While we’re talking about the triangle of Tank/Healer/Damage Dealer, and the alternatives to such, what about balance? What about the balance in PvP?
I’ll admit, I’m not a huge PvP nut. That said, when I have the itch to play with other people in a test of skill, I like a flat playing field. The T/H/D triangle just doesn’t work for 1-on-1 PvP. It might work for small teams, but even then, the artificial Threat/Aggro mechanic doesn’t work on real people. Their Rogues go for the Healers, not for the tin can calling them names. Pure healers die in PvP. Quickly. When MMO PvP is a Quake Deathmatch with classes, someone will inevitably be the whipping boy.
So how does Team Fortress 2 work? From what I can gather, it’s based on a system of checks and balances. Sort of a real-time Pokemon, as it were. Is that better than Quake, with its classless system of “who gets the Rocket Launcher wins”? I’m not sure, but leaving things to player skill over “class” means balancing the game takes a different approach.
Rock, Paper Scissors is the archetype for the “class” system of PvP, but it’s not really satisfying as a test of skill. If Rogues always kill Mages, it’s annoying to be a Mage. Pokemon works because it’s effectively squad based. Ditto TF2 and WoW Battlegrounds. At least, those sort of work. 1-on-1 class based PvP stinks, as is evidenced in the Arenas in Fire Emblem.
Magic the Gathering works a bit differently. Their five colors are balanced largely on a “threat, answer” mechanic, and the “stack” allows for a series of moves and countermoves. It’s fairly elegant, but even there, “hybrid builds” of more than one color are often optimal (by design). In contrast, in a class-based MMO, a Rogue can’t use a Fireball spell on those pesky tanks.
An open classless MMO wouls allow more flexibility in the tactical “threat-answer” vein… but it would require more work to balance. I suspect that’s why we don’t see much of that these days.
I don’t mind Rock Paper Scissors design too much, at least depending upon the actual design and implementation of it.
I’m typically horrible at RTS games, for example, but I decided to pick up Tom Clancy’s EndWar for the 360 (coming soon to PC). It’s an Action RTS (ie. no base-building and resource-gathering) rather than a “standard” RTS, so it’s more up my alley. EndWar also uses an RPS system: Gunships (helicopters) defeat Tanks, Tanks defeat Transports, Transports defeat Gunships. There are two Infantry units as well, and each of them fall into the RPS system against each other or against the vehicle units.
While at first glance it might seem predictable, it really isn’t for the same reason it can work in your MMO example: you never know what your opponent is bringing. If you bring a rogue to fight a mage but your opponent didn’t bring any mages you’re kinda hosed. Guild Wars always seemed the same way to me, all these very specialized builds to counter other builds but if the other team doesn’t have anyone using your target build then your build is now a liability for your team. Probably the reason some of the arenas are only populated by “balanced” groups now so everyone knows what they’re up against and it goes back to a game of skill vs. skill.
Aye, that underlines my assertion that the RPS design works best in a “squad” setting where you can field different elements of the circle of balance. I really like how that works in something like Starcraft, for example. I’ve used it in some of my game designs, since it can allow for a move-countermove sort of dynamic in the right setting. It’s also a nice shorthand for players who need to react quickly, like in one of those RTS games.
My complaint is mostly just that it doesn’t work for 1-on-1 PvP, where a player is locked into a single role that will always have a heavy weakness to another class. That sort of solo PvP really only works if each player plays the same class, or they swap sides after each round, like Left 4 Dead apparently does. Perhaps that’s why Dueling isn’t a huge facet of the major MMOs.
I will say that WAR did a pretty good job of mixing in tactics with their small scale RvR battles (1 v 1 to maybe 10 v 10, not talking about the larger Keep battles). (and also just stating that I’m talking about lvl 20 and below)
I was an altoholic in that game, and tried all three of the major archetypes, and my “pure healing class” Shaman had a pretty good survival rate. It would take a pretty long time for a tank to kill my shammy 1 v 1. Long enough that eventually “friends” would come and save me.
DPS classes were more of a problem, but even when a Witch Elf would single me out, I could often run around enough to survive a lot of the time.
That being said, it still came down to being squad “zerg tactics” in that if your group of 3-5 suddenly found itself against a group of 8-10, it meant that you were likely going to die.
I suspect there’s not really a way around the zerg rush in open RvR. Maybe that’s part of the charm… but I do prefer a more regimented PvP myself. That said, I’m glad that WAR exists and that it’s experimenting and finding success.
It’s also good to hear that “pure healers” are doing OK in survivability. It makes sense that DPS “glass cannons” would be fragile. I guess some of that comes from the nature of the play style. I guess I’m just spoiled by games like MTG where I can fiddle endlessly with “builds” that don’t fit the “dominant archetypes” but are nevertheless effective and fun. It’s the Johnny in me. I wish that MMOs had that sort of flexibility; classes just seem very constrained to me, especially given the promise of alternate realities that MMOs offer.
That’s the whole problem with a Class based system as it is. You’re locked into certain things and while you as a player can sit and think “Well I should be able to do this and this to get away,” chances are you won’t be able due to some lacking mechanic in the game. Open games w/ acquired / focused skills that can be altered or tailored need to rear their heads.
