578 replies to this topic

[East Indy]

1453 R, on 24 July 2013 - 12:27 PM, said:

I beat players running top decks, decks they've found on websites that have won Worlds-level competitions

You of all people understand how some people approach games. A few posters have used the word "moral," which is probably their vague intuition of sportsmanship, and a glimmer of perceiving the state of any game objectively instead of a vehicle for personal advancement.

I can't underscore it enough: a crowd is taking credit for the game-breaking beta testing accomplished by a few.

[Archon Adam Steiner]

There's always room for creativity, and despite the stereotypes brought on by proliferation, there are indeed weapons other than PPCs and Gauss rifles (and now SRMs) that are effective.

My group and I have played very competitively for a year, now, and place very well in our league competitions (undefeated currently, whee!). It's interesting to note that while one does encounter some "Ye Olde PPC Cheese" teams in league play and pre-organized 8-man drops, and other teams that seem incapable of doing anything other than base-camping with pop-tarting Highlanders, there are actually a number of competitive and highly skilled teams that use builds that are really quite reasonable, and 'closer' to canon-style load-outs than the 3x PPC, 1x Gauss ridiculousness that some favour. Particularly with the heat changes of the last patch, and with the one coming at the end of the month, it's simply becoming more efficient to load up some different weapons, as opposed to chain-firing weapons that break the heat-penalty barrier.

Believe it or not, we've had success on many occasions in defeating 'typical' teams (like pop-tarts) by simply running builds that people don't expect. As long as there is solid logic behind what one plays with, then one is likely to see success. Hardcore and competitive players test builds for said logic, and will use them if they work. If any weapon gets ignored entirely (i.e. LBX-10's), then that's helping the developers out by identifying weaknesses, and that benefits every player, no matter their interest level.

[Deathlike]

Royalewithcheese, on 24 July 2013 - 12:40 PM, said:

1453 R, based on the buzz I've been hearing from the comp community, the average comp player would *love* it if your Dragon was viable. You seem to be conflating people saying "this robot is bad" with people saying "this robot *should* be bad."

The sad thing is that I've found the Quickdraw more useful than the Dragon (though, not having driven the Dragon yet). Some people have said that PPCs are bad on it... but it's sadly waaay more effective than people give it credit for.

[Roland]

Royalewithcheese, on 24 July 2013 - 12:40 PM, said:

1453 R, based on the buzz I've been hearing from the comp community, the average comp player would *love* it if your Dragon was viable. You seem to be conflating people saying "this robot is bad" with people saying "this robot *should* be bad."

This sums things up perfectly, but I don't think many of those arguing about how competitive players ruin everything are really gonna understand it.

When I see an Atlas carrying 2 LBX10's, I will say that mech is bad because that mech is bad.

Not that I think it SHOULD be bad. Indeed, I would love nothing more if they buffed the LBX10 and made it the totally awesome weapon that it is supposed to be.

But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. My wanting the LBX10 to not suck does not make it not suck. The only thing which will make it not suck is to continue to tell PGI that it sucks, and that they need to make it better.

[IceSerpent]

1453 R, on 24 July 2013 - 12:27 PM, said:

Why, exactly, are competitive players the only ones who are permitted to have fun with MWO? Do I need to try and join a cutthroat league-play clan in order to be worthy of having a fair and balanced game?

No, but you need to know what you are doing in order to make an intelligent argument / suggestion / complaint about game balance. It really holds true virtually everywhere, i.e. I am unable to tell if a given RL jet fighter is any good because I have no clue how to pilot one. On the other hand, folks who know how to pilot one and are good at it would have no problem comparing different models.
There is a big difference between "weapon is better than anything else because math says so" and "I got killed by that weapon because I don't know how defend myself against it".

Quote

See, to be a competitive player in this gamescape, you need to have a Stalker, and you need to load it up with every PPC you can reasonably sustain. Four if you're temperate, six if you're ballsy. There are no other acceptable builds. Buy a Stalker, put PPCs in it. NOW. DO IT OR YOU'RE A FAILURE AS A HUMAN BEING.

This is a good example of what I am talking about. A competitive player knows that you don't need a Stalker, you can easily replace it with a Highlander for example. A competitive player knows that 6-ppc Stalker is not a viable build and is only useful for trolling people. A competitive player knows that LRMs are complete junk if one's opponents know what they are doing. A casual player like yourself, on the other hand, doesn't know all that stuff, but feels like complaining about it on the forums anyway.

