Eldergame started an age-old class-based or skill-based discussion some days ago. I always wanted to write about that, but I don't think I will, because Eric said it all.
First things first: I agree with him. I sympathize with skill-based systems, but they never really work out for exactly the reasons Eric lists.
The post, rightfully, got a lot of attention. So for further reading have a look here.
Stylish Corpse
Psychochild
Rampant Games
Aim for the Head
Tish Tosh Tesh
Troll Racials are Overpowered
Fun in Games
Using classes instead of skills is actually part of a higher-ranking design rule: Don't just balance your game, but use mechanics that make it resistant to balance problems.
I'll give you a well-known example: World of Warcraft and its Arena.
I extensively played PvP in classic WoW; both open PvP and battlegrounds. There were balance problems, for sure. Especially with late PvE equipment. But generally balance was not so much of an issue and even though I played a fire mage who dreamt of Molten Core equipment, I never had a problem with the balance. I already wrote about that, here.
But the second I started to do TBC arenas, balance problems were everywhere.
What this means is that a game can be vulnerable or resistant to balance problems. And, obviously, you want your game to be resistant to them. There is a connection with The Information Curse. The internet helps people min/maxing and while that can be fun for a while it is always a danger to the developer. Fortunately, the developer can sabotage min/maxing by splitting up communities and including unpredictability into his game.
The benefit is clear: A game that is resistant to balance problems not only requires less manpower to develop and sustain. It also allows for mechanics that are theoretically exploitable, but practically are not exploited. These mechanics can be a lot of fun. For example a paladin that does more damage vs. undead. In the framework of international competition such a thing is not sustainable. But on a server that inhabits a few hundred players it can turn out to be great, immersive and not much a problem at all.
Things that help make a game resistant to balance problems:
- Low focus on competition between players
- No official forum
- Little information for the players. No detailed combat log
- Separated servers with slightly differing content / rule sets. If implemented wisely
- Classes that rely on each other, have a look here
- Heavily homogenized classes
- ...
These things are interchangeable! And every one, on its own, will make your game less fun, but at the same time every one allows you to make the game more fun. E.g. do you rather want homogenized classes (Cataclysm) or classes that rely on each other (TBC)?
Bottom line is this:
Try to make your game resistant to balance problems. There is no free launch here, but some measures can fit your game better than others.
Edit: Heavily edited after publishing.
Personally I always thought if the game has any diversity you can never achieve perfect balance
ReplyDeleteIf you allow player choice in anything there will be gimps and ubers. Only way to avoid that is to give everyone exactly same HP ,same damage ,same movement stats - which is boring and doesnt work anymore even for FPS (which have classes nowdays too)
I think the aim should be to make every major class viable in every game situation ( and if you making pvp game that includes 1vs1) and let player sort out the template du jour. Just make it easy to fix mistakes (e.g. cheap respecs).
Also I think it should be made publicly known what the balance goals are, so players don't expect every haywire combo be on par with top templates
As an example of failed system I could give shadowbane which had very rich and diverse class system (probably only second to D&D online), but it was very easy to gimp character and no way to fix it . Combined with broad firing class changes which obsoleted most of the viable templates overnight that made for some painful experience
p.s. I consider wow to be fairly balanced given their constraints. Most of their balancing problems are result of focusing on pve gear treadmills and consequent power inflation.
Despite that they always had decent selection of viable templates for even high end arenas
Personally I always thought if the game has any diversity you can never achieve perfect balance
ReplyDeleteThat is obviously true. The question is whether you need 'perfect balance'. Perhaps the Holy Paladin who does extreme dps against undead adds more to the game world than a homogenized paladin that does the same damage against the skeletons as the rogue with his dagger.
Blizzard sacrificed much for balance. In fact, I think they sacrificed too much. But that is my very personal opinion. I wrote about that some time ago.
Everyone wants to feel important, everyone can't. Video games are profitable partially because everyone gets to be the hero. As soon as someone else is stronger than you, they become the hero and not you. Thus class balance is an issue.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with Blizzard's design philosphy of "bring the player not the class" it is creating other balance issues.
. Video games are profitable partially because everyone gets to be the hero.
ReplyDeleteEpiny, there are a lot of players who will disagree with you. Some people would rather be a grunt in a great fantasy army than a hero in world of heroes.
However, there are other ways to balance things. To stay with that paladin example:
What if you didn't know beforehand that there are undead in this dungeon and are unable to switch party members? This can balance the rogue against the paladin even though the paladin is better now that there are undead. Of course, the rogue must still be 'viable' and where he is not the group must be able to circumvent the undead.
To balance it, the rogue might be able to disarm that trap that you also coudn't know would be there. So you can access that gold over there.
