Trickle-Down Balance

Hi Today I wanted to touch on something that has been coming up more and more ever since a couple years ago when the TF2 developer team, pictured here, decided that they should balance weapons around competitive play and that something is... COMPLAINING. A lot of people who play tf2 seem to have this assumption that when any weapon gets nerfed it's automatically a bad thing unless you personally don't like that weapon and here's a thing. Yeah some weapons don't really deserve to get nerfed and some weapons do and at the same time some weapons deserve to be a lot more viable than they currently are. Well, which players should be influencing what deserves and what doesn't deserve well to put it simply the best players should put it more complicatedly balance in tf2 and most high skill ceiling video games for that matter should be balanced around the highest level of play first In other words we should always be looking at a weapon like this if it's balanced for the highest level of play it will Be balanced for everything else directly underneath it. I decided to nickname this philosophy trickle-down balance the name borrows its etymology from trickle-down economics or more commonly referred to as Reaganomics which was introduced during his presidency in the 80s without getting too political here the whole concept of trickle-down Economics was that tax breaks were given to the wealthy so that Corporations would spend more money on giving back to their workers and pay rises hiring more people Etc etc now while the name and extremely basic concept is similar, reaganomics actually has very little to do with trickle-down balance But you can use this existing concept to draw Parallels to how it should work in tf2 we balanced a weapon at the highest point of its skill usage and as a result everything Beneath it should be absolutely fine to quote Greg Street a design director on League of Legends Which despite what you might think about the game has both a thriving casual and competitive scene? He says it's worth pointing out that the more skilled players and especially Professionals are the best at breaking your game as they'll be better at exploiting balance problems now on paper this concept seems pretty simple But as you affected to me when it comes to a game with over a hundred weapons and millions of players It's not that simple this bell Curve is a pretty accurate estimate of what the skill level of tf2 players should be as you can see the number of Average skill level players is pretty high That's why it's called an average and then on each end you have the very low skilled players over here usually people who are either very new or are just Inexplicably bad at tf2 then you have the heavy hitters the ones who have thousands upon Thousands of hours in the game and have mastered movement aim and game sense to the point of near perfection you know Professional gamers as you can see the most common players are not professional gamers, so as a game developer Why would you balance anything around the lowest common denominator of your player base? And that's where we whip out the magic word compromise This is where things can get tricky you have to balance around the highly skilled people who are more likely to use a certain weapon to the point of breaking the game But you also have to take into consideration The multitude of other players who will also be affected you have to make these people happy But also keep these people from taking that thing and burning everything to the ground with it sometimes literally It's not easy, but it is totally possible So let's get into some more recent examples the base jump and the last wave of Balance changes the TF team has been doing this awesome thing where they also list the reasons behind the change to a weapon which makes it easier to understand their thoughts on how that Weapon is intended to be used This is what they said about the base jumper players often complain that the base jumper is frustrating to fight against because the target is simply too hard to hit right away about 80% of the tf2 community was all like huh because when you see someone using the base jumper in a pub This is usually what happens But here's a thing this person is very likely right about here on the bell curve now Let's check in on what the base jumper looked like in the hand of someone who actually knew how to abuse its features You guys can actually try and hit him okay Fuck off so what the TF team means by this statement is that this? Parachute caused way too many problems in the hands of someone who was using it to its full potential So they removed the ability to redeploy it in midair and reduce the air control by about 50% done and done But did this negatively affect the rest of the tf2 player base No, it didn't because Joe Schmoe tf2 pub guy over here wasn't doing this to begin with it's like literally impossible He was doing this so how about the Razorback well for most tf2 players this thing got a buff? But the removal of the ability to over heal sniper is a hundred percent directed towards Competitive play the even say so in the description of the patch notes for the Razorback at high levels of play the sniper is Easily one of the most influential classes during pretty much all points of the game But mostly during slower points such as stalemates or defensive situations and because the sniper is most easily Countered by spy or another sniper using the Razorback to effectively negate one of his counters is an easy choice Meanwhile being able to survive any headshot under 185 damage by simply asking your medic to pocket you pretty much makes the sniper even more of a threat than he already is So the TF team made a pretty smart choice here and removed What essentially gives the sniper and answer to two major? Counters in this high level of play while making it easier to use in pubs where multiple spies are more than common they're Expected and because you'd be pretty hard pressed to find an over healed sniper and a valve server anyway the nerf pretty much only directly affects the end of the bell curve smart observation and subsequent solution on the devs part I gotta say and the last example I can touch on here is the Vitis saw a weapon that was pretty much fundamentally broken since its inception and completely screwed with the way overcharge advantages played out in high-level games in pubs Ubercharge pretty much just becomes available to you whenever you happen and not die as medic for 40 seconds but in a competitive environment both teams are Constantly mentally keeping track of when the enemy medic is about to have overcharged because being invincible is pretty powerful And you should probably be aware of when that's about to happen if you plan on fighting someone now when one of the medics takes a risk and lands a hit with ubirr saw that's usually just Communicated to the team so that estimates for the medic is about to have you charge is adjusted accordingly But when I met accused the Vitis ah who knows how much more they're going to have when they respawn because it's based on how Much eber you had when you died This would essentially make the skill of tracking uber worthless and because possibly getting some uber for taking No risks was way more valuable than the alternatives this made the vitae saw an obvious choice that basically meant if the other medic was running it and you weren't you were at an automatic disadvantage which is always bad so the TF team acknowledged this and Introduced the system you see today with organ collecting meaning now when you use the vitae saw in order to get your reward you have To take a risk which puts it more on par with the uber saws design this change fixed the vitasaw's inherent problems at a higher level of play while also making it interesting for the general community since a Risk/reward balancing is always going to be of interest no matter what your skill level is now we still have a while to go before Every unlockable weapon in tf2 is balanced in a way that fixes the problems seen at the highest level of play But I can assure you that if these issues are handled from the perspective of trickle-down Balance while also appealing to a compromise between the T of two pros and the T of two Joe schmo's we might very well find ourselves in a world where no weapon needs to be banned in tournaments and every weapon class and play style has a place and Function so I hope you learned something from this video I personally think that game balance and weapon viability is one of the more interesting Topics to discuss when it comes to TF2 and while we're on the topic of learning new things How about I teach you a little bit more about discord. I know if you've seen the last few videos You've probably already heard all about it. This is the last time. I'm gonna mention it I promise you can go to my personal discord which I think is one of the best Uncle Dane Communities / TF2 Communities *burp* on the planet and You can go check it out by making your own discord account if you don't already have one and just type in the URL discord.gg/uncledane or just click the link in the description of this video Thanks very much for watching, and I will talk to you nieces and nephews next time. Bye. Bye

