Do not exaggerate rotation abilities

Eventually a meta will form and most classes will have a basic rotation. In some games, this rotation can be a bit too much. What I mean by too much is that there are too many abilities in this rotation which can make it bothersome.

I have nothing against unique abilities, but too many generic abilities that you need to use constantly is bothersom and can be a problem. For example, if one class has 2-3 rotation abilities, and one has 9, it will be very hard to balance this. The former willl be regarded as a braindead class, while the later will be regarded as a class that requires 2x effort for same results.

Take afflicion warlocks from world of warcraft as an example. This is all the abilities they constantly need to do and reapply:

Haunt: deals damage over time (18 sec)
Unstable affliction: deals damage over time (21 sec)
Agony: Deals damage over time (18 sec)
Corruption: Deals damage over time (14 sec)
Siphon life: deals damage over time (15 sec)
Phantom singularity: Deals damage over time (14,9 sec)
Soul rot: Deals damage over time (8 sec)
Seed of corrutpiton: AOE ability
Curse of XXX: Makes the enemy weaker in some way (30 sec)
Malefic rapture: deals damage

Now lets take a look at another class, the deathknight:
Remorseless winter every 20 sec (aoe)
Frost strike: Deals damage
Obilirate: Deals damage
Howling blast: procs randomly, deals damage

Since both of these classes need to be balanced to do rougly the same amount of damage/utility during a raid its a nightmare to balance.

The affliciton warlock, who also needs to cast his abilities, will need to perform 3-4 times better to stand a chance at permoning as the dk. This also creates some problems. Following that warlock rotation, while still following the boss tactics, or Pvping, is very hard to do correctly. This will create a situation for you developers where you will run into a trap.

Based on the "difficulty" at playing the hard rotation class, many normal players will underperform, and many easy rotation classes will overperform.

What will you devs do then? Well, you will buff the warlock until the avarage player performs as the other classes, and nerf the dk until it performs as the other classes.

This will make good players who can abuse the hard rotation kit dominate high end pvp and pve. While making the deathknight completly useless in high end gameplay.

What should you do then?
You should make each class rotation vary in difficulty, but do not make them too hard to manage, or too easy to manage. Try to make each rotation interesting and deep in its own way. Offer ways to make your rotation easier/harder, but dont overdue it. Player feedback is key here.

There should be the option to use a high skillcap build or lower skillcap build, these need to perform differently so they reward the player that dedicates himself to the higher skillcap build. But it must not be exaggerated.

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Comments

Sathrago

Good god. The affliction warlock rotation is so garbage and soul-wrenching that its complaining made it here.

I completely agree, Intrepid needs to be wary of mistaking difficulty and complexity for fulfilling gameplay. I should not require an addon to keep track of and micro manage all my debuffs so that I can deal more damage.

Not to mention, half the time you are basically doing 4x the work and only keeping up with other damage dealers, not surpassing them.

The goal should be to fulfill the fantasy of the archetype while keeping it from being mediocre (or overpowered) compared to other archetypes that share similar roles.

OnlyOne

Personally I don't mind the high skill cap since I plan on dedicating my time to maximizing my DPS even if I have to chase a meta.
But I can also see how this can be a turn off to more casual players who are simply looking to button mash.
I can't really come up with ideas as to how they could balance this as you say, it'll be interesting to see how combat has evolved once we hit beta 2 in the future.

Sathrago

OnlyOne wrote: »

Personally I don't mind the high skill cap since I plan on dedicating my time to maximizing my DPS even if I have to chase a meta.
But I can also see how this can be a turn off to more casual players who are simply looking to button mash.
I can't really come up with ideas as to how they could balance this as you say, it'll be interesting to see how combat has evolved once we hit beta 2 in the future.

Well one of the simpler solutions for debuff classes and what has been asked for repeatedly for affliction warlocks is for them to simply increase the duration of the debuffs.

Noaani

It's odd that there is an easy class to play and a more involved class to play, and the complaint is about the class that is involved.

