The Challenges of Class Balance In MMOGs 209
Karen Hertzberg writes "Balancing classes in MMOGs may be one of the most daunting challenges of the industry. Few games are immune, and no game has ever claimed complete, perfect balance. So how does a developing company deal with the ever-impending demand to keep their games fair in both PvE and PvP environments? Ten Ton Hammer spoke with four industry professionals about the issue in an effort to glean some answers. Age of Conan's Craig Morrison said, 'It is part science and part intuition and experience, I think. We do, of course, have all the ... "spreadsheet" work in the back-end and development tools that calculate as many of the parameters as possible. On top of that, though, you then have the knowledge and skill of the designers involved. Working with a system, you have the general overview of how things interact and how players tend to behave in your game. Sometimes nothing beats spending time in the game itself and actually seeing how the players have been using the skills and abilities you have provided for them. Players are nothing if not inventive, and they never cease to surprise designers with their ingenuity, so it is vital that the designers are also watching and learning themselves.' "
This may explain... (Score:3, Insightful)
...why Blizzard completely abandoned the notion of difference between Horde and Alliance in WoW, in favour of focussing on class balance. Naturally, if you ask a lot of WoW players, it hasn't even helped them do that. In fact, I see there being more and more class overlap instead of class balance in WoW, especially amongst hybrid classes. You can balance the game by making hybrid classes able to do everything well, but it kind of sucks balls for non-hybrid classes.
I hope that the backing away from balanced-but-distinct factions and classes doesn't represent a wider change of philosophy at Blizzard. It wouldn't bode well for Starcraft II.
Classes? Who needs em! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see why we have to have classes in an MMO. I much prefer the Ultima Online system of choosing your own skills and in effect, creating your own "class". This type of system is far easier to balance since you can modify each skill "in a vacuum" without upsetting anything else.
That, and the very old idea of the holy trinity (healer, tank, damage-per-second) needs to die, it is sucking all of the creativity out of game design. Real people are not specialists, they are capable of learning many different things.
"BALANCE" (Score:1, Insightful)
balance is all illusion, created by corporate shills to distract gamers from what they actually want. The fact is that no game is unbalanced. each player has the equal opportunity to research which characters are powerful. if i said x is unbalanaced, it could mean i thought it was too weak or too powerful. to determine which of those i meant depends on context. we should no longer use a word that relies on context to have any meaning. BAN THIS WORD
Re:"BALANCE" (Score:4, Insightful)
You're talking about meta-gaming though - power playing, min/maxing, essentially finding and exploiting all the weak-points of the system.
That's what you enjoy; fine. However, there are many players out there who just want to build a character that they like, for whatever reason, and to enjoy the game as it was intended - a massively interactive RPG. They're in it for the experience, not for out & out victory.
The term "balance" is about balancing classes, not players. If everybody had your perspective, then everybody would play Death Knights or Paladins or whichever class is currently considered slightly overpowered, and it would be a very boring world indeed. It's important that the game mechanics allow for variety of play, or it gets very stale, very quickly. Class balancing is a crucial part of that.
Re:Individual differences vs class balance (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you have your class one hundred percent nailed, the differences are cancelled out by differences in individual skill, approach and work-ethic in most games.
It sounds like you're saying that class balance doesn't matter. The situation you're describing only happens if the classes are balanced.
If classes aren't balanced, then one class will almost always beat another in a fight, no matter how good or bad the classes are. Differences in skill determining outcomes is a sign that the game is balanced.
The complex metagames that spring up around MMOs are very difficult to keep on track, but at least game designers can change things. If you want to see a metagame that can be completely broken, look at a collectible card game like Magic. Once the cards are out, you can't change them, and so some horribly broken decks can dominate the metagame.
Re:Classes? Who needs em! (Score:5, Insightful)
In reality, such a system seems like it would be massively harder to balance, since balancing a single skill against others is a meaningless task (wood-chopping is balanced perfectly against magery! Wait, what?). Instead balancing skill sets becomes the key challenge. And since the number of skillsets is vastly larger than the number of skills, it is also likely much larger than the number of classes in most MMOs, making this a very complex job indeed.
Re:This may explain... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, Blizzard has it bad. They have to balance for: 1v1, arenas, battlegounds, and to top it all off, raids. That's four very different requirements. Considering most classes have multiple roles and styles to begin with, the whole thing smells like spaghetti code: change one thing, and you have to change five others as well, which trigger more changes.
Now, add in the players, who will always feel their class is underpowered, and every single change you make to their character will get you flamed, even from those whose particular build is way stronger than it should be according to 90% of the other players.
