Balancing versus realism?

[TrashMan]

Also, let's not forget that this is a PARTY -based game.

So there is no need for a single character to be able to do everything. Because you will have other party memebrs with you.

 

You chosen class cannot get trough this encounter alone? Boo-hoo! The tragedy!

[Greensleeve]

Also, let's not forget that this is a PARTY -based game.

So there is no need for a single character to be able to do everything. Because you will have other party memebrs with you.

 

You chosen class cannot get trough this encounter alone? Boo-hoo! The tragedy!

 

Wow, that's missing the point. The point is that all you really need are full casters. You don't need fighters, or rogues, or anything really aside from full casters. That's the problem. 

[TrashMan]

Going back to the question of well/badly balanced games, anything relying on D&D is badly balanced. And I say that as someone who plays fighters most of the time. ToEE might be one of the worst games of the bunch, balance-wise, because it's basically just D&D core in video game form.

 

Well balanced games tend to games with competitive aspects, like MOBAs or MMOs. At a glance, the Banner Sage seems fairly well balanced too. RPGs tend not to have great balance, to be honest...

 

 

Come again?

[Greensleeve]

 

Going back to the question of well/badly balanced games, anything relying on D&D is badly balanced. And I say that as someone who plays fighters most of the time. ToEE might be one of the worst games of the bunch, balance-wise, because it's basically just D&D core in video game form.

 

Well balanced games tend to games with competitive aspects, like MOBAs or MMOs. At a glance, the Banner Sage seems fairly well balanced too. RPGs tend not to have great balance, to be honest...

 

 

Come again?

-image-

 

 

I'm not following? If you disagree, please show how the games are balanced? Or is it the statement that competitive games that tend to be balanced that upsets you? I'm not sure why... Nor am I saying that PE should be like a MOBA or MMo. So please, do clarify what you mean. 

[TrashMan]

 

Wow, that's missing the point. The point is that all you really need are full casters. You don't need fighters, or rogues, or anything really aside from full casters. That's the problem. 

 

 

 

 

You don't "need" anything.

 

In theory, you should be able to complete the game with ANY class combo. If you want to take 6 mages or 6 fighters, go ahead.

Not everyone is a powergamer who will always just take the highest DPS.

[Greensleeve]

 

 

Wow, that's missing the point. The point is that all you really need are full casters. You don't need fighters, or rogues, or anything really aside from full casters. That's the problem. 

 

 

 

 

You don't "need" anything.

 

In theory, you should be able to complete the game with ANY class combo. If you want to take 6 mages or 6 fighters, go ahead.

Not everyone is a powergamer who will always just take the highest DPS.

 

 

But can you really say a game if well balanced if 6 mages breeze through the game MUCH easier than 6 fighters? I mean, if the game isn't decently balanced, then either we end up with 6 mages not being challenged at all by the game, or we end up with a game that 6 fighters can't complete. Neither of which are good outcomes. 

 

Furthermore, this is an issue we need to look at from a system design perspective. The roleplaying perspective is not at all as important when it comes to balance, and saying that "Well that's only an issue to powergamers. A true rolepayer will pick the classes he wants to no matter what." is completely missing the point. It's a mix of ignoring the issue at hand an ad-hominem. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

 

 

 

Those against seem to be defining it as "every class must be exactly equal in ALL situations", while those for it seem to define it as "all classes must provide roughly the same amount of utility, but can have strengths and weaknesses".

 

 

Probably mostly this, yes. But I'd take it a bit further.

For me it's enough all classes provide utility, doesn't need to be roughly equal.

 

For one, I'd separate combat and general utility. Like picking between a professor and a weaponmaster.

One can help you get into the institute, while the other is way better if a fight happens.

 

Just as long as you're not choosing from a weaponmaster vs a regular fighter,

where the weaponmastar can do everything the fighter does, only better.

 

But this seems to be better for games where you choose helpers for each mission from a worker pool.

Like NWN2 or any of the Biowares recent offerings. Less suited for likes of Icewind Dale or BG where you basically

want a dream team for combat and don't go swapping all too often.

