Main Factions Balance

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Cackfiend
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by Cackfiend »

Hardwood wrote: June 25th, 2019, 10:07 pm ...
I know you think you're a masterful genius because you've watched a few replays, but I often disagree with your analysis and let's just say I have a bit more experience with you when it comes to analytical thinking of competitive Wesnoth.

Hejnewar wrote: June 25th, 2019, 10:29 pm
Cackfiend wrote: June 25th, 2019, 8:09 pm I dont owe you anything.

I could go over a long list of what you have trouble understanding, but id rather take it to pms if you want to talk more as this is getting rather personal.
Yeah, you don't owe me anything. But community is something different. You can do with your era whatever you want. But if these changes were to make it to default i can prove that they are bad, even if there is merit behind some of them. And I care about balance of this game way too much just to let that go.

Well I've seen it couple of times already as soon as something starts to look bad in public it should be explained in pm.

My goal has never been to make Ladder Era become the new default. In fact I know it never will because it would affect SP Campaigns too much and some of the Lore. The whole idea of the Ladder Era was conceived because of this.

I'll repeat it again since you seem to keep forgetting; Ladder Era is in the first testing phase. It needs to be tested. If you have concerns then please test it and then talk about the concerns from the tests. You are all hypothetical. If you can prove something then prove it.

You care about balance of this game way too much? That is something we have in common. Of the two of us who do you think is more qualified?
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Pentarctagon
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by Pentarctagon »

Cackfiend wrote: June 25th, 2019, 11:59 pm Of the two of us who do you think is more qualified?
While this isn't directed at me, I'll add my two cents nonetheless - statements like that make you come off as rather arrogant. This thread would likely be less heated and more productive if the content of Hejnewar's and Hardwood's posts were addressed rather than waved off. For example, providing your own reasoning for the replay analysis Hardwood posted.
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by Cackfiend »

Pentarctagon wrote: June 26th, 2019, 12:34 am
Cackfiend wrote: June 25th, 2019, 11:59 pm Of the two of us who do you think is more qualified?
While this isn't directed at me, I'll add my two cents nonetheless - statements like that make you come off as rather arrogant.
Arrogance that is justified in regards to these two. Really its ridiculous. I'm done responding to this thread.
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I'm the guy who's responsible for 40% Gliders in all hexes... I can now die a happy man. =D
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Hardwood
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by Hardwood »

Cackfiend wrote: June 26th, 2019, 1:01 am ...I'm done responding to this thread.
I would venture so far as to say that Hejnewar is more qualified than you are to lead a balancing project. Granted, Hejnewar may not have as good an understanding of the game as you do, and his approach to balancing may be flawed at times - but he is able to listen to criticism. He is able to entertain the idea that he may be wrong about something, a skill which you have not demonstrated. Hejnewar uses data - facts - in his approach - another skill that you have not demonstrated. What this means is that Hejnewar would be able to learn from his mistakes and improve on his approach to achieve better results.

You did not listen to criticism 6 years ago, nor do you listen to it now, as you have demonstrated in this thread. This makes you unqualified to conduct any sort of serious balancing effort.
Last edited by Hardwood on June 26th, 2019, 4:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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sergey
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by sergey »

I don't get why people dislike the approach that was used to design the Ladder Era. Dunefolk rework is often referred as an example. It is just another approach. (1) Spend 6 months for designing and testing, then make a release. (2) Spend one week to release the initial version, iteratively update it based on the feedback.

Hardwood and Hejnewar are asking for statistics, replays analysis and justification. In this comment I described why it is hard to gather statistics based on the ladder games viewtopic.php?f=15&t=49889&start=120#p643796 . You can take a look at the wesnothlife statistics, though I am not sure if the balancing should be based on that data http://tour.wesnothlife.ru/stats.php?lang=english

Cackfiend provided info on each change (e.g. here viewtopic.php?f=15&t=49964 under the spoilers), but you find it not convincing. There are replays on the ladder forums, but Hardwood says they demonstrate poor play and should not be used for the balancing work.

Hardwood could you provide ideas what can we do at this point to gather data that can be used for the balancing? Maybe you guys will work together on the project instead of criticizing each other?

People that played the game 6 years ago didn't like some of the changes introduced in latest (for that moment) versions. However, people that are playing now got used to those changes. That doesn't say if those changes were good or bad.