[keith]

don't feel like reading 6 pages. if all the weps were equally good there would not be 1 build to use or 1 wep to run. kinda like 1 rung to rule them all:P right now thats is ppc, say they somehow made er ll worth running that it could compete vs ppc. then 8 mans some ppl might run 1 ppc mech and 1 er ll mech. right now thats not the case. in close range alll are worthless except srm. that was not the case before this patch, all were horrible. say if they made lbx useful u could pop on lbx and some side laser, maybe even pulse if they made them useful. a typical build in MW4 brawling was lbx and heavy med, even some streaks if u had space.

if all weps become useful the "casual" build will become better. while the "comp" ppl will be happy too. i don't see y this is a hard concept for PGI team to get, to break out of the TT wep values. to make their own as long as the game gets balanced.

[Tetatae Squawkins]

DaZur, on 24 July 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

In order for balance to be a global issue it must be abused...

Other than outright cheating the entire premise that balance is something that can be abused is a fallacy. If you don't want your game played in a certain way then you need to design it to inhibit whatever behavior you or your community finds undesirable.

Stop blaming the players for what only the devs can fix.

Edited by crabcakes66, 24 July 2013 - 12:56 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

DaZur, on 24 July 2013 - 08:16 AM, said:

Good question... Which I'll answer with my own. Would a casual player still migrate to the dominant mechs and weapons configurations in the absence of the "competitive environment"? I say "partially". A casual player tends to play what they like / have fun with... win or lose. That said, when they continue to be told their are idiots for piloting them by the competitive players... Eventually their opinion becomes influenced if not jaded.

I think the distinction "competitive" and "casual" is too simplistic. There aren't just two camps.

There are people that might just want to play their favourite mech regardless of whether they lose or not. But I actually doubt this is a tiny minority. If given the choice, people would want to win, not lose, most of the time.

There are single players like me. I don't really have the energy or devotion to become part of a company/mercenary group/whatever, I am happy with just Pugging, even with all the warts this has. But I still won't gimp myself. When I play, I still try to go for the win, and I cringe when I see team mates or myself fail time and again. I'll do something about it. I might not adopt the worse cheese, but I will optimize.

There are competitive gamers that want 8-12 man group fights and duke it out, they want to beat the best, and they know they can't do that with a subpar build, because the best don't use subpar builds.

You just cannot remove the competition from a PvP game. If you want no competition, make it a purely coop game where you beat NPCs. In such games, "competitive" players might actually decide to intentionally not run cheese builds, because they know how strong the NPCs are, and they want to see if they can beat the NPCs. And if they run cheese, they will try to optimize for the shortest game duration, or the most points, or whatever figures you can come up with.

That works too, and in a PvE game, balance isn't really that important, or it's at least of a very different kind then in PvP games - the opposition must be beatable, and you don't want to make it too easy, but you also don't want it to be too hard.

B

[1453 R]

Roland, on 24 July 2013 - 12:35 PM, said:

I agree. Your post is indeed a good example of everything that is wrong with MWO.

You misunderstand a really fundamental aspect of game balance, and how it is improved.

See, taking terrible builds is not how you improve game balance. It's merely how you play poorly.

Do you like Dragons? That's cool. Do you like LBX? Me too!

But I don't USE LBX. Why? Because it's, easily, one of the worst weapons in the game. Taking it only makes me less effective, and playing poorly does not make anything "more fun".

Instead of simply taking terrible builds, the rational choice for improving the game is to argue for the improvement of those terrible weapons and mechs, in order to make them competitive... so that taking them is not an inherent liability.

In MW4, the LBX wasn't the worst weapon in the game, believe it or not! It was actually one of the BEST weapons in the game, especially compared to other infighting weapons. Do you know how they managed that? They increased its damage to 14, instead of 10. Suddenly, it was a competitive weapon, that you actually saw in competitive matches.

See, the changes that the competitive players are generally asking for will make the game more fun FOR YOU... because they are arguing for a more balanced game. And a more balanced game will result in the ability to field more diverse builds.