 

And the thinking arises from ME2. DA2 frustration. Yea, choose the party, only it doesn't matter who you choose

because they're all equally useful in any given situation. (especially in DA2 where every given situation was you being rushed by a mob)

 

In my opinion it would defeat the purpose of having combat skills and non-combat skills draw upon different pools, which has been confirmed, to have certain classes excel in combat and other classes excel in non-combat.

Perhaps I'm reading this wrong but I disagree. I think that a Rogue should be less adept at martial combat than the warrior classes and be unable to cast spells like caster classes. They should get some unique abilities(like sneak attack) that make them something other than "Fighter-lite", but IMO a Rogue's greatest assets are the multitudes of skills they have access to and they should get the most skill points out of any class.

 

The chances are that we'll see something like this, but I personally dislike the idea of one class getting all the skills very strongly, and I believe it does defeat the purpose of separating combat skills and non-combat skills if the class choice represents precisely that kind of tradeoff. But really it would require completely revamping DnD's utterly terrible skill system either way (and here's hoping for more non-rogue skills so that every class has an interest in skills).

I don't think they should get all the skills possible, I just believe that the play style of a Rogue should be more skill reliant(like making use of stealth abilities) than other classes. I do believe that the D&D system is terrible and all classes should find skills useful.

[eschaton]

I think that the people arguing here mean two different things by "balanced".

 

Those against seem to be defining it as "every class must be exactly equal in ALL situations", while those for it seem to define it as "all classes must provide roughly the same amount of utility, but can have strengths and weaknesses".

 

I feel that PE should be balanced so that when I decide to play a Paladin, I am not selecting a class that is considerably worse than a Mage. This doesn't mean that a Paladin should have AoE abilities to match the Mage's fireball, this means that when constructing my party/creating my PC there should be clear advantages and disadvantages to the choices I make and not "this class can hit **** with a sword, this class can throw meteors with impunity, and this class just sucks". It is bad design when there is a clearly superior choice with no viable alternatives.

 

Please show me where I said "I want to have sucky classes."  As I mentioned, in BG1, bards blew chunks, and really the kits in BG2 only helped somewhat.  If bards in this game end up like this, I'll be disappointed.

 

What I said instead is I thought that classes which start off weak, but build to be powerful (mages, and especially monks, in the Baldur's Gate series) are as valid a gameplay option as classes which  start out strong, but don't see the same dynamic progression (fighters, or even moreso, barbarians).  People willing to put in the investment which results in the early game being hard get the reward of the late game being easier.  In a way it's no different than choosing to play a party-based game solo.  Early on, you have an awful time, but as you gain levels rapidly, the later portions of the game become much easier.  

 

 

In my opinion it would defeat the purpose of having combat skills and non-combat skills draw upon different pools, which has been confirmed, to have certain classes excel in combat and other classes excel in non-combat.

 

Not at all.  We know they come from different pools, but we don't know that every class gets the same amount of combat versus non-combat skills.  It could work out something like this for each level.

 

Fighters : 4 combat points, 1 skill point, 1 soul point 

Rogues: 2 combat points, 3 skill points, 1 soul point

Wizards. 1 combat point, 2 skill points, 3 soul points

 

 

 

People an sometimes survive incredible injuries.

There are were people with a metal rod going trough their head that WALKED to the hospital.

 

 

HP is an abstraction, but a necessary one. Not only does tougness/endurace varry, but also a party-based game that is based on dice rolls NECESSITATES them.

You need to have some room to work with when you play, because controlling 6 people at the same time would be DISASTROUS if they were to die from 1 solid hit.

So yes, a character APPEARS to be able to take more punishment than any man would, but again..necessary abstraction. Armor. Animations also can make it look worse.

 

 

People sometimes survive shots to the head.  I don't have an issue with this.  I have an issue with how people continue attacking despite having been shot in the head.  Virtually anyone who survived such an attack would either be unconscious, slumped over bleeding on the floor, or otherwise in shock.  

 

I'd argue that instead of hit points, a sensible system would be to judge hits based upon their severity and where they happened.  Perhaps have something called a "glancing blow" which reduces stamina, and blood supply, but won't actually kill you unless you don't get medical attention at the end of combat.  Have every direct hit to a limb cause you to be crippled.  Virtually every deep wound in the torso, head, or neck would result in death or unconsciousness in a few rounds.

