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Author Topic: Are class imbalances an MMO marketing strategy?  (Read 25218 times)
Famine
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Reply #35 on: April 08, 2009, 01:05:05 PM

I'm going to do something out the norm and actually post something instead of just lurk. What a more fitting topic for this mere opinion.

Balance is a real tricky thing because mostly it's common not to balance classes say 1v1 as opposed to grouped game play. I can tell you this though, having complete balance is for the most part almost possible minus things like hardware, interweb connections, real life, skill, experience and other things I'm completely missing here. To help prove the point here, take a generic FPS where everyone is the same character with the same weapon. Overall, everyone is balanced as much as they can be. You both have the same weapons and same height, weight and even color advantages in-game. The only thing that sets you apart are those other things I mentioned with player skill (aiming), hardware (speed), interwebs (more speed), and real life (omg mom no).

Taking systems like that and tossing them into an MMO is generally hard. What if I took the Assassin in Age of Conan and duplicated him 8 times? Why play any class but the first one? Why have 8 other classes to begin with? 1 class is all I need and we are as balanced as we can be. There should be no complaints of being overpowered ever! Problem solved, go play! But being realistic here, that's simply not fun at all. Players want more than 1 class and they want to all feel unique while doing it. No one wants to be a stealth assassin and really play like a priest. The same with no one wanting to be a stealth assassin and look like every other stealth assassin the run into. So you need diversity in classes and this is where the uphill battle comes into class balance.

I agree with IanC here that unbalance is not intentional. No designer wants to piss off players just to piss them off. There are of course holes with feedback time to time but that really falls on opinion rather than fact (yes, unbalanced classes can be fact not opinion). Thus in the long run it is a win or lose game with balance because everything looks good on paper until you get it out there. Even then, you can't expect every player to play the way you want it and you can't really tell the player how to play either. It's something most designers have to suffer with because it's important that we keep tweaking classes to be where we want them and where the player wants them, yet having the understanding that it's a damn hard job to keep balance between both PvP and PvE.  awesome, for real

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Reply #36 on: April 08, 2009, 04:12:43 PM

I've probably said this before like 32 times but DAOC could easily have been reduced to 6 classes per side or so and been a better game for it.

I both agree and disagree.  One of the reasons that I stayed with DAoC so long was that each realm played a bit differently which was due entirely to the number of classes available.  What impressed the hell out of me was that, at least in 8v8, the three realms were pretty darn close to balanced.  Alb had their advantages in extending and Midgard had their advantage with interrupts, but a well played group could still be dominant regardless of realm if they were able to maximize the group dynamics. 

I loved DAoC because you could build a competitive group so many different ways.  Rerolling (group builds or realm) and changing tactics with each expansion really added replay value to the game. 

Those differences could still have been there without having such a huge pile of classes, though. Hibernia didn't really gain anything by having 3 different cloth caster classes. You could easily have done everything interesting those classes did with one class, and 3 actually deep spec lines. Look at how thin a spec mentalism was for mentalists for YEARS. The same thing goes for wizards/theurgists and runemasters/spiritmasters, etc. etc. There were so many classes in vanilla DAOC that the actual powers got spread very thinly. Heck, that's part of why Albion suffered for the most part in equal fights compared to Midgard; Midgard had deeper classes because they took the basically the same number of powers and divided them among 8 instead of 11 classes, or whatever it was, so for the most part a given Mid class had more tools than a given Alb one.

The balance issues were compounded by the silly base class system that meant that, say, midgard's AE dots were weak compared to other realms because the Shaman didn't benefit from acuity buffs, etc., but that's a separate and more-specific-to-DAOC problem. But too many classes comes up for a LOT of games.

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Reply #37 on: April 08, 2009, 04:35:02 PM

I see your point. 

I think that the goal was to create a bunch of specialists.  One of the problems that we saw playing midgard was that it took much better players to be successful.  Take a pac healer, for example.  They were tasked with the role of healing, cc, shears, and interrupts for midgard.  In Albion, you had a theurgist for interrupts (along with minstrel for those groups that ran one) and a cleric could focus more heavily on being a heal/shear specialist.  By having fewer tasks assigned per player, it made it easier for less experienced players to do one role well.  In midgard, more experienced players could better utilize the multiple roles under pressure.

