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Role Playing (Games)

The Lost Art of Class Balancing 214

Posted by Zonk from the down-with-dr00ds dept.
GamePro has a look at the delicate touch needed when balancing classes in a Massive title. From the article: "Bad class balancing has been an endemic problem to MMORPGs--unfortunately especially in games where PvP is a major component. Dark Age of Camelot tanked the usability of the original classes with the emergence of Vampiirs in the ill-reputed Catacombs expansion. Users were incensed when Creature Handlers ruled the universe in Star Wars Galaxies--then angered even more when the class was beat down with the nerf bat in subsequent patches."
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The Lost Art of Class Balancing More

The Lost Art of Class Balancing

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  • Delicate touch? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Southpaw018 ( 793465 ) * on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @08:41AM (#12811615) Journal
    It's just a matter of a little going a long, long, long way. Changes that seem to resolve an immediate problem can have drastic effects long term. Look at it from a gameplay mechanic instead of a balance mechanic. When the level cap is raised in World of Warcraft, it most likely will be five levels, to a maximum of 65. Perhaps it will be more, but that remains to be seen. Level 65 doesn't make much difference for one person in many situations; most NPCs at the current max level, 60, will just be soloable by most players without uber gear. Large encounters, however, will be completely changed. Players will be able to kill Onyxia and Ragnaros (a big bad nasty dragon and a big bad nasty lava giant, respectively) quickly and easily if they plan ahead and execute well.
    It's this kind of ripple effect - where one small change suddenly becomes very drastic when multiplied by larger numbers - that makes class balance so difficult. After all, it's easier to multiply by 1.
  • I stopped playing CoH for about 4 months so I could concentrate on school last semester and couldn't believe that when I got back characters that had previously been really weak seemed invincible and characters that had been really strong were dropping like flies. And to make matters worse, about a week into my renewed subscription they went and changed everything all over again.
    I wouldn't even be upset if they made the characters so specialized that they had trouble running solo missions, but I'd at least
    • the only problem with over-specialized character classes comes with 'support' classes, such as CoH's "Controller" class. Without "offensive" skills, the Controller is nothing but a button-pusher: "Oh, look, another battle. Target our Tank. Heal. Heal. Heal. Clear mind. Heal. Heal. Recovery Aura. Heal. Until they readjusted the characters (and gave out free respecs) I hated playing my 'starting' character because I would just sit in battles pressing 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3.... without any accomplishment. I
      • I've played COH, Galaxies, Dark Age, EverQuest, and Ultima Online and the problem is epidemic. All of them have issues where the designers plan to have a perfect team that fit a certain play style. If you're play style doesn't match their idea of what you should be doing, it's an unbalanced game.

        Maybe they should concentrate on adaptive power's/abilities, a few solo powers (just strong enough that as a solo character you can heal yourself enough not to always die and attack with something that will kill

    • Not only COH (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Moraelin ( 679338 )
      Every single game I've been in, has basically bungled horribly through class balance, making seemingly random changes and then waiting to see the result. COH, yes, too. Horrible balance issues and swings. And if you hate the changes to your character so far, you'll probably hate Issue 5, already known affectionately as The Nerf.

      The problem IMHO is the strong dichotomy between creative types and some of us "accountant types", for lack of a better name.

      The creative guys are able to come up with _interesting

  • It has to be said... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by seafortn ( 543689 ) <reidkr@@@yahoo...com> on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @08:53AM (#12811671)
    Nerf Shamans!! (or rogues, if that's your thing)
  • and realize that no game is perfect, and while many could be a hell of a lot better, designers are usually under a deadline, and while they may want to create a nice, balanced game, they can't. The only way for them to balance it out, is to later release patchs, which, if they haven't been properly tested, may just make things worse.
    • Wish I'd read this beforehand...

      On the AOE3 boards, ES_DeathShrimp posted this:

      I feel pretty safe saying that AOE3 has a lot more depth than AOM. In fact, it is probably something of a risk. There are so many different combos of civs, strategies, techs (even not including the HC), and maps, that there is the potential for some insane strategies that we weren't able to come up with during testing.

      If anything, the design of AOE3 is just going to mandate more patches than we've been able to do before. T

    • Re:Just take a minute... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @03:29PM (#12816417) Journal
      Here's a crazy idea, having been immersed in the world of SpamAssassin lately. What about some kind of bayesian or other statistical algorithm to automatically adjust certain parameters of the game? Given the number of combinations and permutations inherent in a complex game, it's difficult to determine ahead of time how all those interactions will play out and whether a certain combination of things will lead to a player having a huge advantage over another player who does the same things, but with perhaps a different class.

      So set the system up so that you define boundaries for each character. If it turns out that a certain combination of things exceeds the predetermined boundaries, automatically adjust some attributes so that it's within the expected range again. I haven't thought through how this would be implemented, but some kind of adjustable constraints system based on expected damage/whatever would likely be better than the crude and broad hand-tweaking that goes on. And if the system does micro-adjustments throughout the game, players would likely not even notice it happening... so everyone's happy.
      • That idea has some merit, but is going to have a tendancy to produce a bad "swinging balance" effect where you have players cycling off characters when they become ineffective. It may also nerf someone who's just particularly good with their character.

