Perfect Balance = homogenization. I would rather see variety than perfect balance (within reason).
You can still have variety within perfect balance. Balance doesn't mean all classes are the same or can perform the same role equally. Class balance means that all classes are balanced within their archetype and any overpowering abilities with a penalty.
A lot of people assume that class balance means everything must be the same and that is 100% wrong.
Difficulty doesn't really enter into the equation. Threat-based fights can be made just as hard as needed. Your Realism-based fights could be as well.
But what's lacking is this huge hole you'll blow into the game by removing the "threat game". Until you propose a way of filling that hole with an equally game-like (but more realistic) AI, you will only have suggested huge steps backwards in fun.
What's wrong with the GW1 method, or any method that vaguely approximates the sort of fights you see in PvP? Have the AI attack what's weak, and the game becomes about defending the weak with means other than threat generation. Whether it's body blocking, stunning attacks, kiting or whatever.
Yes, you can make an FPS about endless waves of mindless enemies rushing straight at you fun (See Serious Sam), but that doesn't mean that it's superior to other forms of FPS because it has a simple, easily understandable puzzle (Enemies run straight at you. Kill them!)
The BASIC idea of the holy trinity is okay (Defend the weak using your tank!), but the implementation (By spamming threat generation while other people try and throttle back their abilities to not exceed a certain point!) is poor. What's superior about that particular form of AI? How is that, as a puzzle, any more entertaining than any even vaguely more realistic puzzle one could use?
The developer sanctioned exploitation of stupid AI (i.e aggro minigame) has ran its course.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Difficulty doesn't really enter into the equation. Threat-based fights can be made just as hard as needed. Your Realism-based fights could be as well.
But what's lacking is this huge hole you'll blow into the game by removing the "threat game". Until you propose a way of filling that hole with an equally game-like (but more realistic) AI, you will only have suggested huge steps backwards in fun.
The BASIC idea of the holy trinity is okay (Defend the weak using your tank!), but the implementation (By spamming threat generation while other people try and throttle back their abilities to not exceed a certain point!) is poor. What's superior about that particular form of AI? How is that, as a puzzle, any more entertaining than any even vaguely more realistic puzzle one could use?
^^^^ This. You're excatly right. I call that linear combat. The only way to change this poor mechanic is to implement combat mechanics that allow a vast array of options for a player to win a fight that would complement class design. And for the 3rd time, I have figured out a way to do such an endeavor. If you or anyone else is interested, I will be glad to discuss my game design with you. Just send a PM and let me know...
Difficulty doesn't really enter into the equation. Threat-based fights can be made just as hard as needed. Your Realism-based fights could be as well.
But what's lacking is this huge hole you'll blow into the game by removing the "threat game". Until you propose a way of filling that hole with an equally game-like (but more realistic) AI, you will only have suggested huge steps backwards in fun.
What's wrong with the GW1 method, or any method that vaguely approximates the sort of fights you see in PvP? Have the AI attack what's weak, and the game becomes about defending the weak with means other than threat generation. Whether it's body blocking, stunning attacks, kiting or whatever.
Yes, you can make an FPS about endless waves of mindless enemies rushing straight at you fun (See Serious Sam), but that doesn't mean that it's superior to other forms of FPS because it has a simple, easily understandable puzzle (Enemies run straight at you. Kill them!)
The BASIC idea of the holy trinity is okay (Defend the weak using your tank!), but the implementation (By spamming threat generation while other people try and throttle back their abilities to not exceed a certain point!) is poor. What's superior about that particular form of AI? How is that, as a puzzle, any more entertaining than any even vaguely more realistic puzzle one could use?
Nothing's wrong with it. It's just slightly less of a game unto itself (and thereby slightly less fun.)
Geometry Wars 2 is actually an example of a game where enemies primarily run straight at you, and yet it remains interesting because of little nuances in how they run at you, and your tools for dealing with them.
And like GW1 (and I suppose SS) , I felt the interesting encounters emerged not from the AI's behavior but from the varied ways you encountered enemies. Also from the fact that GW1 has the best-designed abilities of any MMORPG, so the enemies could do some pretty interesting things which needed to be adapted to in interesting ways by the players.
I suppose to be specific about the way GW1's AI is less a puzzle than Threat-based AI is the idea that players can't directly manipulate it, whereas the AI's behavior is directly manipulatable in threat AI. This puts greater emphasis on player decisions (with strong visual results of those decisions.) Designs which emphasize (and clearly visualize results of) player decisions just tend to be more fun to players. So that's probably the core of why threat-based has been a more successful system than GW1-style AI.
I mean it's worth pointing out that all of the other factors of combat apart from the AI have a huge influence on fun as well. A game could be plenty fun with a worse AI system if it had more fun encounter spawning or ability design (as I alluded above.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Nothing's wrong with it. It's just slightly less of a game unto itself (and thereby slightly less fun.)
...
There's plenty of games where the AI is behaving in a fashion built to vaguely emulate human intelligence (RTSs, turn based strategy, board games, many FPSs, fighting games), where the fun is built into the fact that they're acting in a vaguely humanish fashion.
In many types of games, the part you're talking about where you can make the computer respond to your actions in a very simple, observable fashion, is considered an exploitable error in the AI.
This is why I disagree with the idea that the two extremes are 'fun' and 'good' for AI. That suggests that by behaving in a more human fashion, AI becomes less fun.... or that by creating an AI designed for fun, it necessarily becomes a bad AI.
Also, the whole trinity/aggro problem is pretty trivial. Maybe I'm missing the part where it's really complicated and advanced, but it seems more to me like somebody programming a chess engine where it will always fall for the Fool's Mate.
Having the AI attack the weakest person is still a puzzle, and a solvable one. The game just revolves around a different point of attack.
I don't like the whole 'Well, the gaming community has been doing this for a while now, so obviously it's the best choice' defense, either. The gaming industry is relatively young, and things change. The holy trinity was originally created because of lack of technology, and it's just become a very comfortable, easy puzzle to program... people understand it, and it's easy to balance around. That doesn't mean it's optimal.
There's been a lot of side scrolling platformers where you can jump on the enemy's head, but that just means it's one possible way of creating the game... not that it's the best, or only way.
I'm not even calling for the destruction of the Holy Trinity everywhere, I just think it's rather overused, and not really the most optimal method, just one of the easiest and most familiar.
