Good examples of pve driven nerfs Warlock players whined about not getting raid spots in vanilla wow, mages got nerfed Mages moaned about warriors being able to aoe level so effectively in rift, warriors got a nerf, that at the time made them useless in pvp.
Did people really take "fair" and turn it into a "losers got medals and now they are grown up and blah blah blah".
Name 1 mainstream sport that doesn't strive to be balanced or fair? Why is it that football, tennis, track and field can all do their best to be balanced and fair, but when MMOs do it its because they are carebears?
Well in sports everybody starts out the same. They don't end up that way. Just like in mmorpg's, everybody starts out at level 1 with crap gear. Where you go from there is up to you.
Many of the talking points used in mmorpg's would never work in sports. For example, player B says, "Player A plays more often than I do so he has an advantage, it's not fair". In sports, somebody who practices more is going to be better, for good reason. Another example, player B says, "Player A has been playing for 10 years, I can never catch up". Would that excuse fly in sports? How about player B says, "I know this is a team sport but I want to play by myself". Do we change the rules to suit him? Or player B says, "Player A gets to go on X Y and Z raids and I don't because I'm not in a raiding guild and can't devote three hours to this game". In sports would somebody say that want to go to the playoffs even though thier team sucks and can't commit the time necessary to play a full game.
MMORPG's seem to be striving for equal result instead of equal opportunity. That's where I see the problem.
You assume that everyone starts out equal in sports which is not true at all. Practise will only get you so far. It is raw talent that is the determinening factor. This is what all the people who say time spend should determine who wins are afraid of. That they encounter someone who has more raw talent and is beating the crap out of them because they have more talent.
The rest of your analogies also are way off and I'm not even going to touch them that's how bad they are.
To use a different example. Some two bit guitar player can practise 10 hours a day and become very good, but a virtuoso will still be better without practise.
Playing more should only ever improve your own skill, but it should never equate into being able to beat someone outright simply because you put in more time. I'll go back to the start. People are not equal so why bring in an even bigger imbalance through things like gear.
You could take 2 players, put them in the same class, same gear, and same ability set, and the loser will still find a way to complain. He uses macros, my wireless has lag, he's on FIOS I'm on Comcast, etc. The issue isn't so much as balance of fairness, the issue is more that humans lack the ability to own their own shortcomings. You see it in real world applications all the time. My boss fired me because he is X. Nevermind that I was no call no show 3 days in a row.
I don't really care about "Balance" and "Fairness" so long as I have the "Sword Of Doom", and you have a greeen, vendor trash tree limb for a weapon. See you in pvp with that situation, over and over and over and over....
Ballerinas are always on their toes. Why don't they just get taller ballerinas?
You could take 2 players, put them in the same class, same gear, and same ability set, and the loser will still find a way to complain.
He uses macros, my wireless has lag, he's on FIOS I'm on Comcast, etc.
The issue isn't so much as balance of fairness, the issue is more that humans lack the ability to own their own shortcomings.
You see it in real world applications all the time. My boss fired me because he is X. Nevermind that I was no call no show 3 days in a row.
this is true , and talking about games only loser demands balance. when you lose you demand something cause you lost.
you wanna win and whining something to make it happen makes you feel better or thats how the loser believes.
i would say no to balance some classes just do more damage and its understandable. other are good in some other areas then.
when everybody needs to have stuns, heals, major dps, major armors and hitpoints uniqueness is nothing anymore.
basicly we would only need one class then.
example i liked the fact from world of warcraft when horde had shaman and alliance had paladin. so chosing to play as shaman and horde made you somewhat unique against alliance players. and visa versa.
I was just thinking today how much fun it would be to be able to choose any creature type in the game and play as it with all it's strengths and weaknesses. Imagine you and a group of Brownies ambushing a Human player in the forest. You're all 1/10th his size and he can kill you all in 2 or 3 hits, but you can use group tactics and your small size to an advantage. How fun would it to be able to play as a Hill Giant and smash groups of adventurers who trespass on your lands?
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
Normally, in an in-game perfect world it would never be necessary to focus on these two things, and many single player RPGs offer these perfect worlds. But when it comes to MMOs we can thank monthly subs for a lot of the problems regarding fairness and noob designs for balance being in focus.
Fairness. If you play Mass Effect 3 from start to finish you will have finished that game. This goes for everyone who does it, no matter if they choose to be good or bad (blue or red, can't remember the real names). However, a trend that came with MMOs was that a player must never be able to finish the game, because then they would cancel their sub. Solution: random drops. In order to get the best gear, it was no longer enough to simply slay the über dragon as it would have been in an RPG, you had to slay it maybe 100 times, while some lucky doper got the item after killing it only once. Fair? Not a chance!
Balance. I'll give you the best example I know of - I was there Warhammer Online. The devs were incompetent noobs and decided that AoE skills should do the same amount of damage as a single target skill could. So if you shot at one person you would deal 200 dam, but if you used an AoE skill, you would deal 200 dam to all in a radius. There was one class, Bright Wizard, who had more AoE than all other classes and on top of that he was the best DPS. Needless to say, if you met one of those; instant death. Your own character had no chance. It would be like playing Mass Effect and the enemies could one-shot you and had unlimited health. Fun? Not a chance!
