Class Balance

[Aadwen]

I have been reading allot about class balance lately and I have to say I'm abit confused. All the classes come from D&D in some form or another. With that said the MMO's have taken out what made them balanced. Back when I had the original D&D books (wish I still did) there was not much to choose from. You had humans that could be a few classes, i.e. Fighter, cleric, mage, and thief (I think that's all). Then you had races like elf, that where fighter/mage. They where a fighter mage and that was that. So let’s take a look at what they did to balance them out.

First: The fighter was the best for the first few levels. They could where any armor uses and weapon, and had the most HP's. This made game play easy for them. But after 3 levels or so, they started to need help form other classes. Healing, opening chest, traps, damage to help take down a foe. So in the later levels they where not the best, but you still needed them.

Second: The mage was very weak, and could not do much of anything. At first level you could cast one spell a day. You had very few hp's. So you could do pretty much nothing at first. Now in the later levels they could take out whole groups of men in one spell. Slow to start and hard, kick ass in the end.

Third: The cleric was a nice mix, you could use armor, fight with blunt weapons that did less damage, and could heal. Now you did not have as many HP's as the fighter, and you also had to give up some of your treasure to your church. Pretty even though the levels.

Forth: The thief was the leather wearing, damage dealing, sneaking in the shadows person he has always been. You had the HP's of a mage, limits on your armor, and just had to not get hit. You could do everything nobody else could do.

Fifth: The Elf was so much better then the human ever could be, Infervision, immune to sleep/enchamnets, and could cast in armor. Lived along time and all and all just ruled.

So how did they balance out these classes? What was the key that keep it that way?

XP

It only took a thief 2000xp points to get a level.
A fighter 2500xp
A Cleric 3000xp
A Mage 4000xp
An Elf 5000xp

And it went way up from there. People progressed at different times. A thief would be level 3 before an elf hit level 2.

Now I know V:SoH will never have different xp's for classes. So let’s move on.

AD&D Comes out.

There where some adds and nice changes. It's been awhile since I have read a AD&D book, but here goes. So far the classes are pretty much staying the same, with some new additions. They also had all the races there. With that they had Race stats and ability's. Now each race could only be certain classes, and that still fits in with V:SoH. So how did they keep it balanced. Race based XP mods. EQ Used to have it, and I know they still had the Troll/Iskar race penalty when I stopped playing. Well now that V:SoH does not have any race stats, not sure about vision, this gets abit tossed out too. Hum, guess we need to move on to Third addition.

Gah, work again, I will finish this up soon. sorry

Aadwen

[Pirotess]

Seems like Vanguard has some classes not seen in D&D or any MMORPG though. The Inquisitor and Blood Mage come to mind. I think the term class balance is misleading though since to keep people happy each class needs to excel in one or two areas that other classes dont have any part of or a much less developed skill for. I just dont think balance will ever be achieved. I'd rather see a rock, paper, scissor method implemented where each class shines against some classes and gets destroyed by others.

[Orablast]

I prefer to play on PVE servers. I do enjoy friendly PVP on PVE server. Past experience has taught me that any class with the ability to take life from the opponent and heal themselves with one spell was very powerful in pvp.

With that said, what if the Blood Mage turned out to be an overpower class that took 2 + players to take out one Blood Mage, how many would find this fun, or challenging. How many would reroll a Blood Mage.

Personally, I found this to be fun and challenging, whether I was the over-powered class or part of the group attempting to take out the overpowered class. On a PVP server, running across an overpowered classes alone can be fun & exciting itself. Yes, the chances are high that you're going to die, but there is always that chance of escape and when you do, be sure to thump your chest with pride

One example I can remember is from playing EQ and being group with 2 friends attempting to take out same lvl bard with more AA’s, better gear, etc. The fight went on forever and the bard ended up killing 2 of us before we could take him down.

[Melchizedek]

I honestly feel we will never achieve class balance. All that happens is certain classes get certian spells or abilities that fill in the gap for a major class. Example: EQ Druid.

Druids could heal, but not like a cleric. They could nuke, but not like a wizzie. I honestly like the specialty classes. I support the holy trinity idea. Then again, I know I am in the minority.

People are known for their abilities. Just because a group needs a healer doesn't mean they take the first one available. They may be a terrible player. Cleric X may be better than Cleric Y.

I don't know, it is late and I am rambling. I do know that I will miss the specialty classes where everyone had their specific specialized job to do. Whether it be DPS, Tanking, Crowd Control, or Healing; I liked the specialized classes.

[Korinth]

I agree with the above poster that we will never achieve true class balance. I’m against class balancing to the point of generic feeling between the classes and would rather the dev’s forget that kind of balancing.

What I would rather have the dev’s do is just concentrate on what the class is supposed to do and then balance the classes through weakness.

I understand that a lot of people would be against that kind of thinking and I’m not trying to get anyone to think my way. The idea is what I would rather see, i.e. my 2cp.

P.S. I could give examples of what I mean, but I will assume you people know what I mean anyway so I will leave it at that.

[Ninnin]

Class balance is a myth. Class systems are meant to be somewhat unbalanced. It's the nature of the beast. The closer you come to that point of true class balance the more you loose in the feel and playstyle of class differentiation. That is to say that the closer you come - the less different the classes become.

Really, how fun would it be if we were all Rogue Tank Wizard Blood Mages? The closer you get to true class balance the closer you become to that. Sigil's challenge (and they know it) is to find that balance point on the tip of a needle that keeps the classes different enough to keep them each flavorful and different enough in play that everyone finds a class that they truely enjoy while maintaining their core functions in each "category" so as to avoid the "holy trinity" problems of yesteryear.

It takes balls for a game company to move forward with a true class based system.. because finding and maintaining that balance point is a lifelong commitment to that games community and will go a long way towards the longevity of the MMO.

[Aredhel]

I agree that there can't/won't be balance, and I welcome it! The worse thing a dev can do is decide the classes aren't balanced then start nerfing this and boosting that, only to wind up nerfing the boost cuz it was too powerful and caused too much of an uproar.

Give eveyone their job and let them learn it to the fullest. Get creative! Don't make it a Tonka truck game!

[Cobalt Katze]

Originally Posted by Aredhel

Don't make it a Tonka truck game!

Tonka trucks were pretty hardcore back in the day though

...Right, not for an MMO. I agree I love complexity and some thinking involved in games.

[Aredhel]

Have you seen some of the new ones, tho?? They pass the "squish" test!!

[Nabren]

I'd prefer class differentiation over balance as long as one class isn't completely outdone in all the areas. Basically I feel that every single class needs atleast one niche/class-defining attribute.