Was "perfect "balance" ever reached in any competitive game?
starcraft brood war
>perfect balance
Boxing on the Atari 2600.
>>332579238
Absolutely not. Not even Chess is 100% balanced.
I think the words you were looking for were "perfect "balance"".
War, the card game, if you deal out perfectly even decks and allow deck stacking.
rock paper scissors has undeniably perfect balance.
>>332579354
>chess
>even remotely balanced
>>332579424
how the fuck exactly does leaf or paper beat rock
Technically I suppose any game where the exact same resources are given to all players, as in most arena FPS games, can be considered perfectly balanced. Asymmetrical games like fighters and RTS need to straddle a line between balance and maintaining variety between characters/factions. As far as RTS goes, Starcraft: Brood War is pretty fucking balanced after 15+ years of competitive play.
>>332579424
There was a bullshit study in that rock is picked more often because of the ease of the motion rather than scissors so paper is the better choice to go for and wins alot of the time on the first round
>>332579354
How Chess is not balanced?
>>332579238
No game will ever have perfect balance, they can be balanced very well, but in the end something will have to be last place, even if it's as close as a 6-4 matchup.
>>332579320
>starcraft brood war
I always see this, how come Blizzard can't balance their games for good now?
>>332579695
Whoever takes turn 1 has like a 67% chance to win
>>332579354
Are you kidding?
>>332579695
One side starts first
>>332579695
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess
>>332579724
because that blizzard is dead. Now we have ActivisionBlizzard who don't give a fuck about anything other than casual money.
FPS
One weapon
CTF gamemode
Mirrored symmetrical map
There, perfect balance.
Isn't any game that gives the same choices to both competitors perfectly balanced?
many arena shooters (quake, unreal, painkiller) considering each player started on an even playing field and map control pretty much dictates a match.
Starcraft Brood War and Quake 3 Arena come to mind as the most balanced games ever in history.
It's kind of hard to prove it if you haven't played either, but they used their limitations to their advantage in order to balance the game, which is even more impressive when put into perspective of a market that shits out games constantly or where there are big online games where balance is a big issue to determine who or what teams win or lose tournaments.
>>332579992
What about lag and frames?
>>332579992
latency
>>332579783
It's 'only' an approximate ~5% advantage but still certainly substantial
>>332580119
>not playing it on lan
no items
fox only
final destination
>>332579724
Blizzard got really fucking lucky with Starcraft. If you play on the maps that Blizzard included with the original game Zerg is unbeatable. The community just happened to discover that if you designed the maps in a very specific way the game was really balanced, and they patched shit from there. There are units that are pretty much completely worthless in competitive play, and yet the game is still balanced.
Ever since then Blizzard has designed its games with competitive balance in mind, with questionable results. With SC2 they pretty much ended up "balancing" all of the interesting strategies right out of the game. It's pretty balanced, but competitive play ends up being stale as fuck.
>>332579238
Any fighting game as long as both players are using the same character.
>>332579724
Because Brood War took forever to balance properly and even then it was probably a fluke
>>332579424
Paper needs to be nerfed.
>>332579238
Vanilla TF2 9v9
>>332580223
>There are units that are pretty much completely worthless in competitive play
Scouts and infested terrans? I cant think of any others.
>>332579238
SC1 easily.
>>332579517
Is this thing alive?
>>332580546
Valve had a good, unique competitive squad-based shooter and threw it away to make money on cosmetics and unbalanced community items.
Why does anyone trust them to make a decent game again?
>>332580258
this might be true, but still you have to give it to the community for figuring out the balance.
Say BW released now, in a beta state, people would complain that Zerg is too strong and that Lings need a nerf, which would completely change out how the game would advance. Surely BW was a product of it's time, as any game ever released, but the magic of the game is that had it been released 3 or 4 years later and without the developing mayhem it had (with more than 8 (iirc) units per selection and pathing being fixed) it would have been very different.
I don't know if luck is the right word, but it was just a right place at the right time thing
>>332579238
Pong
>>332579238
Melee.
>>332579238
Fighting games with brand new controllers using the same characters playing on the same screen.
That's about the only perfectly balanced thing there is.
>>332580223
They gave up on balance. They use a fucking stupid "active imbalance" concept now where they break shit every patch and call the disruption where everyone figures out how to properly exploit the new OP FOTM before bliz nerfs it and buffs the counter-pick/strat and then the cycle repeats.
>>332579783
If i go up against a chess master and go first i have a 67% chance to win? ez
>>332579608
>leaf
Who in their right fucking minds calls paper "leaf"?
Street Fighter 1
I think it had the versus mode where it was just two Ryus
>>332580607
Those definitely, but you also very rarely see Dark Archons, Carriers, or Battleships. Especially Dark Archons.
>>332579909
>because that blizzard is dead
I can't believe how low Blizzard has fallen.
Fucking WoW killed them.
>>332581580
Canadians.
>>332581580
Brazilians. Paper and Leaf can be called Folha.
>>332579608
I dont remember what his name was, but there was this one pretty young stand up comedian I saw once that said it should have been called rock, scissors, dynamite.
The scissors cuts the dynamites fuse.
>>332581623
Actually was Ruy and Ken, if the second player win he could play as Ken in story/arcade mode. But both Ryu and Ken were equal in everything but colors.
>>332581214
one side starts with the ball
>>332582627
I thought it started in the middle? And what does that change, exactly?
>>332582761
It goes one way or the other first.
>>332582352
Kek
>>332582398
It WOULD be Brazilians who'd call paper "leaf."
Fucking Brazilians.
>>332583101
Right, but like I said, what advantage does that bestow on either side?
