Ranged vs Melee Balance

from an experienced MMO player and basing this game being similar to lineage 2 what ideas have people got to balance Range with Melee as Ranged chars always seem to have an advantage in almost every situation.

I remember the mage and archers in lineage 2 destroying in the sieges as melee just had to take damage whilst knocking down the front door.

As i agree ranged should have a slight advantage i do hope its not to noticeable that puts players off playing melee classes.

Ideas for balancing which may have been mentioned somewhere all ready but i haven't read everything.

Resistances for magic and ranged damage is the obvious solution but the advantage is they need the gear to make things fair. They should do the same for ranged maybe they miss shots/spells more often depending on distance of the player? Their gear could have increased hit/anti resistance so they can counter a geared melee with high resistances but will end up being at an advantage again. So hard to balance these.

What is the current situation or is this something AoC developers want to tackle later and more focused on design right now,.

thanks for reading, i cannot wait for this game.

Samsaint

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Jexz

We wont know till we start seeing and giving feed back on skills.
This is defiantly one of my big concerns. I'm expecting ranged to dominate as it is so much easier to focus fire targets down than melee. Also only 2/5 DPS is melee so there will probably be more ranged damage floating around.
So far all we know is fighter will have a gap closer that will CC.
Rogues stealth will not be good enough to sneak into the back lines.
I also want to melee and figure tank should be able to handle focus fire the best out of all the melee classes. So far Ii'm pleased with the utility it might offer. A shield wall has been teased that will be very useful to counter ranged attacks and an ability that pulls targets towards the tank. At that point a fighter and rogue should be safe to unload. Weather or not I can get close enough to pull before I get focus fired down. Wont know till testing. Also wont know what end game is like will defenses scale = with offences? usually in MMO's offence scales way better than defense. They have stated a 30-60 second TTK i'm guessing that is 1v1 maybe 60 seconds late game and 30 seconds end game?

samsaint

There is a fair few MMO's which had abilities which rooted/slowed or even pulled a player towards you to try balance the range vs melee.

Castles were most apparent with spell casters and archers sitting on the tower hammering the melee at the door and they dropped like flys so some sort of shield wall or even a Tank skill where they can bubble preventing damage coming into the area for so long etc. Although this could make things silly and give defenders no chance of winning.

Attackers should always have a slight advantage though as you want the castles to be able to change hands.

Interesting end game will be very different in this game as the leveling is going to take so long it will take months for everyone to hit max. From my experience in Lineage 2 where the leveling was similar you had famous names you would see that were no lifers with 10 to 15 additional levels ahead of most the server which would be one shotting players making it impossible to beat but i like that mechanic it should be like that if its somewhat balanced 4 or 5 people should be able to kill 1 guy who's 10 levels ahead not like some MMO's where they cant even do damage because of the way the stats work out.

Yuyukoyay

There's more to it as well. It's why melee characters are usually needlessly over tanky in games sometimes. Which makes them op when their mobility is too good or when their damage is too high. Some don't take into account the advantage you get from range due to no travel distance to do damage.

There is a lot of things they need to take into account that so many games completely ignore.

torpdeo

Maybe we could have some sort of ammo system for ranged classes? Like you could have buffed arrows for an archer, and once you run out your dps would drop. Would add a need for crafters and supplies for sieges/raids.

Damokles

It seems like most classes get some kind of gapcloser, so i am not overly concerned tbh.
Things like this should depend on the players skill, but Steven also already said that certain classes WILL counter others in a rock-paper-scissors kind of way.

How I would see it:
Tank>Rogue (too high physical resistances)
Rogue> Mage (bursts down too fast)
Mage>Cleric (Out damages healing)
Cleric>Ranger (Outheals damage)
Ranger>Fighter (Kites fighter if done right)
Fighter>Summoner (Cuts down summons)
Summoner>Bard (Overwhelms Bard)
Bard>Tank (Debuffs would soften up tank enough I think)

Yuyukoyay

There probably will be one, but that won't be enough on it's own. The damage itself needs to be reasonable too. The problems start when the extreme classes get too good at things with no drawbacks generally.