Difficulty doesn't really enter into the equation. Threat-based fights can be made just as hard as needed. Your Realism-based fights could be as well.
But what's lacking is this huge hole you'll blow into the game by removing the "threat game". Until you propose a way of filling that hole with an equally game-like (but more realistic) AI, you will only have suggested huge steps backwards in fun.
The current threat based system does not really make for difficult fights. They follow the same basic pattern, one that has been in effect for over a decade and nuances are pretty easy to figure out. It is directly linked to the rather unimaginitive trinity system and doesnt really need to be used any more.
As for a AI, there was an article some years ago by a designer of LoTR (I believe) about AI. His comment was that they did make the AI much more realistic. The result was the players were repeatably beat by the mobs (goblins I think). This caused them to believe that the majority of the people that would face this AI would lose more than win and that would not be fun for the player so they scrapped it (if I have some time and its still floating out there, maybe I will hunt down the article).
So, if I remember this article correctly, it is terribly sad to note that the reason AI stinks in the game is because the players are so bad they need the handicap.
Related to the subject. Perfect balance doesnt exist and even further cannot exist (except in someones theoretical rhetoric). Most balance arguments come down to data and statistical ignorance, flawed logic and opinion. Variety wins out every time.
Difficulty doesn't really enter into the equation. Threat-based fights can be made just as hard as needed. Your Realism-based fights could be as well.
But what's lacking is this huge hole you'll blow into the game by removing the "threat game". Until you propose a way of filling that hole with an equally game-like (but more realistic) AI, you will only have suggested huge steps backwards in fun.
The current threat based system does not really make for difficult fights. They follow the same basic pattern, one that has been in effect for over a decade and nuances are pretty easy to figure out. It is directly linked to the rather unimaginitive trinity system and doesnt really need to be used any more.
As for a AI, there was an article some years ago by a designer of LoTR (I believe) about AI. His comment was that they did make the AI much more realistic. The result was the players were repeatably beat by the mobs (goblins I think). This caused them to believe that the majority of the people that would face this AI would lose more than win and that would not be fun for the player so they scrapped it (if I have some time and its still floating out there, maybe I will hunt down the article).
So, if I remember this article correctly, it is terribly sad to note that the reason AI stinks in the game is because the players are so bad they need the handicap.
Related to the subject. Perfect balance doesnt exist and even further cannot exist (except in someones theoretical rhetoric). Most balance arguments come down to data and statistical ignorance, flawed logic and opinion. Variety wins out every time.
If your criticism is that it's too easy for a tank to generate threat in a game like WOW (to the point where last I raided it was extremely rare to ever see DPS pull DPS threat) then I'd agree with that criticism. But the threat-based AI isn't the reason this sucks, but rather a poor implementation of it (although it's tough to call it poor, since threat shouldn't be an issue in every fight. Much of WOW's raiding popularity stems from the fact that the 3 Key Tricks to each fight are different with each boss. If threat was always the #1 thing you worried about, the game would actually be less interesting because you'd always be playing the exact same puzzle.)
So we can say Threat is one puzzle out of many which can be combined in interesting ways with other puzzles (Don't Stand in the Fire, Avoid Frontal Cones, etc) to create interesting fights which vary from boss to boss.
As for the LOTRO example, the game is designed to be fun. Being beat over the head by a player who's considerably better than you isn't fun. Isn't that obvious?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If your criticism is that it's too easy for a tank to generate threat in a game like WOW (to the point where last I raided it was extremely rare to ever see DPS pull DPS threat) then I'd agree with that criticism. But the threat-based AI isn't the reason this sucks, but rather a poor implementation of it (although it's tough to call it poor, since threat shouldn't be an issue in every fight. Much of WOW's raiding popularity stems from the fact that the 3 Key Tricks to each fight are different with each boss. If threat was always the #1 thing you worried about, the game would actually be less interesting because you'd always be playing the exact same puzzle.)
So we can say Threat is one puzzle out of many which can be combined in interesting ways with other puzzles (Don't Stand in the Fire, Avoid Frontal Cones, etc) to create interesting fights which vary from boss to boss.
As for the LOTRO example, the game is designed to be fun. Being beat over the head by a player who's considerably better than you isn't fun. Isn't that obvious?
My critism is that the strategy in all fights is essentially the same and the game designers have to come up with '3 key tricks' to try and make it interesting. Where as an AI would be dynamic in all fights, the strategy would not be set in stone and the tactics would change as the fight progressed. The threat based system (which is really only 1 aspect of the issue imo) is part of a static system even with all the 'tricks' it still isnt all that difficult of a system.
PvP used to be a really 'bad' word, only the 'vile, evil and viscious' people would ever play pvp. And yet now it is widely accepted, a game without any form of PvP in it is usually slightled rather than praised and very few MMO players have never experienced PvP. Why is that? Its simple, PvP is much more dynamic game (of course some of the problems with PvP come from certain other aspects of the system). .
However, even though its obvious folks really like the pvp aspect of a gameplay, FFA worlds are generally smaller than PvE worlds. Why is that? They die more.. So how many people would complain about mobs that were as competant as players? A lot, hence my LOTR comment
Again, threat is only part of the system as you mentioned but its an integral part. I am limiting myself to that specific item because that is what we are talking about, however, really the whole system should be discussed.
After witing the above I realize that the word 'difficult' may be at the heart of the situation. Difficult to me means dynamic, there is no constent pattern. You cannot find 3 tricks and master them because the other guy is not going to be so simple in the head (most of the time at least).
I believe u can have in an mmorpg load sof classes or class combinations in a game and have balance as well..and i can prove it easilly.
Imagine an mmo rpg that there are lets say 50 classes that a player can pick. And these 50 classes imagine they have 3 huge talent trees with 200 talents to pick in each tree and up to 10 ranks for each talent u pick but u have available at the lets say 100 lvl cap 200 talent points only.
In order to say that this game is IMBALANCED you have to find a 2-3 maybe 4-5 classes thata would pawn kill easily the other 45-46 classes... Ok..now if u pls explain to me how the HECK will be ever that possible???
It has to do with the chaos theory.. u cant predict or calculate a possible talent tree that it would made u so much powerfull over so many possible combinations even from a single ooponent class.. Just think about it and uf u manage to tell soemthign serious that makes sense i ll eat my books !
