I know some games put a difficulty label for each class,maybe a little silly.
How hard it is to play a class is something that needs to be discovered by the player & that is personal taste,at least when it comes to the mechanics.
just like how one person might find math to be easy and drawing hard,one player might find the mechanics of a ranger easy and an enchanter hard.
Thus it makes no sense to put difficulty label on classes,it would make more sense to put in exams with a mastery system for classes,depending on the exams you pass you get novice,expert,master :D
For most players all matters lately is functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort.
If a whole group of warriors gets the job done the fastest and easiest,that is what will be desired in groups.
There is no way around it.It is the ongoing mentality.
Classes will need more than a unique ability,they'll need a unique group boon.
So moral would go down in a group of warriors only.They need each other and each class to balance moral,bravery,alertness levels in a group
I want to recognize a more microcosmic aspect of balance, as per hybrid classes (i.e. rangers, druids, perhaps paladin). While VG attempted (in my vague recollection) to make rangers for example more useful (they were given a debuff of sorts that were used in raids), it felt inorganic or just something thrown in to make rangers wanted. Rangers in EQ suffered from being almost useless before end game (other classes had snares and our dps was awful) with EQ/AM3 and even then they were subpar dps (druids suffered the same burden, only on the caster's spectrum/side).
I feel it's important to truly give these hybrid classes a reason to be wanted by groups, perhaps by giving them the usual patch heal, but then additionally a huge HoT or complete heal (only give it an hour or so CD) or huge wizard-esque nuke, but only outdoors (just thinking outloud). Just something to make these classes truly hybrid in certain situations, and not a weakened jack of all trades, with "1 ranger buff or debuff" thrown in, for it takes away from the identity and therefore immersion of you into your character. Hybrids should, at the least, have their moment where groups say "oh yeah definitely pick a druid up for this run" instead of the usual "yeah if we can't find else anything a ranger will work."
Reafwalk said:Dubah said:Man, I love balance, even if it isn't for PvP. Class balance in my eyes is the key to making every class usable. But, there should be a curve. Let's say I'm playing a cleric, he should by far be the best direct healer in the game, and by direct i mean if i cast a heal for 30khp it's instant 30khp, whereas the way i see a druid is being just as proficient in heals as, if they cast their heal for 30khp it should be a heal over time, so maybe 30 seconds tops to recieve that whole 30khp, then the shaman, along with debuffs is able to heal in a similar way, whereas instead of needing a 30khp heal because they have debuffs they won't need that heal. Instead it could be 15k heal because slows and dmg breaks are making up that extra 15k.
I keep seeing that sort of reference for healers, and my two copper on the healing balance?
I'd love to see it a three prong system, with three types of heals, and three ratings for heals. Call them "Great" "Meh" and "Junk"
Clerics come out with Great direct heals, Meh Heal over Time, and Junk group heals.
Druids come out with Great heal over time, Meh Direct heals, and junk group heals
Shaman come out with Great group heals, Meh Heal over time, and Junk direct heals
(You could reapportion that however you like, but the idea is... each class excells in one, is meh in another, and junk in the third).
Why do I like that division? Because it checks off a few boxes. Will each of those healers have situations where they're the best bet? Check. Does it create great group synergy? Check. Have you avoided too much overlap? Check. Have you managed to implement healing in a way that compliments each classes other abilities? .... that'll depend on what all other abilities you end up with, but it could be a big ole checkaroo there too.
