Balance Direction Question

[Eldrylars]

Hello peoples of Team Balance!

I have been watching the conversations on the forums and responding where I find it appropriate, but I have found an over arching trend that I feel is dragging Team Balance in a limited direction, diminishing our effectiveness.

Now I am not sure that what I am seeing is truly a problem, or the wrong way, or even something that should be considered negative at all, but I want to make sure, so as to limit any lost productiveness or "redos." So try not to take offense in my query

Perceived direction:
All the balance suggestions that I have seen so far, is skill based balancing based off of ____ and in my eyes playing a tweak game that seems like it's going to waste a lot of time and effort.
Let me explain further, using Druid as an example. Here are some of the proposed changes:

• Straight cast to one second warmup on entangle.
  
• Reincarnate cooldown from 45 seconds to 5 minutes?
• Remove Bolt
• Make more Skillshot heals
  
• Decrease Healing Blooms

Now there is nothing wrong with these suggested changes, from a simple numbers standpoint but what are these changes balancing against? How are these changes going to balance Druid? How is Druid unbalanced and against what is it being compared?
I don't see these issues being discussed and in my mind it's far more important to discuss the WHO and the WHY instead of the HOW

WHO is the <CLASS> being balanced against
WHY is the <CLASS> unbalanced against
HOW do we correct the imbalance so the WHOs are balanced.

Is seems that we are going straight to the HOW stage and skipping the WHO and the WHY which means that it could take dozens of HOWs to finally find the correct answer.

Let me give an example of a WHO

Druid Commonalities - Heavy Support, Heavy Heals, Medium Damage, Low Armor

• Cleric - Heavy Heals
• Paladin - Heavy Support
• Shaman - Heavy Support, Low Armor
  
• Disciple - Heavy Support, Low Armor
• Bard - Heavy Support, Medium Damage

So the WHO would be the above listed classes(Yes I know it's not a perfect list, it's an example.)

Taking the WHO you can create the WHY:

• Druid - Cleric
  • Druid's heals are not nearly as strong and fewer in quantity
  • Druid's armor is much less then Cleric's
    
  • Druid's Support is far greater then Cleric's
  • Druid's Damage is much greater then Cleric's
  • Druid has some Crowd Control
    
  • Druid has less HPs but a greater mana pool with Meditation

Looking at the WHY here in theory Clerics and Druids are pretty balanced. They both have strengths and weaknesses and they are the same in some ways but play completely different.

Now lets look at the suggested changes and how it would effect the Druid - Cleric comparison:

• Druid - Cleric

• Druid's heals are weaker then before building a larger gap in healing variance.
  
• Druid's armor is much less then Cleric's
• Druid's Support is far greater then Cleric's
• Druid has less HPs but a greater mana pool with Meditation

So now we have taken away the Druid's damage capacity, and have weakened Druid's CC and healing capabilities making him unbalanced in comparison to Cleric as Cleric's benefits now outweigh Druid's abilities.

I KNOW THIS EXAMPLE IS NOT PERFECT, but I also know it's close enough to give you an idea of what I am talking about and what I am trying to understand. I also know it's a lot more work to quantify the shortcomings in comparing the WHOs, but honestly it just seems so much stronger a method to start with a solid foundation, then trying to nit pick small changes to random skills because in certain situations they seem/are to strong. In my mind the CLASS as a whole needs to be evaluated for it's intended purpose and then it's skillset needs to be balanced against the CLASSES that share it's design intentions, and we are not doing that.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

 

[Eldrylars]

Secondary to, but important if the design goal is to avoid ROCK/PAPER/SCISSORS would be cross balancing combat abilities.

This is to say that EVERY class, should be able to kill EVERY other class, if they are played more skillfully. This is a very difficult task are the skillsets for each class with make obvious ROCK/PAPER/SCISSORS scenarios, but has been done in some games and could be done with major tweaking and planning.

I don't think we are anywhere near this stage at this time, but it's something to consider as Kainzo has said on multiple occasions that there should be no "Hard Counters" for any class, which would imply that each class should have a shot at the other.

 

[Kainzo]

There needs to be more data and objectiveness backing changes. Play testing against "like" classes is very important as well.