 

The resulting combat would be far more realistic.  For example, you'd be unable to take on groups larger than your party without major crowd-control methods, ambush, or strategy, because in real life, an advantage in numbers erases almost any skill level.  You'd concentrate more on dodging, deflecting blows, and when you get the opening, quickly dispatch most of your enemies with one or two stabs.  

 

The only downside I can see of such a system is in the real world, even the most skilled fighter will get killed if he's in combat every day, just due to sheer odds.  People who play RPGs generally hate systems which make them save-reload frequently.  So it would only make sense within a game system which also dialed combat way back - say a few dozen combat encounters over the course of an entire game, punctuated by long stretches of non-combat interaction.  

 

 

 

 

Wow, that's missing the point. The point is that all you really need are full casters. You don't need fighters, or rogues, or anything really aside from full casters. That's the problem. 

 

All you need in which game system exactly?  Even as powerful as casters got by the end of the Baldur's Gate Trilogy, I would still want someone who at least dual-classed from a thief for lockpicking and trap disarming.  

 

Maybe you mean Dragon Age?  People used to call it Dragon Mage after all.  Honestly, I thought that game went way too far in balancing, as I said.  For example, since only rogues could pick locks, the game "balanced" things by ensuring there were no important locked doors or chests anywhere.  Thus all picking locks did was get you some randomly-generated vendor trash.  

[mcmanusaur]

 

 

In my opinion it would defeat the purpose of having combat skills and non-combat skills draw upon different pools, which has been confirmed, to have certain classes excel in combat and other classes excel in non-combat.

 

Not at all.  We know they come from different pools, but we don't know that every class gets the same amount of combat versus non-combat skills.  It could work out something like this for each level.

 

Fighters : 4 combat points, 1 skill point, 1 soul point 

Rogues: 2 combat points, 3 skill points, 1 soul point

Wizards. 1 combat point, 2 skill points, 3 soul points

 

My understanding is that the point of having them draw from separate pools is to prevent it from being a direct tradeoff between the two, and what you have suggested is simply moving that tradeoff to a different part of character creation (from skill point allocation to class selection), which just decreases our freedom to customize classes if anything.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Please show me where I said "I want to have sucky classes."

 

You didn't. I said that I did not want to see classes that were designed to be mechanically superior or inferior.

 

What I said instead is I thought that classes which start off weak, but build to be powerful (mages, and especially monks, in the Baldur's Gate series) are as valid a gameplay option as classes which  start out strong, but don't see the same dynamic progression (fighters, or even moreso, barbarians).  People willing to put in the investment which results in the early game being hard get the reward of the late game being easier.  In a way it's no different than choosing to play a party-based game solo.  Early on, you have an awful time, but as you gain levels rapidly, the later portions of the game become much easier.

The problem occurs when that dynamic progression results in a character who is superior in every way to others. I have no problem with a Wizard getting very powerful, but I do have a big problem with a wizard becoming so powerful every other class becomes obsolete because magic can accomplish everything combat or skills can. It is bad design when one class is clearly superior(or inferior) to others.

 

Fortunately I don't have to worry about that in PE, because the power curve will be relatively similar for all classes and each will be brining a unique and useful set of skills to the table.

[Sacred_Path]

What I said instead is I thought that classes which start off weak, but build to be powerful (mages, and especially monks, in the Baldur's Gate series) are as valid a gameplay option as classes which  start out strong, but don't see the same dynamic progression (fighters, or even moreso, barbarians).  People willing to put in the investment which results in the early game being hard get the reward of the late game being easier.  In a way it's no different than choosing to play a party-based game solo.  Early on, you have an awful time, but as you gain levels rapidly, the later portions of the game become much easier.

which severely limits possible party combinations, as you'll always end up with a nearly identical mix of early and late shiners. Though, if that floats your boat, you're looking at a rather big back catalog (even in a genre as little prolific as the PC RPG), because most older party-based games suffered from this.

[eschaton]

 

 

My understanding is that the point of having them draw from separate pools is to prevent it from being a direct tradeoff between the two, and what you have suggested is simply moving that tradeoff to a different part of character creation (from skill point allocation to class selection), which just decreases our freedom to customize classes if anything.

