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Your dog's bigger than mine? Balancing the Classes
northranger
Member Posts: 11 Arc User
There's always a lot of discussion about game balance in chat, class vs. class, certain classes being OverPowered or UnderPowered ... Here's the scoop. And trust me on this; I've studied game design for years and been involved in the designed of three RPG systems.
Almost every MMO is designed with the premise that every class should be capable of doing everything that every other class can do, just as well, but in a different way. All things being equal, the thief/assassin should be as effective as the fighter/man-at-arms in combat, and the wizard/mage able to stand toe to toe with either. For every "power" the greatsword fighter has, the cleric has an equivalent. Thus, you have MMOs that focus on solo play with team play an ancillary aspect of the game. And the only reason to include team participation is to be able to overwhelm extremely powerful bosses.
I'm not even considering PvP in this. PvP is simply a reflection of the PvE aspect of a game, with a different goal in mind.
Originally D&D and other games were not this way. There were class-specific abilities and tasks, things that a thief or a wizard could do that no other class was capable of accomplishing. This served to impose team play for most "quests," though there were the occasional solo missions tailored for each individual class ... All things being equal, the thief could never stand up against a fighter of the same level in combat. He had other advantages - stealth, back-stabbing, picking locks and detecting/disarming traps, etc. He wasn't intended to deal as much or take as much damage in a stand-up fight as a trained soldier in platemail wielding a battleaxe.
Mission goals should be different for each major character class. While the warrior's goal is to vanquish a powerful enemy in combat, the thief's is to avoid combat, retrieve a valuable item and escape unscathed. And the spell-wielder's purpose is to overcome magical challenges to acquire some forgotten lore or artifact or defeat a supernatural menace. Team quests would require the accomplishment of some or all of these. Without a thief able to find and gain entry through a hidden portal, the quest would fail. Without a wizard to counter magical threats, those fighters would be slaughtered. Truly epic.
This concept has been shoved aside in the name of "game balance." If a fighter can give and take more damage than a thief, he's considered OP and, therefore must be nerfed. It's just easier to create a game system where - again, all things being equal - any character of any class can be successful in any scenario. Likewise, speed of play is a factor. Most MMO missions are run-throughs. You follow the map or a sparkly trail that leads you to each encounter, slaughter the mobs, pick up the loot, and sprint onward until finally reaching the boss who is ultimately overwhelmed - not by strategy - by the combined firepower of team members. It's a simple model, perfect for computer-based games - fast, gratuitous and repetitive. It is heavy on combat and low on role-playing (which means actually playing a thief as a thief).
Players become frustrated when the class of character to which they've been devoting thier time and effort (and money) is nerfed in the latest update in order to maintain "game balance." Which means that the class has been judged to be more effective in one aspect of the game or another (usually damage, crowd control, resistance to certain types of attack) and must be adjusted down to the level of the others. Rarely if ever are the others adjusted up. All hammers have to be the same size in order to leave the same dent ... A blunt approach to gaming.
A good MMORPG would feature class-specific quest threads that converge occasional into manditory team quests. The fighter, the mage and the thief follow seperate storyline missions to the same goal, and then must team up to accomplish it. A REALLY good MMO would allow players to try mission strings outside of their class, just for variety, and offer special rewards for succeeding. Such a system would be large, expensive and time consuming to design and, with the speed of play demanded by modern players, the amount of content in a game is a factor.
So, we have one size fits all quest arcs which make the class you play basically irrelevant
because characters of every class are able to accomplish the same things as every other (with different versions of the same powers and skills) which inevitably boils down to DPS or gear score as the single deciding factor for effectiveness in the game. And, frankly, most players prefer a simple system of sprint, hack-and-slash, grab the loot, and sprint to the next mission in the all-consuming rush to power up to the level cap ... where they can do more of the same. That's a shame, because the MMO model has such great potential for real in-depth gaming.
The role-playing aspect of on-line gaming has given way to the simpler, faster, less involved demands of ... well, gamers. The same people who have grown up on console gaming and think role-playing means being wierd online. Game companies know the shortest and most economical route to success. Can't really blame them for using it. If I had the time and the money, I'd design an MMORPG. Most companies out there do, and they won't.