>>332580546
>>332580914
Fuck no, half the classes are useless
>>332583169
You could just say "papel"
>>332582562
So not equal?
>>332583253
the start side has the first move
>>332583253
One side immediately has to react or risk giving the other side a point. The other side in this situation gaining a point for doing nothing.
>>332583351
What in your mind is useless? Each class has something in there disposal to counter another. just because you hop into a lobby and someone sucks shit doesn't mean the class is useless. I'm talking about if 18 with the same skill level verse each other.
>>332579424
Tic Tac Toe has perfect balance.
If both people play perfectly; every game ends the exact same way.
>>332583969
>game can only end in a draw everytime
Tell me how that is "balanced" in any way
>>332583969
One side has advantage first. Not balanced.
>>332584209
Not necessarily.
Like he said, if all moves are played correctly, the end result will always be the same. The game mainly capitalizes on a player's mistake, which is where the advantage comes in, not to the game's fault, but rather the opposing player.
>>332584140
How is one side winning and one side losing balanced?
Perfect Balance is boring in that way.
>>332583969
>>332584493
ding ding ding
>>332581235
Player on the left side has the advantage if both players are right-handed
>>332583969
Objectively the best answer
>>332583675
plat HL even if you removed the unlocks would still be sniper dominant as people got better at the game
>>332580208
Literally the only right answer.
Pong.
Time trials/time attack is probably one of the most balanced considering meeting all the same conditions isn't that difficult (Doom on the same difficulty, same quest, gear, food skills in Monster Hunter, etc) and that the person playing is pretty much the variable, but it isn't directly competitive unless multiple players are doing it in sync, and depends on how competitive you view leaderboards.
>>332583969
I fucking loved being the first kid to solve Tic Tac Toe and then always winning or drawing.
>>332580208
>>332586064
what is port priority you wetbutts
>>332586326
>tfw no one wanted to play Tic Tac Toe with you because you always won or draw
>>332579238
>>332579424
This. No game is a better example of perfect balance than rocks, paper, scissors; so much so that rocks, paper, scissors philosophy can be found in every decent competitive game. Most competitive games revolve around a player making 1 of 3 decisions, one of which will be correct, one wrong, and the other even.
>Shooters typical have shooting, grenades, and melees
>Fighting games have regular attacks, grabs, and specials
>RTS games typically revolve around rush, standard, and economy builds.
Hypothetical Fighting Game A has three characters. The matchups between them are completely even at a high level of play. However, character 2 is much more mechanically intensive than the other two to play competently, and so 2's winrate at a low level is abysmal against both 1 and 3.
Hypothetical Fighting Game B has three characters. The matchups between them are completely even at a low level of play. However, character 3 has by far the best winrate at high levels of play because of a complicated gameplan that the other two characters lack effective tools to deal with once 3's player gets the hang of executing it.
Which game has better balance?The only way to have perfect balance is to have absolutely no difference between the options. Otherwise, there WILL be characters that are easier to play, and there WILL be characters that have strengths better tailored to the gameplay.
>>332579238
Street Fighter 1.
>>332587707
Rock-Paper-Scissors is only balancedon paper. Actual Rock-Paper-Scissors is biased towards Rock because it's the default position and much easier to switch out of at the last moment than either Paper or Scissors.
That 'Banned from Tournament Play' image is no joke.
>>332583169
It's like that in German too. "Blatt" can be a leaf of a tree or a leaf of paper. It's correct to say it in English but you usually say "looseleaf".
warcraft 3
It came close
Pre-shotgun and auto climbing Ace of Spades
CS:GO competetive is pretty balanced right now. 15 rounds on both sides so any side advantage is negated. Even so T and CT has gotten a lot more balanced on most maps.
>>332579625
>>332587882
>Asymmetrical games like fighters and RTS need to straddle a line between balance and maintaining variety
There's this saying for fighting games that the match starts at the character select screen. You pick whom you feel you have the best shot at winning with. If the devs did their job right, people come to different conclusions. If the game is 25 years old, chances are you'll have a lot of mirror matches.
>>332579238
brood war
TF2 when it came out was probably the most balanced game I've ever played.
Perfect balance is boring.
Plain and simple.
Also, no competitive video game will ever have perfect balance.
>>332594819
How about just matchmaking so balanced that everyone has a perfect 50% winrate no matter what.
>>332595090
Unless the person stops playing at exactly 50%, they will either go lower or higher at some point.
Is there any value in randomly having certain variables pre-match? Such as certain damage types being buffed or nerfed, resource costs increased on certain units, certain hitboxes enlarged, and whatever else?
>>332594000
He said perfect
>>332580093
it's pretty good all things considered, but it definitely isn't perfect
>>332579625
A lot of games unintentionally (or sometimes intentionally, though without the intention of giving a player a benefit as it seems minute/small) give one player a benefit. For example, some games have ever so slightly different hit detection based on the way a character is facing, or (like in the case of Smash Bros) controller port can govern things like who wins if something happens on the exact same frame. If it isn't possible to draw the game and have no winner, then it isn't perfectly balanced.
>>332595490
Hey, you're manipulating the data to make it seem like its telling a different story!
Virtua Fighter 2
Starcraft Brood War
Quake 3 Arena
Though it's not known if they are truly technically perfectly balanced, they are all practically perfectly balanced - especially for competitive play.
>>332586990
While I love advanced wars and Days of Ruin is the best by far in a gameplay mechanic sense, it is still FAR from perfectly balanced. Much better balanced than its predecessors, but still not perfect.
>>332595472
thats as close as you're getting
Unless all games end in a draw, there is no balance.
