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Class Design: Role Distribution & Role Comps
Eronakis
Member UncommonPosts: 2,249
This is something I am rather curious about. I have listened to and read some interviews regarding role distribution for game play. That Pantheon is extending the Trinity to Tank, DPS, Healer and CC, and possibly Puller. I am sure Everquest has great influence to integrate distinct roles for Pantheon. With Everquest there was a good variety of classes for each role. I am hoping that over the spectrum of classes that are available to perform CC and Puller roles that can overlap with Tank, DPS and Healer roles.
Like Everquest, you had to have a certain composition of roles in group to complete content. I am assuming this will be no different here. I wonder if you have to have certain roles in group to survive out in the wilderness? Or will the challenge simply change? Could the player strategically adapt to their encounter if a tank, healer, cc or puller isn't present?
Another aspect about role distribution is in regards to class design. This may be something that can't be answered right now. If there are various classes choices for a distinct role I wonder if each of those classes that can perform the same will have an even amount of competition while in game play? What I mean is if you have 3 available tank classes, will each tank class be able to compete with tanking with the other tanking classes?
So what do you guys think? How would you like Role Distribution and Role Comps to play out in Pantheon?
Like Everquest, you had to have a certain composition of roles in group to complete content. I am assuming this will be no different here. I wonder if you have to have certain roles in group to survive out in the wilderness? Or will the challenge simply change? Could the player strategically adapt to their encounter if a tank, healer, cc or puller isn't present?
Another aspect about role distribution is in regards to class design. This may be something that can't be answered right now. If there are various classes choices for a distinct role I wonder if each of those classes that can perform the same will have an even amount of competition while in game play? What I mean is if you have 3 available tank classes, will each tank class be able to compete with tanking with the other tanking classes?
So what do you guys think? How would you like Role Distribution and Role Comps to play out in Pantheon?
Comments
Puller was never really a role either, but one that emerged as such with the Monk class as they figured out how to split mobs with "feign death" which worked for most things while other pulling (aka luring) methods were limited (ie harmony was only usable out doors and other types of tricks put the other mobs in combat).
Class balance as in.. class vs class should never happen in my opinion. As in D&D, balance was never the goal between classes, each class was designed for useful purpose to the content. Classes in Pantheon should therefore be specifically balanced to achieve a very useful purpose for the content that can not be invalidated in that focus by another.
This requires much more attention to utility abilities and focuses, things that are pretty much non-existent in the modern MMO world where everything is essentially a design of DPS. If you look at EQ, the caster classes have an enormous amount of spells with all kinds of uses and benefits. Classes should be designed with a solid purpose of theme and be the best in that focus.
This means, no "best healer", 'best tank", or "best DPS", that is far too simplistic and limited as if that were the focus, there is no need for all the classes they have. Each class should be designed for a theme deeper than just the core aspect and pertinent to the content in the game. That is, there should be content to which a given class is quite adept at dealing with. It could something like a Paladin being a better tank against undead due to their special cleric type spells and maybe a cleric is the best in healing and dealing with that because they contain the heals and abilities to deal with such afflictions and curses.
That doesn't mean another class, lets say... a druid could not heal the paladin in that situation in a pinch with some creative adaptions to spells and abilities from other classes, but they would not be the most efficient.
This type of design focus gets away from the whole class envy wars and focuses on what it should be, content and building classes who have many unique and quite useful solutions to a given encounter. This allows them to design a wide range to encounter types and interesting content where players can test out their own classes abilities, coming up with interesting solutions when presented with a problem that they may not have the best tool for, but... also making a given class ideal for any such encounter.
So, basically, you balance a class to content, not vs another class. As long as you have enough content to consistently make that class useful (this was a problem with the rogue in EQ as initially I remember Brad describing that he wanted the rogue to be more D&D like with the content really giving the rogue a lot to be useful for), then there is always something for them to consider special about them, something they excel at beyond any other class and if that isn't enough to satisfy a player, then they aren't being honest.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
It isn't a surprise, EQ suffered very early on by the cancer of thought that classes should be "tit for tat" balanced between each other. It completely defied the concept of class to content solution. People became more obsessed with how the other classes were doing compared to them that it became a joke and as you can see, over time and ultimately what we have today, all modern games attempt to homogenize the roles so that every player can be content with doing everything every other player is doing. It is placating to the emotional masses, something this game should steer very clear of.
