Class uniqueness and purpose are paramount for this game to succeed in achieving its core tenents.
Balance should only be given consideration with regards to comparing like classes within their archtypes.
-Healers should be comparable to each other regardless of class.
-DPS'ers should be comparable to each other regardless of class.
-Tanks should be comparable to each other regardless of class.
-Utility, should be comparable to each other regardless of class. (Although the nature of the classes "utility" should not be 100% the same)
Essentially what I am saying is the various archtypes should be balanced within their respective archtype but have their own play style and methods for acheiving their role in a group. Meaning a healer, regardless of class should be able to keep a group alive. A tank, regardless of class should be able to hold aggro for a group. So on and so forth...
Although I would be ok with some classes having varying degrees of difficulty for situational performance of their role.
Example: Maybe a druid can heal and protect better against elemental damage than say a Shaman. Or a Paladin may have a bonus for holding aggro against undead compared to a Warrior... Stuff like that.
Thread cleaned up - please refrain from using political or religious references on these forums as they are highly debatable and divisive and we are here to make an incredible high fantasy game and grow an amazing community, not talk real-world issues.
Political and Religious posts, comments, quotes etc. will always be removed without warning.
Kilsin said:Thread cleaned up - please refrain from using political or religious references on these forums as they are highly debatable and divisive and we are here to make an incredible high fantasy game and grow an amazing community, not talk real-world issues.
Political and Religious posts, comments, quotes etc. will always be removed without warning.
You just made me proud Kilsin. Sorry if that sounds condescending. /Salute
arazons said:Class uniqueness and purpose are paramount for this game to succeed in achieving its core tenents.
Balance should only be given consideration with regards to comparing like classes within their archtypes.
-Healers should be comparable to each other regardless of class.
-DPS'ers should be comparable to each other regardless of class.
-Tanks should be comparable to each other regardless of class.
-Utility, should be comparable to each other regardless of class. (Although the nature of the classes "utility" should not be 100% the same)Essentially what I am saying is the various archtypes should be balanced within their respective archtype but have their own play style and methods for acheiving their role in a group. Meaning a healer, regardless of class should be able to keep a group alive. A tank, regardless of class should be able to hold aggro for a group. So on and so forth...
Although I would be ok with some classes having varying degrees of difficulty for situational performance of their role.
Example: Maybe a druid can heal and protect better against elemental damage than say a Shaman. Or a Paladin may have a bonus for holding aggro against undead compared to a Warrior... Stuff like that.
I Agree with every thing said here. Nicely said... The only thing I would build on is that all healers should have the ability to restore XP when they rez and not just the cleric.
Vander said:I Agree with every thing said here. Nicely said... The only thing I would build on is that all healers should have the ability to restore XP when they rez and not just the cleric.
i don't think any xp should be restored for a rezz by any class.
that in itself is imbalanced.
think about it like this: my entire party wipes and i only have 1 class that can rezz. everyone gets off scott xp free minus the rezzer that had to corpse run back.
arazons said:Class uniqueness and purpose are paramount for this game to succeed in achieving its core tenents.
Balance should only be given consideration with regards to comparing like classes within their archtypes.
-Healers should be comparable to each other regardless of class.
-DPS'ers should be comparable to each other regardless of class.
-Tanks should be comparable to each other regardless of class.
-Utility, should be comparable to each other regardless of class. (Although the nature of the classes "utility" should not be 100% the same)Essentially what I am saying is the various archtypes should be balanced within their respective archtype but have their own play style and methods for acheiving their role in a group. Meaning a healer, regardless of class should be able to keep a group alive. A tank, regardless of class should be able to hold aggro for a group. So on and so forth...
Although I would be ok with some classes having varying degrees of difficulty for situational performance of their role.
