It's Balance Time

[Karawasa]

It is a good time to revisit the state of balance in anticipation of the 4.2. I believe with the 4.1 we did a good job given the nature of development at that point. Now that things have settled down, we can apply more focus along with a better method to achieve optimal results. There are two areas of balance, and I propose we do things differently for both.

Micro

Previous incarnations of micro balance could be summed up as "everyone give me your view on all the towers, or all the towers that have problems." This resulted in a lot of apple and orange comparisons and ultimately I ended up deciding which results to pay attention to.

This time around I propose we have some more direction. I believe having agreed upon bases and methods will work out much better for us. What do I mean by this? I propose we balance all the damage duals relative to one that we all agree is balanced, and likewise for damage triples. I also propose that in testing relative balance we all use the same methods (such as how many creeps do I leak this wave, or what is the DPS over the period etc.).

To start the process, we need to agree on some things. I'd like everyone to post one damage dual and one damage triple that they considered as balanced. I'd also like everyone to list the methods they used or would like to use in testing balance.

Macro

Previous incarnations involved holepercent doing the heavy lifting along with some fancy tables created. holepercent has offered to tackle the macro once again.

What I would like to do differently this time around is divide the work more clearly. If holepercent excludes himself from micro testing, he can focus on macro better. The same applies to the rest of the team and excluding macro.

What I am unsure about is whether to allocate an additional person to macro. I think it would be worthwhile to have a second opinion, but the second person can't share work with holepercent given the nature of macro balance. Is anyone else interested in taking on macro balance over micro?

[holepercent]

Is this still the balance plan? Seems like there is no discussion..