[quote name='glhf' timestamp='1325445368' post='4898729']
Class based games, RNG based combat goes out the window if you want to have perma-death.

Wrong. The presence of "classes" does not imply unfairness. Some amount of randomness is tolerable as well as long as it averages out sufficiently and the player has enough tools to cope with it.
[/quote]

Like I said, I don't expect you to understand even if I would make a long and in depth post about class based combat.
Why do you think all class based games that have some sort of arena or tournament don't allow 1v1? Only 2v2 and up.

[quote name='Stroppy Katamari' timestamp='1325504999' post='4898916']
[quote name='glhf' timestamp='1325445368' post='4898729']
Class based games, RNG based combat goes out the window if you want to have perma-death.

Wrong. The presence of "classes" does not imply unfairness. Some amount of randomness is tolerable as well as long as it averages out sufficiently and the player has enough tools to cope with it.
[/quote]

Like I said, I don't expect you to understand even if I would make a long and in depth post about class based combat.
Why do you think all class based games that have some sort of arena or tournament don't allow 1v1? Only 2v2 and up.
[/quote]Because those games aren't balanced for 1v1.

Street Fighter has about 40 "classes". Starcraft has three "classes". Blizzard could have balanced WoW's measly nine classes for 1v1 but they obviously didn't consider 1v1 or PVP in general to be important. Achieving simultaneous PVP and PVE balance requires achieving PVP balance first. PVE can then be balanced without disturbing the PVP balance by tuning the environment to the classes and not vice versa.

[quote name='glhf' timestamp='1325515746' post='4898945']
[quote name='Stroppy Katamari' timestamp='1325504999' post='4898916']
[quote name='glhf' timestamp='1325445368' post='4898729']
Class based games, RNG based combat goes out the window if you want to have perma-death.

Wrong. The presence of "classes" does not imply unfairness. Some amount of randomness is tolerable as well as long as it averages out sufficiently and the player has enough tools to cope with it.
[/quote]

Like I said, I don't expect you to understand even if I would make a long and in depth post about class based combat.
Why do you think all class based games that have some sort of arena or tournament don't allow 1v1? Only 2v2 and up.
[/quote]Because those games aren't balanced for 1v1.

Street Fighter has about 40 "classes". Starcraft has three "classes". Blizzard could have balanced WoW's measly nine classes for 1v1 but they obviously didn't consider 1v1 or PVP in general to be important. Achieving simultaneous PVP and PVE balance requires achieving PVP balance first. PVE can then be balanced without disturbing the PVP balance by tuning the environment to the classes and not vice versa.
[/quote]

You always made me decide to write you an essay on this subject but I'm not going to.
I'm just going to say that you're wrong and it's impossible for "classes" to be balanced..
I guess the only thing you did prove me wrong in was that there are a few games that have 1v1 in "class" based games but I think that is a big mistake.

One class will always have better abilities than the other one. Either it's a so called "hero class" or it's rock paper scissor.
Besides you haven't given any real arguments to why Class based combat is fair either. All you've pretty much said is "You're wrong."

You always made me decide to write you an essay on this subject but I'm not going to.
I'm just going to say that you're wrong and it's impossible for "classes" to be balanced..
I guess the only thing you did prove me wrong in was that there are a few games that have 1v1 in "class" based games but I think that is a big mistake.

One class will always have better abilities than the other one. Either it's a so called "hero class" or it's rock paper scissor.

Entities with infinite calculation ability playing an asymmetric, discrete, deterministic game would surely find it to be unbalanced. How many folks like that do you know, though?

In the real world, the argument you are making is completely irrelevant, just like pointing out that no two objects are "really" the same length when we start poking at quantums. For all practical purposes, there are objects of same length - within some tolerance. The tolerance used depends on purpose, but it is lower bound by the limits of our ability to measure. We have no way of ever knowing exactly how balanced a given version of a game is. When we say "balanced", it really means "balanced for practical purposes", or "balanced as far as we know". What we can do is examine class matchup statistics, class picks and other data, then make educated estimates. Then we make a balance patch, take stock of the situation again, repeat. As long as the game is under good maintenance, either we are considering it to be balanced for now, or a balance patch is incoming and will on average improve the situation.

Take Starcraft, for instance; if players who have been playing the game full-time, professionally for the last five years cannot detect imbalance in the game's races, then the only sane option is to consider the game balanced until there's evidence it's not. An "imbalance" too small for master players to detect really doesn't make a difference.

