Imbalanced matchups

Discussion of all aspects of multiplayer development: unit balancing, map development, server development, and so forth.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

User avatar
Crimson_Conure
2019 Amateur Fast Champion
Posts: 27
Joined: March 24th, 2016, 12:15 pm

Re: Imbalanced matchups

Post by Crimson_Conure »

Hello, (somewhat) skilled player checking in! I will be very happy to be of service :)

I can totally understand that all of you guys only want contributors who are strong players, so I am still waiting to see for a time I can play Cackfiend in a ladder match because i mean i am not that great but i thought people should get to see my skill set and judge for themselves. i still believe that for the default faction, undead is super underpowered and certainly the hardest faction to use out of all factions. its just too weak all the units have too low of health and all units are slow except for the weak bat and the expensive ghost (still on the slow side).

I think we should make the discussion happen! Sure, the topic is somewhat complicated at times and could take a lot of time, but the thing is that I think the hardest way is the easiest way in that the poll will not really be sufficient. The poll just asks for superstitions, not reasoning.

It should not matter what strength you are for wesnoth, anyone is capable of good or bad logical reasoning, and logical reasoning is applicable to everything. Malcolm X (Ok I don't like him as a person I will admit XD) said that he is a fan of words that are right, no matter who it is that is saying it.

What we need is to take the long route and incorporate a mix of logical and empirical reasoning I think; this is the way it works in debate types of settings. Even expert players can purport massive superstition and if you look at like OpenAI for dota 2, it beat some of the world's best players with a strategy that was deemed extraordinarily risky among the top level. This means that being at the top means that you have acquired a great deal of pain and anecdotal experience but in reality, it leads you astray from logic and reasoning. Being an expert player should not warrant the reputation of your opinion.

Balancing is a complicated discussion because one faction can be suitable for a player's "feel" and style, or maybe a faction allows for a specific type of strategy on a specific type of map that only a couple players are capable of producing. But if this strategy balances everything out then it is not really unbalanced in the first place and so it is hard to measure what is balance. The metric that most people seem to use is the difficulty of the faction. Even this can be convoluted though, because if you are a specialist for a type of strategy then the faction can be difficult for most but not for you.

I want to propose how balancing should be interpreted as. I think it can be split into two sections, logical/reasoning and empirical. We can write the balancing reasonability (both empirical and logical) with a formula that incorporates a theoretical evaluation difficulty, and practical playing difficulty. The formula can be something like: ed/pd where ed = how difficult (on average) it is to evaluate your position (like how good your position is and what your plan should be) using reasoning and strategic principles, and pd = how difficult it is to find the "correct" moves. For this formula, you have to choose a number between 1 and 10 (decimals count) for both the numerator and denominator. 1 for the numerator alone and denominator alone means exceedingly easy for those. 10 for the numerator alone and denominator alone means impossible for those. The smaller the number is, the worse the faction is to play. The bigger the number is, the better the faction is to play. For example, let's say that faction X is 2/7. This means that the position is extremely easy to evaluate the chances of the position, and also extremely difficult to play. This means that this faction is bad in this scenario since not only your position is hard to play, but you actually know it is since it is extremely clear to evaluate that your position is harder. Thus this means you are in a really bad spot and your opponent will win easily. The bigger the number is, the better your faction is to play, according to the position scenario. For example, if you have 9/4, this means that the position is extremely difficult to evaluate, but moderately easy to play. This means that you have a huge practical advantage over your opponent since he does not know what is going on, yet your side is quite easy to play.

Some may object this proposal of balancing because of some core philosophical foundations of wesnoth. A lot of people have their own idea of what it means to be a certain faction. For example, some would say that in juxtaposition to rebels, northerners are about attacking really early AND gaining space. Others would say that they do not care how the play style should be for either faction, and they are only really concerned with the art. For the latter, those people would not mind if rebels and northerners had the same play style. In order to make anything possible though, we must compromise with something.

After we have established what it means to balance, it can be much easier to discuss.

The next order of business is to logically reason with yourself. Use your preliminary reasoning to conjure a claim. Find some supporting evidence for your claim but be sure to investigate both sides. You can find many replays (which get uploaded daily) on http://replays.wesnoth.org/. Draw conclusion and formulaic evaluation.

Really it is quite approachable in a similar way to essay writing I would say.

P.S. my other problem with polls is that it can make people subconsciously believe what the top players are saying

Here are my takes:

LOYALISTS:
Reasoning;
-Heavy infantryman is not very countered and its only weakness is low speed
-Heavy infantryman is expensive but not expensive enough (I have games to cite this but I would have to find them)...The problem is you can employ this strategy against every faction except drakes - First scouts (horseman or cavalryman are fine), then the rest heavy infantryman, maybe one archer for ranged support. If you are facing knalgans then mages are useful instead of archers. This strategy seems very hard to counter if the opponent does not know that you had loyalist.
Concrete Detail;
-N/A (maybe I can find some examples later at the high level)
Conclusion;
-In juxtaposition to each possible matchup against loyalists, loyalists is overpowered. By the way against drakes I would suggest massing bowman for backbone and with spearmen as support.
Evaluation;
ed/pd = 6/3.5

This can be done using all the other factions.

Conclusive proposal: I think someone should make a google spreadsheet where they investigate games and then draw out my proposed formula for that one specific game for each faction. Segregate this by maps. We can then use this to average out the formula and draw a very reputable conclusion of which factions need to be balanced out and why. The google spreadsheet should have a column for a link or download file to the game, and then a column for the ep/dp rating. One sheet per map. You can record results for other maps by using the tab function.

After lots of data is gathered, you can average it out across all competitive maps and then this way you can basically also try to figure out if maybe the map needs some fine tuning. However, from a philosophical standpoint I would say maps should not be balanced to the faction, rather factions should be balanced to the map. Isar's Cross is a good sample for this. I think it would then allow for all the factions to be balanced to all the other maps just by using this map.
User avatar
sergey
Posts: 475
Joined: January 9th, 2015, 9:25 pm

Re: Imbalanced matchups

Post by sergey »

@Crimson_Conure
I found your subtle trolling to be fun. But you should understand that your statements, especially on the forums, may confuse a lot of inexperienced players and has negative impact on the atmospere in the community.
Author of SP scenario Dragon Fight and SP campaign Captured by a Nightmare.
Created The Rise of Wesnoth (alternative mechanics) version of the mainline campaign.
User avatar
Crimson_Conure
2019 Amateur Fast Champion
Posts: 27
Joined: March 24th, 2016, 12:15 pm

Re: Imbalanced matchups

Post by Crimson_Conure »

Errr @Sergey I was not trolling. Also trolling is against the forum rules, see rule 1a and the third paragraph. I would never intend to break any of the server rules like that. Everything I said was supposed to be true and what I support; also it was all just an idea that I liked and not final either. I am confused about what you think I was trolling about but I am guessing it has to do with what I said about loyalists because I also got a lot of backlash from other people and they strongly disagreed with me about heavy infantryman being too powerful in general etc.

Edit: I just realized, maybe you were talking about the Malcolm X thing? I apologize about saying that, I just thought it was a funny analogy XD I hope it didnt offend anybody!
Post Reply