Here are some articles I have written throughout the years. Most of them are quite old going back to high school.

The Proper View of Balance

, Gaming Issues, David Bond

Over and over again throughout the life of any RTS game people complain about something new being overpowered, underpowered, and just plain old imbalanced. In the past, you may have heard me say to ‘ignore’ balance problems but of course, this is an over-simplification. I want to take a more in-depth look at the proper view of balance.

Let’s begin by pointing out the fact that balance problems do exist. It would be ignorant to truly believe any game is perfectly balanced. I mean even Chess has balance problem: white has the advantage over black. Likewise, it does nothing for someone to dwell on the fact that balance problems do exist. Say unit Y is obviously overpowered, and that’s all you ever talk about. Then it gets fixed and you play another game. This time you loose to unit X. You now have a void of complaining to be filled and so even if X is not in actuality imbalanced you may say it is overpowered. Just the other day there was an example of this. A person posted on a certain forums that Coyote Warriors were overpowered. I mean they are infantry and yet the slaughter skirmishers. Those are the type of posts that just make me want to scream. No, they are not overpowered; they are not infantry but rather they are conceptually cavalry. The problem here is the person was way to willing to jump on the balance problems bandwagon. If he had rather taken a few minutes and checked into what Coyote Warriors were he would have done fine and have known how to counter those units.

The line of events repeats themselves over and over again. Some looses a game. The person blames the loss on balance. The person complains constantly about this ‘balance problem.’ Finally either there is a patch or a counter comes about, and then the person repeats this cycle on some other ‘problem.’ I take a different approach to balance. Like everyone else, I play a game, and when I loose I am saying to myself that it is due to a balance problem. When this happens though don’t run off to the forums to post about the new imbalance, rather say to yourself no that’s just something I did wrong. As time progresses you may see one problem coming up quite often: now its time to promote this problem to you own scientific testing arena. Come to the issue as a skeptic would, be certain that it cannot be a balance problem. First, if applicable to this problem, set up as simple test scenario in the editor. Keep all the factors of production in mind, and come up with an idea of where this problem truly stands. Of course, it is pertinent to remember that theses results are only theoretical. They are not directly applicable to the real world and therefore they can be very misleading. Next take your tests into real games. Play with some friends who are of a similar skill level as you and see what happens. Most of the time by doing this you will come up with the counters to the problem you saw. But occasionally, and depending upon how impartial you are, will still see it as a problem: it is finally time for that post in the forums.

Be sure that you do not come out as simply complaining when you make this post. Detail you reasons, explain it in an academic manner, and most importantly be open to what others will say. Never get into an argument, but rather debate with your other forumers. Pay most attention to what the high ranked players are saying. There is a reason they are ranked high, and it is not because they abuse balance.