Class Balance or Class Variety

TheLizardbones

There's been some discussion lately about the class balance in Rift. The discussion ranges from PvP damage, PvP crowd control, PvE damage, Healing classes, etc. My take on it is that you can have a lot of variety, but then you can't have balance, or you can have a very balanced game, but then you sacrifice variety. I'm referring to Rift, but I think this applies to many mmorpg, not just Rift.

What do you guys think?

TheLizardbones

Woot! 3 votes! Well, maybe just 2 since one of them was mine.

Cactus-Man

You can have variety and balance if you have variety in roles.

If you have 24 classes, but only 4 roles then you are going to have an issue balancing the variety of classes within the 4 roles, since you have superfluous classes per role.  The more distinct roles you have the larger the variety you can support.

Although not a MMO TF2 does a good job balancing the classes, and they have 9.  The reason is that each class has a distinct role, and TF2 allows more variability in play style than MMOs do.

TheLizardbones

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Originally posted by Cactus-Man
You can have variety and balance if you have variety in roles.
If you have 24 classes, but only 4 roles then you are going to have an issue balancing the variety of classes within the 4 roles, since you have superfluous classes per role.  The more distinct roles you have the larger the variety you can support.
Although not a MMO TF2 does a good job balancing the classes, and they have 9.  The reason is that each class has a distinct role, and TF2 allows more variability in play style than MMOs do.

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I played a lot of Team Fortress 2 and you either did damage, or you did some healing with some damage. It doesn't seem terribly complex to balance between the different classes. Everyone's damage could be made more or less even and there was only one healer to worry about.

My favorite thing in TF2 was hitting people in the face with a rocket. Something about that made me smile every time I did it. :-)

Slapshot1188

One of the best parts about DAoC was the variety of classes and the way each of the three realms were NOT mirrored.  Yeah.. it meant realms were OP in various ways but it was worth it to have realm identity.  I loved the way that Hibs had Animists while Mids had Bonedancers.. Albs had Minstrels.   I bitched and moaned everytime an OP Minstrel (who could wear chainmail) would climb up a wall on a keep while stealthed and instant cast mez/stun on the defender... BUT it was incredible.  It totally added to realmpride. 

 

Today's games are all about "balance" and IMHO are trading personality for that balance.

Eronakis

I voted that you can have both variety and class balance. I need to make my blog again what class balance really is. Class balance is essentially balancing out the roles within an archetype. If there are 3 classes per archetype with the same role, they have to be balanced with each other. The difference is how each class performs that role. (if multiple classes). You can have variety, variety does not negate class balance. No comprehension on class balance negates class balance. Also, class balance does not consititute that all classes are the same. I'll repeat, class balance is when the roles of the class are balanced first, then with their abilities by penalty. 

 

I think we are seeing a less creative response to a vast array of classes with roles because how the role is implemented as a core class mechanic has been overused. I don't see any creative ways yet to have that.

Slapshot1188

Originally posted by Eronakis

Class balance is essentially balancing out the roles within an archetype. If there are 3 classes per archetype with the same role, they have to be balanced with each other..

 No Sir!  That's the problem, at least in my humble opinion.  We are TOOO focused on archetypes and balance and slotting characters into pre-determined roles!  I want classes that don't FIT into an archetype.  I want classes that are NOT mirrors of each other. 

Cactus-Man

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by Cactus-Man

You can have variety and balance if you have variety in roles.

If you have 24 classes, but only 4 roles then you are going to have an issue balancing the variety of classes within the 4 roles, since you have superfluous classes per role.  The more distinct roles you have the larger the variety you can support.

Although not a MMO TF2 does a good job balancing the classes, and they have 9.  The reason is that each class has a distinct role, and TF2 allows more variability in play style than MMOs do.

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I played a lot of Team Fortress 2 and you either did damage, or you did some healing with some damage. It doesn't seem terribly complex to balance between the different classes. Everyone's damage could be made more or less even and there was only one healer to worry about.



My favorite thing in TF2 was hitting people in the face with a rocket. Something about that made me smile every time I did it. :-)

 

 There is more variation than just damage and healing, each class has different tactics they bring to the group.  Granted they all can kill each other well.