If I want to heal, but want some survivability, I learn healing skills, but I learn how to get away too. I don’t have to be able to kill someone to survive in PVP, just get away. But current games don’t reward surviving, so if class A can’t kill class B, there’s OBVIOUSLY something wrong with class A; and that’s not the way it should be.
I like that you get credit for healing in WAR. It’s refreshing to see that. I think WoW ended up doing that as well, but I’m not sure.
For me though, open world PVP is where things matter most. There is a common goal in scenarios, battlegrounds, etc … but when you’re just out and about, you’re goal may not be to kill anyone who comes around. Sometimes you just want to get away.
On the flip side though, if someone executes an attack sneakily on you, you shouldn’t get away. You should be dead.
For a quite interesting take on the RPS design, take a look at:
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/rock-paper-scissors-in-strategy-games.html
I warn you, if you haven’t stumbled across Sirlin before, you will be stuck there for many hours, but it’s well worth it
Talking about 1v1 balance in class-based games is moot, I believe. Those sorts of games are just not supposed to be balanced 1v1, but only in team (and often, not even in team, but actually for PvE where the monsters have completely different stats/skills to the players).
Going with a classless, fully customizable skill system doesn’t really solve the problem. The game will still be decided in a large number of cases before it’s even begun, just due to the specific combinations of skills that you and your opponent have chosen.
Melf, no, a classless system doesn’t solve the problem by itself. You will still need careful skill design to avoid overpowered combos. It’s just that a skill-based classless system is more granular and less personal. Nerfing a particular skill might affect a variety of builds, but not “all Rogues”. It’s the designer’s task to make sure that those battles aren’t decided purely on skill build. You just don’t get that flexibility with the polarized options of a class system.
It’s a bit like the balance in Magic the Gathering. Sometimes they mess it up (Arcbound Ravager + Artifact Lands + Disciple of the Vault), sometimes the competitive environment is very healthy with a wide variety of decks. Because they have so many moving parts, tuning is a subtler, if more involved, process. It’s not perfect, I just see it as better, if implemented well.
A skill-based system would also give the “library” effect by giving characters access to several skills, effectively making them a “squad” of attack/defense options. Even 1-on-1 combat then would be based on a collection of skills, not the overall rock-paper-scissors concept. If everyone is choosing from the same “pool” of skills, deficiencies in “build” are due completely to the player’s choices, and ultimately, can be reversed. GW’s class system, with a metric ton of skills, comes close to this, but you can’t switch to a Elementalist main if you’re a Ranger. If it helps, I’m talking about conceptually taking GW’s system of free unlimited respecs and eight-slot build, but extending it to being able to change your main class anytime you respec, if you felt like it.
Bottom line, RPS design can be useful and fun, but for a more nuanced competition that allows for player skill to have a stronger effect, you either need more players who each have a rock, paper or scissors, or you need to give each player access to each of them, and the ability to wield any of them according to their preference and constantly shifting tactics.
Oh, and thanks for the link to that Sirlin article. I ran into his site years ago, and have sunk many interested hours there.
It’s all in the design of a careful system, true. It seems very hard to do – one of the reasons I stopped playing MtG was because there was often a RPS nature to specific deck-types matching up against each other (the other reason being that the Mana Screw Gods hated me).
Such a system is possible of course – I think the key would be to focus on keeping the total number of skills in the game to a minimum as much as possible… while of course still having enough variety to allow people to choose a skillset based on a desired flavor of combat.
Rock-Paper-Scissors design absolutely cannot work for PvP in traditional MMOs. It’s simple if you think about it: there is never balance. If most people play Paper, then the Rocks are going to complain that they’re outnumbered and the Papers are going to complain every time they encounter a Scissor on the playing field.
The larger problem is that it’s just not fun to be the victim. Even if things were magically balanced in a game, seeing a Scissors coming over the hill when you’re playing a Paper is going to suck every time. Even in a large combat, if your enemies can single you out then it’s just going to suck. Being a fragile healer blows if the DPS manages to get close enough to obliterate you while the tanks are distracted.
In Meridian 59 I spent a lot of time making sure that the different spell schools were balanced out. There were some limits and interdependencies, but what was “best” often came down to what you liked to play. Want to go in spells blazing? That’s different than if you wanted to be able to stand your ground in the long hall. This also allowed you to customize your character with options; if someone was shutting down one of your strategies, then you likely have a fallback strategy if you were smart. A fully developed character didn’t necessarily have more raw power than the newbie character, but it probably had more options to handle different situations.
Brian, I think the idea is to make each character a self-enclosed rock, paper AND scissors… but that they can only be using one at a time. Analogous to Sirlin’s example in fighting games… attack beats throw, throw beats block, block beats attack.
Or, at the least, most teams that take a few different classes should have each of the rock-paper-scissors options open to them (i.e. balancing for team battles as opposed to 1v1′s).
That’s a good way to put it, Melf. My guiding principle is to make combat less about min/maxing inherent strengths and weaknesses (passive time grinds), and more about tactics and adaptability (player skill). The split second timing required in a Street Fighter wouldn’t work over the internet, but it’s possible to make combat more forgiving than SF, yet maintain a sense of give and take, move and countermove. The fight itself would be interesting, rather than a foregone conclusion.
That is pretty much my dream combat system at the moment! Now all we have to do is design a simple/deep/engaging/non twitch-based MMO combat system…