Star Wars The Old Republic

Quote from Rick_D

facts

You'll love these Titanic analogies : http://i.imgur.com/hTZ9X.jpg

Quote

i never said that skill trees were incapable of balance, i said that the current implementation of skill trees that are perceived as balanced or well designed, in fact, aren't. does this mean that skill trees are incapable of balance? no. does this mean that there aren't skill trees that are well balanced? no. what it means is that i am refuting the claim that the skill tree of e.g. wow is not balanced or indeed well designed, and that many mmo's haven't balanced their skill trees because the designers behind them have little to no clue on how to balance them. currently this is done on a trial by error base, in the form of playtesting.[...]

as for your controversial subject, first off: de gustibus non est disputandum. i cannot account for what you or anyone else likes in a game, nor is this in my interest for the subject at hand. i also think that you're arguing something a bit different here. choice and perfect balance are not mutually exclusive factors in a game. you can choose to play a class or character that has trade-offs if you are so inclined, with whatever implications this has for the match or match-up. but giving yourself a handicap in this way should have no effect on the overall balance of the game; this is your choice in the game, not a choice that the game does for the sake for balance.

Yes... squid pro row.

You said the WoW Skill Trees could never be balanced because of differences per tier. I was trying to suggest a little bit of injustice in the tiers is fine, if not better, than clinically balancing everything to be even.

Choice and perfect balance are mutually exclusive in any practical application. Each meaningful choice you give the player is going to drive things more and more towards imbalance because it’s exponentially adding variables each time. Theoretically all this could be tracked and perfectly balanced, for better or worse, but I can’t see this happening in practice.

Quote

secondly, balance is a fickle thing. how would you go about defining balance in a game? how would you go about measuring balance in games? you mention tier lists; most if not all tier lists are not made by the companies releasing the game, but rather as a subjective gauge from seasoned players. while these players usually know what they are talking about, they still make mistakes, and they are still learning from the game. since tier lists are dealt in the realm of subjectivity (at least at the time of writing), they are too baseless to use as a method of properly gauging balance. however, i concede that i would consider any official tier list released from a game company for a given game the gold standard of balance for that game for no other reason than i would expect them to have done the calculations beforehand. this is probably why game companies do not release tier lists.

Companies don’t release tier lists because they design the game hoping everything is going to be even (ignoring comedy characters like Dan) but this is rarely the case. Sometimes the imbalances are

you wonder how they managed to ship but other times even years on people don’t agree as you say. Ono (SFIV producer) came out and said they purposely make characters stronger than others but I think he was trying to save face because Arcade Edition had Yun, Fei Long and Viper dominating so much the top players all dropped their main characters for them.Anyway, I don’t think Fighter approaches like tier lists or match-up charts really apply to a game like WoW because the fundamental mechanics make it hard or impossible to outplay the difference. At least in the video I just linked Tager still has to make a mistake before he takes 40% damage and is vomited to the other end of the obstacle course. It’s stacked but it’s not unwinnable, however this is not the case with WoW PvP. If you look at team compositions for Arena this season they’re almost exclusively based around legendary equipped Rogues. If you went in with some “low-tier” composition and/or gear disadvantage then how well you play is fairly irrelevant.

From a competitive point of view this is the main problem with the game; not the numbers, statistics, formulas, skill trees or whatever else. The root cause is WoW was designed as a PvE game and retro-fixed for PvP much later. It launched with a lot of easily identifiable problems (Ex: Stun Lock) and the delay on the honour system seemed to suggest they thought most people wouldn’t be too interested in it.

Quote

but i digress. ultimately, the question of whether "perfect" balance is necessary or even desirable for any given game is moot. however, all game designers should at least be able to attain to the knowledge of creating perfect balance in any given game, simply because this insight would allow them to create games of any level of balance below "perfect". or if it isn't possible to attain "perfect" balance, then at least attain the closest upper bound to it.

It absolutely is not moot because, as you have just spent several paragraphs explaining, designers don't actually know how to make their asymmetrical games perfectly balanced. In a real project you will need to make this decision.

itt sentura argues vehemently that he doesn't know how to balance a game.

It's funny how lots of my friends and even my two brothers got the game, and here we are 2 weeks later ... and none of them are playing it anymore.

Also enjoy getting banned for looting chests available to anyone : http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=120099

i don't know.. i think if you play the same mmo over and over again you won't experience that initial joy. if you play a different kind of mmo then you'll get something out of it. the first mmo i pllayed was LotRO (if anyone remembers that) - i was totally against mmo's but a friend got me into it, we played a lot, enjoyed our time and i had alot of fun. but then i tried age of conan, and because it was a very different game in a lot of respects i had even more fun playing that. going into WoW i can't even be bothered to get past the first couple of levels no matter how many times i've tried. with SWtOR i feel like it's just WoW all over asgain, in so many ways, and it's got some horrible mechanics thrown in just for the sake of it. it's like a studio that never made an mmo before just copied their competition and tweaked a few things hoping that what people really wnated was more of the same; and we all know how well that worked out for Rift.