What do you think about gathering up to date opinions regarding the balance? We could ask people about disbalanced match-ups and maps. Proposed format:
- What faction match-ups + maps are imbalanced in your opinion?
- Why they are imbalanced?
Last edited by sergey on June 26th, 2019, 8:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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sergey
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by sergey »

Hejnewar and Hardwood, you have said several times that the process is wrong. I am sure that everyone who follows the discussion understands your point of view.

I have another question. Could you provide feedback on specific Ladder Era changes that you think are wrong? Ideally with replays and comments.
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Hardwood
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by Hardwood »

Sorry sergey, but I am not interested in contributing to a poorly conducted project. I cannot foresee myself contributing to the Ladder Era in any way.

As I have said previously, the burden of proof lies with the party that claims imbalances exist to begin with. There should first be feedback on specific Default Era elements that are perceived as imbalanced - arguments supported with proof.

I would like to avoid derailing the topic of discussion any further; this thread was posted to talk about the balance of Default Era - not the Ladder Era addon - and I think it would be best to allow it to return to its original topic. If you would like to talk further about the points you raised, I suggest continuing them in private.
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by Hejnewar »

Hardwood wrote: June 26th, 2019, 3:58 am I would venture so far as to say that Hejnewar is more qualified than you are to lead a balancing project. Granted, Hejnewar may not have as good an understanding of the game as you do, and his approach to balancing may be flawed at times - but he is able to listen to criticism. He is able to entertain the idea that he may be wrong about something, a skill which you have not demonstrated. Hejnewar uses data - facts - in his approach - another skill that you have not demonstrated. What this means is that Hejnewar would able to learn from his mistakes and improve on his approach to achieve better results.
Thank for nice words. Fortunately all these years of observing didn't went to waste. ;)
sergey wrote: June 26th, 2019, 1:46 pm Hejnewar and Hardwood, you have said several times that the process is wrong. I am sure that everyone who follows the discussion understands your point of view.

I have another question. Could you provide feedback on specific Ladder Era changes that you think are wrong? Ideally with replays and comments.
I don't think I'm welcome. I have heard enough mean words to not want to contribute to ladder era.
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by Soliton »

Cackfiend wrote: June 25th, 2019, 11:59 pm My goal has never been to make Ladder Era become the new default. In fact I know it never will because it would affect SP Campaigns too much and some of the Lore. The whole idea of the Ladder Era was conceived because of this.
Campaign/scenario balance has no bearing on the default era balancing at all. I don't even know how that could make sense. There are hundreds of scenarios featuring default era units you'd constantly change units back and forth based on what scenario you're looking at. There are lots of other ways to balance a scenario.

Lore is a little different depending on what you want to change. I think you'll agree there are certain principles that are above balance. For example we value diversity so we'll not make all factions the same just because that would naturally be better balanced. Certain units also have features in common usually based on their race which for example makes the unit stats make more sense and easier to remember. Of course if that comes into conflict with balance there is no reason that a unit's race or background story or whatever can be adjusted. So I'm not worried that lore issues will seriously prohibit balancing changes either.

IMO the ladder era should be a testing ground for an improved default era. The default era is certainly meant to be as best balanced as possible for competitive play. I'm not sure what you think the goal of the default era is or why it conflicts with the ladder era.
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by ghype »

sergey wrote: June 26th, 2019, 10:00 am I don't get why people dislike the approach that was used to design the Ladder Era. Dunefolk rework is often referred as an example. It is just another approach. (1) Spend 6 months for designing and testing, then make a release. (2) Spend one week to release the initial version, iteratively update it based on the feedback.
(1) it not just designing and testing, it rather creating statistics, evaluating them and then present proof for or against certain aspects that need or do not need to be changed. The (public) release after 6 months then becomes a playground for approvals and disapprovals. Further changes follow until everyone agrees.

(2) doing it public from the start doesn't give you time and liberty to fully explore every possibility as you will spend the most time answering / commenting on public opinions. Most of the things you do become biased and it will be very difficult for you objectively perform test games and objectively execute / implement changes.


