Bo’s Balancing Act (Part 2): Tank vs. Healer vs. DPS

July 8, 2008 – 1:24 pm

Bo is back with another balancing act and this time he’s teetering on the edge of class-balance insanity!

Jenga of Doom! One of the largest and most vocal problems MMO’s have always faced is the concept of class balance. No one enjoys playing a game where they feel useless because another class is simply better at their “job” then them. How would you feel if they hired a new guy at the office with a brain twice the size of yours and an extra arm? No matter what you do, you will not be able to match his speed and proficiency. It’s not about how much effort you put in or how well you know your role or even the mechanics of how things work in the office. You are simply inferior. Now there is no-one in your office trying to make everything nice and happy. In fact, I’m sure many corporations would grow workers with enlarged brains and extra apendages if they could get away with it. However, in the happy world of MMO’s we do have people dedicated to making the environment fun, friendly and exciting: the development team.

Here is the major problem as I see it. A vast amount of players are completely ignorant of specific class mechanics beyond their own class or even overall game mechanics. These also tend to be the most vocal. Add in the existence of “trolls”, people who are basically just attempting to start a fight over a specific subject, and human nature and you have the equivalent of a bomb scare. Many people don’t know WHY a class needs to be nerfed (beyond what someone breifly told them or they read it on a site/forum) or they assume because their class has a problem with them they must be completely overpowered. The first part is just ignorance then second part is a misconception. Now we come to everyone’s favorite term: rock-paper-scissors.

Rock-paper-scissors is a system of class balance just like the little kids game. One type of class beats another class. That class beats a different class and so on. Why do developers use a “rock-paper-scissors” system, even though there are massive amounts of players who despise this system? Well, that’s kind of simple. Class-level balance is impossible. Get over it and move on. What I mean by class-level balance is balancing every class so that they are all equal. Sorry, this won’t happen. Its impossible without making the classes too similar and completely doing away with the concept of class roles.

What developers generally try to accomplish is a system-level balance. The entire system as a whole is what needs to be balanced, not the individual classes. There are too many situations to even begin to balance the game at the class-level, 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, Group vs Group, Raid vs Raid, Zone vs Zone, PvP, PvE and each one has to be looked at while considering talents/specialization and gear. In World of Warcraft and given class can actually be played 3 distinctly different ways. In Age of Conan, there are two different ways for each class. Warhammer Online is offering three. In World of Warcraft for example, if you want to PvE you will probably have to be one spec. If you want to PvP you’re going to most likely have to switch to a different spec to be really effective. In Age of Conan, your specialization changes depending on if your soloing or if your doing large group battles. Certain abilities that were awesome by yourself seem to lose their luster in a large scale battle. However, certain things you couldn’t use by yourself because they were too incredible. Too many variables are present once you add in player skill for these types of games to ever be balanced at the class level.

Back to system-level balance. This means that the system as a whole is balanced. Think of it as the surface of the ocean and your player-base is a cruise ship in the middle of it. What you would like is a nice calm ocean so the players can enjoy their Mojitos. However, when an imbalance occurs a wave is produced. This wave has a crest, the imbalance, and a valley, the parties effected by it. As long as the wave isn’t massive, it’s not really going to upset the ship as a whole although it might spill a few drinks or at worse pitch a few people into the sea. Now sadly this is where the metaphor breaks down because this is where the difference between player base and development team comes into play. In a balanced system there would be another wave that effects the party that was the crest of the first wave. In other words, if class A is imbalanced and effecting classes B-D. Then there should be a class E that is imbalanced and effecting at a minimum class A. This pulls the previous imbalance back into line and gives the impression of a calm ocean surface with no waves. The second wave cancels out the first because it hamstrings the imbalanced party. For a WoW example, lots of people in PvP gripe about warlocks. However, show a warlock a decent rogue and watch how much they gripe. This is the precise place this metaphor breaks down. One party, the development team and anyone viewing this system subjectivel,y will view the ocean as calm. While the player base (those in the valleys) or those viewing it subjectively only notice a typhoon breaking out. To them the waves don’t cancel each other out because they are not the other imbalance that effects the imbalance effecting them (whoo!). In other words, what does a mage care if a rogue can render a warlock worthless if there isn’t one around but there is a warlock destroying the mage?