        Plus it'd be a lot of CPU power to do, and games aren't run on a whole lot of CPU power overall.

        I can see some use in "datamineing" game logs -- CoH does this. How many fire tanks played this week? How much xp did they get per level per hour? What about illu
        • That idea has some merit, but is going to have a tendancy to produce a bad "swinging balance" effect where you have players cycling off characters when they become ineffective. It may also nerf someone who's just particularly good with their character.

          That's probably the main challenge -- separating what comes from skill vs. what is a result of an unexpected exploit. And perhaps if they could determine that up-front, such a system might be redundant.
      • WoW contains some of the best information logging capabilities of any game ever client-side due to its extensible, user-programmable AI -- you can't get a nerf past the community because someone will say "Hey, did anyone else notice that Hunters suffered a 15% damage per second drop with this equipment option and talent mix?" and have hard numbers and likely a video to prove it (this example actually happened). Also, transparency to players is a major design goal -- no one wants to hear, several weeks afte
      • Asheron's Call did something like this. Basically the more people that used a spell the weeker it became.

        It 1000 people used ICE and 1 person used fire then the fire spell would become more powerfull.

        Since they added more spells and you had to figure them out by mixing stuff together it worked fairly well.
  • So the article talks about imbalances in Wow and SWG, and says that when an imbalance arises, the devs either make every class equal (and then complain that is boring) or nerf the powerful class. This is all true and pretty much states the obvious. When has a PvP MMORPG been successfully balanced? How does one go about achieving that? As much as it seems to have to do with design, in order to make all the character classes interesting, they wind up giving everybody so many skills that some combination w
    • the jedi alpha class in swg was fine until they made it easier it get a jedi toon than to tie your own shoelaces. now all pvp (in swg) consists of jedi and riflemen (and some jedi/rifleman hybrids) i just canceled my acocunt.
    • "When has a PvP MMORPG been successfully balanced?"

      I have one example - Neverwinter Nights. The single player original campaign and expansions were fun to play with multiple character class combinations.

      As a multiplayer, it is very much the same. The design is simple - they developed (based on 3E DnD) a system that allows combination of character classes, where abilites from each of the classes are accrued as one levels up in a manner that makes sense and preserves balance. Think the rogues have it too
      • You have a point there about NWN. Suppose you have a persistant world mmo game that has a level cap of 30 instead of 60, that you can have up to 3 classes at a time instead of one, whose total levels = the level cap. (well, 60 then, if you insist, but follow--)

        (this part doesn't exist in NWN, but may benefit future MMOGs) When the player reaches the cap, and is engaging in PvP, if he finds he has screwed up his character class progression, there can be some mechanism whereby he can "unlearn" one or more l
    • How do you think the _players_ found those uber-clases/builds/whatever? No, seriously.

      Ever looked on the forums for some character building advice? What did you see? Some dps (damage per second) calculations. "Take class X, turn on power Y, chain the attacks A, B, C, D and B again. It causes 75.13 damage per second, 15.39 damage per endurance/mana/whatever point, and leaves you with 0.35 seconds before A recharges again."

      Which leads to advice like "take katana instead of broadsword because it does x% high

  • PvP and PvE can't coexist (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Nytewynd ( 829901 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @09:07AM (#12811771)
    The main problem is in games that involve both PvP and PvE. I play PvE almost exclusively in any game that gives the choice. In WoW, both my Warlock and Mage are specced 100% for PvE. I really enjoy how they make each class useful in a group, and you benefit from each class in a different way.

    When it comes to PvP that is terrible. In PvP, the healing classes are almost always terrible in every game. The alternative is that you get priests that are Shadow Specced (WoW) or Smite Priests (DAoC) and they are nearly useless when you need a healer on a raid.

    For PvP only, every class has to be an even match. That means the developers can't give really good abilities to some classes that would greatly help against mobs. Look at how badly fear and seduction are nerfed in WoW. They were handy in PvE, were overpowered in PvP, they got nerfed for PvP, now they suck for PvE. That is the cycle that happens in every game as PvP begins to overshadow the PvE.

    I would be for different rules on PvP vs. PvE servers. I hate when the population cries about an ability because they can't figure out how to beat it, and a class gets taken out in PvE over it.
    • For PvP only, every class has to be an even match. That means the developers can't give really good abilities to some classes that would greatly help against mobs. Look at how badly fear and seduction are nerfed in WoW. They were handy in PvE, were overpowered in PvP, they got nerfed for PvP, now they suck for PvE. That is the cycle that happens in every game as PvP begins to overshadow the PvE.

      Actually, fear and seduction had their PvP effects changed, not their PvE effects. They suffer from diminishing
    • When it comes to PvP that is terrible. In PvP, the healing classes are almost always terrible in every game. The alternative is that you get priests that are Shadow Specced (WoW) or Smite Priests (DAoC) and they are nearly useless when you need a healer on a raid.