Did people really take "fair" and turn it into a "losers got medals and now they are grown up and blah blah blah".
Name 1 mainstream sport that doesn't strive to be balanced or fair? Why is it that football, tennis, track and field can all do their best to be balanced and fair, but when MMOs do it its because they are carebears?
Well in sports everybody starts out the same. They don't end up that way. Just like in mmorpg's, everybody starts out at level 1 with crap gear. Where you go from there is up to you.
Many of the talking points used in mmorpg's would never work in sports. For example, player B says, "Player A plays more often than I do so he has an advantage, it's not fair". In sports, somebody who practices more is going to be better, for good reason. Another example, player B says, "Player A has been playing for 10 years, I can never catch up". Would that excuse fly in sports? How about player B says, "I know this is a team sport but I want to play by myself". Do we change the rules to suit him? Or player B says, "Player A gets to go on X Y and Z raids and I don't because I'm not in a raiding guild and can't devote three hours to this game". In sports would somebody say that want to go to the playoffs even though thier team sucks and can't commit the time necessary to play a full game.
MMORPG's seem to be striving for equal result instead of equal opportunity. That's where I see the problem.
You assume that everyone starts out equal in sports which is not true at all. Practise will only get you so far. It is raw talent that is the determinening factor. This is what all the people who say time spend should determine who wins are afraid of. That they encounter someone who has more raw talent and is beating the crap out of them because they have more talent.
The rest of your analogies also are way off and I'm not even going to touch them that's how bad they are.
To use a different example. Some two bit guitar player can practise 10 hours a day and become very good, but a virtuoso will still be better without practise.
Playing more should only ever improve your own skill, but it should never equate into being able to beat someone outright simply because you put in more time. I'll go back to the start. People are not equal so why bring in an even bigger imbalance through things like gear.
From my observations as a coach, I'd agree with most of that study. Physical differences (which they acknowledge) can certainly influnce things but I don't beleive in pure natural talent. I hate it when some anouncer says "you can't teach that" which is dead wrong. I guarantee you that an NHL elite scorer has spent plenty of time perfecting his craft, largely on his own. It certainly wasn't great coaching that made him an elite player but I do think he put in the time and taught himself.
Sports rules are in black and white for sure and seem balanced and fair if you just read them. However the rules are subjective, as an extreme in Pro sports who hasn't seen the "Star Call" made. Is that fair? Technology can unbalance things at times until everyone is using it ( Did Gatoraide play a role in the 1969 Superbowl) And don't forget cheating and the enforcement or more importantly the lack of enforcements effect on Sports.
Finally back on topic. Because we want to compete and it seems like in a video game it should be easy to make it all balanced out so that who ever is better wins. And of course, I'm always better and should never lose if everything is fair and balanced.
You assume that everyone starts out equal in sports which is not true at all. Practise will only get you so far. It is raw talent that is the determinening factor. This is what all the people who say time spend should determine who wins are afraid of. That they encounter someone who has more raw talent and is beating the crap out of them because they have more talent.
The rest of your analogies also are way off and I'm not even going to touch them that's how bad they are.
To use a different example. Some two bit guitar player can practise 10 hours a day and become very good, but a virtuoso will still be better without practise.
Playing more should only ever improve your own skill, but it should never equate into being able to beat someone outright simply because you put in more time. I'll go back to the start. People are not equal so why bring in an even bigger imbalance through things like gear.
You identify the problem correctly, and this might be a bit off topic, there will be always players better than the average, making the gameplay experience bad for "mediocre" players in pvp, like in a fps, one superskilled one joins the game, blows the opposing team out of the water, people rage.
When you talk about the effects of gameplay time, you operate under the assumption that all skilled players have enough time and that all mediocre players have not enough time.
That is not true, if you throw time into the mix, the superskilled player now has to have the skill AND the time to be vastly superior to everyone else, not "just" skill, and that is a limiting factor, there are more players "just skilled" than players skilled AND having enough time on their hands to exploit the system in a way a mediocre basement dweller or a casual player focused on aquiring pvp advantages would.
So the end effect is in my opnion the opposite of what you are suggesting.
I thought mmoRPG´s were pretty much online RPG´s and as such, half the fun was that every soul in them should be different, unique, chaotic, unbalanced and sport a different growth and powers and obtained different gear and abilities depending on how they chose to interact and partecipate within the world and the story.
So why is everyone obsessed about balance, fairness, other classes having cool spells or some guy obtaining the sword of doom when they do not?
Why are mmorpgs being turned in some kind of medieval fps?
I thought rpgs were about the story, the interactions and not the pew pew and how that n00b warrior does moar damage with his e-peen strike than the mage with his flaming ballz of domination.