Example: Maybe a druid can heal and protect better against elemental damage than say a Shaman. Or a Paladin may have a bonus for holding aggro against undead compared to a Warrior... Stuff like that.
that's ideal, but never achievable in an asymmetric class fulfilling the same role.
one can look at the abilities of the healers right now and they have a stark difference in healing styles.
if the choice to make it where druid, cleric, paladin and shaman can keep a tank alive in any given situation, means why bother even having 4 classes that do the same thing?
druids have better buffer healing, cleric is probably the most balanced, paladin has single target healing, shaman excels at aoe healing.
we can even look at wow class balancing for example. all the healing classes are so similar now that it doesn't matter what kind of healer i pick up.
the difficulty is that most players aren't going to find the differences in their healer class acceptable to another healer class. they only think, 'oh this class overall performs better than my class in most situations so we'll only pick up clerics from now on.'
this offset can be tuned via diversifying the encounters, however, the lazy way for devs to balance it is to tune the class numbers or give them extra abilities similar to the cleric. afterall, it's easy to change class design than to build a plethora of encounters.
Kilsin said:Thread cleaned up - please refrain from using political or religious references on these forums as they are highly debatable and divisive and we are here to make an incredible high fantasy game and grow an amazing community, not talk real-world issues.
Political and Religious posts, comments, quotes etc. will always be removed without warning.
busted. gonna add a few more words to stay in guidelines XD
In this savvy discussion about class balance and the fascinating ideas on how to apply by class type on a scale, etc. I think the issue of class dependency also needs consideration. As there is the players individual responsibility for Spatial awareness, so is there the same individual responsibility for Class awareness that naturally creates a sense of class dependency and may have the effect of reducing the need for class balance. This class dependency is solved for the player through social interaction and perhaps aided by the the anticipated match-maker idea, (Pantheon: Reach for the fallen)
A rogue/caster needs a tank type from which to play against. A warrior needs a healer type to support them. So the player is so motivated to encourage and behave in a manner that would keep regular healers and DPS and tanks and CC in their favor so they can do stuff. Not only for their own benefit, but perhaps to put the others benefit first to engender a sense of loyalty. Giving up what you wanted to do today and not saying anything about it to make them feel bad, to do what they want to do instead. In the hopes they may want to do what you gave up today, on another day.
Once you are Class aware, and realize you are class dependent, that we all are class dependent on others, hopefully you have a network of tanks, CC, healers and DPS to chat with on a given day to group and do stuff and if so, who needs class balance? except in the case of clearly undiscovered OP moves. Might change the dynamic of PvP, too, from mano-a-mano to gang to gang exclusively.
Kilsin said:How important do you think it is that classes are balanced? Should some classes be better than others in different areas or should all classes be equal in your opinion? :)Edit for clarification: "PvP has no impact on PvE, separate servers, different rulesets, classes will be balanced accordingly for each side without affecting each other, so it is not even an issue." This is just your thoughts on class balancing overall.
Both.
Some classes should be better than others in different areas to an extent.
The things the weaker classes are better at should be close enough that a certain class can get a group, and feel equally useful, within a single play session/grouping experience.
I really think class balance is a myth. Class role is vital. I agree that healers should be healers. Tanks will be tanks. I've seen some good stuff from VR so far so I'm not too worried. Necros will be masters of the undead. Necros should never get a rez and a healer should never get a summon corpse function. I worry most about class creep. Games run out of things for a class to do and start broadening the role of each class. That leads to mush. Personally I hope it's almost impossible to solo in Pantheon. I know there is solo content planned. I doubt very highly I'll ever do it.
stellarmind said:Vander said:I Agree with every thing said here. Nicely said... The only thing I would build on is that all healers should have the ability to restore XP when they rez and not just the cleric.
i don't think any xp should be restored for a rezz by any class.
that in itself is imbalanced.
think about it like this: my entire party wipes and i only have 1 class that can rezz. everyone gets off scott xp free minus the rezzer that had to corpse run back.
If a healer can loot its own body, I'm not sure why they wouldn't be able to rez themselves.
I do think that XP regain should be very limited, though. It got ridiculous in EQ, for example, with 98% rezzes at later levels making death much less of an issue, when it should had become greater, if anything.
