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How a class based system will never be balanced
-Zeno-
Member CommonPosts: 1,298
In a class based system, you always have the rock paper and sissors game. One class can kill another. That is not fair on the individual player level and when developers try to adjust the system FOTM's are born.
The fix is a skill based system without caps. That puts the ball in the players court and not their charactor. How good you are will determine how well you compete. You still have progression and a newbie will lose to a vet just like a level based game but if that newbie is good enough they can catch up to the vet quickly.
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Comments
I'm sorry. Use periods, commas and other grammatical devices because I did not understand that at all.
Is this suppose to be new?
I think most people have figure that out on their first MMO.
"you are like the world revenge on sarcasm, you know that?"
One of those great lines from The Secret World
You are correct and that is the best system in my mind as well, but that still is not balanced. There will always be cookie cutter FOTMs based on what some people decide is the most powerful. Remember, most people are not clever enough to come up with their own skill configurations, and even if they were, many do not want to. There will always be skills people say to get very high and some skills people say are useless, even if that is not the case. That is just human nature.
Having a skill-based system is not a fix for balance. Balance is something that game designers need to keep their focus on, and it is incredibly difficult to maintain a close enough balance that most or all character models are competitive.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
Balance is non existant and it will always be non existant! There will always be some skill or attribute or whatever that could be used in a ways developers did not think of it while putting it in game.
No - classless systems are not the solution to balance issues since they themselves are subject to "skill balance". Yes - balance is a worthy goal to pursue no matter how impossible it might be. RPS is in the core of almost every game. It makes the game fun.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I have always been a skill based game advocate. The best MMO's I have played have been based on it. The problem with class based games is too many of the players are focused on getting to end game and then once there need something to do, while in a skill based game, if done right, there is always another skill to learn. The players who are end game focused don't like that.
As to balance, I have seen skills be just as under or over powered as classes are. The point of a MMO is to play with others, so classes and/or skills should compliment one another. Any MMO that wastes time on balancing solo players is really ignoring what the genre is all about.
If the fights aren't that fast paced, like they were in WoW's Burning Crusade, 1v1 balance can be actually quite good(I remember when I beat full S3 SL/SL locks on my shadow priest). It was fun, before WOTLK ruined this aspect by introducing completely twich-based battles. On the other hand, don't consider 1v1 balance the only balance possible.
There will never be a MMO with any relative balance that makes all classes able to beat all classes in 1v1, assuming the same gear/attributes/skills level. That's why FPS are the only things that could be classified as e-sport. A MMORPG with FPS aiming will still suffer from gear/atrribute differences but will make it harder for an average skilled opponent to beat a skilled opponent.
Just don't play a MMO for 1v1 balance. It will never happen.
I'm curious how much "balance" is affected by whiners on the forums and if dev's actually listen or do internal testing to determine what class is deemed overpowered. For example in DAOC, most of the players were in Albion. Due to their larger population they had a larger amount of whining then other realms. This seemed to affect the DAOC dev's not unlike when a parent hears a baby crying. The dev's got so tired of hearing the baby cry they decided to give them what they wanted and did this ridiculous nerf to left axe making the class a laughing stock. Not since SWG's NGU did so many people cancel their accounts.
I really don't know why a skilled base system would be more balanced?
If everyone had the same accesss to skills wouldn't someone just figure out on paper what the best skill mix is and then EVERYONE just spec that way? You would have just one gigantic FOTM. Sure it might be balanced for the drones that would just copycat the fotm build but it would beunfair to anyone who wanted some variety. You might as well just make an mmo with one class and you only get one set of skills as you level.
Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of some skill based MMO's but they are definitly not and will never be "more balanced" then class based MMO's.
Every time I see these posts I always think of "WoW" because that game is heavy induced into that rock paper scissors mechanic.
Here are some examples of what class balance is NOT.
A: If the DPS can do high damage, then the healer and tank need to be on par damage
B: All classes need to be equal and thus this takes away from diversity among classes.
Class Balance is this - You balance the class' powerful abilities with a penalty. If a certain class has too many features that can override another classes features then there has to be some sort of a penalty. That is what class balance is. I really believe only a very few people comprehend this subject. Understand class design and then you will understand class balance.
Example: If a tank class can excel its cap damage above his archetype then his defense and mitigation should be substantially decreased as it's penalty to do beyond what their "cap" is.
It is not the best system but the simplest. The best system would be something like the old GURPS roleplaying game, where you build your own class by buying abilities and skills based on a point system. It works in pen and paper games (GURPS and Amber are 2 games that usues it well but there are others. However is this a really hard work to balance, a lot harder than classes.