So, the next time you want to complain about your favorite class taking a hit from the nerfbat, the next time your steel-clad dreadnaught falls before the whirling butterknives of a super-ninja, remember that it is in the name of the current idea of game balance ... except it never really IS balanced.
Hey. Let's be careful out there.
Almost every MMO is designed with the premise that every class should be capable of doing everything that every other class can do, just as well, but in a different way. All things being equal, the thief/assassin should be as effective as the fighter/man-at-arms in combat, and the wizard/mage able to stand toe to toe with either. For every "power" the greatsword fighter has, the cleric has an equivalent. Thus, you have MMOs that focus on solo play with team play an ancillary aspect of the game. And the only reason to include team participation is to be able to overwhelm extremely powerful bosses.
I'm not even considering PvP in this. PvP is simply a reflection of the PvE aspect of a game, with a different goal in mind.
Originally D&D and other games were not this way. There were class-specific abilities and tasks, things that a thief or a wizard could do that no other class was capable of accomplishing. This served to impose team play for most "quests," though there were the occasional solo missions tailored for each individual class ... All things being equal, the thief could never stand up against a fighter of the same level in combat. He had other advantages - stealth, back-stabbing, picking locks and detecting/disarming traps, etc. He wasn't intended to deal as much or take as much damage in a stand-up fight as a trained soldier in platemail wielding a battleaxe.
Mission goals should be different for each major character class. While the warrior's goal is to vanquish a powerful enemy in combat, the thief's is to avoid combat, retrieve a valuable item and escape unscathed. And the spell-wielder's purpose is to overcome magical challenges to acquire some forgotten lore or artifact or defeat a supernatural menace. Team quests would require the accomplishment of some or all of these. Without a thief able to find and gain entry through a hidden portal, the quest would fail. Without a wizard to counter magical threats, those fighters would be slaughtered. Truly epic.
This concept has been shoved aside in the name of "game balance." If a fighter can give and take more damage than a thief, he's considered OP and, therefore must be nerfed. It's just easier to create a game system where - again, all things being equal - any character of any class can be successful in any scenario. Likewise, speed of play is a factor. Most MMO missions are run-throughs. You follow the map or a sparkly trail that leads you to each encounter, slaughter the mobs, pick up the loot, and sprint onward until finally reaching the boss who is ultimately overwhelmed - not by strategy - by the combined firepower of team members. It's a simple model, perfect for computer-based games - fast, gratuitous and repetitive. It is heavy on combat and low on role-playing (which means actually playing a thief as a thief).
Players become frustrated when the class of character to which they've been devoting thier time and effort (and money) is nerfed in the latest update in order to maintain "game balance." Which means that the class has been judged to be more effective in one aspect of the game or another (usually damage, crowd control, resistance to certain types of attack) and must be adjusted down to the level of the others. Rarely if ever are the others adjusted up. All hammers have to be the same size in order to leave the same dent ... A blunt approach to gaming.
A good MMORPG would feature class-specific quest threads that converge occasional into manditory team quests. The fighter, the mage and the thief follow seperate storyline missions to the same goal, and then must team up to accomplish it. A REALLY good MMO would allow players to try mission strings outside of their class, just for variety, and offer special rewards for succeeding. Such a system would be large, expensive and time consuming to design and, with the speed of play demanded by modern players, the amount of content in a game is a factor.
So, we have one size fits all quest arcs which make the class you play basically irrelevant
because characters of every class are able to accomplish the same things as every other (with different versions of the same powers and skills) which inevitably boils down to DPS or gear score as the single deciding factor for effectiveness in the game. And, frankly, most players prefer a simple system of sprint, hack-and-slash, grab the loot, and sprint to the next mission in the all-consuming rush to power up to the level cap ... where they can do more of the same. That's a shame, because the MMO model has such great potential for real in-depth gaming.
The role-playing aspect of on-line gaming has given way to the simpler, faster, less involved demands of ... well, gamers. The same people who have grown up on console gaming and think role-playing means being wierd online. Game companies know the shortest and most economical route to success. Can't really blame them for using it. If I had the time and the money, I'd design an MMORPG. Most companies out there do, and they won't.
