The bottom line is that if stardock/ironclad is doing their jobs (which I believe they do very very well), the vocal minority or whatever input only serves as a platform for ideas. Any professional knows you take what input you get but at the end of the day, the best solutions are devised by the governing body using a broader scope of reference.

It's the same concept as being a parent. You listen to your kids, you argue, you agree, sometimes you have to ignore.....but the decisions you make are going to be according to your more experienced judgement in the end. If you are controlled by your child's overemotional, adolescent whims as they try to find themselves then you are not doing your job as a parent.

Given stardock's history I think people have to have more faith and see what comes.

A poor comparison to what? You are vague.

The statement was "The vocal minority often represent the silent majority". If you are saying this statement is false then I am saying you lack knowledge of history.

Me, an expert? No, not even close. No one would agree to that! I'm new to RTS games and have been kicked around by the AI more than once (and that's not on the hardest setting).

Anyway, basically what I was trying to imply, you spelled out much more eloquently.

That is the most stupid thing I've heard today in this forum. Any GOOD and INTELLIGENT developer/play tester/player will know the best way to test balance issues is by actualy running a simulation, not by simply looking at spreadsheets and numbers.

I hope this Megavolt guy never have a say on the development of sins.

There were no "assertions". Only a simple statement. The vocal minority often represent the silent majority.

Now that you mention it. Intimidation, harassment, and verbal abuse is a very real thing in every game forum. You often see people scared to death to make a comment.

(1) The experts are those who consistently win against everyone apart from themselves. HuntingX hit the nail on the head here.

(2) You're right that it's not that simple (because the game would be boring if it were), but your reason is incorrect. Game balance has nothing to do with the people playing the game (given that the people have the physical and mental ability to understand how to play the game etc. etc.). It has to do with the rules of the game and exploiting those rules in the most efficient manner (efficiency defined by the chance that you will complete a goal of the game [e.g. winning]). Those who see and understand the rules will, not unlike a lawyer in a trial, find the best way to use those rules to their advantage.

(3) You're right here, and it's a good thing that game balance isn't a democratic process.

(4) You're right that you can't please everyone. But if we're talking about game balance, there's no need - the game is balanced or it isn't. It is up to the developers to balance the game in a way that won't disrupt their vision of the game.

(5) This overlooks the fact that most experts agree on most balance changes in most situations. In other words, the stuff they disagree on is generally a small subset of the problems being addressed.

(6) The articulation, or putting the problem into words, doesn't matter. You pay attention to what experts do, not what they say. If some guy rails on about the uselessness of unit B but uses it all the time in order to win (in other words, it's an integral part of his win rate), then it's clear that what he was saying was bullshit. On the other hand, if he destroys people that use unit B with an alarming success rate, then there is probably an issue that needs to be addressed.

(7) It doesn't matter if people agree. It only matters if the people at the top can demonstrate if it's overpowered.

(8) This really speaks for itself.

(9) The perfect is the enemy of the good. This is not an argument against balancing, however, since the bad is also the enemy of the good.

(10) Now you've got my attention (former competitive SC player). Talking about perfect balance is pointless in a game more complex than RPS. Starcraft is closer to being perfectly balanced (depending on the map, of course) than any other game in history even a fraction as complex (with the exception of Go, perhaps).

Consider a game that's just been created. In this game, there exists two players, each of whom try to win at the expense of the other - in other words, one winner, one loser. The rules in this game are very simple so it's easy to comprehend the totality of what the game might become.

The top players soon find out that there are only two strategies, A and B, and that strategy A is much stronger than strategy B. We can't do this in the real world with more complex games, but let's say that we've measured strategy A to be successful 90% of the time and B 10% of the time (given that the players are top players and understand the rules to the fullest etc. etc.).

Hopefully you can agree with me that strategy A is overpowered. The game designer is very upset so he adds some complexity to the game (still very simple, though). Now there is a new strategy, C, that top players have identified. After many tournaments and constant playtesting and training etc. etc., it is discovered that the new numbers are as follows:

Strategy A - 100
---vs B - 60%
---vs C - 40%

Strategy B - 100
---vs A - 40%
---vs C - 60%

Strategy C - 100
---vs A - 60%
---vs B - 40%

(note a strategy is 50% vs itself)

Now from a little examination, we can see that the new strategies in the game basically amount to Rock/Paper/Scissors. There is a system of counters where one strategy counters another and is countered by yet another. It's starting to get more complex, but we can do the numbers and see that, overall, each strategy has a relative strength of 1/3.

The game is now perfectly balanced. However, the designer finds it boring and so adds more complexity to the game. New strategy D is discovered etc. etc.

