The Internal Balance of the Pyro

Well, first off, I'd like to return a shout-out to Shadowfred - my friend Scott.

His goal is designing or programming games, both if necessary - so he's kind of similar to me, except I'd rather take the programming route into just design.

Anyway, he's working on a game called Jungle Hat Madness 2 - and he'll be updating his blog with progress, so, give it a look: http://shadowfred.blogspot.com/

Anyway, a few people really liked my Undeadables article as it has a more practical display of design philosophy. Rather than me just saying "you should do this" and "a balanced game should have this", it dealt with a real example where I had to solve some issues with an idea I have loved to develop. It was a little tricky though, as, when you hold an idea close to you - it's hard to be critiqued on it, and it's hard to steer it in a different direction to what you had set in mind.

The Internal Balance of the Pyro

Anyway, I want to make another practical post today - as they're always useful as demonstrations, and today's relates to Team Fortress 2 - and the internal balance of the Pyro.

I use the term Internal as I did with Internal Content Redundancy - in the way that it relates to the options given to the Pyro when not in actually actively engaged in gameplay - so it reflects his choice of items, mostly.

The Problem

The Pyro suffers from great Internal Content Redundancy - but, well, first we'll just lay down the basics for the Pyro - so those who don't play Team Fortress 2 can understand.

The Pyro is a close range ambush class, who has above average health (175), with average movement speed (100%).

The Pyro has 6 weapons, 2 Primaries (Flamethrower / Backburner), 2 Secondaries (Shotgun / Flare Gun), 2 Melee (Fire Axe / Axtinguisher).

The Flamethrower has the Airblast ability that can reflect projectiles (mainly rockets), disrupt enemy movement (even if the enemy is invincible in an Ubercharge), and it can extinguish burning teammates. The Backburner - the other Primary that can be chosen, loses the Airblast but gains critical hits when attacking the enemy's back. This is supposed to function primarily as a strong ambush weapon, while losing the utility of the Flamethrower.

The Backburner is widely considered to be inferior to the Flamethrower, and the Fire Axe is considered to be inferior to the Axtinguisher (The Axtinguisher has a strong killing ability and combos really well with the Flamethower's airblast - the Fire Axe has nothing of the sort). The Flamethrower and Axtinguisher are considered balanced - so this is not a matter of nerfing those.

The Backburner is redundant because the trade-off the Pyro makes is unfavourable - he loses defence and support ability for ambush ability - that he unfortunately has great trouble utilising.

I'll put it into perspective - there are 3 specialised ambush classes in Team Fortress 2: The Scout, the Spy, and the Pyro.

The Scout is able to ambush effectively, as his speed allows him to trespass effectively, getting behind key players. His small frame also helps with hiding in wait.

The Spy has the cloak ability, which makes him completely invisible, allowing him to sneak past enemy lines. He also has a slender frame - allowing him to hide around corners more effectively.

Redefining the Problem:

The Pyro doesn't have the speed necessary to function as a Scout, and he of course doesn't have the Spy's cloak - the only thing he does have is his higher health (both Scout and Spy are 125hp classes). This often means that the Backburner Pyro has to battle and push his way through enemies to get around them - which doesn't work as he makes himself known (subsequent ambushes are less likely to succeed), and with his lesser combat ability due to the loss of the Airblast - it often means he dies trying to get around the enemy team.

So he needs a change in his ambushing ability - you can either increase his capacity to push through enemies - or change his style of ambushing from pushing to stealth, or speed-oriented maneuvering.

Now, if you read my post on Content Redundancy - you're likly thinking that we should increase the Pyro's pushing power, so that he doesn't encroach the Spy's stealth or the Scout's speed. The only issue is - Valve saw this issue with the Backburner when they released the Pyro update and included a +50hp buff on it, so the Pyro could survive to get behind the enemy team. This however had the side-effect of making the Pyro too effective in general combat, so rather than ambushing, he ran right up to people instead of flanking. This health was promptly removed as it upset the class balance of the game (this is actually something I'll talk about in another post - conservative balancing).

The Solution:

Anyway, with all this in mind, hopefully we have enough information to create a list of criteria and constraints.

The fix should increase the Pyro's ambush ability, while not doing any of the following:

• The fix should not increase the Pyro's combat ability (as that will lead to a more combative playstyle rather than an ambush focused play style)
• The fix should not be a general buff to the Pyro (it would upset class balance)
• The fix should not heavily affect the Flamethrower or Axtinguisher (They don't need more power, or to be nerfed - more options are good though)
• The fix should directly address the issue of the Pyro's lack of ambush ability.
• The fix should not encroach on other class's roles and special traits.
• The fix should not heavily change the Pyro, his role, or the primary abilities of the weapons at hand.

At this point, I'd like you to try and think of your own fix before reading about mine.

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My Solution:

Okay.

My fix was a little roundabout.

First of all, I thought that the Backburner should have access to a 'mini-blast' of sorts - which is a small burst of air activated by right click (costing maybe 5-10 ammo) that merely extinguishes teammates. This is just so the Backburner can be used for some support - without your allies wanting you to use the Flamethrower so you can extinguish them.

Second, I decided that the best way to increase the Pyro's ambushing ability was to increase his speed. Frankly, as we covered - wading through enemies to ambush them is pointless, and leads to imbalance when you try and increase a class's defensive abilities. Also, we couldn't give the Pyro any amount of cloak, as it would severely encroach on the Spy's role, and it wouldn't fit with the Pyro at all.

But, I'm not saying that I made the Pyro faster all the time. I made him faster not when he was holding the Backburner (that would be a general increase to his combat ability) - but when he was holding the Fire Axe.

This means that, when the Fire Axe is a Pyro's active weapon, he runs somewhat faster (not nearly as fast as a Scout - that would be encroaching) to get around his opponents.

Justification:

You might be asking "But Zanda - isn't this a bad fix as it doesn't fix the Backburner directly - but complicates things by solving the issue through a different item?" - I know I asked myself the very same question.

I decided that there was no real issue with the Backburner itself aside from its lack of utility. Its lack of movement disruption and inability to reflect projectiles can be made up for with the crits from behind. The main issue, however, was the Pyro's lack of movement ability.

So - rather than considering this a fix to the Backburner, I would consider this a fix to the Pyro that arises from the analysis of the failure of the Backburner - that subsequently increases the Backburner's viability in general play.

The other plus side of it being assosciated with the Fire Axe, is that the Fire Axe was considered redundant and now hopefully will not be, but also, Airblast Pyros who would prefer movement ability over their powerful Axtinguish combo may also use it.

You may say that this makes Airblast Pyros more powerful, but truly, it doesn't. As said, they lose the Axtinguisher Combo - but they also don't gain a lot from being faster. The Flamethrower without the Axtinguisher isn't amazing for ambushing, but also, while moving, a Flamethrower Pyro will often hold the Flamethrower so he can airblast projectiles away. Obviously you can't hold both the Flamethrower and Axe out at once, so, there you go.

The final point I need to address is that this doesn't really affect his combat ability, or class balance as he must have a melee weapon as his active weapon to get the speed boost - which is easily beaten by most classes - the main class that would have trouble is likely the Sniper, who shouldn't be in close combat anyway.

Well, truly, as the Backburner is a close range weapon - most classes would think themselves lucky that the Pyro's holding the Axe and not it anyway.

So, feel free to post your solutions, I hope you liked mine - as it's what I have implemented for my TF2 Mod.