If you’re one of many that has developed an interest in competitive Starcraft 2, you’ll know that a massive amount of discussion revolves around game balance. Top players can abuse seemingly miniscule race advantages to a point where a certain matchup can be declared “broken” (tricky, since that is easily the most overused term in the community, almost always incorrectly).
To achieve this (or attempt to), Blizzard makes use of entire teams of statisticians analyzing an unfathomable amount of information, making minute changes here and there, trying desperately to get this 3-way scale to sit just right.
This is true of almost all competitive RTS games, or their derivatives. Competitive Warcraft 3 players will also know all about the problems of game balance (something in that case Blizzard never really got right); as will players of “DotA games” such as League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth.
Yet while these genres rely so heavily on balance, it seems to be a concept which is completely neglected in other genres. What surprises me more than the absence, is that it never even really seems to be considered, discussed, or even noticed by competitive or even casual players. When last did you ever see a Call of Duty game’s patch notes that looked like this:
* • Improved matchmaking to find matches significantly faster
* • Havana: Added collision to prevent players from jumping onto an invisible ledge above a doorway at C2
* • Reduced M16 fire rate by 0.456.
Zombies: Overpowered since CoD5
Why it’s a problem
Game balance is more obviously necessary in games like Starcraft 2, where each player generally commits him/herself to a race. If that race is inherently weak to the others, it’s noticeably unfair, especially in major tournaments where thousands of dollars are on the line.
This issue is less apparent in other genres, such as in an FPS, where everybody has access to the same weapons, and differences between what each player is using aren’t nearly as pronounced.
FPS games seemingly go through little balance testing. I’ve no doubt the developers check out the guns beforehand for major discrepancies – but that seems to be the extent of it. The fact is, in every game, you’re never going to get it perfectly balanced on release. Yet unlike the RTS genre, every other game developer seems content to leave things be – and so do the players.
Competitive Counter-strike for example, is dominated by a handful of weapons. Rifles such as the AK-47 are commonplace, while others see little to no use at all. In a game such as Heroes of Newerth, if a hero is not seeing play the developers will attempt to make it a bit stronger, or rebalance it so that it gets more use – and Counter-strike doesn’t have eighty weapons.
This goes beyond mere weapon choices though, and it also affects casual play. Silly strategies that are highly effective such as camping spawn points with grenade launchers are too a sign of imbalance. In the Modern Warfare games some perks see little to no usage, while others are considered mandatory – this is also imbalance. Yet all patches seem to focus purely on bug fixes, with absolutely no attention paid to making the game more fun. The story of the Black Ops player with an insane kill-death ratio that was doing the rounds is another example of game imbalance. Thanks to rather unsporting helicopter use, it can be safely assumed only one person in that game was having a good time.
However, what people seem to neglect is that the real object of game balance is to prevent the game from being boring and stale. Starcraft 2 allows mirror matchups; if Terran was far superior to all races and had been since release, with no one expecting any kind of balance patch, everyone would simply play Terran. You would be forced to either switch to Terran or stop playing at all, and tournament participants would be exclusively Terran. This actually happened in the competitive Warcraft 2 community (yes, it did exist), where every player played Orc due to its clear dominance.
The reason Blizzard aggressively patches Starcraft 2 is to prevent this kind of stagnation, a game with 3 races where only 1 is played is pretty boring to watch, and even worse to play. Yet while this kind of gross imbalance would cause an outcry in the Starcraft community, with people simply abandoning competitive play, this problem has insidiously slipped its way into other genres – not necessarily unacknowledged, but ostensibly accepted without dispute.
This isn’t just FPSs however, it’s everywhere. Fighting games also suffer from this problem, with highly competitive games such as Street Fighter IV and Super Smash Bros. Brawl having only a handful of characters that are played outside of a casual environment.
Imagine a 512 man Starcraft 2 tournament… with only Terran.
What you can do about it
I realize I’m yet again hauling out my well-worn drum for another beating, but developers need to be held accountable for their own games. Some developers, such as Blizzard, give an enormous amount of post-release support, staying in touch with the community and making the experience better any way they can. Don’t call me a Blizzard fanboy just yet though; they’re not doing this for the internet praise. They’re doing it because the community demands nothing less. This is in contrast to the Call of Duty franchise, where a game is released, tossed onto the pile and work begins on the next one. While patches may be released to address bugs, nothing is done to maintain the long term integrity of the gameplay experience
As consumers we just need to expect a little more. I’m not arguing that painstaking balance testing is necessary for every single game – because it’s not. But if your aim is to make a game that will be played competitively in international tournaments, or even just have a big online following – you’re going to need to put in a little more effort.
Currently, outside the RTS/RPG genres, gamers are taking this balancing into their own hands. Modifications which strip games down to just a few of its core elements are common, such as the “Promod” servers for Call of Duty 4.
There shouldn’t be a need for the gamers to balance a game themselves – developers need to be answerable to their own products, and a little more post-release loving is certainly due.
Do you love noob-tubing the spawn? Do you ever consider balance in your favourite FPS? << Have your say in the forums.
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