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What IS game balance?
grogthemagnif
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,651 Arc User
If you have suggestions to make a class better, put them forward here. 
To begin with it's not what the Devs have been told to do. Nerf certain classes.
In the Big Inning D&D is about TEAM BALANCE, not player balance. Each player was told - "Make the best of what you have."
For all those who say, "I don't like. . . " I say, "Deal with it!!" AS A TEAM you focus your strengths together and shield your weaknesses. Everyone wants (and there is no harm in wanting) to be all things to all people (, but there is every harm in getting.)
PvP is a competition and a learning experience to see who's best at what they do in the PvE world.
here is what should be:
TRs should do fast kills through stealth and backstab. They should also disarm traps which somehow got missed.
GWF should also do fast kills, but because his weapon is larger strike less often. He should be able to hit 2-3 at a time.
CW should be very squishy at low levels, less so at mid levels, and formidable at high levels. CWs start as the weakest and build up to be the strongest at high levels.
DC is the healer, but cannot heal everyone every time - they don't have the power. I'd like to see "Hallowed Ground" be 30 seconds of battle enhancement - and 10 minutes of +2 to hit. I'd like to see a pre-combat Bless spell to add +1 to the to hit roll and added damage.
HR is the fake artillery (90 feet range is 1+ movement turn) Rain of Arrows helps from 200 yds (600 feet) e.g. 20 combat movements away with a larger target area, but the same number of arrows spread thinner. Even a 100 yd outdoor range would help. 90 ft is ok underground or inside. The Ranger needs stealth mode outdoors, which is his element.
GF is supposedly a Knight, but that role is for the Paladin (which is not yet in the game). He is the tank, not the Knight (of the knight's challenge). His job is to DEFLECT (with his armor) A LOT of damage not attract it, although the armor will attract enemies. Most real tanks have a great weapon, a 'one hit, one kill' weapon that the GF is missing. THE GREAT BLOW a daily with a 10 minute cool down (and a commensurate 1000 times your strength damage) fits the bill. THE GREAT BLOW would work well against final bosses. At least the GF would be able to get one good lick on the final boss.
Exchange the Knight's Challenge to the Paladin (if created) who has some healing powers and give him 50% deflect on damage taken for THE GREAT BLOW.
if you have any nonconstructive criticism, find another thread to post it on.:)
To begin with it's not what the Devs have been told to do. Nerf certain classes.
In the Big Inning D&D is about TEAM BALANCE, not player balance. Each player was told - "Make the best of what you have."
For all those who say, "I don't like. . . " I say, "Deal with it!!" AS A TEAM you focus your strengths together and shield your weaknesses. Everyone wants (and there is no harm in wanting) to be all things to all people (, but there is every harm in getting.)
PvP is a competition and a learning experience to see who's best at what they do in the PvE world.
here is what should be:
TRs should do fast kills through stealth and backstab. They should also disarm traps which somehow got missed.
GWF should also do fast kills, but because his weapon is larger strike less often. He should be able to hit 2-3 at a time.
CW should be very squishy at low levels, less so at mid levels, and formidable at high levels. CWs start as the weakest and build up to be the strongest at high levels.
DC is the healer, but cannot heal everyone every time - they don't have the power. I'd like to see "Hallowed Ground" be 30 seconds of battle enhancement - and 10 minutes of +2 to hit. I'd like to see a pre-combat Bless spell to add +1 to the to hit roll and added damage.
HR is the fake artillery (90 feet range is 1+ movement turn) Rain of Arrows helps from 200 yds (600 feet) e.g. 20 combat movements away with a larger target area, but the same number of arrows spread thinner. Even a 100 yd outdoor range would help. 90 ft is ok underground or inside. The Ranger needs stealth mode outdoors, which is his element.
GF is supposedly a Knight, but that role is for the Paladin (which is not yet in the game). He is the tank, not the Knight (of the knight's challenge). His job is to DEFLECT (with his armor) A LOT of damage not attract it, although the armor will attract enemies. Most real tanks have a great weapon, a 'one hit, one kill' weapon that the GF is missing. THE GREAT BLOW a daily with a 10 minute cool down (and a commensurate 1000 times your strength damage) fits the bill. THE GREAT BLOW would work well against final bosses. At least the GF would be able to get one good lick on the final boss.
Exchange the Knight's Challenge to the Paladin (if created) who has some healing powers and give him 50% deflect on damage taken for THE GREAT BLOW.
if you have any nonconstructive criticism, find another thread to post it on.:)
Post edited by grogthemagnif on
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Its just not very useful to do so since most of the time the Team has run past/through/over/around them by the time you actually finishing disarming it.
What are you talking about + 2 to hit and +1 to hit roll. There is not hit roll in this game. Every attack as long as the target is in range is a hit.
+1 movement turn? again what are you talking about?