As I said, you balance to content, class to content. You provide real valuable purpose for a class as it concerns the content. That is all that matters.
Look, it is simple. You design problems (ie content obstacles) in the game and then you design solutions (ie class tools). The goal then becomes of the developers to make sure there is a balanced amount of problems for all the solutions.
This whole "class vs class" thing needs to die in a very hot and miserable fire. It is a disease to game play.
Additionally, class vs. class balance doesn't have equal homogenization either, which seems to be what @Sinist is implying. Sorry if I am reading more into the quote than what's there.
Class vs. Class 'balance' does need to be important in a videogame environment, but not necessarily in the way we are used to. Far too many mmos and even games in general have mostly given up on true utility. Each class created needs to have a purpose inside and outside of group settings. In more group oriented content there has existed far too much class exclusion in the past and present. Not everyone needs to have equal healing ability, tanking ability, dps ability, etc. However, each class needs something that no one else has that makes numerous situations more efficient and/or rewarding.
If we can get back to true dungeon crawling type situations where utility matters, then we might wind up having a game that is worthwhile.
Agreed, and that is the point I am getting at. If you focus on content design, content focus, making sure every class provides useful utility and a theme to their focus (ie the paladin tanking example I mentioned), then you achieve "balance" to the class itself, to its purpose, to its useful means. That is all that should matter. It should be a:
Group: "Crap, those undead are nasty and have some funky effect when they hit, what are we going to do?"
Paladin: "I can take that damage, my spells reflect the undead taint!"
or:
Druid: I have a regen that will help take the bite off the taint, but the cleric will need to cure it every so often before the taints damage increments. This way, the warrior can tank this mob without too many problems.
Not:
Group: "Those hit hard, we need a tank, any tank will do!"
------------------------------------------
The point here is that by having such situational content designs, we create needs in classes, benefits in them and we even can have solutions through combinations of other classes to achieve similar results (ie getting by with something other than what was intended)
- Tank
- Healer
- Melee Damage Dealer
- Magic Damage Dealer
- Crowd Control
I would assume the classes we know would sort into this like so:
- Tank: Warrior, Crusader, Dire Lord
- Healer: Cleric, Shaman
- Physical Damage Dealer (PhysDD): Rogue, Ranger, Monk
- Magic Damage Dealer (MagDD/Mage): Wizard, Summoner
- Crowd Control (CC): Enchanter, later Bard
The class I dont know how to fit in is Druid, which possibly could be Healer, a MagDD (like in VG), or a CC, or even actually a Hybrid like in EQ.
But I dont think PRotF will have hybrid classes. I see the concept of Vanguard that while classes perform differently in specific circumstances, overall all members of a type of group task will be as good as the other classes of this group task a huge success and therefore believe this concept will return.
In fact from what I can read in this forum, this is what original EQ actually did after a while, too. For example making Druids and Shamans ultimately just as good healers as Clerics, except they had to be played a lot differently - Druids hat to time their spells well, and Shaman had to debuff the opponents well.
If I had to guess, I would make Druid a healer. Just with no defenses and good dps. Pretty much like a Blood Mage.
About D&D, well I would state that D&D always suffered severe balance issues. In D&D, Wizards, Druids and Clerics have always been massively overpowered. I havent studied D&D4 in detail though, because I found it too drastically different from everything that was before. But I liked the core idea to give all classes a good amount of abilities, instead of making Fighters, Rogues, etc basically stupid to play, while Wizards, Druids and Clerics practically "swim" in spells.
This is how it should be in MMORPGs, everyone should get a good amount of abilities and there should be a challenge in the question of what ability will you use next. Thus there should be no A-B-C-repeat damage dealing routine, or anything like that.
Also I cant stress enough that yes, class balance is very important to an MMO. Now perfect balance is never possible. But each class should have unique abilities other classes do not have. A classic example of how to archieve this is giving Clerics and Paladins low dps in general, but good dps against undead. Another good example would be mobs with ranged attacks, but few hitpoints - ideal opponents for a tank, but impossible to handle for a mage. With variance like that, making a game that is overall pretty balanced isnt that hard.
