Character Class Balancing

Hello, at the start of this I just want to say I am putting this message forward because I love MMORPG games. But for a long time now I have become disenchanted by the lack comprehensiveness that I would like to see from a room full of well intending game developers.

Something I can not get over is that balancing is something that should be quite simple to understand how to do if you are considering all of the appropriate variables. It's undoubtedly not easy to measure out a dynamic combat system which is inherently balanced as well but all it takes is a little creativity and some careful consideration. In the call for balance, people look for direct correspondences. If you can deal 1000 damage in a time frame I should be able to, in that same frame of time, create an effect of an EQUIVALENT value. I have a lot of creative ideas how to change the damage and shielding and healing effects so that it is dynamic and would love to share more if you're interested. But the premise is very simple. And in my opinion its foolish to balance the game around any number of individuals who would have to come together. The individual is the most marginalized demographic and the more the game caters to the individual, the more the player engages the gaming environment as if it were it's own arbiter of fairness. The players need to feel the fairness at every level where it matters. Just one class that doesnt have a respectable foot hold in PVP imo represents an entire demographic of people that will lose passion to play the game when they find out the favorite Theme is Weak. The classes should have an identical capacity for damage and self preservation in PVP. And the game needs to be foremost designed around PVP. Without a level playing field elitism will reign supreme with the "Are you even trying attitudes" of meta gamers. It's very easy to augment a dungeon, or to add in some dungeon specific buff system which compensates for any short comings in the world environment. But if two players of unique classes come against each other to fight and one of them has a clear disadvantage ALL the time and it's not because they are good, then people feel some kind of way about that. I know I do. If you want the kind of game that would overtake WoW, it's my personal belief that you have to nail this. Even when WoW did the rock paper scissors design, I was still able to overcome the classes that were considered my weakness and that made the game so much more fun for me as a PVPer. I would love to be of help, hell I'd love to work for you guys even lol... I won't get my hopes up though but I will keep my creative concepts on standby if you want to pick my brain on this at all. Much love and I wish the best for this game.
P.S. I give this game free advertisement all the time at my work. Don't worry I tell it will be a couple years before it's lol...

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Ludullu

Game is balanced around party play. The RPS system will be responsible for around 30% of the single player power. Balancing all the classes with all the possible augments in Ashes perfectly is almost impossible, so if you want a game where everyone can kill everyone, I'm not sure if this is the game for you.

Also, Ashes will definitely not overtake WoW. It'll be much better for some people (definitely me), but it will not appeal to the absolute masses of mmo players. So definitely curb your expectations.

Killendel

Yeah man, I'm making an appeal cause I see it going down a road I think it shouldn't. I thought I read some where it was a PVP oriented game? If that's true. 8 man balancing will be catastrophic.

Dygz

RPG classes were not designed for PvP. RPGs were designed for co-op play.
Most MMORPGs are designed for cooperative PvE play with PvP tacked on at the end.
Which results in issues, later, trying to balance what the devs want for PvE combat with what players want for "fair" PvP combat. And that starts a cycle of nerfing.

Ashes combat is starting from jump with PvX combat - significantly... no separate PvP and separate PvE gear. It's all designed as PvX gear.
Also, Ashes is balanced around an 8-person group with one of each Primary Archetype, rather than 1v1 combat, so... it's expected that there will be R-P-S and some Archetypes will out-perform others in 1v1 combat.

Ludullu

Killendel wrote: »

Yeah man, I'm making an appeal cause I see it going down a road I think it shouldn't. I thought I read some where it was a PVP oriented game? If that's true. 8 man balancing will be catastrophic.

L2 was one of the best pvp mmos out there (best imo). It was balanced around party play (9-man btw). Classes had an RPS balancing, with some of them being quite OP at times. It worked out just fine.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Killendel wrote: »

Yeah man, I'm making an appeal cause I see it going down a road I think it shouldn't. I thought I read some where it was a PVP oriented game? If that's true. 8 man balancing will be catastrophic.

L2 was one of the best pvp mmos out there (best imo). It was balanced around party play (9-man btw). Classes had an RPS balancing, with some of them being quite OP at times. It worked out just fine.

Can you elaborate on this?

The more I look into L2's balancing, the more I find that it does not fit MY subjective definition of 'just fine' at all...

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

Can you elaborate on this?

