GrilledCheez
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Are MMO developers smart or dumb?
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I always see the same things said about class balance before games come out:
We want class A to have:
stun
mez
dual wield
stealth
ranged damage
high dodge
etc
We want class B to have:
Sword
shield
taunt
But we will make sure both can tank content and be desirable tanks in a group. Why does that even seem like a good idea?
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Sin_of_Onin
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Right now the Warrior is just gimp. I have yet to see a dev team really get a firm grasp of balance while also offering a large number of unique abilities.
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Elocism
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balance is stupid, and should be unnecessary
i blame pvp
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Sgian_Dubh
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I blame the class archetypes.
Why are MMO's stuck on this nonsense?
Are MMO players just too lazy or stupid to put some thought and effort into direct character development?
Skill trees need to be nixed as well.
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Taliesihne
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Designers aren't developers.
That's where the problem lies. Imo.
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AzureTyger
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Stealth is just a terribad mechanic for MMOs and will always just bring out the worst type of min/maxing adolescents.
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Cawlin
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GrilledCheez posted:
I always see the same things said about class balance before games come out:
We want class A to have:
stun
mez
dual wield
stealth
ranged damage
high dodge
etc
We want class B to have:
Sword
shield
taunt
But we will make sure both can tank content and be desirable tanks in a group. Why does that even seem like a good idea?
Devs and dev teams are just as subject to bias and shortsightedness as players are. If you're talking about WoW, it's been particularly bad through the history of the game, how the various class biases have played out - not as bad as DAOC, but bad nonetheless.
AzureTyger posted:
Stealth is just a terribad mechanic for MMOs and will always just bring out the worst type of min/maxing adolescents.
Totally agreed. Stealth classes do nothing but hurt a game.
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Sin_of_Onin
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Designers have to be smart about choosing a targeted play style for a class and spec. The problem is when they want the best of all worlds and fail to establish a good pro con relationship between classes while also dumping a lot of abilities onto a class.
Stealth classes are fun and are not going anywhere.
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Sgian_Dubh
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Sin_of_Onin posted:
Designers have to be smart about choosing a targeted play style for a class and spec. The problem is when they want the best of all worlds and fail to establish a good pro con relationship between classes while also dumping a lot of abilities onto a class.
Stealth classes are fun and are not going anywhere.
So how about just dumping classes altogether?
I think the class structure that EVERY MMO uses/has used has played itself out.
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Ptilk
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MMO's cost a LOT of money to develop.
Money comes from corporations headed by idiots (only idiots think investing a LOT of money in an MMO is a good idea)
They control the purse strings and thus get to decide what actually gets into the game.
New is a bad thing in the minds of these idiots (see Hollywood for proof of this factoid)
So they do exactly the same game that everyone else has ever done.....with different names for the spraggons and a slightly different back story to avoid copyright infringement.
The end.
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Cawlin
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Sgian_Dubh posted:
Sin_of_Onin posted:
Designers have to be smart about choosing a targeted play style for a class and spec. The problem is when they want the best of all worlds and fail to establish a good pro con relationship between classes while also dumping a lot of abilities onto a class.
Stealth classes are fun and are not going anywhere.
So how about just dumping classes altogether?
I think the class structure that EVERY MMO uses/has used has played itself out.
It's always funny to me when gamers start talking about free-form MMOs because they want to be a staff and sword specced fire wizard like Gandalf or whatever.
In the end though it doesn't really matter if you dump class structures altogether. You have to have a way to differentiate or specialize players' characters. In doing so, you'll wind up with min/maxed cookie cutter builds anyway.
There will be forum posts:
"Hey guys what I want to do is tank raid content, what's the best build?"
"Hey guys I want an archer with a secondary melee spec, what's the best build?"
etc.
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Sin_of_Onin
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The class structure these days is more like having multiple classes all in one class that can be switched in and out. The WOW Warrior for example is like about 6 DAOC classes in one.
Skill systems are just as problematic if not more so.
