are only so many scenarios that arise.
The reason SC2 is such a wildly popular game for both beginners and experts alike is this simplicity. It, of all strategy games, can best be compared to a sport. I don't at all say this as a negative. People may debate endlessly about the multitude of different tactics as they debate (american) football plays and teams. But in the end, all paths must lead to the same point.
Edit: this post is so vague its ridiculous. i just don't really know how to put it any better though. Civ has way more game mechanics that cover completely different things imo.
Infiltrator
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You're saying that Firaxis intentionally makes some civs weak while others strong based on history? If they were doing that then why the hell would Inca be one of the most powerful civs all around (Huayna Capac, Fin/Ind)? There are more examples but this is the most obvious one afaik.
Also, civ allows us to re-live history. Who are you to say that in a different timeline it would be some other power that ruled over the eras than the ones we know today?
Yes, starcraft is more simple at its core than civ. Then again, chess is also a lot more simple than starcraft is more simple than civ. Yet chess allows the strongest minds to test their mettle on that simple rectangle.
My point was (and I keep repeating it and getting ignored) that despite the complexity, balance is not a problem because the civs are almost identical. They just need to balance what makes each civ unique, which is, again, a very small part of any of the given civs.
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