I believe u can have in an mmorpg load sof classes or class combinations in a game and have balance as well..and i can prove it easilly.
Imagine ...
Imagination isn't proof.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by tazarconan I believe u can have in an mmorpg load sof classes or class combinations in a game and have balance as well..and i can prove it easilly. Imagine an mmo rpg that there are lets say 50 classes that a player can pick. And these 50 classes imagine they have 3 huge talent trees with 200 talents to pick in each tree and up to 10 ranks for each talent u pick but u have available at the lets say 100 lvl cap 200 talent points only. In order to say that this game is IMBALANCED you have to find a 2-3 maybe 4-5 classes thata would pawn kill easily the other 45-46 classes... Ok..now if u pls explain to me how the HECK will be ever that possible??? It has to do with the chaos theory.. u cant predict or calculate a possible talent tree that it would made u so much powerfull over so many possible combinations even from a single ooponent class.. Just think about it and uf u manage to tell soemthign serious that makes sense i ll eat my books !
In your imaginary game, what does the game's content consist of? Is it PvE? PvP? Both? Is it a themepark, threat combat based game with some instanced PvP? People will eventually find the most powerful classes. Many of the players are at least as smart and far more numerous than the developers.
You'd have to change the playing field to something other than what's standard. In Team Fortress 2, this is done by always having people play as a group. There are instances where you engage in 1v1 fights, but for the most part it's a team based activity, so individual imbalances get averaged out. Most mmorpg do not do this. Things that are uneven between classes or builds become pretty obvious, pretty quickly.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
This is just my opinion of this so take it with a grain.
To be honest a class system is going to be imbalanced no matter what a developer does and even if the game is classless it still will probably be imbalanced. Not sure what the ideal way is myself but this is what I am am shooting for. It may work and may be a big fat fail so who knows.
I think the best way to get the right balance in PvP is to remove levels of any kind and classes. Not the easiest way to make a MMO game and sure to take a lot of criticism but the whole thing can be simplified at start where the players pick their skills based on their wants and what they perceive as needs. The removal of levels does not mean the removal of progression by the way. The progression is based on a different system that gives alternate achievements depending on what player does in the game world or position in the world, standings and so on. (this is another topic not covered here).
Now suppose that at start the player has 200 points to spend on their stats and four trees (Buffs/debuffs, weapons, magic and trades). The player can put 10 points max in any stat or skill. The skill tree has 20 choices in each branch so they can put a maximum of 50 points in each tree (200 points). The skills are all valid choices and somewhat balanced.
Some will pick to max in some branches and some will max a couple skills and spread the others out. The skills are ranked (every 2 points) form novice to grandmaster so there is additional moves and combinations that get advanced. Originally was going to make this quest driven but changed my mind so now reworking the whole thing again.
Will there be cookie cutter builds? Maybe. It will depend on how well the tree system is designed and how valid every skill is in the tree.
The end all is that the players make their own imbalance if it exists. The players will need to work out their own strategies in the game world based on their own choices so the balance is the players choices and not the mechanics of the game (aka classes)
This is just my opinion of this so take it with a grain.
To be honest a class system is going to be imbalanced no matter what a developer does and even if the game is classless it still will probably be imbalanced. Not sure what the ideal way is myself but this is what I am am shooting for. It may work and may be a big fat fail so who knows.
I think the best way to get the right balance in PvP is to remove levels of any kind and classes. Not the easiest way to make a MMO game and sure to take a lot of criticism but the whole thing can be simplified at start where the players pick their skills based on their wants and what they perceive as needs. The removal of levels does not mean the removal of progression by the way. The progression is based on a different system that gives alternate achievements depending on what player does in the game world or position in the world, standings and so on. (this is another topic not covered here).
Now suppose that at start the player has 200 points to spend on their stats and four trees (Buffs/debuffs, weapons, magic and trades). The player can put 10 points max in any stat or skill. The skill tree has 20 choices in each branch so they can put a maximum of 50 points in each tree (200 points). The skills are all valid choices and somewhat balanced.
Some will pick to max in some branches and some will max a couple skills and spread the others out. The skills are ranked (every 2 points) form novice to grandmaster so there is additional moves and combinations that get advanced. Originally was going to make this quest driven but changed my mind so now reworking the whole thing again.
Will there be cookie cutter builds? Maybe. It will depend on how well the tree system is designed and how valid every skill is in the tree.
The end all is that the players make their own imbalance if it exists. The players will need to work out their own strategies in the game world based on their own choices so the balance is the players choices and not the mechanics of the game (aka classes)
First I wondered how would removing levels help anything but then I saw that you had skill levels in your example so you really don't remove them. Classllessness doesn't quarantee balance either.
It is really naive to think that removing classes or levels solve the problem. Infact classes make balancing easier. They limit somewhat the flexibility (or variety) that a classless system has.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I believe u can have in an mmorpg load sof classes or class combinations in a game and have balance as well..and i can prove it easilly.
Imagine an mmo rpg that there are lets say 50 classes that a player can pick. And these 50 classes imagine they have 3 huge talent trees with 200 talents to pick in each tree and up to 10 ranks for each talent u pick but u have available at the lets say 100 lvl cap 200 talent points only.
In order to say that this game is IMBALANCED you have to find a 2-3 maybe 4-5 classes thata would pawn kill easily the other 45-46 classes... Ok..now if u pls explain to me how the HECK will be ever that possible???
It has to do with the chaos theory.. u cant predict or calculate a possible talent tree that it would made u so much powerfull over so many possible combinations even from a single ooponent class.. Just think about it and uf u manage to tell soemthign serious that makes sense i ll eat my books !
In your imaginary game, what does the game's content consist of? Is it PvE? PvP? Both? Is it a themepark, threat combat based game with some instanced PvP? People will eventually find the most powerful classes. Many of the players are at least as smart and far more numerous than the developers.
You'd have to change the playing field to something other than what's standard. In Team Fortress 2, this is done by always having people play as a group. There are instances where you engage in 1v1 fights, but for the most part it's a team based activity, so individual imbalances get averaged out. Most mmorpg do not do this. Things that are uneven between classes or builds become pretty obvious, pretty quickly.
I had mostly pvp balance on my thoguhts but with such a deep character build up system u can say pve as well.