 

 

I don't see how what you want is possible to have while still having a class-based system.  Skills could be balanced, but if everyone got equal combat feats and magic, but mages got "mage combat" and conversely, warriors got "warrior magic," there wouldn't be any real rationale in terms of why the classes were specialized to begin with.  

 

 

The problem occurs when that dynamic progression results in a character who is superior in every way to others. I have no problem with a Wizard getting very powerful, but I do have a big problem with a wizard becoming so powerful every other class becomes obsolete because magic can accomplish everything combat or skills can. It is bad design when one class is clearly superior(or inferior) to others.

 

While this might have happened in PnP, I don't think an all-mage party really worked in any Infinity Engine games.  You always needed to have at least half a thief, and things were much easier with a cleric.  Admittedly straight-ahead fighters lacked utility in late game, but they were still fun.  

[Rahelron]

As someone who cut my teeth on the 2nd Edition Infinity Engine games, I loved how different the game felt playing with different characters.  Mages, for example, were weak as kittens and near useless at the beginning of BG1, but absolutely necessary by the end of BG2.  In contrast, fighters were fun out of the box, but didn't scale upward to the same awesomesauce.  While in one sense magic is not realistic, you shouldn't expect a powerful fighter to be able to defeat a powerful spellcaster mano-a-mano.  Another example is Arcanum, where it was clearly harder to be a gunslinger tech character (need tons of gear, for example), but it felt so rewarding.  

 

I feel like since then RPGs have been too concerned with "balancing" all the classes (both later D&D editions and PC games), and it's taken a lot of the fun out of the systems.  While mages still do play a lot more "strategically," most non-spellcasters in a lot of systems have special attacks which basically act like magic spells.  DA:O was perhaps the worst in this (how does one bowman release a hail of arrows by themselves?).  When everything pretty much plays the same, the only thing having a class gives you is a different visual appearance and whatever in-game dialogue and options the story has for your class.   

 

Regardless, where do other people fall on this?  Do you think it's more important to ensure that no class has unique drawbacks which must be worked around?  Or is working through a class's weakness part of the challenge?

 

I agree with you, but I would like to see some activated abilities even for non magic users. I think that Skyrim managed to strike a great balance between magic and non.magic users.

[mcmanusaur]

 

 

 

My understanding is that the point of having them draw from separate pools is to prevent it from being a direct tradeoff between the two, and what you have suggested is simply moving that tradeoff to a different part of character creation (from skill point allocation to class selection), which just decreases our freedom to customize classes if anything.

 

 

I don't see how what you want is possible to have while still having a class-based system.  Skills could be balanced, but if everyone got equal combat feats and magic, but mages got "mage combat" and conversely, warriors got "warrior magic," there wouldn't be any real rationale in terms of why the classes were specialized to begin with.  

 

I don't think giving magic to warriors and melee to wizards is necessary for any reason, as melee and magic are both kinds of combat. Everyone should be free to specialize within combat as much as they want; what I mean to say is that there shouldn't be direct tradeoffs between combat and non-combat. Ideally this would make "classes" really only relevant to combat specializations (whether melee, ranged, magic, and so on), and non-combat skills could be freely selected from a separate pool (though I would imagine that certain combat classes would work well with specific non-combat skills based on the attributes modifying them). Characters would then have their class level (which would correspond to their combat abilities), and then skill levels for non-combat activities, which would rank up separately.

 

As far as different power curves, I see your point but I'm still not convinced it belongs in the game; I could definitely see different builds for the same class having different power curves, but having this apply to whole classes is needless in my opinion.

Edited June 7, 2013 by mcmanusaur

[eschaton]

 

I don't think giving magic to warriors and melee to wizards is necessary for any reason, as melee and magic are both kinds of combat. Everyone should be free to specialize within combat as much as they want; what I mean to say is that there shouldn't be direct tradeoffs between combat and non-combat. Ideally this would make "classes" really only relevant to combat specializations (whether melee, ranged, magic, and so on), and non-combat skills could be freely selected from a separate pool (though I would imagine that certain combat classes would work well with specific non-combat skills based on the attributes modifying them). Characters would then have their class level (which would correspond to their combat abilities), and then skill levels for non-combat activities, which would rank up separately.

