Greetings, glorious adventurers! If you're joining in our Alpha One spot testing, please follow the steps here to see all the latest test info on our forums and Discord!

PvP game balance

Now this particular post  is about nerfs and how a class should be  unique  and how it is affected by pvp game balance.


Now the game that am talking about is WoW  and how they became the fun police  by nerfing everything and they destroyed  the fun and lively hood of their own classes because of game balance.    

The   point I am trying to make is kind of vague so here goes.

 In testing  with  Ashes of  Creation   Rangers are OP cause of their mobility.  Having a significant advantage so I guess that needs to be addressed.  So lets say the  class gets adjusted or nerfed by making less   mobile.  

1  (point one)Well first of all there will be a Ranger that will be not having so much fun cause class is not as OP  as it used to  be plus it is a litte more difficult takes more skill to win but it was all for fairness and fun for the  other players but the Ranger well is having less fun cause class just got nerfed.....

But the Ranger  well has a slow  so  he just uses  his slow more often and still just  as OP   as he was before just little more difficult but Ashes of creation notices this and ends up nerfing the cooldown on that slow. Which leads us back to point one

But the Ranger then realizes that he can get a speed buff  from some magic item and speed buff plus nerfed slow makes him just as OP as he was before. but Ashes of Creation Realizes this and  nerfs it.  Which leads us back to point one.  

After a certain amount of times well Ashes of Creation will become the fun police through pvp game balance. This is one way to lose hundred of thousands of  subs.  (by the way WoW pvp cummunity is dying).   It does not matter if you are right for doing or not you will become the fun police.

Best thing to do is do extensive pvp testing in arenas and world  pvp. Do all the nerfing before games goes live and do  even more testing  when it comes out. try to do all  the game balance changes in one quarter.  And in after one qaurter only do much  needed nerfs.   But if you get really picky and make this ranger ability  like  that mage ability tand this self heal like that self heal and come out with never ending nerfs then you will literally destroy  your pvp player base.  

Granted there are just some things that cannot be anticipated. We all do the best we can.

So finally ranger mobility is were is  should be  Great. Right? But now as compared to other classed well there really no point in playing ranger than  lets say a mage which is in fact what you are shooting   for equality.    But this statement is no longer true  Wow  I  should play a hunter they are  really mobile.  Or wow I should play I should play  mage cause they do  more damage cause if they did more damage then Ashes of Creation would be there to nerf it. 

So basically you have to make all the melee classes the same and all the range dps classes the same if you want to attain game balance. So basically you have melee dps and range dps and those are your two classes for the entire game they just have different animations (arrow instead of a fireball in ranger vs mage.   (This is an exaggeration but holds a lot of truth). 

Point is there only so much nerfing you can do before you destroy a class and make   lets say in my example.  A Ranger would be nothing more than a mage that looks different.

Should not  each class have their own unique abilities that sets them apart from each other right? As  a dev team you should come up with creative ways to do class balance other than  just hitting it with a nerf bat.  

The reason I  mentioned this is because  as the term goes Ashes of Creation has a lot of  player agent and  as far as i know every piece of gear will be allowed in rated pvp   plus  8 class that can be augmented in   8 ways.   PvP game balance  will be a nightmare the more choices palyers have the tougher it will be  to balance.  So you will have classes that will be  more suited for pvp. They will be the ones  that win more real wasy to figure out. 

One option to solve this problem is have it  fairly  easy to have a pvp toon just for pvp like an alt. Multi-classing  is lots of fun anyways.    I think it would be great if people  could play  3 or 4 different classes which is totally possible  in Ashes of Creation  cause number of abilities not  to high.  Plus it is fun to   play different roles  like   mage/tank/bard. So the game should be alt freindly.  But if it is to grindy to have let say just 2 classes well......player is basically stuck with first class.

Another option is to  make pvp rewards per class (8) not subclasses   Already mentioned in another post. 

I guess in testing Ranger mobility is OP.  Well mobility is OP in most PVP games and as far as dps goes well ranged class have  the upper hand also true in most PvP  games.  It  is plain game mechanics.   If  I play a warrior and spend half my time  chasing a target   then dps   is minus 50 percent there is really no solution for that. At high rating pro level melee not to   so good. And if there is a tank that is kind of not to mobile guess not to good for pvp either.  Nothing to  do with dps or  this  ability is like that ability.  They will just get kited.  Some classes are just more suited for pvp   than others better just to make it alt freindly  so people can play one of classes. 