In the end it comes down to one simple question. Will there be a time when a group is going to say, "Man, we could really use X class for this." If you're looking at a class and you don't see that, in a combat situation, you're class isn't balanced. Teleports are great, but if you're expecting people to get groups due to that, you're (mostly) mistaken. Most of the time a group is going to find some wayward porter, out soloing, offer him a big ole stack of plat to port them (even if he has to make two trips cause they were a full group) and go on about their business. In some dungeons there might be the need to bring an evacer along, in which case (at least in classic eq) they'll have a choice between wizard and druid. The wizard brought bigger nukes and an evac, thus the druid was left to solo. Tracking is great and all (and in outdoor zones made pulling much easier) but... unless you're specifically looking for a rare mob, that whole "But he can see the rare mobs!" thing is pointless. Most groups would rather just bring someone who is more efficient. So the ranger can now count on getting a group... when you're hunting for epics? No, seriously, please tell me there are folks here who remember seeing people in zones where rare spawns who dropped loot needed for epic saying in OOC that they'd pay for a ranger to tell them and track this-or-that when it spawned. That's not a group, that's a freaking bounty, and while it might add cash value, you don't want to be playing a class that's only wanted when someone needs to track a mob for their epic.
Now, rangers were the best outdoor pullers, so they usually didn't have too much trouble finding groups in big outdoor zones (I can remember, right after Kunark dropped, in Dreadlands, it was one of the few times you'd see people "LFTracker!" for groups, it was big enough and spread out enough that you couldn't just sit in a convenient spot and pull from your surroundings easily, unlike say, sitting near the Aviak tree in whichever karana it was) much of Kunark was large and outdoors, so rangers had a strong place there, but for much of what came before it (and some of what came after it) rangers were... well they were down near the bottom of the pecking order. If this were a game on the playground and people were picking teams you'd end up with the druid and the ranger both standing there after everyone else was picked going, "don't let me be picked last, don't let me be picked last," but inevitably one of them had to be picked last... unless everyone decided to play without them, so they had to either solo or duo (I will say this, even with the druid and ranger having a poopton of overlap in their spells (like all of them) they did make a pretty awesome duo).
Anyway. Yeah, stuff.
Personally, I loved the way EQ2 did the 3 healing classes. Shamans mainly warded people with junk heals, druids focused on heals over time, and clerics had their direct and reactive, it really made needing all 3 roles in a raid important, seeing as a tank could get 3 different types of heals and they all do their job just as effectively. It was a pretty cool system and i hope they work it like that in this game.
Well,
Myself I am by no means a game developer; closest I come to is running various PnP games for the last few decades. I do see a lot of this and that about balance (and power creep) and I try to recall back to AC and UO for my...well roots I guess.
I do not like the idea of balanced classes; and on the same note I do not like the all inclusive nature of heavily scripted encounters and ultimately I hate the idea of nicheless classes and I'll explain my opinion on that.
1. Class Balance
I do not feel it really exists in a game where variety exists; Mario Bros is balanced (up until you get to the sequel). I feel its part of human nature to be envious and unless there is no variation; players will ultimately percieve skill as a power/class imbalance. This in turn forces developers to homogenize systems so that everything is simply reskinned and renamed but that under the hood the numbers are identical and thus balance is achieved.
To better explain lets say you have Warrior and Dire Lord as a example...Warrior has swing; maybe it hits more enemies; Dire Lord has Rend which instead of being a AOE; it applies a stacking dot.
If the initial damage is the same; which is better? Its a tricky question that beings into concern of skill...maybe the warrior is frequently seeing mowing down packs of mobs and Dire Lords are seen slaying higher HP opponents...that often matters little if the players witnessing it do not think much about the meta...if we reverse their encounters the Dire Lord might run out of HP as he is being beaten to death by multiple mobs too quickly...and the Warrior might find he simply cannot kill the high HP mob fast enough. In the end each will see the other as "OP" because where they cannot suceed; their competition excels.
This leads to my second issue with Balance
2. Class Purpose
I originally long ago felt this was awesome; in one MMO I was literally brought to raids for my high level attack speed buff which I would chain cast on parties and I felt that was great. I also have experienced the other side of the issue; where every class is required for dealing with mechanics; the issue is that people whom do not play that class get excluded which I think is worse then people favoring a class (in my first example) I think roles should be spread out but not ultra specific. Its fine to have a healer that heals for more then another; as long as the weaker healer has a tool that the stronger healer does not. This makes composition matter but not to the point where a encounter is either trivialized or a player marginalized.
