Today we're going to talk about something. We're going to talk about Game Balance. But see, here's the thing...
I'm not an expert on X-Wing. I am however, very knowledgeable about the weapon sandbox in another beloved game. Halo.
I've played Halo since Halo 2's release, and after Halo 4 I took a three year break, but was brought back by 5's Forge and Multiplayer offerings- and I should state here and now, that while I was never a big multiplayer / PvP guy, Multiplayer is the topic.
I promise you that by the end of this post, you will see why the state of Halo's multiplayer is similar to the state of X-Wing, and why game design philosophy is not only never simple, but more intricate than any one of us can really grasp, even guys like me who like to write things big enough and large enough for articles. Let's begin.
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Halo is a truly legendary game, beloved by its millions of fans for just as many reasons. Some have never touched the single player, some have never touched the multiplayer, and some rarely touch either in their raw forms. This is a game that has mass appeal for more reasons than most contemporary titles can compare to. But how did it get here? How did it reach this mythic state in gaming?
The first game was unlike any shooter than had come before it. It had similar ideas to some, but brand new ideas of its own. To say Halo is unoriginal is false, though to say it is a new take on ideas already explored is accurate. Halo is to First Person Shooters what X-Wing is to miniatures gaming. A newer, much more freeform, simple in function but intricate in design game. Halo was very good at making waves- between its wonderful setting and story, alongside a multiplayer that people will be talking about in old folks homes, regaling others with tales of LAN parties, it made a global impact on consumers and the gaming market.
If you play miniatures game, to have not heard of or witnessed X-Wing's mass market appeal is to have lived in the same abode as one Patrick Star. Which is pretty impressive.
But like any popular developer, both Fantasy Flight Games and Bungie had to find a way to keep interest going. Features had to be added to their next iteration of the game, or next few waves of releases.
Bungie was definitely more successful than Fantasy Flight Games here. Epic play and some hit or miss ships defined waves 3-5. Some things even utterly changed the meta, and that's partially what we're going to focus on.
Halo 2 brought with it a lot of wonderful things. But it made a horrible mis-step that still exists in the franchise today.
The BR55. Otherwise known as the Battle Rifle.
This is a precision weapon that fires three round bursts in a narrow cone/spread with a magazine capacity of 36, allowing twelve squeezes of the trigger. On paper it is a more balanced replacement to the horribly broken yet equally beloved M6D of Halo:CE. Except, it's more broken. Oh so much more broken, and eventually Bungie would realize this, but the wider gaming public didn't. The wider public saw an effective weapon, a jack of all trades, an insurmountable tool that defined Halo's sandbox for several years.
We call this a Meta. Halo 2's Multiplayer revolved around the Battle Rifle. It was useful because it offered one feature for every shot it fired per pull.
Bullet Magnetism
Headshot capability
Room for Error
Before Halo 5, there were two kinds of weapons in Halo. Weapons that got a headshot kill bonus, and ones that didn't. We call the former, Precision weapons.
Bullet Magnetism is a feature in console-designed games that helps the round find its target to offset the clumsy aiming of thumbsticks. It's a necessary evil, as without it... Well, try fighting your team and you'll find that landing those hits is much more difficult without Aim Assist and Bullet Magnetism. But we're straying from the point. That being...
What does this mean? In the Battle Rifle, you theoretically have the capacity to get thirty-six one shot kills. You actually can cancel partway through the burst with a melee, but nobody does this. It is however, possible. It has the highest precision kill potential in the entire Halo sandbox to date, beat out only by Halo 5's "Extended Magazine" Battle Rifle subtype in Warzone.
But what relevance does this have to X-Wing? I'm getting there.
The Battle Rifle is touted as a skillful weapon. Those who use it and nothing but it were seen as the top dogs in Halo 2, and the MLG scene was where the Battle Rifle was made king. The thing is, with the capacity to allow thirty six headshots, with such strong magnetism, with high aim assist...
The Battle Rifle is one of the easiest, and thus, least skillful weapons in the entire Halo legacy. However, its adherents refuse to see it as such. it defined a meta, and Bungie worked hard to get rid of this meta.
In Wave 4 of X-Wing, we had a similar thing- though it was actually difficult to use, it was very hard to counter. The TIE Phantom, which gave rise to Fat turrets. That debate is long gone, but the Battle Rifle's influence is not.
And neither is X-Wing's troubled meta.
Most metas are defined by the tools that allow the widest array of options with the largest room for error. Attani Mindlink is a very good example of a very abusable card that can help define a meta, and previously, the Jumpmaster 5000 with torpedoes of various types was unstoppable.
But this does stray from the point.
Let's get into Halo 5.
Halo 5 is a troubled game, but its actual gameplay mechanics are solid and balanced. However, since Halo: Reach there has been a significant rift in the Halo community.
Some of us do not like all the extra "Armor Abilities" and now our native "Spartan Abilities". Personally, I never really minded. I like it all. But it is a compounded layer of intricacy that heavily disrupts the Arena flow of Halo. Halo is an Arena shooter, like Quake or DOOM. Every weapon, every tool has a designed purpose and counter. Counterplay is key to game design.
The issue is, the more you add, the more is compounded, the harder it is to take all gameplay mechanics into account.
That is the core of this. When you have this many mechanics, this many problems with half as many solutions, you find what works, you use it, and it will likely be very versatile, capable of dealing with the most problems. This is how you get a Meta.
Very often, that meta will define the next iteration of your game. Every meta has a solution next wave, or some kind of attempted counter. Then new ones spawn, and are dealt with later.
There is a reason I dislike Metas. They revolve around one thing, where a fun game absolutely should not revolve around one tool. Games like X-Wing are designed with an, "Everything, Viable" mindset to start with. But as playtesting becomes more and more complicated, as balance becomes more and more difficult in your own set rules (For instance, how the highest native firepower we've gotten is 4, and how we've yet to see a three agility ship), it gets almost impossible to really balance everything.
FFG tried a bunch of new things. Trolls, Sloops, actions over actions, nigh secondary actions, crews that defined how we played, upgrades that brought more than one asset to the table, and the biggest change yet is repositioning.
However, FFG does not have the same advantage companies like Bungie did.
They can't just make previous content irrelevant by rule. Releasing a new game entirely carries over some but not all things, typically what didn't work is not carried forward. FFG has a persistent game that we have little word on a second edition, which will completely destroy particular aspects of the game entirely, or overhaul them in a balanced format. At this point and time, X-Wing is impossible to balance without Errata.
Sadly...
Balancing X-Wing is not as simple as removing its Battle Rifle, Armor Abilities, or Spartan Abilities. Instead of removing them, more must be added to counteract them, compounding intricacies over further intricacies.
Which may yet bring further problems.