I played WoW  3  classes hunter mage pally and had a warrior but not to serious,  they went down that dark road of making all the classes  the same until  they literally gutted and destroyed some of those classes.  I mean  I had a mage which was suited for pvp which  i really liked  and after all the  nerfs it  was still suited for pvp  but was so boring compared to what it  used to be I stopped playing it. 














      

Comments

  • How in the unholy name of matt ward can you complain about balance when the game is not even out yet? seems a bit cart before the horse to me.
  • im hoping the beta testers will help the devs get balance right.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited July 2018
    Consultant said:
    Now the game that am talking about is WoW
          
    Blizzard don't know how to produce an MMO.

    That is why this game has developers from a lot of western MMO's, but none from WoW (or none that are publicly admitting as much).


  • Or instead of nerfing the strongest class they can buff the weakest :p
    btw. I like countering system like: tank counter mage, mage counter ranger, bla bla bla someone counter tank ect. 

  • I think everyone should understand that obtaining a perfect balance amongst the classes is boring and dilutes the point of having so far 64 different class combinations in the game. That's right. 64! What everyone should also understand that with all those choices not one specific build should conquer them all (hopefully). There is bound to be a lot of rock/paper/scissors situations going around outside other factors like player skill, ping, and gear. Cookie cutter builds are more than likely to happen. FoTM is bound to occur and buffs and nerfs are bound to happen. My only hope that when it comes time to nerf this and buff that, that the devs team will hear the community and test thoroughly before applying anything. The last thing the game and players need is a bunch of inexperienced players crying on the forums that x class is stronger than y class because they couldn't win and demand nerfs.
  • @Consultant - Steven has mentioned a couple times that players who really study their combat skills and know how to best use them against the different classes will succeed at PVP compared to players who just want to spam their 1-4 keys.  Steven has said he wants this game to have meaningful combat. I have compete faith that he will not let any class combination be OP, yet he will not nerf all the classes either.  We will have lots of opportunity to test this beginning in Alpha 1.  Are you in?  If not, get in and help shape the game! 
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited July 2018
    @Consultant
    I know how you feel and know what you're talking about because I have seen similar things like this happen before - and I'm sure others have too

    "... ranger mobility is were is  should be ... "
    spot-on.

    1)  My first approach of conveying the idea of Ranger being more mobile is extending this ability shown in PAX West
    Now imagine if the Ranger's ability was extended to something like " ricocheting " off an object? ( as displayed in the link below ) . But the direction of the Ricochet could be up to the Player ( via a slight-left ricochet OR a slight-right ricochet OR straight ) ... or decided on an in-game-physics
    • similar to this https://youtu.be/k70IWHiXl18?t=1m57s ( stop at 2:14 ) ... only ... not thrown back
    • but rather  an extension of the ability if there's contact on another object ( via  a tree-bark, Boulder, Castle Wall, Building, etcc ... ) In short, it'll the make the environment something to consider when in combat (and not being spammable)
    • I've thought about showing a " naruto-anime clip " ... but i can't seem to remember any noteworthy clips that'll represent the idea any better tbh 
    ( i don't want Ashes of Creation to be inspired off of Anime but, i can't deny that there are some neat/ decent ideas from some of them in regards to action-combat )

    2) Soo ...Intrepid does plan on the Ranger having some sort of Close-Combat-Prowess. So my guess is that all Close-range Combat *for the Ranger* abilities will be brief - i'd imagine like a 2-hit or 3-hit close-range-combo and the only 2 videos i can think of for a decent representation of this are
    The importance of the Old SevenSwords MMO is that ... Its (apparently) kinda relevant to to what Ashes of Creation is ... 
    What Steven said about the ... " Rock, Paper Scissors Column-Style " Combat ... i immediately think of this image
    •    
    And this image was the Basic-Combat-Style for SevenSwords

    As evident of this Loading Screen image (below) for SevenSwords 


    Now ... I know that the biggest difference is that an MMORPG for PC will naturally have more Resources & Options for Balancing Combat - so i'm confident that combat will not imitate a Mobile MMORPG ... especially with the Large MMO-Experience that Intrepid Devs is boasting about. Its already hinted that the " Rock. Paper, Scissors Style " Combat will be expanded upon .. when Steven mentions the word " Columns " in the above video-link 
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited July 2018
    I changed the Timestamp in the link where Steven is talking - its supposed to be 40:14 ... not 40:41  :s  

    Its really important that its re-watched at 40:14 and NOT 40:41 - big difference
  • How many hours have you played ranger already?
  • Well it is not a complaint more like some insight on game balance  so they do not do never ending nerfs that do not work for example.