Which brings me to my 3rd point and why I hate the everyman.
3.Everyman and the lack of player identity
I find having a player realistically able to do it all ultimately reduces player buy in; simply put that strong tank just becomes "That guy" and because that good tank constantly switches roles he might be known as a good player but I find it diminishes my enjoyment as a player if I cannot easily label myself even because perhaps I accel at multiple roles. The result is in group enviroments I start to feel pressure to "Carry the team" by putting in time grinding my off specs up to par; while this may be great in a pinch I find it really contributes to my burn out on a game because I by nature want to help but end up putting in too much time and effort into the game. The second issue is that I feel it leads to elite players; typically who have a lot of free time dominating the social aspect of the game because who would rather take a weak DPS over a "Good player" who is better known due to the fact they are always playing..and happen to also have a DPS spec; I guess I feel it limits the oppertunity for new players to break into a group because clicks can cover all their bases without a real need to bring in outsiders.
Again this is all personal opinion based purely on my experience rather then trying to state things as scientific fact.
Oh and Hi community.
I believe the issue of class balance can only be answered through the lens of gaming content variances – or how is the gaming content balanced. By this I mean we know there will be a quarternary system in place (tank, healer, DPS, CC) and that is the expected group dynamic for engaging in group combat. But we aren’t playing the game with just four classes – there are twelve to start and a thirteenth to be implemented after launch.
So, the issue of class balance infers that all twelve classes will be able to contribute to the quarternary system and playstyles will need to be adjusted to account for group make-up. If gaming content is such that one tactic serves them all and simply rests on best-tank & best-healer & best-DPS & best-CC designed for that one-tactic then anything other than the four best will be “less than” and not balanced. So, the answer lies in combat and content that “one tactic” serves them all the best simply does not exist. Sure, “one tactic” can handle all of the content, but it can’t handle all of the content “the best.”
To define combat in simple terms: There is close-in physical combat and there is ranged physical combat (archery and throwing). There is close-in magical combat (instantaneous centered around the caster) and there is ranged magical combat. On the defensive side there is protection from close-in physical combat and ranged physical combat (will they be the same?) and protection from close-in magical assault and ranged magical assault (will the protection measures be the same?).
Simply put, if the quarternary is the system in place, can content be designed such that all four corners of the quarternary square may need to adjust to a playing tactic for differing engagements, encounters, and situations. What can the tank do besides what a tank has always done? What can a healer do besides what a healer has always done? What can a DPS do besides what a DPS has always done? What can a CC do besides what a CC has always done? In this way if all corners of a quarternary each have their own scale of best to worst in the functions they are to perform for their class then all classes can be balanced for the varying content. Some content will be easier and some content will be harder and this is true regardless of the makeup of the group for the quarternary. That will be balance (some things are easier and some things are harder).
However, if the classes are such that someone will say, “a tank is only a tank and just stand there and do what you always do.” Or “a healer is only a healer so just stand there and do what you always do.” Or “a DPS is only a DPS so just stand there and do what you always do.” Or “a CC is always a CC so just stand there and do what you always do.” Then why even have twelve classes? In those twelve classes there must be some form of variation such that no one class is always the class it has always been and just stand there and do what has always been done.”
Don’t break any class and don’t be creating anything screwy. Just utilize better AI and content design such that a variation in classes is not only viable but integral to the game. The classes, themselves, become part of the gaming content.
I am less of a fan of balance than most here by the look of it... I want each class to feel very different and as such have varying strengths in combat. I dont view these games as competative.. you pick the class you love because of their abilities and that includes in and out of combat. If you are all about being the most dps int he game then choose the best dps class (and there will be one at the end of the day) you cant balance it perfectly.
