Critical Hit #04 - Game Balance (with Izzy & Morello!)

Dear god, did we actually get an episode out? Oh wait, that's right, you have no idea what I'm talking about.

So to give a very brief overview of what I'm talking about here, we're talking podcast. Critical Hit is a panelist show, where we get 2 to 3 professionals from the gaming industry into a Skype conference and essentially let them loose on eachother. The point here is that old-school interviews saturate the media scene, and it's time for something more constructive. We bring developers, marketing specialists, media personalities, and the like together to put the important issues on the table.

Our fourth episode, about game balance, was recorded last night, and hot damn is it epic! We were fortunate enough to be joined by three excellent panelists.

Our first two panelists are somewhat of a 'dynamic duo'. Isaiah "Izzy" Cartwright and Ryan "Morello" Scott are both employees at ArenaNet, working on GuildWars. Izzy is the official skill balancer, among other responsibilities, in charge of making sure that the PvP experience in GuildWars is as enjoyable as possible. Morello, who used to work side-by-side with Izzy on skill balance, is now working on GW PvE, and is a FPS fanboy at heart.

Next, we had David Sirlin. Sirlin is a producer and developer, currently with Backbone Entertainment, who has, frankly, a gross amount of experience in the fighting game scene. He is one of the original founders of the Evolution Fighting Series, author of the book Playing to Win, and is currently working on projects such as Puzzle Fighter HD, and Street Fighter Super Turbo HD. For more information on Sirlin and what he does, check out his website, www.sirlin.net

You can download this episode of Critical Hit by clicking on this link: Download Episode 4 NOW! (website coming soon!)

If you're interested in digging into the archives, you can grab Episode 1 or Episode 3 (episode 2 was an attempt at adding video and it faaaailed in a technically epic way)

Thanks again go out to our awesome panelists! Enjoy!

NOTE: This is not a GuildWars-specific podcast. Izzy and Morello appeared on this show as developers and game-industry professionals more-so than GW staff. Either way, it's a GREAT episode that gives a lot of insight into the process of game balance and the industry behind the scenes.

HOLY **** Mr. Sirlin.

My...master.

Thank you kind sir.

Well thank you for this information

I'll check this out.

Sirlin is absolutely awesome! Not only is he extremely well versed in the gaming industry and community, but he's just amazing to work with as well! He really went out of his way to make sure that this episode was fantastic, and he's got crazy respect from me for it!

Add to that the involvement of Izzy and Morello, two individuals whom I hold in very high regard for their continued commitment and effort both on the dev team for GW, and in the community, and you've got a great panel.

I hope you all enjoy listening to the podcast as much as I enjoyed recording it!

A very good Pod cast... Sirlin is on Super Turbo HD! Oh yes ^_^...

I wish he balanced Alpha 3 though. Adon was unfairly under-powered, and Ryu, while having range issues, was still ridiculous. :P

Wait, anet does skill balances?

i realy liked the show

lol. I vaguely remember that game.
Didn't Sagat have the super useless scar super that added a couple of hits to his tiger uppercut?

Just wanted to let everyone know that we're going to be trying something this week to see how it goes over...

Now that the show has been released, and people have had a chance to listen to it, we'd like you to either post here, or email us with any questions you have for the panelists of this past show. We'll forward some of your questions on to them, and include a few of their answers at the beginning of our next show.

So if there's anything you wanted to know that we missed, post it here, or email us at [email protected]

I loved the broadcast... I really wish that the ANet employees had tied some of the questions more into Guild Wars though.

That said, I'm encouraged to hear how insightful these guys are about what makes a balanced game. Personally, I see two very cool ways to dominate in guild wars:

1. The execution level- We saw this a lot in the first Guild Wars tournament where War Machine dominated using a build of mostly self-sufficient characters that just played dang well. I like that no matter what build you play against, in Guild Wars you generally have a chance to win if your team has superior strategy.

2. The "build"/mental game- On the flip side, some players absolutely SUCK at execution in this game. However, Guild Wars is unique in that even if you're not the greatest gamer you can potentially design a killer build that will give you a huge advantage over the opposition. I think this is why FOTM builds are so popular... they are builds that are designed VERY intelligently and help players who don't have the execution skills to try other stuff.

At the moment, I feel that build design OUTWEIGHS execution in PvP AND PvE. In PvP, FOTM builds dominate and the community screams "imbalance" even when things might be ok. In PvE, one killer build proves that it can work in an elite area like DoA and suddenly players have no interest in experimenting with other builds... some professions like Assassins, Mesmers, and Paragons get totally shafted even if they are actually "balanced."

In GW2, I hope that both of these play types will continue but become more equal in strategy. I think that players who think of creative builds SHOULD have an advantage over those who don't, but it is my hope that there are more execution tactics available in GW2 that will allow players to defeat a better build on a more frequent basis.

This is one area where I think that game mechanics like aiming, jumping, and dodging are so important. At one point I got upset playing against Ranger spike because it was such a good build, but then me and my guildies learned that you could defeat a ranger spike no matter what build you had if you learned how to dodge behind walls and such.

A truly balanced game, in my opinion, is where a player can play off his strengths, be it mental tactics or execution, and proceed to win. One of my favorite memories of all time was from Warcraft 3 where I defeated an opponent who had a huge army advantage over me by burning all of the trees (resources) around the map with a catapault. Stuff like that is FUN

Tozen: The one method of domination that you're missing - and arguably one of the most important ones - is the in-game strategy. I actually stopped playing guild wars because everything was either in-game rote execution, or pre-game build design. There was little if any element of creative counter-play, reading your opponents moves, modifying your tactics on the fly, flanking, parrying, faking...what Sirlin referred to towards the end of the podcast as "Yomi": getting inside the enemy's head. Guild Wars for me became about finding a working build, and playing it to as technically accurately as possible. It was maybe once in a blue moon that a gambit payed out.

Also, in regards to Izzy and Morello tying things more in to Guild Wars, we often encourage our panelists to steer clear of specific discussions of their games, for a few reasons: First, we like to keep the show focused on the industry as a whole, and not any particular game. While we may use individual games as examples, we try to keep the conversation focused on ideas and perspectives that apply across the board. Second, keeping the conversation away from the games our panelists work on is one of the best ways to ensure that we can continue to have high quality panelists on the show. Most panelists that come on the show, ESPECIALLY developers, have to clear their appearance with their parent company. If they see that people often talk about specifics of their game, and the company decides they don't want to risk something inaccurate or otherwise troublesome being said, they may deny a request to appear on the show. By keeping the conversation away from game specifics, we increase the likelihood that PR departments will give the OK for panelists to appear on the show.

Times like this.. i need my speakers lol

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