It was similar for the different caster types as well as the melee classes.  Runie was different from Eld and they were both more useful than a wizard even though all three were considered the dps caster.

Does that make sense? 
« Last Edit: April 08, 2009, 04:37:43 PM by Nebu »

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Reply #38 on: April 08, 2009, 04:44:12 PM

Well, yes, it is certainly true that for example clerics were easier to play than healers. I don't think that situation helps balance anything though in the long run though; that single stun wasn't going to win you any prizes in group RVR and I definitely saw Albs suffer for it in general (on the few occasions that they weren't outnumbering us 3:1...) Ideally I don't think similar roles should be particularly different in difficulty especially when they're on opposite sides of a realm war type setup; that just sounds like it could be asking for population imbalance to me.

Now granted I was more of a zerg/keep take player than an 8v8 type and so some aspects of this comes from theory more than direct experience. Also I played a thane so expect some level of general Mythic hybrid bitterness.  Ohhhhh, I see.

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Reply #39 on: April 08, 2009, 04:49:12 PM

Nothing stopped "less skilled" players from focusing their Healers into CC or Healing near exclusively. It was common practice even, as to not over ride each others CC's. I'm also half certain Shamans were the Mid's shear specialist, but it's been many years.


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Reply #40 on: April 08, 2009, 04:55:54 PM

Nothing stopped "less skilled" players from focusing their Healers into CC or Healing near exclusively. It was common practice even, as to not over ride each others CC's. I'm also half certain Shamans were the Mid's shear specialist, but it's been many years.

That's very true.  What I was trying to get at was not so much the ability of players to use their tools so much as the different gameplay experiences found within each class.  Mythic did a very good job of balancing the classes in a group for group manner.  In 1v1 it was terrible, but that should never be the focus in a Realm vs Realm game.  Group vs Group or Zerg vs Zerg should be the balance focus and that turned out great in the open field.  The balance in keeps was another story (remember animists and shroom stacks in windows?  Ugh!).

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Reply #41 on: April 08, 2009, 05:05:15 PM

They had group vs group balance down, 5 years later, maybe. After they gave the diluted classes more density.


The ability dilution gave Midgard and Hibernia a large advantage compared to Albion, for a long, long time. It conversely hindered Midgard 'zerg' balance, due to an early lack of AE once their ridiculous AE stun was removed. You can't PBAE nubs if your realm doesn't actually have a PBAE capable class yet  Ohhhhh, I see.

Even stealth balance was fucked due to the class dilution and density issues. But fuck stealth classes, cunts all of them.

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Reply #42 on: April 09, 2009, 06:58:07 AM

They would only be balanced if you had access to both simultaneously. Otherwise that is pretty much a clear cut case of out of balance. Two classes sharing the same role, but one is obviously superior in all regards. 

I disagree, one was obviously superior in all regards, depending on which role needed filling.  There were two roles to fill, and each filled it's role very, very, well.

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Reply #43 on: April 09, 2009, 07:24:25 AM

The ability dilution gave Midgard and Hibernia a large advantage compared to Albion, for a long, long time.

I disagree with this.  Albion suffered from the fact that people hadn't learned how to optimize the use of the advantages that Albion had.  If you played an extension group with a theurgist or two, you were nearly impossible to beat.  We won't even talk about the crazy damage that Armsmen could dish out with their broken frontal style.  Also a Paladin provided unlimited end for the assist train along with any other goodies (like the added ceelrity later) that put their assist trains over the top. 

For 8v8, Hibernia was usually the weakest realm.  It wasn't due to class dilution, but rather which classes had the more useful tools.  Bards were just terrible as interrupters as they had almost no survivability and no real escape tools when SoS was down.

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Reply #44 on: April 09, 2009, 07:50:10 AM

The ability dilution gave Midgard and Hibernia a large advantage compared to Albion, for a long, long time.