Well… sorry I never said the system was perfect. However, at the moment it is one of the few systems that actually “work” (by work I mean they are possible and effective since you’re still playing). I’ve seen countless concepts thrown around on forums and other places of discussion and alot of them sound good in theory. They are kind of like communism. Damn that sounds like a neat idea… too bad it can’t be implemented.

This has gotten long enough…

…for now.

Post your comments or any questions! Given enough response we might have to continue into Part 3.

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Post tags: Age of Conan, Bo, MMORPGs, opinions, World of Warcraft

14 Responses to “Bo’s Balancing Act (Part 2): Tank vs. Healer vs. DPS”
Why are people so preoccupied with “toon” balance? Because they want routine! They want the latest gear set they just spent the last 60hrs of game play in their mom’s basement to pay off! With one or two mouse clicks they should be the uber pwner! And every time an enemy comes by of equal level (or lower, LOL!), but a different spec, and they get pwnd…they get pissed and rant about “balance”…and how unfair their game experience is! Not to digress, but balance conversations should be more game related not character in the game related. Why aren’t more people focused on content!! The Bazillions of dollars the industry makes off the gaming populous should be used a bit more dynamically IMO. More spontaneous events!! Make up things that make you go, “Damn! What the hell just happened?” All the scripted fights, yet another installment of warmed over events (WOW instances anyone…bueller?)…Blaaaaghh! Case in point: If an item can be a “random” drop why can’t an adventure be also? As an example, your guild just came together at a rally point. You guys are all getting ready to do a raid or scripted battle…but then Shazzam! All of a sudden a “Boss” (a GM perhaps) or a raid by multiple NPCs descends upon you and your team mates! You take casualties but manage to win and are rewarded with something of equal or even greater value! I can guarantee the ol’ vent and forums would be a hell of a lot more entertaining!

By Matt on Jul 8, 2008
@Matt: Actually, you ever played the game that made Paul Barnett all his money? (Legends of Terris) They constantly did “GM” events. It was a very fun MUD. However, this is once again one of those concepts that although it sounds AWESOME…in theory. It kind of falls on it’s face during implementation. Case in point: Everquest: Legends.

The manpower to pull off what your talking about, in a modern day MMO, is for lack of a better term… impressive. The first problem being the majority of video game “GMs” don’t have a clue about how their game works let alone to knowledge or ability to pull of an event. They are not game masters. They are Customer Service Reps. Hiring a team of competent individuals to design and implement events would be very costly if you consider how many servers that is.

On another note, randomized encounters simply end up being Diablo 2. Sure it was “random” but it might as well not have been.

Consider the problems present in just about every dungeon or instance in every MMO. Now add in the fact there would non static parts to all of them. Now we are talking about even more manpower required to simply debug the randomed content or your looking at your current team hiding grenades under your desk.

By Bo on Jul 8, 2008
Understood, I guess I’m just a little frustrated and burnt-out on the state of certain MMORPGs and it shows in my post(hopelessly staring at my CE preorder receipt)

By Matt on Jul 8, 2008
I haven’t participated in much PvP / RvR so I will admit that I haven’t a clue what I am talking about but…

Wouldn’t the competitive nature of people who play against other human beings in MMO’s have them wanting to improve their own game and be able to say “Hah! I am better now. Now I can beat you!” and not “He beat me! His class must be too powerful!” ?

I hope this question doesn’t come off as too naive but are the majority of players out there unwilling / unable to accept the paper/rock/scissors concept or is it just the vocal minority that seems to have the problem?

By Oath on Jul 8, 2008
@Oath: Its easier to blame something other then your own ability or willingness to put in the dedication and time. Someone with better gear then yourself must be a “basement nerd” if even you yourself have 30hrs a week logged in you just lack the gear.

Put it this way… everyone wants six pack abs. Only a few are willing to take the steps necessary to achieve it. Everyone wants to be able to say, “Woohoo! I beat you!” not many are willing to actually make the effort. Its simply more convenient to their egos to blame an imbalance in a system they have no control over.

Human nature is placing blame elsewhere. In a free environment I’d bet competition between humans would boil down to who hamstrung the other first.