    Lets take the ranger again well if you take the same ranger and put him in an arena which could be a small area not like a battleground per say then his mobility will be hampered or nerfed cause he will run into a wall real quick while kiting.  But in a Battle grounds mobility is a huge advantage. So melee dps unless on defense are also at a huge disadvantage.   

    But lets stick to the ranger so you put a ranger in an arena (3v3) yes he is more mobile but no where to run depending on how big or small the arena is (so map balance is also an issue small maps favor melee dps huge maps range dps)  but rangers dps got nerfed a little bit (from what I hear)  So now we have a ranged dps with nerfed dps because of high mobility being op but in arenas mobility is not so OP so there is no reason to play ranger in arenas from a multiclasseer point of view.  might as well just play some other range dps in arenas that does more damage and win more. So you have to ceate a reason for a ranger to be picked maybe bring some buff to the table just as an example.

    Now there is no avoiding this when the games come out there will be three classes that will rise to the top as the preferered pvp classes.  Heals are pretty important so most like by cleric x x and more likely than not the other two classes will be different and not say cleric mage mage but could be.

    Now to the pvp community it will be no secret and to the non pvp community it will also be no secret they will notice that the teams with cleric x x just win more and that poeple are always looking to play cleric  x x.  All you have to do is monitor which comps win the most.

    Since it was said that it would be fairly easy to change subclass then only eight classes should be balanced if you go for all 64 you as a dev might be overwhelmed.

    so you have 8 classes three of them are the best suited for pvp shich leaves five.

    The best thing to do is buff the bottom two classes to be more effective in pvp.  And then figure out how much better are the top three class for 3v3 (Steve said game was going to be balanced for 3v3). Are the number 4 and the number 5 and the number 6 classes that far behind that they actuallly need a buff or revamp. 


    But well the balance for 3v3 may not be suited for battlegrounds.

    Here are some options

    Have Templates for 3v3 2v2 and 1v1 and batltegrounds. for example it might be that some abilities or items might be to powerful for 1v1 so a certain class will alway win.

    As far as arenas and some of the battlegrounds you could look at them as a MOBA so that part of the game would have different rules than lets say a raid.

    The maps should take in consideration game balance.  If you are just going to make a box and put four pillars in it and in another one  three pillars those types of mabes have a tendacy to favor ranged dps.   

    But if you get creative and make good maps that take in consideration melee dps vs ranged dps then the game will be more balanced. No reason to pick melee dps if all the arenas maps are huge with four pillars in it. 

    There is a huge pvp community people that mainly play human vs human games that know most of the in and outs of pvp.  And if the game is not balanced correctly or if you go down that road of make your spread sheets look really good (players have spread sheets  too you know) they will just go play aonther game.


    The only reason I am posting is because I know for a fact that the WoW  devs could build a space ship to get us to planet Mars and back in less than a month but could not balance pvp even if their lives depended on it. Those guys could actually have the classes somewhat close to balance and all the sudden bunch of changes come out because well this ability is five percent better than a similar ability that a mage has not taking in consideration that the class  being nerfed is not per say the best pvp class.











  • This should illustrate what IS should aim for - Not perfect balance but perfect imbalance;



  • The only reason I am posting is because I know for a fact that the WoW  devs could build a space ship to get us to planet Mars and back in less than a month but could not balance pvp even if their lives depended on it. 
    Blizzard do not know how to develop an MMORPG.

    If you look at literally any one aspect of WoW with a critical eye, it fails. The game has done nothing right at all, yet has a multitude of mindless lemmings playing it thinking it is good.

    You may notice that the developers at Intrepid proudly state their work experience on the website. I challenge you to find a single developer that states they worked on WoW.

    You won't find one...

    This studio hires people with worthwhile experience.
  • @Consultant
    Rather than, " Buffing/ Nerfing " Archetypes, why not make New Abilities that could substitute for the lack-of-{insert here} ? And i don't think 3 Archetypes Combination will be the Best 
    • ( you referring to Top DPS, Top Heals and Top Tank right ? )
    I think that a few Archetype-Blends will be considered an " anti " against other (few) Archetype-Blends - but not to the point to where its unfair, but noticeable-enough to where it could be in the other's favor
    • ( i.e. 55% vs 45% | 60% vs 40% | 65%vs 35% ... somewhere in between these gauges )
    • Even so ... to generalize the " spectrum " (as mentioned in above bulletin) could be " too primitive " ;  It could be more " 3D " as opposed to a 2D Line/ 2D Spectrum
    • Regardless, its just to serve as a " Speculated-Outline " and not to b taken seriously at all though ( i think @Morashtak image feels about right )
  • Eragale said:
    @Consultant
    Rather than, " Buffing/ Nerfing " Archetypes, why not make New Abilities that could substitute for the lack-of-{insert here} ? And i don't think 3 Archetypes Combination will be the Best 
    But more often than not, the lack-of-{insert here} is what sets a class up in regards to it's position in the rock/paper/scissors scheme.