I disagree with this.  Albion suffered from the fact that people hadn't learned how to optimize the use of the advantages that Albion had.  If you played an extension group with a theurgist or two, you were nearly impossible to beat.  We won't even talk about the crazy damage that Armsmen could dish out with their broken frontal style.  Also a Paladin provided unlimited end for the assist train along with any other goodies (like the added ceelrity later) that put their assist trains over the top. 

For 8v8, Hibernia was usually the weakest realm.  It wasn't due to class dilution, but rather which classes had the more useful tools.  Bards were just terrible as interrupters as they had almost no survivability and no real escape tools when SoS was down.

Paladin's didn't get an end chant for some time after launch. I forget exactly when and I can't be bothered to google it but I *believe* it was after SI. In any case Paladins weren't a popular choice for 8v8 groups due to their low DPS. It wasn't until Bodyguard got a lot of traction that defensive tanks could get groups in RvR. Celerity was added to Paladins very late in the day. Even then the other realms generally had it better - End was a concentration buff on Shamans who were a required group class for Mid and a chant on Bards who were also the main CC and speed class for Hib.

Armsmen did most damage but they didn't have the flexibility that Warriors or Heroes had. Thanks to double speccing and the way Alb weapon skills worked, it wasn't viable to be a pole/2h user and still be useful with sword and board.

Theurgists were awesome though, mine was regularly in extension groups with a sorc, a cabby and a coupel of other Theurgs. There was a bit of a barren patch after the pets got fixed a bit too hard but I can't really complain about the way they played in general.

Mostly Alb had to contend with everything being spread too thinly. In general it was marginally better on a class by class basis but you needed 11 Alb classes in a group to get the utility that 8 Hibs or 5 mids could provide.

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Reply #45 on: April 09, 2009, 01:12:12 PM

They would only be balanced if you had access to both simultaneously. Otherwise that is pretty much a clear cut case of out of balance. Two classes sharing the same role, but one is obviously superior in all regards. 

I disagree, one was obviously superior in all regards, depending on which role needed filling.  There were two roles to fill, and each filled it's role very, very, well.


How is that not out of balance? In a group they both fill the same role, except one is much better at it. When soloing they both fill the same role, except one is much better at it.

Filling a one dimensional niche and sucking at everything else isn't balanced. Doubly so in a game where you can't easily switch your niche role.



Nebu, people didn't learn to 'optimize' alb groups because those optimizations did not EXIST for the first 2-3 years of the game.

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Reply #46 on: April 09, 2009, 01:34:44 PM

How is that not out of balance? In a group they both fill the same role, except one is much better at it. When soloing they both fill the same role, except one is much better at it.

So, your idea of balance is that everyone does everything equally well?

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Reply #47 on: April 09, 2009, 01:52:17 PM

How is that not out of balance? In a group they both fill the same role, except one is much better at it. When soloing they both fill the same role, except one is much better at it.

So, your idea of balance is that everyone does everything equally well?

If one guy never gets a group, how is that balance?

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Reply #48 on: April 09, 2009, 02:14:12 PM

Nebu, people didn't learn to 'optimize' alb groups because those optimizations did not EXIST for the first 2-3 years of the game.

They did.  I played all three realms prior to ToA and we did fine.  It was all about using your strengths.  Mid was all about melee, Alb was all about range (sorc mez, theurg interrupts), and hib was kind of a mixed bag.  Early on Mid was the way to go though.  Stungard + doublefrost was easymode. 

I'm sorry guys... I didn't mean for this to be a DAoC rehash. 


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Reply #49 on: April 09, 2009, 02:40:15 PM

Eh it is just as much my fault as it is yours. I think DAOC is a prime example to use for this stuff simply because of the vast number of classes it had (and also the vast number of dead end specs.)

Out of curiosity did you play much pre-SI? I think that is the design timeframe Fordel and I are talking about for the most part.

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Reply #50 on: April 09, 2009, 02:42:42 PM

How is that not out of balance? In a group they both fill the same role, except one is much better at it. When soloing they both fill the same role, except one is much better at it.

