With the 5 mages group, the boss could deal infinite damage and only them would be able to beat him. The others would fail. This means the mages would be as effective against a low level boss than a high level boss without going through a power growth. All other classes would have to get better gear to improve their HP, DPS or healing to move up
like all rpg the effectiveness of what you do is defined by a stat. its "cc vs anti-cc"
Lets say that a player can have up to 1000 stat points. And a boss has 450 anti-cc. Here is my scilab code:

//Every 100 cc points you increase base cc duration by 10%(additive)
//against an 100 points guy.
//Crowd Coefficient = how much you force players to put points in pvp.
//E.g 0.3 crowd Coefficient = you must have 300 stats in crowd defense out of your 1000 you have in order to pvp well.

crowd = 1000 ;
crowdDefense = 450 ;
crowdDuration = 6 ; //hammer of justice - paladin.
CrowdCoefficient = 0.3;

crowdFraction = ( crowd / crowdDefense )
totalDuration = crowdDuration * crowdFraction * CrowdCoefficient
TotalReduction = 1 - (totalDuration / crowdDuration)

Lets see some use case examples :
a) 1000 cc vs 450 anti-cc = 4 sec stun.
combo : 3 pure crowd controllers (total immunity to boss dmg) and 2 random.
b) 600 cc vs 450 anti-cc= 2.4 sec stun.
combo : 5 mages.

Lv 1 mage vs lv 50 dragon. 20 cc vs 450 anti-cc : 0.08 stun. Mage dies.
Lv 50 mage vs lv 1 dragon. 1000 cc vs 9 anti-cc : 200 sec stun. Mage has fully reloaded his stun in 12 sec and can thus perma stun the boss. crowd control spells are stacking e.g after 12 sec the boss will be stunned for 200 sec = 200+200 - 12 = for 400-12 sec. etc. Perma stun in this game is a valid strategy.

forgot to mention combo 5 glass cannons :
Yes i can have a 100% dmg glasscannon mage, that deals 5.000 dmg in 0.1sec but then stays afk for 12 seconds ( simulates league of legends glasscannon mages). However tanks arent scared of glass cannons because they have 50.000 hp (exponential hp formulas) and can easily win in 1vs5. Glasscannon mages are op against glass cannons because they also have 2000-5000 hp so they can instant kill them in 0.1 sec. (choosing glasscannon = fast fights but tanks beat you)
You may find glasscannons op as 5 glascannons can deal 25000 dmg in 0.1sec against the 50.000 hp boss, then the boss kills 2 people in 12 sec (boss has 330 dps), 3 people left deal 15000 dmg, boss kills 2 people in 12 sec, 1 last mage deals 5.000 dmg and its a wipe. the boss survived with 5% hp what a luck [ but that was to be expected because the boss was tanky and we said tanks win 1vs5 fights]. They would have won if they drinked a single potion or had some more tankiness.

Conclusion:
1) Yes i can have a 0 dmg, 100% crowd control class, and perma stun someone for 10 seconds every 12 seconds in pvp (however i have 1/1 hp now).
2) Yes i can have a tank mage, with 100% stamina = 50.000 hp and be tank. But i will be an immobile tree that cant affect the world.


Here is how boss stat affect the fight : + this class has an advantage. - this class has a disadvantage.
Heavy hitting boss : +crowd control, -healer, -tank, -dmg
Enrage timer : +crowd control, +dmg, -healer, -tank.
Dispel cc, anti-cc : - crowd control.
big hp : +crowd control, -dmg, -tank, +healer

I believe I understand what you are saying, but I just don't understand how it is going to make for enjoyable MMORPG combat, especially if PVP is a very real playstyle within the game.

In my mind every MMORPG will have some sort of magical/physical resist system of which can be used to determine the effectiveness of various abilities, specifically crowd control. It should be as close to healer = tank = dps = crowd control as possible rather than crowd control > tank > healer > dps. I want players to feel like they serve a purpose. That just being what they chose to be is of value.

Current system I am debating on is having a class system with the ability to change your class through play. There would be no instant respecialization capabilities. If you had played for a full year as a Knight, but decided that you didn't want to reroll on a new character, you could go through the initial process of training and selecting a class over again which would take points away from being a Knight. Say you were tired of being a melee, you wouldn't be stuck in a Fighter subcategory like some games as you make no class selection at all until after you enter the game. You could set your Knight abilities to go down and start working on the initial skills towards becoming a Sorcerer. The two options for design that come to mind would be 1) When you become a Sorcerer you lose access to your Knight abilities or 2) Your Knight skills will go down as your Sorcerer skills go up, but you do not lose access to the Knight abilities until their skill level removes the abilities from your available abilities. The first would be like starting from scratch, but you maintain your character level/attributes giving you a step up on rerolling entirely. The second could lead to a Dual Class system. I feel the Dual Class system may bring forth balance issues in PVP so avoiding it may be the best way to go for a first time designer.