ZiZi-Jaz-Mina

ok, archers in L2 had an advantage but a dagger could almost always either close the gap or get away from the archer. one skill: Ultimate Evasion. That skill was an Archer's (really all physical damage classes lol) worst nightmare. Human daggers (forget their name in L2) also had a run speed one that allowed them to literally get away from the fight and not get caught. killing human daggers was very annoying unless they were cornered.

Songcaller

Damokles wrote: »

How I would see it:
Tank>Rogue (too high physical resistances)
Rogue> Mage (bursts down too fast)
Mage>Cleric (Out damages healing)
Cleric>Ranger (Outheals damage)
Ranger>Fighter (Kites fighter if done right)
Fighter>Summoner (Cuts down summons)
Summoner>Bard (Overwhelms Bard)
Bard>Tank (Debuffs would soften up tank enough I think)

I believe we have 4 Armour Types, thus, 2 Classes will each use one type of Armour.

Just on this speculation alone I would say this:

Tank and Fighter Hard Counters Bard and Cleric.
Bard and Cleric Hard Counters Ranger and Rogue.
Ranger and Rogue Hard Counters Summoner and Mage.
Mage and Summoner Hard Counters Tank and Fighter.

Yuyukoyay

I'm pretty sure each class will get a choice of multiple types if not all of the choices.

Songcaller

I hope so, Yuyu. I am hoping we get 4 choices on the passives like the active skills when we choose our secondary class. That means we could choose our armour passives.

Edit: Except we can't change our Primary Archetypes and the Primary Archetypes dictate the Armour Passive. So Risk/Reward would make sense in terms of Armour selection.

NelsonRebel

I have the opposite problem in ESO

In pvp melee stamina players have an overwhelming advantage in CC mechanics and damage and in sets. With ranged being almost negligible due to how easy it is to gap close and how often fights have to take place in melee range regardless of your spec. Then almost all the magic classes arent even ranged but melee based but because they use magic, they are not given the same capablities and damage as melee stamina players.

Ultimately the balance should be done given to what degree range is actually range and how easy melee gap closing is, and take into consideration what sort of CC mechanics will be in place. As well as the difference (if any) are in place that segregate magic and stamina in Ashes

We won't really know until more of the game is released and we are able to give direct feedback on abilities and stuff. But I'm pretty sure Steven has already blatantly said not to expect balancing to be around 1v1 but around group battles.

This does worry me to some degree because while I do enjoy large scale battles, there are plenty of times when I (and many other players) like to test ourselves against one another. After all sometimes the best fighting method in a conflict can be determined how well you eliminate priority targets. I do not like the thought of being heavily outclassed by another player simply because their class is far more powerful, or at least I hope Stevens team has at least considered this and wont make the differences so jaring that only one or two classes will be viable for settling 1v1 disputes.

Yuyukoyay

What he means is don't expect small scale to be balanced cuz it probably won't be.

TheLegend27

Neurath wrote: »

Damokles wrote: »

How I would see it:
Tank>Rogue (too high physical resistances)
Rogue> Mage (bursts down too fast)
Mage>Cleric (Out damages healing)
Cleric>Ranger (Outheals damage)
Ranger>Fighter (Kites fighter if done right)
Fighter>Summoner (Cuts down summons)
Summoner>Bard (Overwhelms Bard)
Bard>Tank (Debuffs would soften up tank enough I think)

I believe we have 4 Armour Types, thus, 2 Classes will each use one type of Armour.

Just on this speculation alone I would say this:

Tank and Fighter Hard Counters Bard and Cleric.
Bard and Cleric Hard Counters Ranger and Rogue.
Ranger and Rogue Hard Counters Summoner and Mage.
Mage and Summoner Hard Counters Tank and Fighter.

Let's remember these are archetypes, not classes. And also classes/archetypes are not gear locked. So, I'm guessing a Spellshield (Tank X Mage) could benefit wearing Medium or even Light gear over Heavy. I think the original quote by @Damokles was more accurate to the "Rock, Paper, Scissors" analogy.