As a designer the job is to create a gaming experience that is fun while also offering enough customization so that the player feels like they control their experience through their choices.
I think there is room for a MMOFPS or a more action oriented MMO but as long as the game is using the T/H/D mechanic it really just comes down to layering abilities on top of a core function while also tweaking how a class/spec achieves their core function and their secondary function/s.
The overall class itself is really more about a role playing idea (Paladin for example) and establishing a resource system to build around.
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AzureTyger
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Sgian_Dubh posted:
So how about just dumping classes altogether?
I think the class structure that EVERY MMO uses/has used has played itself out.
Yeah, I like the AC and UO skill based character development formats much better than predefined classes. I dont think it offers a huge improvement over the class system for things like cookie cutter specs and players finding the mathmatecally best possible combos, but at least there is some variance and balancing one skill doesn't create a huge domino effect.
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Cawlin
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Sin_of_Onin posted:
The class structure these days is more like having multiple classes all in one class that can be switched in and out. The WOW Warrior for example is like about 6 DAOC classes in one.
Yeah but that's only because DAOC had two different versions of the same class across each of 3 realms...
Sin_of_Onin posted:
Skill systems are just as problematic if not more so.
As a designer the job is to create a gaming experience that is fun while also offering enough customization so that the player feels like they control their experience through their choices.
I think there is room for a MMOFPS or a more action oriented MMO but as long as the game is using the T/H/D mechanic it really just comes down to layering abilities on top of a core function while also tweaking how a class/spec achieves their core function and their secondary function/s.
The overall class itself is really more about a role playing idea (Paladin for example) and establishing a resource system to build around.
A system with no skills or classes, where any character could basically do anything that any other character could do, would quickly become boring and retarded and you would find out almost immediately that there were optimized ways of doing things and that would be the end of it.
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Sin_of_Onin
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Fine, the WOW warrior is 2 DAOC classes.
Either way the current approach to classes is to build multiple classes within a class. There is no reason to think this approach is limited to just 3 classes within one. It could theoretically be 50 within 1. It just comes down to how much time the developers want to spend developing these play styles.
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Sgian_Dubh
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Cawlin posted:
Sin_of_Onin posted:
The class structure these days is more like having multiple classes all in one class that can be switched in and out. The WOW Warrior for example is like about 6 DAOC classes in one.
Yeah but that's only because DAOC had two different versions of the same class across each of 3 realms...
Sin_of_Onin posted:
Skill systems are just as problematic if not more so.
As a designer the job is to create a gaming experience that is fun while also offering enough customization so that the player feels like they control their experience through their choices.
I think there is room for a MMOFPS or a more action oriented MMO but as long as the game is using the T/H/D mechanic it really just comes down to layering abilities on top of a core function while also tweaking how a class/spec achieves their core function and their secondary function/s.
The overall class itself is really more about a role playing idea (Paladin for example) and establishing a resource system to build around.
A system with no skills or classes, where any character could basically do anything that any other character could do, would quickly become boring and retarded and you would find out almost immediately that there were optimized ways of doing things and that would be the end of it.
AC is like that and just celebrated it's 12th anniversary.
So, maybe you are wrong?
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Sgian_Dubh
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AzureTyger posted:
Sgian_Dubh posted:
So how about just dumping classes altogether?
I think the class structure that EVERY MMO uses/has used has played itself out.
Yeah, I like the AC and UO skill based character development formats much better than predefined classes. I dont think it offers a huge improvement over the class system for things like cookie cutter specs and players finding the mathmatecally best possible combos, but at least there is some variance and balancing one skill doesn't create a huge domino effect.
PvP in AC is fast-twitch, FPS style action, which makes for a much more engaging PvP battle than simply getting your stun in first.
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Cawlin
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Sin_of_Onin posted:
Fine, the WOW warrior is 2 DAOC classes.
Either way the current approach to classes is to build multiple classes within a class. There is no reason to think this approach is limited to just 3 classes within one. It could theoretically be 50 within 1. It just comes down to how much time the developers want to spend developing these play styles.
