Community-based PvP Balance

[RootRanger]

Community-based PvP Balance

The problem
Put simply, PvP is unbalanced. Certain cards and strategies are far stronger than the rest of the cards. These imbalanced cards and strategies are used too much, which makes the metagame less fun and not as interesting.

The community should control PvP balance.
The community, specifically the skilled players of PvP, have a larger understanding of competitive PvP than zanz does. They have played more PvP and know the metagame far more well. It makes sense that the more experienced players know what is best for balancing the game better than someone without very much PvP experience. Another reason is that zanz might not always intend to balance the game purely based on PvP. This wouldn't surprise me, because players interested in competitive PvP make up a very small minority compared to players only interested in playing the AI and playing Arena. Ideally, the PvP community would balance PvP.

The community can balance PvP.
Competitive PvP is run almost completely by the community. The community hosts leagues, tournaments, and more. The community also controls the rules of these events and potential banned cards. By banning cards that have a negative effect on the metagame, competitive PvP can be improved by the community.

Changes to the Leagues
In order for players to know what to ban, it helps to have an unrestricted test environment. It would be best to have the League schedule slightly changed. There would be an unrestricted testing season for one month and a restricted full season for three months, each twice a year. The unrestricted testing season would have smaller prizes due to its shorter length. Its main purpose would be to help players determine which cards are imbalanced in an unrestricted metagame. The restricted full season will not allow cards banned by the PvP Council.

The PvP Council
The PvP Council will be a small group of skilled, experienced, active PvP players that develop the League Ban List. The PvP Council will likely consist of around 9 players, but the size is not certain. These players will be chosen shortly after the end of the unrestricted testing league season. The PvP Council will discuss and vote on which cards should be banned.

Choosing the PvP Council
I have in mind three different options for choosing the PvP Council. I have briefly listed their pros and cons.

- PvP Organizers appoint PvP Council Members.
With this option, the League Organizers, Tournament Organizers, PvP Event Organizers, Warmasters, and Trialmasters appoint the PvP Council members.
Pros: The PvP Council is chosen by knowledgeable, experienced forum members. These members can weigh PvP ability with other factors, such as player personalities and general forum activity.
Cons: The decision is chosen by humans, which means statistical information about players could be weighed improperly. Also, there are few players involved in the selection of the PvP Council Members; the sample size is small.

- The entire community votes on PvP Council Members.
Pros: Every member has a vote and influences the results. There are more players involved in the selection of the PvP Council Members; the sample size is large.
Cons: There are many uninformed and inexperienced voters. Also, the decision is chosen by humans, which means statistical information about players could be weighed improperly.

- PvP Organizers design a point system to choose PvP Council Members.
The PvP Organizers throughout the forum would give different point values to different PvP achievements, such as tournament wins and league ratings. The PvP Council spots would be given to players with the highest point totals.
Pros: The PvP Council members are chosen purely by statistics; there is little bias in the system. There is also more competition in PvP because the PvP Council spots will be chosen purely by overall PvP performance.
Cons: The specific point values would be hard to determine and widely debated. Also, information such as player personalities and general forum activity would not be considered.

Changes to competitive PvP
The League Ban List not only applies to the restricted League seasons, but also acts as a guideline for competitive PvP. Other PvP competitions do not have to use the League Ban List, but they are recommended to prevent the cards on the League Ban List from being overpowered in their events. PvP Events that would not originally have restrictions on banned cards (Team PvP, There Can Only Be One, and others) are recommended to incorporate the PvP Council Ban List.

Conclusion
If the PvP Council is created and the Leagues are modified, competitive PvP will greatly improve. Instead of playing in an unbalanced metagame and hoping for zanz to nerf overpowered cards, the metagame will be balanced by the most experienced and skilled players of the community.  More different types of decks will become competitively viable, and originality will be rewarded. Competitive PvP will be better and far more interesting than ever before.

[Zeru]

I approve!

[Jocko]

I like the idea but i'd have to see some examples.
What would YOU ban, if you were the 9 pvp councils, on the leagues?

[Cheesy111]

Let's say that after testing in the unrestricted test environment of Leagues, Nova is determined to be OP and is banned while nothing else is (this is an example, please bear with me).  This in turn causes the rise of Discord to power, after which it is then OP in the new restricted meta and should be banned, which leads to certain monos being overpowered, etc.  How can we develop such a ban list without such a domino effect that just leaves us with different overpowered cards in the new meta instead of many balanced cards?

[Silver]

I think this is a good idea and it would be great if it were to happen!

But I dunno if you can really say that it "should" be this way. Despite how much the community gives, it's still the dev's property and he isn't under any obligation to even listen to the community, really.