Soldier is straight up heavy AoE damage

Scout is hit and run and makes a good distraction

Pyro is good for ambushes and close quarters

Heavy provides lots of covering fire and is a good meat shield

Engineer is good at guarding areas

Demoman is useful for traps and indirect ffire support

Medic is the healer

Sniper can kill priority targets well and provides long range support

Spy can sabotage the other team and do recon

 

So I think there is a lot of distinction that MMOs lack, where in MMOs you do have straight up damage, tanking, crowd control and healing but not necessarily anything more than that.  Shooters like TF2 have a wider array of play styles and tactics you can employ.

Eronakis

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

Originally posted by Eronakis

Class balance is essentially balancing out the roles within an archetype. If there are 3 classes per archetype with the same role, they have to be balanced with each other..

 No Sir!  That's the problem, at least in my humble opinion.  We are TOOO focused on archetypes and balance and slotting characters into pre-determined roles!  I want classes that don't FIT into an archetype.  I want classes that are NOT mirrors of each other. 

The thing is that you still get variety from class balance. With the classes being balanced by their role within their archetype actually helps create diversity. The only thing that is the same is all classes within that archetype if multiple, perform that role differently. With the bland and linear combat mechanics we see today, I don't blame your distaste.

 

Ah, you need to take a look at my design. I have 16 classes and each is different. I have 3 classes within in an archetype. However, what many don't realize is the type of combat mechanics used in mmos is very linear. I have been saying this for ages on here that AI needs to be improved in which compliments combat mechanics. A better combat mechanic design that influences class design that allows a ton of options to play and adapt while in combat is key. I have a new way of doing it, however, the core is still the same though.

 

Have you ever considered that roles encourage team play? This genre is called MMORPG. Roles are working parts that form a body. I guess thats the differencce between Old school and New age mmo gamers. Maybe sandbox style gameplay is what your looking for. 

Malcanis

Walk away from the flawed and broken concept of "class" and the problem resolves itself.

Eronakis

Originally posted by Malcanis

Walk away from the flawed and broken concept of "class" and the problem resolves itself.

Can you explain why it's broken and flawed?

Cactus-Man

Originally posted by Malcanis

Walk away from the flawed and broken concept of "class" and the problem resolves itself.

 I think that would make it worse, however imbalanced classes are skills just make balancing  things that much harder.

The issue seems to me to more of a mechanic problem rather than a class problem, the typical RPG gameplay mechincs create imbalance.

Slapshot1188

Originally posted by Eronakis

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

Originally posted by Eronakis

Class balance is essentially balancing out the roles within an archetype. If there are 3 classes per archetype with the same role, they have to be balanced with each other..

 No Sir!  That's the problem, at least in my humble opinion.  We are TOOO focused on archetypes and balance and slotting characters into pre-determined roles!  I want classes that don't FIT into an archetype.  I want classes that are NOT mirrors of each other. 

The thing is that you still get variety from class balance. With the classes being balanced by their role within their archetype actually helps create diversity. The only thing that is the same is all classes within that archetype if multiple, perform that role differently. With the bland and linear combat mechanics we see today, I don't blame your distaste.

We just do not have the same goals to play I suppose.  I honestly do not mind if Johnny Fireball the mage can "out DPS" me.  I don't want a game that is produced by a spreadsheet to insure that all combat meters equalize.  I don't mind that Johnny Fireball will be considered more powerful in most situations.  I actually LIKE the fact that he might out DPS me in most situations.   Maybe I have skills that are totally different from him.  Maybe I get a self heal.. or maybe I can cast invisibility.. or turn into a tree..  Maybe I can rip someone's damn heart out with my bare hands... I don't know... anything.  I don't want to have to be fit into a pre-determined archetype (ranged DPS perhaps) and have to have everything equal.

 

Ah, you need to take a look at my design. I have 16 classes and each is different. I have 3 classes within in an archetype. However, what many don't realize is the type of combat mechanics used in mmos is very linear. I have been saying this for ages on here that AI needs to be improved in which compliments combat mechanics. A better combat mechanic design that influences class design that allows a ton of options to play and adapt while in combat is key. I have a new way of doing it, however, the core is still the same though.

