Poll: Balance and Single-Player

[Krantos]

So, with Dishonored coming out soon, I want to visit something that was said during an early interview with the devs. During the interview the developers said they wanted to give the player as much freedom as possible. They went on to say that if they were forced to choose between player freedom and balance they would choose to keep the freedom.

To me, that's great. I've always said that it's better to let players police themselves in single-player. If something (a skill, an item, etc.) breaks the game and makes it stop being fun, the simple response is not to use it.

However, this seems (on the surface at least) to be a minority opinion. Numerous times I've seen games lambasted for having a broken something.

By "broken" in this instance I mean Over-powered, not non-functioning, of course.

So, I wanted to see what the Escapists opinion on the matter is. Would you sacrifice balance in a single player game for freedom?

Let me reiterate this is SINGLE PLAYER ONLY. For the sake of argument lets also assume there is no stat tracking available either. The only one who will know anything about your game is you.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

So, I wanted to see what the Escapists opinion on the matter is. Would you sacrifice balance in a single player game for freedom?

Given how much I enjoy the Elder Scrolls games, I'd pretty much be lying if I said I wasn't willing to sacrifice balance for freedom.

I'm willing to sacrifice freedom for balance too, mind you. It's like choosing between chocolate and strawberry ice cream.

 

[Ranylyn]

Let me use Phantasy Star Portable 2 as an example. Sure, it did have multiplayer AVAILABLE, but it wasn't needed.

There's 3 main archetypes; the Hunter (melee), the Ranger (guns), and the Force (magic) The ranger and force had ranged attacks, but ALL actions used PP. The hunter REPLENISHED PP per melee hit, did FAR MORE damage with the skills that DID use PP, and had far more defense HP while subsequently being able to block with just about anything (whereas some ranger and most force setups didn't have blocking as an option.)

To me, freedom is far more than just exploration. Freedom means being able to play anything in the game without effectively being forced to sell out to the OP classes to win. Imbalance ruins even single player games, because why give you the choice if the choice is "be this or be miserable?"

 

[Krantos]

It's like choosing between chocolate and strawberry ice cream.

To an extent sure. Except having more Chocolate doesn't make it harder to have more strawberry.

The problem often faced is that the more freedom the game gives to players the harder it is to balance. If you allow players to combine different abilities in different circumstances (like Dishonored purportedly does), it can quickly become a nightmare to ensure that they can't "break" the game.

My question is, when faced with a decision like that in a singleplayer game, what would you rather the developers do? Assure everything is balanced, even if it means restricting freedom? Or Make sure the player has as much freedom as possible, even if it could allow them to "break" the game?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

To an extent sure. Except having more Chocolate doesn't make it harder to have more strawberry.

It does if you don't want to get fat!

Alright, let's try a better metaphor. It's like choosing between two amazing girls to date. And both of them are crazy jealous so no you cannot have both.

 

[Krantos]

Alright, let's try a better metaphor. It's like choosing between two amazing girls to date. And both of them are crazy jealous so no you cannot have both.

Hmm.. I like that metaphor better. Either way, you win, though. But it reminds me of this: (mildly NSFW: stick people getting it on)

Spoiler

 

[DoPo]

My question is, when faced with a decision like that in a singleplayer game, what would you rather the developers do? Assure everything is balanced, even if it means restricting freedom? Or Make sure the player has as much freedom as possible, even if it could allow them to "break" the game?

Depends - what is the focus of the game? In Morrowind, you have ultimate freedom and can quickly rise head and shoulders over pretty much everybody in the world about 30 minutes in the game (no Alchemy exploit, even). But the game is about freedom. On the other hand, Dark Souls[footnote]haven't played it, I'll just go off from what I've heard[/footnote] is more balanced (in the meaning of "you won't be a physical manifestation of all the gods if you do X") but not nearly as free roam-y. However, Dark Souls is not about freedom. (I hope I got that right).

So the question is, where would you want to put the emphasis and what experience would you like to convey.

 

[Zhukov]

Balance every time.

I tend to get bored with freedom. There's always going to be some constraints and no game can react meaningfully to everything you do.

What's more, it's always accompanied by thinly spread content and a complete lack of focus that will rapidly kill a game in my eyes.

 

[CAPTCHA]

I keep on trying to answer in this thread, but I need some clarification about how exactly 'freedom' and 'balance' are related to one another in order to justify a choice between them. I'm going to hazard a guess and imagine that you mean giving the player too many options and therefor too many approaches to overcoming a challenge can make it hard to keep the difficulty level consistant. So if the question is, would I like a more consistant difficulty and a more controlled product that meets the developers intent, then yes, I would. The alternative, though it falls in rather extreme opposition, would be modding or hacking the game to suit yourself. Is that 'freedom'.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I would take balance over freedom, yes being overpowered is fun for an hour but then the game becomes meaningless.

Edit: To give an example, if someone managed to mod TES games with tactical/tight combat and it would bring constraints to classes/races/items/skills then I would never ever go near the original combat again.

 

[dimensional]

If it has any competitive element balance is priority and indeed a necessity if it wants to remain competitive and fun, if it has none or very little (talking negligible here like no vs play just grades at end of level for single player or something) Ill take freedom.

I am reminded of 100% chameleon magic on items in Oblivion as a good example of game breaking. You could effectively do anything and never be seen, including stealing and murdering anyone who could be killed with no consequences. Things like that while I understand the freedom to use them people will tend to fall for temptation and use them.