      Heh. Neocron managed to do this the other way round. The PPU aka "passive psi user" is OK in solo play. He does not do much offensive damage but is very hard to kill because he can cast his protective spells on himself.

      As healer on a raid, howe
      • I played Neocron for about 2 months. It was kind of fun, but I was an APU, and never got to a high enough level where I could travel anywhere without getting ganked non-stop. Then I would lose the spell I just spent all of my money on and cry myself to sleep that night.

        They had a decent idea, but the game was so buggy and there were so few players it wasn't much fun for me.
    • I would be for different rules on PvP vs. PvE servers. I hate when the population cries about an ability because they can't figure out how to beat it, and a class gets taken out in PvE over it.

      That's one good thing about City of Heroes. In theory, powers work differently when used against players than against enemies. Mezzers (controllers) get a damage boost when they have a target locked, Defender debuffs can't be resisted, damage dealers have a percentage of their damage output that's unresistable, etc.
      • The tank thing is a very interesting concept in group PvP. In a game like EQ that had collision between characters, you could block your healers from getting mauled by the other melees. In most new games, characters run right through each other, so the other team can charge your healer, casters, and ranged classes to take them out.

        It would be a lot more fun if you could set up your PvP group like a real life battle, keeping your archers, healers, mages, etc protected behind a line of grunts. Since tau
        • I think that taunts should lock other characters onto the tank for a specified amount of time.

          Actually, in COH PVP, that's exactly what they do. Once taunted your targeting box is forced to the tank and can't be changed; you can only attack the tank.

          Problem is, the tanks are designed to endure over a dozen guys attacking at once in PvE. In PVP... well, they can't be killed. The ONLY way to do is to break through their mez protection (assuming you CAN mez) and lock them down -- assuming they don't have th

        • It would be a lot more fun if you could set up your PvP group like a real life battle, keeping your archers, healers, mages, etc protected behind a line of grunts.

          Ahem,AFAIK, mages didn't prove very successful in actual battle in real life. That's why we see so few of them in battle nowadays...
    • As a sidenote: the article writer is most definitely a human paladin. I'll get to that in a second.

      You can't make every class an even match with every other class. There will always be classes which are built to take out other classes. WoW examples: warriors > rogues, rogues > mages. Although I dislike RPS systems on principle, on some level you end up with that.

      I play a priest in WoW. Like most priests, I was shadow until about 57, then changed to a PvE spec. I still PvP. I do fairly well in
      • I also play a priest in WoW. A night elf level 51 Holy/Disc spec. I was shadow specced myself until level 48, and as one of the two priests in my guild I was needed for running Maraudon and Sunken Temple and the shadow spec just wasn't cutting it.

        I've played WoW since release day first as Horde, and then moving to Alliance in February. As such, I can say with absolute certainty that there is no balance in this game. It extends so far beyond classes it's ridiculous. The server I play on, Laughing Skull
        • I also play on Laughing Skull and have a level 60 hunter and a level 50 priest. I think you're wrong on a few counts.

          First, in terms of race choice for a class, you screwed up. Priests should always be dwarves for Fear Ward. Starshards is worthless, and while shadowmeld is cool, when you do Onyxia or Magmadar, you'll find that the main thing holding your guild back is a lack of fear wards. Horde don't have this problem, since Shamans can drop totems that absorb fear. If I were you I'd reroll.

          Second,
    • "For PvP only, every class has to be an even match. "

      I disagree. For PvP, every class has to _have_ an even match, or more precisely, every class needs to have a foil. E.g. in WoW, the rogue can pretty much "do" any spell caster one on one. But druids and hunters can neutralize a rogue one on one. The idea is to duel at every opportunity with every class; learn your strengths, weaknesses, and viable strategies for different situations. Join a guild with guys you like and play well with together, from

  • The trick... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Slime-dogg ( 120473 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @09:18AM (#12811865) Journal

    The trick to class balancing is making sure that there isn't an uber-class in the first place. There will be issues that pop up, when new base classes are introduced in expansions, as well. Consider that it is an expansion, and that the set of classes up until then have been balanced over time, while the new class has had minimal balancing.

    The way to balance shouldn't be to "nerf," but to increase the power of other classes to the point where the overpowered class is not an issue. Sure, there will be envy complaints, but at least they would be the wounded victimized complaints that appear after the nerf has been applied.

    Introducing new classes after the release should only be on the order of "hero classes." This increases variety, and requires the original balanced classes to be played until a specific level. After that level, a hero class can be chosen, and though they may be unbalanced, they don't affect gameplay from the beginning.

    • Re:The trick... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bluGill ( 862 )

      No, the key is making sure every class has weakness that can be exploited. A very powerful class that just barely moves is easily defeated by lesser classes if they can attack and then move off to heal, knowing they are too far away for the powerful class to attack latter.

      Powerful classes should also be more expensive in some way. That is you can have this powerful figure, but he will demand a lot more wages, and a lot more training, so you loose the ability to have many weak fighters to get him. Onc

    • The only issue with "nerfing" a class is player complaints. That's a valid issue, but from a design perspective there is no problem with reducing the power of an overpowered class.

