Game Balance Ideas Thread - UT40K: The Chosen mod for Unreal Tournament 3

This thread is for collecting all ideas for balancing the game. As we've discussed there is little incentive to choose some units over others. I have a few ideas on how to provide these incentives.

Money system:
This type of system has been applied succesfully to many games, usually RTS, but some FPS games such as Counter Strike. Balance is achieved through tailoring the cost of individual units within each army, and compared against units in other armies. This also provides a feeling of an escalating battle, as the more elite units don't show up until a little later in a game.

All players on a team earn money at the same rate based upon how well the team is doing. This depends upon gametype, such as the number of control points held in Take & Hold.

Individual players are rewarded bonus money for themselves for heroic accomplishments. Double-kills, killing sprees, and gametype specific rewards such as capturing a point or taking an objective.

Money is spent before you spawn to choose your equipment "package" that you spawn with (synonymous with "class"). This includes armor, weapons, and any additional equipment like jump packs.

Further possibilities for the money system include a way to purchase vehicles, and possibly using money to regulate activated abilities unique to each unit. These ideas need to be developed further.I'll post another idea I have shortly...

Points system:
This is pretty simple, and works almost identically to the table top points system. It allows players to spawn in as any unit they want with no restrictions.

Every class is worth a certain number of points. When a player kills an opponent, their team gains points equal to the killed class' points. Objectives are worth a flat amount.

For example let's assume that Eldar Guardians are worth 10 points each, Terminators are worth 45 points each, and capturing a control point is worth 50 points. 5 Guardians battle 3 Terminators over a neutral CP. The Guardians use their mobility to flank the Terminators and hit them hard with grenades. They manage to kill 2 of the Terminators, but are completely wiped out and the last Terminator takes the control point. In that engagement, the Eldar team earns 90 points (2x45), and the Marine team earns 100 points (5x10 + 50).

So you can see that a force composed of weaker units will have greater numbers over time, and still have a fair chance of winning a game if they work together and make smart class choices.

Of course these points can work in a number of ways. You could have them add to your teams score, or decrease your opponents score. This is in addition to the points earned over time for holding Control Points.

What do you guys think of this?

I think we should just forget about a DM gametype, that way we dont have to worry about balancing out units for individual play. Or we could introduce a duel/dm gametype later on when we have a class selection system implemented. Either way it should be the last thing we worry about imo.

As for team gametypes, i think a combination of the points and money system would work well. Each player earns points slowly at a set rate, and can get extra points for heroic accomplishments(double kills, killing sprees, gametype specific rewards). These points can be used to purchase better units or load-outs, but have no bearing on the in-game score. I will not talk about gametype settings, as that is already being discussed in another thread.

If the points have no bearing on the score and are only used to purchase your class then it's the money system.

Ahh yes it is, sorry didnt seen that. In that case i think we should go with Ministry's money system, where money(or points or whatever u want to call them) has no bearing on the game type's score.

As Brold is the coder, what do you think Brold?

I like the money system. I would like to see a basic class system in and working before going ahead with building that system, though.

Yeh but i think the logic behind this was that it might be easier to implement a money system along the way, rather than complete the class system then create the money system. I dont know though as im not a coder :p

That is largely true. At least, it is in some sense less work to implement them at the same time rather than separately (though not necessarily easier). However, the money system is a fairly large chunk on it's own. I'd like to have a class system in-game and be getting the benefits of having that immediately, rather than sometime down the road when we finish the money system. I'd prefer to see a functional partial result in the meantime rather than going all-or-nothing for a combined system.

What about Geo? Havn't heard from him yet. It sounds like we (biggest_kid, Brold9999 and myself) are in agreement with the money system, so as long as Geo approves then we can proceed keeping it in mind. We can make each unit play naturally (in regards to move speed, hit points, firepower, etc.) and balance them later through the money system.

i'm as creative as a lump of mud in these things, to me it sounds good and every one is happy then go for it

Actually ministry brought up a good point just then(though i guess thats what this thread is pretty much all about) in that we can get all the classes up and running, then use the money system to balance it. I dont know why i just said what i said, as ive just re-stated the whole point of this thread.

But now that we have geo's approval, i guess the money system is in. So are we going to do it with the class system? Or implement the class system then the money system?

class system first then the money system, we need something to work with asap

Yes, now that we know that we can balance them later through this money system, we can go ahead and set up the class system without restriction. We can set up each class to play exactly how they should (without nerfing powerful ones or buffing weaker ones).

We can either discuss the finer points of the money system now or later when we are closer to implementation. The exact numbers will need to be balanced, but general ideas can still be ironed out at this time.

The money system can help us to balance it but I don't think we can rely on it exclusively. We still have the problem that the most basic unit (which presumably would be free) is not of equal power in each race, so if we rely exclusively on a money system for balance the more elite races have an advantage from the beginning.

Dont worry Brold, we can balance it out later, it will work out. Relic managed to do it for the Dawn of War series, im sure we can do it. For now our main method of balance should be the money system. If at the time of implementation and testing that method doesnt work well enough then we can discuss other options. But if we go making it too complex from the start we'll end up right where we were before, with no work getting done and ideas just being thrown around the place.

