I’ve been playing MMORPGs off and on for about 6 years now. Those games tend to grow, evolve, and change over time as the development team learns information that helps them make the games “better”. One thing they seem to spend a significant amount of time on is the concept of “balance”. That is, finding ways to keep some characters/players from achieving significant advantages over others. Looking at the situation, I’ve come to the conclusion that this “balance” is mostly a mythical concept that will never be achieved, and that the best thing developers can hope for is to offer content that provides all character types with an equal opportunity to succeed. Weakening (or “nerfing”) the player character isn’t the answer except in the most extreme circumstances. Anyway, here’s my theory on the whole myth of “balance” (too lengthy to post here): http://mikesalsbury.com/mambo/content/view/388/ [Edited by - msalsbury on February 9, 2006 7:21:09 PM]

Most board games are perfectly balanced except for the "first move"-advantage. That didn't hurt Go or Chess in any way.

The problem in MMORPG is that there isn't a lot of player skill involved. The outcome is decided by equipment/class/choice of skills and luck for the most part. If you balance items and equipment only luck is left which obviously is even more boring.

I agree that it's most likely the content that needs balancing instead of the classes or player abilities in most cases.

But introducing a coinflip into tic-tac-toe does not make it an unbalanced game. There are many games that are balanced and are still based a lot on chance. As long as the probabilities are the same for all players, randomized elements in the game does not unbalance it. And you make it sound like all balanced games are more or less automatically boring, which I can't agree with. I would consider all symmetrical games, where all players play with the same conditions balanced.

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Original post by msalsbury I’ve been playing MMORPGs off and on for about 6 years now. Those games tend to grow, evolve, and change over time as the development team learns information that helps them make the games “better”. One thing they seem to spend a significant amount of time on is the concept of “balance”. That is, finding ways to keep some characters/players from achieving significant advantages over others. Looking at the situation, I’ve come to the conclusion that this “balance” is mostly a mythical concept that will never be achieved, and that the best thing developers can hope for is to offer content that provides all character types with an equal opportunity to succeed. Weakening (or “nerfing”) the player character isn’t the answer except in the most extreme circumstances. Anyway, here’s my theory on the whole myth of “balance” (too lengthy to post here): http://mikesalsbury.com/mambo/content/view/388/

I didn't read the article, but there are really two forms of balance: uniformity or checks and balances. I think it's perfectly possible to get balance in both cases, but only the latter is really interesting. MMORPGs tend (in my limited experience and from what I hear) to balance things by, like you say, finding ways to keep certain play styles from gaining any advantage over others. In other words, they're striving for uniformity in the classes (even classless systems typically come down to a few archetypes). That is, unless you really do mean that they're trying to make all characters (not character types) equal, in which case I disagree; I don't see them trying to do that.

This sort of balance through uniformity can be acheived by giving all classes equal money sinks (mages buy ingredients, archers buy arrows, tanks buy healing potions), equal damage rates (mages slowly cast powerful spells, swords deal moderate damage at moderate speeds, axes deal more damage more slowly with a lower variance), etc.

Checks and balances are a more difficult form of balance to acheive, but much more interesting. I think this is one reason Starcraft became so popular and maintains its popularity long after Warcraft II lost its own. I recently started playing Infantry again (~Guest##[grin]), which I think acheived this sort of balance. Or, these games come close enough. If the statistical advantage of one class over another is small enough, it doesn't really matter and will stay lost in the noise until long after the game loses popularity. I think MMORPGs could learn from these games. Not every character class should be equivalent, but all should have equal usefulness/opportunities.

Also, PvP combat should either be considered a "most extreme circumstance" or that restriction on nerfing should be relaxed. Having unbalanced classes in PvP combat is simply not fun. (Of course, this doesn't mean each class can win in a "fair fight" with every other. Infils typically lose 1-on-1 in Infantry against any class in a fair fight, but they're still useful, and can even win 1-on-1 if they don't "fight fair".)

As for board games, I don't play go, but any advantage in chess is negligible by mid-game, and I'm not so sure that "moves first" trumps "reacts first" in that game.

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Original post by msalsbury I’ve been playing MMORPGs off and on for about 6 years now. Those games tend to grow, evolve, and change over time as the development team learns information that helps them make the games “better”. One thing they seem to spend a significant amount of time on is the concept of “balance”. That is, finding ways to keep some characters/players from achieving significant advantages over others. Looking at the situation, I’ve come to the conclusion that this “balance” is mostly a mythical concept that will never be achieved, and that the best thing developers can hope for is to offer content that provides all character types with an equal opportunity to succeed. Weakening (or “nerfing”) the player character isn’t the answer except in the most extreme circumstances. Anyway, here’s my theory on the whole myth of “balance” (too lengthy to post here): http://mikesalsbury.com/mambo/content/view/388/

That brings a big question to the foreground: What is balance?

Is balance the ability to be able to do the same activities at the same level of proficiency as the rest of the field? The ability for all classes to deal an equal amount of damage over a given period of time, heal an equal amount of damage over a given period of time, take an equal amount of damage over a given period of time?

Is balance the concept of equivelant value? Such as being able to do one action better, but not being able to do another action as well?

Is balance the concept of everything being equal on a level playing field?

In the MMO scene, lots of people say "balance is not having overpowered abilities", but they are only describing what balance isn't, not what balance is.