      Constantly upscaling power causes mudflation, which reduces the impact of player driven self advancement due to an overall "world advancement".
    • I believe the real trick is to design classes so the player gets the perception that their progress is optimal. Unfortunately this will be very difficult in MMOs because everybody is comparing their progress to each other, and seeing what works and what doesn't (even if it's just gametheory that's been pulled out of someone's arse). When I first started playing my rogue in WoW, I've looked and researched into what kind of talent path I've wanted to take, to see what will optimize my play style. It was unort
  • I think there is something to be said for classless play. Then again, so did the french and that resulted in a REIGN OF TERROR and then Ultima Online, yikes!

  • Class Balance, PvP and WoW. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JavaLord ( 680960 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @10:06AM (#12812397) Journal
    World of Warcraft does have some pretty bad class balance issues, and just some gimped classes. Some examples of blizzards incompentency:

    1. As mentioned, Paladins were reworked two weeks before release the class had it's whole combat system changed (Read nerfed). While the class is described to this day as a 'melee based hybrid' it puts out less damage per second than any other class (including priests). It also has no long ranged attack, and only one stun. On the healing side of it, the Paladin in the fourth best healer in the game, behind Priests, Druids and Shamans. What it all adds up to is a class that is poor at PvP. Instead of keeping an eye on the paladin since they were changed 2 weeks before launch, blizzard has chosen to ignore them.

    2. Warlocks, along with having to deal with Will of the Forsaken going through their only decent crowd control spell (fear) also have to put up with farming soul shards to PvP. Basically, a warlock must PvE for a good 20-30 minutes to PvP for an hour since they need soul shards to preform some of their better spells/abilities. No other class has to put up with this sort of thing. To top it off, the shards are not stackable, meaning each one takes up one spot in your inventory, thus limiting other things a warlock could take for PvP from his or her bank.

    3. Hunters have some kind of "Dead Zone" inbetween Melee range and their ranged attacks where from what I understand they can be attack but they can not attack others. Since hunter is one of the few classes I don't play, I'm taking the word of the 1000 hunters whining about it on the forums.

    4. All of the racial traits for one faction (The horde) vastly overpower those of the other (alliance).

    5. Instead of improving classes, Blizzard has shown that they would rather swing the nerf bat. This is the wrong way to go about balancing a MMO.
    • 1) Palading paladin I have fought paladins too many times when they just start their 'invulnerability' aura, then insta heal, then insta full heal. Dont bitch about paladins, thats bull-shit. Just because they dont have the highest DPS doesnt mean they are not viable. People try and play a healer class an expect to whoop ass, get over it.
    • Warlocks, along with having to deal with Will of the Forsaken going through their only decent crowd control spell (fear) also have to put up with farming soul shards to PvP.

      My main character is a warlock on a PvP server, and I haven't had much trouble in solo PvP, and in group PvP, I can often be output the most damage (due to putting DOT's on multiple characters). The undead often beat me straight up since I can't fear, but if I can get surprise someone, I've landed 4 DOT's before they even turn to fac

    • 5. Instead of improving classes, Blizzard has shown that they would rather swing the nerf bat. This is the wrong way to go about balancing a MMO.

      Um...no.

      First and most obviously, if power levels are only ever adjusted upward, balancing becomes an arms race that, carried to its logical conclusion, will end up with level one characters blasting the landscape with nuclear fireballs.

      Secondly, say you have twenty classes. One of them is obviously overpowered. If you want to make things more balanced witho

      • You don't have to raise or lower abilities. Everything in WoW (and other games) gets controlled by random variables. All you have to do is tweak the thresholds and distributions of those variables and you can get anything you want.

        Blizzard has complete access to the statistics that show them _exactly_ what the success rate in PvP of 23 Warlock vs. 23 Paladin is, for example, and also to things like hours of play for a given account. Player comments on success rates are necessarily anecdotal in nature, a
        • I have always wondered if Blizzard would get smart and have a couple of dungeon instances where players could _volunteer_ to control monsters.

          I seem to recall that EQ did this a very long time ago, and it lasted all of about 1 day until they took it out again because of all the exploits that it opens up. What's to prevent someone from purposely sucking as a monster to allow someone else to get more xp faster? I agree -- it would be a lot of fun to control the monsters in a dungeon -- but it would be too

          • Interesting idea. Usually you would deal with the problem you mention by not allowing the players to coordinate; that is, you don't get to choose what instance, dungeon, area or set of mobs you're going to control.

            Are there some other reasons this would be problematic?

            • Are there some other reasons this would be problematic?

              You also have the whole issue of aggro control then. A great deal of a group's success in an instance is making sure the monsters are hitting the tank(s). If a player is controlling a monster, how are you going to force them to follow the aggro? And if you do force them to follow aggro, that really takes a lot of the fun out of playing the monster.

              Besides, I'm not really sure what fun you'd have playing as a monster against other real people when

              • Yeah, but the player party doesn't have to "follow the aggro", so why should monsters? We're interested in giving a little intelligence to the opposition. Unless forced to by a spell of some kind, monster players should be able to pick their targets at will, just like players pick their targets.

