Class Design Philosophy - Difficult vs Easy classes

Hello!

I've been thinking about the design philosophy on classes, and how they are balanced (or like in the case of WoW not balanced) according to their difficulty. Some developers balance all classes so they fit as perfectly as they can in their internal performance metrics. This type of balance disregards any and all differences between classes (difficulty, class kit, usefulness etc) often this is found in WoW where the easiest classes are also usually extremely strong.

I was wondering if anyone ever talked about the approach IS is considering when balancing classes. There will obviously be easy and difficult to play classes (such as a simple example being a class that requires a lot of CD and micro-management and a class that doesn't require either of those).

Is the philosophy of balance going to revolve around:

- Harder to play class = more rewarding gameplay (better tank, better DPS, better healer)
- Easier to play class = less rewarding gameplay (worse tank, worse DPS, worse healer)

Or will it be a different type of ideology that will attempt to balance the classes to be as close as possible to each other, or something else entirely?

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Caww

they want a trinity so they only have 3 slots to balance, in a sense

Adelissa

We don't know how classes will perform individually, but we've been informed it's going to be a rock-paper-scissors dynamic. One class will surely beat the other. The way balance is going to function within ashes of creation is through group play. You can see more information on their balance philosophy here: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Game_balance

ChaosFactor

Also a quick reminder: Ashes is intended to assist in issues in balance through complexity. What that implies is that the game is going to end up being so complex that there are very few avenues to discover what the "Best" classes are. That and of course there being no DPS meter in the game. The idea is to put so many layers of conflict when identifying "The Best Class" that when someone claims as much, they're likely incorrect. Also as mentioned above by Adelissa, with a rock, paper, scissor component to PvP, similar to classic WoW, it would be hard to say that there's a "Best" class for PvP when hopefully that claim will be entirely ambiguous.

Thanks for your time!

Rym

ChaosFactor wrote: »

Also a quick reminder: Ashes is intended to assist in issues in balance through complexity. What that implies is that the game is going to end up being so complex that there are very few avenues to discover what the "Best" classes are. That and of course there being no DPS meter in the game. The idea is to put so many layers of conflict when identifying "The Best Class" that when someone claims as much, they're likely incorrect. Also as mentioned above by Adelissa, with a rock, paper, scissor component to PvP, similar to classic WoW, it would be hard to say that there's a "Best" class for PvP when hopefully that claim will be entirely ambiguous.

Thanks for your time!

AH yeah good point with the no DPS meter part, I totally forgot about that when making the topic!

Jamation

I'm sorry to say no matter how they try to balance the game, as soon as I login, the scales are going to tip in my favor with my sheer amazing talent.

-flex flex-

Chonkers1

Challenges can be intrinsically rewarding; therefore, a challenge can be left as its own reward.

Risky playstyles could be tuned to be slightly more powerful due to lower consistency, in theory.

Veeshan

For DPS roles

more skill shot kits = more dmg/impact (like CC)
Less skill shot kits = less dmg but more reliable dmg

For tank/healing roles
more reactive/timing/skillshot skills = more impact for example a skill that makes you immune for 1 second (compared to 25% dmg reduction for 3 seconds)
Less reactive ability = more reliable but not as impactful

tbh all hard CC abilities and super hard hitting ones should require a skil shot or considerable wind up time to get going

Azherae

I can say that even after many years of 'suffering' due to it, I don't want them to make complex classes more powerful in general than simpler classes.

I have a tendency to play those 'complicated, different but nearly perfect answers for everything' characters and classes in games. And it's a really binary dumb feeling to be 'super weak for 3 weeks while you grind up the execution skill to do the 50 different things you have to do perfectly', and then 'hit your stride and become basically invincible until the nerfs'.

And then they nerf stuff because enough people have finished their month-long training montage. But if they didn't, it would still suck for everyone else.

So I'd ask Intrepid to make complex classes really 'helpful' instead of really 'powerful'. Most MMOs already do this, but sometimes a 'complex so it's powerful' slips through. I also like when 'being with the complex class offers more complexity and actual power for the simpler ones' (but only if SOMEONE has to actually do the complexity part).

tl;dr 'can control more different things, but probably for shorter amounts of time'. The time is in some way the limit that prevents them from being OP overall.

Kilion

A bunch of things have already been brought up by the good folks above, but I think there are a few more points worth mentioning.

1) How to even measure the "best" class - If we go by damage output the whole discussion grinds towards the braindead petty competition that ultimately resulted in me (and people like me) leaving WoW. DPS alone disregards healing, proper enemy control/damage mitigation (tanking) and all other sorts of utility all of which are the foundation for a DD to live long enough to even to damage.

2) How to categorize difficulty - As far as I am aware each class offers up to 35-40 skills of which roughly half will fit into the hot bar. Additionally it might be the case that there is no way to go 100% skill shot or tab target. (source: "It may not be possible to be able to fully spec into just action or tab targeted skills. There might be a 75% cap on choosing skills from any one type.[22]") So it comes down to deciding what skills you take into your hot bar rather than what class you choose. Additionally I think I remember Steven explaining that action skills tend to have a stronger effect but due to their action target nature hold the risk to not hit. Basically making a maximum of action skills the potentially "strongest" build.

Dygz

No need to try to make any of the classes more difficult.
If you want more DPS, you can add damage Augments from Social Orgs, Religions and Racial progression to your Active Skills.

Solvryn

Long as my class has the instagib feature for every person that I don’t like, looks at me funny, or way to loud - we are good.

Hopefully the animation is an exploding skull or something.

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