*shrug*
The problem with mmo is that they sit in between 2 chairs. First they don't want to be role playing games, where lets say a certain amount of reality would actually end up with imbalanced game, let say a fisher would clearly have no real chance in a duel with a warrior, but then again he would probably have good an fresh food all his life, never had to sleep outside, have a wife and kids and happiness, everything a warrior would lack. So they don't go the unbalance for the sake of realism, or for role play reason lets say for those that hate realism in fantasy for whatever reason.
Yet they don't go for balance either, its pretty obvious all mmo to date don't want balance at all. It is all about this so call 'character progression', stiff role, with arbitrary limitations like a mage need a staff to fight and a warrior a sword, same with game mechanism limitation like dps/heal/tank, all those stuff that exist nowhere but in mmo, but really nobody seam to even be aware of this. A lot of Dev claim they want balance, in fact they all do claim it, but let be honest, did anyone of them even tried? NO they clearly didn't (my opinion). Maybe GW2 might be an exception, we will see, tbh i won't believe it before seeing it with my eyes, i have followed so many so called pvp game were the team swore to god they will bring balance, and it turned into yet an other gear/xp grind, contrary to fps or rts that clearly use other type of progressions that seam to not cause any balance problem in game. But you know mmo are not mmo if they are balanced (read without totally unbalanced character progression) *roll eyes*, which is so stupid because mmo today have nothing left from role playing, they are just multiplayer arcade. I mean honestly i would greatly welcome a pure rp centric and totally unbalanced mmo as i describe in my first chapter, but the kind of arcade mmo with no balance we are feed with since a decade and a half, that so seriously fucked to me.
The problem with mmo is that they sit in between 2 chairs
--snip--
Newsflash! Its a game!
Within the confines of a game system with arbitrary rules, the fisherman would be able catch fish, thus to sell food (or pearls, fishbones...), so have money, thus be able to buy items the warrior has to spend hours of time getting via combat with the constant drain on resources, money, for food and repairs...
As for limitation that "exist only in a mmo", have you played older roleplay games? Heck, have you played Team Fortress 2? I have not seen Scouts with flamethrowers in TF2, have you?
That some things have less than obvious meaning, or that they are relics of a different time (like armor class differences and limitations in newer mmos, where everybody has the same damage and role capabilities), does not mean in itself that they are stupid.
Rpg games have been infested with the disease called pvp, balancing is just a result of pvp. The only way a game can get rid of that, is by completely dividing pvp from pve, however that will cause problems with integrety.
If you like pvp you have to deny that fact offcouse.
Even without PvP, there will be PvE players watching damage meters and parsers demanding that their DPS / heals / threat be equal to another classes DPS / heals / threat.
Removing PvP wont stop players from demanding class balance.
True, but it would remove the vast majority who do so. It would also remove the most hysterical types who howl and whine ENDLESSLY about OP this and OP that. Nothing will ever really appease such types.
But then how do you balance skill *beats the dead horse.*
I mean, thinking back to WotLK WoW, a skilled pvp rogue was unkillable unless you were at his skill level, and even then, it could end in a draw. (same with Frost Mages too I believe)
But then how do you balance skill *beats the dead horse.*
I mean, thinking back to WotLK WoW, a skilled pvp rogue was unkillable unless you were at his skill level, and even then, it could end in a draw. (same with Frost Mages too I believe)
Hehehe, highly flammable.
Its funny you would mention those two "classes", they have more in common than it appears.
How balanced were they? Dunno, complicated to say, but two things are important to consider, especially in comparison with the rest of the classes.
A) class capabilities, both of them were focused around locking down a single opponent and/or battling one, we can talk about sheeping/sapping another, but that is not really fighting, their effectivness went down rapidly with increased number of opponents (not just 1v3, but say 10v10) or chaotic pvp battle (wg, world pvp), unless the skill of the player was vastly superior to that of the opponents.
skill requirements, they might have been powerful in the hands of a skilled player, but less than that you would spend most of the time waiting for respawn because you were reliant on active skills, escapes, roots and stuns for your survival, not 40k hp, self heals from damage/procs/drains and armor and defensive cooldowns.
As i said, i am far from saying these particular "disadvantages" outweight the class strengths, only that for a less skilled player something that just runs up from around the corner, throws in some cooldowns and starts the aoe hoping for lucky crits and kills can be more attractive and fun than the attempts on ballet those clases were required to perform in pvp just to be "effective".
The problem with mmo is that they sit in between 2 chairs
--snip--
Newsflash! Its a game!
Within the confines of a game system with arbitrary rules, the fisherman would be able catch fish, thus to sell food (or pearls, fishbones...), so have money, thus be able to buy items the warrior has to spend hours of time getting via combat with the constant drain on resources, money, for food and repairs...
As for limitation that "exist only in a mmo", have you played older roleplay games? Heck, have you played Team Fortress 2? I have not seen Scouts with flamethrowers in TF2, have you?
That some things have less than obvious meaning, or that they are relics of a different time (like armor class differences and limitations in newer mmos, where everybody has the same damage and role capabilities), does not mean in itself that they are stupid.
Flame on!