I can understand how people want to make sure their class is able to complete the same content in their given role as another class that shares that role but there will be perks that seperate them and i would hate for those differences to be compromised so we can measure how many HPS or DPS they do.. because sure enough then the next complaint after HPS is "fixed" will be that one has haste and the other doesnt, then the next complaint will be that they have damage shields and i dont etc etc... Choose your class based on what you like and play that class to the best of your ability.. if you want to do something better that your class is lacking in...find which class does that better and change but expect to lose some of the other abilities that you have been enjoying.
Yes of course if there is a class that is a healer and they are being played by a quality player and that player does not have the capacity to keep a tank or other members healed in a group where everyone is performing well then there is a problem... but there are SO many factors in this game that will lead to that healer being able to keep a tank alive or not.. how good is the CC, how good is the DPS (not just as doing damage but choosing when to do damage), how good is the Tank etc and of course is that healer using his full range of abilities to also assist with any needed CC or damage that may assist in making the fight easier... and maybe you find at that point that the other abilities are key to making a difficult fight for (lets say) a druid to heal easier if he was also utilising his other utilitie spells to complete his arsenal.
I didnt read through to much of the pages but I expect my PoV to be very unpopular ;)
To make a game fun and worth replay. Classes need to shine in areas. I should always be jealous of other classes and they should be jealous of me. Forget balance, make the classes fun.
in a game with no competition this could work.
Some would argue bad compromises need to be made for sake of balance.
As soon as competition is desirable,there is need for balance to maintain an equal playing field.
So balance might exactly be that;a bad compromise to make pvp and competition *fair*
Classes could be unique ,interdependant and un-balanced
as long as there is no competition,no tournaments etc
Fluffy said:in a game with no competition this could work.
Some would argue bad compromises need to be made for sake of balance.
As soon as competition is desirable,there is need for balance to maintain an equal playing field.
So balance might exactly be that;a bad compromise to make pvp and competition *fair*
Classes could be unique ,interdependant and un-balanced
as long as there is no competition,no tournaments etc
I think un-balanced works well for a PvP type server as well. PvP becomes more like a chess game. Early EQ1 worked great in that regard. Clerics often would not be able to kill someone on their own, but on the other hand, a cleric was often difficult to kill because of their extensive healing abilties. In a group PvP setting, clerics were pretty devastating as to the ultimate outcome of a group PvP battle. When engaged in group PvP, the mantra was often, "take out the cleric first!"
So you'd prefer classes like in galactic starfighter
where you have gunship,bomber,scout,striker etc
It would be a rock paper,scissor system
With unique units this would be easy to do.See RTS games or space battle games with different build starships.
Maybe if we could run unique characters
example,a gorgon could move slower but has the unique ability to turn enemies to stone.
How would this system work if a race with same physical build can be the bomber or the scout in the earlier example?
It would not be impossible but I believe this would require a total different setup
Maybe with race restictions
example,halflings can't be warriors because they are too frail to be warrior
Mekada said:Abacda said:These games where I'm a rogue I dps but the group needs a tank so I have to hit my alt apec button and swap gear and now I'm the tank is lame. Thats why theres character slots. It's called replayability. I make a Bard or Shaman and learn Utility roles and play as utility in a raid when needed. I make a Ranger or Assassin when I want to DPS and I learn upclose melee and positioning and with the ranger I learn distancing and kiting. With my Dire Lord I learn to off tank and hold agro and step in griefly as maint tank should the tank die to a missed heal.
Some of us dislike alts, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for being able to perform 2 roles with the right skills and gear. Besides, why does learning a new role (be it utility, tanking, dps or healing) needs to be achieved only on different classes?
Thats a very scary statement and if it is something you are looking for this is the wrong game for you. That or I seriously misunderstood this game and wasted my pledge. There are a ton of games out there just like this for you to go play right now, no need to wait.
Classes should never be balanced. You should not be able to solo heal a dungeon as a druid, sorry. A druid AND a shaman healing? Ok, I could get behind that. Warriors should be the best single target tanks there are while others are better at other encounters. Why? Because they cant do 3/4 of the crap the other tanks will be able to do (heal/dps/ETC.).
