For every competitive video game ever I've always been of the opinion they should keep a handful (at least 2) factions/characters balanced and then do whatever they want with the rest. That way the community can ban stuff that's broken and usually only a small amount will be competitively viable anyways.

>>2308316
MPfags ruin fun out of a game so no. Too often units that were plain dumb fun were nerfed to hell that they are no longer used because MPtrannies cried about it.

>>2308316
It's just plain silly to sideline the vast majority of your userbase to chase the approval of eSports autists. The experience gap between the top and bottom is a game design challenge, not a difference of opinion.

>>2308316
>balancing RTS
and why it should be balanced?

>>2308316
Balance should be a tertiary concern, top 1% players not even that.

>>2308316
>when balancing RTS should the dev focus on only the top players as they are fully capable of knowing the ins and outs of the game or should every player (or let's say every player with a certain amount of matches) be taken into consideration?
If your game's focused on being an eSpurt focus on the top 1%, if not:
>Plot bell curve of players by games played
>Select players within deviation of mean
>Of those players:
>Plot bell curve by skill/win-loss metric
>Select players within deviation of mean
That's your bread and butter... listen to them.
Too many games fail becaue they focus on the most vocal*/highest ranked players and ignore the masses.

*Balance via discord is the biggest mistake a dev can make.

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I'm surprised there isn't some algorithm function equation that you can just plug into any ol strategy game to balance it out.
I mean they parse data from so much shit just plug all those metrics in and create some equation related to wins/losses.
Or alternatively. Just let the community balance their own game.
Warcraft 1 shipped with waredit.exe

Duh. When making a serious competitive game, the goal is to make it as no fun allowed as possible to keep it balanced, consistent, streamlined and fair so that the better player can always win and the worse is guaranteed to lose. The fancy, quirky, funny business belongs in singleplayer and casual custom online scene.

>>2308316
Dota Allstars focused on the top 1% the right way. They added OP abilities and balanced the game around the exploits. It was less about rock paper scissors balance and considering the utility of things in the context of the draft you're against. When Valve got the rights for Dota 2 they basically stripped everything down and focused on balance.

RTS did what Valve did and focuses too hard on refining what C&C and WC did with the occasional gimmick thrown in. It's why the genre is totally stagnate outside of people who just want to mindlessly go through the same routines.

>>2308470
Is that the octoboy commision of blessed karl

>>2308351
Because multiplayer is nice and getting assfucked by objectively stronger units with no counterplay is not nice.

This thread is retarded in the "he takes the wrong fucking angle" way
despite what anti-mp anons say it isn't esporting every game, it isn't a story of the 1%ers against everybody else : it's a problem of feedback quality

when the basic anti-esport anons earlier gives "feedback" it always ends up at
>shit isn't fun, lemme play toy soldiers
and they end up never touching mp anyway so they're the modern audience of mp
when the player in the range that >>2308421 describes gives feedback it usually sounds like
>that unit assblasted me 3 times in a row it needs a nerf
is there an actual inbalance or is it a skill issue ? at this level players might struggle with units and strategies that even the players a couple % above them reliably deal with and players a couple % below them don't have to deal with at all because it's not used among worse players
that's not even to mentionned all those players are going to complain about what's lost them the last couple games not what actually needs looking into
but when you ask a top player you can usually expect a :
>using this build you can get 3 of this unit at time T and the opponent can only know you're doing this at earliest at T-4 when he sees the building being built so there's more than 4 minutes to react if you scout well and counting travel but if you don't : the counters takes roughly 3 minutes to mass so you may die before they ever come out
dev response : make the "problematic" units have a longer training time

weither the top player feedback is right or not doesn't matter, the fact they give detailed accounts that helps the devs see what issue there might be trumps any reee-ing constantly going on about everything that just ends up being tuned out as noise


as for what I'd do for balance ? let the damn games breathe, the communities that get many balance patches kind of end up in the "the devs will nerf this new thing in 2 weeks" that reinforces complaining about new builds and strategies rather than adapting to it