[plastiqe]

I don't get what the pvp council is supposed to achieve.  Is it just for leagues?  Do they make a universal ban list?  Are they lobbyists for balance changes to actual in game cards?  I think we have enough bureaucratic titles around here that we don't need to add any more.

I would be willing to concede that upgraded cards are supposed to be balanced against the AI if we got unupgraded cards balanced around PvP.  Unupped is a lot closer to balanced already, and they're accesible to everyone so it makes the most sense to me. 

Also, ban shards 4ever.

[RootRanger]

I like the idea but i'd have to see some examples.
What would YOU ban, if you were the 9 pvp councils, on the leagues?

In my opinion, the ideal metagame would encourage originality, prevent any deck from becoming too strong, and still allow people to use cards they like. The ideal ban list would need to be effective enough without stifling too many cards and strategies. Overpowered strategies would need to be weakened or stopped through bans. This would create new top strategies, and if these were overpowered, they would need to be weakened or stopped through bans. You might be thinking that this would just cause an infinite ban chain until there are no cards left to use, but a more stable metagame can be made with less than a dozen bans. I lack CL experience in the last season, and have not entered BL in the last two seasons. My perspective is outdated. However, I have a good image of the 1.28 metagame and how it should be balanced. I feel that the bans for Sideboard do a very good job of improving the 1.28 metagame.

Dimensional Shield
Devourer
Bone Wall
Graboid
Discord
Fire Bolt
Ghost of the Past

As you will notice, the dominant, overpowered decks have been weakened or banned. Yet, I feel confident that there are not new overpowered strategies of the same magnitude of 1.28 Grabbow, Firestall, and GotP/N. For example, since Grabbow and Firestall no longer were options, Discord became far more stronger. Thus, Discord was banned. Discord was not preventing anything from being overpowered, and thus the "ban chain" ends. The result is a stabler metagame, or so I believe. If you want to follow how this ban list goes in practice, you can keep track of the Sideboard event.

Let's say that after testing in the unrestricted test environment of Leagues, Nova is determined to be OP and is banned while nothing else is (this is an example, please bear with me).  This in turn causes the rise of Discord to power, after which it is then OP in the new restricted meta and should be banned, which leads to certain monos being overpowered, etc.  How can we develop such a ban list without such a domino effect that just leaves us with different overpowered cards in the new meta instead of many balanced cards?

The players involved with the League Ban List will have a strong knowledge of the metagame and deck matchups. When a card is being considered for banning, its removal from the metagame will be deeply examined before being put into practice. The "domino effect" will eventually wear out because the new cards that rise to the top are not as strong as the overpowered cards before it previously were. If Nova were to be banned, Discord would be almost as strong and also be banned. Then, however, the domino effect greatly slows down. Without Discord and Nova, Monos are indeed stronger than before, but they are not as strong as Discord and Nova used to be. I strongly believe that a new and better metagame can be found.

I don't get what the pvp council is supposed to achieve.  Is it just for leagues?  Do they make a universal ban list?  Are they lobbyists for balance changes to actual in game cards?  I think we have enough bureaucratic titles around here that we don't need to add any more.

The PvP Council develops the League Ban List. This League Ban List bans cards in the restricted league seasons. The League Ban List is then recommended to be used by PvP Events that do not have strong restrictions. For example, There Can Only Be One would be suggested to use the League Ban List because TCOB1 has few restrictions on its own, and the League Ban List applies well to it. Grid, on the other hand, would not be recommended to incorporate the League Ban List because Grid already has its own unique restrictions. The League Ban Council is not intended to influence how zanz balance actual in game cards.

I would be willing to concede that upgraded cards are supposed to be balanced against the AI if we got unupgraded cards balanced around PvP.  Unupped is a lot closer to balanced already, and they're accesible to everyone so it makes the most sense to me. 

Well, some players would rather play in the upgraded metagame. Community-based PvP Balance can improve the upgraded metagame, giving these players a better experience. Plus, while the unupped metagame is seen by most as a better metagame for PvP, there is still room for improvement.

[Jocko]

I like it. Would have to play with it some, but i'm going to keep track of sideboard like you said.

[Jenkar]

Just a note : as of now, we're develloping (we => los + xeno) a tool that could allow for the testing of balance of the metagame.

I personally dislike the separation of leagues, since the number of codees we have/season is limited. Cutting it exactly in half was hard to equalise bl & cl. Cutting into 4 pieces, of two different sizes, shall be even harder, and  probably not very possible while staying fair.

[Skotadi Phobos]

I would like to see this happen, especially in the leagues.

[OldTrees]

If done right, this would be a great benefit.

This would have the side effect that a lot of the data we obtain about the balance of the game would instead be telling us about the balance of the community system.

It would be important to keep the Banhammer in check.

[ralouf]

Yes Approved.