Rock, Paper, Scissor, Formation

Tl.Dr.: Group balance without 1v1 balance, how?

While not talked directly about it there has been a bit of a surge about balance recently. It's a topic I am very interested in and I thought I can spend a few minutes on it before it disappears into oblivion again.
Tiny pretext, I am not here to say one is better than the other, it's mostly about understanding it in the first place and getting a grasp at the pros and cons.

Today is about balancing classes and the issue I have with the phrase "it is balanced around groups". Balanced around groups, what does that even mean? You see when I go to a very basic form of class balance we arrive at Rock, paper, scissor.

Footman beats Pike, Pike beats horseman, horseman beats Footman.
It's simple and in a gaming environment it doesn't have to be devastatingly clean cut like that but you can get a feel for where your advantages and disadvantages inherently lie.
A rogue prefers the advantages against clothed classes, goes even with leather wearing ones and has a natural disadvantages against plated classes.
Pick and choose your fight or your goal.
On the other hand we have the phrase/s "balanced around group vs group"/"we don't look at the 1v1 component".
What's that supposed to mean? I have tried to wrap my head around it, but I simply can't exclude the 1v1. For me personally, in my understanding 1v1 is like a base building block you need to build on top of it.

A base group in Ashes is considered to be 8 people, for now, optimally one of each class. A basic approach to this is, keep your hp above zero and reduce the enemies to below zero.
In a simplified context that usually means,
tank protects the healer,
healer keeps people alive,
people aim to kill the healer or drain him faster than your own is drained.

Okay, fair enough, basic group fight. How will this be balanced without looking at the 1v1 setup that automatically happens? Every class will have innate strengths and weaknesses. So keeping with the rogue theme I won't go out of my way attacking the tank or a fighter if I could do more damage to the mage would I? (We are keeping it simple I am fully aware that you could probably speck into a tank shredder through armour debuffs or interrupt freak but even if you did your priority just shifted with your advantages and disadvantages landing back on the same guiding principle, the best target for you.)

Obviously more goes on than that 1v1 fight now, you will have a fighter chasing you down protecting the mage or the Ranger keeping you at bay, whatever. My question is what components in there is the group balance that out weights the 1v1 balance?
Is it just badly phrased and unnecessarily confusing? I have not yet understood how the macro fight can somehow neglect the micro balance and end up in a balanced state in the end.

Traditionally, looking at real-world war as bad and untasteful as it might be, tactics, strategy, logistics, manpower and formation is guiding the success of a battle. The Roman empire is probably the prime example of taking "group balance" over "class balance" simple because they didn't engage in 1v1 fights per say as was common in their days. They had their formations and didn't step out of it.(simplified)
That's where I can start to draws parallels on what IS might try to achieve. They talked a lot about positioning matters and while it is very vague for now I can at least give it the benefit of the thought process that it might be more chess like. Preventing a pawn from moving in the first place or taking a pawn through better positioning.

How that will actually transcribe into the game in a fun and reactive way is beyond me and I might be on a very different path here than IS imagines, but to me, with what I know, is the only way that the "group balance" consistent of your chosen classes, skill sets and advantages translates into a neglectable 1v1 scenario and balance. I'm not convinced but at the very least I am open to the possibility that it works.
Anything else just ends in disaster in my head.

That leaves me back to my tl.dr. What is group balance and how can it be achieved without 1v1 balance?

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Comments

Jahlon

Group balance is something they have not shared with us.