Strategy A - 170
---vs B - 60%
---vs C - 30%
---vs D - 80%

Strategy B - 140
---vs A - 40%
---vs C - 60%
---vs D - 40%

Strategy C - 140
---vs A - 70%
---vs B - 40%
---vs D - 30%

Strategy D - 150
---vs A - 20%
---vs B - 60%
---vs C - 70%

As you can see, their relative scores are not the same - they are unbalanced! But wait - the game designer added so much complexity to the game that players can now change strategies mid-game. So while playing A might be your best bet, if you are an A and meet a C, you are in trouble and better switch to the overall weaker strategy D.

Now this example isn't 'perfectly' balanced, but this is what happens in real-time games. Not every strategy is equal to every other strategy. There are overall-powerful strategies, but they (in a balanced game) are countered by overall-weaker strategies. That's the only way it can work and still be interesting.

Now you say that Starcraft is not balanced. What exactly do you mean by this? There are a lot of strategies in the game that are useless (for example, building all workers will generally lose you the game), but there are a very high number of strategies that are completely valid and used a LOT even in the highest levels of play. Sure you have 'standard' or 'orthodox' builds like the classic Terran sit-on-your-ass-in-your-base-and-don't-die-while-building-up-a-huge-army-then-attack kinda stuff, but there's also interesting things like TvT dropships - dropships aren't generally used in any other matchup. That means they're like strategy C up there sucking bigtime until the moment comes where they're needed.

Having played SC for years, I can testify that the diversity of strategies is huge. So you'll just have to take my word for it or disagree with me on that point. The large array of strategies that you can not only start out with but also end up doing (based on intel) is really mind-boggling and it's not something a single person can really wrap their head around all at once. The games come down to player skill. It comes down to execution because the difference between the strength of opposing strategies and sub-strategies is small - this means that the game is balanced.

(11) You got it right here.

(12) This has nothing to do with game balance.

(13) That's true, as in the example above. The developer likely intended in v1.0 that people would play both A and B. But top-level players will always understand a game better than the game developers (if they're not top-level players themselves). This is because they make it their business to win. They do this by learning every detail, every nuance of the game and then exploiting that knowledge to find all the strategies and to sort the strong ones from the weak.

(14) Developers should definitely listen to everyone about problems, but when it comes to game balance, casual players just don't have the knowledge and haven't spent the effort in getting to know the game enough to comment on game balance with any authority.

(15) This is why it's up to top players to discover the 'real' game underneath the interface and find all the bugs and weird nuances that make up the 'real' game rules.

(16) That's an unfortunate fact of life. Fortunately game balance doesn't care about unhappiness, so this isn't a big deal when talking purely about game balance. Hopefully in practical situations, developers find ways to balance the game without effectively gimping units for normal players (however, in Sins this isn't an issue since you can't do fun stuff like exploit unit movement to fire faster etc.).

Frogboy, I recognize those concerns. At the same time, it completely ignores what the OP is stating.

I personally find all the whining distasteful. I never post bug threads or anything of the sort. Frankly, stardock has been terrific on their customer support.

What the OP was addressing was how the majority of posts (from different people) on the issue of GAME BALANCE can be safely ignored. I don't make repeat posts on anything if I can avoid it, I don't endlessly whine about anything, and I always note when something is taken in the right direction. I think this holds true for many of the skilled players. When the community of people widely recognized as the best Sins players says: A is overpowered, B is underpowered, and then 10 random people say the opposite, Stardock might be confused about the community's actual beliefs.

Unfortunately, that's the wrong impression. In fact, as more and more people start multiplayer and learn the game, their template for the game are OUR builds, and OUR strategies (our referring to the top players). "Cookie cutter" builds are all too common in a game like this, and sometimes it is up to the devs to inject more variety through better balance.

That said, 1.04 was a great step in the right direction. The carriers/strikecraft need some serious work (so the drone carrier nerf was rather ridiculous), but every other change was well done. However, there is NO disagreement among players who understand the game that Strikecraft are near worthless, siege frigates are near worthless, etc. Please don't get the wrong impression by some people claiming there IS disagreement when there is in fact NONE.

A good example in the real world is the debate on global warming. Bush would present some fairy tale version where there global warming is unconfirmed. In fact, if you ask the average American, chances are he would say the consensus is not universal.

In reality, Global Warming (as you well know) is UNIVERSALLY agreed upon by all scientists as far as journal reviews go. Consider the scientists the top players, and the majority of uninformed public the majority of uninformed single player users. You can ignore one and listen to the other with no ill effects.

What HuntingX said He worded it much better then me, thanks.

On a sidenote: People always complain. You could ship Sins for free and attack 100$ bills to the package and people some would ask to get 200$ with the game. It's the fate of developing a product for the masses.

But rest assured that basically we all (or almost all ... I hope ) very much enjoy playing this game. If I didn't enjoy playing Sins to much I certainly wouldn't try to have it improved even further. I think Sins can make the step from "only" being a very good game into being an all-time classic that is enjoyable in multiplayer for years to come. But for that to happen, balance in multiplayer is needed and as HuntingX pointed out there is only one way to make sure this happens.

