Will Jack Headbang in the future?

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jack1974
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Re: Will Jack Headbang in the future?

Post by jack1974 »

Yes I remember in my test playthrough that normal game was 17-18, with N'Mar you could get to 20. But then I remember people getting to lvl 25... :lol:
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Lonestar51
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Re: Will Jack Headbang in the future?

Post by Lonestar51 »

Lvl 25 is more like insane grinding :mrgreen: :mrgreen: I mean if you want to see all abilities, OK, fine, do it, but just for winning the game... :roll:

A bit more of a general question: How do you go about balancing the game? Do you just make a few playthroughs (or many...) and tweak what does not "feel" right; or do you have something of a systematic approach - designing how buffing should balance debuffing or damage dealing and how this class has this weakness which balances that ability?
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jack1974
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Re: Will Jack Headbang in the future?

Post by jack1974 »

Based on my personal experience, the ONLY way to balance properly a game is play it. You can do automated tests, like one we did for PS2 in the beginning, to evaluate the impact of a specific stat, but unless your RPG has 3 battle actions (attack, defend, pass) there are so many combos and situations that is impossible to automate it. I know BIG companies like Bioware and such have a full testing team of A LOT of people, playing the game every day for hours! that's also a reason why I do open beta of the games, so that more people than me can test the gameplay :mrgreen:
deathknight1728
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Re: Will Jack Headbang in the future?

Post by deathknight1728 »

Lonestar51 wrote:Lvl 25 is more like insane grinding :mrgreen: :mrgreen: I mean if you want to see all abilities, OK, fine, do it, but just for winning the game... :roll:

A bit more of a general question: How do you go about balancing the game? Do you just make a few playthroughs (or many...) and tweak what does not "feel" right; or do you have something of a systematic approach - designing how buffing should balance debuffing or damage dealing and how this class has this weakness which balances that ability?
The problem is that you have a choice-Go with 4 party members and the game is somewhat challenging throughout. Or go with 6 party members and its easy throughout on normal.

The easiest ways to make any party based game simple is to use at least 1 or 2 archer/ranged characters couple with a warrior or 2. I completed Loren that way with little problems except last battle but hey, its the last battle. Avadon was a joke once you play with 2-3 ranged characters. Im playing an Agent in Geneforge with magic mastery.

What have we learned here today guys? What we learned is that if you can destroy the enemy before they get to you/your party, you have achieved victory. If you are having problems with balancing, usually the worst case scenario is that melee sucks and ranged is preferred. On 1st playthrough of Loren, the major boss fight with fost was challenging but only because I was melee. If I was an archer, it would likely be a piece of cake.

Melee is always good at dealing the most damage and not so good with dealing it/targeting it at the enemies that need to be damaged the most (like say rogues and mages and priests). The only way to combat this is to remove the front row of enemies asap. True balance cannot be achieved because there are always people that want to complain.
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jack1974
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Re: Will Jack Headbang in the future?

Post by jack1974 »

deathknight1728 wrote:True balance cannot be achieved because there are always people that want to complain.
Yes as I wrote in today's blog post, a perfectly balanced RPG doesn't exist :lol: but I don't think is because people want to complain (at least not all of them!) simply because they found a way to win easily and so they're bored. That's why I am adding the Nightmare difficulty levels on all the next RPGs! :twisted:
DunKalar
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Re: Will Jack Headbang in the future?

Post by DunKalar »

One of the StarCraft 2 Dev's wrote to this topic once, after he was tired of all the player's complaints that somehow everything was unbalanced:

"Balancing can only be checked in games between the top players who make nearly no errors in their games. Please remember that balancing is not intended to help players who just cannot play the game get a chance against players who do." (literally)

Cruel but funny and true :D
#ChambarasArmy #ChalassasFreedomFighters
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Lonestar51
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Re: Will Jack Headbang in the future?

Post by Lonestar51 »

I have been reading a bit about game design in the last months, and balancing was of course a main part of it. As you mentioned Starcraft and a quote regarding to top-players in multi-player sessions, I remembered this article by Keith Burgun:
http://keithburgun.net/the-greater-valu ... ive-games/
Basically he says that competitive games get so by the balancing process (the other criteria do not matter for the discussion right now), and the balancing of a really competitive game can only happen by watching top players in multiplayer. He mentioned that Starcraft 2 got lots of balancing patches along the years. And he says that a really good balanced game is more fun even for people who are not top-players and who do not use all of the possibilities of the game.
if you are interested, then I really recommend reading the article yourself. (Me ... I am just a lowly studend of the art, trying to learn the basics. No way I am going to argue any side. ;-) )
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