So, your idea of balance is that everyone does everything equally well?

How about anyone who is supposed to be doing that role, does it equally well?


If your job in a group is healer, then you should be able to fucking heal just as good as any other healer. None of that means you need identical abilities or play styles.

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Reply #51 on: April 09, 2009, 04:38:22 PM

Out of curiosity did you play much pre-SI? I think that is the design timeframe Fordel and I are talking about for the most part.

I was a class lead in beta and played the entire period from beta up until about 6 months ago.  I did take 3 months off when ToA released as well. 

Wow... I gave Mythic a lot of money.  Some of those periods I had 3 accounts.

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Reply #52 on: April 09, 2009, 04:42:54 PM

Los Ortiz?  awesome, for real

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Reply #53 on: April 10, 2009, 01:37:45 PM

How about anyone who is supposed to be doing that role, does it equally well?

If your job in a group is healer, then you should be able to fucking heal just as good as any other healer. None of that means you need identical abilities or play styles.

Yeah, EQ2 tried that, it sort of works, but they still have the same grass is greener shit going on there.  Check out the boards, there is still as much whining as ever.  6 classes of fighter, healer or what-have-you, further broken up into groups of 2 that are nearly identical but for play style and everyone whines about the others perceived advantages due to your 'non-identical abilities and play styles'.

So, I still disagree with your definition of balance, I not only think it's incorrect but I also think it's unworkable in that it creates large amounts of duplication with providing sufficient differentiation and that, IMO, makes it unfun and unrewarding.

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Reply #54 on: April 10, 2009, 01:38:58 PM

How about anyone who is supposed to be doing that role, does it equally well?

If your job in a group is healer, then you should be able to fucking heal just as good as any other healer. None of that means you need identical abilities or play styles.

Yeah, EQ2 tried that, it sort of works, but they still have the same grass is greener shit going on there.  Check out the boards, there is still as much whining as ever.  6 classes of fighter, healer or what-have-you, further broken up into groups of 2 that are nearly identical but for play style and everyone whines about the others perceived advantages due to your 'non-identical abilities and play styles'.

So, I still disagree with your definition of balance, I not only think it's incorrect but I also think it's unworkable in that it creates large amounts of duplication with providing sufficient differentiation and that, IMO, makes it unfun and unrewarding.

So more rewarding would be to have a class that when Joe Newbie rolls it, he suddenly finds out after a bunch of time investment that he's useless for groups? Seriously?

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Reply #55 on: April 10, 2009, 08:19:58 PM

Yeah, EQ2 tried that, it sort of works, but they still have the same grass is greener shit going on there.  Check out the boards, there is still as much whining as ever.  6 classes of fighter, healer or what-have-you, further broken up into groups of 2 that are nearly identical but for play style and everyone whines about the others perceived advantages due to your 'non-identical abilities and play styles'.

So, I still disagree with your definition of balance, I not only think it's incorrect but I also think it's unworkable in that it creates large amounts of duplication with providing sufficient differentiation and that, IMO, makes it unfun and unrewarding.


People bitch on a forum, news at 11?  awesome, for real


WoW is doing it right now (finally). There are four perfectly viable tank classes, four perfectly viable healing classes (well, 3.5, Holy paladins still need a god damn AE/Group heal of some sort, but that is a different rant) and every DPS spec can actually post competitive numbers for the vast majority of the player base (it still has issues with outliers at the very top theoretical DPS numbers, where people have no lag and are in a top 100 world wide raiding guild).


The fotm rant is currently 'homogenization', which is people really bitching that "My previously exclusive raid slot isn't exclusive anymore, my free lunch, QQ" etc.

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Reply #56 on: April 10, 2009, 08:57:41 PM

The fotm rant is currently 'homogenization', which is people really bitching that "My previously exclusive raid slot isn't exclusive anymore, my free lunch, QQ" etc.