Classes should be balanced so that if your class is harder to play well, you get better results.

While the game should have some classes that can be considered brainless, as there are many out there that don't want to need to activate more than three abilities, there should also be viable builds with 15+ abilities that take a lot more ability to play well,but give better results.

Jamation

I've always been bad at following the meta because it usually changes by the time I finally get the hang of it. So my strategy has always been to find a few skills I like and just go ham on them. The amount of times I've been yelled at though...haha...yeah...regen go brrrrrr...but then the mobs come and I go aaahhhh

But I know a few games where you don't have to follow a rotation and can still participate in high end raiding, it'll just be a lot harder and you might have to attempt it more times, but in general I find that players typically find the "hard vs soft" rotations pretty quickly.

Percimes

Do we know how many skills we can equip at the same time? Is the interface limiting us to choose what spells or skills is usable. I remember EverQuest limiting the spell you could cast and Guild Wars limiting all skill to 8. Picking your action bar was defining your fighting style and options. AoC could be the same with skills from both of your classes, your race, and other augments.

Then there is WoW where you can have all your skills or spells. It can get cluttered for some classes (shaman and their totems...).

Sathrago

Noaani wrote: »

It's odd that there is an easy class to play and a more involved class to play, and the complaint is about the class that is involved.

Classes should be balanced so that if your class is harder to play well, you get better results.

While the game should have some classes that can be considered brainless, as there are many out there that don't want to need to activate more than three abilities, there should also be viable builds with 15+ abilities that take a lot more ability to play well,but give better results.

The experience we talk about with affliction warlocks is not what you think. this is not a complaint that everyone cant do it or whatever. Its not fun, its headache and near impossible to do well without an addon telling you how to play it. The worst part is that its not even the best spec, its behind 2 brainless specs.

It is a clunky mess and I believe the op, and myself, are fine with complicated specs but the affliction spec is an example of when it goes too far.

The TL;DR

Avoid making complex rotations that are a clunky mess to play. Damage is not everything, build a fluid rotation.

Noaani

Sathrago wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

It's odd that there is an easy class to play and a more involved class to play, and the complaint is about the class that is involved.

Classes should be balanced so that if your class is harder to play well, you get better results.

While the game should have some classes that can be considered brainless, as there are many out there that don't want to need to activate more than three abilities, there should also be viable builds with 15+ abilities that take a lot more ability to play well,but give better results.

The experience we talk about with affliction warlocks is not what you think. this is not a complaint that everyone cant do it or whatever. Its not fun, its headache and near impossible to do well without an addon telling you how to play it. The worst part is that its not even the best spec, its behind 2 brainless specs.

It is a clunky mess and I believe the op, and myself, are fine with complicated specs but the affliction spec is an example of when it goes too far.

The TL;DR

Avoid making complex rotations that are a clunky mess to play. Damage is not everything, build a fluid rotation.

Still sounds to me like the issue is the easier classes.

A class should be hard to play to its fullest, but players that do should be rewarded with unmatched output.

The problem here seems to me to be the easier classes being both easier and just as good.

Also, since players are selecting what skills they want, as well as what augments they want on those skills, it is very unlikely that Ashes will have classes that are as curated as classes in a game like WoW.

Every class will have the option of going deep in to just a few key abilities, giving them only a handful of abilities to use in combat.

However, since there is the option to take more abilities (likely up to 20), Ashes should - of all games - reward players that play well with a more complex build, as that individual player opted to use that complex build and master it over using a simpler build.

bloodprophet

Sounds like your talking about what Kevin talks about in this video.
I agree with Noaani and Kevin if a class is harder to play it should get better results. Sounds like the devs messed over there with the lock but that is what happens when you strive to make the through put the same for all classes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAIREvmYw6I

Sathrago

bloodprophet wrote: »

Sounds like your talking about what Kevin talks about in this video.
I agree with Noaani and Kevin if a class is harder to play it should get better results. Sounds like the devs messed over there with the lock but that is what happens when you strive to make the through put the same for all classes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAIREvmYw6I

Yes, its the most complicated dps spec in the game by a large margin, one goof up and you fall to the bottom of the barrel. Yet its not even the best one. Its not fun, nor is it as rewarding as you would hope.