Kilsin said:How important do you think it is that classes are balanced? Should some classes be better than others in different areas or should all classes be equal in your opinion? :)Edit for clarification: "PvP has no impact on PvE, separate servers, different rulesets, classes will be balanced accordingly for each side without affecting each other, so it is not even an issue." This is just your thoughts on class balancing overall.
I think there needs to be a distinction between perceived balance and actual balance. When observing balance between a system as complex as a mmo class structure, it almost requires a professional level of skill and investment to be able to track and weigh just the numerical side of class balance. But when you add in the more nuanced moving parts of actual players interacting with the class system it becomes almost a living embodiment of chaos, impossible to measure. This basically means that most people who feel a system is unbalanced lack the skillset to actually make that measurement. What they mean to say is that it feels unbalanced from their current perspective. This is a dangerous problem for video game development because players WILL leave a game if they perceive it to be unbalanced but player percepetions are often wrong. The solution often reached is to make balance more easy to perceive. Anything unique and hard to quantify is removed or significantly nerfed or copy pasted to all classes. This brings us to a common problem in older mmo's referred to as "class homogenization". The issue here is that if your class system can be measured quickly and simply by an untrained eye then your game will be as satisfying as a meal of wet carboad with a side of dusty napkins.
It sounds to me like what you are really asking is whether class balance should focus on being easy to measure, or remain hard to measure. For me, I like to see that slider moved more to the complex side of things, I am skilled at digesting entire systems quickly and completely and I feel like my characters have a stronger connection to my personal identity in complex systems. I recognize the reasons that less complex systems are popular (lower time investment needed to learn the system, less distance between weak players and strong players, less skill needed from the design side of things) but for me these are deterrants. I want everyone to have to invest significantly to completely learn a class system. I want the distance between the weakest player and the strongest player to be a direct reflection of skill level and game investment. I want to respect the class designer as an artist, a worthy architect, a creator of worlds.
One thing is certain, both ends of this axis are very bad. Homogenized classes are a death sentence for an mmo, and on the other spectrum if a class system is too complex the game will have a critically low player population and class power will become esoteric. So even if the slider swings to the left the game can still be good as long as it stays closer to the middle.
On a related side note, I would like to see development teams stand up to the player base more when their design choices are justified. i think one of the places where games really start to lose artistic integrity is when a key design element gets eroded through player pressure and I think publicly standing up for the design goes a long way towards staving off idle complaining. Luckily, I see this already from the Pantheon team. It is one of the things that makes my passion for this game grow. On more than one occasion, the Pantheon team has absorbed player feed back but then smashed it indefatigably against the design framework of the game. They make it very clear that design integrity comes first and I respect the hell out of them for it.
-Gottbeard-
Gottbeard said:The issue here is that if your class system can be measured quickly and simply by an untrained eye then your game will be as satisfying as a meal of wet carboad with a side of dusty napkins. -Gottbeard-
I agree completely with the entire post. I just had to quote this one line because it's the best (and most entertaining) simile I've ever read on the forums. Bravo!
If you aren't a writer, you should be :)
Jothany said:I agree completely with the entire post. I just had to quote this one line because it's the best (and most entertaining) simile I've ever read on the forums. Bravo!
If you aren't a writer, you should be :)
Thank you for the regard, it was very nice of you to say.
I am glad VR has clear class design in mind for so long, but I am firghtened how many people want(ed?) bland classes. This thread is like a trip through time. 5+ years have passed, everyone is saying the same things. I must try to change that. Obviously there are more to classes than just combat, but...
If a summoner's air pet were to compete with a rogue, on average how many levels lower would the rogue likely be in order to lose?
Jobeson said:If a summoner's air pet were to compete with a rogue, on average how many levels lower would the rogue likely be in order to lose?