I agree (and you can look at some recent posts) that the poor state of ingame AI is the cause of many issues in game.  I also believe it is the root cause of any percieved PvE/PvP "balance" issues.

 

Have you ever considered that roles encourage team play? This genre is called MMORPG. Roles are working parts that form a body. I guess thats the differencce between Old school and New age mmo gamers. Maybe sandbox style gameplay is what your looking for. 

Sarcasm aside.  I don't think we need to get into a pissing contest about who's "old school" roots are deeper.  Let's just say I'm confident mine are plenty deep.  For the record the Role in MMORPG has nothing to do with a group.  It means you take the role of a character in a game.  The character can be anything, a holy Paladin, a Wizard, an innkeeper, a King, a vampire, a wierd alien stuck on earth...  THAT is the role an RPG refers to, not some made up mechanism of an archetype in a group.

Disdena

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

Originally posted by Eronakis

 

Ah, you need to take a look at my design. I have 16 classes and each is different. I have 3 classes within in an archetype. However, what many don't realize is the type of combat mechanics used in mmos is very linear. I have been saying this for ages on here that AI needs to be improved in which compliments combat mechanics. A better combat mechanic design that influences class design that allows a ton of options to play and adapt while in combat is key. I have a new way of doing it, however, the core is still the same though.

I agree (and you can look at some recent posts) that the poor state of ingame AI is the cause of many issues in game.  I also believe it is the root cause of any percieved PvE/PvP "balance" issues.

Just once, I would love for someone to really give an explanation for how AI is lacking, what a better AI would do, and why that improved AI would be more fun to fight.

JB47394

Dump variety.  If you want to kill stuff, be a warrior.  If you want to make iron stuff, be a blacksmith.  If you want to catch fish, be a fisherman.  If you want to direct NPCs, be a mayor.  If you want to mess with the conditions under which other people operate, be a magician.

There's no reason not to have variety, but having a variety of ways to accomplish the same result is going to mean either true imbalance or the perception of imbalance.  The fact that there are five or six distict treatments for killing stuff is just plain silly.

Beyond that, having player skill figure into the successful use of character skills would help clean out a lot of the complaints.  When that's the case, a failure to compete implies a failure in the player's skills.

TheLizardbones

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Originally posted by Cactus-Man

Originally posted by lizardbones
 


Originally posted by Cactus-Man
You can have variety and balance if you have variety in roles.
If you have 24 classes, but only 4 roles then you are going to have an issue balancing the variety of classes within the 4 roles, since you have superfluous classes per role.  The more distinct roles you have the larger the variety you can support.
Although not a MMO TF2 does a good job balancing the classes, and they have 9.  The reason is that each class has a distinct role, and TF2 allows more variability in play style than MMOs do.

I played a lot of Team Fortress 2 and you either did damage, or you did some healing with some damage. It doesn't seem terribly complex to balance between the different classes. Everyone's damage could be made more or less even and there was only one healer to worry about.

My favorite thing in TF2 was hitting people in the face with a rocket. Something about that made me smile every time I did it. :-)
 

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 There is more variation than just damage and healing, each class has different tactics they bring to the group.  Granted they all can kill each other well.
Soldier is straight up heavy AoE damage
Scout is hit and run and makes a good distraction
Pyro is good for ambushes and close quarters
Heavy provides lots of covering fire and is a good meat shield
Engineer is good at guarding areas
Demoman is useful for traps and indirect ffire support
Medic is the healer
Sniper can kill priority targets well and provides long range support
Spy can sabotage the other team and do recon
 
So I think there is a lot of distinction that MMOs lack, where in MMOs you do have straight up damage, tanking, crowd control and healing but not necessarily anything more than that.  Shooters like TF2 have a wider array of play styles and tactics you can employ.