Skill based systems are probably slightly easier to balance but not much.
And there are some games that actually have good balance, like Guildwars. They did spend a lot of work on it however.
But balance is really only important for PvP games, in PvE games they should instead focus on letting all classes have something good to bring the group. Exact balance is not something you need in PvE as long as everyone is useful.
PvP is a totaly different thing. Here you can either go rock, scissors, paper or try to make all classes equally.
But it is possible to balance classes for PvP, you just have to do like Arenanet and have a full time employe just watch PvP and make suggestions until the classes are even.
Skill-based with no caps means everyone's the same.
"Everyone's the same" is not an RPG. Furthermore, the gain in balance isn't worth the dramatic loss in interesting gameplay. This is why even non-RPGs incorporate class/playstyle choices (TF2), because the gains in interesting gameplay are so strong that they easily outweigh the reduction in balance.
In asymmetric games, you can never reach True Balance, but you can get close enough that 99% of your players won't be able to tell the difference. (granted, 80% of the playerbase will complain about balance even if your game was truly balanced.)
Or does it take time to get skills? Then you've created a system prone to FOTM (which was your entire rationalization for moving away from the class structure.)
Skills vs. Levels isn't an argument - they're merely two different ways to organize and distribute the abilities players get. However if you don't impose good limitations, either system can suck. Personally I'm waiting for someone to finally do a Skills-based system in a way that doesn't totally suck. It's possible, but games just don't choose to do it (because admittedly: it's hard to impose the correct restrictions on skills to avoid making the system imbalanced.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I have played games where the classes where unbalanced, and is more fun than these games where the games are balanced AND all fell the same.
I don't see the appeal for balanced classes. As a gamer, I get more fun with unbalanced classes.
In summary. This doesn't make any sense.
One example of balance;
WOW, Horde had Shaman & the Alliance Paladins. Shamans had totems which only benefited the group IF they stayed within range of the totem. Paladin auras buffed the entire raid, they also had abilities horde didn't notably deaggro. Mostly those mages or huntards who didn't understand aggro were placed in the newb group with the paladin.
Alliance would complain about shaman, it was unfair in low level BG's because they could turn into a ghost wolf at 20th and run with the flag it was unfair advantage, windfury waaaaahhh....
People complained and complained about this balance issue.
Solution. Give horde paladins & alliance Shaman.
It worked. Relatively easy fix. No nerfs, no stealth nerfs, no buffing one class and nerfing the other.
Other games should look at that example.
DAOC, waaaah berserker killed me with doublefrost. Result, nerf left axe by ridiculous amounts making zerk dps laughable while at the same time giving mercs and blademasters stealth buffs to their dps. Result, accounts cancelled en masse.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
It is not the best system but the simplest. The best system would be something like the old GURPS roleplaying game, where you build your own class by buying abilities and skills based on a point system. It works in pen and paper games (GURPS and Amber are 2 games that usues it well but there are others. However is this a really hard work to balance, a lot harder than classes.
Skill based systems are probably slightly easier to balance but not much.
And there are some games that actually have good balance, like Guildwars. They did spend a lot of work on it however.
But balance is really only important for PvP games, in PvE games they should instead focus on letting all classes have something good to bring the group. Exact balance is not something you need in PvE as long as everyone is useful.
PvP is a totaly different thing. Here you can either go rock, scissors, paper or try to make all classes equally.
But it is possible to balance classes for PvP, you just have to do like Arenanet and have a full time employe just watch PvP and make suggestions until the classes are even.
I agree. My favorite system is Gurps where you can buy your skills with points you earn, rather than mindlessly do something over and over to improve it.
What I find quite funny is that the OP is a Darkfall player: A game where everybody is exactly the same. Class system improves individuality.
Class balanced??? All I know is a priest should never ever be able to kill a warrior, I don't care how much magic you know or what level you are.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Skill based systems generally suffer more of FotM phenomenon. There is 1 good skill allocation method and everyone uses that. Or there are 2-3, it is the same.
This is if you have to choose. There are even worse cases that you don't even have to choose. Ryzom for example has a skill based system but you can max everything. This means you have an "RPG" where everyone knows everything. It isn't fun.
Guild Wars isn't a very good case of class balance either imo. The 2ndary profession worked sometimes like the case above - if they were adding an OPed skill, everyone could get it through their 2ndary prof. and again many people were playing the same thing. "Ursan Blessing" was a prime example of this and you didn't even need to change your 2ndary. Also the fact that on GW one player could have a lot of alts easily on max level (20), is another reason that people get the feeling that GW is good balanced, cause they have (almost) every class. This btw had a very bad impact on the game. Most of these people didn't knew to properly play most of their alts.