Why? Why must there be class balance? I keep seeing this claimed, but I never hear any proper defense to it. I hear "well, people will play this class instead of that class" and well... peoples subjective choice can not be balanced around and that is why systems today are homogenized. They realized you can't please people because they obsess over what another has, so... give everyone the same thing, with a different name.
As for D&D 4, it is the result of MMO design concept essentially redesigning D&D. D&D isn't its own system these days, it is a system that is modeled after mainstream MMO thinking. So obviously if one is of that mindset, they are going to think that modern D&D is the right way to balance an MMO.
As I said, you don't balance class vs class, there is no point in such unless you are implementing PvP. Pantheon is not a PvP game and will not cater to it in its designs. So, this leaves class design as a means of insuring that every class is useful, serves a purpose, has meaning within the content. That is why balancing class to content is the ideal means of class design and balance. This was EQs early design approach until it started catering to class envy arguments.
One last thing about class vs class. Do you consider all utility spells and abilities in that balance? I see this response often as "no, those are irrelevant", but then in a game where such utilities are very useful, how can one not consider them in such an evaluation? This is where I see hybrids become gods in the games because people dismiss all the utility of a given class and then balance them for core focus. The problem with this is that you can't properly balance classes when you have such elements of play within a class. There is no easy balance formula. This is why classes have been streamlined over the years, fewer classes, fewer roles, and utility removed in game play so that the classes can more easily be "tit for tat" balanced.
There is no need for class to class balance in a PvE game, only class to content balance matters.
Even a quite well balanced game like Vanguard already had pretty steep differences between classes. Warrior felt downright fragile solo - while I called Disciple the "god mode" of Vanguard.
@Adamantine ,
How do you balance between an EQ Cleric and a Druid for example? Or a Shaman and a Druid? Or Cleric and Shaman?
Look at all the spells and utility of a Druid:
Root, Snare, Tree form, levitate, invisibility, Spirit of Wolf/Spirit of Cheetah (sprint and run speed), Buffs/Debuffs/Resists, Animal fears and charms, Harmony, Ports, Gates, Cures, summon food/water, Emergency ports, Direct healing, heals over time, regens, Direct damage spells, AoE damage spells, Cancel magic, Tracking, Leather armor, etc...
What about the Cleric?
Buffs/Debuffs/Resists (in and out of combat), Summon food/water, cures, Fear/AOE fear, Root, Sense Dead, Direct damage spells, AoE damage spells, Invisibility vs undead, Halo of light (summoned light stone), cancel magic, resurrection with exp return, Pacify, Stun, imbue items (crafting), memory blur, direct heals, complete heals, heal over time, root, plate armor, etc...
Now I know I am missing some things, you can look up the spells on ZAM if you like, also... the damage spells a cleric has are not very many, with the bulk of them being undead only, not to mention root they don't get till near level 50.
So how do you balance all of that? Or do you strip out a lot of the utility spells and then just balance on healing alone? If you don't, how do you put a value to compare the utility? How do you deal with the unexpected emergent play that results from such open and deep systems? How do you deal with the subjective issues of players? How do you deal with balance when skill of the player may be a major component? What mechanism, system, or rule do you apply to equalizing those classes and then justifying it?
There is a reason developers started stream lining, started homogenizing the classes and limiting their game play focuses in order to achieve class vs class balance. Either you streamline your systems to make it possible to balance between the classes (ie making simplistic classes and focuses) or you rubber stamp every class the same and then change the names (ie homogenization). Both of these solutions do not fit in line with what EQ was or what Pantheon will be.
Now... if you balance class to content, none of the above matters. All that matters is that each class provides a useful tool and purpose to the game and that the game provides enough means to apply those tools by the class. Outside of that, it doesn't matter.
People will play classes that they like the look and feel of if you balance them to content rather than against other classes.
Its a multiplayer game.
So ... obviously it has to be balanced.
Any multiplayer game has to be balanced... duh ?