                I am not sure if player characters ever get tagged with something like Torment, which draws aggro to a Warlock's voidwalker. I guess the effect on a player character would be to prevent you from shifting targets
                • Yeah, but the player party doesn't have to "follow the aggro", so why should monsters?

                  Because most people wouldn't want to play a game where they died 50% of the time or more. If you took your average group of players through an instance, and the monsters always targetted the healers first and then the mages/warlocks, all the instances would be nearly unbeatable by similar-leveled characters.

                  The game and the dungeons were designed to be challenging to a well-balanced group that handled aggro well. I'd

    • 1. Paladins are a pure defensive class. Not many people play them that way though so they think they suck. They don't, they are very useful in group PvP. They are pretty crummy 1v1, but a lot of classes are. They could probably use some work still.

      2. Warlocks need work, I agree. However you can get shards doing PvP now so no need to PvE farm, also they received a number of buffs last patch.

      3. The dead zone is where they cannot use their melee or range attacks. It is the same for ALL classes, except

  • A friend of mine while I was attending university was a developer for Linley's Dungeon Crawl (http://www.dungeoncrawl.org/ [dungeoncrawl.org]), a roguelike.

    He was ALWAYS talking about game balance. From what I recall, most of his time was spent either fixing bugs, rewriting chunks of code (because the codebase was Ugly(tm) C++), or fixing imbalances introduced when other developers added "cool new spells".

    I'm an on-and-off, but avid player of dungeon crawl, mostly due to the influence of my friend. I must say that after a
    • My favorite roguelike. Not for balance reasons, although every class I've played has been fun, but for some earthy quality that I can't quite pin down.
  • This extremely short piece notes that class balancing is a real problem but it's pretty lame to call it the "Lost Art" if the author doesn't bother to go into some detail about examples of class balancing done well. Something so "lite" really shouldn't have been accepted on /.

    Funky Zealot seems to be suggesting that the key is beta-testing. This may be right...could it be that perhaps developers are making the primary use of beta testing the detection of technical problems, rather than gameplay issues evolv

    • I wouldn't even classify that as an article. It comes across as a whiny complaint from someone who got WTFPWNT one too many times.

      Yes, WoW does have balance issues, so does SWG, so do most MMOs. Big ones. So what should be done about it? "Don't make everyone the same and don't be heavy-handed with the nerfs." Great advice. Please tell me something that every 12-year-old on the forums hasn't already figured out.

      Let's talk about what constitutes balance. Is a rock-paper-scissors schema a balanced schema?
      • Can you balance everyone so that they are roughly equal in PVE while still making them balanced in PVP?

        That's a really important question. On many occasions a perfectly reasonable discussion on class balance in regards to PVP is completely subverted when someone starts bringing PVE issues in. Or vice-versa.

        The paying audience for a lot of MMO's seems to be demanding PVP play in addition to the PVE challenges but I frankly don't know if you can achieve class balance in both realms.

        Your comment on balanc

        • Well, the playerbase in WoW seems to be split roughly 50-50 with those who think that skill trumps class and those who think that WoW PVP is Rock-Paper-Scissors. Of course, all the people who have said skill are rogues so... ;)

          I've played a rogue and i've played a mage, and i can say without hesitation or doubt, that if it were somehow possible for me to play both characters at once against one-another, my rogue wouldn't even break a sweat killing my mage.

          I've also played a warrior enough to have gotten

  • It's impossible (Score:3, Insightful)

    by brkello ( 642429 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @11:14AM (#12813258)
    You can't have balanced classes and have PvP and PvE. You have to make each character unique and bring something different to a group when you fight together. This does not lend itself to being even in PvP because some classes will be designed to be in a support role. It is more important that every class feels like it brings something special and useful to a group. One on one PvP is over-rated. There will always be one "best" class for it. Group PvP makes things much more interesting...and as long as you are a good player, you should be able to play any class and contribute significantly. If you can't, then there really is a class imbalance.
    • One on one PvP is over-rated. There will always be one "best" class for it.

      True in one-on-one PVP, there can pretty much be no balance but it also depends on the kind of PVP is implemented. If you get a slow paced PVP such as yeah, one-on-one fights don't matter much cause other team members/players (assuming you have some teamwork going on) will generally be able to react and respond quickly and effectively enough to a bumrush against support class players. If you get a FAST paced PVP, one-on-one fights

  • Balance That Essential? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EngineeringMarvel ( 783720 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @11:35AM (#12813528)
    Is having all the classes balanced really that essential? I don't think so. I believe it is important to have most classes well balanced, but having one or two classes that are "weaker" isn't such a bad thing. I personally like a challenge of playing a slightly weaker class. When you beat an opponent with the weaker class, there is a greater since of accomplishment.

    I'll agree that playing against the overpowered class can be frustrating, but it just forces me to do something out of the ordinary to win. People complain about Shamans being overpowered. I agree, they have some advantages, but they aren't big enough to ruin the game. I have a 60 Warrior and I have killed shamans lots of times. Granted, in a duel, I'll only win about 35% of the time, but those wins sure do feel good.