It sounds like you are trying to bring the rules from some homebrew PNP D&D campaign into this game which will not work.
- JailBreak (in development)
Ie weapon speed, 90 feet movement turns, Wizards being the best after a certain level etc.
Have you actually played a TR? Because they can disarm traps. Traps in solo levels (especially if it is TR specific class quests) is fine, but anything more could cause severe issues. This is a MMO and having traps that a party is required to disarm put serious restrictions on party composition so it is a fine line to tread.
So you want to enshrine CWs as the dominant class because they are 'weak' for the 20 hours it takes to level up to cap? There is a reason why every MMO tried to keep classes somewhat balanced, and Neverwinter is an MMO first, then a D&D game.
"I don't like the direction that this particular change is going. Here is what I would suggest instead."
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Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
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And to have this right the class need a purpose in the group or in a Dungeon Run.
And the great problem in Neverwinter is, not all classes have a purpose. In PvE the Cleric has a purpose (in 90% of the Dungeon) to stay in a group, because he is the only healer. The last few weeks i never saw a Tank and the only Dungeon that really need a Guardian Fighter is (in my opinion) Frozen Heart. In all other Dungeons you are better and faster if you have a Controll Wizard and a Great Weapon Fighter.
Controll Wizard makes the most damage (because of AOE) AND crowd controll the enemy, which is necessary to survive. The Great Weapon Fighter has a big damage output to wipe out the Mob-Groups between the bosses. The Trickster Rogue is designed to kill the bosses faster and easier, but he is not really necessary for a group and his role is now really questionable, because his overall damage is pretty low in relation to the other classes.
Then you have the Hunter Ranger. After some patching i never saw some of this guys in a group. Thats it because he has no purpose in group.
The normal PvE Group says: Cleric + Controll Wizard/Great Weapon Fighter, sometimes a Trickster Rogue and really rare a Guardian Fighter or an Hunter Ranger.
This means, you have six classes and only three are really needed. Two has a direct purpose (Cleric for heal, and Controll Wizard for crowd controll) all other classes are choosen by there damage.
The problem of neverwinter is that it is only a 2D game if it comes to the game mechanics. By 2D i don't mean the graphic i mean the deepness of the mechanics itself.
Now you run in the battle, you use your abilitys (powers and class mechanics) and your stamina to avoid attacks. That's it. You only need a bit of knowledge about the enemys skill rotation and that was it. Nothing really deep and nothing really difficult in itself, to make the game difficult you only raise the Hitpoints/Armor and the Damage of the enemy. That is pretty lame.
The game need another mechanic for the battles. A deeper understanding of the classes to work together as team, that goes through out the stats.
That is the real reason that the game lack of balance.
Balance in PvP would mean basically making a battery of PvP oriented skills for each class that are not all that useful in PvE, and then counters to those skills (some of this is present, but not enough.) Those things would get tweaked as needed for PvP, and no one outside of PvP would notice. Same should apply in reverse.
And for PvE, balance will never exist until proper dungeons are made. So maybe there is a lofty perch that you need a ranger skill to reach, if you can get there, you can do over-watch and take less damage, while dealing lots of it. Sounds like an exploit but it isn't if it's by design. Maybe there is a place where if you have the stealth skills needed to get to it, you can free the enslaved titan to assist with the next set of encounters, and only a rogue can do it.
Basically, they have to make it beneficial to have a balanced party, but currently the situation is opposite that.
I mean there is a lot, but it's kind of pointless to type it out here, words are wasted.
Roland Mac Sheonin GF | Tarron Direheart SW |
The main reason tanks don't work so well in neverwinter is that there are no terrain strategy. In PnP you would lure the enemies into a narrow corridor and put the tank type in front. that way your squishie dps ( magic users, archers) could stay behind them and range em. bad guys would have to get trhough the tough characters to get to the dps.
In neverwinter you have preset encounters where the fight can only take place in one spot. Almost always this means everyone is running around like crazy and the bad guys are free to target anyone, and terrain strategy is irrelevant. Also crowd control never seems to work on bosses, which is a contrived notion. Also bad guys cant be blocked physically and can run right through someone to get at a target.
If you had an iq that was even marginally decent you would always go after squishy dps first and ignore that tanks. That is why in REAL dnd you always had to use strategy to protect them. In this game that is irrelevant, thus tanks being of questionable value.
I would really like to see this in the game. For example, the group cleans a specific part of the dungeon.
Then the Trickster Rogue and the Hunter Ranger set some traps, the Guardian Fighter in front and the battle begins. I would really like to see this.
Or correct positioning where an enemy can't attack you or a part of the group AND the Mobs has the intelligence to attack the next enemy if they can't reach there primary target. Or Climb the position or bring it to collapse if are all in a save place.