Best way I can describe this would be an enchanter in EQ. VERY powerful groupmates with charmed pets sometimes doing almost as much as the whole group with the added danger of charm breaking at a bad time and wiping the group. Along with CC and mana regain by far most seeked player in most groups(i stopped playing after like 5-6 expac or so). But in raids? Almost useless. I recently played on a TLP server up till end of Luclin and for the most part, I watched Netflix while raiding. It was insanely boring.
Classes should shine in certain areas and be borderline useless in others. Or be mediocre in all circumstances. No one is amazing at everything. Not even me, which hurts a little to say.
>Some of us dislike alts, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for being able to perform 2 roles with the right skills and gear. Besides, why does learning a new role (be it utility, tanking, dps or healing) needs to be achieved only on different classes?<
Not unreasonable to ask, but I would be shocked if you get it. I think the great majority of us, and the VR team, strongly prefers each character to be able to play one role. I am certainly in the majority.
I respectfully disagree with the prior post saying that if you want multiple roles for a single character this is the wrong game for you. None of us will get all that we want but Pantheon will be *closer* to the ideal game than anything else out there. I hope Pantheon will be the right game for you, and for me despite the decisions I will disagree with, and for the rest of us.
Rift is a game where any character can play any role (there may be an oddball exception or two but if this isn't literally correct it is awfully close). If you aren't familiar with it you might chaeck it out over the next year while we are waiting for Pantheon. You will probably find that it has some things you like a lot but on balance if you liked Pantheon enough to spend time here you will find more here than with Rift.
Ewww class balance, this is like talking about religion or politics... no one ever fully agrees and it can become quite heated.
So my take on this comes from having a few major gaming influences in my background. First I started gaming in 1978 with DnD. Class balance just did not matter. You had a variety of goals to accomplish and you needed a variety of classes to accomplish them. Everyone had their moment to shine, when a game was run well, and no one class was superior in all situations. Second I have been playing MMOs since before EQ. EQ was the first I really became invested in because it was the first to really build a world that captured my attention and was out at such a time that I could sink tons of hours into gaming.
In EQ you certainly did not have class balance. Yet there was a need for many different classes in a given group. I liked this for the most part. In most cases you were needed for your role and you were there with a variety of other classes to create a larger whole. As time wore on there were attempts to 'class balance'. This for the most part was not a happy experience and never actually achieved the vaunted 'balance'. All it really did was create a cycle of nerfs and buffs where one class was used over another depending on when you played the game.
What I would like to see if role balance. Its still very hard to do but much more likely to occur. I'll admit this is for selfish reasons. I will probably be a Direlord as a main. I certainly don't want to see a situation where Paladin or Warrior is almost always if not always the superior tanking choice. Now I would expect that Monk Ranger and Rogue will do more dps, but I would be less excited if there were cases where they could both do more dps and tank.
A lot of people ask for niche use. I certainly see the appeal. Lets take for example the ability to pick locks, (which most certainly should be a Rogue exclusive). If you make it too useful you end where you MUST have a rogue in the group or you miss too much loot ect. If you don't make it good enough and the Monk who has a niche of evansion, FD, and splitting pulls, becomes the superior choice for a dps in almost all situations and Rogues are left hoping for a group. Its a tough thing to get right.
In various games and certain stages of development there are often classes that you just can't play in group content because people will demand the optimal choice. An example, yes I know it is extreme, but an example none the less is Neverwinter Online. (Yes I know the game is pretty bad but it serves to illustrate my point.) For a long time once you reached end game there was a very dominant tactic of taking 1 or 2 clerics and the rest of the group only being wizards with tons of knockback. There just wasn't room for other DPS classes. You could not find a pug group for end game content. People would not take you, they would rather wait longer and find the ideal group mates. I really dont want to see that for any class in this game.
Again, its a damn hard thing to balance.