I think you kind of misunderstood totally, so ill repeat in other words. As i said the question is what is appropriate for which type of game. If you want a game for the sake of being a game, then why the hell do you make an unbalanced mmo, i mean you do say you don't give a crap about realism and link to it right? Then just go for it and balance the god damn game, if you need to use flamethrower to do so, just do it.
Now if you do care about role play and the relic of the past as you said it yourself, then don't balance it.
The problem is that most mmo don't give a shit about role play, realism or whatever, yet they still don't want to balance anything because they are role playing game. This is what is stupid and make no sense. The stupidity come from the indecision developer have when doing their mmo. They want to please everyone but displease them all.
They are gimping themselves for no reason at all. If you do a game for the sake of being a game ala EQ (EQ team used that argument the first), then make a good game where people will have fun fighting each other (GW2 is a good example), rather than one where everyone will cry a river "he is OP he is a mage" or "he is OP he have a sword" or whatever stupid thing we hear all the time playing mmos. Do you ever heard the argument he is OP he is using a machine gun in a fps? no. So if you make a game just because its a game, then at least make it so its fun to play it, and balance the game.
Now if you do want to make a real mmorpg, where people role play a character rather than play a game, you probably don't want to balance it that much, because it make no sense to give a fisher man the same power as a warrior. If you want to role play a fighter, then do play a fighter, not a fisher man that know how to fight as well as a fighter. You understand that right?
Thus mmo sit in between 2 chairs, because they neither want people to take the responsibility of their character role, this mean they tell you "tststs guys a fisher man won't be able to kill a warrior except for a lucky shot". Neither they want to make a game for the sake of being game. Thus they end up with a balance they never really offer to their player. Actually they offer the worst, neither you can role play as you should in them because being a fighter is as meaningless as being a fisher man, neither you can have fun playing them because the balance is fucked.
Rpg games have been infested with the disease called pvp, balancing is just a result of pvp. The only way a game can get rid of that, is by completely dividing pvp from pve, however that will cause problems with integrety.
If you like pvp you have to deny that fact offcouse.
Even without PvP, there will be PvE players watching damage meters and parsers demanding that their DPS / heals / threat be equal to another classes DPS / heals / threat.
Removing PvP wont stop players from demanding class balance.
True, but it would remove the vast majority who do so. It would also remove the most hysterical types who howl and whine ENDLESSLY about OP this and OP that. Nothing will ever really appease such types.
Not really, even in EQ2 before they introduced PvP there were endless rants about x class being overpowered and making x class useless. Its just the way the cookie crumbles, as long as there are two classes that can fill the same role, there are going to be issues with class balance.
To most PvE players, if you arent playing the class doing the most damage, or the best healing, or highest survivability as a tank - you are doing it wrong. They dont want to carry you with a less powerful class just because you prefer to play it. For years so many people played Necromancers, because it was a fun class and good at soloing. But they werent desired in raids or difficult dungeons because they had no useful utility and did sub-par damage compared to the sorcerors. Its reroll or GTFO. Is that really an acceptable state of affairs? Leaving one class as the 'no friends' class who is completely undesirable?
Pretending that class balance issues are only because of PvP is just being either naive or intentionally ignorant.
Rpg games have been infested with the disease called pvp, balancing is just a result of pvp. The only way a game can get rid of that, is by completely dividing pvp from pve, however that will cause problems with integrety.
If you like pvp you have to deny that fact offcouse.
Even without PvP, there will be PvE players watching damage meters and parsers demanding that their DPS / heals / threat be equal to another classes DPS / heals / threat.
Removing PvP wont stop players from demanding class balance.
True, but it would remove the vast majority who do so. It would also remove the most hysterical types who howl and whine ENDLESSLY about OP this and OP that. Nothing will ever really appease such types.
Not really, even in EQ2 before they introduced PvP there were endless rants about x class being overpowered and making x class useless. Its just the way the cookie crumbles, as long as there are two classes that can fill the same role, there are going to be issues with class balance.
To most PvE players, if you arent playing the class doing the most damage, or the best healing, or highest survivability as a tank - you are doing it wrong. They dont want to carry you with a less powerful class just because you prefer to play it. For years so many people played Necromancers, because it was a fun class and good at soloing. But they werent desired in raids or difficult dungeons because they had no useful utility and did sub-par damage compared to the sorcerors. Its reroll or GTFO. Is that really an acceptable state of affairs? Leaving one class as the 'no friends' class who is completely undesirable?
Pretending that class balance issues are only because of PvP is just being either naive or intentionally ignorant.
Been there, seen that... I'm painfully familiar with the "not needed" classes, as I tend to be attracted to classes that are good for solo play (while having limited utility in end game raids and such). Personally, I suspect its more the min/max types who howl for damage meters and all of the other such, who are responsible for many of these problems.
Not to mention dungeon and raid designs with enrage timers, and other ploys that actually require maximizing things like dps (which in and of itself makes certain classes and their design decisions less useful).
Couple that with the eternal gear chase, that leads through the high level raids, and you have the situation in question.
Rpg games have been infested with the disease called pvp, balancing is just a result of pvp. The only way a game can get rid of that, is by completely dividing pvp from pve, however that will cause problems with integrety.