Besides you haven't given any real arguments to why Class based combat is fair either. All you've pretty much said is "You're wrong."
[/quote]You are failing at reading comprehension and/or elementary logic. I have not claimed "class based combat is fair". That would be ridiculous; obviously there are plenty of unbalanced games around, and therefore not all class based combat is fair.

Instead, I have shown by counterexample that your equally ridiculous claim "every game with class-based combat is unfair" is false.

Entities with infinite calculation ability playing an asymmetric, discrete, deterministic game would surely find it to be unbalanced. How many folks like that do you know, though?

In the real world, the argument you are making is completely irrelevant, just like pointing out that no two objects are "really" the same length when we start poking at quantums. For all practical purposes, there are objects of same length - within some tolerance. The tolerance used depends on purpose, but it is lower bound by the limits of our ability to measure. We have no way of ever knowing exactly how balanced a given version of a game is. When we say "balanced", it really means "balanced for practical purposes", or "balanced as far as we know". What we can do is examine class matchup statistics, class picks and other data, then make educated estimates. Then we make a balance patch, take stock of the situation again, repeat. As long as the game is under good maintenance, either we are considering it to be balanced for now, or a balance patch is incoming and will on average improve the situation.

Take Starcraft, for instance; if players who have been playing the game full-time, professionally for the last five years cannot detect imbalance in the game's races, then the only sane option is to consider the game balanced until there's evidence it's not. An "imbalance" too small for master players to detect really doesn't make a difference.

You are failing at reading comprehension and/or elementary logic. I have not claimed "class based combat is fair". That would be ridiculous; obviously there are plenty of unbalanced games around, and therefore not all class based combat is fair.

Instead, I have shown by counterexample that your equally ridiculous claim "every game with class-based combat is unfair" is false.

This feels so pointless to discuss but let's do it anyway.

My argument:
"Class" vs "Class" is theoretically impossible to balance because when you play both "classes" to their max potential then the "class" with the better tool set will always win.

Your arguments:
1. Look at the pros in those games.. They make money playing the game and they don't complain.
2. We can't assume players will be able to play their "classes" to their max potential, That would be ridiculous. We are not robots.

My Answers:
1. So?
2. We should assume they can. I'm not a RTS player but I can imagine it's harder to play an RTS race/faction to it's max potential than it is a single character in a RPG. But still doesn't mean we should assume they won't reach that max potential. Also just because one class might be better than the other one doesn't mean it always wins. It's up to the player playing the character too. But there will always be that unfair advantage. That unfair advantage is often enough to let the worse player win if they aren't far away from each other in skills. Especially if you add RNG to the game as well.

Your arguments:
2. We can't assume players will be able to play their "classes" to their max potential, That would be ridiculous. We are not robots.
My Answers:
2. We should assume they can. I'm not a RTS player but I can imagine it's harder to play an RTS race/faction to it's max potential than it is a single character in a RPG. But still doesn't mean we should assume they won't reach that max potential. Also just because one class might be better than the other one doesn't mean it always wins. It's up to the player playing the character too. But there will always be that unfair advantage. That unfair advantage is often enough to let the worse player win if they aren't far away from each other in skills. Especially if you add RNG to the game as well.

OK, so you are either trolling or completely retarded.

Has it occurred to you that Chess and Go are asymmetrical "class-based" games? Human beings will never solve those games. It's simply not going to happen with the computational ability we have.
Even if you lack the slightest understanding of computational complexity, you should realize human cognitive limits will never allow a human being to play even the first 0.1 seconds of a Starcraft match perfectly. "Perfect" play would take reflexes at least three orders of magnitude better than the best human has. And that's just the very first instant of the game, where there is absolutely no strategic decision to make.

My other point had nothing to do with whether professional players of Starcraft "complain". The point is they are the best Starcraft players in existence. If they are unable to find imbalances strong enough to matter, then so is everyone else. A theoretical imbalance we cannot even detect is completely meaningless and has no effect on the quality of a game. There is no reason for us to hamstring our game designs to avoid this meaningless imbalance.

Rock always seems to beat scissors. OMG! Rock-paper-scissors is so unbalanced!