>>2308316
A well-balanced game has an ever-evolving meta and devs doing fuck all with the game for 20 years since its release.
>personally i lean towards option 1
That just speaks of your own self-inflated ego and deluding yourself you're a good player, and not a dumb monkey copying strats of others (without even understanding them)

>>2309122
>weither the top player feedback is right or not doesn't matter, the fact they give detailed accounts that helps the devs see what issue there might be trumps any reee-ing constantly going on about everything that just ends up being tuned out as noise
You're right when you say about the quality of feedback but you're making a rather preposterous assumption there when you imply that only 'skilled' players are capable of giving it. You're also overlooking the aspect that players will naturally look for exploits and opportunities they can create for themselves when providing feedback, something that the 1%ers are more inclined to capitalise on in order to hold rank.

All this competitive pros balance talk reminds about that Rainbow Six Siege fiasco where full team got raped by last member of the enemy squad who played on a character whose ability was to get up after being killed with 1 HP and a pistol with limited ammo, they were so assmad that they got Ubislop to nerf the shit out of the game

Or that time when known cheater and failed competitive trog who got kicked out of every esports team was trying to slime his way into BattleBit by abusing movement system

>>2308316
Depends on what kind of Strategy game you're going for, i fuckin hate the kind that cater mainly to competetive MP fags.

>>2308316
>but I've witnessed plenty cases where the top 1% have a "no fun allowed" mindset and where they even abuse some rare bug that only they know how to (fairly) reliably trigger
it's important to keep in mind that the top players are hypercompetitive almost by definition, how they win doesn't matter much to them as long as they win. so they can suggest some remarkably retarded bullshit from time to time.

>>2308316
You should always balance stats and such based on the skill ceiling where people are using the units properly because there will always be a low enough level where players can't micro.
At the same time, if a unit is disproportionately hard to use it's a good idea to rework it into something that the average player can use without getting carpal tunnel syndrome.
The opposite is actually way more common in RTS games where a unit or strategy will suck against "competent" players while simultaneously being the bane of lower leagues because it's much harder to counter than it is to use but devs refuse to address it because "xd git good" and it ends up demolishing the new player experience making a lot of newcomers quit early.

>>2309009
>It's why the genre is totally stagnate outside of people who just want to mindlessly go through the same routines.
Tried playing BAR recently but it's literally that

>Precise build order or economy stalls
>Everything is balanced / countered / matched
>Factions are practically a "themed buff" and model change of the same units

Most games I just turtle until I get artillery... Then just keep building more artillery and watch the minimap dots slowly disappear.... It's not fun when it's the only option that consistently works.

If I'm doing the EXACT SAME SHIT every game, where's the fucking strategy? Oh, right, that's typical APM bullshit only....

>>2311577
Oh so when I accidentally type something into the name field it sticks forever, but when I erase it, I have to erase it 20 fucking times....
What linux using retard from /g/ coded this shit?

>>2308316
Dev should focus on making fun game.
Esports is a meme. You aren't displacing DOTA 2 and Starcraft 2.

>>2308316
For multiplayer games I'm fine with balancing based on the better players' performances. Lower ranked matches tend to have such variety in player skill that the better player generally wins. At the top of the ladder everyone is consistently good so faction/character imbalances will be more likely to be a deciding factor.
If something is only an issue in low rated games it's literally a skill issue and git gud is a better response than patching unit stats.

it’s fine for difficult strats to be strong

>>2311577
i mean, it's made for TA literal spergs that think supcom changed too much. of course its stale and rote.

>>2308316
If a faction is busted it is going to be OP for everyone pros are just more technically skilled and better able to leverage the strengths of the faction.

Of course the pros who know the game better than the vast majority of players should have a heavier say on balance changes, low ELO players will still play the faction that they like as long as it isn't changed at the fundamental level.