Cawlin posted:
A system with no skills or classes, where any character could basically do anything that any other character could do, would quickly become boring and retarded and you would find out almost immediately that there were optimized ways of doing things and that would be the end of it.
The only way to save such a game from being boring and ridiculous would be to make grouping not required at all and thus, no pressure from the group to optimize play, so you could gimp yourself with your sword and staff melee specced fire wizard, but then you'd be playing Skyrim, and no longer an MMO.
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Sin_of_Onin
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What are you even talking about now Cawlin?
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Cawlin
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Sgian_Dubh posted:
Cawlin posted:
Sin_of_Onin posted:
The class structure these days is more like having multiple classes all in one class that can be switched in and out. The WOW Warrior for example is like about 6 DAOC classes in one.
Yeah but that's only because DAOC had two different versions of the same class across each of 3 realms...
Sin_of_Onin posted:
Skill systems are just as problematic if not more so.
As a designer the job is to create a gaming experience that is fun while also offering enough customization so that the player feels like they control their experience through their choices.
I think there is room for a MMOFPS or a more action oriented MMO but as long as the game is using the T/H/D mechanic it really just comes down to layering abilities on top of a core function while also tweaking how a class/spec achieves their core function and their secondary function/s.
The overall class itself is really more about a role playing idea (Paladin for example) and establishing a resource system to build around.
A system with no skills or classes, where any character could basically do anything that any other character could do, would quickly become boring and retarded and you would find out almost immediately that there were optimized ways of doing things and that would be the end of it.
AC is like that and just celebrated it's 12th anniversary.
So, maybe you are wrong?
Are you still playing AC? How many people are still subscribed?
Maybe only a tiny handful of people, not even including yourself actually like a game system like that...
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Cawlin
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Sin_of_Onin posted:
What are you even talking about now Cawlin?
I'm talking about this idea you and this other dude keep yammering about, where there is totally free form character development and there are no class delineations or differentiation and why it would suck in an MMO.
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Sgian_Dubh
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Cawlin posted:
Sin_of_Onin posted:
What are you even talking about now Cawlin?
I'm talking about this idea you and this other dude keep yammering about, where there is totally free form character development and there are no class delineations or differentiation and why it would suck in an MMO.
Right, so developers should just continue catering to the lowest common(profitable) denominator.
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Cawlin
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Sgian_Dubh posted:
Cawlin posted:
Sin_of_Onin posted:
What are you even talking about now Cawlin?
I'm talking about this idea you and this other dude keep yammering about, where there is totally free form character development and there are no class delineations or differentiation and why it would suck in an MMO.
Right, so developers should just continue catering to the lowest common(profitable) denominator.
Do you still play AC?
How many other people still play AC?
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Sin_of_Onin
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Cawlin posted:
Sin_of_Onin posted:
What are you even talking about now Cawlin?
I'm talking about this idea you and this other dude keep yammering about, where there is totally free form character development and there are no class delineations or differentiation and why it would suck in an MMO.
Wut? I have no idea how you got that out of what I said.
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Cawlin
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Sin_of_Onin posted:
Cawlin posted:
Sin_of_Onin posted:
What are you even talking about now Cawlin?
I'm talking about this idea you and this other dude keep yammering about, where there is totally free form character development and there are no class delineations or differentiation and why it would suck in an MMO.
Wut? I have no idea how you got that out of what I said.
So what did you mean when you posted about rolling 50 classes into 1?
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Sgian_Dubh
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Why are you getting worked up about this, Cawlin?
FFS, they are games, mostly crappy ones at that.
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Moe_Nox
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If you can have 2 classes into 1 (WOW) you can have 50 into 1. Theoretically.
The limit is not based on the class structure itself but the time and effort of the devs. If they only have time and capacity to balance 30 play styles then those 30 play styles can be distributed between 10 classes with three play styles(specializations) per class or 6 classes with 5 play styles(specializaations) each.