You said ppl will find out eventually the most powerfull classes...how?????
In this the example i gave w e r talking about 50 classes with a so deep/huge possible number of different combos per class.. In order to find out which specc is best for your class u would have to respec your talents more than 150 times and duel with all classes and with each clss having more than 150 possible speccs.. How the heck will u accomplish that and how in earth when u see a crusader for example u ll know what sort of specc he has so u can determine what exactly to do while in combat with him?
As i said in main thread chaos is the solution for balance issues.
If u have many classes and hundrends of different possible speccs per class none can ever complain about balance. All he has to do is respecc and experiment with his class.
I had mostly pvp balance on my thoguhts but with such a deep character build up system u can say pve as well.
You said ppl will find out eventually the most powerfull classes...how?????
In this the example i gave w e r talking about 50 classes with a so deep/huge possible number of different combos per class.. In order to find out which specc is best for your class u would have to respec your talents more than 150 times and duel with all classes and with each clss having more than 150 possible speccs.. How the heck will u accomplish that and how in earth when u see a crusader for example u ll know what sort of specc he has so u can determine what exactly to do while in combat with him?
As i said in main thread chaos is the solution for balance issues.
If u have many classes and hundrends of different possible speccs per class none can ever complain about balance. All he has to do is respecc and experiment with his class.
Actually, you assume that people have some kind of life here. As soon as you release a bunch of people will try to compare the builds. They will use programs to measure DPS and will try everything to get the best build possible and then post it on wiki.
With no balancing a few builds are likely to be OP and if you nerf them people will whine a lot, that is how things work. Check oyr Rift, it just had 4 classes but with many different builds for them. Right now are Trion nerfing the game to get some kind of PvP balance.
If you have no PvP it might work but chaos balancing is hopeless in a PvP situation, relatively soon will 95% of the players use a few builds, around 3-5.
Guildwars have loads of different builds but the top PvP guilds all have a few different ones they use. And Guildwars has been balanced since 2005, it is the best balanced game out there.
Does anyone read my posts here? I have correctly explained how you can have variety and class balance and more importantly class balance influences variety. Or does anyone not comprehend what I was talking about? Should I go into more detail? And for the love of God and all that is holy, class balance DOES NOT mean all classes are the same. Class balance ensures that all classes ARE NOT the same!
I had mostly pvp balance on my thoguhts but with such a deep character build up system u can say pve as well. You said ppl will find out eventually the most powerfull classes...how????? In this the example i gave w e r talking about 50 classes with a so deep/huge possible number of different combos per class.. In order to find out which specc is best for your class u would have to respec your talents more than 150 times and duel with all classes and with each clss having more than 150 possible speccs.. How the heck will u accomplish that and how in earth when u see a crusader for example u ll know what sort of specc he has so u can determine what exactly to do while in combat with him? As i said in main thread chaos is the solution for balance issues. If u have many classes and hundrends of different possible speccs per class none can ever complain about balance. All he has to do is respecc and experiment with his class.
Actually, you assume that people have some kind of life here. As soon as you release a bunch of people will try to compare the builds. They will use programs to measure DPS and will try everything to get the best build possible and then post it on wiki. With no balancing a few builds are likely to be OP and if you nerf them people will whine a lot, that is how things work. Check oyr Rift, it just had 4 classes but with many different builds for them. Right now are Trion nerfing the game to get some kind of PvP balance. If you have no PvP it might work but chaos balancing is hopeless in a PvP situation, relatively soon will 95% of the players use a few builds, around 3-5. Guildwars have loads of different builds but the top PvP guilds all have a few different ones they use. And Guildwars has been balanced since 2005, it is the best balanced game out there.
I don't think I'm as cynical, but I agree with Loke666 here. If the information exists, people will find out the "best" build. It comes down to a numbers game and the players have superior numbers. Ants have an IQ of 1 but they'll find the best way into your house if a way exists. Same with players, they will find the best or nearly the best build that exists.
One of the issues facing developers with balance is people liking a particular class or spec. It's one of the main reasons that balance matters. People have a play style that they like, they just can't get into a raid with it or they get face rolled in PvP matches using a build that is fun to play. Even in a scenario with lots of builds, people will have favorites and a lot of those favorites won't be effectively powerful.
You could hide the information by not providing damage information or something similar. That brings up a whole different question though...if the imbalances are there and nobody can see them, do they exist? They exist, you just can't prove that there are imbalances present with numbers, even if you have experiential evidence for them.
You could make many of the balance issues irrelevant. When doing damage, instead of doing X points of damage, you do X percent of damage to your target. That X amount can be modified by many factors based on the choices of the players and the strengths and weaknesses of the targets. You would still have stronger and weaker builds, but it would depend more on the situation than the player's build. But then, are you really giving players more choices? What about leveling...removing the points of damage in favor of percentages of damage makes level differences much less of a factor. Now how do you segregate your game world if not by level that doesn't appear arbitrary?
And so on.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I far prefer variety. Look at how Blizzard has managed to balance the classes for PvP and PvE... They're basically all the same class with different coloured abilities. They've removed solid counters and replaced them with a dull gruel of class design.
In Vanilla, warriors could kill hunters with intercept and snares. Then hunters got the big red button of death etc in TBC and they were horribly overpowered since it destroyed their counters. This meant that, in WotLK, other classes got abilities that countered that which destroyed PvP for classes against them unless Blizzard balanced those classes for that etc etc...
It's this sort of degradation of a solid design (say hi to Runescape's PvP for me) that absolutely fucks up PvP and the fun of it. If you have the game balanced for solid counters, do NOT attempt to introduce a counter for those counters, especially on the countered class.
EDIT: To see the proof of this, look at Magic the Gathering's gameplay. In Magic, you've got five colours which are like specific classes (albeit more like Guild War's classes, but you know what I mean). Each of these colours is based around a specific playstyle (Blue has lots of interesting spells, Life have lots of monsters etc). VERY few cards go against the specific playstyle of that colour (and the ones that do are usually banned from tournament play). The game does still have imbalances, but it's still on a very sound grounding and there's a lot of variety of decks in tournaments.