Channel: Uncle Dane

Views: 959,686

Rating: 4.8833747 out of 5

Keywords: team fortress 2, tf2, engineer, gameplay, guide, tutorial, tips, first person shooter, uncle dane, professional, pro, free to play, free, steam, sale, deal, items, crafting

Id: X1p42KtZOCw

Length: 8min 48sec (528 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 21 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/someasshole123456789]

The video makes a lot of great points that are valid, however the one major key factor I feel that doesn't make this idea of Trickle Down Balance quite true for TF2 is the player format of 6v6 over 12v12. Many people may not realize it but the number of players in a game can and will greatly effect the balance and usefulness of each weapon and class.

The Phlog is easily the best example of this idea in action. In 6v6 the Phlog is a very useless weapon and for good reason, the lack of airblast removed a large part of Pyro's supportive and defensive capabilities mixed with the damage nerf made it very unlikely that a player could build up and actually utilize Mmmph. However in a 12v12 format dealing damage and spamming chokes and hallways are much easier. Players are also less likely to notice flanks since midfights are even more hectic and chaotic with added players. It's a subtle change but one that does effect how it plays in the long run, so when that weapon got balanced to fit a 6v6 format it greatly effected how it played in 12v12, more specifically how it was more powerful in that format.

Similarly the Vaccinator is another weapon that doesn't translate as well in the two formats. In 12v12, while the Medigun is capable of being powerful is largely weak to focus fire of multiple attack types at once. While it can deal 2 or 3 Soldiers at once in a 12v12 were even more players are thrown in with more chance of variety the weapon was still counterable. Compare this to how it functions in high level play where the number of players is halved and where 3 of the 5 DPS focused classes are explosives only and of course in comparison it's going to be far stronger.

This isn't to say that Dane isn't right about balance to high level scene, because he absolutely 100% is and there's a good reason most devs balance this way. However I do believe this idea that balance in one format will always translate perfectly well in the balance of another format is not always the case. Its like saying balancing every class and weapon in a 2v2 scenerio will translate well in a 6v6 scenerio.

[u/DuckSwagington]

Hit the nail on the head. Great work Dane.

Now I'm wondering which weapons need to be balanced to the highest level now...

[u/SoundSmith323]

I agree with Dane here, but I'm gonna go ahead and play devil's advocate for the sake of having an interesting discussion:

What are your thoughts on things that thrive in a chaotic pub-like setting (like phlog, or hell, pyro in general after JI)? Against an organized team, these kinds of weapons will not be nearly as effective since communication is the norm there, but against a team full of "Joe Schmoes", as he put it, it often feels like there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it, since they likely don't even know how to use text/voice chat. Of course, the obvious answer here is "just have better communication" or "learn to counter it", but again, in a pub that's much easier said than done.

Personally I'm of the opinion that people gradually learn to have better communication and learn to counter these types of things, and so the "Trickle-Down Balance" system will eventually work, but I've heard many people make the argument that the constant influx of new players into TF2 means that there will never be a perfect balance between comp and casual. I suppose that's where the compromises need to be made.

