Worried about the balancing

[tghmember]

Hello!

FIrst of all, great job on producing this game, I'm looking forward to try it.
I have a big concern though,
How will you be able to balance the classes when there's so many unique combinations?
My perspective on those unique combinations is that a few of those combinations will be very overpowered.

Can this happen?
How would this be fixable?

Thanks in advance,
tghmember

[Jazebel]

Scott actually enjoys people thinking about the balance challenges, as he feels that people are thinking of ways that combinations could end up being “too much fun” and that their stance is that they don’t even really want the system to be perfectly balanced. Indeed, Scott doesn’t even believe achieving perfect balance is something to aspire to, as players would be able to do everything and no one would feel special. Scott doesn’t view balance as a huge issue in a game like Rift where you can switch things at a whim, as opposed to your typical MMO where if something gets nerfed you may be stuck with it. Ultimately, Scott expects that there will be “out of balance” builds, but that the possibilities are so great with the soul system that players can discover new “out of balance” builds to trump or counter one already in existence.

Basicly with the soul system we have a change to balance the game a little bit. But I'm pretty sure the truly unbalanced builds will be looked at. Some builds might look unbalanced cause we didn't find a counterbuild for it yet.

I wouldn't worry about it too much at the moment, and try to learn your souls and look for builds you could use to counter others.

So far I haven't seen a build that couldn't be countered, or be able to get countered as you get more soulpoints.

[Airenn3742]

Im abit worried too, ive been playing the warrior calling and i find riftblade overly good compared to the rest of the souls. But i have faith that it will be looked at, the dev team seem to be really on the ball.

[Lazorus]

I'm looking forward to the game, but I also have concerns coming from other MMOs about balance. I know that there is alot of options with character builds in this game but my real concern is that somone will find a very "OP" build and it will become the flavor of the month type build, and we will see everyone copying it over and over, untill it gets the nerf bat.

I REALY hope that in this game that sort of thing dosn't happen, because the game looks very fresh and exciting, and I hope it's kept that way so we don't have these kind of bland character issues due to power basing.

With all the possable combinations of characters I would think the devs would want to keep the variety and flavor alive as long as they can after all "Variety is the SPICE of life!'

[IceDread]

It is good if the game is not perfectly balanced as long as it's not totally out of hand. The game looks to be a bit like scissor, rock and bag. You have to choose between abilities that makes you strong at something but then miss abilities that would make you strong in other situations. This is a good thing. Freedom for the players to invent build and outsmart other players!

[Sheilina]

Basicly with the soul system we have a change to balance the game a little bit. But I'm pretty sure the truly unbalanced builds will be looked at. Some builds might look unbalanced cause we didn't find a counterbuild for it yet.

I wouldn't worry about it too much at the moment, and try to learn your souls and look for builds you could use to counter others.

So far I haven't seen a build that couldn't be countered, or be able to get countered as you get more soulpoints.

My opinion exactly
I find myself agreeing with Jazebel on almost every post (except when he is talking about the Justicar, since I have no clue about that soul ;))

[Dinadass]

It's basically impossible to make a game be perfectly balanced unless you take the FPS approach of identical stats, abilities, etc. The best you can hope for is a quick balance cycle that does a good job of addressing the truly imbalanced and over/underpowered souls and abilities. Trion has said before that not every soul or combination will be as powerful as others in every aspect of the game, which leads me to believe that they'll try to avoid the WoW balance philosophy that essentially boiled down to "Read the forums, see which classes are being whined about the most, nerf them." Hopefully they have enough of a backbone and level of competence to decide for themselves which souls are over or under performing compared to their ideal, and adjust accordingly.

[Ozzio]

Trions approach to balance is different than most games. Rather than trying to balance every soul, they are trying to balance it so you can switch your class around to defend against all different types of builds. So if a Riftblade is killing you , you can switch your class around to have high elemental resists.

People who are not flexable with their build are the ones that are really not going to like this approach. So if you plan on being a ranger/marksman/sab all the time. You're not going to be as effective as someone willing to switch there build around. When picking your main class i'd really look at all the souls and see which class your willing to be the most flexable with.

I do have some concerns at this point but it is still beta. I'm wondering how any mage build will be able to beat a void knight. Also if any rogue will have enough dps to kill a cleric.

Beta 4 will be the first one with a lot of pvp. So we should see a lot more feedback on class balancing in pvp.

[Kristov]

I'll see if I can find the exact quote later, but Scott said awhile back that they aren't going overboard with balance.

Basically he said something to the effect that with so many souls available and the ability to change roles so easily and so many roles and souls available that it wouldn't be something they spent all their time trying to achieve.

He also said something along the lines of allowing players to find combinations of souls that would be better for a specific task, and rewarding them for doing so.

Like I said, I don't have time to find the exact quote right now, but I'll post the source later today.