Yuyukoyay

I've just accepted people are probably not going to use the term class correctly. It's what every other game calls it though. It can easily be determined by what is said.

NelsonRebel

Thats one thing that may help AOC be less biased towards melee/range, or magic/stamina.

Having an archtype with sub archtype that changes the way skills work may help mitigate some of the concerns I have.

Jexz

I think an issue that coincides with this is Zergs. Ranged and melee is not hard to balance 1v1 but in a zerg ranged is supreme. Due to focus fire. It is much easier to co-ordinate a ranged attack over a melee rush. I think this is why I like that summon shield ability so much. It is an anti zerg utility ability. I think the devs will put a lot of thought into good utility skills like that to help combat that specific problem. Skills that break up packs of people. Skills that creat decoys , missdirection or confusion.
Looking forward to what they have in store for us.

Caeryl

Potentially they could have any debuffs refresh the strongest rather than stack on player characters. It’s typically stacking damage that makes melee play unbearable into ranged.

There’s already plans for diminishing returns on CC so hopefully melee can’t be kited easily forever, and if tanks have effective back line protection capabilities then there should be options for melee dps to get in close with relatively good defense.

BaSkA_9x2

Balancing combat is extremely difficult, so it will take a lot of time and many iterations.

My biggest concern, however, is not regarding ranged being stronger than melee and vice-versa, instead I worry if the developers' main focus is balancing group PvP, forgetting about individual class vs class balancing.

I believe that focusing on balancing class vs class combinations often means the overall combat will also be balanced. Since AoC will use the trinity concept, although there are 64 classes, I believe that focusing on the 8 main archetypes' (Mage, Summoner, Cleric, Bard, Fighter, Tank, Ranger and Rogue) balance would be a lot of work, but it would not go to waste. I don't understand yet how damage, damage mitigation, stats, armor, etc will work, but let's try to assume the following:

There's physical and magical damage;
There's armor that focus on mitigating physical damage (heavy, plate), magical damage (light, robes) and a armor that does a bit of both (medium, leather);
Although it's very important, I won't consider important aspects such as mobility, CCs, healing capabilities to make things simpler to understand, as I have no idea which skills each class will have.

Mages, Clerics and Bards deal only magical damage. Fighters, Tanks, Ranger and Rogues deal only physical damage. That can obviously change when you choose your secondary class, but we're focusing on the 8 main archetypes. The balance that makes the most sense to me is:

Mages, Clerics and Bards usually do well against Fighter and Tanks;
Fighter and Tanks usually do well against Rangers and Rogues;
Rangers and Rogues usually do well against Mages, Clerics and Bards;
Summoner is a strong class, but it also must be very difficult to play with: they are able beat anyone if they're skilled enough, but they will pay the highest price when making mistakes.

Like Steven answered recently, (player) skill should play a role in 1v1 combat, but at the same time your class, armor and weapon of choice must impact your performance against other players. If I face someone who's the quintessential counter of my class, I must fight flawlessly to win. I believe that these concepts can be the foundation to group PvP, then you'll "only" need to balance specific things such as class mobility, CC capability, healing prowess, etc.

Yuyukoyay

I'd worry less about range kiting them forever and more about them ccing range forever.

NelsonRebel

CC'ing is a massive problem in ESO.

Mainly because they tied the entire CC break to only stamina resources as well as with block, roll dodge and break free. This obviously creates a problem because while its true magic uses a different resource for damage and healing, it created a massive neccessity for magic players to heavily invest in a resource not tied to its damage and healing source, or heavily into tankiness since if it runs out of stamina you die. While stamina doesnt need magic and heavily has investments into stamina return and cheap costs. Basically any cc and magic players quickly get eliminated by higher damage stamina across the board.

This is what I'm afraid AoC will do in regards to stamina/magic players. And it is the largest reason of imbalance, as the classes aren't too extreme in differences. Its the magic/stamina side of them thats hugely imbalanced along with "proc" sets.

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