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Champions Online: Bill Roper on Balancing Ranged vs Melee
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
Today, we ask Cryptic Studios' Bill Roper about his philosophies on attempting to balance ranged and melee combat styles in an MMO.
Balancing melee and ranged combat is an old a dilemma as, well, just about anything in terms of design. Every gamer feels that ranged attacks are far superior over those in the hand-to-hand school, even when you can show them numbers to the contrary. To balance melee and ranged, it comes down to more than damage production. The areas to focus on are perception, presentation, proper use of secondary effects, and defenses.
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Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Bill lol ! Why don't they hire you at Funcom? loool
I have to check out Champions Online (omw)
Honestly, I did not find anything spectacularly mind breaking in your interview, just common sense. Something some people I know are lacking IMO.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
I'm just at a loss as to why Roper gave the interview. Asking cryptic / roper about balance is like asking my dog about thermodynamics. funny to watch, but for the most part useless.
Wow, I must say I am amazed that a gaming developer has failed to see the major issue between ranged and close combat in PvP combat.
All his points are perfectly valid when it comes to PvE combat where the AI mob usually stand still when you engage in combat, so once you have closed the distance it is all about numbers.
However in PvP combat your opponent will not stand still, after the combat has started (unless he is unskilled or forced to with CC skills) so there you have a whole different mechanics. Even if the melee manages to close the distance once, he has to constantly stay at that distance, a dificult task due to the server lag. That is the major difference between ranged vs melee in PvP and PvE.
The main reason for why melee is so much worse than ranged, in PvP, is because very few games has implemented a mechanic that keeps the melee at melee distance after having closed the distance once. So by just constantly moving around the ranged combatant has an excellent tactic to use towards the melee combatant.
So where as the melee combatant will constantly fail his melee attacks, due to the range to your target has changed from the moment you initiated an attack and after the attack has built up (for example due to lag), the ranged combatant does not have that handicap.
Therefore the reason why ranged combatants are superior to melee, in PvP, is because of the failure of (most) devs to implement a system where the melee combatant is "stickied" to his target once he has closed the distance. Resulting in consequent attacks failing.
This is evident in games like Champions Online where a melee character can close the distance, then activate his power, but by the time the power has finished activating, the ranged target is long gone. Resulting in a failed attack.
Asherons Call was one of the few games that managed to solve this by having melee combatants automatically stick to their targets, after have closed the distance, if the melee combatants running speed was higher/equal then the ranged combatant.
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If you deliver a mechanism that always allow melee attackers to be in melee range, then you don't have a system with ranged and melee you just have melee.
Alas I think the core problem is the PvP / PvE one. Basically in PvE you're in melee combat if you want to be, and in PvP you have to work for it. The moment you translate "work for it" into a statistical advantage then PvE isn't balanced at all.
I don't think any MMO has delivered a solid answer to this yet (where as something like God of War does fairly well in the single player space). Stuns / Snares / CC etc. are very common in MMO's to solve this issue, but they're terrible terrible gameplay mechanics. Just imagine Call of Duty that allowed a 3 second stun from a specific easy hitting attack? Sure twitch games have different rules, but I don't believe they vary as much as people think they do.
I had not considered the need to make melee attacks more showy though, which does have some logic in it!
Maybe the reason is that ranged just is naturally superior to melee. There is a reason wars are fought with guns (at least for the moment) and not with swords, anymore. Projectiles are lethal. And not just after you peppered someone with 2 entire clips.
The posters above me have brought up a valid point though. In reality, once you have closed in on someone and are grappling or punching, it is very hard for the opponent, to get away. In most games, bouncing around like a rubber ball, 0-time 180 degree turns and manic button mashing will get you out of melee weapon range relatively easily. Maybe a more realistic movement speed and behavior would help... as well as the clear expectation that if the guy with the gun sees you running up to him from a mile away, you will not make it there alive.
that's a IRL balance issue lol Bazookas and AK47s tend to be more powerfull than Katanas and knifes :XD
But back in the days, battles were a mix were they not?
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
Yes a lot of common sense and a lot of traditional responses, but like CO as a whole no new ideas or imagination and a total absence of nescessary conviction/commitment demonstrated in the finished product.
LOL, evil, but so true.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Yamota has it absolutely correct. The level of movement that most MMO's ONCE a person is engaged in melee combat is absurd.
In historical battles, the MAJORATY of casualties came when troops broke and tried to run from the enemy. Disengaging from melee combat against an active enemy was one of the most difficult and dangerous things to do on the ancient battlefield.
In real life humans don't see very well out of the back of their heads (i.e. theres no 3rd person, zoom out view) and they don't move very well in reverse gear. You can't move backwards more quickly then the opponent can move forwards.... and even trying to move backwards at more then a slow walk entailed a significant risk of tripping over an obstacle and falling, unless you turned your head to look behind you. However taking your eyes off your opponent means not being able to defend yourself against thier attacks. Turning and running meant exposing your back....giving your opponent a free opportunity to attack you without any risk to himself and an attack you could not defend against.