 

I really hope that magic in this game is not abstracted as solely a combat skill.  Even in the Baldur's Gate series (which didn't implement too much utility to spells out of combat), there were spells with no use in combat (find familiar, identify, friends, know alignment, knock, wish, etc), and ones with use both in and outside combat (charm person, haste, invisibility, wizard's eye, etc).  Admittedly spells like this got less frequent in higher levels, but there's all sorts of ways a wizard could use magic outside of combat.  

[Lephys]

I really hope that magic in this game is not abstracted as solely a combat skill.  Even in the Baldur's Gate series (which didn't implement too much utility to spells out of combat), there were spells with no use in combat (find familiar, identify, friends, know alignment, knock, wish, etc), and ones with use both in and outside combat (charm person, haste, invisibility, wizard's eye, etc).  Admittedly spells like this got less frequent in higher levels, but there's all sorts of ways a wizard could use magic outside of combat.

I believe he was merely speaking within the context of combat, as that seemed to be the focus of the matter, and several examples. In other words, giving combat magic to Warriors and combat melee to Wizards isn't necessary, as they are both merely variants of combat abilities.

 

That being said, I'm not seeing a lot of potential reasons to give Warriors non-combat magic, either, for what it's worth. I mean, giving Warriors the ability to magically break down doors and Wizards the ability to physically break down doors is kind of unnecessary, as they can both already do useful things to doors with their ways.

Edited June 7, 2013 by Lephys

[mcmanusaur]

 

 

I don't think giving magic to warriors and melee to wizards is necessary for any reason, as melee and magic are both kinds of combat. Everyone should be free to specialize within combat as much as they want; what I mean to say is that there shouldn't be direct tradeoffs between combat and non-combat. Ideally this would make "classes" really only relevant to combat specializations (whether melee, ranged, magic, and so on), and non-combat skills could be freely selected from a separate pool (though I would imagine that certain combat classes would work well with specific non-combat skills based on the attributes modifying them). Characters would then have their class level (which would correspond to their combat abilities), and then skill levels for non-combat activities, which would rank up separately.

 

I really hope that magic in this game is not abstracted as solely a combat skill.  Even in the Baldur's Gate series (which didn't implement too much utility to spells out of combat), there were spells with no use in combat (find familiar, identify, friends, know alignment, knock, wish, etc), and ones with use both in and outside combat (charm person, haste, invisibility, wizard's eye, etc).  Admittedly spells like this got less frequent in higher levels, but there's all sorts of ways a wizard could use magic outside of combat.  

 

 

This is a fair point, and something I've been trying to answer for a while. I suppose you could easily have it such that classes span combat and non-combat abilities, but simply ensure that every class has a reasonable amount of each, and have the two draw from separate allocation pools (this part has already been confirmed I believe). But it's quite difficult to come up with enough exclusive corresponding non-combat skills for certain classes to match all the rogue skills. However, I kinda like the idea of characters having a civilian "front" that's not necessarily related to their combat specialization at all, which the player has the freedom to choose (within the limits of attribute modifiers as I mentioned in my previous post).

 

The blacksmith-fighter is an obvious combination, but what about the tradeskills- such as mason, chef, or miner- that don't necessarily pertain to any specific class? Are such skills just left out of the game on the grounds that they don't align with combat classes? And furthermore, what about the magical approach to non-combat activities? It would seemingly preclude non-magic-users from choosing such skills, and restricting non-combat skills to particular classes defeats the point of what I'm trying to achieve with such a system. Other than pigeon-holing characters into directly complementary combat and non-combat roles (warrior = blacksmith, ranger = carpenter, wizard = alchemist, which leads to stereotypical characters in my opinion), the alternatives would include changing the abstraction of magic as you mention or accepting the possibility of weird combos like a barbarian alchemist (though again the attribute modifiers might be prohibitive here).

 

However, the latter doesn't solve the challenging issue of skills applicable both inside and outside of combat, as you mention, but I suppose this ultimately applies to magic (the spells you've mentioned) as well as non-magic (saves, perception, balance, intimidation, etc.). I don't have a great answer for that at the moment, but I'm not ready to give up on the otherwise worthwhile ideal of separating combat and non-combat abilities quite yet.

Edited June 7, 2013 by mcmanusaur