In many ways, you are actually hurting yourself by bringing terribad builds like LBX dragons, because you are then contributing to usage statistics which do not reflect the actual competitiveness of that equipment. PGI can then potentially look at those stats and say, "Hey, tons of people still use LBX, so they must not really be that bad!"

Thus, by playing bad builds, you are actually hindering those builds from ever being elevated to being competitive.

As a note: my best/favorite Dragon is my Flame, which runs a 350XL beneath a gauss rifle and a quartet of medium lasers. I enjoy my DragonForcer (DRG-1N, with an AC-10, 2x SRM-4, and an ER large laser), but admit and acknowledge that it's not the sort of build that wins league play.

You mistake my anger and irritation as the lashing out of a player who doesn't know what good and bad are. On the contrary, I know perfectly well why the currently overpowered things are overpowered, why the bad things are bad, and why I couldn't actually play my DragonForcer back in the days when SRMs were a joke.

I'm not arguing that the game is perfectly balanced right now. That's a dumb argument to make. My argument is this: competitive players don't get to be the only ones PGI has to consider for balance. People like you, Roland, and you, PEEF, and you, scJazz, would be perfectly content, even happy, if PGI were to never address the problems that Dragons face, or to fix small-tube-count LRM launchers so that 'Mechs with a pair of LRM-5s or a single LRM-10 rack aren't wasting their tonnage, or to get the LBX into a place where it works as well as it feels.

You folks don't give a single fat flying foghorn about three quarters of the content in this game. You want Dragons culled entirely and replaced with something in the 75-ton bracket. You want Cicadas culled entirely and replaced with something in the 55-ton bracket. You want LRMs to be useless because weapons which lock and track targets on their own - regardless of whether or not managing to find and keep an LRM lock on a target is, in fact, more difficult than popsniping an arm-locked GPPC salvo you need to hold your target for a quarter-second for. Not necessarily saying it is, but try playing a Trebuchet in intended role sometime - are for Scrubs, and Scrubs don't deserve to play the game.

Your ideas of balance are toxic and hurtful for a good half of the rest of us. You don't get to dictate terms to PGI, and you don't get to dictate terms to me. Balance is for everybody, not just you.

[Kaldor]

Kunae, on 24 July 2013 - 12:38 PM, said:

Compare:

Player 1: DDC1: 1MG, 1LB10X w/2t ammo, 1 LRM20/10t ammo, 1 flamer, 1 ERLL
Player 2: DDC2: 2ML, 1 AC20/4t ammo, 3SRM6/5t ammo

Which is more skilled at building a mech?

Player 1 gets my vote. That build is freaking elite!

[3rdworld]

1453 R, on 24 July 2013 - 12:57 PM, said:

You folks don't give a single fat flying foghorn about three quarters of the content in this game. You want Dragons culled entirely and replaced with something in the 75-ton bracket. You want Cicadas culled entirely and replaced with something in the 55-ton bracket. You want LRMs to be useless because weapons which lock and track targets on their own - regardless of whether or not managing to find and keep an LRM lock on a target is, in fact, more difficult than popsniping an arm-locked GPPC salvo you need to hold your target for a quarter-second for. Not necessarily saying it is, but try playing a Trebuchet in intended role sometime - are for Scrubs, and Scrubs don't deserve to play the game.

Your ideas of balance are toxic and hurtful for a good half of the rest of us. You don't get to dictate terms to PGI, and you don't get to dictate terms to me. Balance is for everybody, not just you.

Its funny. I have never heard anyone say any of those things.

As they are pretty much no ones ideas of balance, I am just going to assume you are stupid.

[Chronojam]

Competitive players want a more balanced game with a friendlier new player experience. Competitive players want to #saveMWO and invite like-minded individuals and groups to share their feelings this Thursday evening in a first-ever MWO Community Townhall Meeting.

[DaZur]

Deathlike, on 24 July 2013 - 12:39 PM, said:

This assumes that most of PGI is playing the game that we are playing.

I remember a discussion that evolved around Garth about that idea where "any mech should be viable" and any player can design around that basic idea. The problem with that is that every mech has a completely different function by design, and that they will naturally excel or fail at a particular type of role you wish to use it for. It sounds great in theory that every mech/chassis/variant SHOULD be viable, but there are many instances where some mechs are not (CDA-3C), Spider-5V/5K, Atlas-K (well, until it has a nice large missile option). We cannot strictly use idealism to apply practicality into a game that has effectively carved out the "role" of a mech (which is already lacking in this role warfare).