A skill system is basically an attempt to ignore the class idea but in the end the designers are still designing a play style.
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Cawlin
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Sgian_Dubh posted:
Why are you getting worked up about this, Cawlin?
FFS, they are games, mostly crappy ones at that.
I'm not worked up, I think you are actually. I'm just asking you questions about your vision, that you don't seen to want to answer...
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Cawlin
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Sin_of_Onin posted:
If you can have 2 classes into 1 (WOW) you can have 50 into 1. Theoretically.
The limit is not based on the class structure itself but the time and effort of the devs. If they only have time and capacity to balance 30 play styles then those 30 play styles can be distributed between 10 classes with three play styles(specializations) per class or 6 classes with 5 play styles(specializaations) each.
A skill system is basically an attempt to ignore the class idea but in the end the designers are still designing a play style.
And so you would want to play an MMO built like this or were you just typing that out to make it look like you wanted an MMO built like that but really didn't?
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Cawlin
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Sin_of_Onin posted:
That's pretty much how I've read every one of your posts today so far lol.
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Developing MMO mechanics are not an easy task.
If you build it with pure balance in mind, it will not be fun to play.
If you build it with varied and fun game mechanics in mind, it will not be balanced.
Many of you have no idea of the complexity involved in getting everything just right to appease a whiny kid and his game.
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Cawlin posted:
Sin_of_Onin posted:
That's pretty much how I've read every one of your posts today so far lol.
I am sorry that what I said went so far over your head.
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I think making your classes deliberately unbalanced probably helps retain subscribers. For every one person who actually quits over balance I bet there are two who constantly reroll the FOTM class to feel powerful who might not have stayed subscribed if the developer's didn't give them a class better than all the others.
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Yukishiro1 posted:
I think making your classes deliberately unbalanced probably helps retain subscribers.
that's why i asked if they were smart or dum.
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Imo, software engineers are all 2 standard deviations more intelligent than the norm.
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I think the best MMO class systems I saw were Horizons and Rift.
In Horizons you could switch to any class, each class had a set number of abilities, and you could carry over some of the abilities over. But if you switched classes you would only carry over the abilities that where half your level in that other class.
so a ranger 10 who switched to another class would retain the abilities of a ranger 5. I think Lyndrek the Saris was a ranger/druid/warlock/something else.
it allowed for a lot of customization.
I also enjoyed RIFT's class system where they have 4 basic classes but 13 specs, and you could switch between 4-5 sets of 3 specs. I hear now that it's now more cookie cutter since people figured out the "best" combinations but I enjoyed their system while I played. Lyndrek the mage was a Chloromancer/Elementalist/warlock, or Stormcaller/Elementalist/Chloromancer/ or something (always a chloromancer though I loved healing as a mage.) depending on the Role I chose for the time being.
If you are going to have a class system make it seem like less of a class system as possible.
I wish more MMO's did skill systems though, no classes just skills, level up what you use.
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GrilledCheez posted:
Yukishiro1 posted:
I think making your classes deliberately unbalanced probably helps retain subscribers.
that's why i asked if they were smart or dum.
Oh, smart. In an evil way. Kinda like you. Or an advertising executive.
They are aware that how frustrated their players are doesn't matter a bit. What matters if that they keep paying the 15 bucks a month. Having two frustrated people coughing up the 15 bucks a month is twice as good as having one happy subscriber.
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Lyndrek posted:
I think the best MMO class systems I saw were Horizons and Rift.
In Horizons you could switch to any class, each class had a set number of abilities, and you could carry over some of the abilities over. But if you switched classes you would only carry over the abilities that where half your level in that other class.
so a ranger 10 who switched to another class would retain the abilities of a ranger 5. I think Lyndrek the Saris was a ranger/druid/warlock/something else.
it allowed for a lot of customization.