By Bo on Jul 8, 2008
I always felt that people complaining about balance issues were, at their root, just people displacing the blame for a perceived failure on their part. I’ll grant you that there are occasions when a match up is clearly in one party’s favor for circumstances other than skill, but nobody likes to admit that anybody is superior to them. It’s easier to take the hit to your pride if you go on thinking that “Even at my best I could never beat that super over-powered class” than thinking “Damn, that guy is better than me.”

I feel it’s always better to take the blame. You learn more about the game that way…certainly more than you would griping on a forum about how much the other class needs a nerf. Seek out the challenge; find that guy again and keep picking fights with him. It might get a bit frustrating, but it can make you better at your class. Nothing does that better than pushing yourself to your limit, you know?

By Thade on Jul 9, 2008
In a way, you’d think a rock-paper-scissors balance model would alleviate some of the complaining.

“My healer lost to a melee DPS not because of better gear, but because the class is just designed that way (to take out squishies).”

The system should also give you a bit more confidence on the battlefield. “Hmmm, I’m going to pick on these guys and avoid these other guys because of my strengths and weaknesses.” People who don’t come into it with that mentality are destined to get pwned and their complaints, at least to me, are meaningless.

By Snafzg on Jul 9, 2008
I’m going to side with Snafzg. I used to avoid PvP like the plague because my pride couldn’t handle losing to another player. The funny thing about PvP is that it’s just like anything else, the more you participate the better you’ll be.

When I first entered the Warcraft battlegrounds I was devestated each and every time I died. I would say “that guy is SO overpowered” or “WTF CHEAT!” every time I died because I couldn’t accept the fact that other players were out-playing me.

Unfortunately every PvE game we’ve ever played has groomed us to be this way. We’re always the hero and we can take on impossible odds and win. Never mind that we’re hitting for 10 or 20x what our opponent is, or that we have shields and they don’t. No, the answer to why we’re winning is that we’re awesome.

Well a few months in AV took away the sting of death. I stopped looking at each death as a personal affront to my worth as a gamer and instead looked at it as an occasion where I had made a mistake. PvP is much less forgiving than PvE so you’re actually going to learn much faster by doing lots of PvP.

The minute you can put aside your pride and focus on learning how to play your class as effectively as possible, the sooner you’ll start enjoying PvP and doing well.

Then your only problem will be explaining to people that you’re not OP or cheating!

By Koroh on Jul 9, 2008
Yeppers!

A perfect example of this is Team Fortress 2 (and many other FPS games). Everyone comes into the fight equal. You may have rocket launcher while he has a chaingun, but none of these classes are really designed to be better or worse vs. others. There is no rock-paper-scissors balance in TF2, and if there is, it is extremely mild compared to most MMORPGs.

What you’re left with is skill. Skill comes by spending a lot of hours refining your technique and strategies. I’ve seen Medics take out Heavies and I’ve seen uncloaked Spies take out Pyros.

TF2 was a hard game to play when I first started because I was fodder for everyone no matter what class I was playing at the time. After a dozen or so hours, I started to get the hang of the game as my knowledge and reflexes were constantly challenged. Practice makes perfect (even though I’m not perfect by any means).

By Snafzg on Jul 9, 2008
“The minute you can put aside your pride and focus on learning how to play your class as effectively as possible, the sooner you’ll start enjoying PvP and doing well.

Then your only problem will be explaining to people that you’re not OP or cheating!” - Koroh

I just want to point out. This was basically the side note to the entire article. The systems aren’t the problem… the general attitude of the players are.

By Bo on Jul 9, 2008
@Snaffypoo: Actually I’d be willing to argue TF2 does have a rock-paper-scissors system. It basically has to because it utilizes the concept of rolls. You just don’t notice it near as much because in a FPS style game playing skill (aiming, player movement, environment utilization, understanding of mechanics, awareness) plays a much larger part of the game. The only thing that sets your Heavy Gunner apart from all the others is the person playing it. However, the classes are designed to give certain things advantages over others. For example, a pyro is basically a spy nullifier if played correctly. A spy or sniper are a heavy gunner nullifier. Does this mean the heavy gunner can’t kill them? No. It does mean they are going to be cussing at them more then any other class though.

By Bo on Jul 9, 2008
I totally understand what you’re saying there, and I’ll concede 100% agreement. The RPS model is there, but it is completely nullified by everything you mention in the above statement.

It’s definitely not nearly as noticible as it is in MMORPGs we’ve seen to date.

By Snafzg on Jul 9, 2008