I agree here.

 

[Irishman81]

Hello peoples of Team Balance!

I have been watching the conversations on the forums and responding where I find it appropriate, but I have found an over arching trend that I feel is dragging Team Balance in a limited direction, diminishing our effectiveness.

Now I am not sure that what I am seeing is truly a problem, or the wrong way, or even something that should be considered negative at all, but I want to make sure, so as to limit any lost productiveness or "redos." So try not to take offense in my query

Perceived direction:
All the balance suggestions that I have seen so far, is skill based balancing based off of ____ and in my eyes playing a tweak game that seems like it's going to waste a lot of time and effort.
Let me explain further, using Druid as an example. Here are some of the proposed changes:

• Straight cast to one second warmup on entangle.
  
• Reincarnate cooldown from 45 seconds to 5 minutes?
• Remove Bolt
• Make more Skillshot heals
  
• Decrease Healing Blooms

Now there is nothing wrong with these suggested changes, from a simple numbers standpoint but what are these changes balancing against? How are these changes going to balance Druid? How is Druid unbalanced and against what is it being compared?
I don't see these issues being discussed and in my mind it's far more important to discuss the WHO and the WHY instead of the HOW

WHO is the <CLASS> being balanced against
WHY is the <CLASS> unbalanced against
HOW do we correct the imbalance so the WHOs are balanced.

Is seems that we are going straight to the HOW stage and skipping the WHO and the WHY which means that it could take dozens of HOWs to finally find the correct answer.

Let me give an example of a WHO

Druid Commonalities - Heavy Support, Heavy Heals, Medium Damage, Low Armor

• Cleric - Heavy Heals
• Paladin - Heavy Support
• Shaman - Heavy Support, Low Armor
  
• Disciple - Heavy Support, Low Armor
• Bard - Heavy Support, Medium Damage

So the WHO would be the above listed classes(Yes I know it's not a perfect list, it's an example.)

Taking the WHO you can create the WHY:

• Druid - Cleric
  • Druid's heals are not nearly as strong and fewer in quantity
  • Druid's armor is much less then Cleric's
    
  • Druid's Support is far greater then Cleric's
  • Druid's Damage is much greater then Cleric's
  • Druid has some Crowd Control
    
  • Druid has less HPs but a greater mana pool with Meditation

Looking at the WHY here in theory Clerics and Druids are pretty balanced. They both have strengths and weaknesses and they are the same in some ways but play completely different.

Now lets look at the suggested changes and how it would effect the Druid - Cleric comparison:

• Druid - Cleric

• Druid's heals are weaker then before building a larger gap in healing variance.
  
• Druid's armor is much less then Cleric's
• Druid's Support is far greater then Cleric's
• Druid has less HPs but a greater mana pool with Meditation

So now we have taken away the Druid's damage capacity, and have weakened Druid's CC and healing capabilities making him unbalanced in comparison to Cleric as Cleric's benefits now outweigh Druid's abilities.

I KNOW THIS EXAMPLE IS NOT PERFECT, but I also know it's close enough to give you an idea of what I am talking about and what I am trying to understand. I also know it's a lot more work to quantify the shortcomings in comparing the WHOs, but honestly it just seems so much stronger a method to start with a solid foundation, then trying to nit pick small changes to random skills because in certain situations they seem/are to strong. In my mind the CLASS as a whole needs to be evaluated for it's intended purpose and then it's skillset needs to be balanced against the CLASSES that share it's design intentions, and we are not doing that.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

I agree with this, and should probably take more time on looking at changes. But one thing I did say was replace bolt with a more nature like skill that does less damage to single targets. Druids should be better in group fights right? Right now I would say druid as a solo class is equal or even greater than the druid in a group fight.

 

[Eldrylars]

I agree with this, and should probably take more time on looking at changes. But one thing I did say was replace bolt with a more nature like skill that does less damage to single targets. Druids should be better in group fights right? Right now I would say druid as a solo class is equal or even greater than the druid in a group fight.