Final Fantasy 11 did something like this with the subclass system. You could choose a secondary class and you would gain stats and abilities up to half your current class level. It worked decently, but suffered from optimal class combination where your choice of subclass was limited to the 1 or 2 optimal choice for your main class. You could be White Mage/Fighter, but that was silly and less effective than White Mage/Other Mage class.

If you bring the classes close to each other in term of damage output and durability, you should be able to balance it decently with multiclassing. Instead of the power coming from skills, have it come from equipment. Skills would add secondary effects to further define the class role. For example, for a basic attack skill, a paladin might have an attack that puts a shield on nearby allies while a Death Knight would drain health and a rogue would deal some extra damage if behind the target. A player could multiclass as Paladin/Rogue and have 2 basic attack skills at their disposal for more versatility. However, they get this by losing deeper skills in their main class which have more potent secondary effects. Some players will choose versatility while others will choose power. You can then let the players distribute their points in whichever class they desire. You could have retraining levels which are points used to refund spent points in a class. That way, they can grind it out and change class when they have enough point.

For a system like this to work, you might have to do away with equipment restriction since the player class is ambiguous. If you provide tradeoffs on equipment, like Cloth being great against magic and weak against physical and Plate the opposite, players will sort it out and figure out what they think is best for them instead of what is the best imposed by their class restriction. If mages start dominating, you might see cloth wearing warriors as an anti-mage measure. As long as counters can be found, PVP will eventually self-balance.

Final Fantasy 11 did something like this with the subclass system. You could choose a secondary class and you would gain stats and abilities up to half your current class level. It worked decently, but suffered from optimal class combination where your choice of subclass was limited to the 1 or 2 optimal choice for your main class. You could be White Mage/Fighter, but that was silly and less effective than White Mage/Other Mage class.

If you bring the classes close to each other in term of damage output and durability, you should be able to balance it decently with multiclassing. Instead of the power coming from skills, have it come from equipment. Skills would add secondary effects to further define the class role. For example, for a basic attack skill, a paladin might have an attack that puts a shield on nearby allies while a Death Knight would drain health and a rogue would deal some extra damage if behind the target. A player could multiclass as Paladin/Rogue and have 2 basic attack skills at their disposal for more versatility. However, they get this by losing deeper skills in their main class which have more potent secondary effects. Some players will choose versatility while others will choose power. You can then let the players distribute their points in whichever class they desire. You could have retraining levels which are points used to refund spent points in a class. That way, they can grind it out and change class when they have enough point.

For a system like this to work, you might have to do away with equipment restriction since the player class is ambiguous. If you provide tradeoffs on equipment, like Cloth being great against magic and weak against physical and Plate the opposite, players will sort it out and figure out what they think is best for them instead of what is the best imposed by their class restriction. If mages start dominating, you might see cloth wearing warriors as an anti-mage measure. As long as counters can be found, PVP will eventually self-balance.

The goal within my design would certainly be one of allowing more player freedoms, but freedom can only be given to a certain extent for balance sake. PVP will not be required, but it will be an extremely important form of play for the game, so balance is key. I planned to have gear degrade and eventually break through use, gear cannot be repaired forever. Also, the game is to be less gear dependent. You can compete with the most basic of gear, but taking the extra time to acquire upgrades will still be of value, depending how you plan to use the gear. Materials used, type of gear being created, and skill of the creator will help determine the qualities of the pieces of gear. As you alluded to, some gear will be more physical oriented while some more magical oriented in it's defensive properties.

The PVP gameplay would be an evolution to that of Dark Age of Camelot, three sides in a 1v1v1 war for dominance, with 14 classes per side currently conceptualized. The aim is to provide a more casual game experience where less time is required "grinding" before you feel you can actually play the game and have fun. There will be character levels, attribute points, and skill levels for basic customization/advancement of a character, outside of gear acquisition. Other forms of advancement will be available as well, but advancement will not rely on gear to be attained.

I just wanted to provide a means for players to change to a different class through gameplay rather than forcing them to have alts/start over from scratch. The system is also intended to prevent the switching of classes on a day to day basis to avoid providing free reign of FOTM classes. The process of changing classes, though possible to do, would not be something that can be done in a short amount of time. Character levels will be one of the easier forms of progression which allows the raising of skill levels and acquisition of attribute points, but skills themselves would take some time to raise through use which is where the real development of a character capabilities come into play. Characters are useful, even if not maxed out, so people shouldn't feel forced into grinding it out before being able to actually play the game.

I don't want a level 1 character to hit a level 50 for 3 damage only to be hit by said level 50 for 300 damage and die in one hit. I would like a level 50 to be afraid of running into 10 enemy players, even if they are all level 1, but still provide the level 50 a chance to succeed. Make it accomplishment, not an assured victory.