If you like pvp you have to deny that fact offcouse.
Even without PvP, there will be PvE players watching damage meters and parsers demanding that their DPS / heals / threat be equal to another classes DPS / heals / threat.
Removing PvP wont stop players from demanding class balance.
True, but it would remove the vast majority who do so. It would also remove the most hysterical types who howl and whine ENDLESSLY about OP this and OP that. Nothing will ever really appease such types.
Not really, even in EQ2 before they introduced PvP there were endless rants about x class being overpowered and making x class useless. Its just the way the cookie crumbles, as long as there are two classes that can fill the same role, there are going to be issues with class balance.
To most PvE players, if you arent playing the class doing the most damage, or the best healing, or highest survivability as a tank - you are doing it wrong. They dont want to carry you with a less powerful class just because you prefer to play it. For years so many people played Necromancers, because it was a fun class and good at soloing. But they werent desired in raids or difficult dungeons because they had no useful utility and did sub-par damage compared to the sorcerors. Its reroll or GTFO. Is that really an acceptable state of affairs? Leaving one class as the 'no friends' class who is completely undesirable?
Pretending that class balance issues are only because of PvP is just being either naive or intentionally ignorant.
Been there, seen that... I'm painfully familiar with the "not needed" classes, as I tend to be attracted to classes that are good for solo play (while having limited utility in end game raids and such). Personally, I suspect its more the min/max types who howl for damage meters and all of the other such, who are responsible for many of these problems.
Not to mention dungeon and raid designs with enrage timers, and other ploys that actually require maximizing things like dps (which in and of itself makes certain classes and their design decisions less useful).
Couple that with the eternal gear chase, that leads through the high level raids, and you have the situation in question.
Yeah, all this. True skill got left behind in the gaming world of MMO's, and all that is left, is gear. Unless you pursue something like Darkfall, but then you have other issues to contend with.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
May have been said but in an imbalanced game, the majority of the playerbase will choose to be that positively imbalanced thing.
If you ever played EvE online, it went through several stages of imbalance and with each stage there was a mass migration from the previously imbalanced item / ship to the new imbalanced item ship.
Balance doesn't need to be fair, but it does need to spread out the playerbase so that there is a roughly even distribution amongst classes, items, vehicles, ships.
How can things be unfair and still balanced. You need to ensure that there are some benefits to picking a specific class, race, ship, vehicle over another and ensure that those benefits don't cancel out other benefits. You also need to ensure combinations don't cancel out others benefits or combine to make holy groups over other combinations of groups.
But then how do you balance skill *beats the dead horse.*
I mean, thinking back to WotLK WoW, a skilled pvp rogue was unkillable unless you were at his skill level, and even then, it could end in a draw. (same with Frost Mages too I believe)
Skill is the goal. When skill is the determining factor, the game is balanced.
You don't balance skill.
You balance for skill. So that skill is all that's determining victors.
If two equally skilled players fight and one always wins due to class choice (and class isn't something you can freely switch,) that's bad PVP design and/or bad balance.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
That's exactly how I played my rogue. I dominated near every class and always avoided warriors because their armor was almost always too much to overcome.
I think you kind of misunderstood totally, so ill repeat in other words. As i said the question is what is appropriate for which type of game. If you want a game for the sake of being a game, then why the hell do you make an unbalanced mmo, i mean you do say you don't give a crap about realism and link to it right? Then just go for it and balance the god damn game, if you need to use flamethrower to do so, just do it.
Now if you do care about role play and the relic of the past as you said it yourself, then don't balance it.
The problem is that most mmo don't give a shit about role play, realism or whatever, yet they still don't want to balance anything because they are role playing game. This is what is stupid and make no sense. The stupidity come from the indecision developer have when doing their mmo. They want to please everyone but displease them all.
They are gimping themselves for no reason at all. If you do a game for the sake of being a game ala EQ (EQ team used that argument the first), then make a good game where people will have fun fighting each other (GW2 is a good example), rather than one where everyone will cry a river "he is OP he is a mage" or "he is OP he have a sword" or whatever stupid thing we hear all the time playing mmos. Do you ever heard the argument he is OP he is using a machine gun in a fps? no. So if you make a game just because its a game, then at least make it so its fun to play it, and balance the game.
Now if you do want to make a real mmorpg, where people role play a character rather than play a game, you probably don't want to balance it that much, because it make no sense to give a fisher man the same power as a warrior. If you want to role play a fighter, then do play a fighter, not a fisher man that know how to fight as well as a fighter. You understand that right?
Thus mmo sit in between 2 chairs, because they neither want people to take the responsibility of their character role, this mean they tell you "tststs guys a fisher man won't be able to kill a warrior except for a lucky shot". Neither they want to make a game for the sake of being game. Thus they end up with a balance they never really offer to their player. Actually they offer the worst, neither you can role play as you should in them because being a fighter is as meaningless as being a fisher man, neither you can have fun playing them because the balance is fucked.
