I've done sandbox FPS PvP balances before, AMA (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Saturday, February 11, 2017, 06:37 (2888 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

Wins is a good metric. You also want to be wary of statistical artifacts. Back when I played WoT, the player balance in game suppressed the russian tank stats, so they constantly got buffs or had their most OP tanks left alone. The US tanks, with their 5% of the overall population, had major over representation in the stats and were always getting nerfs to their already tough play styles.

Skill gaps can complicate statistical analysis quite a bit.

A good example in Destiny would be a weapon like No Land Beyond. In the hands of a poor-to-average player, it is almost useless. But put it in the hands of a very skilled player, and it can dominate the match. So while it might not see widespread use the way Mida or TLW do, that doesn't mean it is underpowered or needs a buff.

Agreed. Quickscoping is an interesting thing. When CoD: MW came out, it wasn't on the designer's radar at all. They didn't think it was a possible thing so they didn't design around it. None of the testers did it either. And then some guy on the internet posted a video of him quickscoping the shit out of everyone and - holy cow - it became a thing. Now, of course, designers design around it, making weapons specifically for quickscopers (and balancing them accordingly as very high skill = high reward weapons).

Weapon balance in most FPS games is such that you balance for the professional tier of players and let the trickle-down low skill weapons fall where they may. This is why I really liked vanilla destiny's pvp balance. At low skill levels the AR was king because it was the easiest gun to use. As you got better and better it became more and more about the slower RoF weapons, ultimately landing on shotguns and snipers as the be-all-end-all weapons in the game. Somewhere along the line some of the lower skill guns got buffed and became low-skill = high reward, while the higher skill guns were nerfed down to high skill = above average reward. That was then overcorrected such that high skill guns became the only viable guns at all for a while, then overcorrected again to the pulse rifle meta we've had for a few months, and now we're going to (I predict) hand cannons and scout rifles meta simply due to starving everyone for special ammo. We'll see. My god roll Spare Change .25 is going to get dusted off soon, and maybe it'll be her time to shine.

Titanfall is an interesting outlier here in the realm of weapon balance, as they generally give you the best guns in the game right off the bat, but then encourage you to use worse options in order to level up more quickly. It's really smart. Since everyone has access to top tier guns, there's no need to balance the rest of the weapons - just make sure they're worse than the best guns and you're good to go. People will still use them if they want to optimize leveling up over getting kills. Very, very clever.