Reply To: [unofficiall weekender] What? Friday already?!

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1) What is, in your experience and opinion, the most balanced game?

Tic-tac-toe is a perfectly balanced because equally skilled opponents are only ever going to get a draw.
I’d also argue that it is proof that a perfectly balanced game is boring as heck.

2) Have you ever play tested a game, gave feedback and if so, did it change anything? Tell us!
Although I’ve seen plenty of beta stage rules during kickstarter updates I never had time to test them.
Reading the developers thoughts during such playtesting stages was far more interesting, because it shows how tricky their job really is.

Playtesting is a job that deserves more credit than it’s given. In software development a good tester is worth his/her weight in gold platinum. I’m pretty sure the same applies to game development.
I therefor also believe that the average gamer is not suited to playtesting. They don’t know how to create test scenarios that allow them to make or break the game. Never mind providing feedback in a way that is useful.

3) Has any update, errata, rules update totally broken a game for you personally? If so, what was it?
I’m not a competitive player, so I’m not too bothered when rule updates make certain things ‘better’ or ‘worse’.
As such I also haven’t experienced a game-breaking update.
In my experience the (dis)advantages after the inevitable update tended to be minimal and were usually more the result of players discovering that their ‘winning’ strategy wasn’t working so they chose to complain about rules instead of fixing their own poor choices.

People simply don’t understand that ‘balance’ does not mean that X can defeat Y at any given time.
You can’t expect soldiers with pistols to damage tanks.

The ‘balance’ is in having a winning strategy available … retreating in order to survive and/or call in backup is a good strategy.
Wether or not you get to use that strategy depends on your opponent who isn’t going to roll over and die for your pleasure.