I mean, the Controll Wizard has the ability to gather all Mobs with the Vortex-Thingy and push it in the lava/pit/hell/pudding. You could do this all the time in spellplague. Then they nerved the push ability and closed most of the lava pits and set invisible walls to avoid that.
Why not making THIS a game mechanic. I don't mean an every day mechanic to push mobs in an instant Kill-Pit but give the players the opportunity to stand in the correct position for some fights to get an advantage. To make it possible to prepare for a heavy fight, to have terrain strategy. It would be awesome.
And what i really like to see is a better Monster-Design. I like the optics, but the skills are really repetitive and predictable. I would like to see intelligent Monsters that not only attack the one with the biggest damage or some kind of state they go. Something like Frenzy, Berserk, magical possesion, or similar that can gained by a skill, low hitpoints or another monster.
There's way, way too much "tank-n-spank" in this game (and significantly too much "spank" compared to "tank") and not enough thinking and strategy.
Some similar should be possible in Neverwinter.
P.S.: Sorry for my crappy english... -.-
Your point got across, and that is the important thing.
Neverwinter is perhaps the most fun MMO levelling experience but the dungeons very lackluster and come down to gathering all the mobs up and DPSing them down
Cool would be some kind of riddles for the dungeon progress. They had two reasons, fun and taking a break from only killing enemys and they would some kind of anti-bot mechanic if you make random generated riddles (combinationsystem, etc).
Exactly. In real DnD, a Rogue is VITAL to have, you might get caught in numberious party killing traps. That's right party killing. in this game, traps are a joke, and rogue is just a melee dps,.... which is somewhat lackluster compared to say,.. CW or even GwF.
I would like to see things like, extra mega treasure horde but only openable by rogue skills. Special critters(with unique treasure) only trackable (spawnable) by ranger. Special puzzles in dungeon that only a magician can get around. Huge boulders blocking treasure that only a strong fighter can move.
Adding unique utility to classes this way will encourage party diversity and not only CW and GWF only eliteness.
Game is balanced when the outcome does not depend on which side you choose.
Chess for instance is more or less balanced, 55/45 maybe b/c white has the first move.
Among more modern games, the PvP-oriented StarCraft2 is more or less balanced at pro level. At beginner level, one of the three races is harder to handle. So, here the editor openly claims that its game is balanced only once the players have reached a certain level of skill.
Balance can be in PvE as well. The reference MMORPG had many many DPS classes, some are considered to be under-performing but the difference in DPS is less than 10%.
Balance can be a PvE-PvP overall. In the Rappelz MMORPG, the Assassin class used to be a beast in PvE and a freewin (for the opponent) in PvP. Some other classes were unbalanced the other way. So, all in all the sum of the unbalances was creating a global balance.
On the other side, and without naming the editor, there is a game where a class known as "Trickster rogue" tops the charts in solo PvE, group PvE, and PvP. This game, whose editor shall remain unmentionned, can be considered as the paragon of unbalance.
Besides the class-vs-class balance, there is also the build-vs-build balance. For a given race, choosing different builds should lead to different gameplay but same performance. If, for a given race, among three possible builds there is only one that will bring good results, then there is no balance.
+1
As long as this game is only a "kill ten rats" game, the balance-through-diversity can never exist.
We need seas, lakes and races able to swim faster than the others (already exists in PWI). We need races who can climb trees and use their bows from up there. We need races who can see in the dark and detect hidden chests in dungeons. Chests that only the thief class will be able to unlock. We need small tunnels that can be only walked by dwarfs and halflings and which lead to a secret cache which hides a key that is required for the party to enter the dungeon.
I agree. This would be very cool. Hopefully there's a way to make the extra stuff worth it, like an epic skill kit, but for the entire team. It probably shouldn't drop epic gear, but transmutes? Dye? Finding things that are valuable in game.
Take diablo 3. I assume nobody remembered the whirlwind barbarian that can easily farm using cheap gear? What about the perma stealth demon hunter in PVP?
Example would be:
A locked door can either have a thief pick the lock, or a fighter with superior strength bash it in.
Secret doors that a thief can find with skill or elves, dwarves, and halflings can find with abilities, or a mage with a Gem of True Seeing.
Puzzles that can be solved by the intelligence of a mage or the wisdom of a cleric.
Tactical fights that require characters placing themselves appropriately take the best advantage of their talents.
These are just some examples, a quick read of the PHB will give plethora of other ideas that can be used.
Sorry to sound like a commercial interruption.
It's a greater fantasy when you have a game that mixes PvE and PvP.
Having more than 1 class in a dungeon is a bad sign, having a couple of classes that have trouble finding parties for end game dungeons is a very bad sign.
for pvp it's not so important because you can just pug queue and no one will kick you out, even if they feel your class isn 't very good. Also in pvp all classes can be useful, not so much in endgame PVE.