[quote name='glhf' timestamp='1325594732' post='4899223']
Your arguments:
2. We can't assume players will be able to play their "classes" to their max potential, That would be ridiculous. We are not robots.
My Answers:
2. We should assume they can. I'm not a RTS player but I can imagine it's harder to play an RTS race/faction to it's max potential than it is a single character in a RPG. But still doesn't mean we should assume they won't reach that max potential. Also just because one class might be better than the other one doesn't mean it always wins. It's up to the player playing the character too. But there will always be that unfair advantage. That unfair advantage is often enough to let the worse player win if they aren't far away from each other in skills. Especially if you add RNG to the game as well.

OK, so you are either trolling or completely retarded.

Has it occurred to you that Chess and Go are asymmetrical "class-based" games? Human beings will never solve those games. It's simply not going to happen with the computational ability we have.
Even if you lack the slightest understanding of computational complexity, you should realize human cognitive limits will never allow a human being to play even the first 0.1 seconds of a Starcraft match perfectly. "Perfect" play would take reflexes at least three orders of magnitude better than the best human has. And that's just the very first instant of the game, where there is absolutely no strategic decision to make.

My other point had nothing to do with whether professional players of Starcraft "complain". The point is they are the best Starcraft players in existence. If they are unable to find imbalances strong enough to matter, then so is everyone else. A theoretical imbalance we cannot even detect is completely meaningless and has no effect on the quality of a game. There is no reason for us to hamstring our game designs to avoid this meaningless imbalance.
[/quote]

Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Hope we have moderators in this forum to give you at least an infraction for calling me a retard.
Even calling me a troll should be enough for an infraction since it's baiting and provocative and insulting.

Do you read your own posts btw?
Your defense is that players won't be able to play 100% perfectly every 0.1 second during a fight/match.
Also, I'm not talking about starcraft now since I never played it but if a game is too fast paced for human reflexes etc to play then it's flawed and need to be slowed down.
Personally, my reflexes are good enough to counter abilties that have only a 0.3 second animation.
If a game only has 0.1 second animations then it sounds like it's way too fast paced (unless someone can prove it's possible to react to 0.1 second animations).

We're designing the game to be played by players, not by bots.

P.S: There's chess masters that can beat the best bots in chess.

Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

In other words, you are going to hold onto your opinion regardless of how thoroughly it is demonstrated to be false.

Your defense is that players won't be able to play 100% perfectly every 0.1 second during a fight/match.[/quote]Sigh.
You said we should assume that players can play perfectly. It's blindingly obvious that such is never going to be the case due to computational complexity and cognitive limits.

Also, I'm not talking about starcraft now since I never played it but if a game is too fast paced for human reflexes etc to play then it's flawed and need to be slowed down.[/quote]Not too fast to play. Too fast to play perfectly. And it's not Starcraft specifically, but every single videogame that isn't a pure puzzle or strategy game. Humans do not play videogames perfectly.

Personally, my reflexes are good enough to counter abilties that have only a 0.3 second animation.
If a game only has 0.1 second animations then it sounds like it's way too fast paced (unless someone can prove it's possible to react to 0.1 second animations).[/quote]It seems you don't understand what "perfect" means. A perfect Starcraft opening would require the player to make several accurate clicks and keypresses per millisecond during the first frame of the game.

We're designing the game to be played by players, not by bots.[/quote]That's sort of what I have been trying to tell you when I say any "unfairness" which human players cannot find is not relevant.

P.S: There's chess masters that can beat the best bots in chess.[/quote]Dunno what that has to do with anything. But according to you, chess is "unfair" since it has classes Black and White. We cannot solve Chess. After a few thousand years of play, we cannot even know whether Black or White is supposed to be the overpowered class. It's pretty obvious that your definition of "unfair" is completely meaningless.

In games like Fallout 3 and Skyrim, the save/load feature never really made me feel less immersed. In fact, if I felt I had to go through with my decision to lop someone's head off and face the entire city full of guards and citizens afterwards, I would rarely do it and wouldn't end up having much fun...

Maybe it's just because these games are the type where, if you die, you load your last save and try again instead of having the storyline changed. However, I still feel like I'd like to win if I can, whether it's on the first try or the seventh. I'd prefer trying multiple times.

I don't think this would ruin immersion, because in my opinion, immersion isn't "thinking you're inside the game" - you'll almost always be aware that you're playing a game, but if you're immersed, you'll care more about what happens in the game. If your players care enough to repeatedly try to beat the specific fight, then why stop them?

I say, let them save/load, but tell them and remind them throughout the game that they don't have to win to progress.