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Another difference is that nobody starts whining about balance when a medic gets plastered by the Heavy and people don't cry about balance when I kill someone in a boat waaaaaaaay over there with a rocket launcher. It's not unexpected. TF2 as an mmorpg would be flooded with balance complaints because the Scout couldn't stand toe-to-toe with the Heavy.

TheLizardbones

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Originally posted by Disdena

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

Originally posted by Eronakis
 
Ah, you need to take a look at my design. I have 16 classes and each is different. I have 3 classes within in an archetype. However, what many don't realize is the type of combat mechanics used in mmos is very linear. I have been saying this for ages on here that AI needs to be improved in which compliments combat mechanics. A better combat mechanic design that influences class design that allows a ton of options to play and adapt while in combat is key. I have a new way of doing it, however, the core is still the same though.
I agree (and you can look at some recent posts) that the poor state of ingame AI is the cause of many issues in game.  I also believe it is the root cause of any percieved PvE/PvP "balance" issues.

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Just once, I would love for someone to really give an explanation for how AI is lacking, what a better AI would do, and why that improved AI would be more fun to fight.

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I want to see the back end systems that could run the enhanced AI for thousands of mobs across all the servers it would be running on. Then I want to know how they balance it against people who are 'casual' versus people who are 'hardcore'. I don't think the issue is that they can't come up with better AI to work against the different class strengths and weaknesses.

Arcken

Shadowbane was very well balanced, and had more variety than any other game Ive seen to date. It made other MMOs vanilla when it came to characer variety.

Sad todays AAA games still cant outdo a dead one in terms of character choices.

Slapshot1188

Originally posted by Disdena

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

Originally posted by Eronakis

 

Ah, you need to take a look at my design. I have 16 classes and each is different. I have 3 classes within in an archetype. However, what many don't realize is the type of combat mechanics used in mmos is very linear. I have been saying this for ages on here that AI needs to be improved in which compliments combat mechanics. A better combat mechanic design that influences class design that allows a ton of options to play and adapt while in combat is key. I have a new way of doing it, however, the core is still the same though.

I agree (and you can look at some recent posts) that the poor state of ingame AI is the cause of many issues in game.  I also believe it is the root cause of any percieved PvE/PvP "balance" issues.

Just once, I would love for someone to really give an explanation for how AI is lacking, what a better AI would do, and why that improved AI would be more fun to fight.

 That's easy.  I've gone into great detail in the past, but simply look at this very common experience.

 

My group is in the "throne room" of the evil goblin king.  We have gotten here by killing between 150 and 200 of his guards, yet, there is the king sitting on his throne apparently unaware of the carnage we have left.  Anyhow,  King Gob has 10 "eite Guards" standing on his dais.   My group moves into position and "pulls" 2 of the guards to us.   We slaughter them 50 feet from the throne... look up.. and King Goblin and his remaining 8 elite guards are still hanging out in la-la land.  Rinse and repeat until we get down to the last two guards.  Now we know our next "pull" will likely include the King.. so we sit down and rest up at the foot of his dais.  I eat a nice sandwich which give me a buff, my Bard friend plays some songs to cheer us up.  The cleric bandages some wounds... NOW... we are ready for the big fight.  So we stand up.. and PULL THE KING!   He comes with his two guards!.   Luckilly we have Muscles the "tank" who screams at them and all 3 attack him.  This allows the rest of us to move to their backs.   We continue to pummel the 2 guards and the king from behind while Muscles keeps them all focused on himself.  Whoops... the cleric "overhealed" and the king turns to fight him!   Don't worry though, "Muscles" will just scream at him and get his attention back!   FInally it's just us and the King.  He has approximately 198 times the HP of Muscles.. this is to make him a "challenge"... so the combat take awhile.  He does a lot of damage, but our Cleric can outheal it.. so after a few minutes The King is dead!  WOOHOOO!

 

THAT is a very typical example of today's AI.  You can find an almost identical experience in almost every game.