Human nature will cause people to find what works for them... whether they are good or bad ideas. For those of us who understand what is truly wrong (although disagreeing on the exact solution to address it), we can easily identify it, and abuse it as we so choose. Unless the system itself forces different decisions to be made due to design, people will continue to play builds that are within the "legal limits" of said parameters.

First... thanks for the level-headed response.

Your first point actually exemplifies the "all mechs should be viable" balance issue forward by many of the competitive crowd. As you eluded to, in reality, no amount of balance adjustment will placate the desire for all mechs and all classes to lay out in a linear fashion. Some mechs and some configurations will by their very nature be sub-optimal and balance fixes will not change that. That said, if a player chooses to run one of those mechs, it's an assumed risk / reward that player has elected to shoulder IMHO.

Edited by DaZur, 24 July 2013 - 01:05 PM.

[Kaldor]

1453 R, on 24 July 2013 - 12:57 PM, said:

/snip a bunch of angry stuff

You sound somewhat angry.

I love my Flame as well. Do I consider is a competitive mech? Not really. Its too big for it tonnage, and its CT is freaking huge. Does it stop me from running it from time to time? Nope. Would I put a gauss and 2 PPCs in it? Maybe...
I have put an AC20 and 4 MLs on it, and done OK with it... Would I run that for a competitive match? Nope.

[Roland]

1453 R, on 24 July 2013 - 12:57 PM, said:

My argument is this: competitive players don't get to be the only ones PGI has to consider for balance. People like you, Roland, and you, PEEF, and you, scJazz, would be perfectly content, even happy, if PGI were to never address the problems that Dragons face, or to fix small-tube-count LRM launchers so that 'Mechs with a pair of LRM-5s or a single LRM-10 rack aren't wasting their tonnage, or to get the LBX into a place where it works as well as it feels.

But your argument is totally misguided, and without merit.

The fact that I know the LBX10 sucks is not the same as me not caring about the LBX10. I'm not sure why you can't grasp such a simple concept as that.

The reality is, I have consistently pointed out that the LBX10 needs to be buffed. And that is why I don't carry it. See, I don't argue for the weapons that I actually carry to be buffed...because those weapons are already good. That's why I carry them.

I argue for the garbage tier weapons, like the LBX, to be buffed... because it's currently bad, which is why I don't mount it on my mechs.

Quote

You folks don't give a single fat flying foghorn about three quarters of the content in this game.

No, you are in error.
Just because better players do not use those weapons, that does not mean that those players don't want those weapons buffed. Indeed, it's generally the exact opposite of what you are saying.

Quote

Your ideas of balance are toxic and hurtful for a good half of the rest of us. You don't get to dictate terms to PGI, and you don't get to dictate terms to me. Balance is for everybody, not just you.

Honestly, you have merely demonstrated that you don't really understand what anyone else's ideas actually are. You are arguing against strawmen that you have set up in your mind.

[PEEFsmash]

1453 R, on 24 July 2013 - 12:57 PM, said:

I'm not arguing that the game is perfectly balanced right now. That's a dumb argument to make. My argument is this: competitive players don't get to be the only ones PGI has to consider for balance. People like you, Roland, and you, PEEF, and you, scJazz, would be perfectly content, even happy, if PGI were to never address the problems that Dragons face, or to fix small-tube-count LRM launchers so that 'Mechs with a pair of LRM-5s or a single LRM-10 rack aren't wasting their tonnage, or to get the LBX into a place where it works as well as it feels.

This is so wrong it makes me want to smash my keyboard. You misunderstand me completely to the point where I want to quit the conversation to be honest.

I want more than anything for every mech chassis to have equal importance in securing wins. I know Dragons have serious problems and I want them fixed. I play lights an mediums, both of which are bad atm, and I want them fixed as well. Everything I have ever said supports that fact. Are you "doing it wrong" by playing Dragons? Yes, right now you are if you want to win. That ins't some special position on the future of balance, it is an honest account of the metagame. Just beacuse I say something is better doesn't mean that I'm saying something is correct in balance. Assaults are overpowered in relation to the rest of the mechs in this game. a team of 8 assaults is the best team you could put together right now. That is bad. The game should be designed in such a way to where balanced teams balanced between classes are the best teams. Frankenbuilds will never be good because the specialize in nothing, but games should be balanced in their specializations (scouting, flanking, tanking, etc instead of 8 assaults gogogo).

