Should they balance closer to red ranks or a middle ground?
if they balance closer to red ranks then the game will be more skill based with very strong stuff being balanced for very skilled players to know how to use properly. This also may ostracized a large portion of the community who aren't red ranks.
I would love to hear your ideas or opinions
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Middle ground I believe, most of the player base are average players, there are some gods out there but not enough to make changes in that area.
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You absolutely have to balance for the top 1% otherwise the gap is bigger at the top 1% the lesser players can always improve but you cannot overcome an advantage set in place by the game being balanced towards rank 20’s
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Im listening could you elaborate on that?
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You have to consider all ranks/skill levels, if you only balance for the top 1% you won’t really gain new players and most will just leave.. doesn’t mean top players should be ignored, but I really think it’s not as bad as people make it out to be and those complaining think they are higher skilled than they actually are.
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I think the game should be balanced in middle ground, with taking cautions, in particular not making features who can be abused by experienced players.
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You always balance for high level play. High level players are the most likely to invest time and effort into a game, and the most likely to break things if they aren't well balanced. Balancing for casuals often will leave things broken at high levels of play, de-incentivizing players from investing time and effort to advance their skill, since skill will inevitably take a back seat.
There's a difference between designing with all skill levels in mind; taking all players into consideration, and balancing for competitive play. For some reason, people can't separate the two.
Regardless, considering that red ranks aren't indicative of skill, the question itself is a bit flawed to start.
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I think that a majority of the balancing should be done around the purple ranks. Just higher than the middle, but not the 1%. Of course you still make some changes for all ranks, but focus more towards those who are more familiar with the game system and more likely to spend a larger amount of time with it.
I get what you're saying, but I would also like to point out how Overwatch did that and look at the state of it for a majority of the Overwatch League and it's first season compared to literally everybody else.
Yes, DbD isn't an E-Sport but those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it.
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I understand your point, but I think you're entirely misunderstanding the issues that Overwatch encountered.
Theirs wasn't a problem born out of trying to balance around high level play. They have always done that, and continue to (afaik) even to this day. Overwatch's issues, early on at least, involved designing specific kits that interacted in an extremely limiting way and balancing them in such a way that they were the only viable playstyles if you wanted to win. It went beyond just a normal meta. It was concrete. And OWL itself was pushed despite an in-organic growth pattern, entirely facilitated by big-money attempting to cash in on the e-sports trend.
Neither of those things has happened in DBD to my knowledge.
And as such, It simply isn't comparable in the way I believe you think it is. But the truth is, there is always a meta. It's simply a matter of what the meta is, and how dominant is is. But the facts are, a standard balanced meta won't matter for 75~%+ of players anyways. So trying to balance a meta with those people in mind is futile, and will only harm the serious competitive environment. Overwatch's mistake was one of such improper balance that it created massive issues even at lower skill levels. And that's just a mistake, not an indication of top-level balancing...
For info, here's a quote from a site about game design, talking about competitive balancing:
"Compounding the problem of balance in games is the fact that a game can actually be balanced at the "professional" level, but imbalanced at the "intermediate" level. Meaning, sometimes a strategy will be way too powerful -- a dominant strategy -- at all levels of play except for the very highest.
Ideally, you want your game to be balanced at all levels, but for a modern video game of even average complexity, that's asking a ton. It's best to figure out what you want your game to be, and then focus your balance efforts towards that.
If you want your game to be competitively played, then focus most on the top-level players. Talk to the best players -- people who play tournaments (if you are so lucky to have tournaments for your game). If you have a high-score leader-board, contact the top people on the list and pick their brain. However, if you want it to be more of a "casual game", then hand the game to random people, even people who've never played a video game before, and see what they do with it. Tailor your balancing work around your audience."
So really, it all boils down to what BHVR wants DBD to be. If they want it to be a competitive game, with rankings and an MMR system and etc. then they have no other choice but to balance at the highest levels, and design things in such a way so that balance isn't broken at lower tiers.
And if they don't want DBD to be a competitive game? Then the can balance for the majority and simply focus on adding more casual outlets into the game to level the playing field, so to speak.
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