    The problems with the Paladin, Warlock, and Hunter classes is that people are trying to use the class incorrectly. These three classes are very passive/solo classes. Yet people wonder why they don't do well in group settings. This is because the class is meant to be more solo friendly. Problem is, everyone wants every class to be how THEY want it. This is impossible, since some like to solo, some like PvE, some like PvP. If people are so worried about being the best, then simply play the class that suits your needs.

    The only valid complaint people can have I think is that they have already put tons of time into their class and don't want to go back. Well, guess what, people of been complaining about the same stuff since launch. It's the players fault for not doing a little research on a class before putting tons of time into it. I hope they don't nerf any of the classes. I don't want to lose that extra since of accomplishment when I kill a shaman and I enjoy PvE with my Warlock when I get burnt out playing with my warrior.
    • I believe it is important to have most classes well balanced, but having one or two classes that are "weaker" isn't such a bad thing.

      Agreed. I'm fine with a "hard" mode.

      It's the players fault for not doing a little research on a class before putting tons of time into it.

      See, there's the problem. This is Blizzard. They sell big, mass market titles. You don't buy a Blizzard title with the expectation that you have to read 15 hours of forums and web sites before you play. That requirement should go
    • "Is having all the classes balanced really that essential?"

      If it were a single player game, or if you only solo, no, it's not essential. The moment you _are_ compared to other players, when every move you make, every breath you take, has is judged as "we should have taken a Class X in the group instead of you", yes, it starts to get pretty damn essential.

      "having one or two classes that are "weaker" isn't such a bad thing. I personally like a challenge of playing a slightly weaker class. When you beat an o

  • Guild Wars (Score:2, Informative)

    by 100lbHand ( 676832 )
    As has been pointed out in TFA and some other posts, the problem of class balance shows up when a PvE turns into PvP. EQ, SWG, WoW, DAoC, CoH, et al were designed as PvE games from the start, with class skills designed to mesh together to fight large groups that just stand around and take damage.

    Guild Wars was built from the ground up to be a small team (4v4-8v8v8v8) PvP game, and the classes were designed as such. There is nothing coming close to an uber build GW, there is always an easy counter to a
  • I am a warlock, just putting that out there.

    The fact of the matter is that WoW is innovative. Simple classes, a clean interface (or a dirty one if you want it), What is essentially a battelfield mode cleanly executed. It is a marvel of a game.

    And it will never last.

    Why?

    Because of this issue. The fact is that this is the one area where Blizzard has not chosen to break with tradition. To swing the nerf bat is too simple a solution to a complex problem. The devs over at blizzard have clearly lost sig

  • Learn from MUDs (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stlhawkeye ( 868951 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @11:51AM (#12813734) Homepage Journal
    Anybody who designed a pvp mud knows how this works.

    1. Make small, incremental changes, and measure the effects for a few weeks before determining if they've solved any problems.

    2. Don't listen to the loudest and most frequent complainsers. It's the guy who never says anything and then one day pens a detialed analysis of your classes who is most likely to have some good insight.

    3. Play your classes yourself and understand what your players are bitching about.

    4. Understanding that somebody is ALWAYS going to be bitching about class balance, and just beacuse people are still bitching doesn't mean it's not well-balanced.

    5. Classes and zones you design early on tend to be much less powerful (and the zones much more difficult) than those that are designed late in the process. Your early classes tend to be moderately powerful with strong checks and balances in their best abilities. The later work tends to be moderately powerful but without the checks and balances. Just look at Warlocks in WoW, compared with Paladins or Shamans. Look at any game, really, and how many of the add-on classes or races were MUCH MUCH better than the stock stuff? They have to be. If they're not any better, nobody buys the expansion to play them.

    6. That leads me to my next point - you want to keep classes balanced, look at races. In a perfect game, you'd have 1 race. Barring that, races with minor stat variations and a few tricks, but no major differences are key.

    7. Design the game (the mechanics, the zones, the quests, etc) with your classes in mind and then DO NOT ADD CLASSES. The new classes invariably will rip through the "old world" and only be challenged in the new zones designed with that class in mind. I think my #1 advice to any MMORPG is to never add additional classes beyond your starting crop. I'm sure people will point out countless examples of this being done successfully, but I think it's a major disaster waiting to happen most of the time.