Edit:
On your page, you mention the fictional circumstance of marksman and martial artist. Star Wars Galaxies had situations like that, but players cried that it was unbalanced, because the marksman could backpedal and have the martial artist dead before he touched him, then after it was changed, the martial artists became untouchable.

Most of what a player sees as balance is determined by what he can and can't do, but sees other people do. Templars in EverQuest 2 can't solo, but they can heal much better than anybody else, yet they consider it unbalanced because they're unable to solo. They often get into heated arguments, saying that their ability to heal is irrelevant if other people can solo and they can't.

In your hypothetical situation with the usual loud and proud MMO forumer, the martial artist would consider the marksman unbalanced because he can kill the bear so easily, while the marksman would consider the martial artist unbalanced because he can do better in a situation where he is fighting 12 guys at once.

[Edited by - Dalavex on February 7, 2006 4:58:37 PM]

Thanks, all of you, for the replies.

The question of "what is balance?" as Dalavex noted is indeed the key. If you define balance too broadly, you will systematically nerf all the character classes until there is essentially no difference between them. My brother, who is a HUGE City of Heroes and City of Villains player, constantly tells me about nerfs the development team has applied to the players in an attempt to "balance" things. The real problem in that game seems to be that the development team is caught up in the myth that no particular character type should level any faster, be any more effective at dispatching enemies, or (it seems) be dramatically better than any other at anything. They seem to be looking for a point of equilibrium where the characters are all more or less equally-capable of dispatching any given enemy.

In the archer vs. swordsman example discussed previously, if you nerf the archer so that he has no more chance of beating the swordsman than the swordsman has of beating him, (in this context at least) you've effectively eliminated the incentive to play either type of character since they're equally effective or ineffective in all cases (assuming only PVP combat).

The right solution, as I see it, is to introduce a concept like reflective armor, where a percentage of the hits on the swordsman's person are reflected back on the archer (so that in effect the swordsman has a chance to do damage from a distance to the archer). In this case, the archer still has the advantage of range against non-player foes, but when pitted against other players there's a chance his ranged attacks will be injuring him, too. The incentive to be an archer in non-PVP combat remains while the incentive in PVP is diminished. This is a content solution rather than a character-based solution.

The Templar situation in EQ2, as Dalavex notes, seems unbalanced to the people who play Templars. It's not. Their character type has a certain advantage that the others don't. With them in a group, much more substantial and rewarding enemies can be taken down than could be defeated without them. Yes, this means they're not ideal for solo combat. That's why the game designers generally allow a player to create more than one character type. If you want to solo tonight, play a character designed to solo. If you want to heal and stay on the sidelines (which is as challenging as fighting, but in a different way), you play a healer. If the players had their way, the characters would wind up all being essentially identical and some of the richness and complexity of the game is lost.

Whether it is a myth or not,
To me, it SHOULD be a myth,

The reason is the same as the reply I posted in another balance thread.
Make patches that do the following:
- change the numbers in game to keep the game fresh
- fixing old bugs
- putting in new bugs(that's right, make people think your company care about their player)

"Rock, paper, scissors" would be a better gameplay model to emulate than "tic-tac-toe".

Rock, paper, scissors play ( like StarCraft ) is far more fun then a chess feel ( like WarCraft ), if you are going for a game that is supposed to be
based on the idea of rolplaying different characters, which is what a MMO tries to be with its classes and races.

The point of having different classes is that they are unbalanced. And unbalanced classes make for good team play. Something like WOW encourages large raids
to complete some game aspects. If you want to have good team play, you need to find a balance to your team. Real life balance should come into play
like: archers trump pikemen, calvary trump archers, pikemen trump calvary.
Medics don't have offence, but keep others/self alive, while a swordsman hits hard, but can't heal well on his own.

Disclamer! The above is realistic, and is what makes a good RTS. The heavy counter system works very well in the RTS relm, probably because
you as the comander have control of every part of the strategy. The problem in giving a MMO the same good bablance is that there are too many "carebears"
who are playing the game for 1v1 action when the game is designed in the D&D style
universe, where it significantly helps to build a balanced team.
So most MMO's fall into the uniform damage-per-second relm, where all races hurt the same amount, but just look diferent.

So balance probably is a myth, since people play the MMOs like singleplayer games, and not like team games.

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Original post by KulSeran The point of having different classes is that they are unbalanced. And unbalanced classes make for good team play. Something like WOW encourages large raids to complete some game aspects. If you want to have good team play, you need to find a balance to your team. Real life balance should come into play like: archers trump pikemen, calvary trump archers, pikemen trump calvary. Medics don't have offence, but keep others/self alive, while a swordsman hits hard, but can't heal well on his own.

It's partially a question of definition. I would call these classes balanced. An imbalance, by my definition, would be if one class is simply better than another. Like, if archers were strong enough to take on calvary, by increasing their rate of fire and the damage their arrows cause for example, then they'd be unbalanced.

You say "Each class is unbalanced with respect to one another", I say "Each class is balanced with respect to the other classes as a whole (or to the game)".

Also, rock-paper-scissors isn't the most interesting form of balance. It's more interesting than uniformity, but creating interesting synergies is even better. What about a shield wall for archers to shoot over? Footmen with healers to keep them in shape?