Poll: Does unbalanced + unbalanced = balanced?

[Akas]

Whether by decision or by omission, I'm sure you've seen games where at least some characters/sides/etc. can do some mind-blowingly awful/awesome/stupid/etc. stuff, but if all characters (or most of them anyways) can do that kind of stuff, does that make the game balanced?

For those of you that might not know what I'm talking about, let's use an example: Puzzle Quest (for console). Once you got to a decent level and had decent equips, all of the classes had a one-turn kill (sometimes maybe two). Or old-school Magic: The Gathering: back in the era with black lotuses and dark rituals for turn one kills. I'm sure you have your own examples, so how do you feel about this?

 

[The_ModeRazor]

No, it's called FUCKING UNBALANCED. Or maybe messd up.

 

[Danzaivar]

It balances it out SOMETIMES. See: Starcraft.

Your poll is kinda whacked, either it's always magically balanced or it's never ever possible to be balanced?

 

[squid5580]

Ok I am going to try and decipher this. If both sides has uber characters then it is balanced. If both sides has weak characters it is balanced. So where is the unbalanced + unbalanced come in? Are we trying to compare these unbalanced characters to other characters in other games? Is that where the balance issue lies? I thought it was only when there is 1 or 2 uber characters admist an army of noobs that a game suffers from balance issues.

 

[Cargando]

Unbalanced+Unbalanced=Fall flat on face

 

[Merteg]

Usually unbalanced things ruin game-play, even if both sides are unbalanced.

If you both have a gun that kills eachother instantly, no matter where you are in relation to your opponent, that wouldn't be fun for either of the people- at least after the first two minutes.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

In a way, balance makes games boring and predictable. If all sides are perfectly balanced then you get a game where everything is the same and games can end in stalemates with everybody using the same tactics. Some ways out of this are by making a game require super human reflexes and timing or by adding some random chance that could apply to each side equally but makes the game a crap shoot.

In other words, balance is overrated. Games can be more fun when sides are not perfectly balanced as it mixes things up.

 

[supermaster1337]

This has no logic lol

 

[Pimppeter2]

Sometime, but mostly no.

 

[Maze1125]

How can you look at a single side in a game and claim it is unbalanced without having already taken the other side into account? Nothing can be balanced on its own, it can only be balanced against something. Asking "If both sides are unbalanced can the game still be balanced?" is just meaningless, because neither side can be balanced or unbalanced in the first place, only the whole can be.

 

[Flour]

In other words, balance is overrated. Games can be more fun when sides are not perfectly balanced as it mixes things up.

And then everybody only uses the unbalanced team/weapon which makes the game even more predictable.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

In other words, balance is overrated. Games can be more fun when sides are not perfectly balanced as it mixes things up.

And then everybody only uses the unbalanced team/weapon which makes the game even more predictable.

If the game lets you, I suppose. That wouldn't be fixed by making all the weapons do the same damage over time and have the same range. It would just remove whatever small amount of satisfaction you get when discovering which team/weapon is the right one to use.

 

[Cuniculus]

I can't even begin to explain how it wouldn't work, but it doesn't. Let's say TF2 had one really powerful character who was strong against everyone, and weak to no one. Everyone would want to be THAT character. So you'd have no snipers, scouts, heavys, spys, etc. Everyone would just be the super strong asshole.

Edit: This is with exception to some games, such as Star Wars Battlefront 2, that have only one person at a time playing as a super character, and each side gets one. At least then super characters can't swamp the other side.

 

[veloper]

If both sides are unbalanced, does that make the game balanced?

No, that does not make a balanced game.

Cases:
1 If both sides are identical, but there's useless, underpowered weapons or units, it makes a game less diverse, because nobody will take the rubbish.
The game may still be fair or even to both sides, but it is still "unbalanced".

2 If the overpowered weapons or units available to the players, are different for each side, then one side may be better than the other.
Such a game may be unbalanced AND unfair.

Better equipment should be balanced by higher costs or delays. If it isn't, the rest of the stuff becomes useless clutter taking up space.

 

[JaredXE]

In theory, you'd think it would. But what it will really cause is division. Group A choosing to play with unbalanced option #1, Group B playing with option #2. And Group C is fucked because no one told them to pick a side, or else they know all about it and just want to be something different.

You see this all the time in online games. Biggest offender: World of Warcraft. Can we say Rogues and Warlocks? For the LOOOOOOOONGEST time those were the two most populus classes. Why? Because they could eat other classes for breakfast with almost no skill needed. Now yes, I know that this has changed, but that's just my point. In attempting to bring balance to the unbalanceable....something else got unbalanced. And now you have new 'uber' classes.


*oh yeah, and to all the people who whined for YEARS that Pallies were OP...fuck you. Played WoW since beta, first char was a pally because I liked to solo, and then had to suffer for years because people whined for the nerf bat to smack them on the head for 2 expansions.