I also enjoyed RIFT's class system where they have 4 basic classes but 13 specs, and you could switch between 4-5 sets of 3 specs. I hear now that it's now more cookie cutter since people figured out the "best" combinations but I enjoyed their system while I played. Lyndrek the mage was a Chloromancer/Elementalist/warlock, or Stormcaller/Elementalist/Chloromancer/ or something (always a chloromancer though I loved healing as a mage.) depending on the Role I chose for the time being.
If you are going to have a class system make it seem like less of a class system as possible.
I wish more MMO's did skill systems though, no classes just skills, level up what you use.
your rift example is perfect for why this is some kind of strange torture technique by devs.
It's not new at all. We talked about it in EQ. If you want to play the hardest content you have to have the best skill set by the player and the class.
Sure you could run without an enchanter, but you had to do things that you wouldn't have to do with an enchanter. Meaning if they made the dungeon as hard as they could, you could only do it with an enchanter. it also meant that people wanted dungeons that played medium and looked very hard. The problem with that is that if your dungeon plays medium it will be super easy for an awesome group.
I think the only way it could really be solved would be to only have a few classes and for them to all have the same abilities that they would have to know how to use in different situations.
but this type of game likely wouldn't be as financially lucrative. So like most things we are forced to do something less than ideal because it is more profitable.
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Yukishiro1 posted:
GrilledCheez posted:
Yukishiro1 posted:
I think making your classes deliberately unbalanced probably helps retain subscribers.
that's why i asked if they were smart or dum.
Oh, smart. In an evil way. Kinda like you. Or an advertising executive.
They are aware that how frustrated their players are doesn't matter a bit. What matters if that they keep paying the 15 bucks a month. Having two frustrated people coughing up the 15 bucks a month is twice as good as having one happy subscriber.
About as ridiculous as a kid on a forum claiming the devs purposely make class X more powerful because that is the class they play. 
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Corky, you are a perfect example of the kind of person they rely on fooling. 
One of the most common examples of MMO developers deliberately unbalancing classes is expansions.
Blizzard deliberately made death knights overpowered in order to sell WOTLK expansions. EQ2 deliberately made beastmasters overpowered to sell AoD expansions. Daoc had a long history of doing this too.
You cannot look at the list of examples and come to the conclusion it wasn't deliberate. The pattern is too clear. Expansions almost NEVER release gimp classes. They are always overpowered. That isn't a coincidence.
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Corky_Aloof posted:
Yukishiro1 posted:
GrilledCheez posted:
that's why i asked if they were smart or dum.
Oh, smart. In an evil way. Kinda like you. Or an advertising executive.
They are aware that how frustrated their players are doesn't matter a bit. What matters if that they keep paying the 15 bucks a month. Having two frustrated people coughing up the 15 bucks a month is twice as good as having one happy subscriber.
About as ridiculous as a kid on a forum claiming the devs purposely make class X more powerful because that is the class they play.
There are MMO developers who have gone on record in interviews saying basically exactly that.
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GrilledCheez posted:
Lyndrek posted:
I think the best MMO class systems I saw were Horizons and Rift.
In Horizons you could switch to any class, each class had a set number of abilities, and you could carry over some of the abilities over. But if you switched classes you would only carry over the abilities that where half your level in that other class.
so a ranger 10 who switched to another class would retain the abilities of a ranger 5. I think Lyndrek the Saris was a ranger/druid/warlock/something else.
it allowed for a lot of customization.
I also enjoyed RIFT's class system where they have 4 basic classes but 13 specs, and you could switch between 4-5 sets of 3 specs. I hear now that it's now more cookie cutter since people figured out the "best" combinations but I enjoyed their system while I played. Lyndrek the mage was a Chloromancer/Elementalist/warlock, or Stormcaller/Elementalist/Chloromancer/ or something (always a chloromancer though I loved healing as a mage.) depending on the Role I chose for the time being.
If you are going to have a class system make it seem like less of a class system as possible.
I wish more MMO's did skill systems though, no classes just skills, level up what you use.
your rift example is perfect for why this is some kind of strange torture technique by devs.