I guess where we differ is that you blame some mythical drive of developers to appeal to roleplayers, which i think has been out of the window for years AND is the reason we are in this mess, BECAUSE developers dont give a crap about roleplaying, EVERYTHING except the "focus" of the game is removed from the balancing process, a fisherman HAS to have the power of a warrior BECAUSE he is expected to run the same instances as the warrior, not fish all his time, as the roleplay aspect would suggest.
The number of classes, outside world and holy trinity is just the stuff like in the experiment where monkeys beat each other because of a threat that is not there anymore, but they still act like it is.
The developers "KNOW" these things have to be in a mmo, but they have forgotten why they are there.
But then how do you balance skill *beats the dead horse.*
I mean, thinking back to WotLK WoW, a skilled pvp rogue was unkillable unless you were at his skill level, and even then, it could end in a draw. (same with Frost Mages too I believe)
Skill is the goal. When skill is the determining factor, the game is balanced.
You don't balance skill.
You balance for skill. So that skill is all that's determining victors.
If two equally skilled players fight and one always wins due to class choice (and class isn't something you can freely switch,) that's bad PVP design and/or bad balance.
And there we are again, choosing the right spec and gear is part of skill, but choosing the right class is not, because it requires more time...
Comments
There's nothing wrong with trying to balance on a group level, but don't go too far as it makes pvp boring
Classes get need for pve reasons too.
Warlock players whined about not getting raid spots in vanilla wow, mages got nerfed
Mages moaned about warriors being able to aoe level so effectively in rift, warriors got a nerf, that at the time made them useless in pvp.
You assume that everyone starts out equal in sports which is not true at all. Practise will only get you so far. It is raw talent that is the determinening factor. This is what all the people who say time spend should determine who wins are afraid of. That they encounter someone who has more raw talent and is beating the crap out of them because they have more talent.
The rest of your analogies also are way off and I'm not even going to touch them that's how bad they are.
To use a different example. Some two bit guitar player can practise 10 hours a day and become very good, but a virtuoso will still be better without practise.
Playing more should only ever improve your own skill, but it should never equate into being able to beat someone outright simply because you put in more time. I'll go back to the start. People are not equal so why bring in an even bigger imbalance through things like gear.
He uses macros, my wireless has lag, he's on FIOS I'm on Comcast, etc.
The issue isn't so much as balance of fairness, the issue is more that humans lack the ability to own their own shortcomings.
You see it in real world applications all the time. My boss fired me because he is X. Nevermind that I was no call no show 3 days in a row.
I don't really care about "Balance" and "Fairness" so long as I have the "Sword Of Doom", and you have a greeen, vendor trash tree limb for a weapon. See you in pvp with that situation, over and over and over and over....
Ballerinas are always on their toes. Why don't they just get taller ballerinas?
this is true , and talking about games only loser demands balance. when you lose you demand something cause you lost.
you wanna win and whining something to make it happen makes you feel better or thats how the loser believes.
i would say no to balance some classes just do more damage and its understandable. other are good in some other areas then.
when everybody needs to have stuns, heals, major dps, major armors and hitpoints uniqueness is nothing anymore.
basicly we would only need one class then.
example i liked the fact from world of warcraft when horde had shaman and alliance had paladin. so chosing to play as shaman and horde made you somewhat unique against alliance players. and visa versa.
I was just thinking today how much fun it would be to be able to choose any creature type in the game and play as it with all it's strengths and weaknesses. Imagine you and a group of Brownies ambushing a Human player in the forest. You're all 1/10th his size and he can kill you all in 2 or 3 hits, but you can use group tactics and your small size to an advantage. How fun would it to be able to play as a Hill Giant and smash groups of adventurers who trespass on your lands?
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
Normally, in an in-game perfect world it would never be necessary to focus on these two things, and many single player RPGs offer these perfect worlds. But when it comes to MMOs we can thank monthly subs for a lot of the problems regarding fairness and noob designs for balance being in focus.
Fairness.
If you play Mass Effect 3 from start to finish you will have finished that game. This goes for everyone who does it, no matter if they choose to be good or bad (blue or red, can't remember the real names). However, a trend that came with MMOs was that a player must never be able to finish the game, because then they would cancel their sub. Solution: random drops. In order to get the best gear, it was no longer enough to simply slay the über dragon as it would have been in an RPG, you had to slay it maybe 100 times, while some lucky doper got the item after killing it only once. Fair? Not a chance!
Balance.
I'll give you the best example I know of - I was there
Therefore, fairness and balance very important.
PS: What a noob question.
Interesting read on practice: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/DeliberatePractice(PsychologicalReview).pdf
From my observations as a coach, I'd agree with most of that study. Physical differences (which they acknowledge) can certainly influnce things but I don't beleive in pure natural talent. I hate it when some anouncer says "you can't teach that" which is dead wrong. I guarantee you that an NHL elite scorer has spent plenty of time perfecting his craft, largely on his own. It certainly wasn't great coaching that made him an elite player but I do think he put in the time and taught himself.