Class balancing doesn't exsist, for the mere fact you can have 2 ranger and 2 shamans and there dps could be 1 shaman does 100 dps, a ranger does 110, another does 125, and the other shaman does 150, and some peope will say the shaman is overpowered but the one that does 100 dps will call the rangers unbalanced when the fact is they simply just play there chaarcter better than him just like the other shaman probably just plays better than both the rangers, it doesn't matter how OP a class is if you can't play them than you'll do less damage than one you do know how to play its as simple as that.
Now i will say if there is sometihng a class can do and you see them do a huge spike of damage that can just wipe npc's out completely or anytihng like this i can see something like that getting toned down a bit that way they can't cheese content and everything but if they are simply killing you in dps due to learning a good rotation and trying their best to prefect it and you haven't there i go again and say there no such thing and blancing the classes, it simply doesn't exsist, and also some classes are meant to do a lot more damage than other simply becuase that is there only thing they can do is dps, like rogues, and wizards.
beautifully said:Thats a very scary statement and if it is something you are looking for this is the wrong game for you. That or I seriously misunderstood this game and wasted my pledge. There are a ton of games out there just like this for you to go play right now, no need to wait.
Classes should never be balanced. You should not be able to solo heal a dungeon as a druid, sorry. A druid AND a shaman healing? Ok, I could get behind that. Warriors should be the best single target tanks there are while others are better at other encounters. Why? Because they cant do 3/4 of the crap the other tanks will be able to do (heal/dps/ETC.).
This is also a very scary statement. Why is it that you feel that two of the three healer classes shouldn't be able to adequately perform their roles as healer? That's like saying "You should not be able to solo tank a dungeon as a paladin, sorry. A paladin AND a dire lord tanking? Ok, I could get behind that."
It's also a stretch to say warriors should be the best single target tanks just because it's hinted that the other two have spells. We know nothing at all of how warriors will be and what abilities they will have. We know nothing of the tanks yet at all.
When it comes to MMOs players simply want a 'fair fight'. But balance has different meanings when it comes to PvP and PvE.
Basically;
In PvP, balance means neither player's class has a glaring advantage when opposing one another.
In PvE, balance means neither player's class has a glaring advantage when performing the same role.
I mean, this might be a very basic perspective on all that is 'balance' but to me this is why, if at all, balance is important in both of these settings. Personally, balance isn't super important within a PvE setting. As long as each class can perform its role as well as the next class then the classes are balanced as much as you can ask them to be if you ask me. After this it's a matter of uniqueness and individuality and ultimately making each class just fun to play. There is something to say about a class who is highly sought out for groups who can also solo well and how this could be considered unbalanced but I don't look at it is game-breaking though. Unlike if 1 tank out of 3 can't tank single group content or if a player in PvP is losing to another because his opponent has an OP class.
It's important to have options when choosing a class but is this a matter of balance? If having a healthy mix of ranged vs melee, solo vs group, burst dps vs dots/prolonged damage, etc is what you consider balance then I guess this is important too.
I want the classes to feel and play a lot differently without the situation where you "win via class combination" which is what i feel happens more with unbalanced classes.
Unbalanced classes also puts the notion of challenging content to question, how do you make content doable by everyone that is also challenging for one of the better quadternity class combinations but still doable by one of the worse combinations for that specific encounter?
A lot of it just comes down to raw numbers, and what should those numbers be. Should a monk do 70% the damage of a rogue? 80? 95? 100? Is an encounter with 2 monks impossible but easy with 2 rogues? Is the necromancers pet and perhaps limited fire spells enough to help him against this disease and poison creature compared to the wizards ice and magic spells which may be way more effective? What % of damage will he do compared to the wizard, and would changing them go from making the encounter impossible to easy?
This is the main problem I have with making everyone perform drastically differently at their main role, if you take situational effects and combine them with the fact that someone was intentionally designed to be worse at their main task; lets say for example a monk is supposed to do 80% of the damage of a rogue over 3 minutes against a target dummy, then you add a situation to the world where perhaps blunt weapons or fists and their abilities are not effective as piercing weapons and a rogues ability set, you further magnify this effect. Is someone doing 30-40% less damage than another potential group mate a major difference in the challenge of the encounter? Does having 6 of a better situational class go from making the raid impossible to easy?