Originally posted by Eronakis Does anyone read my posts here? I have correctly explained how you can have variety and class balance and more importantly class balance influences variety. Or does anyone not comprehend what I was talking about? Should I go into more detail? And for the love of God and all that is holy, class balance DOES NOT mean all classes are the same. Class balance ensures that all classes ARE NOT the same!
I'm trying to come up with a good response that isn't sarcastic or along the lines of "you are an actual developer, so by definition you're probably wrong". This seems to be the general consensus of the mmorpg.com forums about developers in any event. :-)
I pretty much get what you're saying about class balance, especially about the strengths coming with weaknesses. I'd like to see such a system in operation with a couple hundred people putting it through its paces. That doesn't mean I think anything you've brought up is wrong, especially since a lot of it echos thoughts I've had. I just know that going from thoughts and models to reality with a bunch of people using the systems you've created tends to not work out the way you think it will.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Does anyone read my posts here? I have correctly explained how you can have variety and class balance and more importantly class balance influences variety. Or does anyone not comprehend what I was talking about? Should I go into more detail? And for the love of God and all that is holy, class balance DOES NOT mean all classes are the same. Class balance ensures that all classes ARE NOT the same!
I'm trying to come up with a good response that isn't sarcastic or along the lines of "you are an actual developer, so by definition you're probably wrong". This seems to be the general consensus of the mmorpg.com forums about developers in any event. :-)
I pretty much get what you're saying about class balance, especially about the strengths coming with weaknesses. I'd like to see such a system in operation with a couple hundred people putting it through its paces. That doesn't mean I think anything you've brought up is wrong, especially since a lot of it echos thoughts I've had. I just know that going from thoughts and models to reality with a bunch of people using the systems you've created tends to not work out the way you think it will.
I am not an actual developer but an inspiring one who has mmorpg designing experience. However, you're right that theory to implementation most of the time is polar opposites. Testing is where you know what to balance. Just like sports, can be great on paper but fully see its true colors unless tested.
Not all game designers are wrong, its the investors not allowing and/or time constrants and/or the lack of technology available to not get the product they want. Most gamers don't understand game design as they think they do and there are somethings that are not feasible and some things that are.
And why would you have a sarcastic answer? If you comply with my thought process on this class balance issue? Why would you even bring that up?
... "you are an actual developer, so by definition you're probably wrong". This seems to be the general consensus of the mmorpg.com forums about developers in any event. :-)
Well, there is at least a little logic to many people thinking like that.
If you don't like any current MMOs, who's fault is that?
your's? But if you liked older MMOs or multiplayer games like Neverwinter nights that can't be entirely true.
Devs are of course neither always wrong or always right, they are humans like the rest of us (except Jeff Strain he's a demi god).
And I have a feeling being a dev is rather frustrating, you both have to please players and investors. And frankly do we players want unrealistically large and fun games while the investors want to invest as little as possible and get soo much back that they never will have to work again.
Many devs do seems to think that they must do the same as everyone else but slightly change the settings and ignore the fact that older games have patched in many years of extra content and that is wrong.
But many devs have great ideas, sadly enough don't they always become real or work as well as intented in the game.
But we players should still repect the devs, without them would we have nothing to play at all.
I think in an MMO which I see as virtual worlds (though that definition is in steep decline) the idea of balance detracts from the game since it forces the characters to be to some extant the same, which is counter to the idea of a virtual world rpg. Also balance is illusory. Too many variables, too many players, it becomes a neverending game of devs nerfing or op'ing.
Make a great game with as many class choices as possible and the players/game will find its own balance.
Originally posted by Eronakis Originally posted by lizardbones
Originally posted by Eronakis Does anyone read my posts here? I have correctly explained how you can have variety and class balance and more importantly class balance influences variety. Or does anyone not comprehend what I was talking about? Should I go into more detail? And for the love of God and all that is holy, class balance DOES NOT mean all classes are the same. Class balance ensures that all classes ARE NOT the same!
I'm trying to come up with a good response that isn't sarcastic or along the lines of "you are an actual developer, so by definition you're probably wrong". This seems to be the general consensus of the mmorpg.com forums about developers in any event. :-)
I pretty much get what you're saying about class balance, especially about the strengths coming with weaknesses. I'd like to see such a system in operation with a couple hundred people putting it through its paces. That doesn't mean I think anything you've brought up is wrong, especially since a lot of it echos thoughts I've had. I just know that going from thoughts and models to reality with a bunch of people using the systems you've created tends to not work out the way you think it will. I am not an actual developer but an inspiring one who has mmorpg designing experience. However, you're right that theory to implementation most of the time is polar opposites. Testing is where you know what to balance. Just like sports, can be great on paper but fully see its true colors unless tested.
Not all game designers are wrong, its the investors not allowing and/or time constrants and/or the lack of technology available to not get the product they want. Most gamers don't understand game design as they think they do and there are somethings that are not feasible and some things that are.
And why would you have a sarcastic answer? If you comply with my thought process on this class balance issue? Why would you even bring that up?
Well, to be honest, it's because these are the mmorpg.com forums. Sarcasm, inane responses, pot shots from left field, etc. seem to be the norm. I don't want to deviate too much from the bell curve.
Mostly I wanted to get a general "feel" for what people think about balance...at least the people on these forums. I lean towards "Choice/Variety" versus "Balance". I think balance is important though...with "classic" mmorpg you can't ignore it. I don't like that it's such an important factor in the current crop of games.
It's always interesting seeing what other people think about the stuff I think about. :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Well, to be honest, it's because these are the mmorpg.com forums. Sarcasm, inane responses, pot shots from left field, etc. seem to be the norm. I don't want to deviate too much from the bell curve.
Mostly I wanted to get a general "feel" for what people think about balance...at least the people on these forums. I lean towards "Choice/Variety" versus "Balance". I think balance is important though...with "classic" mmorpg you can't ignore it. I don't like that it's such an important factor in the current crop of games.
It's always interesting seeing what other people think about the stuff I think about. :-)
*smh*, I have been stateting this whole time that you can have both CHOICE/VARITY and BALANCE. Have I not made that clear yet?
Well, to be honest, it's because these are the mmorpg.com forums. Sarcasm, inane responses, pot shots from left field, etc. seem to be the norm. I don't want to deviate too much from the bell curve.
Mostly I wanted to get a general "feel" for what people think about balance...at least the people on these forums. I lean towards "Choice/Variety" versus "Balance". I think balance is important though...with "classic" mmorpg you can't ignore it. I don't like that it's such an important factor in the current crop of games.