You bring up another important way to view balance. Is a class balanced in to play as both solo and group? Does the class balance out in group situations again like classes?
This question is like the second post I made on cross balancing non-similar classes as currently, certain classes are designed more for group play and certain classes are designed more for solo play, but it's certainly something to bring up if someone feels that a class is heavily pushed to one side as smaller tweaks may be able to balance out the differences.

Think of Druid's group play to Cleric's

• Druids are more valuable in Heavy Melee groups, as their skills are built around boosting Melee damage and Heals over time, which are more effective on the "Tanky" classes.
• Clerics are more value in more lightly armored groups as they can give the HP boost the glass cannons need as well as strong quick heals to burst them back to life.

Both are great for groups in their own way and you could say that one is better in one type of group over the other.
There are other points to consider, like Clerics Health, Armor and Survivability compared the Druids CC, Damage and much lower survivability, but once again this is not an attempt to balance so much as an example comparison.

The short is I don't want to discourage the momentum and conversations here but there are so many more things to consider and discuss when balancing that seems to be missing.

 

[Egorh]

Theoretically these classes are balanced when compared to each other. If you only compare Druid with Cleric it doesn't make it balanced. You also need to compare Druid to every other class. If it doesn't go well you will need to change something on Druid so it is 'even' with a class. But wait! If you do that Druid will be unbalanced with Cleric. Then you change Cleric so it is even with Druid.

Now you need to go through and compare Cleric to a bunch of different classes. If you change Cleric to balance it with another class it will mess up the Cleric-Druid balance. If you change Bard to make it 'even' out with Cleric you ruin the Druid-Bard balance. So on so forth.

You also need to remember classes drastically differ from when they are 'on paper' to in game. Take Ninja for example. In theory is looks like a strong class, lots of different 'ways' you could approach a battle. But what really happens is that you will normally get facerolled no matter what you do. It is very similar with a lot of other classes.

Right now it is not like some of the Balance Changes don't have goals. Take my Disciple changes for example:

• Remove an interrupt: Classes with too many warm-ups felt useless when facing a Disciple because they could never get a skill off
• Chakra CD increase: The constant instant heal/debuff kept the Disciple healthy in most situations

A change that corresponds with a specific type of classes (the ones with plenty of warm-ups) and a change that made Disciple a superior choice in groups.

Overall I feel as though the only way we could manage to do this properly would be to over haul EVERY single class and have a good plan as we do it (reworks, class directions, numbers, heavy play testing). Even if we did do this it still wouldn't turn out perfect and it would make the whole system 'fragile'. Change one thing and you need to change a lot more with it.

I am not saying that it will be impossible to use a system like this I just feel as though we can accomplish the same results with a lot less work. Some classes need reworks simply because their kit does not work/fit well in. Why does Druid need a rework? Simply because its kit revolves around using your HOTS and just running in circles

 

[Eldrylars]

Another thing I had on my mind was the level of which player skill is considered in balance from a PVP perspective, and the gear that is expected to be held by those players.

A Cleric for instance, is hard to kill but has limited damage output, until he is wielding a FA3 weapon, as now he can land a FA and just heal while the opponent burns. It's most likely a good idea to at least consider how veteran gear changes the strength of each class because certain classes are effected more by the gear quality then others. I do know that this is tertiary when considering the naked class.

 

[malikdanab]

Another thing I had on my mind was the level of which player skill is considered in balance from a PVP perspective, and the gear that is expected to be held by those players.

A Cleric for instance, is hard to kill but has limited damage output, until he is wielding a FA3 weapon, as now he can land a FA and just heal while the opponent burns. It's most likely a good idea to at least consider how veteran gear changes the strength of each class because certain classes are effected more by the gear quality then others. I do know that this is tertiary when considering the naked class.

IMO all weapon enchants should be removed, but people like them...

 

[Ruger392]

I agree with this, and should probably take more time on looking at changes. But one thing I did say was replace bolt with a more nature like skill that does less damage to single targets. Druids should be better in group fights right? Right now I would say druid as a solo class is equal or even greater than the druid in a group fight.

Yes i suggested a new nature skill

Would also love to see a coder to put some of these changes on test server!

 

[WitchOnaRampage]

Just testing something about notifications, please ignore.