    If every class is given the things that it is lacking, all classes will be the same.

    The only metric to determine if a given class is balanced in small scale PvP combat is if the number of classes that regularly beat the class in question is roughly the same as the number of classes the class in question regularly beats.

    If this holds true, the class is balanced well enough.
  • I just hope they balance each class based what they think it should excel in.  As remarked before, a ranger in close quarters might be hard pressed in a close quarter situation where as it will dominate the open field.  I think this is where the secondary class comes into play giving the player some more utility or ways to help not be so vulnerable in close quarters or to bring more strength to the open field.  I think in the end it will be the player's decision that will decide the strengths and weaknesses they will experience in all faucets that they participate in.  If a ranger joins an arena in say a 3v3 and there are plenty of structures or obstacles to hide behind this obviously will make it more difficult for the ranger to perform in vs say a fighter or rogue class but at the same time maybe not if they choose their position correctly or understand the limitations of their builds and picked a decent secondary class to rely on when the situation calls.  Flexible players with flexible classes will surely fair better than players that think just because they primarily use a bow they aren't going to do good in tight engagements.  Besides, a 3v3 relies on teamwork so maybe the right combination of classes will prove beneficial to the team's coordinated strikes.

    tldr - It's up to the player and his extensive knowledge of the class to decide how to counter x situations based on the class's strengths and weaknesses; not the dev.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited July 2018
    Found a LiveStream from Last year - i think it would shed some light on this topic 
    • https://youtu.be/gcbYJllGfnQ?t=19m28s
    • you could end at 23:33 ... or stop at 27:09 ... its very lengthily but probably worth listening for this Thread Discussion - an Earlier Insight from the Devs
  • Hopefully they will maintain their stance on it being more group dynamic than 1 vs 1 mechanic and they won't fall into the trap of trying to ever balance on a 1 vs 1 scenario.

    As long as they keep the rock-paper-scissors and group vision it should be fine.   Its when games start catering to the players that complain the x class isn't good against y class and they continue to nerf/buff classes constantly as the 1 vs 1 meta keeps shifting due to the balances they keep doing that we get the rotating mess of PvP that the mentality often perpetuates.

    Now balancing should come in when their "rock" classes aren't actually beating their "scissor" classes or one class is becoming good vs every class things need to become looked at.

    Or if one class through testing or tweaking has nothing to offer a group engagement and is never being taken by groups because their kit is too underwhelming.  Or the opposite one class is given priority over any other class because its kit is too good that it is seen as "necessary" in every engagement.

    But any buff or nerf needs to be carefully looked at and reasons should be to open the game for more viable options, not due to 1 vs 1 scenarios.
  • I have extremely high hopes for PvP balance. The team is full of people from EQ, EQ 2, vanguard, games in which I thought were extremely balanced in PvP (to an extent of course). I will give AoC the benefit of the doubt, and by the time we blow through all the alphas and betas, we will have a great solid foundation for most classes from feedback. 
  • | am talking about the question     Is your class viable for pvp in the different brackets. AS a  team captain or battleground leader is there a reason for them to pick your class over another one.   

    I mean no matter what they do they will always be the best one or best comp. But  can you say that your class is viable or have a valid reason to play your class.

    I played hunter and mage in wow and  there is no reason to play hunter when I could just play mage on a competitive level.  It just cause of game mechanics.    Unless you are a rogue in wow no point in playing melee.  





  • I played hunter and mage in wow and  there is no reason to play hunter when I could just play mage on a competitive level.  It just cause of game mechanics.    Unless you are a rogue in wow no point in playing melee.  

    Ashes is not WoW.

    Ashes doesn't even have developers that worked on WoW.

    WoW was designed by amateur developers.

    Ashes has a team of professionals.

    I'm sure you've seen the difference between what a professional can do vs what an amateur can do in various situations in your life - designing and developing a game is no different.
  • In testing  with  Ashes of  Creation   Rangers are OP cause of their mobility.  Having a significant advantage so I guess that needs to be addressed.  So lets say the  class gets adjusted or nerfed by making less   mobile.  
          