There was a reason why I worked with a small team on the Dunefolk Rework in private. As much as many devs disliked this idea in the time of development, it definitely was for the better.
Last edited by ghype on June 26th, 2019, 10:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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sergey
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by sergey »

ghype wrote: June 26th, 2019, 6:22 pm (2) doing it public from the start doesn't give you time and liberty to fully explore every possibility as you will spend the most time answering / commenting on public opinions.
I think this problem is (more or less) eliminated in the Ladder Era case, since people are asked to try the changes before providing their feedback.
ghype wrote: June 26th, 2019, 6:22 pm There was a reason why I worked with a small team on the Dunefolk Rework in private. As much as many devs disliked this idea in the time of development, it definitely was for the better.
Congrats for the great work! :D

I created this topic viewtopic.php?f=15&t=50007 called "imbalanced matchups" to make the well known things more formalized.
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by ghype »

I saw that. If I were you, I would probably inspect every possible match-up and debate what is good and what is not - then evaluate wether it is imbalanced or not. If you ask the public which the imbalance are then you can could potentially get something for every match up (as at this point it becomes more subjective then objective).

So why not go directly and inspect every possible match up ... if you want to do it properly
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by name »

Pentarctagon wrote: June 26th, 2019, 12:34 am
Cackfiend wrote: June 25th, 2019, 11:59 pm Of the two of us who do you think is more qualified?
While this isn't directed at me, I'll add my two cents nonetheless - statements like that make you come off as rather arrogant.
It may be justified though, as it looks like Cackfiend is a top tier player, whereas Hardwood is much lower on the ladder and Hejnewar has no experience there whatsoever unless he is playing under a different username.
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by ghype »

name wrote: June 27th, 2019, 5:07 am It may be justified though, as it looks like Cackfiend is a top tier player, whereas Hardwood is much lower on the ladder and Hejnewar has no experience there whatsoever unless he is playing under a different username.
Whereas the ladder system might be good to identify who is a good player and who isn't - it should be taken with a grain of salt.
You can reach the top of ladder by fighting only low elo players while you can be a very good player and never have played a ladder game.
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Re: Main Factions Balance

Post by sergey »

ghype wrote: June 26th, 2019, 10:17 pm So why not go directly and inspect every possible match up ... if you want to do it properly
I don't have enough expertise to do it by myself. As I said earlier, I believe that only highly skilled players should make balancing decisions.
name wrote: June 27th, 2019, 5:07 am It may be justified though, as it looks like Cackfiend is a top tier player, whereas Hardwood is much lower on the ladder and Hejnewar has no experience there whatsoever unless he is playing under a different username.
We don't have enough data to analyze whether Hardwood and Heinawar are experts. Well, this is just a joke, as they asked for data analysis. Take a look at Hardwood's casts viewtopic.php?f=6&t=49883 . Hejnewar is not participating in the ladder, however he observes multiplayer games and discusses balance with ladder players.
ghype wrote: June 27th, 2019, 8:28 am Whereas the ladder system might be good to identify who is a good player and who isn't - it should be taken with a grain of salt.
You can reach the top of ladder by fighting only low elo players while you can be a very good player and never have played a ladder game.
If Elo can't be used as a proof, what data can be used? Statistics? I won't spend a lot of words to describe the pitfalls here. I just say that the first thing that I was told on the math statistics classes was "There are three types of lies – lies, damn lies, and statistics." In the other words, statistics is for scientists. When it comes to public, statistics may be easily abused. Replay analysis? How can we tell that the analysis is objective and accurate? What if the analysis has its own errors? I like Hardwood's casts very much. However, in one of his casts (Krogen vs Diggy) he said that Krogen's village grabbing with a leader looks like a rookie mistake. Krogen commented that it is a meta (common approach) for that map.

Multiplayer games are not laboratory experiments, there are too many subjective factors. Imbalance "proofs" are heavily based on the level of skills, playstyle, map knowledge and many other factors (all factors apply to players and analyst as well). I am not saying that we should ignore statistics and reply analysis. I am saying that we must not overestimate their value. Expert opinions are much more important.

I will rephrase the statement again to make it clearer. Any imbalance proof consists of a significant part of the expert opinion and a smaller part of a "proof" in the scientific sense of the word.
Author of SP scenario Dragon Fight and SP campaign Captured by a Nightmare.
Created The Rise of Wesnoth (alternative mechanics) version of the mainline campaign.
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