    8. Even better than all this - DON'T HAVE CLASSES in the first place.

    • My comment to 6) and 8):

      While it is not an MMORPG, the WW2 shooter Day Of Defeat has classes without being unbalanced overall. Each of the classes is superior in some situations and inferior in others. Actually, the game would lose in variety and tactical depth without classes. As it is, the Scissor-Paper-Stone character enhances gameplay.
      A little, simplified overview over DOD classes:
      -Rifleman: A good allround class, best at medium range combat
      -Sniper: superior at long ranges. A must have on maps like "Ch

  • whining warlocks. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mandrake ( 3939 ) <mandrake@mandrake.net> on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @11:59AM (#12813844) Homepage Journal
    As a rogue, all I have to say is that he should be putting up his freakin paranoia pet and dotting folks and casting hellfire on a whim. rogues would stay away from him. I certainly would. It's that whole thing: would I rather kill the easy target or the hard target. with his paranoia pet and random pbae attacks I'd rather go for the shaman over near him. Also I'm not sure why he keeps saying shaman rule the BG: I rarely think twice before killing a shaman. easy target.
    • a) Paranoia was broken two patches ago. (at least) Still not fixed to where it was, and requires a Felhunter to be out which no warlock in his right mind is going to be using for PVE since we need damage or tanking and not debuffs and mana drains. Sorry to break it to you. That is the reason you see the Voidwalkers, Imps, and Sucubii instead of the Felhunter.
      b) Hellfire actually hits the warlock for damage as well as any close targets.

      When I am on my warlock, the last thing I want to do when I suspect a
  • Why even play the game if everything is "balanced?"

    The balancing force should be the PLAYER. The real world isn't balanced for our enjoyment, yet people thrive in it. This is due to intelligence and creativity. As long as sufficiency flexibility, and the ability to act creatively is provided to the players, they will balance the game all by themselves.

    There are some game aspects (in poorly designed games) which are out-and-out unfair, which usually involve making some usually-limited resource unlimited

    • It's because these games are structured in a rigid, proscribed fashion. This is partly on purpose because the revenue model depends upon providing a consistant service to the customer, but also because adding in some dyanmism is hard, or at least hard to understand.
  • The solution to class balance is to have no classes. Instead have a large array of abilities that can be combined arbitrarily. Or even better, eliminate character statistics entirely and base gameplay on player skill. However since this isn't what the market leaders (WoW and EQ do) no other company would dare to break the mold.

  • Most game designers just don't understand RPG's (Score:4, Informative)

    by Banner ( 17158 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @01:27PM (#12814890) Journal
    It's that simple.

    A long long time ago there was a game system called Chivalry and Sorcery, whose greatest contribution to the gaming world was an essay called 'The Ecology of Monsters'. This is required reading for anyone who is going to do game design (along with 'Drop the Rock').

    What it comes down to is this: If your creature/character is all powerful, then why hasn't it taken over the eco-system/world and killed off everything else? All Monsters/Races/Classes MUST have an Achillies heel. They MUST have weak spots, they MUST be able to be killed. They must have some natural enemy.

    In WOW we have Shamans who are really over powered. Compared to the Alliance side actually, all of the Horde is more powerful (which according to rumor is because all the dev's play Horde and not Alliance - why am I not surprised?). The way to have really balanced the game out would be to make Shamans and Paladins equally powerful as group leaders (but in subtlely different ways) and then make one of the weaker classes the bane of these more powerful characters. That would of course encourage folks to play those less powerful classes.

    And of course the REAL answer to these problems is to make your DM's actually DM!! That's what they're being paid for right? TO WORK? The DM's in WOW are spectators and stink. When there is a terrible imbalance in the game the DM's are supposed to go out there and deal with it in real time. That's their job! Every good gamer knows that. A multitude of game mechanic sins can easily be handled by a good DM who gets out there and 'Deus Ex Machina's a little balance into the game.

    There will probably never be a perfect MMORPG, but that doesn't bother me. I'm there for the game, to have fun, not to rape the rules. Adults have all learned that life isn't fair so they don't mind games that aren't exactly 'balanced', as long as the games are fun!. And that is far more important than 'Balance' will ever be.
  • Guess which WoW class the author plays? A technical article outlining some of the design reasons class imbalance occurs and some of the solutions would have been interesting. This is just some GamePro schmo taking advantage of having a short article to write to whine about paladins.

    Any article that talks about character balance in MMOs without talking at least about broken-by-generalization and broken-by-specilization is kinda not even a little interesting to anybody who's understanding of the issue exce

  • Randomize (Score:2, Interesting)

    by readin ( 838620 )
    The need for perfect balance could be reduced by making every player unique. In early RPGs this was done by generating random attributes for each avatar at the beginning. But predictably people kept generating new avatars until they got the stats they wanted. After that, people tend to learn what combinations of class-race-armour-weapons-skills work best and stick to them.

    I would like to see some random variety introduced when it is too late to go back and start again. In EQ, you visited your guild ma

  • terrible article - no content (Score:3, Interesting)

    by truffle ( 37924 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @06:45PM (#12818552) Homepage

    This article contains a statement of a position and no supporting arguments or evidence.

    I'm very disappointed that this made it to slashdot games. Where is the logical analysis to back up the arguments?

    Also as a side comment to people claiming horde is more powerful than alliance -- they should be. The WOW player ecology depends on a blanace in the number of horde and alliance players. Giving advantages to the horde is a sensible way to try and counteract the fact that more people play alliance.