Jignutz

Are you new to computer games? Not just MMOs, but computer games. A good team would send the footman to fight the pikeman, their pikeman to fight the horse, the horse to fight the footman. The other side would try to do the same, and whichever did it best would win. There is no way to balance different archtypes against each other 1v1 yet still be balanced in teams. As but one example, if a healer can't out-heal 1 dps then a healer is worthless as you'd always want to be a dps rather than a healer. OTOH if a healer can out heal a dps then it is greater than a dps in 1v1... unless you look at it from a team viewpoint.

example:
In warhammer online I ran countless PuG arenas, and it was possible to predict very accurately how a match would end based upon healer mismatches. If 1 side had 0 healers and the other had any healers, the latter would almost always win. If 1 side had 2-4 healers, and the other side had 0-1, the former would almost always win. If 1 side had 8+ healers, and the other had 2-4, the latter would virtually always win. This was because if you had too many healers it meant you didn't have enough DPS or tanks, and no amount of healing can heal through enough focus fire + tank CC. To put it another way, healers have a very high value in PvP (and PvE) but diminishing returns kicks in very quickly. Everyone wants 1 healer in their group, but few want 5. So the marginal value of different classes changes based upon group composition. 8 dps is a terrible group, 8 tanks is a terrible group, 8 healers is a terrible group... but 2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 dps would be an unstoppable killing machine.

grisu

Yes Jahlon I am keenly aware of that. It is why I am turning to the community to hear their viewpoints, ideas and theories on the matter.

You are jumbling things up there Jig. A healer can out heal more than 1 dps short term and still be balanced in 1v1. One does not contradict the other and I think most people have played a game or another where fighting healers in 1v1s usually result in long battles, but either the healer gets enough minor damage in to accumulate into death to the dps or goes oom/dies through well placed interrupts that open windows of opportunities. That's a 1v1 balance I have seen in most games. Some classes being better in that than others. I have barely seen any games in which a healer is invincible in 1v1.
In short - 1v1 long battle/ 5v5 short battle. Both times a healer can go oom. What magic is this? The magic of ressources not being infinite.

I will highlight again that I am not saying that every single archetype has to be/should be balanced against all 8 archetypes in the context of Ashes or that there has to be a 1v1 balance like Rock, Paper, Scissors. I am just curious how that actually works well without such an underlying balance.

I haven't played Warhammer online, I don't know what was available but it sounds a lot like there wasn't much around that would oppose a healer with, for example, interrupts and in turn healers offered little to nothing outside of healing. PuGs in general are a bad basis imo to draw any conclusions on but eh, again I haven't played it so I can't comment on that dynamic specifically.

From what you describe tho it just sounds like healers weren't balanced/ only heal batteries.

Caeryl

Balanced for group play and not 1v1 means you will have to have a group to cover your individual weakness.

A tank won’t be out dueling a sustained dps class.

A healer won’t be out healing an assassin.

A sustained dps won’t be killing a healer.

And assassin won’t be killing a tank.

A Tank/Tank might be out kited by a Rouge/Bard.

A Tank/Mage might be able to stick to an enemy Healer/Healer.

These are specifics we will not know until the basic functionality has been completely. It’s like asking an author if Side Character#3 is going to have a love interest when they haven’t even finished the plot outline.

grisu

So in your view Caeryl it is what I view as 1v1 balance and it's just another nice new catch phrases to get us interested in a new wheel that has existed forever? Because what you wrote down is exactly what I outlined above.
1v1 balance doesn't mean you are universally equal to everyone but in general you have an advantage over 50% of classes and a disadvantage over 50% of other classes. (simplified, generally speaking)

My biggest grip is simply the quotes around "it is group oriented and not on a class basis itself"/"we don't balance around 1v1", but what you describe is a 1v1 class basis balance to me.
Pikeman beats horse, horse beats footman, footman beats pikeman.

As a last note, while the topic is obviously Ashes inspired, I'm more interested in the concept itself and past examples to get a hold of what it actually is/means/entails.

Caeryl

grisu wrote: »

So in your view Caeryl it is what I view as 1v1 balance and it's just another nice new catch phrases to get us interested in a new wheel that has existed forever? Because what you wrote down is exactly what I outlined above.
1v1 balance doesn't mean you are universally equal to everyone but in general you have an advantage over 50% of classes and a disadvantage over 50% of other classes. (simplified, generally speaking)

My biggest grip is simply the quotes around "it is group oriented and not on a class basis itself"/"we don't balance around 1v1", but what you describe is a 1v1 class basis balance to me.
Pikeman beats horse, horse beats footman, footman beats pikeman.