It's always interesting seeing what other people think about the stuff I think about. :-)
*smh*, I have been stateting this whole time that you can have both CHOICE/VARITY and BALANCE. Have I not made that clear yet?
You can say it 1000 times. That doesn't make it true. By the very nature of insuring "balance" you are disabling choice/variety. If you are going to balance all the classes in an archetype you are removing that variety. All you are doing is renaming things. For instance if you say you balance your Archetype of "Caster DPS". One is a pyromancer, one is a warlock. To be balanced they both must do the same amount of damage. They will do it in different ways. One will burn you to death and one will DoT you. All you are doing is reducing the game down to your archetypes with different skins.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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Comments
You can still have variety within perfect balance. Balance doesn't mean all classes are the same or can perform the same role equally. Class balance means that all classes are balanced within their archetype and any overpowering abilities with a penalty.
A lot of people assume that class balance means everything must be the same and that is 100% wrong.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
^^^^ This. You're excatly right. I call that linear combat. The only way to change this poor mechanic is to implement combat mechanics that allow a vast array of options for a player to win a fight that would complement class design. And for the 3rd time, I have figured out a way to do such an endeavor. If you or anyone else is interested, I will be glad to discuss my game design with you. Just send a PM and let me know...
Nothing's wrong with it. It's just slightly less of a game unto itself (and thereby slightly less fun.)
Geometry Wars 2 is actually an example of a game where enemies primarily run straight at you, and yet it remains interesting because of little nuances in how they run at you, and your tools for dealing with them.
And like GW1 (and I suppose SS) , I felt the interesting encounters emerged not from the AI's behavior but from the varied ways you encountered enemies. Also from the fact that GW1 has the best-designed abilities of any MMORPG, so the enemies could do some pretty interesting things which needed to be adapted to in interesting ways by the players.
I suppose to be specific about the way GW1's AI is less a puzzle than Threat-based AI is the idea that players can't directly manipulate it, whereas the AI's behavior is directly manipulatable in threat AI. This puts greater emphasis on player decisions (with strong visual results of those decisions.) Designs which emphasize (and clearly visualize results of) player decisions just tend to be more fun to players. So that's probably the core of why threat-based has been a more successful system than GW1-style AI.
I mean it's worth pointing out that all of the other factors of combat apart from the AI have a huge influence on fun as well. A game could be plenty fun with a worse AI system if it had more fun encounter spawning or ability design (as I alluded above.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
...
There's plenty of games where the AI is behaving in a fashion built to vaguely emulate human intelligence (RTSs, turn based strategy, board games, many FPSs, fighting games), where the fun is built into the fact that they're acting in a vaguely humanish fashion.
In many types of games, the part you're talking about where you can make the computer respond to your actions in a very simple, observable fashion, is considered an exploitable error in the AI.
This is why I disagree with the idea that the two extremes are 'fun' and 'good' for AI. That suggests that by behaving in a more human fashion, AI becomes less fun.... or that by creating an AI designed for fun, it necessarily becomes a bad AI.
Also, the whole trinity/aggro problem is pretty trivial. Maybe I'm missing the part where it's really complicated and advanced, but it seems more to me like somebody programming a chess engine where it will always fall for the Fool's Mate.
Having the AI attack the weakest person is still a puzzle, and a solvable one. The game just revolves around a different point of attack.
I don't like the whole 'Well, the gaming community has been doing this for a while now, so obviously it's the best choice' defense, either. The gaming industry is relatively young, and things change. The holy trinity was originally created because of lack of technology, and it's just become a very comfortable, easy puzzle to program... people understand it, and it's easy to balance around. That doesn't mean it's optimal.
There's been a lot of side scrolling platformers where you can jump on the enemy's head, but that just means it's one possible way of creating the game... not that it's the best, or only way.
I'm not even calling for the destruction of the Holy Trinity everywhere, I just think it's rather overused, and not really the most optimal method, just one of the easiest and most familiar.
The current threat based system does not really make for difficult fights. They follow the same basic pattern, one that has been in effect for over a decade and nuances are pretty easy to figure out. It is directly linked to the rather unimaginitive trinity system and doesnt really need to be used any more.
As for a AI, there was an article some years ago by a designer of LoTR (I believe) about AI. His comment was that they did make the AI much more realistic. The result was the players were repeatably beat by the mobs (goblins I think). This caused them to believe that the majority of the people that would face this AI would lose more than win and that would not be fun for the player so they scrapped it (if I have some time and its still floating out there, maybe I will hunt down the article).
So, if I remember this article correctly, it is terribly sad to note that the reason AI stinks in the game is because the players are so bad they need the handicap.
Related to the subject. Perfect balance doesnt exist and even further cannot exist (except in someones theoretical rhetoric). Most balance arguments come down to data and statistical ignorance, flawed logic and opinion. Variety wins out every time.
If your criticism is that it's too easy for a tank to generate threat in a game like WOW (to the point where last I raided it was extremely rare to ever see DPS pull DPS threat) then I'd agree with that criticism. But the threat-based AI isn't the reason this sucks, but rather a poor implementation of it (although it's tough to call it poor, since threat shouldn't be an issue in every fight. Much of WOW's raiding popularity stems from the fact that the 3 Key Tricks to each fight are different with each boss. If threat was always the #1 thing you worried about, the game would actually be less interesting because you'd always be playing the exact same puzzle.)
So we can say Threat is one puzzle out of many which can be combined in interesting ways with other puzzles (Don't Stand in the Fire, Avoid Frontal Cones, etc) to create interesting fights which vary from boss to boss.
As for the LOTRO example, the game is designed to be fun. Being beat over the head by a player who's considerably better than you isn't fun. Isn't that obvious?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
My critism is that the strategy in all fights is essentially the same and the game designers have to come up with '3 key tricks' to try and make it interesting. Where as an AI would be dynamic in all fights, the strategy would not be set in stone and the tactics would change as the fight progressed. The threat based system (which is really only 1 aspect of the issue imo) is part of a static system even with all the 'tricks' it still isnt all that difficult of a system.