 

What would a better AI do?  Well for starters I wouldn't have gotten to the throneroom by killing hundreds of his followers and find him sitting on his throne.  His guards also wouldn't come in ones or twos like some sort of bizzarre Bruce Lee movie. All the creatures wouldn't magically follow the most heavilly armored (and least damaging) target into a corner and let everyone else attack them from behind.  Best of all... the King wouldn't need to have 1000000 HPs.. since he had a real AI he and his guards would have been prepared and attacked us on our way into the Throneroom, or maybe even before we got there.  Maybe they would have deployed some archers... they CERTAINLY would have tried to takeout a mage or healer quickly...  Heck maybe the King would have fled...

 

Thus we have a damn good challenging fight, but wouldn't need damage to scale to take out a boss mob that was equal to 198 the HPs of "Muscles"...

 

That's just a quick example... but I think you can get the concept from it.

Slapshot1188

Originally posted by JB47394

Beyond that, having player skill figure into the successful use of character skills would help clean out a lot of the complaints.  When that's the case, a failure to compete implies a failure in the player's skills.

 That might make a wonderful game.. but it's ceryainly moving away from being an RPG.  In an RPG it's you playing the role of a character.  When my ranger character who has lived his life in the field draws back his bow... his skill in hitting his target should be based on that.. not my "player skill" in timing or aiming..

 

That might make a fun game.. but not an RPG.

Quirhid

Originally posted by Cactus-Man

Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by Cactus-Man

You can have variety and balance if you have variety in roles.

If you have 24 classes, but only 4 roles then you are going to have an issue balancing the variety of classes within the 4 roles, since you have superfluous classes per role.  The more distinct roles you have the larger the variety you can support.

Although not a MMO TF2 does a good job balancing the classes, and they have 9.  The reason is that each class has a distinct role, and TF2 allows more variability in play style than MMOs do.

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I played a lot of Team Fortress 2 and you either did damage, or you did some healing with some damage. It doesn't seem terribly complex to balance between the different classes. Everyone's damage could be made more or less even and there was only one healer to worry about.



My favorite thing in TF2 was hitting people in the face with a rocket. Something about that made me smile every time I did it. :-)

 

 There is more variation than just damage and healing, each class has different tactics they bring to the group.  Granted they all can kill each other well.

So I think there is a lot of distinction that MMOs lack, where in MMOs you do have straight up damage, tanking, crowd control and healing but not necessarily anything more than that.  Shooters like TF2 have a wider array of play styles and tactics you can employ.

In your example, Team Fortress 2, the healer is a so called "gamemaker". You will not win with everyone playing as a medic but you win great majority of time against a team that has none. IIRC, further proof of this is the fact that medic is the only class in TF2 which is limited to just 1 per team in clan tournament matches.

Otherwise it is reasonably well balanced. Whenever there's a gamemaker (or -breaker) it is a chip in the game's balance.

Axehilt

OP is correct that Class Balance and Genuine Class Differences (aka Asymetric Playstyles) are in tension with each other.

Odd that 30% of voters apparently think it's as easy to balance 2 different playstyles as it is to balance 30 different playstyles.

And then you have someone claiming it's easier to balance a Skill-based game than a Class-based one?  (Which is essentially claimining it's easier to balance 1000 playstyles than 30 playstyles.)

theinvader

Originally posted by Axehilt

OP is correct that Class Balance and Genuine Class Differences (aka Asymetric Playstyles) are in tension with each other.

Odd that 30% of voters apparently think it's as easy to balance 2 different playstyles as it is to balance 30 different playstyles.

And then you have someone claiming it's easier to balance a Skill-based game than a Class-based one?  (Which is essentially claimining it's easier to balance 1000 playstyles than 30 playstyles.)

Pretty much nailed it I think. Personally I'd prefer a small number of very well balanced playstyles. Variety is good, but too much variety ends up being just a mess.

midmagic

Originally posted by lizardbones

What do you guys think?

That this topic needs a much more defined problem statement. Please define balance.

FikusOfAhazi

I think whatever they do it will be wrong. I say Give em variety and let the players fight their own battles. If they're stupid enough to tout their OP'd choice...enjoy the nerf winner. Way to learn!!!

mmogawd

I think there should be a crazy amount of variety with an obnxious number of possible builds that will take years for everyone to try them all and start figuring out which one is "best".