The more I look into L2's balancing, the more I find that it does not fit MY subjective definition of 'just fine' at all...

Most parties were usually dagger/mage (with a few variations of mages)/archer/fighters. In the context of somewhat equal gear, any party could usually kill any other party. Most of the time it came down to party skill and cooperation. In 1v1 pvp, daggers would usually kill mages, mages would usually kill fighters, fighters would usually kill daggers, with archers probably being the most rng ones cause they had huge crits and if you got a few of them in a row then you'd usually win (or if your stun landed) but if you didn't get lucky - you'd quite often die. Oh, and as for supports/tanks - you'd either just lose or be so OEd that you'd manage to kill your opponent through perseverance.

At least that's the matchups as how I remember them. Later updates brought a bit more variety to the game with a whole new race that had fairly OP abilities and could fit in several different parties, so the party pvp became even more equal, while 1v1s got even deeper into all kinds of RPS-like fights.

@George_Black @JamesSunderland am I remembering correctly? Was your experience different? I did mostly play on private servers, so official ones could've been quite different.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Can you elaborate on this?

The more I look into L2's balancing, the more I find that it does not fit MY subjective definition of 'just fine' at all...

Most parties were usually dagger/mage (with a few variations of mages)/archer/fighters. In the context of somewhat equal gear, any party could usually kill any other party. Most of the time it came down to party skill and cooperation. In 1v1 pvp, daggers would usually kill mages, mages would usually kill fighters, fighters would usually kill daggers, with archers probably being the most rng ones cause they had huge crits and if you got a few of them in a row then you'd usually win (or if your stun landed) but if you didn't get lucky - you'd quite often die. Oh, and as for supports/tanks - you'd either just lose or be so OEd that you'd manage to kill your opponent through perseverance.

At least that's the matchups as how I remember them. Later updates brought a bit more variety to the game with a whole new race that had fairly OP abilities and could fit in several different parties, so the party pvp became even more equal, while 1v1s got even deeper into all kinds of RPS-like fights.

Thanks, I definitely don't consider that to be 'working out fine' given my background, but as noted, I'm not as much of an MMO player apparently.

I'll continue to hope for 'what I consider better'.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

Thanks, I definitely don't consider that to be 'working out fine' given my background, but as noted, I'm not as much of an MMO player apparently.

What would be working fine for you? I'm interested in a different pov on pvp balancing cause I only have this one.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Thanks, I definitely don't consider that to be 'working out fine' given my background, but as noted, I'm not as much of an MMO player apparently.

What would be working fine for you? I'm interested in a different pov on pvp balancing cause I only have this one.

The short version of how this is done in the competitive games I like, is to not think in terms of classes, but in terms of 'approaches'. I mention it often, for MMOs it's usually:

Mitigation, Burst Damage, Attrition.

If you have an RPS system between these three, and classes that TILT toward one of the three, but can vary a little into one of the others, then I prefer this.

In Fighters, this is 'sure, this keepaway character can fight from the other end of the screen and never let you close in (Attrition + Mitigation) but you can still succeed as Burst Damage if you change your playstyle a bit so that you are moreso Mitigation yourself instead of 'trying to get to your Burst Damage condition'.

I thought for a long time that this was 'the only real way for it to turn out' because I'm too arrogant to spend much time imagining things being done in ways I disagree with at first (big character flaw), but I've looked into games where it's much more explicit with the mechanical counters and balance.

L2 seems to be one of those games, it does a bit of the M/B/A, but seems to have a lot more situations where the reason you are losing is because you are explicitly designed to NOT be able to adapt or counter to the opposing class (from my limited data).

I think this promotes a bad culture where a player 'knows that they have lost before they begin' and can 'blame their losses on class balance' in the few situations where they could have done something due to learned helplessness.

But since I realized I was just assuming that M/B/A balance was the norm, I had to look into L2 balancing more to see what Ashes might be inspired by. I did not like what I found.

Azherae

I should clarify before you waste your time on counter-perspectives, NiKr (I don't mind having the discussion) that all of this is very subjective, and as a Fighting Gamer I am all too familiar with that.

People still defend the original Super Street Fighter II Turbo as being one of the best, most enjoyable games (I'm therefore at least willing to draw a parallel with your perception of L2).