Quote from Rick_D

i don't know.. i think if you play the same mmo over and over again you won't experience that initial joy. if you play a different kind of mmo then you'll get something out of it. the first mmo i pllayed was LotRO (if anyone remembers that) - i was totally against mmo's but a friend got me into it, we played a lot, enjoyed our time and i had alot of fun. but then i tried age of conan, and because it was a very different game in a lot of respects i had even more fun playing that. going into WoW i can't even be bothered to get past the first couple of levels no matter how many times i've tried. with SWtOR i feel like it's just WoW all over asgain, in so many ways, and it's got some horrible mechanics thrown in just for the sake of it. it's like a studio that never made an mmo before just copied their competition and tweaked a few things hoping that what people really wnated was more of the same; and we all know how well that worked out for Rift.

If u actually liked Conan and Lotr, that's the problem.

Quote from Taylor

You said the WoW Skill Trees could never be balanced because of differences per tier. I was trying to suggest a little bit of injustice in the tiers is fine, if not better, than clinically balancing everything to be even.

i realize that i have been unclear here. i meant tier as in level. so a tier would consist of any class of max level in a given match area (e.g. a special pvp zone for level 20-24 or similar). i didn't actually consider that you might have meant something else a la tier lists until now. my bad.

Quote

Choice and perfect balance are mutually exclusive in any practical application. Each meaningful choice you give the player is going to drive things more and more towards imbalance because it’s exponentially adding variables each time. Theoretically all this could be tracked and perfectly balanced, for better or worse, but I can’t see this happening in practice.

i don't see how you can equate imbalance with depth of complexity. no doubt it would be harder to balance out, but saying it would be impossible in practice? please, we live in an age where billions of units of information can be processed per second. it would absolutely be doable given the right tools and methods.

Quote

Companies don’t release tier lists because they design the game hoping everything is going to be even (ignoring comedy characters like Dan) but this is rarely the case. Sometimes the imbalances are

External Content www.youtube.com

Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.

Display content once Display all external content

Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

you wonder how they managed to ship but other times even years on people don’t agree as you say. Ono (SFIV producer) came out and said they purposely make characters stronger than others but I think he was trying to save face because Arcade Edition had Yun, Fei Long and Viper dominating so much the top players all dropped their main characters for them.

i don't understand how a company could ever be as arrogant as to consider everything in a game perfectly balanced without any proper validation of this beforehand. i mean, in the case of SFIV, the designers must have had some sort of idea of what was going on when they designed the characters, and must have known that some characters would seem much better than others. i would have figured they would have seen the feedback from previous games, seen the tier lists created and acknowledged that perfecting a balance without any form of procedure for doing so would not make the game balanced.

Quote

Anyway, I don’t think Fighter approaches like tier lists or match-up charts really apply to a game like WoW because the fundamental mechanics make it hard or impossible to outplay the difference. At least in the video I just linked Tager still has to make a mistake before he takes 40% damage and is vomited to the other end of the obstacle course. It’s stacked but it’s not unwinnable, however this is not the case with WoW PvP. If you look at team compositions for Arena this season they’re almost exclusively based around legendary equipped Rogues. If you went in with some “low-tier” composition and/or gear disadvantage then how well you play is fairly irrelevant.

i never mentioned tier lists in my original post.

Quote

From a competitive point of view this is the main problem with the game; not the numbers, statistics, formulas, skill trees or whatever else. The root cause is WoW was designed as a PvE game and retro-fixed for PvP much later. It launched with a lot of easily identifiable problems (Ex: Stun Lock) and the delay on the honour system seemed to suggest they thought most people wouldn’t be too interested in it.

it might be true that the design of the skill trees originally may not have been with pvp in mind, but that still doesn't qualify them as well designed in the current state they are used in present day. it also goes to show that not enough thought was put into something that turned out to be a major game element. i would go so far as to say that the game isn't well designed simply because the designers didn't think these things through beforehand.

Quote

It absolutely is not moot because, as you have just spent several paragraphs explaining, designers don't actually know how to make their asymmetrical games perfectly balanced.

yes...

Quote

In a real project you will need to make this decision.

...and this is precisely why the point is moot. the decision is the answer to that question; and the decision is open for debate.

After playing the game, I take everything they say as sarcasm.

I’m trying to avoid a quoteathon and distil this down to something manageable. My argument was that you can’t criticize something as 100% factually bad simply because it allows imbalance as the inevitable little imperfections can be enjoyable. Your argument seems to be that that perfection is actually achievable and thus my argument is irrelevant because any desired imperfections can simply be designed in.

So the onus is on you to show us these tools, methods and procedures for making a game of massive complexity perfectly balanced while highly customisable and scalable; because as far as I’m aware you are dealing entirely with unsubstantiated theory. While there certainly are known techniques for helping you with balance generally their goal is information, as balance is currently handled more as an art than a science; and thus flaws are innate.

Quote from Taylor

I’m trying to avoid a quoteathon and distil this down to something manageable. My argument was that you can’t criticize something as 100% factually bad simply because it allows imbalance as the inevitable little imperfections can be enjoyable. Your argument seems to be that that perfection is actually achievable and thus my argument is irrelevant because any desired imperfections can simply be designed in.

i don't know if it is achievable, right now i am persuaded to think that it is. but either way, to a certain point it should be possible to measure balance objectively, since it's a part of a logical system. and yes, having that data would allow for better designs, and give further insight in how to better game experiences.