[Banditman]

DaZur, on 24 July 2013 - 09:25 AM, said:

The deference between a casual player and a competitive player is their respective "end-game". A competitive player sees winning as end result of their efforts... This is "fun" for them. A casual player sees playing as "fun" and their end game is to having fun while attempting to "win".

A casual player will generally accept either a win/loss outcome so long as they have fun doing it. A competitive player generally has the most fun if they are ...well, competitive and win. And in order for 1 and 2 to be fully realized they expect the players around them to also exhibit the core aspects of a competitive player.

You are well spoken, but completely wrong.

If a "casual" player's only criteria for fun was playing, then they wouldn't care that these "competitive" players beat them down constantly. Right? Well, we know that's not accurate, witness the massive QQ before any sort of matchmaker was created.

So, now we have to look at what the "casual" player *really* wants. What he "wants" is to enter a match with the understanding (be it accurate or inaccurate) that he has somewhere around a 50% chance of winning. Here's where the "casual" player has a problem.

Casual players simply don't understand the game well enough to figure out "why" they don't win more often. The ELO driven matchmaker actually does a fairly decent job of matching what it thinks is skill. It doesn't however create what players feel are balanced matches very often. Why is that? In this game, it's because there are simply way too many elements at play for a simple ELO score to consistently create balanced matches.

• Weight is a huge factor, and the matchmaker does very little with it.
  
• Mech configuration is a huge factor, and there's no way for the matchmaker to even look at it.
  
• Map selection is a huge factor that works in tandem with the prior two here.

If you put every single player into an identical mech, and let ELO match them, I bet you'd see a great number of very good, balanced matches. But that's not MechWarrior.

The whole "competitive" versus "casual" argument is completely bunk tbh. If winning isn't important to you, only playing the game, then you would never take part in a debate like this. Your fun comes by simply hitting "Launch", and you don't care at all. The fact that someone will take the time to frame a debate like this puts the lie to any claims that person might have about winning being a driving factor. If you don't care about winning, this debate will never happen.

Because it's very clear that regardless of what a "casual" player might say, they do in fact care about winning, or at least the ability to feel like they have a chance to win.

In that case, the entire focus for the debate falls back to the mechanics of the game and who understands and uses them more effectively. It's not that any player has any advantage in the mechanics. The mechanics are the same for everyone. Those players who people call "competitive" have simply analyzed and understood the mechanics of the game and chosen to utilize those mechanics that are most effective, or they have mimiced another player who has.

The real desire of players who frame a debate like this is to find a way to compete only against like minded players. They want to compete only against players who don't care about the mechanics, who don't think about maximizing their performance, who don't analyze and reflect on how to improve.

I have bad news. It's not going to happen. As long as there is a score, a winner and a loser, people will try to win. Some people will work harder to be on the winning side. Those players will, within their own abilities, succeed.

[Kunae]

1453 R, on 24 July 2013 - 12:57 PM, said:

<snip>Your ideas of balance are toxic and hurtful for a good half of the rest of us. You don't get to dictate terms to PGI, and you don't get to dictate terms to me. Balance is for everybody, not just you.

So much fail, and so many puerile assumptions.

You have so much butt-hurt stored up there, that you are choosing to lash out at the people who want to help you. Contrary to your narcissistic mania, most of the people you reference know a lot more about this game, and what needs to be balanced, than you obviously do.

Heck, a smart person, who has experience with multi-player pvp from other games, who just picked up MWO, has more of a clue about what needs to be fixed, than you. You will never be able to contribute to whichever faction you choose, in CW, once it's in, as you lash out, rather than discuss.

If everything, and every mech, is not useful for something, then PGI has failed at their task. People who play the most, which usually means those you deride as "competitive", have the best grasp on how the game works. Listen to them, and you may actually learn something... someday.

[1453 R]

IceSerpent, on 24 July 2013 - 12:48 PM, said:

This is a good example of what I am talking about. A competitive player knows that you don't need a Stalker, you can easily replace it with a Highlander for example. A competitive player knows that 6-ppc Stalker is not a viable build and is only useful for trolling people. A competitive player knows that LRMs are complete junk if one's opponents know what they are doing. A casual player like yourself, on the other hand, doesn't know all that stuff, but feels like complaining about it on the forums anyway.