It's not new at all. We talked about it in EQ. If you want to play the hardest content you have to have the best skill set by the player and the class.
Sure you could run without an enchanter, but you had to do things that you wouldn't have to do with an enchanter. Meaning if they made the dungeon as hard as they could, you could only do it with an enchanter. it also meant that people wanted dungeons that played medium and looked very hard. The problem with that is that if your dungeon plays medium it will be super easy for an awesome group.
I think the only way it could really be solved would be to only have a few classes and for them to all have the same abilities that they would have to know how to use in different situations.
but this type of game likely wouldn't be as financially lucrative. So like most things we are forced to do something less than ideal because it is more profitable.
And the logical question then is "Why is it more profitable to do things this way?
The answer is of course that most people who play MMOs don't actually want to play a a game like that.
Gamers are notoriously shortsighted about this and think that agreement between a few posters on a backwater forum implies some sort of ubiquitous desire by the entirety of the games target audience and customer base for the same thing that they want.
You want to know what most gamers want? They want WoW. You only need to look at the success of the game to understand this.
I don't particularly enjoy a lot of it, WoW is far from a "perfect" game in my opinion, but until or unless those niche gamers pony up to build a game for themselves and their 9 other friends on the backwater message board that want whatever niche game concept they believe is the be-all end-all, you're stuck with what will actually BE profitable.
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The answer isn't that most people don't want to play a game like that. the answer has to do with marketing, longevity, risk, revenue and a whole host of other things. Boiling that down to "GAMERS DEMAND IT!" Is Paulesque level faith based thinking in markets.
And it is demonstrably false. How many times has pepsi beaten coke in taste tests?
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GrilledCheez posted:
The answer isn't that most people don't want to play a game like that. the answer has to do with marketing, longevity, risk, revenue and a whole host of other things. Boiling that down to "GAMERS DEMAND IT!" Is Paulesque level faith based thinking in markets.
And it is demonstrably false. How many times has pepsi beaten coke in taste tests?
I have no idea what pepsi and coke have to do with this.
How many subscriptions does WoW have compared to any other North American MMO?
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It is very common to see people say they want something in a game but then they point to a game they don't play or is not played by many others in some part due to the thing they want.
I don't think it is that surprising that the Sith Warrior is relatively gimp. It is the one class I think most people would think to play. The other classes need some advantage to compete.
Not to mention it is a pretty straight forward concept.
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Yukishiro1 posted:
Corky, you are a perfect example of the kind of person they rely on fooling.
One of the most common examples of MMO developers deliberately unbalancing classes is expansions.
Blizzard deliberately made death knights overpowered in order to sell WOTLK expansions. EQ2 deliberately made beastmasters overpowered to sell AoD expansions. Daoc had a long history of doing this too.
You cannot look at the list of examples and come to the conclusion it wasn't deliberate. The pattern is too clear. Expansions almost NEVER release gimp classes. They are always overpowered. That isn't a coincidence.
I wasnt talking about expansions. Expansions are entirely different. A main selling point for them are new loot and more powerful abilities. When new classes are introduced, they are commonly made on the over side of balanced, but will be brought in line eventually. This is accepted marketing. What I do not agree with is the idea that devs intentionally and commonly break class balance as a sinister plot to increase sales. That is dumb, especially considering how many MMO's sink due to player outcries of unbalanced classes.
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Corky_Aloof posted:
I wasnt talking about expansions. Expansions are entirely different. A main selling point for them are new loot and more powerful abilities. When new classes are introduced, they are commonly made on the over side of balanced, but will be brought in line eventually. This is accepted marketing. What I do not agree with is the idea that devs intentionally and commonly break class balance as a sinister plot to increase sales. That is dumb, especially considering how many MMO's sink due to player outcries of unbalanced classes.
It must be nice to be able to contradict yourself and not even realize it.
We have established that MMO designers regularly deliberately create OP classes to increase sales. But then you say they would never do just that. 
Also, I don't know any MMO that has failed because of bad class balance. I can't think of even one. It is something people bitch about but practically no one actually cancels over it.