This is one of the reasons I talk to much about unpredictability. It can balance things that are otherwise unbalanced. Thus it can make your game very resistant against some kinds of balance problems.
Read your link and I think there might be two mutually exclusive things (to a degree) .One is fun, another is viable balance for a game which includes pvp.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be advocating for fun but unbalanced things as opposed to more bland but fair. And much of what I gather form your early WoW impression it that it was your first MMO and you treated it just like that - fun fantasy world, which you explored and enjoyed (and I did too - by bartle I am explorer first and killer second :)
But later you started actually seeing the trees behind forest -game mechanics. And suboptimal choices became evident with raiding and arenas. Its not that the thing weren't there before -you just didn't notice them. And in large part that was because you were new imho. You long for that feeling and think you can get it back by hiding the imbalanced by removing information.
I personally played MMOs for long time and pvp (read FPS/RTS) even longer. My mindset long changed since from looking at a character as any sort of RP but as a tool to achieve certain power goals.You even maximize things like always picking arab model in CS cause it has least visible profile (cs does not have many choices :) ) . You make choices in game to maximize power first everything else comes second.
Because thats what you need to do if you expect to win in PvP. Character is your primary tool which needs to be min maxed. hiding the information will not prevent this , it would just limit the information (and therefore uber templates) to select dedicated few.
I think some people want to play certain class x, because it appeals to them (for various reasons) but due to game mechanics its not the best choice. That makes people unhappy and they go whine on forums to fix their class (or worse their particular gameplay style) instead of changing class and picking one that works. I know that feeling very well . In WoW feral druid was my dream class, except it was horribly UP most of the time and was never the top dog in any scenario so I never really got to actually play it. That was imho fail on WoW team part -about making distinct and very appealing gameplay style but failing to make it equally viable (but not complete fail , because I could play a rogue which was always top tier)
So my point is imho every major class/template devs bring should be viable - viable when taking in consideration the most extreme min maxing scenarios, cause that is how its gonna be . Every game gets its secrets discovered and exploited, hiding information wont solve that.Especially when you make pvp game - players are hell bent on discovering everything.
Even if it makes game less diverse.Having paladin deal insane damage to whole race of players is not balanced. Neither was wotf as racial ability.
I think rule of a thumb for balancing should be - non re-specable choices should be balanced. E.g. choosing a race or class are non respecable choices, so you cant have race x or class y being obviously inferior. But things like talent trees are - so its enough if just one combination of talents is good for class x
But on the other hand I dont believe you cant have diversity in pvp scenarios. Its harder to achieve but possible. TF2 for example is very well balanced, and has pretty diverse gameplay styles
Thanks for that very long comment max. I appreciate the time you invest.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be advocating for fun but unbalanced things as opposed to more bland but fair. And much of what I gather form your early WoW impression it that it was your first MMO and you treated it just like that - fun fantasy world, which you explored and enjoyed (and I did too - by bartle I am explorer first and killer second :)
But later you started actually seeing the trees behind forest -game mechanics. And suboptimal choices became evident with raiding and arenas.
That is certainly part of the truth. But I do not think that it is the whole truth. TBC's arena made unbalance much more visible than ever before in WoW.
In classic open PvP when you died then probably because you got overwhelmed.
This is why Arathi Basin is (still) so much easier to balance than 2:2 arena. Unpredictability helps here: You usually don't know what enemy speccs to exspect at a flag and you often don't know how much support your enemy calls in to defend a flag.
A game can shift the focus from 1:1 balance to tactical balance. EVE does this brilliantly, by the way. They say that he who enters anything, but a fight that is bent to his advantage, deserves to die :).
Something similar is at work in Tol Barad. It is inherently unfair, and yet fair (by purpose). Depends on the point of view you assume.
In WoW feral druid was my dream class, except it was horribly UP most of the time and was never the top dog in any scenario so I never really got to actually play it.
Play one myself since end of classic. They are hellishly OP at the moment ;)
I think rule of a thumb for balancing should be - non re-specable choices should be balanced. E.g. choosing a race or class are non respecable choices, so you cant have race x or class y being obviously inferior. But things like talent trees are - so its enough if just one combination of talents is good for class x
I agree. It is sad that the WoW Talent trees always created cookie cutter speccs. But it never really caused harm, because you could easily respecc.
About limiting information or not offering an official forum. I do think that it helps with unbalance; at least it buys time. But it is a high price to pay. I'm not sure if it is worth it very often.
To reiterate this again: What really helps with balance problems is unpredictability, in my opinion. I should probably make a post about it.
Another thing that helps - diminishing returns for those things that provide an advantage.
ReplyDeleteGarumoo, can you elaborate on that?
ReplyDelete