My bitch with homogenization is that there's no replay value.  If I've played a class to the endgame, I have no reason to play the other realm.  Killing 10 rats isn't that much different from killing 10 elves.  I don't mind classes that can do the same thing as long as they do them a bit differently.  Games are more fun when you can play them a variety of different ways. 

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Reply #57 on: April 10, 2009, 11:54:17 PM

They DO, do things differently in WoW. Which is why it's thinly veiled whining about entitled group spots.

The only thing a Protection Warrior and Protection Paladin share in play style, is they both hits things with their shields. Different resource pools, different attacks, different tanking styles and flow.


It wasn't like when I went from a Hero to a Warrior in DaoC, where the only adjustment in play style was the lack of Bullwinkle power.

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Reply #58 on: April 11, 2009, 07:07:46 AM

They DO, do things differently in WoW. Which is why it's thinly veiled whining about entitled group spots.

No, they don't.  A shaman of one faction is exactly the same gameplay as a shaman on the other faction, minus their racial ability.  If you've played a class, you have seen it for both sides minus the scenery and the toon. 

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Reply #59 on: April 11, 2009, 07:10:12 AM

Then play a druid of the other faction?

He's talking classes, you're talking factions. Viewpoints will never meet.

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Reply #60 on: April 11, 2009, 08:45:39 AM

Then play a druid of the other faction?

I understand what he's saying.  I'm saying that having different classes and differetn factions, while tougher to balance. allows for a much broader gameplay experience.  Homogenization is about making both sides EXACTLY equivalent.  While noble, I think it's a bad idea unless you find a way to shuffle the important abilities without causing some classes to become valueless.  I'd rather have small imbalances and more replay value... especially if I really like the game.

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Reply #61 on: April 11, 2009, 05:08:42 PM

The Homogenization 'debate' in WoW has nothing to do with both sides sharing the same classes. It's literally "Oh God, non-warrior tanks have shield wall equivalents, THEY ARE EXACTLY THE SAME  ACK! " .

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Reply #62 on: April 12, 2009, 06:59:43 PM

I'm generally suspicious of an mmo that boast of having more than 6 classes.
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Reply #63 on: April 13, 2009, 11:51:54 AM

People bitch on a forum, news at 11?  awesome, for real

I don't know if you read my first post but that's exactly what I was saying.  People bitch on a forum regardless, don't pander to them.  Just because they are whining about someone else being 'better' than them doesn't mean they are right.

Quote from: Ingmar
So more rewarding would be to have a class that when Joe Newbie rolls it, he suddenly finds out after a bunch of time investment that he's useless for groups? Seriously?

No, that's actually a different issue.  We have been discussing what balance means.  You're talking about consequences of a poor, likely uninformed, choice.  Either you have to have the class so well defined that a noob, with no experience to draw on, can make a fully informed choice -OR- you have to allow broad respecs. 

This whole discussion just reinforces that I dislike class-based systems.  Give me a huge open skill tree any day.  It's really the only system that I've seen that keeps pretty much everyone happy and can provide the customization options everyone says they want.

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Reply #64 on: April 13, 2009, 11:54:28 AM

Give me a huge open skill tree any day.  It's really the only system that I've seen that keeps pretty much everyone happy and can provide the customization options everyone says they want.

This just degenerates into classes again.  People will find the skill combinations that synergize well and break up into a group of specialists.  All class or archetypes do is create preset templates to avoid this inevitability. 

Balancing classes is hard.  Balancing a number of independant skills is near impossible.

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Reply #65 on: April 13, 2009, 12:19:38 PM

People bitch on a forum, news at 11?  awesome, for real

I don't know if you read my first post but that's exactly what I was saying.  People bitch on a forum regardless, don't pander to them.  Just because they are whining about someone else being 'better' than them doesn't mean they are right.

Quote from: Ingmar
So more rewarding would be to have a class that when Joe Newbie rolls it, he suddenly finds out after a bunch of time investment that he's useless for groups? Seriously?

No, that's actually a different issue.  We have been discussing what balance means.  You're talking about consequences of a poor, likely uninformed, choice.  Either you have to have the class so well defined that a noob, with no experience to draw on, can make a fully informed choice -OR- you have to allow broad respecs. 