Doing either of these things also meant breaking formation....and formation was the key to your survival and success on the ancient battle-field.
In games, it shouldn't be too difficult to model/balance this. Range provides the opportunity to damage/kill your opponents before they can damage/kill you. However, once an opponent has engaged you...it should be very difficult to disengage from them. The way to model this would be essentialy to "stick" you to your opponent... and not allow you free movement under that condition. You could have the option of taking slow steps....and if you opponed up enough distance with these...it could change your status to "disengaged" . You could also give players so engaged the option to break the engagement with a rapid manuver... but doing so should AUTOMATICALY incur a risk of suffering a devastating attack as long as your opponent isn't stunned or otherwise unable to attack. Meaning that the opponent doesn't have to press anything when you do this...your act of invoking the action to break away...rolls the dice to see if you take a nasty hit.. (alternatively it could pop up a Reactive button for the opponent that they could press on a short timer and would subject you to a powerfull attack...even at range).
Paco summed it up nicely, but I'm yappy and want to add to it.
This is why in real life we are always told "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight." You get shot long before you get a chance to stab someone. It's not always quite this simple but this is basically how it works.
In ancient times archers would fire vollies of arrows into the front lines of charging enemies to thin the herds for the melee combatants. Many fell and if the charging force had the numbers they could overcome the archers before being reduced to pin cushioned piles of bodies.
I think what really needs to be addressed is that the damage from ranged attacks that the target sees coming and has time to prepare for need to be more easily blocked, or more damage soaked. IE the shield used to save alot of melee attackers from certain death by arrow. If I saw an arrow falling out of the sky towrd me I would try to mve out of the way and might only catch it in the forearm or the leg, instead of the top of the head. Obviously it would do far less damage to me in the arm than the top of the head, I would have soaked the damage into my arm.A Tower shield could allow a melee attacker to advance virtually inscathed by arrows. The romans used the tortoise formation to advance on archers with only the odd casualty.... but what if the person firing at you is hurling fireballs that heat your shield? or Electricity that shocks you right throught the metal in the shield.. or ice that fuses your skin to the shield? To go even further what if you dont have a shield but you posess the power of invulnerability? How invulnerable are you if someone hurling fireballs can just hang back up in the air and blast you a few times until your dead? Or, what if your shield is made of energy from the netherworld? how does it stack up against arrows, fireballs and ice storms, the celestial power of light?
It's very difficult to translate all of these real world scenarios into a video game.... if you can call them real world or simply fanatsy world mechanics that are left out to simplify things.
I think it would be cool if all these factors were carefully calculated into our MMOs but there would then be imbalance and people would cry that fire had an advantage over ice or something like that, as there would be clear cut cases of advantage and disadvantage. You see people only want things to be as realistic as possible until it makes their character seem weak because secretly we all want to be the most Uber Toon in the game... even the people that build purely for concept can't argue that they would love it if their concept just happened to be the toughest hero ever to grace the streets of Paragon or Millenium... I mean no body purposely makes up a hero called wussy man with the intention of gaining no XP and not advancing in levels unless it's for a joke.
I have a melee toon (Might/ Defiance- pure build) I may not rack up the kills that some highly skilled ranged attackers do but "A" Im not highly skilled lol, and "B" Im a melee toon. I still manage to have a pretty good score over all. I block and advance alot. I use powers that disrupt travel powers in ranged attackers, hold them, stun them and then unleash my huge damage attacks while they are stunned or falling. Strategy has alot to do with melee survivability. If you want to run in and SMASH like the Hulk, keep in mind your fighting super man and the green lantern, not the generic bad guys in the comic books,that the HULK would mow through like me through a Whopper. These are other comparably powered heroes and they fight back...hard.
In short never bring a knife to a gun fight... unless your knife is a +4 Knife of Sharpness and you are also carrying tower shield that's bullet proof cuz if you are to heck with the bullets. Even when you do look out for the fire breathing, teleporting, sorcerers with mini mines, shotguns, chansaws, and and an army of zombies cuz they'll getcha every time. LOL
I think the complexity of this issue would be very difficult to accurately translate into a game world with any level of realism. The developing house would go bankrupt before they could ever lanuch a game with so many environmental parameters in play and my CPU would melt or the server CPU would melt, or the programmers brains would melt or even worse all 3 would melt!
And I 'd have to play Monopoly with my nephew for a week until my new PC was shipped.. NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
I'm not going to go much in depth as some of you here did, but.. honestly.. CO is quite possibly one of the worst games to talk about Ranged vs Melee. He talks about defense specialized for melee, like in CO there are certain classes that you chose that gives any advantage over any other playstyle when in reality its just a cherry pick. I honestly doubt a melee character with super speed would do much of anything to a ranged character with flight in that game, and honestly, they shouldn't be able to. The whole idea with COs end builder (and end building for melee) just was off balance from the start.