PvP used to be a really 'bad' word, only the 'vile, evil and viscious' people would ever play pvp. And yet now it is widely accepted, a game without any form of PvP in it is usually slightled rather than praised and very few MMO players have never experienced PvP. Why is that? Its simple, PvP is much more dynamic game (of course some of the problems with PvP come from certain other aspects of the system). .
However, even though its obvious folks really like the pvp aspect of a gameplay, FFA worlds are generally smaller than PvE worlds. Why is that? They die more.. So how many people would complain about mobs that were as competant as players? A lot, hence my LOTR comment
Again, threat is only part of the system as you mentioned but its an integral part. I am limiting myself to that specific item because that is what we are talking about, however, really the whole system should be discussed.
After witing the above I realize that the word 'difficult' may be at the heart of the situation. Difficult to me means dynamic, there is no constent pattern. You cannot find 3 tricks and master them because the other guy is not going to be so simple in the head (most of the time at least).
I believe u can have in an mmorpg load sof classes or class combinations in a game and have balance as well..and i can prove it easilly.
Imagine an mmo rpg that there are lets say 50 classes that a player can pick. And these 50 classes imagine they have 3 huge talent trees with 200 talents to pick in each tree and up to 10 ranks for each talent u pick but u have available at the lets say 100 lvl cap 200 talent points only.
In order to say that this game is IMBALANCED you have to find a 2-3 maybe 4-5 classes thata would pawn kill easily the other 45-46 classes... Ok..now if u pls explain to me how the HECK will be ever that possible???
It has to do with the chaos theory.. u cant predict or calculate a possible talent tree that it would made u so much powerfull over so many possible combinations even from a single ooponent class.. Just think about it and uf u manage to tell soemthign serious that makes sense i ll eat my books !
Imagination isn't proof.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
In your imaginary game, what does the game's content consist of? Is it PvE? PvP? Both? Is it a themepark, threat combat based game with some instanced PvP? People will eventually find the most powerful classes. Many of the players are at least as smart and far more numerous than the developers.
You'd have to change the playing field to something other than what's standard. In Team Fortress 2, this is done by always having people play as a group. There are instances where you engage in 1v1 fights, but for the most part it's a team based activity, so individual imbalances get averaged out. Most mmorpg do not do this. Things that are uneven between classes or builds become pretty obvious, pretty quickly.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
This is just my opinion of this so take it with a grain.
To be honest a class system is going to be imbalanced no matter what a developer does and even if the game is classless it still will probably be imbalanced. Not sure what the ideal way is myself but this is what I am am shooting for. It may work and may be a big fat fail so who knows.
I think the best way to get the right balance in PvP is to remove levels of any kind and classes. Not the easiest way to make a MMO game and sure to take a lot of criticism but the whole thing can be simplified at start where the players pick their skills based on their wants and what they perceive as needs. The removal of levels does not mean the removal of progression by the way. The progression is based on a different system that gives alternate achievements depending on what player does in the game world or position in the world, standings and so on. (this is another topic not covered here).
Now suppose that at start the player has 200 points to spend on their stats and four trees (Buffs/debuffs, weapons, magic and trades). The player can put 10 points max in any stat or skill. The skill tree has 20 choices in each branch so they can put a maximum of 50 points in each tree (200 points). The skills are all valid choices and somewhat balanced.
Some will pick to max in some branches and some will max a couple skills and spread the others out. The skills are ranked (every 2 points) form novice to grandmaster so there is additional moves and combinations that get advanced. Originally was going to make this quest driven but changed my mind so now reworking the whole thing again.
Will there be cookie cutter builds? Maybe. It will depend on how well the tree system is designed and how valid every skill is in the tree.
The end all is that the players make their own imbalance if it exists. The players will need to work out their own strategies in the game world based on their own choices so the balance is the players choices and not the mechanics of the game (aka classes)
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
First I wondered how would removing levels help anything but then I saw that you had skill levels in your example so you really don't remove them. Classllessness doesn't quarantee balance either.
It is really naive to think that removing classes or levels solve the problem. Infact classes make balancing easier. They limit somewhat the flexibility (or variety) that a classless system has.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I had mostly pvp balance on my thoguhts but with such a deep character build up system u can say pve as well.
You said ppl will find out eventually the most powerfull classes...how?????
In this the example i gave w e r talking about 50 classes with a so deep/huge possible number of different combos per class.. In order to find out which specc is best for your class u would have to respec your talents more than 150 times and duel with all classes and with each clss having more than 150 possible speccs.. How the heck will u accomplish that and how in earth when u see a crusader for example u ll know what sort of specc he has so u can determine what exactly to do while in combat with him?
As i said in main thread chaos is the solution for balance issues.
If u have many classes and hundrends of different possible speccs per class none can ever complain about balance. All he has to do is respecc and experiment with his class.
Actually, you assume that people have some kind of life here. As soon as you release a bunch of people will try to compare the builds. They will use programs to measure DPS and will try everything to get the best build possible and then post it on wiki.
With no balancing a few builds are likely to be OP and if you nerf them people will whine a lot, that is how things work. Check oyr Rift, it just had 4 classes but with many different builds for them. Right now are Trion nerfing the game to get some kind of PvP balance.
If you have no PvP it might work but chaos balancing is hopeless in a PvP situation, relatively soon will 95% of the players use a few builds, around 3-5.
Guildwars have loads of different builds but the top PvP guilds all have a few different ones they use. And Guildwars has been balanced since 2005, it is the best balanced game out there.
Does anyone read my posts here? I have correctly explained how you can have variety and class balance and more importantly class balance influences variety. Or does anyone not comprehend what I was talking about? Should I go into more detail? And for the love of God and all that is holy, class balance DOES NOT mean all classes are the same. Class balance ensures that all classes ARE NOT the same!
I don't think I'm as cynical, but I agree with Loke666 here. If the information exists, people will find out the "best" build. It comes down to a numbers game and the players have superior numbers. Ants have an IQ of 1 but they'll find the best way into your house if a way exists. Same with players, they will find the best or nearly the best build that exists.
One of the issues facing developers with balance is people liking a particular class or spec. It's one of the main reasons that balance matters. People have a play style that they like, they just can't get into a raid with it or they get face rolled in PvP matches using a build that is fun to play. Even in a scenario with lots of builds, people will have favorites and a lot of those favorites won't be effectively powerful.