The thing is, ST (short version) has objectively shit balancing and they have been trying to move away from the underlying principles of the characters in it for literally decades now because it was so bad. Is it fun? For some. If you have certain mindsets, don't mind having to learn multiple characters, and are able to go 'it is what it is' in the 9-1 matchup.

Sure, you can also go 'this is an MMO, it's not the same', my only point here is that I am already used to people that don't even see saying that as necessary, they just 'never think of the bad balance as a negative because the way they are looking at the game/trying to enjoy it means the balance is at worst an inconvenience and at best a feature'.

But similarly to how I think 'but you could just make the same characters but better balanced...' (SFV and hopefully SF6)

I just think "you could just make the same classes but use M/B/A for better balance"...

It really hampers my ability to enjoy intentionally 'unbalanced' games.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

L2 seems to be one of those games, it does a bit of the M/B/A, but seems to have a lot more situations where the reason you are losing is because you are explicitly designed to NOT be able to adapt or counter to the opposing class (from my limited data).

Yeah, this is where the party balancing comes in. You can be a "dagger" party, but in reality you'd only have 2-3 daggers out of your 9-man party. With all the other characters being "supports" against different possible situations.

Azherae wrote: »

I think this promotes a bad culture where a player 'knows that they have lost before they begin' and can 'blame their losses on class balance' in the few situations where they could have done something due to learned helplessness.

In my experience the main "blame" always fell on OEd gear, because it usually mitigated the rng that was fairly intrinsic to each class. Skill also mitigated it, but to a lesser extent against stronger RPS classes.

When I was approaching any solo pvp fight, I'd first see their class (thanks to L2's gearing system). Then look at the player name/guild, which would give me their rough (or sometimes exact) gear power and their skill lvl. "Gear power" usually just meant the lvl of OE and the probability of them having epic gear, which wildly skewed rng in their favor.

That would usually be the levels of importance when it came to figuring out whether you had a chance in pvp. If it was some class that completely demolished yours - you'd have low chances. If it was a player from a weaker guild with weaker gear, your chances would go up quite a bit. If that player had their own high lvl of skill - it'd pretty much be a toss up with a bit high chances on their side due to class RPS.

But usually, no matter how bad it might've seemed, you'd just fight back and see what would happen. I've seen even way weaker players win against rps/guild/gear stronger players, just because they got a bit of luck on top of proper skill. Definitely wouldn't call the majority of L2 players defeatists though. Unless you were going against super OEd OP dudes with epic gear, then yeah, a bit

Azherae wrote: »

But since I realized I was just assuming that M/B/A balance was the norm, I had to look into L2 balancing more to see what Ashes might be inspired by. I did not like what I found.

Yeah, I hope Intrepid manage to make a well-balanced pvx scene, no matter what form it takes.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

L2 seems to be one of those games, it does a bit of the M/B/A, but seems to have a lot more situations where the reason you are losing is because you are explicitly designed to NOT be able to adapt or counter to the opposing class (from my limited data).

Yeah, this is where the party balancing comes in. You can be a "dagger" party, but in reality you'd only have 2-3 daggers out of your 9-man party. With all the other characters being "supports" against different possible situations.

Azherae wrote: »

I think this promotes a bad culture where a player 'knows that they have lost before they begin' and can 'blame their losses on class balance' in the few situations where they could have done something due to learned helplessness.

In my experience the main "blame" always fell on OEd gear, because it usually mitigated the rng that was fairly intrinsic to each class. Skill also mitigated it, but to a lesser extent against stronger RPS classes.

When I was approaching any solo pvp fight, I'd first see their class (thanks to L2's gearing system). Then look at the player name/guild, which would give me their rough (or sometimes exact) gear power and their skill lvl. "Gear power" usually just meant the lvl of OE and the probability of them having epic gear, which wildly skewed rng in their favor.

That would usually be the levels of importance when it came to figuring out whether you had a chance in pvp. If it was some class that completely demolished yours - you'd have low chances. If it was a player from a weaker guild with weaker gear, your chances would go up quite a bit. If that player had their own high lvl of skill - it'd pretty much be a toss up with a bit high chances on their side due to class RPS.

But usually, no matter how bad it might've seemed, you'd just fight back and see what would happen. I've seen even way weaker players win against rps/guild/gear stronger players, just because they got a bit of luck on top of proper skill. Definitely wouldn't call the majority of L2 players defeatists though. Unless you were going against super OEd OP dudes with epic gear, then yeah, a bit

Azherae wrote: »

But since I realized I was just assuming that M/B/A balance was the norm, I had to look into L2 balancing more to see what Ashes might be inspired by. I did not like what I found.

