Survey to restore objectivity regarding department balance
Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 11:33 pm
So. Lads. Who else feels like rolling a boulder up a mountain over and over? Because its time to try to OBJECTIVELY tackle the issue of department balance. And I got an idea for that. Please hear me out.
So first of all: No one can balance this game perfectly and with complete fairness (even if they could code like a god). We all have our biases, we all have had very different experiences. Especially because we main some departments and never play others, but also because we all have different personalities and interact with this game differently because of them. So what do we do if we want to try anyway?
I've been thinking: Maybe the only way to create some "artificial objectivity" is to gather tons of subjective data and take the average values. We do that by comparing departments to each other within the different areas of "power" the job has, since each department shines in different ways. We collect tons of opinions in form of ranking them against each other in said areas. Next we determine how big of a role each of those areas plays within the game to decide how much weight each set of data in the different areas should have to determine the overall "power level" of the job. In the end we just multiply the values the departments got in the different areas by the factor that we decided best represents how much influence the area should have when it comes to balancing the job. In theory, after we collect enough data and I create a middle value for it all, we'll be able to objectively answer: Which department needs to be nerfed? Which department needs to be buffed? Let's find out!
(>implying the coders will care)
Just so you know, this is the first time I have ever attempted anything like this, so pls no bullying if there are some obvious problems I didn't notice!
The survey I came up with looks like this:
I'm attaching the chart to this post. Download it, fill in the estimates you sincerely feel to be true, upload the filled out chart in this thread and if enough people participate I'll evaluate all the data and we'll see how, as a whole, the community feels about job balance. (The idea is to >EVENTUALLY end up with a somewhat objective overall "power level" for each department.)
We're taking the game balance and are giving it back to you... the people.
EDIT 1:
Replaced the numbers system to make it less of a chore to rank it all. The old system was better for comparing individual departments to each other, but it's a chore and it becomes ineffective as soon as some departments are exactly equal in one area while others differ hugely from each other within the same area. Now you can actually fill it out much faster. Oh also "time investment" got replaced by "early game" and "late game" since that's a bit more of a clear definition.
So first of all: No one can balance this game perfectly and with complete fairness (even if they could code like a god). We all have our biases, we all have had very different experiences. Especially because we main some departments and never play others, but also because we all have different personalities and interact with this game differently because of them. So what do we do if we want to try anyway?
I've been thinking: Maybe the only way to create some "artificial objectivity" is to gather tons of subjective data and take the average values. We do that by comparing departments to each other within the different areas of "power" the job has, since each department shines in different ways. We collect tons of opinions in form of ranking them against each other in said areas. Next we determine how big of a role each of those areas plays within the game to decide how much weight each set of data in the different areas should have to determine the overall "power level" of the job. In the end we just multiply the values the departments got in the different areas by the factor that we decided best represents how much influence the area should have when it comes to balancing the job. In theory, after we collect enough data and I create a middle value for it all, we'll be able to objectively answer: Which department needs to be nerfed? Which department needs to be buffed? Let's find out!
(>implying the coders will care)
Just so you know, this is the first time I have ever attempted anything like this, so pls no bullying if there are some obvious problems I didn't notice!
The survey I came up with looks like this:
I'm attaching the chart to this post. Download it, fill in the estimates you sincerely feel to be true, upload the filled out chart in this thread and if enough people participate I'll evaluate all the data and we'll see how, as a whole, the community feels about job balance. (The idea is to >EVENTUALLY end up with a somewhat objective overall "power level" for each department.)
We're taking the game balance and are giving it back to you... the people.
EDIT 1:
Replaced the numbers system to make it less of a chore to rank it all. The old system was better for comparing individual departments to each other, but it's a chore and it becomes ineffective as soon as some departments are exactly equal in one area while others differ hugely from each other within the same area. Now you can actually fill it out much faster. Oh also "time investment" got replaced by "early game" and "late game" since that's a bit more of a clear definition.