    Why would IS balance the Ranger by taking away from what makes the Ranger unique? This would be an example of IS balancing classes the wrong way, and homogenizing the classes.

    I'm a strong believer in balance, and that skill should determine the outcome of a battle rather than class. I'm also a big fan of classes having unique play styles. I'm sure that IS is competent enough to balance classes while maintaining different play styles.

    In the case of an OP Ranger several options for balance corrections are available without touching mobility or range: reduce damage of skills performed while mobile, while leaving the damage of skills performed while standing still; reduce effectiveness against heavily armoured (i.e. melee) targets; increase vulnerability to 'root'.

    I'd have to actually play the game and the various classes to see how these 'nerds' would play out, but it seems obvious to me that there are multiple ways to correct imbalances without homogenizing the game.
  • Balance is overrated.
  • Nefalia that is one of my points devs sometimes will take away the feel and roleplaying value of a class for example rangers mobility for game balance. Like for mages it would be the clever and very useful array of spells take that away and well it is not really a mage.  


    Actually what happened to WoW is this.....They tried to make all the abilities of all the classes similar. So they had there spread sheets and started leveling out classes  numerically and number of abilities not taking into account things like  actually class performance.  I would do arenas pretty much know whcih healers were the toughest to kill and which one the easies.  Really a no brainer cause when that particular class lets just say resto druid is on the opposing team it just a lot more difficult to kill than lets say a monk real obvious to any one that does arenas all the time.  No intelligence involved. 

    But the PvP department made changes based on spreadsheats so next thing I know best class gets buffed and worst class or second to worst class gets nerfed.  I did not even play healers but really easy to know which ones were the toughest and wich ones were just ok and not so good.

    So as far as PvP goes that game is terrible but just to be fair In other areas they get A pluses so they are not amateurs.  WoW is a great game,  It did not get old there is no game out there that beats WoW.  WoW literally killed itelf by catering to casuals or chasing subsriptions.

    Here are three examples of huge blunders.

    Instant que     This made so you really did have to know any one to play the pve side of the game.  So no reason to be polite so people will play with you agains so a lot of servers went toxic.

    In order to appeal ot people that are not used to having so many abilities which was needed for some classes they did something called the prune but they over did by alot they over simplified classes and classes became boring.  Plus the skill cap was very low for some classes. 

    They insisted on putting he proverbial carrot in front of the players to make people stay online more. Thinking they were really good at it but players caught on that there are to many hooks in the game and drove them away.  So they put the proverbial carrot in front of the player instead of making it fun because they are chasing their own carrot which is subsriptions and lost tons of players in the process kind of ironic actually.

    plus many more. 

  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited November 2018
    I've played a few MMOs where the Ranger was overpowered at game launch. It is the nature of the beast. They usually end up being nerfed and then no one plays them any more. Seen this cycle too many times. The bigger issue around Rangers is when they are also given Stealth. This combination makes them almost unbeatable but in larger scale PvP Rangers often fight Rangers and skirmishes around the flanks and rear occur. It is difficult to find balance in all occasions and the battle royale is not a place where balance can be created as there are no classes in the battle royale only weapons.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited November 2018
    Noaani said:
    Blizzard don't know how to produce an MMO.
    >> Has more players than ALL other mmo combined

    LMAO

    Although it is true, that blizzard know from one thing... from the fact that they can't balance. There was never not even a single time, in any of their game, where it was balanced.

    Actually I doubt that this game will be balanced. Nowdays companies trend to put incompetent people into designer positions, who then egoistically attempt to tell what the players should like. To players, who have more playtime, than the whole developer staff combined...

    Well I can give one advice: play... play with the competitor games, look for what is good and keep it. Only change things that are bad. Don't try to reinvent the genre...
    It's still hard to balance the classes properly though. Probably the wisest thing would be asking a few hardcore gamers to help, as it's not a knowledge that is teached in school. You can only do it after having loots experience, which is pretty much spending most of your life playing games, and I ain't mean playing few hours a day, but playing 8+ hour every day...
    Theoretically it is also possible to balance based on mathematical simulations, since everything you can do in a game can be expressed by math formulas. Though people aren't perfect, and the fun factor can't be measured, the result may not be fun this way.
  • Steven has said all PvX damage will revolve around smaller numbers and not larger numbers so in theory there will be no overpowered classes just more adapted classes.
Sign In or Register to comment.