This whole discussion just reinforces that I dislike class-based systems.  Give me a huge open skill tree any day.  It's really the only system that I've seen that keeps pretty much everyone happy and can provide the customization options everyone says they want.

So if I am reading your response to that correctly, your theory of class design is that it is ok to have a class that is entirely useless in groups, as long as people are warned about it ahead of time?

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Reply #66 on: April 13, 2009, 12:40:04 PM

If the intro to that class said, "HEY THIS CLASS SUCKS IN GROUPS, BUT YOU WILL BE A GOD SOLO SO ONLY PLAY THIS CLASS IF YOU LIKE TO SOLO."

Yeah, I would be fine with that.

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Reply #67 on: April 13, 2009, 01:05:50 PM

So if I am reading your response to that correctly, your theory of class design is that it is ok to have a class that is entirely useless in groups, as long as people are warned about it ahead of time?

No.  That's not what I said at all.  What I said was that skill trees only give the illusion that there aren't classes.  People will still gravitate toward the skills that make them a) the most powerful, b) the most useful to a group, or c) both.  Classses merely select templates containing those skill trees already selected.  It's far easier to balance a group of classes (set templates) than it is to balance a number of skills with many many different possible combinations.  By easier to balance, I mean it's still near impossible... just not completely impossible. 

Why would anyone support classes that are useless to groups in an MMO?  Really... 

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Reply #68 on: April 13, 2009, 01:55:31 PM

So if I am reading your response to that correctly, your theory of class design is that it is ok to have a class that is entirely useless in groups, as long as people are warned about it ahead of time?

No.  That's not what I said at all.  What I said was that skill trees only give the illusion that there aren't classes.  People will still gravitate toward the skills that make them a) the most powerful, b) the most useful to a group, or c) both.  Classses merely select templates containing those skill trees already selected.  It's far easier to balance a group of classes (set templates) than it is to balance a number of skills with many many different possible combinations.  By easier to balance, I mean it's still near impossible... just not completely impossible. 

Why would anyone support classes that are useless to groups in an MMO?  Really... 

I was replying to Murgos, not you. I didn't get that impression from you at all. EDIT: If anything, you are too group oriented in your design theory for my tastes.  wink

My own theory goes something like this. In any MMO with significant group content, every class must be able to contribute enough to be desired for that content. At the same time, every class must have enough tools to be able to function acceptably solo, without being at a big disadvantage in leveling speed or whatever else. This naturally leads to a smaller number of deeper classes being the ideal as far as I'm concerned.

EDIT AGAIN: If you leave out either group viability or solo viability from a given class, you are just sowing the seeds for player resentment/burnout.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2009, 01:59:56 PM by Ingmar »

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Murgos
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Reply #69 on: April 14, 2009, 11:36:24 AM

People will still gravitate toward the skills that make them a) the most powerful, b) the most useful to a group, or c) both.    Classses merely select templates containing those skill trees already selected.
This is sort of exactly what I am talking about.  You pick your skills to suit your style of play.  There can be multiple 'thrusts' of development analogous to classes in a sense but they are individually selected.  You decide if you want to be a jack-of-all trades capable of working competently but in a limited fashion alone or if you want to focus on one aspect of your character to the point you have to have others around you to make up for the things you are lacking in.  It's your choice and in a good system the choices will be presented at a time when you are ready to make them, rather than at the login screen the first time you fire up the game.

I think it's an illusion that such a style of character development [skill based] is any harder to balance than a traditional set in stone class system.  For every skill based system that has had to have a skill nerfed due to abuses I can probably show you a similar scenario that has occurred in a class based system.

It may actually end up being easier because each skill being able to be treated independently allows you not to be responsible for any particular groups viability as a whole.  Add in mechanics such as respecs and/or a completely open and available tree like Eve and the players can rationalize any change you make without it being seen as a personal attack or vendetta (i.e. SOE hates Shadowknights!) which should help keep discontent down to a minimum.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2009, 11:38:21 AM by Murgos »

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