    I play alliance (level 60 gnome warrior). I do PvP. I am aware of the fact that other races make much better warriors than gnomes (alliance or horde). Honestly it doesn't make that big a difference. Taurens with their hit points and war stomps have an advantage over me, but skill, gear, and teamwork are much bigger factors. I happily grants horde players their tiny tiny racial abilities advantage. Meanwhile the horde as a whole faces a very large disadvantage in their lower populations, meaning the alliance are able to constantly zerg them in pvp (except for ctf), and are much better able to mobilize in PVE to gain powerful items that more than make up for these tiny racial abilities.

  • A core problem. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kaenneth ( 82978 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @07:00PM (#12818651) Journal
    usually, there is one area in which a class outshines all others, for example in Everquest:

    Clerics:Rezzing, Druids:Travel, Shamans: Debuffing
    Wizards:Burst damage, Enchanters:Crowd Control, Magicians:Pets, Necromancers:damage-over-time spells
    Warriors:Taking hits, Rogues:Traps/Sneak, Monk:Melee damage
    Bards:mana regen, Rangers:Archery/Tracking, Paladins:Undead slaying, Shadowknights:Holding aggro

    Then they added Beastlords and Berzerkers... since they didn't want to displace any existing class, Beastlords ended up a jack-of-all-trades; while they tried (and failed) to add a new reation based combat system around when they introduced 'zerkers (iirc)

    the problem comes in that people want to pick the best characters for the situation; If there are no undead in the area, why have a Pally? mosters dying fast, so why have a Necro?

    the next problem was balancing a group with a shaman that can cut a monsters damage output by 75%, with one without. or one with a cleric, who can heal 10000 hp in a shot, vs. other healers that can't do more than 1000. In order for content to be a challange to a group with a Shaman AND and Cleric the monsters have to be able to rip through groups that lack them in a couple seconds, making a Cleric and a Shaman almost mandatory for grouping in most players eyes.

    (I have 3 accounts, my Mage, then a Cleric and a Shaman set up on hotkeys to Heal and Slow)

    my thought for a design...

    First, decide on the 'ideal' group size, I think 5 is a good number.

    then come up with a adventuring system that requires that number of distict abilities.

    Healing, Melee Damage, Magic Damage, Melee Protection, Magic Protection.

    then, create classes that each can fill MOST jobs, instead of a few.

    Heal, MeleeD, MagicD:
    Heal, MeleeD, MeleeP: Paladin type
    Heal, MeleeD, MagicP: Ranger type
    Heal, MagicD, MeleeP: Shaman type
    Heal, MagicD, MagicP: Druid type
    Heal, MeleeP, MagicP: Cleric Type
    MeleeD, MagicD, MeleeP: Shadowknight type
    MeleeD, MagicD, MagicP:
    MeleeD, MeleeP, MagicP:
    MagicD, MeleeP, MagicP:

    well, obviously they don't all correlate to EQ classes, as that's the point. Everyone with a base ability should have the same level of power, just with different 'flavor'; which will lead to some situational advantages, but if, for example, the particular types of magic damage available to a druid-type class are ineffective in an area, he'd still be able to fully function as a Healer and protector vs. magic.
  • Balancing classes with MMO's. Balancing life and MMO's is very very difficult, especially classwork.

    But thats another story for another time, as I'm sure everyone else here will let me know that they have no problem blancing their time.

    Damn MMOs! Damn them to hell! I want my life back..

    Ok, ok, I feel better now. Thank you all for the therapy.

  • "I'm the best I just want to win!!!" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tilmitt ( 856895 ) <tilmitt@oboeboy.net> on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @08:19AM (#12822123) Homepage
    I don't see how balancing is a problem at all. I wish everyone would just ignore completely the relative strengths and weaknesses of a class when choosing it, and just choose a class because it suits their personality or whatever. Basically choose ideologically if you know what i mean. But instead the "pro" (wow they're soooo cool!) players go off and all choose a class that in general may be better than others in whatever situation and the people who loose to them start crying because all everyone wants to be is the winner, the boy on top of the sandcatle. I remember when i first started playing online games I had great fun ever when loosing, which happened most of the time and still does, though I win sometimes (!), because I loved saying "well at least i fought hard and it was such an epic battle and what glory!" etc. I won sometimes and obviously felt great about those. But i was shocked the way nearly everyone else, with the exception of a few magnificent people, were all like "omg we're loosing lets surrender" or "this is so shit I'm joining their team". I really cannot understand how winning is the only way people get enjoyment out of the games. And i think, so what if an enemy mage/kingdom/team is really powerful, we'll go out there and throw ourselves into battle and not give up and give it our all. And we'll do loads of damage and the enemy will certainly have been worse off than they were before they faced our brave onslaught. And we'd tell tales of the battle and talk all day and night with our friends and it would be such fun!

    Alas most people are but little boys who have to be on the winning team.
    • Now I'll aggree with you that some people _do_ take it all to ridiculous obsessive extremes, but balance _is_ a problem for everyone else too. You don't have to be an 3l337 kiddie, obsessed with xp and levels, to nevertheless find it a tad harder to just play a concept character for purely ideological/personality/style reason.

      If you think that you can just play your concept character, whatever that may be and no matter how weak, just for creativity sake... you must be thinking single player games. Because

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