And it doesn't only affect Sins. Look at Demigod for example. It will have a huge multiplayer part and hopefully be very, very successful there. Since I with StarDock and their partners the best success I hope you learn from Blizzard (HuntingX made a great point there) in terms of listening to the guys that really play the game hours every day in terms of balancing stuff because on unbalanced game is dead in multiplayer after a very, very short time (after the majority of players figured out the one dominant race or strategy and got bored of using it or losing to to every single game - like the trade port / LRM thingy in 1.03).

About the vocal minority on bugs: Look at it from the customer side. I was lucky enough to enjoy a bug-free game and I didn't have a single crash ever except for some replays that didn't work (which was a little annoying but really not that bad).
But if I had a game that somehow crashes on my every 10 minutes I'd be very, very disappointed. Having an unplayable game is like the worst thing that can happen to the customer and it's quite hard to hear "hey, we have no idea why it is crashing ... sorry you can't play right now".


@Annatar: It was not clear who was meant with "vocal minority" and if it was meant in a wide sense. I didn't see any reason to assume that it was only concerning bug-reports. On the other hand, the changes to the siege frigats (nerfing them further in 1.03 while all the good players said they are bad already and need a buff) strongly suggests that in fact balance changes were made mainly with the majority of the players with little knowledge of the game in mind. So I think the assumtion that the statement about vocal minorities was not only targeted at bugs but used in a wider sense was a reasonable one. But I'm glad I was wrong

I have to say that it's more than a little biased that the OP says it's wrong to listen to the vocal minority for campaigns but they should listen to the vocal minority when it comes to game balance. He goes on to say that only a few people understand the game well enough to be able to make truly educated opinions. It's fairly obvious that the OP has more than a few opinions on balance and he definitely considers himself one of the elite.

The issue at hand in determining whether to weigh a hard-core strategist's opinion is whether that strategist has expert knowlege of the game's mechanics. I think it would be a little ad verecundium to blindly take a hard-core gamer's advice. But at the same time, seeing what people who play a lot have to say can be a helpful tool for directing game evaluations.

If the people who play a lot consistently say that LRMs are overpowered, that may not be the case. After all, those people do not know everything about how LRM's were designed. The LRM could just be an effective counter-strategy to a player's preferred strategy. But if enough people (not the same person's name over and over) say something, it might be worth looking into.

Here's a tip:

Instead of posting on other people's posts, create your own post. If no one responds to it, probably no one agrees with you.

For instance, I created WWW Link to address the concern that LRMs are overpowered, and it received some responses.

So, there's proportionately more experts for campaign games than there are for multiplayers?

I think the reality is that people feel it more personally when it comes to multiplayer. Where I used to work, you would not believe the amount of experts we had and still have in our forums. How did we know which ones to listen to? First off, we listened to the majority, not the vocal minority experts. Making a game is just as much about politics as it is about game design or programming. Second, after we took all the reasonable suggestions from the majority not the few that considered themselves experts just because they played the game 24/7, we took it to the designers, they would look them over, look at what our statistics showed. If the statistics supported the majority's claim, we'd usually act on it if it a relatively quick fix. If the statistics did not support the claims (which, by the way, they usually didn't) we would not implement the change.

Everyone considers themselves an expert. You cannot take people's word on that. "I know what I'm saying because I am really good at this game and I understand it the best."

So, there does need to be a level playing field but the fact of the matter is that the developers will most likely NOT act upon the suggestions (or more commonly, rants) of the self-professed experts. They will most likely act exclusively upon in-house information first (data mining, QE, etc) and the advice of the majority of players. So, people shouldn't take it personally if they don't implement their idea of balance. More than likely, it's just biased or simply wrong.

As soon as I read that I switched from taking you seriously to wanting to type tl,dr. This isn't Starcraft and I don't want to play another Starcraft game. I remember what you competitive people did to the singleplayer aspects of both Starcraft and Warcraft, especially Warcraft 3. I'm not a competitive player. I'm a casual player. You competitive types have ruined everything you've touched, from Starcraft to UT3.

You people want to define "experts" as your own kind. So what about those of us, like myself, who have no trouble wiping the floor with 6 unfair AI's and primarily play singleplayer? Your objective is to squelch those who do not play the game like you in favor of changing things into this very narrow-minded view of how the game can be perfected and "fair". The AI is no match for me. The harder it is, the more time the game takes, but I still win. I do not care to play multiplayer and I do not care to sit here and analyze or share strategies. Sure, I'll play a few games against friends, and even they don't stand a chance. However, I don't give a damn about ranks, stats, achievements, and all that. I don't want ultra-competitive types defining how the game works, what constitutes balance, and making panic threads because they got rushed, don't like the price of a unit, or can't stand the fact that the people behind the game may not be treating each side equally. In excess of 200,000 people bought this game yet only a couple hundred or thousand actually play online. The silent majority could really care less about tiny little imbalances, what clans are doing, and what joe competitive person thinks about the game.