I am not against classes being better at different encounters than others, I just am against the notion of unbalancing to the point where class composition dictates the level of difficulty completely.
Going going back on what i said about class balancing and everything i just want people to know that a paladin/dire lord/warrior should be able to tank all dungeon content without much difficulty has in they kinda of do it all the same as in threat and midigation with the normal diffciulty of doing it in geenral and the same for the healing classes the druids and shamans should have enough utilty to keep they tanks alive along with the rest of the grp, simply becuase if you can only have a grp of 6 and having 3-4 of the spots filled in by tanks and healers that seems very crazy to me. But i will say in Raid that the Dire Lord's and paladins should be your OT's and tank smaller targets and a good form of picking up ads in boss fights but not be able to tank the actual raids targets and leave that for the warrior that way the warrior always has a role in the raids since they are normally always the least played character due to not having a lot of utilty in keeping themselves alive like the knights do in EQ. And i know this isn't EQ but its a good reference in the tank role of what i see this game going and honestly i love the way it was back then. Just like Clerics were the MT's healer and the druids/shamans were grp healers.
torveld said:I want the classes to feel and play a lot differently without the situation where you "win via class combination" which is what i feel happens more with unbalanced classes.
Unbalanced classes also puts the notion of challenging content to question, how do you make content doable by everyone that is also challenging for one of the better quadternity class combinations but still doable by one of the worse combinations for that specific encounter?
A lot of it just comes down to raw numbers, and what should those numbers be. Should a monk do 70% the damage of a rogue? 80? 95? 100? Is an encounter with 2 monks impossible but easy with 2 rogues? Is the necromancers pet and perhaps limited fire spells enough to help him against this disease and poison creature compared to the wizards ice and magic spells which may be way more effective? What % of damage will he do compared to the wizard, and would changing them go from making the encounter impossible to easy?
This is the main problem I have with making everyone perform drastically differently at their main role, if you take situational effects and combine them with the fact that someone was intentionally designed to be worse at their main task; lets say for example a monk is supposed to do 80% of the damage of a rogue over 3 minutes against a target dummy, then you add a situation to the world where perhaps blunt weapons or fists and their abilities are not effective as piercing weapons and a rogues ability set, you further magnify this effect. Is someone doing 30-40% less damage than another potential group mate a major difference in the challenge of the encounter? Does having 6 of a better situational class go from making the raid impossible to easy?
I am not against classes being better at different encounters than others, I just am against the notion of unbalancing to the point where class composition dictates the level of difficulty completely.
Keep in mind that monks don't always need to use blunt weapons. There are basic martial arts piercing weapons and also slashing weapons, such as claws, that monks can usually use.
Beefcake said:Keep in mind that monks don't always need to use blunt weapons. There are basic martial arts piercing weapons and also slashing weapons, such as claws, that monks can usually use.
You are right, that example was bad, I should have just said ability set. I was trying to point to a situation where someone is inherently better at something and then on top of it they are situationally better. The gap between their worth and someone else can cause the level of challenge to be so dramatically different as to not be challenging at all for some, or too hard for others.
Yes class "balance" is one of those ill defined issues where everybody brings his own desires, experiences and prejudices so that after a certain time nobody knows anymore what we are talking about .
Yet even knowing that this thread is unreadable for the devs (probably even Kilsin doesn't read it), I can't resist to give my opinion too :)
And my opinion is basically that class balance in PvE is a relatively unimportant issue precisely because so many different and sometimes contradictory opinions exist . Pantheon said that classes (as well as races) will be unique and this is about the only thing that the majority will agree upon . Indeed if they were not unique, one wouldn't need more than 2 or 3 classes altogether . There are games which have only healer, dps and tank . Well it works but according to the tenets , Pantheon is not such a game .