It also depends on the game complexity, if you have 40 civs then balance and symmetricity is a high priority as you have about 1600 civ matchups, if you have 4 factions they don't have to be balanced

>>2308316
I have an asymmetrical multiplayer strategy RTS where I try to balance by defined unit niches and initial expected pros and cons for a players role. I conform balance to those roles

>>2308316
You should balance first and foremost to avoid poor meta. For instance, even if a game is really well balanced, if there's only one or two viable strategies then it's going to bleed players fast. A game should first and foremost be fun, because as it is said, if it's not fun, why bother?

That's not to say balance should go out the window, because balance is one of the triads of an entertaining game--ensuring that there are multiple paths to victory and that players feel like strategy is a big part of the genre. It's just that treating it as the only thing that matters will cause other important aspects to be deficient.

>hmmm should we cater our game to 1% of players or 99% of players
you figure it out

>>2311577
supcom's biggest flaw is the artillery is terrible

>>2311577
Spoken like a true 10 OS shitter. There are multiple openers, all with degrees of variation depending on map and factions, for all game formats - even Glitters and Isthmus, it's just difficult to convince players like you to do something other than default. Git gud.

>>2314321
Let me guess, you're the sort of person to run a one shot gimmick build order like mines, then cry when it doesn't work a second time.
Your problem is you mistake surprise for skill.

>>2308316
https://zero-k.info/mediawiki/Cold_Takes/2_-_Quant%27s_Rule
>You might say that viability is only a concern for hardcore competitive players, but we think it matters for anyone who really wants to puzzle out the game. In other words, to strategise. No matter the game mode, it is a bit disappointing when the unit roster effectively shrinks as your understanding grows

>>2314734
Big words from a literally who gamedev. And for all the variety between all these redundant factories, they don't even play all that different on a fundamental level because of how much their design is kneecapped by the balancing.

>>2308316
if you aren't balancing for the top players then you simply aren't balancing because if the game is unbalanced at the top then all competitive play will eventually lead into unbalanced play as you climb
>where the top 1% have a "no fun allowed" mindset
you should balance around them not for them
how sc2 has decided to do it is incredibly retarded, for example
instead the balancing team should watch competitive play and adjust around it to how they want to game flow to be

>>2315087
>instead the balancing team should watch competitive play and adjust around it to how they want to game flow to be
that's exactly what they fucking did you goddamn moron, do you think SC2 balance was throwing sticky dildos at a board with random numbers on it? You're contradicting yourself

>>2315132
>do you think SC2 balance was throwing sticky dildos at a board with random numbers on it

For most of its life, SC2 balancing was very clearly based solely on statistics with no consideration about the underlying gameplay mechanics.
The best example is obviously HotS. There, Zerg lategame was basically impossible to reach against Terran. Statistics may have said "balanced 50-50" but the reality was that the game was in a sad state of affairs. And I didn't even mention Swamhosts.

It is only since blizzard has basically abandoned their game and it is the community that is now in charge that the game is opening up. Finally, the MMM Terran composition has an expiration date against Zerg. Finally, Terran Mech is usable against Protoss. Finally, Hydralisks are now a standard core unit. Finally, all 3 races need good micro.

>>2314755
>factories, they don't even play all that different on a fundamental level
Did you and I play the same game? Or are you just shitposting about a game you haven't played?

>>2314724
BTFOd so hard the only answer you had was "nuh huh, you are the one who doesn't understand BAR builds!"

Sad, really, but not at all surprising considering your stance void ofany truth. :)

>nobody
>45h laters
>>2315986
why are barbois such insufferable seethers.

>>2308316
they should pick a demographic and stick with it. any attempts to please both are futile because they are mutually exclusive and contradictory. set expectations appropriately via marketing. simple.

>>2308316
Make something fun
Stop this compfag bullshit

What good is a game if only six greasy discord moderators are the only ones who play it? You can worry about balancing later, arguably, imbalanced games get MORE attention because people love exploiting broken shit.

>>2308316
Balance it for people who've learned the game's fundamentals and hit an acceptable skill floor, then make minor adjustments to keep high-level games playable.