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It is a big stretch to connect expansion imbalance with imbalancing classes to boost sales around launch.
It just doesn't make sense that sales will be better at launch with imbalanced classes. Overpowered sure, imbalanced? I don't know.
Expansion classes are also often imbalanced because the player still has to level them. WOW introduced DKs at a high level which was far more impactful than any balance issues but was made with some of the same considerations.
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Sin_of_Onin posted:
It is a big stretch to connect expansion imbalance with imbalancing classes to boost sales around launch.
It just doesn't make sense that sales will be better at launch with imbalanced classes.
Well, I don't think they probably actually go out of their way to deliberately pick one class to be better than the others at release. But they definitely also don't go out of the way to create balanced classes either. SWTOR beta'd for something like 6 months. Everyone was telling them in beta how ridiculous some of the classes (i.e. SIs and JCs) were, but they did practically nothing at all about it. Things like operative burst being too high is semi-explainable because they didn't put in the burst abilities until late into beta. A lot of the other stuff is simply not explainable if they were interested in creating balanced classes.
Consider things like the smuggler aoe mezz being on a 90 second cooldown and the operative on a 60 second cooldown, despite being mirrors in every other way (other than animations, which is a whole nother issue I could write paragraphs on..). That is a 5 minute database fix max. They've been told about it for months. They probably got literally hundreds of bug reports about it. But they still haven't fixed it.
MMO developers arn't dummies. They know most people don't give a fig about class balance at release. SWTOR's developers were undoubtedly aware they were releasing SIs ridiculously overtuned. Whether they made a deliberate choice not to fix a class they accidentally made overpowered or a deliberate choice to make it OP from the beginning seems like a distinction without a difference.
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Yukishiro1 posted:
Sin_of_Onin posted:
It is a big stretch to connect expansion imbalance with imbalancing classes to boost sales around launch.
It just doesn't make sense that sales will be better at launch with imbalanced classes.
Well, I don't think they probably actually go out of their way to deliberately pick one class to be better than the others at release. But they definitely also don't go out of the way to create balanced classes either. SWTOR beta'd for something like 6 months. Everyone was telling them in beta how ridiculous some of the classes (i.e. SIs and JCs) were, but they did practically nothing at all about it. Things like operative burst being too high is semi-explainable because they didn't put in the burst abilities until late into beta. A lot of the other stuff is simply not explainable if they were interested in creating balanced classes.
Consider things like the smuggler aoe mezz being on a 90 second cooldown and the operative on a 60 second cooldown, despite being mirrors in every other way (other than animations, which is a whole nother issue I could write paragraphs on..). That is a 5 minute database fix max. They've been told about it for months. They probably got literally hundreds of bug reports about it. But they still haven't fixed it.
MMO developers arn't dummies. They know most people don't give a fig about class balance at release. SWTOR's developers were undoubtedly aware they were releasing SIs ridiculously overtuned. Whether they made a deliberate choice not to fix a class they accidentally made overpowered or a deliberate choice to make it OP from the beginning seems like a distinction without a difference.
I have heard over powered claims about all classes except the warrior/knight.
I don't think that is by accident but in this case it has more to do with the relative draw of the classes from a RP standpoint. It was a much bigger threat to SWTOR to have some classes ignored. The most likely scenario is they make balance decisions based on how many people are playing the class.
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The SI is by far the most popular class right now so that seems unlikely.
Although who knows, maybe that didn't happen until people realized they were overpowered.
Which sorta plays into my previous point. If you have unbalanced classes you have a fairly large segment of the MMO population who will reroll the more powerful class to pwn face. That extends the amount of time they stay subscribed substantially.
Particularly at launch there is a strong incentive to encourage people to reroll characters because it delays them getting to 50 which gives you more time to create max level content you didn't have at release. This is also why MMOs never launch with faction change services. They want to get as many people as possible to just reroll entirely. You will not see them put in a faction or server change service to deal with the huge population imbalance for a few more months, until they think they've got everyone who is going to reroll to already reroll. Then they will try to at least get 20 bucks from the other people.
