WILL 121: Week 11

Some of the players in the documentary talk about a time when players were secretive about their techniques that they discovered themselves (before the internet and Youtube). How do you feel about this relative to what happens nowadays?

It was certainly valid to keep your techniques to yourself back then. It may not have been "fair" to some but it was effective as a method to maintain an advantage over your opponent. Nowadays, new mechanics in a competitive game tend to be revealed as soon as they are discovered. Players like to gain recognition for discovering an effective new technique.

Also, how do you feel about the format that Alex Valle chooses to use for the Wednesday Night Fights tournaments?

It's an effective format for player improvement and skill development. The competitive nature of this format gives players a huge incentive to hone their skills so that they can move up in the player tiers. This method of separating players based on performance occurs naturally in most competitive games. The truly skillful players will stand out and practice amongst themselves since they provide each other the most worthy challenge and ability to improve. Playing against lower skilled opponents doesn't allow for much room to improve oneself.

WILL 121: Week 10

At what point do you feel that a game becomes imbalanced? How do you feel about Maj's viewpoint?

A game becomes imbalanced when one tactic supersedes all others in effectiveness. This occurs in both multiplayer and single player games. For example, in the game Dragon Origins there are 3 classes: mage, warrior, rogue. The mage is superior in many ways to the other classes for it's ability to heal and attack from range. In competitive DotA and HoN, imbalances are harder to determine because the game is so dynamic. Each team consists of 5 players and there are 60+ heroes to choose from so there are many tactics to exploit that may seem imbalanced simply because of the combination of heroes chosen.

IMBA not UMBA-lanced! lol
I agree with him that it's unrealistic to expect balance in a game with a huge player pool or a large number of matchups. The best way to keep a game from being ruined by 1 or 2 power characters is probably just beta testing and/or patches.