Sports rules are in black and white for sure and seem balanced and fair if you just read them. However the rules are subjective, as an extreme in Pro sports who hasn't seen the "Star Call" made. Is that fair? Technology can unbalance things at times until everyone is using it ( Did Gatoraide play a role in the 1969 Superbowl) And don't forget cheating and the enforcement or more importantly the lack of enforcements effect on Sports.
Finally back on topic. Because we want to compete and it seems like in a video game it should be easy to make it all balanced out so that who ever is better wins. And of course, I'm always better and should never lose if everything is fair and balanced.
You identify the problem correctly, and this might be a bit off topic, there will be always players better than the average, making the gameplay experience bad for "mediocre" players in pvp, like in a fps, one superskilled one joins the game, blows the opposing team out of the water, people rage.
When you talk about the effects of gameplay time, you operate under the assumption that all skilled players have enough time and that all mediocre players have not enough time.
That is not true, if you throw time into the mix, the superskilled player now has to have the skill AND the time to be vastly superior to everyone else, not "just" skill, and that is a limiting factor, there are more players "just skilled" than players skilled AND having enough time on their hands to exploit the system in a way a mediocre basement dweller or a casual player focused on aquiring pvp advantages would.
So the end effect is in my opnion the opposite of what you are suggesting.
Flame on!
The problem with mmo is that they sit in between 2 chairs. First they don't want to be role playing games, where lets say a certain amount of reality would actually end up with imbalanced game, let say a fisher would clearly have no real chance in a duel with a warrior, but then again he would probably have good an fresh food all his life, never had to sleep outside, have a wife and kids and happiness, everything a warrior would lack. So they don't go the unbalance for the sake of realism, or for role play reason lets say for those that hate realism in fantasy for whatever reason.
Yet they don't go for balance either, its pretty obvious all mmo to date don't want balance at all. It is all about this so call 'character progression', stiff role, with arbitrary limitations like a mage need a staff to fight and a warrior a sword, same with game mechanism limitation like dps/heal/tank, all those stuff that exist nowhere but in mmo, but really nobody seam to even be aware of this. A lot of Dev claim they want balance, in fact they all do claim it, but let be honest, did anyone of them even tried? NO they clearly didn't (my opinion). Maybe GW2 might be an exception, we will see, tbh i won't believe it before seeing it with my eyes, i have followed so many so called pvp game were the team swore to god they will bring balance, and it turned into yet an other gear/xp grind, contrary to fps or rts that clearly use other type of progressions that seam to not cause any balance problem in game. But you know mmo are not mmo if they are balanced (read without totally unbalanced character progression) *roll eyes*, which is so stupid because mmo today have nothing left from role playing, they are just multiplayer arcade. I mean honestly i would greatly welcome a pure rp centric and totally unbalanced mmo as i describe in my first chapter, but the kind of arcade mmo with no balance we are feed with since a decade and a half, that so seriously fucked to me.
Newsflash! Its a game!
Within the confines of a game system with arbitrary rules, the fisherman would be able catch fish, thus to sell food (or pearls, fishbones...), so have money, thus be able to buy items the warrior has to spend hours of time getting via combat with the constant drain on resources, money, for food and repairs...
As for limitation that "exist only in a mmo", have you played older roleplay games? Heck, have you played Team Fortress 2? I have not seen Scouts with flamethrowers in TF2, have you?
That some things have less than obvious meaning, or that they are relics of a different time (like armor class differences and limitations in newer mmos, where everybody has the same damage and role capabilities), does not mean in itself that they are stupid.
Flame on!
True, but it would remove the vast majority who do so. It would also remove the most hysterical types who howl and whine ENDLESSLY about OP this and OP that. Nothing will ever really appease such types.
But then how do you balance skill *beats the dead horse.*
I mean, thinking back to WotLK WoW, a skilled pvp rogue was unkillable unless you were at his skill level, and even then, it could end in a draw. (same with Frost Mages too I believe)
Taru-Gallante-Blood elf-Elysean-Kelari-Crime Fighting-Imperial Agent
Hehehe, highly flammable.
Its funny you would mention those two "classes", they have more in common than it appears.
How balanced were they? Dunno, complicated to say, but two things are important to consider, especially in comparison with the rest of the classes.
A) class capabilities, both of them were focused around locking down a single opponent and/or battling one, we can talk about sheeping/sapping another, but that is not really fighting, their effectivness went down rapidly with increased number of opponents (not just 1v3, but say 10v10) or chaotic pvp battle (wg, world pvp), unless the skill of the player was vastly superior to that of the opponents.
As i said, i am far from saying these particular "disadvantages" outweight the class strengths, only that for a less skilled player something that just runs up from around the corner, throws in some cooldowns and starts the aoe hoping for lucky crits and kills can be more attractive and fun than the attempts on ballet those clases were required to perform in pvp just to be "effective".
Flame on!
I think you kind of misunderstood totally, so ill repeat in other words. As i said the question is what is appropriate for which type of game. If you want a game for the sake of being a game, then why the hell do you make an unbalanced mmo, i mean you do say you don't give a crap about realism and link to it right? Then just go for it and balance the god damn game, if you need to use flamethrower to do so, just do it.