I don't understand this question. If you were comparing the dps of a rogue and a summoner, why would you only analyze one potential pets dmg vs the rogue instead of the summoners dmg using any means available vs the rogues dmg doing the same? And why wouldn't you include the generic stats of the their target? There are so many factors that weigh into class vs class dps comparisons. Is the monster weak to the damage type of the rogues chosen weapons? Is the party make up formed to favor the rogue or the summoner? Does the summoner have levels on the arcaelemental best suited to take advantage of weapon and elemental weaknesses of the target? Is the target stationery enough to reliably perform comboes like gale step>wind blade. Does the target have a disposition and is that disposition favorable to either class (mana crazed could skew the situation a bit, for instance).
Even if you could perform a measurement in a vacuum to determine who is the top king in terms of most dmg per second (example, for the mobs in this popular grind zone- X class has the most damage per second), you haven't really learned anything actionable. Does their exp per hour also correlate? How high is their overall groups DPS? How stable is their party? How many deaths per time unit for their party? What is the minimum party size requirement to achieve this functionality?
There are so many layers to class balance.
I've learned over the years of playing games since Atari that the most important thing is class identity and feeling like your PC if valuable to the team. Also, balancing to the point of homogenization usually kills the fun of the game as you lose class identity when you do this. I feel that each class needs things that its overpowered at, not to the point where it breaks the game, but some different things that they excel at more than others.
This pattern has shown in many games over the years as tried and true. A good example is World of Warcraft, during its release and up to the Wrath of Lich King expansion when everything started to change and homogenize. Launch and through The Burning Crusade classes felt completely different in many ways and kind of had their own niche so to speak. During this time WoW exploded into the early 2000's version of fortnite due in part to great class identity and good socials. As blizzard caved to more and more complaints giving classes every ability and trying desperately to make everyone happy it all started to nose dive.
The lesson here seems to be that you can't make everthing equal and you can't make everyone happy. When you try to do these things you ultimately make no one happy and kill your game in the long run. So make your classes as unique as possible and give them some overpowered abilities that make them who they are. As long as every class has something they can use and always fall back on then your balance is good enough. Most important factor is fun and feeling like your actually a paladin or a mage.
Gottbeard said:Even if you could perform a measurement in a vacuum to determine who is the top king in terms of most dmg per second (example, for the mobs in this popular grind zone- X class has the most damage per second), you haven't really learned anything actionable. Does their exp per hour also correlate? How high is their overall groups DPS? How stable is their party? How many deaths per time unit for their party? What is the minimum party size requirement to achieve this functionality?
There are so many layers to class balance.
This was more poking fun at the idea of every DPS class has to be equal DPS idea because countless people seem to think everyone should be balanced and not specialized in various things or simply adaptable to all things.
With what they want, when would the mage pet out DPS the average member of the DPS class they are backstabbing along side?
If mage pets are ~60% of the mages damage then high end mages should eventually have a pet outdpsing an average rogue in order to keep the DPS fair.
@Grambeaux that is how I hope it will be. Sadly the cries for perfect balance are loud. I fully expect there to be cries to nerf particular tanks from day one.
Top priority for me is making sure each class has a unique identity and is fun to play.
After that look at balance -but don't put balance on a pedestal as it will make for a very boring game.
Although no company ever admits it , a constantly changing balance of nerfs and buffs is one of the things that keeps these types of games fresh and generates interest - people whom have left come back to try out new buffs, and the complainers re. nerfs are often just hot air (and as a company you can monitor subs and rollback the change if too extream!)
Galden said:a constantly changing balance of nerfs and buffs is one of the things that keeps these types of games fresh and generates interest - people whom have left come back to try out new buffs, and the complainers re. nerfs are often just hot air (and as a company you can monitor subs and rollback the change if too extream!)
Except that if you need to rely on a gimmick like constant arbitrary game changes to generate fresh interest in your content, then you have not done a good job of creating meaningful worthy content. The people you draw back to the game will only stay as long as the fluffy hype holds out and you attract them over the backs of a loyal playerbase who are there because they actually enjoy playing the game as is. I have to whole-heartedly disagree with you on this sentiment. I'll even go further to say that this superficial style of design is one of the issues destroying the mmorpg genre.