[u/StezzerLolz]

A couple of points:

1. 'Trickle Down Balance' is an unfortunate term, given that trickle-down economics has been largely debunked as utter twaddle.

2. The issue, at heart, is not that good players and bad players have different needs and abilities, although that's true. The issue is that competitive, especially sixes rather than 6v6, is a completely different experience to pubs, with entirely different dynamics. Trying to balance pubs around competitive is to miss that they're essentially different games. As such, compromising between the two is worthwhile, but the balance of one in no way 'trickles down' to the other.

[u/LegendaryRQA]

Does it make me a bad person that I instantly recognized the frag video he used?

Anyway, I'm happy somebody finally made this video, I was starting to get tired of explaining to people why the game should be balanced around the people who actually play it for money.

[u/Taxouck]

Good video but unfortunately that's not how things work. I've put it in the video comments, but it got buried, so let me use the reddit soapbox to copypaste what I said.

I think the "if it's balanced at high level it's balanced at lower levels" argument is flawed. It's not rare at all for the sentiment of a community at large on a weapon to differ from high level players', and simply replying "well it's not broken in high level play so just deal with it" is incredibly short sighted.
If a weapon or mechanic is preventing players, no matter their skill level, from fully enjoying a game, it's a problem since it makes it harder to keep them engaged. And a game that fails to convince new players to join in, or old players not to go away, is a game that slowly dies. And that comes back to impact high level players too, as a smaller interest game means less tournaments, less viewerships, smaller cash prizes, etc.
Of course appealing to everyone just turns you into Ubisoft or worse, EA, but appealing only to the skill level 1% turns your game into an abrupt, inaccessible game to the non-initiated.

A better way to look at balancing is player skill in to power out (spoiler alert: the answer is not mathematically linear). Extra Credits has an interesting episode about this that explains it a hundred times better than I did.

[u/Moistinatining]

I think the biggest problem with balancing for competitive in mind is the fact that ultimately, casual TF2 is far different from playing competitive TF2.

Right so for many other competitive shooters, player count is irrelevant or otherwise balanced internally by other gameplay mechanics.

In CSGO while casual matchmaking may be 10v10 while competitive is 5v5, kill rewards, along with round won/loss rewards, are halved and each player is still largely restricted to how much money they earned per round, making it difficult to stack some of the more powerful weapons (auto sniper, AWP, etc) very early on in the match.

In Rainbow Six, competitive and casual actually have the same amount of players and the same operator restrictions, making the gameplay change become more due to the fact that they are more rounds to play and that you are consistently being matched with skilled (or at least on your skill level) players.

Likewise, in Overwatch, there are still the same amount of players in both competitive and casual, but competitive adds in character restrictions like RS6. EDIT: Overwatch quickplay also has the same restrictions as competitive, thanks to Clearskky for pointing that out.

With that in mind, the fact that casual TF2 not only pits teams of 12 v 12 against one another, but also has no class limits, greatly affects how the game is played from competitive, whether that be 6s or highlander.

Let's all take a moment to remember when they tried nerfing stickies way back when in 2014. If you don't remember, the new sticky-bomb launcher would have to take a full 2 seconds to reach full damage after being fired, making sticky spam a non factor. Now, every single competitive player was in uproar about this (and admittedly, the radius nerf later on was probably a better for COMPETITIVE), but let's take a moment to recall how most of the lower skill level players are using the sticky bomb launcher. They're actually making traps because that's what they think it's for, after all as a new player it says that demoman is a defense class so why shouldn't I try to use these stickies defensively?

Now to be fair, 2014 was a while ago and the jungle inferno update clearly shows a change in direction on the TF2 team's part from the days of buffing the phlog and the like. But the problem still persists that casual is completely different from competitive in their current states.

Moreover, while paying attention to higher skilled players is a generally good idea, there must be some thought given to balancing gameplay with less skilled players. If higher skilled players are the best at exploiting balance problems, then less skilled players are the best at highlighting balance problems.

[u/Chroniclerope]

Funny how he didn't talk about the ambassador. The highest skill weapon for spy is no longer viable for its purpose. Sure, you can occasionally get those spies who headshot everyone, but they could do even better using sniper. For your average pub spy, you might occasionally get a head shot that saves your life, but it's mostly used to get rid of turtle engies. Now, we use the diamond back, stab one of that engines friends and two shot his body.

Additionally for comp, the ambassador was fine. If you were a spy in competitive for some reason, the ambassador would be a backup option, since if you wanted to headshot a medic the sniper does it in one hit. Trickle down does not apply for the ambassador.

[u/Herpsties]

Bugs me how he praises Valve for the Razorback rework design when it’s the exact change the comp community has been asking for for quite a few years now. All Valve did was finally listen.