So, the next time you want to complain about your favorite class taking a hit from the nerfbat, the next time your steel-clad dreadnaught falls before the whirling butterknives of a super-ninja, remember that it is in the name of the current idea of game balance ... except it never really IS balanced.
Hey. Let's be careful out there.
Post edited by northranger on
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Comments
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
I think the key thing with MMO's is to realise that classes will never ever be balanced, if Neverwinter ran on for another 20 years they will still be trying to balance the classes. All you can do is ask yourself if your having fun or not and ignore what the other players are doing, after all you only need to find four other like minded players to enjoy the content at a pace that suits you.
The Dev's solution to this for GF atm seems to be giving them a ton of party buffs and making child's play to grab aggro. I guess we'll get to see how that turns out in a few days. HRs are getting a rework but I haven't kept up on that. DCs and TRs will get one shortly. I can only guess that they'll get more buffing/debuffing/utility and probably improve their damage (a bit for DCs a lot for TRs) as well.
Of course, a long standing problem still has to be addressed, balancing PVE vs. PVP instead of doing it separately. The changes slated to go live on Thursday give me hope that the Devs won't be making that mistake again, as they did with the TR so many times. Because I have to disagree that, "PvP is simply a reflection of the PvE aspect of a game" because players don't have hundreds of thousands of HP and what works well against them is simply overkill in PVP. Also, most players hopefully won't stand still and let you hit them with the ridiculous windups that so many attacks useful in PVE feature. Daunting Light is a DC's best damage power and great for soloing but try and hit another player with it who isn't proned or AFK.
I support everything you said except this.
Everyone plays on what systems they prefer, growing up on console has no effect or whatsoever on PC gaming.
The way it is and has always been is play how you want and how you prefer, console gamers have never stopped you from role-playing, and by no means do console gamers think role-playing means being weird online, you are mistaking the naivety of some human beings to console gamers, there are some individuals that think playing games is weird, and I doubt the mentality of such individuals is going to change anytime soon.
Also you stated that statement as if everyone who is a PC gamer enjoys role-playing, not to mention that you based your whole theory on a single gaming genre which is MMORPGs, so basically you cannot justify including consoles in these types of topics.
Don't get me wrong, this was an interesting read (one of the best I have seen so far in this forum) but the topic could have been flawless if you didn't mentioned consoles with assumptions that cant be back up with any logical proofs.
A cleric uses various healing powers to heal his/her allies, how can non-healer classes do that? A crowd controller uses AOE control powers to hinder/control enemies, how can other classes do that? A defender tanks mobs at front line, absorbs damage, and prevents mobs from overwhelming allies, how can squishy/semi-squishy classes do that? A rogue disables traps and opens complicated locks, how can other classes do that? Although these things weren't implemented very well at here, they should work like that. The only way to achieve what you said is destroying all classes' natures and allowing they to perform actions which they aren't supposed to do. Would you really like to see that happens?
1- Remove Life Steal (make DC's heal and Tank role useless).
2- Make some Dungeons Harder (No Tank needed, same trash mobs, every composition can complete the dungeons).
3- Make some Bosses Harder (No Tank needed, Red areas telling you were and when the enemy will hit, slow and soft attacks).
4- Make PvE content in general Harder (You can't find a thing not-soloable with the unique exception of IWD if we don't consider dungeons and skirmishes).
Making everything harder (and not having LS) would make DCs and GFs requested (and a lot more) and for example, having few but stronger foes would be better for TRs, other thing that I would change too are.
5- Diversity in the mobs (almost same drops, same DR and same EXP from every monster with the unique exception of the bosses).
6- More and bigger maps (You can't explore like in other games because maps are very small and they are few, foes are so easy that you can safely walk anywhere).
7- Scaled content (No feel of progression).
It's not like these points have something to do with the roles, but I think those would improve NWN.
People crying for making everything harder forget that for fresh and low-geared toons the content is hard enough. Sure, if the GS of my toon is twice what is needed to enter a dungeon I expect the dungeon to be easier. If it wouldn't get easier with increasing GS where is the point of improving the toon?