This is from week 2 and shows where all the dps are atm.

bloodprophet

So lower on the chart is better?

Sathrago

bloodprophet wrote: »

So lower on the chart is better?

top is better. sorry for the confusion.

bloodprophet

So Affliction is 3rd over all then. Frost is the lowest dps. Other 2 lock specs are way low.

Vhaeyne

Noaani wrote: »

It's odd that there is an easy class to play and a more involved class to play, and the complaint is about the class that is involved.

Classes should be balanced so that if your class is harder to play well, you get better results.

While the game should have some classes that can be considered brainless, as there are many out there that don't want to need to activate more than three abilities, there should also be viable builds with 15+ abilities that take a lot more ability to play well,but give better results.

This is exactly why I prefer FFXIV's class balance to WOW's. It's not one 100% on point all the time, but for the most part the more difficult the class is the better it parses on average. The top class in the game is normally black mage because they have to deal with long cast times, and perfect positioning to deal good damage.

Another thing FFXIV factors in is utility. Take the three ranged specs. Dancer and Bard can buff the rest of the party, so they do less damage than Machinist. Machinist has almost zero raid utility so its moves hit harder on average. All three of these classes are at the bottom of the DPS rankings because they can move and attack from a distance.

WOW on the other hand is like, the devs throw random abilities at the classes every expansion and hope nothing brakes too bad. Then they nerf and buff classes nearly weekly until some sort of balance happens.
What is most crazy about all of this to me is that FFXIV does a better job with internal beta testers than WOW does with the whole internet yelling about things being broken before a patch even goes live.

Sathrago

bloodprophet wrote: »

So Affliction is 3rd over all then. Frost is the lowest dps. Other 2 lock specs are way low.

yeah what im trying to say is that even though affliction is much much harder to do its not even the top spec, its behind two button smashing ez mode rotations.

Im fine with complicated gameplay but the current affliction is an example of over-complicated rotations that don't even reward you as the best. Now the difference is miniscule but the real issue is that affliction is just not fun at all, and requires addons to even play at that level.

So in summary, I hope intrepid keeps the complicated rotations from becoming a clunky unfun mess.

bloodprophet

Ok I get what your saying and agree. haven't that in a while and never played those 2 classes.

C4llum

Warlocks got made way to complicated later on in WoW , but wow classic that im currently dedicating my time to, all you do is you apply your 1 curse you're assigned, you typically only bring 3 locks to a raid and each have a curse to apply and then all you do is mash 1 button, shadowbolt, thats it, i don't know why devs felt like making it super complicated rotation wise.

Noaani

C4llum wrote: »

Warlocks got made way to complicated later on in WoW , but wow classic that im currently dedicating my time to, all you do is you apply your 1 curse you're assigned, you typically only bring 3 locks to a raid and each have a curse to apply and then all you do is mash 1 button, shadowbolt, thats it, i don't know why devs felt like making it super complicated rotation wise.

Probably because that sounds boring as hell.

Sathrago

Noaani wrote: »

C4llum wrote: »

Warlocks got made way to complicated later on in WoW , but wow classic that im currently dedicating my time to, all you do is you apply your 1 curse you're assigned, you typically only bring 3 locks to a raid and each have a curse to apply and then all you do is mash 1 button, shadowbolt, thats it, i don't know why devs felt like making it super complicated rotation wise.

Probably because that sounds boring as hell.

Yeah this ones not fun either lol they are basically two extremes that hardly anyone would enjoy.

C4llum

I mean "luckily" classic is coming to an end more or less soon , since the rumor is tbc will come out in march / april , but then at the same time , locks get more powerful , and gets a slightly more interesting playstyle with more than just using 2 buttons in pve, in pvp you still need to use way more than 2 buttons though.

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