Anyone still feel like tackling the problem? The players will also need gear...
Re:This may explain... (Score:3, Insightful)
And why should Shamans tank? Granted, I don't know a whole lot about Shamans but they aren't plate users so why would they be deserving of an overhaul that lets them tank as well as the proper tanking classes?
The way I wish the classes were built is the way pokemon balance is built.
..and so on. I don't know how well balanced those games are nor do I know the full details of the "classes" but the type of balance the devs tried to achieve is much more fun than that of WoW.
Water > Fire > Grass > Electric > Water
In WoW, Rogues should be able to open a can of whoop-ass on clothies (Mages, Warlocks, Priests). After all, cloth is generally poor protection against a dagger to the kidneys. At the same time, they should fear plate users as their daggers would realistically go "PLINK" off of the armor of a Warrior or a Death Knight. Because of the clothie's non-existant armor they should have vastly superior damage output, unlike WoW where a tank-spec Warrior can take the beating of a lifetime AND do damage comparable to typical dps classes.
While I applaud Blizzards apparent goal of giving every damn class a fair chance against any other class, I think it kind of ruins a bit of the pvp fun. If this was real world (yes, stupid comparison I know), a Warrior wearing all plate and carrying a huge freaggin' sword would make minced meat of a Rogue wearing leather no matter how sneaky he was. Just like a Rogue sneaking up behind a Warlock/Mage/Priest would mean the end of the targeted clothie. Subsequently, since the Warrior doesn't have the sneaking ability of the Rogue, the clothie would see him coming and have a chance of blasting him with crazy damage. A very simplified example that doesn't take into account healers, hybrids or different builds but it shows the general idea: Mage
Demonology Warlock == Beast Mastery Hunter, send in the pet, do ranged damage.
Destruction Warlock == Mage == Elemental Shaman, fire away with spells, run away.
Protection Warrior == Frost Death Knight == Protection Paladin == Feral Druid, are all viable tanks and at least Warrior, DK and Pala put out an astounding damage while tanking.
There is no class distinction. All the classes have different builds but generally you are either a Healer, a ranged DPS or a tank (who does as much damage as the damage guys) and nearly all classes can fill at least 2 roles.
Stupid =/
Re:Classes? Who needs em! (Score:3, Insightful)
Didn't virtually every serious player in UO end up being a magician wearing platemail?
The problem with a "skill system" is that, inevitably, there's going to be a small handful of "skill choices" that are just flat-out better than the alternatives. More damage, more survivability. It's only easier to balance if there's absolutely no skill synergy - and good luck making a fun game that has no synergy whatsoever between skills.
On top of that it's hard to give flavor to a fully skill-based system. A large amount of WoW's appeal is that you have a pile of interesting abilities. Your class behaves fundamentally differently to every other class in the game, and the talents you pick make it behave even more differently. With a skill-based system it's hard to figure out where "abilities" come from - do you buy them with skill points? Do you get them automatically with certain levels of skill? Those approaches both have serious issues, both of which make the whole "skill balancing" thing even more difficult.
Skill based systems can be a lot of fun, I'm not saying they're eternally bad. However, I'd love to see a skill-based system that - assuming everyone is trying to play for maximum effectiveness - creates anything even remotely like the flavor and differences between WoW's ten classes and over 30 major specs.
I do agree that the Holy Trinity is stale, though I believe that's not because each player should be a polyglot, able to take on any role - it's just because I think that particular standard role combination is getting a bit dull. Move on, people, find something new.
Rock, Paper, Scissors (Score:3, Insightful)
The benefit to this approach is designers can overlook one class beating the crap out of another the majority of the time so long as the first class gets its ass handed to them by a third, and so on. It allows the game designers to not struggle with ensuring that every class is balanced against every other class which is an impossible, moving target. It simply cannot be done and any attempt to do so will only end in gamers complaining. If WoW (for instance) had come out and said "we balance PvP around rock - paper - scissors and hunters are the rock to your scissors, dear rogues - deal with it" I think the game would be in a better place.
Unfortunately, it is a very rare approach to class balance in an MMO because all those rogues are going to spend all their time on the forums complaining about hunters and demanding nerfs while the mages will complain about the rogues and the hunters will complain about the mages and nobody will realize the instances where they shine and instead focus only on the situations where they get their asses handed to them. Thus, game designers attempt to appease people and balance everyone against everyone else... Unfortunately...
Re:Classes? Who needs em! (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be conventional wisdom, but I had a very illustrative talk with Jack Emmert (creator of City of Heroes) before that game was released.