Yeah, I hope Intrepid manage to make a well-balanced pvx scene, no matter what form it takes.

Well, can you explain to me for an example, exactly WHY a Dagger class kills a Mage, or a Fighter loses to them?

For example in any form of balance I am used to/would expect in nearly ANY game, I'd expect BOTH these things to be the opposite of the L2 situation.

At this point I'm just 'working off random old data on the internet' which as we all know is SUPER reliable and never biased by the sample size of 'people who would complain or make guides on the internet'.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

Well, can you explain to me for an example, exactly WHY a Dagger class kills a Mage, or a Fighter loses to them?

This is where a bit of difficulty of explaining comes into play, because, as I've said before, L2 liked to balance classes with nerfs/buffs through the updates. In earlier updates a dagger would usually lose to a mage because he didn't have any gap-closers, so if dagger didn't have enough hp to come close to the mage (if the fight started at long range with both sides knowing about each other) - he'd just get nuked down.

In a later update all daggers got no only full stealth ability, that let them take their time with their attacks (long cd and only 30sec duration though) and a gap-closing ability on a somewhat short cd. And with daggers having superior burst ability, they'd usually win out in that kind of matchup.

Fighters got gap-closers in an even later update (if I recall the timeline correctly), but at the same time mages got a mana=defense ability, so unless the fighter got real lucky on his crits, the dmg could be not enough to outpace mage's dps even after the gap-closer.

Daggers also had a detargetting ability and armor augment, so any low-mid skilled mage could sometimes lose themselves and just stop attacking, which gave a ton of time for dagger to stab the mage's ass several times, which was usually enough.

Fighters were usually more on the "a ton of hp and good phys defense" side of the balance, so mage's attacks would hit them fairly hard and mage crits would go through that ton of hp quite quickly too. There was a time where a few fighter classes had uber strong ranged attacks, but I'm not completely sure if it was private server balancing or the official update's one. And that's where I hope either George or James could add their pov on this situation, cause I'm sure mine is fairly skewed from the "reality" too.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Well, can you explain to me for an example, exactly WHY a Dagger class kills a Mage, or a Fighter loses to them?

This is where a bit of difficulty of explaining comes into play, because, as I've said before, L2 liked to balance classes with nerfs/buffs through the updates. In earlier updates a dagger would usually lose to a mage because he didn't have any gap-closers, so if dagger didn't have enough hp to come close to the mage (if the fight started at long range with both sides knowing about each other) - he'd just get nuked down.

In a later update all daggers got no only full stealth ability, that let them take their time with their attacks (long cd and only 30sec duration though) and a gap-closing ability on a somewhat short cd. And with daggers having superior burst ability, they'd usually win out in that kind of matchup.

Fighters got gap-closers in an even later update (if I recall the timeline correctly), but at the same time mages got a mana=defense ability, so unless the fighter got real lucky on his crits, the dmg could be not enough to outpace mage's dps even after the gap-closer.

Daggers also had a detargetting ability and armor augment, so any low-mid skilled mage could sometimes lose themselves and just stop attacking, which gave a ton of time for dagger to stab the mage's ass several times, which was usually enough.

Fighters were usually more on the "a ton of hp and good phys defense" side of the balance, so mage's attacks would hit them fairly hard and mage crits would go through that ton of hp quite quickly too. There was a time where a few fighter classes had uber strong ranged attacks, but I'm not completely sure if it was private server balancing or the official update's one. And that's where I hope either George or James could add their pov on this situation, cause I'm sure mine is fairly skewed from the "reality" too.

Yes ok, this matches what I found online for once, so thank you.

I'm glad you enjoyed it, but I really can't imagine feeling all that great about a game where their idea of balance is things like 'Bad news, Mages, Dagger users all have gap closers and stealth and detarget now!'

Not because of the fact that they have those things, but that it seemed (according to balance patch notes) that it was so specifically a 'fuck you' to the Mages in the matchup, and NOT 'well we believe Dagger users should have these abilities as a part of their natural state'.

This was obv long ago though, convergent evolution and all that. Here's hoping.