Heck, even singleplayer games have to be balanced. TES Oblivion for example failed to do so. As a result, the player could end up being seriously underpowered. Oblivion practically forced you to powergame.
Not to mention that the TES combat system never has been much fun anyway, except for its bugs.
Stating your claim over and over again does not validate your position.
I asked you many questions, I asked you to explain your case.
Why does class vs class have to be balanced if you balance class vs content? You gave me one above reason, I explained how class vs content solves that issue.
Why does there have to be class vs class balance when you can balance class vs content?
Balancing to content ensures that classes aren't severely under or over powered. There is no need to balance classes v. each other in a game like this.OR
Trinity is not what you think it is... You did not need a Tank, Healer, CC in EQ.
What you needed is to pick the right class for the right job depending on;
A) What you were doing
or
Want to adventure into a dungeon?
Bring a Tank, Healer, CC...
Oh you lack CC... well get a Monk to split pull, or Bard via Fade and Lull, or maybe an off tank, or pet off tank.
Lack a tank... charm tank, pet tank, pinball agro, root rot....
Only got 2 druids, a rogue, a necro.... Go find a nice out door spot, and fear kite... agro kite...
Basically adapt people... and stop trying to fit gameplay into a box.
Class vs Content focuses on balancing the class to the content, insuring that a given area of content provides an obstacle that a certain class my excel at or be ideal for (as I explained with my paladin example).
Class vs Class leads to an infinite cycle of nerfs and buffs due to another classes performance, player tantrums, envy, whining, complaining, etc...
If you balance Class vs Content, then the focus is on insuring there is useful content and purpose to a given class. The only thing you want to avoid in Class vs Content is making classes too much alike. So, the very nature and design of Class vs Content design encourages the development of varied content (to appeal to different class solutions) and that of insuring that each class has a wide range of unique and useful abilities.
The idea of having a variety of classes that fill a similar role but shine in their own way and bring different tool sets that change the way in which you can approach content.
For instance, what of this scenario. A Paladin, DK, and Warrior are considered "tank role" and you pigeon hole them into that focus. Then, lets say a monk is a pushed into a "DPS role". Now, a monk has high avoidance, and lets say with a good druid or shaman, using various tricks of their spells, they find that short spam heals, with regens makes a monk an excellent avoidance tank for group content, especially with their ability to hold agro through fast damage.
What do we do then? A monk is obviously not in its role, shall we now dictate to all monks that they are defying "The Role" they were handed and should be nerfed back into submission? Remember, this monk is violating the intent of things, that those roles were supposed to be special to the "tanks" and here a DPS is infringing on their roles! There is much gnashing of teeth by the tank community and protests form.
This is what happened in EQ to the EQ monk. Monks had light tanking abilities and the "role" of the class was not pigeon holed into some mainstream design concept of "DPS/TANK/HEALER". This was before we defined specific generic roles and attended to more content focused ability and purpose. In early EQ, nobody thought twice of a monk doing some tanking for a group with a skilled druid/shaman doing the healing, but once mainstream ideology took over, classes were defined and shoe horned into "roles" where any deviation of such was met with the utmost of severity of the nerf hammer.
I remember it as you describe as well, forming a group to handle a given environment, having the ideal class for such or having to find different solutions to adapt to a given environment. There were no "You must be this high to ride this ride" designations or restrictions. What could be accomplished was based on the groups ability to play their classes and apply various solutions to a given obstacle, even when those solutions were not ideal. This sort of game play is near impossible in games where everything is ironed down, restricted, detailed, and categorized to a specific expected form of play.
I think that this is why games today can't seem to catch the magic that games like EQ had. They have spent so much time trying to build the perfect formula for "fun", they have ignored what actually made these systems appealing, open, and emergent.
As you said... "Basically adapt people... and stop trying to fit gameplay into a box. "
As I read through this thread I can shed some light of what class balance actually is since that is the subject now. I also want to mention that @Sinist has a decent argument about balancing classes versus the environment. That is a given for any sort of game with any composition of classes or characters. That will need to happen regardless. But at the same time you also have to balance classes against classes to some degree.
