Vanguard - Brad posts about balancing the classes (HELLA LONG)

[Duppin]

Taggle, I am very amused at how you started off disagreeing with me and basically rehashed my point exactly.

[Taggle]

I never intended to disagree with you. I think you are right for the most part, but I do strongly disagree that the average player knows what makes a MMOG fun.

They have absolutely no clue.

[Etadanik]

From my experience:

Blizzard has a vision of where they want to be (beyond making alot of money): perhaps. They know how to get there: doubtful. Blizzard introduces ALOT of changes that they later rescind. And they take alot of input from community - just not this community. The trend is not that Blizzard listens to the loudest whiners - they're too proud for that - but that they typically have no idea of what's wrong, refuse to admit it for a while, and then later implement a suggestion or two to "experiment" with whether it makes things better. They have a plan, but it often has holes, so any changes they bring about typically has to do with trying to patch up unexpected holes that they at times refuse to acknowledge, leading to community frustrations.

A company that refuses to compromise its vision must make sure that vision is perfect, or settle for a smaller player base. I somehow think that part of the current chaos in Blizzard's pipeline comes from the seductive pull of keeping 2 million+ subscribers regardless of whether it compromises the original game plan or not.

[Sarvius]

I think it's important to realize that hindsight is 20/20. We can look at a game like EQ or WoW and say "this is what's wrong with it" - Brad&co. have the challenge of preemptively fixing problems.

[Iannis]

He made me happy in saying you'll be able to twink.

I miss twinking quite a bit. Who cares if you're overpowered on your 2nd, 3rd, 20th new character as long as you've already gone through "hard mode" once. Boo hoo! the guy who just started will feel his e-penis is smaller than yours because you have stuff he doesn't. He'll appreciate twinking when HE has a max level and wants to make an alt.

I can't recall a recent game that let me twink overpowered gear. I could dump as much money as I needed onto an alt, and equip myself with state-of-the-art pieces for MY LEVEL...but I miss the days of walking up to a moss snake wearing my leet fungi and wielding a yak (or something) and saying, "time to die, bitch."

It's kind of a cop out to say imbalances are good and wanted, though. Of course they're inevitable, but you don't want to say you take amusement in turning the tables on the overpowered classes occasionally. Don't take joy in nerfing your players! I swear Mythic enjoyed swinging their nerf hammer all around (except at albion. o how I hate albion), and it pissed off players to no end.

[Braen]

Originally Posted by Iannis

but I miss the days of walking up to a moss snake wearing my leet fungi and wielding a yak (or something) and saying, "time to die, bitch."

or.. "kick this!"

[Zanetsu]

Most of Brad's "screw-ups" were what made EQ what it was.

[Mkopec1]

Originally Posted by Zanetsu

Most of Brad's "screw-ups" were what made EQ what it was.

This is very true. And this is why many of the Eq clones which spawned after EQ that tried to "fix" EQ's problems ended up sucking.

[Mero]

Sorry Brad, but although it was beautifully written, it lacked any utterance of content or meaning. Every paragraph appeared to be another way of saying:

"balancing can be great, individuality is desired, fun is the ultimate goal, but Vanguard is not Utopia, thus perfection is not possible."

And what exactly were these "examples" he kept referencing? I read alot of general discussions, some more "general" than others, but I never read a "detailed or specific" example regarding any class or ability or archtype or even a specific action or nerf or anything for that matter with any degree of specificity. Sorry.

Just my opinion.

[Sampo]

I just hope

..

There is a FFA pvp server and It has slightly different mechanics which allow training, ninja looting and kill stealing.. That is my hope.

Also, people who scam should have their accounts deleted

[Aradune Mithara]

Originally Posted by Mero

Sorry Brad, but although it was beautifully written, it lacked any utterance of content or meaning. Every paragraph appeared to be another way of saying:

"balancing can be great, individuality is desired, fun is the ultimate goal, but Vanguard is not Utopia, thus perfection is not possible."

And what exactly were these "examples" he kept referencing? I read alot of general discussions, some more "general" than others, but I never read a "detailed or specific" example regarding any class or ability or archtype or even a specific action or nerf or anything for that matter with any degree of specificity. Sorry.