Gottbeard said:Except that if you need to rely on a gimmick like constant arbitrary game changes to generate fresh interest in your content, then you have not done a good job of creating meaningful worthy content. /snip
Disagree here - people leave these types of games for a variety of reasons - but wont rejoin unless there is something new that draws them. When they rejoin they may stay, as they realise the core game is good and fun. Sure, new content would be the ideal draw, but reality is that even AAA studios with millions in revenue have consistantly failed to deliver. Therefore balance tweaks & seasonal events.
Case study: Mechwarrior Online - all development was put on hold whilst dev team worked on Mechwarrior 5 - numbers playing dropped by half even though the core game (with all it's flaws) was quite balanced, engaging and had no real genre competitors. Last 6 months , some minor changes are put in that adjust balance and some events , and now numbers are nearly back up to before. People have come back and stayed.
Stagnation = death (even if you have a brilliant core game).
Hell, if I was a dev I might even be tempted to put in a limited 'phases of the moon' type mechanic where balance was automatically tweaked between alternates on some sort of time based period. e.g. for 5 days non physical melee damage has a 5% buff , next 5 days ranged physical damage has a 5% buff. Sure , this would create noise as people would 'feel worthless' when other competeing classes got thier day but would actually help make sure each class had thier place and generate a loit of interst to see what the next moon phase buff was.... /windupmerchant off.
Anyhow this whole sub-topic diverges from the main jist of my post - fun core game and class identity first , balance second.
Kittik said:Class balance really means the game only has 1 class.
Pretty much, this.
I already wore myself out in this thread 5-6 years ago, but the concept remains unchanged. If you want an old school class based game, let Kunark era EQ1, vanilla Anarchy Online and EVE be your guides. Period. Every single class (or class of ship, in EVE's case) has advantages and disadvantages depending on the content, solo/grouped, group makeup, etc. No class was 100% best for everything, no one combo was best for everything, etc. Every class had flavor, lore, purpose, etc.
FFS - they've had close to a decade to ponder it. These should be the best designed classes in MMO history at this point.
IMO:
The disparity in grouping vs. solo'ing is what led MMOs down the homogenization path. Enchanters, Druids and Wizards in EQ1 solo-kiting/charm-fighting multiple group mobs and leveling faster than a full group (under ideal conditions) created such a stark contrast in effectiveness, it was absurd. It did not engender happy social fun-times. :)
I saw solo Enchanters fighting the entirety of Howling Stones (a group-only zone), when full groups had a hard time. I mean, as a non-enchanter, I was pity-invited by guildmates to leech XP in Howling Stones, while they farmed it for all the loot they could ever want. It was just so.. ridiculous. In a good way for Enchanters, of course.
For players who weren't enchanters, druids, or wizards, though, time to go LFG and PUG it up, foolish group-required class! yaaaay.
Again, awesome for guilded folks, not so much for un-guilded folks. The only reason I ever got XP was with my guild, playing any non-caster / non-solo class. Lesson learned!
So, on one hand, yes, if you go to extremes, you can get classes that solo group content trivially, and treat the public design goals of "this is a social grouping game" with utter contempt and derision.
Then, on the other hand, you have the extreme of EVERYONE can do that, because 99% of the content in the game is solo-able, and everyone can tank, DPS, and heal, and there's no need for CC because everything is the equivalent of trash mobs. Modern MMOs.
Provided no class can solo group content (through whatever immersion-breaking mechanism you could imagine) then everyone has to group. Yet, in a game that becomes increasingly top-heavy over time, this simply drives new players towards two-boxing or multi-boxing because now they can't even level without a group. So they have to make a group. Enter the concept of NPC mercenaries, who play their role better than players. :|
It's a legit longevity problem. Shards of Dalaya suffers from it, and now, 15 years old, even worse than ever. The reality of that game is, despite all their incredible achievement in content, new players get shafted, hard.
Having strong role-based group-required classes is awesome, provided there are groups everywhere all the time. During the initial leveling phases, this is true. Hence the rise of seasonal games, classic servers, TLP's, and similar "everyone starts over" type environments.