Now if you do care about role play and the relic of the past as you said it yourself, then don't balance it.
The problem is that most mmo don't give a shit about role play, realism or whatever, yet they still don't want to balance anything because they are role playing game. This is what is stupid and make no sense. The stupidity come from the indecision developer have when doing their mmo. They want to please everyone but displease them all.
They are gimping themselves for no reason at all. If you do a game for the sake of being a game ala EQ (EQ team used that argument the first), then make a good game where people will have fun fighting each other (GW2 is a good example), rather than one where everyone will cry a river "he is OP he is a mage" or "he is OP he have a sword" or whatever stupid thing we hear all the time playing mmos. Do you ever heard the argument he is OP he is using a machine gun in a fps? no. So if you make a game just because its a game, then at least make it so its fun to play it, and balance the game.
Now if you do want to make a real mmorpg, where people role play a character rather than play a game, you probably don't want to balance it that much, because it make no sense to give a fisher man the same power as a warrior. If you want to role play a fighter, then do play a fighter, not a fisher man that know how to fight as well as a fighter. You understand that right?
Thus mmo sit in between 2 chairs, because they neither want people to take the responsibility of their character role, this mean they tell you "tststs guys a fisher man won't be able to kill a warrior except for a lucky shot". Neither they want to make a game for the sake of being game. Thus they end up with a balance they never really offer to their player. Actually they offer the worst, neither you can role play as you should in them because being a fighter is as meaningless as being a fisher man, neither you can have fun playing them because the balance is fucked.
Not really, even in EQ2 before they introduced PvP there were endless rants about x class being overpowered and making x class useless. Its just the way the cookie crumbles, as long as there are two classes that can fill the same role, there are going to be issues with class balance.
To most PvE players, if you arent playing the class doing the most damage, or the best healing, or highest survivability as a tank - you are doing it wrong. They dont want to carry you with a less powerful class just because you prefer to play it. For years so many people played Necromancers, because it was a fun class and good at soloing. But they werent desired in raids or difficult dungeons because they had no useful utility and did sub-par damage compared to the sorcerors. Its reroll or GTFO. Is that really an acceptable state of affairs? Leaving one class as the 'no friends' class who is completely undesirable?
Pretending that class balance issues are only because of PvP is just being either naive or intentionally ignorant.
Been there, seen that... I'm painfully familiar with the "not needed" classes, as I tend to be attracted to classes that are good for solo play (while having limited utility in end game raids and such). Personally, I suspect its more the min/max types who howl for damage meters and all of the other such, who are responsible for many of these problems.
Not to mention dungeon and raid designs with enrage timers, and other ploys that actually require maximizing things like dps (which in and of itself makes certain classes and their design decisions less useful).
Couple that with the eternal gear chase, that leads through the high level raids, and you have the situation in question.
Yeah, all this. True skill got left behind in the gaming world of MMO's, and all that is left, is gear. Unless you pursue something like Darkfall, but then you have other issues to contend with.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
May have been said but in an imbalanced game, the majority of the playerbase will choose to be that positively imbalanced thing.
If you ever played EvE online, it went through several stages of imbalance and with each stage there was a mass migration from the previously imbalanced item / ship to the new imbalanced item ship.
Balance doesn't need to be fair, but it does need to spread out the playerbase so that there is a roughly even distribution amongst classes, items, vehicles, ships.
How can things be unfair and still balanced. You need to ensure that there are some benefits to picking a specific class, race, ship, vehicle over another and ensure that those benefits don't cancel out other benefits. You also need to ensure combinations don't cancel out others benefits or combine to make holy groups over other combinations of groups.
Skill is the goal. When skill is the determining factor, the game is balanced.
You don't balance skill.
You balance for skill. So that skill is all that's determining victors.
If two equally skilled players fight and one always wins due to class choice (and class isn't something you can freely switch,) that's bad PVP design and/or bad balance.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
AWESOME POST!
That's exactly how I played my rogue. I dominated near every class and always avoided warriors because their armor was almost always too much to overcome.
If you lose 50% of the time against an opponent that has compareable equipment and compareable player skill, then the game is balanced.
(Actually it would be amazingly well balanced. A rate of 70% for one party is already pretty good)
I guess where we differ is that you blame some mythical drive of developers to appeal to roleplayers, which i think has been out of the window for years AND is the reason we are in this mess, BECAUSE developers dont give a crap about roleplaying, EVERYTHING except the "focus" of the game is removed from the balancing process, a fisherman HAS to have the power of a warrior BECAUSE he is expected to run the same instances as the warrior, not fish all his time, as the roleplay aspect would suggest.
The number of classes, outside world and holy trinity is just the stuff like in the experiment where monkeys beat each other because of a threat that is not there anymore, but they still act like it is.
The developers "KNOW" these things have to be in a mmo, but they have forgotten why they are there.
Flame on!
And there we are again, choosing the right spec and gear is part of skill, but choosing the right class is not, because it requires more time...
Flame on!