The problem is that this approach directly lead to the issues described so clearly by the OP. It also leads to shorter and simpler quests that can be completed by the person who only spends and hour or two online at any one time. Even the 5-man dungeons in NW take far less time to complete than equivalent level content in older games.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
Agent Smith: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.
— (The unwritten rule)
+1.
It will never be balanced enough to please everyone, especially pro-PvP'ers. I enjoy the game and will continue to play as long as it is fun. Once I stop enjoying it, I will move on.
A pet class (there is none yet in NWO unfortunately) will buff his companion, a cleric(there is barely one in NWO as he cannot heal himself) will outheal the incoming damage, a tank class (there are some in NWO, the CW for instance) will laugh at the received damage, the barbarian/2H fighter (there is none in NWO) will go into a frenzy after receiving a few hits, and once frenzied will be on equal terms with the boss, or at least will suffer a glorious death. In the end the boss is dead. But the DC killed it the DC way, and the GF killed it the GF way. It's wrong to say that, if CW has fireball and Archer has bow, then the barbarian must be given a catapult.
It's called Dungeons & Dragons Online. It's the equivalent of Neverwinter but using D&D 3.5 instead of D&D 4. Essentially, healing in any dungeon is available only via cleric. Healing items (potion, rod, or scroll) are rather expensive. There are usually rest points within dungeons, but they can often be used only once per dungeon entry. So you have to actually focus on combat during combat. And casters have mana pools that don't refresh continuously (except at those use-once rest points), so they start out having to use magic sparingly. And stats are sensible (no 10,000 hit point nonsense). And every dungeon includes a DM narration as you progress, most notably even narration by Gary Gygax himself. (Turns out, he's a terrible narrator.) You get bonus experience for disabling traps (rogues only) or exploring beyond certain runes (which only certain classes or stat values can open), so it's good to have a variety of classes in your party. Unfortunately, the graphics there were uninspiring even 8 years ago. I doubt they'll keep the servers up much longer.
Neverwinter could be converted to that kind of gameplay experience, and I think it would be a far more interesting virtual world. I wish it was that world. It is not.
It will never be balanced [/QUOTE]
Why so? The reference MMORPG is balanced in every respect. Some classes have more DPS than others in DP but by a 20% margin, not a five to one ratio like in NWO. Plus, NWO being much newer than WoW, the devs here just have to look and copy-paste.
Because making one class "balanced" causes another to complain that the balanced class is now OP. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm saying it isn't feasible as an all-encompassing goal for the devs. You'll never be able to please everyone especially if their particular class starts being less useful or loses an important power(s).
Is balancing a goal to strive towards - certainly.
Will true balancing ever be achieved - probably not. Everyone wants their own class(es) to be the best.
Synergy would be a better target to aim for than balance. You balance one class and automatically will have put it out of balance with the others. Balance is fine for a purely solo game but when you have classes interacting then without looking more at the synergistic side things wont get balanced.
Balance for pvp that also affects pve should never happen! EVER! Usually that's done as a result of one vocal section moaning enough until a change is made and the next section of moaning takes up the tune.
Mechanics that could come into play when one class is grouped with another. Sadly for NW and their choice of a controller based skill setup it would have to be done by the game without forcing a player into losing offensive potential. And if we were to trust the game to make choices for us we'd be screwed entirely. WoW was mentioned but why can certain attacks not dump threat onto the designated tank.
I remember low level clericing instances was mostly me trying to tank and heal since the tanks threat was negligible in comparison to all the healing due to the way it was done. (Something I reported as an issue in beta but of course made it's way into live quite happily) If that threat was diverted just a small amount it would have saved grief from the blinkered dps who were only watching the boss healthbar. It got to the point where I rolled a GF just to see and yes their threat generation was indeed rubbish, and also kind of pointless when the minion "tanks" would knock the threat about like a pingpong ball.
One things SWTOR got right was that minions only got used as fillers not in addition to players.
Yet I'm more comfortable with 4e, which this game uses, that every class has its powers and spell casters' potential can break free from the limit of spell points.