14 classes per side seems very restrictive unless you have a lot of overlap. Classes in DAoC were very narrow, providing you 4 or 5 usable skill. Players were essentially one trick ponies. It's when players can't adapt that balance issues come up. As counter intuitive than it might sound, removing player freedom causes real balance issues and not players whining. If players cannot win because of lack of options, then it's a real balance issue since it resides in the formulas and stats of the game. If they have options to counter whatever they are facing, it's the player being too lazy and not a design balance issue. A side effect of lots of available options is some players will come up with powerful combinations. However, if you wait a while, players will naturally come up with something to counter it. Only when something is severely broken will you need to adjust the balance.

FOTM classes are this phenomenon in action. Someone figures out a particular build beats the majority of the players and starts dominating. Then others follow his footstep. Then someone else makes a new build to beat the FOTM and the cycle continues.

As for the 10xLevel 1 vs 1xLevel 50, this is a matter of adjusting power curves. Character Power is given by Power = Durability * Damage. A level 50 killing 10 level 1 in the same time than 10 level 1 kills a level 50. The combined power of the levels 10 accounting them them dieing in the process is 10+9+8+etc = 55. The level 50 thus needs about 8 times the Durability and Damage than a level 1. If a level 1 has 100HP and does 15 damage, the level 50 will have 800 HP and deal 120 damage. He will kill one level 1 per hit and in the process, they will land 55 hits on him for 825 damage.

here is my gameplay :

1) enemies downlevel to become the same level as you when they attack you. This acts before the attack is applied. So a lv 999999 mage will lose against a lv1 char fight (same win ratio). However you can do "friendly pvp" if both sides agree that disables this mechanic. Same thing happens to dungeons, a lv 1 mage can solo the lv 999999 final boss the game.

2) A lv 999999 mage will die to a lv1 rat, because of the above. Battles will be always challenging.

3) players can miss / dodge/ parry/ deflect all attacks as long as they have good reaction times (press dodge button or simple move away to avoid collision detection). of course this would depend on their stamina / debuffs / dexterity.

4) multiclassing : a player can change his class anytime, like in final fantasy tactics. My lv 99 warrior can become a lv 99 priest when he wants (level stays same, but you have to buy the spells (only once - after that you have permantly learned them). Some spells are cross class e.g lesser stealth so my warrior can use lesser stealth to gank people from behind.

5) class combining : you can use talent trees from other classes. e.g you may have a paladin tank that has "warrior charge" to avoid getting perma-kitted to death.
or a warrior with priest "autorez" spell. Sure it will be hard to balance but who cares.

14 classes per side seems very restrictive unless you have a lot of overlap. Classes in DAoC were very narrow, providing you 4 or 5 usable skill. Players were essentially one trick ponies. It's when players can't adapt that balance issues come up. As counter intuitive than it might sound, removing player freedom causes real balance issues and not players whining. If players cannot win because of lack of options, then it's a real balance issue since it resides in the formulas and stats of the game. If they have options to counter whatever they are facing, it's the player being too lazy and not a design balance issue. A side effect of lots of available options is some players will come up with powerful combinations. However, if you wait a while, players will naturally come up with something to counter it. Only when something is severely broken will you need to adjust the balance.

FOTM classes are this phenomenon in action. Someone figures out a particular build beats the majority of the players and starts dominating. Then others follow his footstep. Then someone else makes a new build to beat the FOTM and the cycle continues.

As for the 10xLevel 1 vs 1xLevel 50, this is a matter of adjusting power curves. Character Power is given by Power = Durability * Damage. A level 50 killing 10 level 1 in the same time than 10 level 1 kills a level 50. The combined power of the levels 10 accounting them them dieing in the process is 10+9+8+etc = 55. The level 50 thus needs about 8 times the Durability and Damage than a level 1. If a level 1 has 100HP and does 15 damage, the level 50 will have 800 HP and deal 120 damage. He will kill one level 1 per hit and in the process, they will land 55 hits on him for 825 damage.

Each class will have specialization options. The balancing of these options is key and can't be rushed into. For melee characters, their individualization would most likely have to come primarily from their weapon selection. I wanted to provide some characters that didn't require magic or mystical abilities in order to be able to compete. For magically inclined classes I aim to provide at least three skill lines to choose from as well. The current plan is to have some generic skill lines, of which players start with, which would cap out at 25 out of 100. Once a class is selected new skill lines open and some caps are alleviated dependent on the class. I aim to allow a Sorcerer to be able to specialize into a melee weapon if they so choose, at the loss of points spent into magical areas, which would force the player to choose what they desire more. This would open up "battle mages" and "melee healers" to a degree, but there would be limitations to the success of this to maintain the balance. With a lessened power curve I feel that options like this become a possibility. There currently are plans to allow up to four classes, out of the fourteen, to be able to specialize into healing capabilities.

Errand time, cutting response short.