Yeah, see? This is the thing: 'casual' does not mean 'stupid'. I'm aware that the high-end players only use four PPCs in their Stalkers because it's much easier on the heatscale, and because they do it specifically to abuse the high-mounted energy hardpoints in the Stalker's arms for hillhumping. The fifth and sixth guns would be liabilities more than assets to most of them given how low-slung they are. I'm also aware that Highlanders are, for many, the new Stalkers. That doesn't actually make them any much more agile than the average Stalker, especially since most of their guns are torso-mounted anyways, and so I don't really draw a distinction between the two. They're used for largely the same purpose, it's just down to whether someone wants jump jets to popsnipe with or high mounts to hillsnipe with. As for LRMs, yes. I've wanted them to move faster than they do for a while now, and when I play any 'Mech with LRMs on it (which, by the way, are my Trebuchets. In my opinion/experience, anything larger/slower than a Catapult has no business relying on LRMs as a primary weapon, no matter how many missile hardpoints that Stalker's got), I look for my own targets and attempt to engage in the sub-500 range basket whenever possible. And also prepare to have a completely junk game if I get the wrong map or particularly wary enemies.

You douchehats act like anyone who disagrees with you is a capital-B Bad and needs to just shut up and go back to preschool. Nope. Sorry. I've got plenty of idea what's wrong with this game. Quite a bit of it is questionable decisions PGI's made, and quite a bit of the rest is folks like you.

[MustrumRidcully]

MaddMaxx, on 24 July 2013 - 09:45 AM, said:

And as is, any Game that has more than 1 weapon has to have each separate weapon have some "statistical variety" to even begin to be "FUN" or Competitive. Otherwise the FIX is beyond simple.

Everyone gets just one weapon and it is the exact same for all. How utterly un-fun a game would that create.

We have been over this before. Game imbalance is a given and the perception of that imbalance is in the eye of the beholder.

Why does a PPC goes 1080m max., do 10 points of damage for 8 Heat?

Why does a AC10 go 1350m max., do 10 points of damage for only 3 heat?

Why don't all 10 point weapons go the same distance and have the same Heat? They do the same damage...

Hopefully CW will sort this out. Those who want that elusive PUG only queue will likely not play CW right off and the true LW and Mercs/House players will have their CW.

BUT, if anyone really thinks that will stop the cries for Nerfs and Buffs, please get a good grip. The ride will continue to be as bumpy then as it is now.

P.S. Good OP, OP.

That sounds to me like a ******** argument.
"Balanced means everything is exactly the same". No, that is not what balance means. Everything being the same means balance, but you don't need everything to be the same to have balance.

This is a balanced scale:


These items are balanced against each other. But they are very different items!

In terms of game balance, two items are balanced if they have equal power for the type of resource investment they take.

In the table top game, an AC/10 dealt 10 damage every 10 seconds for 3 heat.
A PPC dealt 10 damage every 10 seconds for 10 heat.
To compensate heat, you needed one heat sink for each point of heat a weapon produced per 10 seconds. Heat Sinks, Weapons and Ammo cost weight.

A PPC weighs 7 ton on its own, but the heat sinks brink it up to 17 tons.
An AC/10 weighs 12 ton on its own, the heat sinks brink it up to 15, and you need also ammo, for which you could use another 2 tons, which should suffice for a typical battle.

The PPC had a range of 540m, but it also had a minimum range of 90m. That means it worked well in a 450m range bracket.
The AC/10 had a range of 450m, but no minimum range. That means it worked well in a 450m range bracket.

These weapons were reasonably balanced, because the resource cost was equal and their power level is about equal. But they were still different - a PPC had a better max range. That would give it an advantage in long range engagements over the AC/10. But if the AC/10 user was able to get closer, he would not suffer from the minimum range penalty the PPC has, so he has an advantage at very short distances.

This is one of the easiest comparable examples in the table top, and no, it doesn't always work out so well for weapon comparisons. I omit of course the drawbacks of exploding ammo, which the PPC doesn't have and I think makes all ammo based weapons bad in the table top. TT is hardly a shining beacon of balance, but this is at least an example from the game to show what balance can be - it doesn't require identity.