As a last note, while the topic is obviously Ashes inspired, I'm more interested in the concept itself and past examples to get a hold of what it actually is/means/entails.

1v1 balance literally means balanced for 1v1 combat, aka everyone can fight on relatively equal grounds. If you’re trying to argue that unbalanced 1v1s = balanced for 1v1s then you’re just plainly incorrect.

tugowar

I hope cleric beats summoner.

And that tank can beat something too.

grisu

That's why I said that I personally view 1v1 balance as such.
I would argue that being at an advantage vs half the other class and at a disadvantage against the other half is unbalanced per say. Simply the class identity having natural strengths and weaknesses.
Yes per definition on just 1 class vs 1 class it is slightly unbalanced, I don't argue there but in the big picture it is still balanced imo.
It's a more organic feel.and allows for better class identities.
You have your preferred prey and natural foes, it's a better dynamic that I have experienced at least.

And yes cleric>summoner all the way.

Atama

tugowar wrote: »

I hope cleric beats summoner.

And that tank can beat something too.

Maybe a glass cannon type enemy that can’t penetrate the defenses, and can’t last long with weak defenses of their own. Like a rogue or mage type.

Nagash

tugowar wrote: »

I hope cleric beats summoner.

And that tank can beat something too.

ah the timeless fight of Clerics vs Summoners

Jamation

grisu wrote: »

So in your view Caeryl it is what I view as 1v1 balance and it's just another nice new catch phrases to get us interested in a new wheel that has existed forever?

My biggest grip is simply the quotes around "it is group oriented and not on a class basis itself"/"we don't balance around 1v1", but what you describe is a 1v1 class basis balance to me.

This is pretty much how I'm viewing it. Most MMOrpgs's I've played or seen there isn't a lot of "exact" 1v1 balance, especially if the role of the class is more specialized or defined rather than an all-rounder. The pure and true triangle you described with the pike, footmen, and horse would work better for a strategy or turn based game in my opinion simply because the player can situate their troops based off their strengths, weaknesses, and possible sacrifices they're willing to make in order to win. However, in most class based games the pike is never just a pike, the footmen never just a footmen, and the horse never just a horse and strategy cannot be controlled as stringently. They usually have multiple functions and roles that play well within a group, but also have multiple disadvantages.

I think calling it group balance is thinking more towards the balance that will come out in the end anyways.

But as we don't have much information on the specifics this is all my speculation and opinions. I think it is just another way to describe balance that currently permeates most types of MMOrpgs already. If anything, I think group balance is actually a better way to describe it rather than 1v1.

Tacualeon

grisu wrote: »

Tl.Dr.: Group balance without 1v1 balance, how?

Front liners and back liners.
It's different moving forwards in 1v1 than in 8v8.

Some arquetypes do better in 1v1, other in skirmishers and other in teamfights. In group fights, anything squishier than a bruiser get's melted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelsöldner
Doppelsöldner ("double-mercenaries", "double-pay men",[1] from German doppel- meaning double, Sold meaning pay) were Landsknechte in 16th-century Germany who volunteered to fight in the front line, taking on extra risk, in exchange for double payment.

When in groups, melee it's harder and gets better paid.
Even in gameplay you have to give someone a reason to be the first one getting targeted.

Ventharien

When companies say they don't balance for 1v1, they are referring to any class not being necessarily able to compete in any given situation. That's why it's usually as a response to dps complaining about tanks in arena type modes, Where they either can't win, or each win takes an annoyingly long period of time.

I'd agree that classes having bad matchups, or even people they outright cannot beat, but also have their own preferred targets is "balanced" but that's not the issue they are describing, so it can confuse the subject.

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