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So the idea is that a bunch of people reroll SI and this results in them playing and paying longer?
I think the obvious answer is that the SI is just a class that lends itself to a lot of awesomeness being heaped into it by an overzealous designer who is more interested in making a fun and cool class than balancing it.
Try and design an MMO class where you are responsible for making it fun to play. I think the class just lends itself to a designer getting a bit out of hand. Same thing happens with stealth classes and hybrids.
I can buy into the idea that they don't care if there is an imbalance but I don't see how imbalancing the SI helps them sell copies other than the fact that it is a fun class to play and a lot of people are playing it.
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Sin_of_Onin posted:
So the idea is that a bunch of people reroll SI and this results in them playing and paying longer?
I think the obvious answer is that the SI is just a class that lends itself to a lot of awesomeness being heaped into it by an overzealous designer who is more interested in making a fun and cool class than balancing it.
Try and design an MMO class where you are responsible for making it fun to play. I think the class just lends itself to a designer getting a bit out of hand. Same thing happens with stealth classes and hybrids.
I can buy into the idea that they don't care if there is an imbalance but I don't see how imbalancing the SI helps them sell copies other than the fact that it is a fun class to play and a lot of people are playing it.
because enough people will keep hopping from class to class as long as it's the FOTM. so they never get tired and continue paying as long as they can make the next overpowered class.
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^ a real game developer speaks!
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Lyndrek posted:
because enough people will keep hopping from class to class as long as it's the FOTM. so they never get tired and continue paying as long as they can make the next overpowered class.
Does that really work? I think it doesn't hurt at launch to have a good class but large swings in balance helping subs is a stretch.
When they nerfed the BW in WAR I don't think that made people want to play more.
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Sin_of_Onin posted:
I think the obvious answer is that the SI is just a class that lends itself to a lot of awesomeness being heaped into it by an overzealous designer who is more interested in making a fun and cool class than balancing it.
That may be how these things start. But BW isn't so dumb they didn't realize what they had done a long time before launch. It had to have been a concious decision not to fix things.
There is a reason you don't usually see overpowered classes nerfed until several months after release. It isn't that they can't respond more quickly. Look how fast all devs respond to gamebreaking exploits. Typical turn around time is 1-2 days. It isn't a coincidence they wait until most of the FOTMers have already bandwagoned on before they fix things.
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Sin_of_Onin
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Are MMO developers smart or dumb?
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I deffinitely think that they hold off as long as they can on nerfs but that is for obvious reasons. Intentionally having a FOTM is possible but I think it is more likely that the rule of thumb is to err on the side of overpowered which inherently leads to a FOTM scenario.
I don't think they mind the reroll scenario for the reasons you gave and they may not work hard to avoid it because of the reasons you said but I don't think they are doing it on purpose.
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Yukishiro1
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Sin_of_Onin posted:
the rule of thumb is to err on the side of overpowered which inherently leads to a FOTM scenario.
Yeah, but you see it more at release and around expansion times than anything else. I think it's niave to assume moving boxes isn't part of it. You want your players to be telling their friends "omg buy this game you can play this sick fun overpowered class and pwn noobs!" rather than "omg they nerfed my class in the first month!" or even "omg the classes are balanced at release." Because no one buys a game because classes are balanced, but plenty of people buy a game to pwn people.
Once the game settles down a bit and most people are at the endgame for that particular release or expansion you see MMOs switch tracks and err more on the side of caution.
Games around release are all about selling boxes and getting people to pay past 30 days. Games later in their cycles are all about keeping existing subs going. Those take two different development philosophies and balancing classes fits into the latter but not the former.
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Sin_of_Onin
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I agree that they will overpower classes relative to the content but that is different then the FOTM claim and the claim about imbalance.
I also agree that perfect balance is not a priority at launch.
Neither demonstrate an intent to play this FOTM game you talked about.
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