Depraved

Killendel wrote: »

The classes should have an identical capacity for damage and self preservation in PVP.

not at all..so every class is the same? lol

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

I'm glad you enjoyed it, but I really can't imagine feeling all that great about a game where their idea of balance is things like 'Bad news, Mages, Dagger users all have gap closers and stealth and detarget now!'

I can definitely see your point, but it was even worse for all the non-mages before that, because a few mage classes had a super OP buff cancel debuff and an even OPer Sleep ability. And w/o those gap-closers most classes didn't even have a chance at doing anything really (not always, but still).

Here's one of the biggest examples of that. Though gear OE and epic gear definitely played a huge role here too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0V-MOz9RWk

6th and 7th abilities are the Cancel and Sleep respectively. You can see the sleep effect by a twisty purple circle over target's heads.

But yeah, I do hope that Intrepid manages to create a good balance from the get-go, even if it's gonna be reaaal difficult.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I'm glad you enjoyed it, but I really can't imagine feeling all that great about a game where their idea of balance is things like 'Bad news, Mages, Dagger users all have gap closers and stealth and detarget now!'

I can definitely see your point, but it was even worse for all the non-mages before that, because a few mage classes had a super OP buff cancel debuff and an even OPer Sleep ability. And w/o those gap-closers most classes didn't even have a chance at doing anything really (not always, but still).

Here's one of the biggest examples of that. Though gear OE and epic gear definitely played a huge role here too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0V-MOz9RWk

6th and 7th abilities are the Cancel and Sleep respectively. You can see the sleep effect by a twisty purple circle over target's heads.

But yeah, I do hope that Intrepid manages to create a good balance from the get-go, even if it's gonna be reaaal difficult.

We count Dispel and Sleep as OP?

The TTK always looks pretty low, so I can see it, but is that the reason why, or is there something else specifically 'OP' about them other than 'one dispels a buff and one puts you to sleep'.

As for the other point, there's that character flaw again... Don't see how it's hard, but also come from a genre where the entire medium-to-long-term marketability of the game lives or dies by the balance, so 'getting it right' is all Fighting Game Devs think about.

And by extension, it's all I think about for games like Ashes.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

The TTK always looks pretty low, so I can see it, but is that the reason why, or is there something else specifically 'OP' about them other than 'one dispels a buff and one puts you to sleep'.

Iirc back in those days it wasn't "a buff", it was ~2/3 of your whole buff (max 24 slots). And considering that buffs in L2 were the main source of your power, cancelling that many at such a low cd and w/ 100% chance (iirc) was definitely seen as OP.

And as for Sleep, it was kinda the same thing. Low cd, fast cast, long duration. Now the easy thing was that if anyone hits you - you wake up, so in party pvp of skilled people sleep wasn't that big of an issue. But in 1v1 it pretty much meant death for most classes, cause the mage would heal up while you were asleep and then just finish you off. And iirc cancel didn't break sleep, so there was that too. It was really painful for 90% of people.

But this is exactly why the game itself was balanced around party play. When you're in a party, losing buffs on one person would only decrease your party's power by ~10%, though even that percentage would depend on who got cancelled. Sleep wasn't that big of a deal either, but a hit on your own mate is not a hit on the enemy, so in the end mages always stayed ahead, which is why they got nerfed a fair bit in later updates.

tautau

Even in L2, if you were crafty enough, you could break the mold occasionally.

I played a healer (Cardinal), good gear (but not the best) and high level (but not quite top level). There was a monthly 1v1 PVP tournament and I could kill most daggers, archers and (less often) mages. I figured out an unusual combination of skills to concentrate on which quite often worked. I think part of the secret is to not try to be like everyone else, to figure out a different way which people don't expect.

No, I am not going to explain how I did it, because I hope to duplicate it here.

Ludullu

tautau wrote: »

Even in L2, if you were crafty enough, you could break the mold occasionally.

I played a healer (Cardinal), good gear (but not the best) and high level (but not quite top level). There was a monthly 1v1 PVP tournament and I could kill most daggers, archers and (less often) mages. I figured out an unusual combination of skills to concentrate on which quite often worked. I think part of the secret is to not try to be like everyone else, to figure out a different way which people don't expect.

Which version of the game? Before healer transformations or after them? Cause that transformation definitely helped healers win more, though max clarity talismans would usually fuck that up, cause you couldn't burn out their mp and then just destroy them.

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