Has a game ever felt so balanced that you thought trying different things was pointless?

[ZedClampet]

This wouldn't necessarily apply to all types of games, and it may be difficult to think of examples, but I'm talking about situations where you have a bunch of different options, but they all work out to the same result. For instance, one gun fires faster than another gun, but the other gun does more damage per shot so that after one second of continual firing they both do the same amount of damage. Or maybe one piece of armor blocks more damage, but another piece of armor gives proportionately faster health regeneration.

A real game example of this would be Forza Horizon. If you need to raise a car's rating from 600 to 800, there are many different ways to do it. Just to keep it simple, you can focus on speed or handling or on being balanced, but once you become a good and consistent driver, any rational upgrade yields the same results. There is one course I call 232 because no matter what A class car I run there, I always get a time of 2:32. I could run 5 different cars there and be within a couple thousandths of a second (naturally, in racing that makes a difference, but to casual players like myself it can feel like nothing is making a difference).

Or, and this is much more common, enemies scale perfectly to your increasing power. Most games strive for this, so there are many examples I'm sure you can think of.

Has any game felt so balanced in one way or another that you felt like struggling through options or loadouts was a waste of time?

 

[Pifanjr]

I think this is a pretty common phenomenom in games with a clear rock, paper, scissors mechanic. For example, in Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War, the game that inspired this thread, each unit seems to be either an infantry, vehicle or single entity type and each unit is particularly effective against one of those types. This means that units from different factions still feel very similar, as it's still just "infantry unit that's strong against vehicles", no matter what it looks like or what other minor attribute it might have.

However, it's not just units from different factions that feel the same, the game also kind of pushes you to focus your research on either infantry or vehicles, but both types have similar unit roles, so they feel the same. Combine that with the fact that you have to choose which one to specialise in from the very beginning and the result is that there really seems to be no strategic value in picking one choice over the other.

 

[Frag Maniac]

This wouldn't necessarily apply to all types of games, and it may be difficult to think of examples, but I'm talking about situations where you have a bunch of different options, but they all work out to the same result. For instance, one gun fires faster than another gun, but the other gun does more damage per shot so that after one second of continual firing they both do the same amount of damage. Or maybe one piece of armor blocks more damage, but another piece of armor gives proportionately faster health regeneration.

A real game example of this would be Forza Horizon. If you need to raise a car's rating from 600 to 800, there are many different ways to do it. Just to keep it simple, you can focus on speed or handling or on being balanced, but once you become a good and consistent driver, any rational upgrade yields the same results. There is one course I call 232 because no matter what A class car I run there, I always get a time of 2:32. I could run 5 different cars there and be within a couple thousandths of a second (naturally, in racing that makes a difference, but to casual players like myself it can feel like nothing is making a difference).

Or, and this is much more common, enemies scale perfectly to your increasing power. Most games strive for this, so there are many examples I'm sure you can think of.

Has any game felt so balanced in one way or another that you felt like struggling through options or loadouts was a waste of time?

Yeah most race games I play knowing the track well is the biggest factor at improving times, especially Supercross. You end up reaching a saturation point after learning techniques and playing with car/bike settings, and then can't get any better times.

I read this post btw while watching Ford v Ferrari for the 2nd time. That scene where Damon and Bale have a knock down drag out silly fight over an owed apology gets me every time, hilarious.

 

[Zloth]

For instance, one gun fires faster than another gun, but the other gun does more damage per shot so that after one second of continual firing they both do the same amount of damage.

That's not balanced. It's not so bad with such fast firing, but say you've got a laser that does little damage but does it constantly vs. a gun that can only shoot once every 30 seconds while hitting much harder. If you are just attacking a wall, both do the same average damage over time. However, in most games you are going to be better off with the slow gun. That gun lets you shoot, then hide for 30 seconds, while the other makes you constantly find a firing angle, which probably means exposing yourself to counterattacks. (It could get rebalanced by, say, making it easy for the enemy to hide from the big gun but set up a whole bunch of mirrors so the laser can shoot the enemy even while you stay behind cover.)

I'm having trouble coming up with any that are really balanced, though. I think there might be some RPGs where you can shoot a firebolt or a coldbolt or a lightning bolt, but all three do exactly the same damage. There will be some enemies that can resist one or two of these, but those resistances are spread out evenly. All in all, you're really just picking what color the bolt will be.

Or, and this is much more common, enemies scale perfectly to your increasing power. Most games strive for this, so there are many examples I'm sure you can think of.

Oh, yeah, bunches of those. Elder Scrolls games are the big example, though it isn't loadout that doesn't matter, it's which way you want to explore. I really love that about them. Go whichever way you want, the game will make that the right way to go. You can even change your mind and go another way - it will still work out fine!