[Jazebel]

My opinion exactly
I find myself agreeing with Jazebel on almost every post (except when he is talking about the Justicar, since I have no clue about that soul ;))

Hehe i love the Justicar soul

I'll see if I can find the exact quote later, but Scott said awhile back that they aren't going overboard with balance.

Basically he said something to the effect that with so many souls available and the ability to change roles so easily and so many roles and souls available that it wouldn't be something they spent all their time trying to achieve.

He also said something along the lines of allowing players to find combinations of souls that would be better for a specific task, and rewarding them for doing so.

Like I said, I don't have time to find the exact quote right now, but I'll post the source later today.

You mean this quote I posted in this very topic you are replying too?

Scott actually enjoys people thinking about the balance challenges, as he feels that people are thinking of ways that combinations could end up being “too much fun” and that their stance is that they don’t even really want the system to be perfectly balanced. Indeed, Scott doesn’t even believe achieving perfect balance is something to aspire to, as players would be able to do everything and no one would feel special. Scott doesn’t view balance as a huge issue in a game like Rift where you can switch things at a whim, as opposed to your typical MMO where if something gets nerfed you may be stuck with it. Ultimately, Scott expects that there will be “out of balance” builds, but that the possibilities are so great with the soul system that players can discover new “out of balance” builds to trump or counter one already in existence.

[shi7an]

Trions approach to balance is different than most games. Rather than trying to balance every soul, they are trying to balance it so you can switch your class around to defend against all different types of builds. So if a Riftblade is killing you , you can switch your class around to have high elemental resists.

People who are not flexable with their build are the ones that are really not going to like this approach. So if you plan on being a ranger/marksman/sab all the time. You're not going to be as effective as someone willing to switch there build around. When picking your main class i'd really look at all the souls and see which class your willing to be the most flexable with.

I do have some concerns at this point but it is still beta. I'm wondering how any mage build will be able to beat a void knight. Also if any rogue will have enough dps to kill a cleric.

Beta 4 will be the first one with a lot of pvp. So we should see a lot more feedback on class balancing in pvp.

That's ******ed. So what's the point of having 32 classes when everybody is just gonna switch to the same OP class/build during pvp? Basically the pvp will be always against the same build, since all these countless builds you can make are useless and not balanced. Tsk this is disappointing.

So it doesn't matter the builds that everyone are doing right now since later on everybody is gonna stick to the most OP build.

I rather much this game have 10 balanced classes then 32 unbalanced classes since 75% of them won't be used in pvp due to unbalancing.

[Kristov]

Hehe i love the Justicar soul



You mean this quote I posted in this very topic you are replying too?

Close, but I meant the quote from Scott himself says it because his wording is much more eloquent.

I'll find it asap and post it.

Here we go:

Ten Ton Hammer: Some folks think class balance will be an impossible task with the system you've described. I'm not sure how anyone can talk balance prior to beta, but how are you addressing balancing concerns from the get-go?
Scott Hartsman: Sure. Here's the thing: I love when people say, 'Oh, this is going to be hard or impossible to balance' because, to me, that means they're adept at finding ways to cheat the system, which means they're going to have fun with it. That said, there are some people that think of imbalance as a universal problem. Imbalance is only a problem if it traps users into a corner where they have no way to make their situation better. This system gives you so many tools to help you help yourself. And if something is incredibly out of whack, of course we'll deal with it.

http://www.riftnexus.com/topic/22-ca...cott-hartsman/

IE. Balancing may occur if major imbalances show up, but the constant ridiculous, sweeping changes some games have caused by chasing balance as a primary objective hopefully won't be the norm.

[Jazebel]

That's ******ed. So what's the point of having 32 classes when everybody is just gonna switch to the same OP class/build during pvp? Basically the pvp will be always against the same build, since all these countless builds you can make are useless and not balanced. Tsk this is disappointing.

So it doesn't matter the builds that everyone are doing right now since later on everybody is gonna stick to the most OP build.

I rather much this game have 10 balanced classes then 32 unbalanced classes since 75% of them won't be used in pvp.

Well if everyone runs the same so called OP build, I'll run the build that counters them, and then all those people can cry about my build being OP.

See how it works both ways, it doesn't matter what build you run, you will allways run into your counter build. But hey let 99% run the same build, I'll be the 1% that beats them then.

[shi7an]

Well if everyone runs the same so called OP build, I'll run the build that counters them, and then all those people can cry about my build being OP.

See how it works both ways, it doesn't matter what build you run, you will allways run into your counter build. But hey let 99% run the same built, I'll be the 1% that beats them then.

There's no such thing as counter the OP build, otherwise your build would be the OP one and everybody would go for your build instead. Lol.

[Jazebel]

There's no such thing as counter the OP build, otherwise your build would be the OP one and everybody would go for your build instead. Lol.

But then I run another build that counters the build I was running.