Apparently well into beta they had followed that idea, that classes were bad and restrictive, and 'unrealistic'. Ironically, what they discovered (with a good, aggressive set of beta testers) is that within hours of releasing a newly-balanced client, the most intense theorycrafters would have parsed out the formulaic details (increasing skill x meant y more hp or z more dps) and posted this as a 'best spec' and (aside from some dissention between theorycrafters) the bulk of other players uninterested in crunching numbers would simply copycat those builds.
So you ended up with a 'skill based, classless' game system, where ironically everyone was nearly identical in powers, skills, and capabilities. After butting heads against this trend for much (most?) of beta, it was a relatively late-design decision to go back to ground zero and implement a class-based structure, ironically to promote in-game diversity among players.
I've thought about this for a LONG time, personally being a devotee of skill-based RPGs (Runequest, etc.) compared to level-based RPGs (D&D, etc.). It's really counterintuitive.
What I've realized is that where the "that's unrealistic" criticism breaks down is the fundamentals: what's REALITY is that you DON'T get to choose ANYTHING fundamental about yourself, not really. You're born with a skin color, a set of genetics that predisposes you to a host of characteristics (appearance, height, build, even sexual orientation*), and you get to "play" real life with the good, mediocre, or shitty hand you're dealt. (I have gamer friends with severe birth defects that have said they would love to get a t-shirt saying "yeah, I'd reroll if I could, but for now I'm stuck with this character".) Sure, you can work out (+1 STR), get plastic surgery (+1 CHA), or sit at a computer all day (+1 INT, -1 CON, -1 STR, -1 CHA), but your life skills are really just tweaking the basics you started with.
* I don't know whether the current politically correct thought is that it is or isn't genetically based, I don't really care, it's just another example of a possible predisposition.
So my point is, the minute you allow the players free will in the creation of their toons, you've already sorely broken any connection with realism. Think about it in real life, if we had that capability we'd all probably be a monochromatic bland sea of beautiful, smart, strong, healthy people. too.
Writing this, it's occurred to me the irony of the original D&D system - where you rolled 3d6 per stat in order, and 'lived with' the result of your rolls, meaning some characters were simply better than others - probably needed 'classes' the least, and would have worked with a skill-based system even better. But CRPGs and MMOs, which start out with a fundamental predisposition toward equivalence, it's almost inevitable that you have to channel the players early into very DISTINCT courses, lest they all choose the same 'best option' path identically.
Re:This may explain... (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, add in the players, who will always feel their class is underpowered, and every single change you make to their character will get you flamed, even from those whose particular build is way stronger than it should be according to 90% of the other players.
Sometimes a class is woefully underpowered. Like warlocks originally were. Oh how things changed after warlocks got their first re-balancing. The whining from rogues was so delightful.
"It's fine. Learn 2 play" had been the rogue's trademarked answer to every single complaint about the rogue class being overpowered against any given class and also their retort for other classes complaints of under-poweredness. "It's fine. Learn 2 play" was trotted out over and over until it died and then its carcass was beaten mercilessly.
Sadly for the rogues, many of the warlocks had been doing just that. Learning 2 play. Learning to kill. Learning to escape. All while being underpowered.
Then it suddenly changed. Warlocks were no longer underpowered. No longer a free honor kill. No longer something to laugh at. Now they were something which deserved caution, respect, and even fear.
No more strolling up behind a warlock without a care in the world expecting to kill it without much effort. No. Now a rogue had to consider very carefully indeed how to attack and what to do if something went terribly, terribly wrong, because now attacking a warlock very often led to just that, something going terribly, terribly wrong.
Re:This may explain... (Score:1, Insightful)
lol pvp happened on a pvp server.
play casual on carebear, you will have a much funner time.
Re:class balance is stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
It comes down to questions of diversity, complexity, and time. Diversity in an MMO is usually seen as a good thing - a variety of classes or skills, a variety of roles, etc. Diversity also gives you more ways to do the same thing, adding potential for more variety and complexity to content. And arguably most importantly, there is the finite amount of development time - in a perfect world, there would be content designed for every concievable playstyle and group/raid makeup, but in the real world you can only design for a tiny fraction of that space. By (attempting to) create content that, in general, requires that diversity of skills/classes, you hit the broadest swath of players and encourage players to take advantage of the diversity.
But all these things require balance to be meaningful - if soldiers are superior to monks in most or all ways that most players find significant, then the player population will probably be heavily biased towards soldiers instead of monks, and there will be real trouble trying to create content that works for your population without destroying what little diversity you have.
Re:Classes? Who needs em! (Score:3, Insightful)