Quote

So the onus is on you to show us these tools, methods and procedures for making a game of massive complexity perfectly balanced while highly customisable and scalable; because as far as I’m aware you are dealing entirely with unsubstantiated theory. While there certainly are known techniques for helping you with balance generally their goal is information, as balance is currently handled more as an art than a science; and thus flaws are innate.

it isn't unsubstantiated, but it is vaguely defined at this point because balance is huge subject to deal with. i've already done a fair share of research in subjects that touch upon balance, but you can't expect someone to dig up a theory that fits perfectly overnight and uses all possible valid references to back it with. i already stated that i don't have any of the above mentioned tools or methods yet, and that i'm working on trying to see if it is possible to have them in the first place.

in the end, game balance is still a subset of game design, and design in itself is a merger of art and science. maybe balance will become next in the list of unanswered game design questions like, "what is atmosphere/immersion/narrative/etc.?"; and then all of this would be goddamn trivial. but hey, maybe, JUST MAYBE it could be something that could be discovered and used in games.

Quote

Dear DagWe are contacting you regarding your account Titz for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

We wish to notify you that you are in violation of our Terms of Service.

From an investigation of your Account we can see that your character has carried out the following violation: Naming - Generally Inappropriate

Charactername: Titz

Server: Niman

You will be required to re-name the character to something more appropriate the next time you log into your acount.

If you continue to violate our Terms of Service it may result in a suspension or ultimately a permanent account closure. We encourage you to familiarise yourself with our Terms of Service which can be found here

[email protected]

Display More

Quote

Hello,I am quoting my "offense":

-------

From an investigation of your Account we can see that your character has carried out the following violation: Naming - Generally Inappropriate

Charactername: Titz

Server: Niman

You will be required to re-name the character to something more appropriate the next time you log into your acount.

-------

I am writing to clarify the issue on my character name, Titz, which you decided to change, without any prior contact or in-game notification. Had you taken the time, and energy, in the same manner that I have experienced with other providers of MMO's, it would have been possible to base this decision on knowledge and not lack of such. I am perfectly able to see that a fourteen year old would assume "Titz" pointed to breast, or more specifically female breasts. However, after explaining my reasons for using this name to game masters of other MMO's, it was possible to come to an agreement and in every case, it was accepted that it should not be of my concern that some people would associate this nick with the female breast.

Why the ideas of the under educated or young should be of any concern to me, in this game, is beyond me. I have for the last week, killed an innocent young black woman. Beheaded an old man and given his head to his wife while making fun of it. Killed so many people in cold blood, with funny punch lines, I lost track them during the first two nights of game play. Then, suddenly, when something can remotely be associated with the female breast, thats where you draw the line. That association is so insulting, so powerful and obviously way worse than any of the things I have pointed out earlier about murder and innocent females.

Now, let me explain the origin of this nick name. Titz can surely be associated with female breasts, I am not going to bother trying to convince you otherwise. Titz is a municipality in Germany, more specifically in North Rhine. I have visited it more than once, and the name stuck with me, as a funny word (unrelated to female breasts, I am a grown up, which is why I can play a game with all this violence). I am sorry that the name of a location is able to offend anyone.

I am quoting directly from your ToS (http://tos.ea.com/le...TERMS/US/en/PC/)

"Use abusive, offensive, or defamatory screen names and/or personas."

"You may not use a user name or persona that is used by someone else, is vulgar or offensive"

I do not see how naming your char after an actual municipality is offending to anyone. In any case, should it be accepted as a reference to female breasts, I find it troublesome to see who it is in violation to any of the above. At least in a game which is rated 16+. If people got the stomach to play this game and select all the dark side choices it gives you, these same people should be capable of reading "Titz" without being offended.

Being aware of the above, I ask you to reconsider, and come to a well informed conclusion based on these facts and the fact that your game is both violent and extremely provocative at the same time. Please consider your game being rated 16+ by the PEGI standard, which is the age group the game is released to in Europe, where I happen to be a customer. Your decisions regarding these forced name changes, should consider this as well, as the information provided above.

Please provide me, preferably in as much detail as I provided in this email, as to why I am in violation of any ToS. Failure to provide an accurate answer in due time, will result in immediately termination of my subscription.

Display More

Good luck with that Pampers. There's also a Shit Creek in Ireland, but I doubt they'll allow that either.

oh that is not me, just something i came over in another forum

It's because they're not saying it right.

relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucking,_Austria

Quote

Schmitzberger stated, "[w]hat they are, I am not at liberty to disclose, but we will not stand for the Fucking signs being removed. It may be very amusing for you British, but Fucking is simply Fucking to us. What is this big Fucking joke? It is puerile."

He doesn't have time to win the internet. He's solving Chaos Theory.

Quote from Taylor

He doesn't have time to win the internet. He's solving Chaos Theory.

stops arguing because of indifference, leaves spiteful remark about arguments... scumbag taylor

Oh mapcore.