Before I explain what class balance is I also must mention one vital element. That if you don't balance class vs. class and only environment you have distinct roles that may be better than others. Of course this is the opposite of homogenization and is completely fine.
I also want to make something clear is that simply if you have distinct classes/roles that are thematic does not constitute class balance nor does it constitute one class is better than the other. It simply constitutes the variety of roles that can be chosen from and/or needed for group game play.
One aspect you must consider in order for class balance whether it's against the environment or against other classes/roles is how you want players to experience the core game play in regards to grouping content. Some questions must be considered. Such as, do you have to have these certain roles/classes to survive out in the wilderness? Can certain classes perform that role better than others my giving more value to that class over another for a group? If so then classes vs. classes balance must be considered.
In Everquest there were clearly better classes that functioned better at a role than others. Obviously the Cleric was the best Healer in game. Druids and Shamans where also categorized as healers. However, Druids and Shamans are truly hybrid classes that could also heal. Clerics primary role was healing with a secondary role of buffing. Clearly most groups looked for a Cleric as their primary healer. Groups may also add a Druid for off healing and off dps with their access to utility. A Shaman was also taken in a group because of their slowing ability and off healing and buffing. Sometimes you could ad a Shaman and a Druid in group to replace a Cleric. Both comps worked out. The point is that even though Shaman and Druid were hybrid classes and not a true healer they still had value in the group and were sought after. Hybrid classes is a class that can perform more than one primary role. Hybrid classes are a challenge to balance because they can become too overpowering or too under powering and not has as much value to a group.
You can stop here if you wish. But if you would like to learn more about class balance please continue to read.
Before I can go into class balance I must also define what a class is. A Class is merely the function of a role that the player has control over. If all classes can perform the same role there is no need for classes. Classes are a classification of a role.
This is a method I generally take when balancing classes. I look at class balance as a layered entity. A button up approach. Each Layer must compliment each so that the balance can stay cohesive and consistent. I believe class balance can be achieved is a thing but it's not what you think class balance is.
Layer 1: This layer is the foundation of your class balance. This layer is where you determine what roles you are wanting to have in your core game play. Once those roles are chosen make them distinct. What makes these roles different from one another? This is where you balance role vs. role with no extra modifiers, class abilities or anything extra. Very simple. Determine what your roles are.
A lot of the times this Layer is broken and thus this is why class balance can not be achieved.
Layer 2: This layer has two parts depending on what rules set you have chosen for Layer 1. Layer 2 is the layer in which you are preparing the class to balance against the environment in the next Layer.
Part 1 of Layer 2: This is where you determine if there are pure and hybrid classes. A Pure class can only perform one primary role and a Hybrid class can perform 2 primary roles. This is where you need to make sure if Hybrid classes are to powerful or to weak against pure classes for grouping purposes.
Part 2 of Layer 2: This is where determine if you have multiple classes that can perform the same role. For an example: Like Everquest, you had three viable tanks, Warrior, Paladin and Shadow Knight. Each class was distinct but they all could compete in the tanking role even though they brought something different to the table. In this section of the Layer 2, this is where you balance multiple classes that can perform the same role but have an equal amount of competition to be sought after for grouping purposes but yet not undermining each classes distinction.
Layer 3: This is the final layer and usually the layer were most developers only balance from. Layer 3 is where you simply balance your classes against the environment. Where you determine, HP/Mana ratios, HP/Damage ratios, HP/Healing ratios, Damage/Healing ratios so on and so forth. You also balance each classes abilities in this layer to against the environment.
If Layer 1 and Layer 2 are balanced correctly there should be no need to have massive class balance between classes against the environment based on the rule sets for Layer 1 and Layer 2. Of course there will always be tweaks to classes, their number output and everything as no game is perfect or complete.
What class balance really means.
Class balance actually favors diversity of roles in within your class structure. Class balance does not mean every class is the same or should have the same set of abilities/utility. That sort of balance is in direct conflict what a class really is. Class balance is achieved when all classes bring equal value to a group without undermining their thematic distinction and role.
Ill just add that classes dont need perfect balance but you should have enough balance that all the druids dont delete their characters because no one wants a druid in the groups. If all healers reroll to the best healer class because it is TOO good then your game fails class balance.