Just my opinion.

Sorry Mero, but the post came from our official boards, from the middle of a huge thread, and therefore when posted here, lacked both context and an audience already in the midst of these issues. That said, I appreciate Braen posting it nonetheless. I guess if I'm going to put that much effort into writing a missive, I should remember that it will likely be posted elsewhere, and therefore word it so it's more clear to everyone and therefore gets more milage.

In a nutshell, there has been some concern by some posters on our site that certain ideas, or mechanics, or systems that we've announced we intend to employ by beta are similar in some cases to those they've seen used in another game. And, not only that, they assert that the end result of these applications were substandard, at best.

What I've been able to discern is that, at last from their perspectives (I need to careful here and definitely NOT criticize the distinguished competition) is that another MMOG became so obsessed with balance, perfection, playing the game the 'right way', etc. that they went overboard and sucked the fun and freedom from the game.

I was trying to make the point that even if we are using some similar methodologies (and I don't necessarily agree to that, always, either), that it's the intent that matters. Specifically, when it comes to a job or archetype system, you can take it too far in an attempt to make the classes oh so balanced that you basically make each class within the same archetype or job so similar that you ended up doing far more harm than good.

I was trying to reassure them that our intent is certainly balance, but also fun, and that while balance in general is VERY important to us, class balance is something that people will always be complaining about, so they needn't worry that we'll go overboard and suck the distinct nature, abilities, and playstyle out of a class just to get it a little more 'balanced'.

I then provided some other examples, and tried to reaffirm that both balance and fun were very important to us and though they are usually linked, sometimes they're not, and one of them has to lose.

Again, sorry if I was too wordy then or now, or even given this additional context you find my points not worth making I will say that at times my wordyness has benefit in that it can make dilivering a tough message not come across as so harsh, which can be very important when doing community management. Abandoning restraint, being blunt, etc. are not always luxuries I have (probably one of the reasons I personally like this site so much, even if you're flaming me -- you speak your minds, and you do so concisely.)

[Braen]

Yeah I appologize for taking the quote and popping it on here without context. I shall do a better job of framing said quotes in the future.

It was my hope that by posting this here, the readers would follow the link I provided to see the context.

And no... I am not going to take Brad saying "I appreciate Braen posting" and put it in my sig... even though I would find it humorous with all the "anti-Braen sig" flames appearing lately.

[Dis]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

What I've been able to discern is that, at lesat from their perspectives (I need to careful here and definitely NOT criticize the distinguished competition) is that another MMOG became so obsessed with balance, perfection, playing the game the 'right way', etc. that they went overboard and sucked the fun and freedom from the game.

I will help you out here: Everquest 2

I have no problems naming names. It was a nice effort, really clean game, they have even made a huge customer relation stride, but the gameplay (and by that I mean almost every fundamental game design from itemization, class design, to the way they force you to bind in only two different places in the gameworld) is.....lacking. That is as nicely and without getting into a long rant as I can put it.


-Dis


Edit: Brad - Nice to see that you are more worried about designing a game that is interesting than trying to appeal to the masses to make everyone equal to each other. As they say "Variety is the spice of life". I just hope you stick to your guns so Braen does not have to flame you.

[Dandai]

Who has the better PR strategy between EQ2 and WoW, and where will V:SoH stand?

SOE patches at least minor fixes twice a week or more and has had ten major patches since release last November [for not mathematically inclined, that's a patch a month plus an extra three mixed in there somewhere].

According to http://patchtimer.org/Patch.txt , Blizzard has patched WoW a total of 12 times since release in November - this includes minor fixes after major patches.

Will V:SoH be like EQ2 where the game is virtually a whole new experience from when it launched or will it be like WoW that addresses major problems and facilitates some of the outcries of its community once in a while?

[Zehn - Vhex]

The number 1 thing they can do to help balance is to remove the concept of 'dps classes.' Nothing fucks shit up worse then that. Nothing. I've said it before and I'll say it here. What made the ideal raid makeup in EQ? 2 warriors, 8 clerics, 4 bards, 2 enchanters, 2 shaman, 1 druid and 40 wizards.