Because popularity is not a measure of effectiveness. Such system would make things even worse, because it doesn’t take effectiveness into account, but the popularity.
In such scenario, corn shotgun would get bigger damage buff than Lightning Fryer despite the fact that even now Corn Shotgun is superior to Lightning Fryer in every situation except some really low difficulty missions. So as a result, Corn Shotgun would get even more powerful than Lightning Fryer. That’s not balance. That’s opposite of balance.
Sure, we can’t know how an automatic and dynamic weapon balancing system will work in the real game until it’s added. How it is implemented also matters. But I’ve wanted for a long time to see such an idea in action just to find out what happens. I am thrilled that InterAction Studios suggested it themselves.
Changing the weapon stats manually can be slow. Games can be left with a broken meta for weeks, months, even forever. If we settle just for a classic rebalance, the most dedicated players will re-establish a new meta in a matter of days. Some other (or possibly even the same) weapons will emerge as the most effective, and the rest will be left in the dust. The overall distribution might change because of the large number of casuals, but even that will stabilize given enough time.
So what I’d like to see is an unstable situation. One that enforces changes continuously, but at a slow enough pace that you don’t have to relearn the game every day. It would give you an incentive to purchase all of the weapons available in the shop, rather than just the three or four that actually have a purpose. Convince people to have some variation.
When the rebalancing doesn’t happen abruptly, basing the changes on popularity should work. If somehow a weapon becomes OP due to the algorithm, people will start to take notice, even by accidentally picking it up and seeing how effective it is, driving up the number of its users and then the algorithm does the rest, reducing its damage. Whatever the issue, this system is capable of correcting itself.
Sometimes easier/lazier way isn’t a good path. And that’s the case here. WBP is much better because if in the future we will get some sort of offline mode for CIU (maybe episodes DLCs or training mode) then it doesn’t require internet for checking how popular a weapon was. Sure we could have both, but there will still be a weapon that is loved universally by all and automatic balancing will surely make other weapons OverPowered.
This brings us back to the Lightning Fryer and Corn Shotgun example. Corn Shotgun can easily be called overpowered in comparison with Lightning Fryer. But even despite that, Corn Shotgun is still less popular.
I will say this again, because it seems that not everyone undestands. Popularity is not a measure of effectiveness and it will never be. Such system will never work because of that simple reason. This is not a coincidence that such simple solution is NEVER used in video games.
So the question is: what do we really want? To have all weapons that are equally popular, or to have all weapons balanced and worth taking? We can’t have both.
Popularity-based damage increase may help with the first, but there is no way that it could balance the weapons.
There’s a reaſon for this: Lightning Fryer is an auto-locking weapon, and Corn Shotgun is an auto-miſſing weapon. Hence, Corn Shotgun needs to be a lot more powerful to be worth uſing.
Nope, it means that Corn Shotgun is much more difficult weapon to use. It may be a bit stronger(it should be), but not to such insane extent as it is right now. On hard and elite missions lightning fryer is simply useless. Corn Shotgun, though far from the meta guns, is still relatively reliable. And based on popularity we should buff the much stronger weapon.
Difficult weapon will always be less popular than the auto-aim one. But this doesn’t mean we have to buff it.
Yup. But when well implemented it’ll eventuälly ſettle down, becauſe as the changes aren’t inſtant, it’ll effectively become a ſmaller and ſmaller change each cycle until everything’s nice and balanced.
3 bolts, auto-locking and damage being similar to shotgun, that’s a recipe for having a broke weapon.
at least it would be useful, unlike now xD
I also repeating, I can not really see this working, not at least on it’s own. It’s better to take the long way and tackle the individual problems that weapons have. If the result of it is a better balanced game, sure we can wait all the time it takes. ^^
How about we let this update for a few future versions to see if it does actually work, considering all those will be SH missions? We actually haven’t tried them yet and there’s (almost) no harm to do so (except delays).
All the Technical jargon tends to fly right over my head but I certainly trust much of it.
Point being part of the fun/frustration of the game is some weapons suck and others are excellent.
Accidently getting a weak weapon and trying to overcome it with a better one is all part of the game from the original chicken invaders from 1999 all the way till Universe if they become too balanced it will become a bit boring. I understand though tweaking the weapons to a certain point.
Some things have to suck to appreciate the things that don’t suck.
This brings us back to the Lightning Fryer and Corn Shotgun example. Corn Shotgun can easily be called overpowered in comparison with Lightning Fryer. But even despite that, Corn Shotgun is still less popular.
At the time those stats were given, that’s how it was. But this idea is an endeavour for the long-term. It might take weeks or months until it reaches a relative stability because right now there’s a very large disparity between the most used and the least used weapon. And Utensil is most used by such a high margin, that the bottom half of the roster all blends together into a pseudo-random order. Lightning Fryer is “more popular” by 1.3%, which is a near irrelevant difference. What I would aim for with automatic balancing is to eventually bring all of the weapons within 2% in popularity. (6.5%–8.5% range)
I will say this again, because it seems that not everyone undestands. Popularity is not a measure of effectiveness and it will never be. Such system will never work because of that simple reason. This is not a coincidence that such simple solution is NEVER used in video games.
It’s the best approximation we can use to automatically adjust the values so the weapons are closer in terms of effectiveness, without the extra work time required to fine-tune the stats manually. I don’t know why I’ve never heard of a video game resorting to such a system, but if it is indeed flawed, I want to at least see the consequences it has and understand the reasons why it would not be efficient.
So the question is: what do we really want? To have all weapons that are equally popular, or to have all weapons balanced and worth taking? We can’t have both.
You know what? I actually do care more about all the weapons being equally used than being balanced. Even if the perfect balance you seek isn’t an unattainable mirage, after reaching that point, the popularity is very likely to still be skewed in favour of some weapons, whether they are cheaper, easier to use, or whatever. If all the rebalancing takes place with a single version change and then is left untouched, the players will, sooner or later, find out which weapons work best in the new circumstances and then settle in with the status quo. If changes are made slowly, daily, automatically, players will need to constantly readjust, so the best weapon might not still be the best in a month’s time, without any additional effort from the developer.