Yeah I did that once I discovered it in game and played like it for 300 hours friggin loved it but thats only because I loved the exploration and hated the combat in that game.

 

[jehk]

Depends. Does the extra freedom allow me to find a challenging play style? I feel Skyrim offered that. Some builds were pretty challenging at times.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Perhaps the AC games would be a good example for balance over freedom. Ezio is offically the most broken character ever after AC2 and you will never die ever. He is just too good. You have all these weapons to chose from and city jumping is awesome but it's sort of marred by Ezio being a god amoung men.

I suppose balance because freedom is always limited regardless since y'know, it's stuck within physical disk space limits and stuff?

Still Fallout:NV was free as hell and I never found a broken build. Probably because I have to max one of the secondary skills first above all else (Speech, Science, Repair etc) and the "proper" skills like Guns were stuck around 20/30 all game.

Obviously it's better to combine the two if you can but I prefer balance because having a broken character isn't fun.

 

[Vuliev]

To an extent sure. Except having more Chocolate doesn't make it harder to have more strawberry.

Alright, let's try a better metaphor. It's like choosing between two amazing girls to date. And both of them are crazy jealous so no you cannot have both.

That's...not a very good analogy, because it's not true. There isn't some god of game design that is stopping you from having both balance and freedom (unless you're working for Riot Games, and then that accursed god's name is Zileas.) Seriously, it's possible, and has been done before.

Now then, this

because why give you the choice if the choice is "be this or be miserable?"

describes both the dilemma and the (general) solution perfectly. All you have to do is make the choices offered not miserable, and you've done it.

A good example of a game that accomplished this is Diablo II. Sure, there were near-perfect optimisations for each class, and some of those (coughhammerdincough) were indisputably better than most of the others. But if you wanted to, say, build a Sorceress entirely around Enchant, you could do it and have buckets of fun (and pints of success) with it. Sure, doing things like that made areas of Nightmare and Hell a right ***** to get through, but those areas could be mitigated with planning and forethought.

Can you have complete freedom and perfect balance? Of course not--but you don't, and honestly shouldn't, have either of them. Depending on how you want to set up your story, you could sit anywhere in the middle 50% of the spectrum between the two.

 

[Aerosteam]

If it's an open-world game like Dishonored,

Freedom = Awesomeness (More freedom more awesome)

Balance = Nope (Balance should NEVER be applied to an open-world game, not all the time anyway.)

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Let me reiterate this is SINGLE PLAYER ONLY. For the sake of argument lets also assume there is no stat tracking available either. The only one who will know anything about your game is you.

Freedom.

Balance can take a flying leap.

In Skyrim, I broke the game over my knee with Alchemy and Enchantment tricks. And, having done so, I put away my insanely overpowered Dragon Armor in my house's cupboard and went around in third-best equipment that looked way nicer and had a grand old time and that didn't break the game, but did give me a decided advantage.

I found my own balance through experimentation and when my too-good equipment started making the game not fun, I put that equipment away and made new, less good equipment until the game was a challenge again.

For that matter, finding the right balance was kind of fun in and of itself. I got to make a ton of new equipment and try it out.

 

[skywolfblue]

Freedom shouldn't mean "breaking the game" or "stupidly overpowered". Balance should always be there to reign freedom in, to keep the game enjoyable.

It's a delicate struggle, balance shouldn't be too heavy handed either or unique abilities get stripped out of the game and it loses flavor.

 

[Asita]

Freedom and Balance are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I'd argue that it's only through the latter that the former really has any meaning. If the first weapon you get is a full head and shoulders over other similar weapons in the game that you can buy and/or find, you do not have balance, and any perception of freedom stemming from that is hollow at best.

Indeed, in this example it's less accurate to say "you're free to use other weapons" than it is to say "You're free to cripple yourself". Imbalances like that are nigh-universal insults. They insult the players who want to use other weapons but know that doing so is necessarily opting to be stupid, it insults the artists who designed the look of those weapons which precious few will ever touch because of that imbalance, and it insults every other member of the dev team that put time into what might as well have ended up being cut content for all the utility it has. True freedom in this context requires that the player be able to make actual decisions without hobbling themselves in the process. That instead of choosing between one overpowered item or 50 other items - which by all acounts (for the sake of this example) should have been on par with that item or superior to it - that the player instead chooses between items with their own utility. Choosing between an increase in damage and an increase in critical rates is freedom. Choosing between an infinity+1 greatsword and a 2-20 longsword of a similar tier is not.

I know, I know, that last bit was very hyperbolic. That said, I do feel that using extremes like that works very well in highlighting the flaw of the mindset that 'freedom' and 'balance' are somehow at odds with each other, when by all accounts proper balance should result in a greater number of viable choices. At the end of the day, a dearth of balance effectively limits freedom by artifically forcing the general playerbase down a particular path.

 

[DoPo]

Freedom shouldn't mean "breaking the game" or "stupidly overpowered". Balance should always be there to reign freedom in, to keep the game enjoyable.

It's a delicate struggle, balance shouldn't be too heavy handed either or unique abilities get stripped out of the game and it loses flavor.

But the point of the discussion is, if you could choose one over the other, which one would it be. I think most of us (not all, though) would agree that an equilibrium between the two is preferable, so restating that is a minor waste of time.

EDIT:

Freedom and Balance are not mutually exclusive.

that came up while I was typing this post. The same as above: nobody claimed that the two were incompatible. At most, there is the fact that freedom makes balance difficult - it doesn't invalidate it.