What does Balanced mean?

The recent thread about enhancements for melee weapons spawned a thread about enhancements for firearms.

There was another thread about whether or not parry is too powerful. Or if guarded and two melee weapons is too powerful.

Can someone on staff come up with a general statement about "balance" as it comes to combat. By statement, I mean more than a sentence but less than a dissertation. Maybe two or three sentences about what "balance" means when it comes to combat and weapons and armor?

When I think of weapons in general, it seems obvious and intuitive to me that the weapons are not balanced against each other. A knife and a sword are not in the same category. A firearm and a melee weapon are different. An assailant with a pistol is going to lose to an assailant with an assault rifle 99.9% of the time.

I also realize that we are playing a game here. We don't want a meta setup where there is one "best" weapon. Or one best build. Given that, there needs to be some leeway given so that "every best solo in the game" is the one with the Xo3 + a ProTek cod-piece and a sniper rifle… or whatever.

I do not want the staff to reveal reams of FOIC information. At the same time, I think it would be helpful to manage expectations.

For example, "A character might be able to pick up a baton and hold their own against anything short of a firearm. But, there's no way, no matter how good they get, they're going to rush a pistol packing Judge and come out on top."

I will round this out with an RL example from law enforcement (in the United States). Police officers are trained to always be "one level above" when it comes to use of force.

If someone is aggressive and unarmed, they are trained to use a baton, taser or pepper spray. If the person has a melee weapon (knife, bat, etc.) they are trained to use a firearm.

If a person has a firearm, they are trained to contain the suspect and call for backup.

It is more formally called the continuum of force

https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/use-force-continuum

Given that this is a game, it is important to me (and I think to some others) that we understand what type of game we are playing here.

Are we playing a game that leans towards an off the charts, anime style power fantasy where someone like Casey Jones from TMNT is wading into hordes of sword wielding mementos with a hockey stick and coming out on top? Where a mona with an armored overcoat and a machete is leaping into a squad of firearm wielding corpsec and cutting them all down?

Or are we leaning more towards RL, where characters can think. "That person has a club, but I have a katana. Clearly, given equal skill levels, I'm going to slice that fool to shreds." ??

Not staff, and never have nuked out all the stats and damage calcs that go into a combat character. With that said, is it fun? I think balanced is when there are moments of sheer wreckhouse anime style madness, but that combat character isn't going to win every time, and has a weakness. The stats and skills mechanic doesn't have to be the source of that weakness, IMHO. RP is required. I also think that balanced doesn't mean your street samurai with a blade can't be taken down by a lucky brawler. If they're both on the top of their game, gear tuned right for the fight, then one on one they should be a good fight to watch. Armor, cyberware, stats, skills, drugs, all of that to me goes into a balanced fighting mechanic.

Balance means different things in different situations. Weapon balance means there is no one weapon that is far and away the better choice in all situations.

Armor balance means cost, damage reduction, availability, usability, repairability, and consistency are generally understood and make sense both ICly and OOCly.

Skill balancing means trying to ensure each skill brings something useful to the table that rewards players in a progressive fashion for devoting their UE to it (we are not here for all skills, see Decker).

Balancing can mean making sure the systems in the game support the end goal of the game: roleplay. If s system is negatively impacting roleplay or engagement with that system is sidelining people from roleplay, it may be unbalanced.

IC punishments need to be balanced. It might make IRL sense to banish someone when they keep commiting crimes but in a game that means taking one of the people stirring the pot the most and quite literally removing them from the city and sending them out to where the roleplay ISNT. Fines need to be balanced. Clone death needs to be balanced.

Balance means a proportionate response to stimuli be it PvP in how players respond to each other (perming someone for picking your pocket is extreme for example) or PvNPC (NPCs putting out a one million chyen bounty for a small slight is extreme).

Balance means measuring the response to OOC issues or unwelcome feedback and not making a situation worse.

Balance means giving up on the idea of a perfect system, and focusing on what people will actually use and enjoy and interact with.

Balance means a lot of things.