What is really going on here is that we have people whining about balance on games that it takes a long time for the player to get himself locked on an imbalanced character (overpowered or underpowered) and that's typically class based games.
The dagger skill on Ryzom really sucks but nobody complains about it cause you can just ignore it and use other type of weapons.
On GW while you have classes, it is really easy to max a new alt so again nobody complains about class imbalance. Also skill imbalance isn't an issue with the 2ndaries.
So what we have here isn't better balanced games, rather than games where imbalance isn't so much pain in the ass. For that reason class based systems tend to be/become more balanced after time cause people whine about it more than in skill based systems.
Also another thing to note is that balance in MMOs is something that should be approached in a group context. The most important thing is that all classes are useful in a group context, whether PvE or PvP. Cause true balance is really hard.
Another thing to note is that you can have classes but not levels. (also you could have levels but neither classes or skills). I don't know of any MMO that has done that but in theory it is possible. You just have to invent another reason to keep people playing, like money or gear.
So far, the most balanced game i had played would be Warhammer Online imo. And i had played it on both sides about equal amount of time.
"Traditionally, massively multiplier online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars combat, exploration and character progression. In Alganon, in addition to these we've added the fourth pillar to the equation: Copy & Paste."
No sensible person disagrees that symmetrical games are balanced.
But most sensible people also agree that asymmetrical games tend to be more interesting games, and allow for more personal expression. RPGs wouldn't be nearly as popular if you always played the same exact character.
The reason Blizzard's decision makes sense is that each bit of asymmetry a game has requires more balance effort, and they didn't want to spend the huge amount of balance effort it would take to keep PVE balanced with two truly different factions - because they wanted to spend that asymmetry-balancing-effort on having lots of playstyles instead. So each faction got both classes, and they spent their efforts ensuring each tree was viable in at least one part of the game (PVE or PVP). Which brings the effort class count to 30 (10 classes times 3 playstyles each). Having that many playstyles in the game adds a lot more fun than the paladin/shaman split added.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If games were not whimps they would make classes balanced and imbalanced against different classes. To ineffect create balance. Say Archer kills Mage, Mage kills Warrior, Warrior kills Archer. Instead games give into whiners that think their class must be balanced against every class. I personally do not think this should be the case. Unless you want to play Counterstrike. These are group games. Your group should be what is balanced...not the individual.
I love Asheron's Call 1's design, where you get to pick what you want to specialize in. You want to cast magic bolts? Put points into it. You want to run faster? Put points into run speed. You want to use a sword? Put points into sword. There were templates and what not, but it was a system I mostly miss because you truly at the freedom to build a character you want to build, not a pre-built by a developer.
AC1 had its own balance issues mainly because certain things were too strong, so they had to balance between war magic casters vs melee vs life magic casters, etc.. But still, it was a lot easier to balance than the conventional MMO setup imo.
BTW AC3, please Turbine.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Class Counters are fine if you embrace the idea that MMORPG PVP should be shallow.
If you're interested in PVP which is deep, meaningful, or competitive, they're a terrible idea. It causes fights to be won or lost due to a decision you made at character creation. Unless you can switch classes on the fly (as in Team Fortress 2), class counters cause one-sided landslides when a game might otherwise have interesting, epic fights. Enough class-composition-counters are going to automatically spring into existence in a class-based game without the additional arbitrary mechanic of class counters.
MMORPG PVP oftentimes is intentionally kept shallow, so that bad players win more often. Because bad players outnumber the good ones (and because when a game is competitive and deep, the 20% most skilled players win 80% of the time, which leaves the 80% least skilled players to win a mere 20% of the time. Which is an awful lot of players not having fun most of the time.)
The "group" argument for class counters is pretty hollow. Aside from the obvious (2 players do more damage than 1), MMORPGs all have buffs, which cause players to be that much more powerful when grouped together. There's no need for some arbitrary additional mechanic to make players want to group up.
But yeah, Class Counters make for shallow combat. If that's your aim, great. But personally I enjoy deep PVP because it's more interesting and fun.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Wait so it is shallow because every one want to play the came class? Where is the call for MMORPG's to be about groups and not the solo character. If you want to enter a fight even then go play those solo FPS's. They are based around one person able to win the match if their twitch skill is the best. MMO's are suppose to be about making the best team to beat the other team or maybe I am wrong and it is actually a Massive multiplayer online single player verse player game we are involved in here.
You view compeition as 1v1 and your solo record...when in a MMO it should be group vs group and the group record is what is important. Pvp'ers are funny... take away gank and they whine about all classes being fair...give them gank and they whine about all classes being fair.