We can't really use the success of a money system in an RTS as evidence that it will work in an FPS. A huge part of RTS games has always been economy management. A better sample of a successful money system in a FPS would be Counter Strike. But the weapons and armor available to each team in that game are balanced in a fairly lateral way.

But we can always find a way to make it work. I do not think a Guardian is THAT much worse than a Space Marine Scout. And, based upon the amount of money you begin with, an Eldar player might have more choices available (like an Aspect Warrior or Ranger) while a Marine player might not be able to afford anything but Scout for the first few rounds.

Essentially the basic "free" unit is meant to be used as a saver choice. If you are trying to save up for a better class than picking the free unit a few times can help a lot (a common strategy in pro Counter Strike matches). And if your team is doing poorly than it gives you something to spawn in with. It's not ideal, but it's a combat unit that can make a push to recapture some resources and pilot vehicles. The less elite army might be at a disadvantage, but only when your team has already made some mistakes and has allowed the enemy to gain momentum. Money systems always end up focusing the gameplay around momentum.

Keep in mind that Eldar are very mobile as well, with faster vehicles that can bypass some terrain obstacles. This will allow even a team of guardians to race out and capture a lot of points so that they can upgrade to more powerful classes sooner. In this way we find overall balance. It may be easier for a Marine team to recover from the brink of defeat, but the Eldar would have an advantage in the early game where developing mementum is so crucial.

Map layout has a lot to do with this as well. If you must capture points in a linear path then the Eldar's mobility is less useful. But if there are a lot of branches in control point paths, or even some free ones, then mobility will be a very powerful tool.

I think we will be able to balance all of the classes. I just disagree with this statement:

Ministry_3D wrote: we can go ahead and set up the class system without restriction. We can set up each class to play exactly how they should (without nerfing powerful ones or buffing weaker ones).

which to me suggests that we throw out any consideration of whether or not the individual characters are balanced and rely solely on different money values to balance them. I don't think that will work well. The money system is one tool that can help us to even out small imbalances, but it doesn't completely free us from making the individual units fairly balanced.

I think you misunderstood. I certainly do not think we should throw out any consideration for unit to unit balance. The very next line states, "set up each class to play exactly how they should". This means that a Terminator with an Assault Cannon should be able to shred infantry, and an Eldar Dark Reaper should easily cut down Space Marines from long distance. Marine Scouts should suck against Howling Banshees in melee, and Eldar Guardians should suck at killing Space Marines in general.

Powerful units need to be powerful - that's what makes them fun. We can't accomplish this feeling of power if we buff up the units that are intended to be weak (and we certainly can't if we nerf the strong ones).

If we mirror the table top game as we balance each unit then each army should end up balanced fairly well against each other. The money system simply prevents players from choosing the strongest class every time, or very early, and gives them some incentive to take something weaker from time to time.

In this style of play, the number of units per side is fixed. Armies with individually weaker units can't make up in numbers what they lack in individual strength as they do in the tabletop game. Since we lack the quality vs. quantity tradeoff which is a key part of the tabletop balance, the tabletop balance will not port cleanly to this medium.

Yeh Brold has raised a good point. We cant keep saying that the less elite armies will make up for it in numbers, because if the team numbers are fixed, which they will be, the less elite race will have the exact same amount of troops as the more elite army.

But still i think ministry has a point, we can go ahead and lightly balance out the units now, and they can always be re-balanced/altered later cant they? They need to be because there will always be things that need rebalancing after testing and actually playing the game, so why worry to much about it now. Lets just get something up and working i say.

While you can not get greater numbers at any one point in time you would end up with a greater number of the elite choices over time.

The menu could look something like this:
Eldar-
Guardian with Shuriken Catapult = Free
Dire Avenger = 100
Howling Banshee = 120
Striking Scorpion = 120
Dark Reaper = 150
Wraithguard = 200

Space Marines-
Scout with Bolt Pistol = Free
Scout with Boltgun = 100
Marine with Boltgun = 170
Marine with Special Weapon = 200
Terminator with Storm Bolter = 400

So you can see that the freebies cancel eachother out. They each get similar grenades, and their respective strengths and weaknesses would put them on pretty even footing. Then the gap between the more powerful units get more and more distant so that, over the course of a full battle, the Eldar players can afford to spawn in as their more powerful classes more often than the Marine players.

5 Guardians might not be a match against 5 Tactical Marines, but 5 Dark Reapers are.

Actually thats a very very good idea to balance out the races as a whole Ministry. Have it so that the races with slightly less powerful elite troops cost less to get those slightly weaker troops, wow thats really simple, nice idea!

The only potential problem I can see is in an army without a lot of variety in class selection - like the Imperial Guard. I really only know IG through Dawn of War, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they only have standard Guardsmen with various weapons, Kasrkin and Ogryns. I guess there's a few command squad units, such as the Psyker, Missionary and Priests, but their real strength is in their tanks/vehicles which are dependant on the map in our game. Without a way to purchase vehicles it would be difficult to balance them.

Perhaps they can have some vehicles that spawn in normal and extra available for purchase from the spawn menu. Or perhaps we shouldn't worry about it and figure it out when we get there. Any ideas?

Well they have a lot more troop types then the ones you mentioned, so im sure we'll figure out a way to balance it. And on the maps where IG are played we can just give them a few extra vehicles to spawn with, simple as that.