As Pantheon decided to have 12 classes and later probably more then they will all have to be (very) differentiated, wouldn't you agree ? If they were not, where would be the point to spend valuable time and money to write so much code if it all boiled down to have class subgroups where they can all do basically the same thing and be basically of same or similar efficience . Would it have added value to have just 2 or 3 class archetypes with 3 different skins each and call them classes ?
So, for me, the necessary corollary is that the classes in Pantheon WILL be "unbalanced" . I use the word "unbalanced" in the sense as EQ classes were "unbalanced" . You couldn't raid without warriors and clerics . You couldn't do difficult dungeons without an enchanter . You couldn't solo with a rogue . Did it mean that there were only clerics, warriors, enchanters and wizards running around ? No it didn't .
Yes everybody knew that a warrior was the best tank and a cleric the best healer . But I played in groups with a druid as main healer or a ranger the main tank . Even if there was something that would be an "optimal" (in the sense maximum XP/hour and minimum wipe out risk) class mix for a group, I have never experienced a situation where the group leader would stubbornly refuse to start the fight untill he exactly got the "optimal" mix . Almost always it was rather "We have an excellent enchanter, a shaman healer will do ." Or "With the DPS we have, let's go with the pet tanks ." .
Finally the class "balance" was never so hot as it could have seemed to be . 90% + groups were "sub optimal" anyway, some classes had a harder time to find groups or be desirable in raids and some classes couldn't solo a moss snake but it didn't stop every single class to have fun . And the rangers ? If anything, the famous "Ranja down !" always provided for a good laugh :)
Classes should be different. Holy trinity is ok but when rogues and mages are simply "dps" because they do the exact same damage and the same amount of things it gets...well.. lame.
It does make planning much harder though. You gotta make sure each of the classes can perform in as many situations as one another. It's ok if paladins can't do the best in every raid because every raid doesn't have undead, but making it so that they can only do good when there is undead is a sure way to make paladins feel left out.
I know dming for DnD it can be hard to engage the ranged characters since your monsters are usually dumb enough to hit the tank all day, realistically speaking. You gotta throw in the occasional trap, smart monster, or other surprise to keep them on their toes.
In this way, with creative encounters, and a small amount of multi-role ability for everyone, the classes are balanced, unique, and fun.
Riahuf22 said:Going going back on what i said about class balancing and everything i just want people to know that a paladin/dire lord/warrior should be able to tank all dungeon content without much difficulty has in they kinda of do it all the same as in threat and midigation with the normal diffciulty of doing it in geenral and the same for the healing classes the druids and shamans should have enough utilty to keep they tanks alive along with the rest of the grp, simply becuase if you can only have a grp of 6 and having 3-4 of the spots filled in by tanks and healers that seems very crazy to me. But i will say in Raid that the Dire Lord's and paladins should be your OT's and tank smaller targets and a good form of picking up ads in boss fights but not be able to tank the actual raids targets and leave that for the warrior that way the warrior always has a role in the raids since they are normally always the least played character due to not having a lot of utilty in keeping themselves alive like the knights do in EQ. And i know this isn't EQ but its a good reference in the tank role of what i see this game going and honestly i love the way it was back then. Just like Clerics were the MT's healer and the druids/shamans were grp healers.
When you put qualifiers on a class that performs a role like that "well they can tank dungeons but they can't tank raid bosses"
Then they aren't really a tank, they are a tank like class.
No Thanks.
Now if you want to qualify it with "well warriors tank giants better, but dire lords tank dragons better, but paladins tank liches/banshee better"
I can maybe get behind your sentiment. However there is no logical reason (because EQ is not a logical reason) that any class within a role should not be able to FULLY perform that role outside of extenuating/situational circumstances.
Granted my main focus is on healing/tanking classes because that's what I like, but to expand the analogy.
It wouldn't make much sense for a wizard to outdps a monk on a mob with high magical resistances, like wise a mob with high physical resistances, but average magic resistance the wizard should pull ahead.
There shouldn't be any "king of the role" outside of situational advantages.