You could hide the information by not providing damage information or something similar. That brings up a whole different question though...if the imbalances are there and nobody can see them, do they exist? They exist, you just can't prove that there are imbalances present with numbers, even if you have experiential evidence for them.
You could make many of the balance issues irrelevant. When doing damage, instead of doing X points of damage, you do X percent of damage to your target. That X amount can be modified by many factors based on the choices of the players and the strengths and weaknesses of the targets. You would still have stronger and weaker builds, but it would depend more on the situation than the player's build. But then, are you really giving players more choices? What about leveling...removing the points of damage in favor of percentages of damage makes level differences much less of a factor. Now how do you segregate your game world if not by level that doesn't appear arbitrary?
And so on.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I far prefer variety. Look at how Blizzard has managed to balance the classes for PvP and PvE... They're basically all the same class with different coloured abilities. They've removed solid counters and replaced them with a dull gruel of class design.
In Vanilla, warriors could kill hunters with intercept and snares. Then hunters got the big red button of death etc in TBC and they were horribly overpowered since it destroyed their counters. This meant that, in WotLK, other classes got abilities that countered that which destroyed PvP for classes against them unless Blizzard balanced those classes for that etc etc...
It's this sort of degradation of a solid design (say hi to Runescape's PvP for me) that absolutely fucks up PvP and the fun of it. If you have the game balanced for solid counters, do NOT attempt to introduce a counter for those counters, especially on the countered class.
EDIT: To see the proof of this, look at Magic the Gathering's gameplay. In Magic, you've got five colours which are like specific classes (albeit more like Guild War's classes, but you know what I mean). Each of these colours is based around a specific playstyle (Blue has lots of interesting spells, Life have lots of monsters etc). VERY few cards go against the specific playstyle of that colour (and the ones that do are usually banned from tournament play). The game does still have imbalances, but it's still on a very sound grounding and there's a lot of variety of decks in tournaments.
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I'm trying to come up with a good response that isn't sarcastic or along the lines of "you are an actual developer, so by definition you're probably wrong". This seems to be the general consensus of the mmorpg.com forums about developers in any event. :-)
I pretty much get what you're saying about class balance, especially about the strengths coming with weaknesses. I'd like to see such a system in operation with a couple hundred people putting it through its paces. That doesn't mean I think anything you've brought up is wrong, especially since a lot of it echos thoughts I've had. I just know that going from thoughts and models to reality with a bunch of people using the systems you've created tends to not work out the way you think it will.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I am not an actual developer but an inspiring one who has mmorpg designing experience. However, you're right that theory to implementation most of the time is polar opposites. Testing is where you know what to balance. Just like sports, can be great on paper but fully see its true colors unless tested.
Not all game designers are wrong, its the investors not allowing and/or time constrants and/or the lack of technology available to not get the product they want. Most gamers don't understand game design as they think they do and there are somethings that are not feasible and some things that are.
And why would you have a sarcastic answer? If you comply with my thought process on this class balance issue? Why would you even bring that up?
Well, there is at least a little logic to many people thinking like that.
If you don't like any current MMOs, who's fault is that?
your's? But if you liked older MMOs or multiplayer games like Neverwinter nights that can't be entirely true.
Devs are of course neither always wrong or always right, they are humans like the rest of us (except Jeff Strain he's a demi god).
And I have a feeling being a dev is rather frustrating, you both have to please players and investors. And frankly do we players want unrealistically large and fun games while the investors want to invest as little as possible and get soo much back that they never will have to work again.
Many devs do seems to think that they must do the same as everyone else but slightly change the settings and ignore the fact that older games have patched in many years of extra content and that is wrong.
But many devs have great ideas, sadly enough don't they always become real or work as well as intented in the game.
But we players should still repect the devs, without them would we have nothing to play at all.
I think in an MMO which I see as virtual worlds (though that definition is in steep decline) the idea of balance detracts from the game since it forces the characters to be to some extant the same, which is counter to the idea of a virtual world rpg. Also balance is illusory. Too many variables, too many players, it becomes a neverending game of devs nerfing or op'ing.
Make a great game with as many class choices as possible and the players/game will find its own balance.
I look for balance in multiplayer fps. Not MMO's.
I'm trying to come up with a good response that isn't sarcastic or along the lines of "you are an actual developer, so by definition you're probably wrong". This seems to be the general consensus of the mmorpg.com forums about developers in any event. :-)
I pretty much get what you're saying about class balance, especially about the strengths coming with weaknesses. I'd like to see such a system in operation with a couple hundred people putting it through its paces. That doesn't mean I think anything you've brought up is wrong, especially since a lot of it echos thoughts I've had. I just know that going from thoughts and models to reality with a bunch of people using the systems you've created tends to not work out the way you think it will.
I am not an actual developer but an inspiring one who has mmorpg designing experience. However, you're right that theory to implementation most of the time is polar opposites. Testing is where you know what to balance. Just like sports, can be great on paper but fully see its true colors unless tested.
Not all game designers are wrong, its the investors not allowing and/or time constrants and/or the lack of technology available to not get the product they want. Most gamers don't understand game design as they think they do and there are somethings that are not feasible and some things that are.
And why would you have a sarcastic answer? If you comply with my thought process on this class balance issue? Why would you even bring that up?
Well, to be honest, it's because these are the mmorpg.com forums. Sarcasm, inane responses, pot shots from left field, etc. seem to be the norm. I don't want to deviate too much from the bell curve.
Mostly I wanted to get a general "feel" for what people think about balance...at least the people on these forums. I lean towards "Choice/Variety" versus "Balance". I think balance is important though...with "classic" mmorpg you can't ignore it. I don't like that it's such an important factor in the current crop of games.
It's always interesting seeing what other people think about the stuff I think about. :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
*smh*, I have been stateting this whole time that you can have both CHOICE/VARITY and BALANCE. Have I not made that clear yet?
You can say it 1000 times. That doesn't make it true. By the very nature of insuring "balance" you are disabling choice/variety. If you are going to balance all the classes in an archetype you are removing that variety. All you are doing is renaming things. For instance if you say you balance your Archetype of "Caster DPS". One is a pyromancer, one is a warlock. To be balanced they both must do the same amount of damage. They will do it in different ways. One will burn you to death and one will DoT you. All you are doing is reducing the game down to your archetypes with different skins.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018