Why codex dislikes balance

[Butter]

This is an RPG game.

 

[Varnaan]

Because the most fun about single player games, especially RPG, is figuring out a fun, retarded overpowered build and breaking the game.

 

[JarlFrank]

This is an RPG game.

I'm gonna ride the ICE express to the city so I can go to an ATM machine and withdraw some money, then I'm gonna sit down in my car and put the coordinates of the nearest game store in my GPS system so I can buy an RPG game there which I will play on my PC with LCD display monitor.

 

[Varnaan]

In a diablo clone you absolutely do need some form of balance. Not every class has to be equally good but they should be in the same ballpark.

Who gives a fuck if the game is mainly single player, even if it has a secondary multi-player component?

guild wars classes play very differently but they are all reasonably balanced.

I hope you're joking because touch rangers were a thing, virulence necros were a thing, spike ele were a thing and last I played there was a mesmer build that dominated massively.
GW was never balanced but balance was never really that important unless you played at top level and top level players played around the meta which included whatever was OP at the moment, or some other obscure meta-counter that later became meta.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

party based games (IE: D&D ones) should not be compared with single character RPGs. A rogue might not be as good in combat as a fighter or mage but if they can get nice gear for the rest of your party they still contribute (indirectly) to your fighting ability, and backstabbing key enemies can be the difference between victory and defeat.

In a diablo clone you absolutely do need some form of balance. Not every class has to be equally good but they should be in the same ballpark.

And if balance makes every class play the same, the issue isn't balance, but lack of developer creativity. guild wars classes play very differently but they are all reasonably balanced. that's the ideal that should be strived for in any single character rpg.

That said, nothing wrong with some races/classes being stronger than others in genres like roguelikes where having a wide variety of challenges is one of the intended features.

Unless you're also implementing Player vs Player stuff in your hack and slash, I'm not sure it absolutely needs some form of balance as much as each class needs to be fun to play in there own way.

 

[Cryomancer]

Who gives a fuck if the game is mainly single player, even if it has a secondary multi-player component?

The blizzard.

And Jay Wilson.

"Sorceress is too popular since has a lot of cool skills and is not gear dependent, Barbarian is not popular, so lets make every class be a Barb reskin. Let's make monks needing an big and sharp axe that magically disappears on combat animations and sharper the axe is, more damage his unarmed attacks can deal. Lets put boring wow style cooldowns everywhere and make the most boring game ever"

Unless you're also implementing Player vs Player stuff in your hack and slash, I'm not sure it absolutely needs some form of balance as much as each class needs to be fun to play in there own way.

Even on PvP, PvP on NWN1 Multiplayer is crazy unbalanced but fun non the less.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

There's a better topic:

Why do developers still think cooldowns are good?​

Fuck that boring lazy shit.

 

[Varnaan]

Jay Wilson

Was fired from Blizzard because he was a shit fuck retard who antagonized everyone from the player base to the teams he managed and tanked Diablo 3.

 

[anvi]

EQ is an example of balance yet with masses of depth. It was a lot of work because they made it with so much freedom that the players created several new techniques, there was lots of "emergent gameplay". The game is basically modified AD&D but in real time so it is brutal, imagine being a level 1 Wizard with 23hp or something, and enemies in newbie areas can hit for 40hp if they spot you.

But people figured out a bunch of tricks that worked and the developers either 'nerfed' stuff (made powerful stuff weaker) if it was too strong, or they boosted stuff that was weaker than they expected. But most of the stuff players figured out, the developers would roll with it and make future content with that in mind. There was bitching constantly on the forum (still is) about WHY DOES DRUID GET THIS BUT MY SHAMAN ONLY GETS... etc. and lots of raging and things changed. But I think in the eyes of most reasonable gamers, the game had massive amounts of gameplay and depth and content, yet it was mostly balanced too. When you consider the database of thousands of hand made items and 14 unique classes which were waaaay out of balance in terms of damage and stats etc.. For example a Warrior has 50,000 hp and a Necro has 1050. A Necro can only nuke for 500, but a Wizard can nuke for 15,000 if they get lucky and critical, etc. Some classes were kind of unkillable because they could "feign death". So the game was infamous for dying and you lost so much... someone actually killed themselves in real life. But if you played as a Monk or Necro you could press one button and the character pretends to be dead and the enemies just walk away. Anyone else would have to run for miles (the enemies wouldn't stop running like they do in WoW).

So basically the classes were very different, spells/abilities were hugely different and varied, and yet there was a fairly even spread of people who chose each of the classes. They were all good in some way and bad in some way, very different yet nothing was far better than everything else without it coming at some cost. That was kind of a once in a lifetime game though. The whole genre got turned into junk food gaming with a Nintendo skin. It is tragic.

If you want to hear about some of EQ's "emergent gameplay" I can put it here:

Spoiler

They made the game so you couldn't really solo. Some classes could do ok, but mostly it was so dangerous it wasn't worth it. The goal was to get a group of 6 and then you could go on adventures and do serious stuff. But that could take hours and sometimes you just want to do something by yourself so some of the classes who had the Fear spell could combine it with the Snare spell and it made the enemy run away but slowly. So you could keep up with it and use your weak pet and some poisons/disease/magic to eventually kill it. It was dangerous though because the spells only lasted about 10 seconds so you had to remember to use it again and again until it was dead or it could end up 1 shotting you. Also the Fear spell could last a random duration, even 0.1 seconds, so it was risky business and you had to always stay at maximum range. But the players figured out these tricks.

The main one was that they put the enemies in batches, sometimes just 1 so easy, but sometimes you would go in a big room and there would be 10 enemies with some hiding in tents and stuff. The only way you were supposed to be able to survive that, was with a strong group of 6 and one of them needed to be able to mesmerize stuff, but that was very risky/flaky. But people figured out if the group stands way back, and then one of the feign death classes gets the attention of all the enemies and leads them away, and then does feign death, the enemies will stop and return to their camps. But they decide themselves when to return, so some go back right away, and one might stay behind a few seconds more. If you are quick someone can tag it with an arrow or the feign guy stands up and punches it (or shuriken, throwing knives, etc.) and then takes it to the group to kill.

Necromancer was the best at soloing by far, it could do that Fear trick earlier but you could also do 'root-rot' which was to cast the grasping roots spell to hold the enemy in place. And then you run away and get maximum distance. Then if you try to blast it, the root will break and you are dead. But you can use damage over time spells like poison to chip away slowly. And then the second the root spell breaks (it was random), you have to quickly cast it again. Dangerous and took a lot of practice but if you got good you could use invisibility to get to some boss enemy, and then gank it like an assassin all by yourself, even though it was supposed to be for a group. They could also do tricks with the charm spell, and with levitate you could fight in some areas with platforms and if you get in trouble you just jump off and float down. It wasn't easy to play though because they lost health over time and had to keep lifetapping stuff to stay alive, so you had to focus on the game.

Basically, we could have much cooler games if people stopped flocking to the big names only.

 

[Cryomancer]

Look to new vegas, how to make an sniper gameplay and a katana gamepĺay eqqually "powerful" in a freaking long range desert?

Hellgate London gunplay is AWFUL exactly cuz they tried to make ranged and melee balanced, so you have this wreid sci-fi powerful weapons that can't hit targets at 16m.

And IRL a .338 LM rifle can hit a target at 500m in a fraction of a second. https://youtu.be/j0densSz9yQ?t=675