Whether or not they've changed the mechanic, well, to that I can't speak, but it absolutely needed some changing. Not to mention he speaks daftly about balance in general.... cryptic is terrible at balance, their stark misuse of overcorrecting has become notorious for widespread criticism of players... and on launch day no less.
I like cryptic as a company, and I liked CO when I played it up until launch... for what it was, of course, but this was by far the most useless article.
I agree with what he is saying about ranged and melee. I think the real issue players have is that Ranged is just easier to be good with than melee, in a PvP setting. The ranged DPS ultimate tactic is to kite, which is simple and incredibly effective in most fights. However the meele have to be much more tactful and cunning about getting in the face of that pesky ranged dps and staying there as well as locking him down so he can no longer kite you.
I think the real issue here is people from Champions are failing to see how important a snare can be to them. They want to be able to snare but they dont want to have to take the sweep kick from MA:unarmed and then slot 4 advantage points in it so he can actually be worth a crap to them. Which i'm not saying they are wrong, taking lunge and sweep kick out of MA:unarmed and then having to spend 2 advantage points in lunge to take out travel powers than another 4 to make sweep an aoe is a very large price to pay to be a good melee in PvP.
Although with their reinforcement system...i believe they call it. If you're in a group with others then enemies will actually run and get help, so the CC isnt useless at all in PvE. It just hurts to take away from those beautiful numbers by taking CC instead of wtfomg kill punch. So I guess what i'm saying is i can see the legit points of both sides, however Mr. Roper make another article on Defense vs Offense passives...and try to dance your way out of that wreck...
If you deliver a mechanism that always allow melee attackers to be in melee range, then you don't have a system with ranged and melee you just have melee.
Alas I think the core problem is the PvP / PvE one. Basically in PvE you're in melee combat if you want to be, and in PvP you have to work for it. The moment you translate "work for it" into a statistical advantage then PvE isn't balanced at all.
I don't think any MMO has delivered a solid answer to this yet (where as something like God of War does fairly well in the single player space). Stuns / Snares / CC etc. are very common in MMO's to solve this issue, but they're terrible terrible gameplay mechanics. Just imagine Call of Duty that allowed a 3 second stun from a specific easy hitting attack? Sure twitch games have different rules, but I don't believe they vary as much as people think they do.
I had not considered the need to make melee attacks more showy though, which does have some logic in it!
First of all, it does not allow that the melee is always in melee range (that is your misconstruction) it allows the melee to have the same advantage as the ranged combatant have towards a moving target and lag.
The melee still needs to close the gap.
The melee is still subject to root and snares which severly limits his abilities since he has to be in range.
All it does is to allow the melee to stay in range despite of lag but he is still subject to CC and all kinds of nasty stuff. The current system with melee constantly having to battle lag to keep in range is totally handicapping the class and he will never be on equal footing unless that is fixed.
And again this is entirely for PvP and would not affect PvE anyway since an AI mob rarely moves once engaged into combat, hence in PvE we have what you call "always in melee range" already.
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I dont understand why people are bringing in RL arguments into this. The moment gun powder was sufficiently developed to punch through the toughest plate armor, close combat was made secondary to ranged combat. So in RL that is how it is but that should not have anything to do with a computer game.
In a game you want to have some kind of balance between different playing styles/classes and bringing in RL arguments is really irrelevant.
In 99% of the game tanks and other melee classes (besides rogues who can stealth and ultra DPS) they have been at a great disadvantage (in PvP) and that is simply because the devs fail to realise that in PvP, over the net, you have lag and how that affects combat.
Close combatants must be at a close range and must STAY in close range but seeing as there is a slight difference from where you see where the characters and and how the server sees where you are (and the server always wins) you will get alot more failed attacks because you thought you was in range but while you was powering up your abilities your target had moved but you havent seen that on the screen, so you stayed put and you missed (since the target was no longer there).
That is the biggest flaw in current MMORPGs between ranged and melee, in PvP, and will continue to be so unless the devs realise this problem and what effects it has. Everything else is fine tuning stats.
But there are sollutions, Asherons Call has done it and so have Aion but Champions Online (and most other MMORPGs) have not.
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Great interview.
Oh BTW Bill, can I have my money back for hellgate?
Didn't think so.
I agree. Give me back my money you insufferable little twit.
It continually boggles my mind that this man is gainfully employed. Still waiting for him to sell out CO to the Koreans. After all, that and screwing up games is what he does best.
LOLOL SOOOO true. I can't say I've seen a worse company than cryptic, when it comes to PVP balance. Generally I get that sense of "do any of thess guys actually pvp in this game?" then I remember they dont' and understand why they are so clueless when it comes to achieving even playable balance.
I'm not convinced that his team has made much in the way of inroads towards balance.
Then again, the photo makes him look like Johnny Vegas so maybe the interview was a joke.