I think it is fair to say that there are many emotions pent up into discussions about what is or isn’t imbalanced. For this reason, I am going to focus on being very rigorous in my discussion about balance and its prevalence in gaming. However, as I was being rigorous about every little point, I quickly realized this was not going to be one article but several. Thus, the first one will solely focus on the definition of balance, its inclusions and exclusions, its limitations, and applications outside of the gaming world. Next week, I will begin discussing about balance within gaming spheres. In this, I hope to avoid several clashes between terms, operations, and definitions that tend to occur on most balance threads, which ultimately dissolve into flame wars. All I ask is for people to take as much time and effort understanding my points and demonstrate that in their responses. Alright, here we go!
For the online gaming n00b (it’s okay, we were all there once!) here are a few definitions of balance as accepted by the gaming community:
- Balance- adj. A multiplayer game is balanced if a reasonably large number of options available to the player are viable–especially, but not limited to, during high-level play by expert players.
- Balance- A concept in game design describing fairness or balance of power in a game between multiple players or strategic options.
For all possible purposes, these definitions of balance and most other ones out there do not delve far enough into the idea of balance to have a rigorous understanding of what balance is. For example, on Team Liquid, the discussion is entirely based on the characteristics of balance, but not what it actually is. Other definitions structure it as a concept with a theoretical aspect, rather than a concrete state. This becomes problematic when attempting to identify balance in a game because we have no idea what we’re looking for; most traditional statistics will not identify game balance—Was Zerg overpowered over the first 2 months of the game, or did Z players just really have an incredible run at GSL? Either explanation is plausible, and further assessment of balance is necessary to determine its origin in games.
Thus, without further ado, I give you, the LuX (Look at me being modest!) definition of balance:
Balance—adj. The state of a game such that all players, regardless of what they start with, in the beginning, have an equal chance of winning the game.
Within this definition, it is important what is included and what is not. Balance is not a discussion as to whether an individual player has more ability than another player, or if playing a certain style favors a whole group of individuals with identical characteristics. Rather, balance is solely concerned with the likelihood of winning at the beginning of the game. This is an important distinction, as it almost becomes impossible to determine balance at any other point. Further, the beginning of the game also includes any forms of tech or upgrades that could be accessible at later points in the game. For example a race that includes a building that makes ultralisks for 100 minerals would still be considered imbalanced because it is an inherent characteristic of the race that is present at the beginning of the game.
While the most popular games are generally well balanced, the individuals who play the game also change some aspects. In this sense, balance has a utilitarian perspective—if enough people consider something imbalanced, most games will rid themselves of it at a competitive level. In StarCraft, this is seen by the removal of certain maps like Steppes of War, which favored certain races by a large amount. Long before Blizzard removed it from the map pool, most major tournaments got rid of Steppes. Another example of this democratic aspect of balance is within Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Any player who picks Meta Knight is looked down upon as a cheap player. In fact, Meta Knight is a banned pick from every major tournament. This demonstrates that just because the game gives you some characteristic or playable feature, doesn’t mean that it will be taken as balanced—every aspect must go through player analysis as well. Often, this player analysis will represent the limit of expected professional play. Just as professional Brawl players would be able to smash casual players who use Meta Knight, there could theoretically be a class of player able to smash professional Meta Knight players, but the skill required for such play is far beyond what is expected of even individuals on the highest level.
Chess is often thought of a natural comparison when discussing balance, however there is a slight limitation in relation to RTS games. If you play a game of chess, statistically speaking you are most likely to draw. If you are playing white, you have a slight edge to win, and if you are playing black, a slight edge to lose. This is due to the inherent imbalance that in a turn-based game, one player must go first. Chess players, however, need not worry about this inherent imbalance for the most part, because they need to be able to play both white and black. There are no major tournaments where any player can pick what color she wants for the entire event. Thus, chess avoids arguments about balance—or at least, most mainstream talk is not about it.
This is not applicable to RTS games, where the limit to taking turns is as fast as you can move. However, within most serious competitive RTS games, there is a new dimension where balance, or lack thereof, is a huge concern: different races.
When RTS initially started, with games like Command and Conquer, and Warcraft II, it was, for all intents and purposes, a real-time version of chess. Each “race” or side started off with nearly the exact same units, and thus every match would be considered, in the modern RTS era, a mirror match. StarCraft changed all that when it was released in 1998. It was the first RTS to give different characteristics for each race. Going back to chess, it would be like if white started with 2 queens and an extra pawn, but without rooks, while black had the usual setup. The aim of a truly balanced game is to give both sides equal chances of winning, regardless of racial distinction.
On the positive side, meta-game, or the ability to out theorize your opponent, saw an incredible rise in depth. When playing a mirror match, meta-game does develop initially, but it is limited, and almost every match becomes one of slightly better positioning, or slightly better economy. When playing a match between two completely different races, the meta-game becomes much more involved because the number of different combinations possible increases exponentially: what units could he play? How many different combinations? What might best counter the unit mix I have? Does she have that counter at her disposal at this time? It has gotten to the point where strategy has stormed discussion sections; occasionally, you get a post asking about how to macro (spend money) well, or how to maintain a strong economy, but they are rare compared with the number of posts asking about how to counter a build or unit combination.
I skated over a bunch of these examples, but I promise you in later articles I will return, and flesh them out a little further. For now the point of this one is to simply bring balance into a new discussion—one where balance becomes less about the flavor of the month, statistics, or who happens to be on a hot streak, and more about the cohesiveness of the game on a whole.. It’s not simply an overused ability, or a certain strategy that can be employed—it’s about a race’s design, expected player limitations, inherent problems in the game, and other characteristics of games and players. I’ve only discussed balance as a state of game present in the beginning, and I think the next article will focus on balance throughout the rest of the game.
Feel free to leave comments/concerns/worries/posts on this, as this is a work in progress, and certainly not something I have definitive answers on. Thus we march on the path of rationality!
. Until then, finals have begun to take over my life
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