Is anyone concerned about Multiclass/Single Class Balance?

[Stardusk78]

I have not played much of the beta because I would prefer to play a finished product but according to some people, Nerd Commando included, the current iteration has rendered the balance between multiclass and single class somewhat broken. If you have any experience and have been following the beta closely, do let me know what you think. Thanks in advance.

[JerekKruger]

Not overly. I expect it to be pretty unbalanced: PoE was unbalanced at release and it had far less to balance than Deadfire does. Over time it'll get better, like PoE, and eventually it'll reach a place of reasonably good balance.

[Wormerine]

I expect multiclassing to be both underpowered and overpowered depending on what you do. Luckily, singleclasses feel much better now.

 

Balance wise, we can only guess as we haven’t seen 50% of skill trees which is pretty crucial in single vs. Multiclass debate.

[CENIC]

I think changes made in the most recent patch helped a lot. Single class characters get more points to spend on abilities per power level gained now, and there are more passives available for all classes.

 

One of the problems with single class vs multi class is that the benefit of a single class character doesn't really become apparent until higher levels. The backer beta is scaled around a cap of level 8 or 9, so even players who pass the cap using console commands aren't getting the full experience of what high level play is like between single and multi class.

[Yosharian]

I have not played much of the beta because I would prefer to play a finished product but according to some people, Nerd Commando included, the current iteration has rendered the balance between multiclass and single class somewhat broken. If you have any experience and have been following the beta closely, do let me know what you think. Thanks in advance.

 

NerdCommando's video is a little old now.  The game has changed.  Let's wait until the game comes out, or the next beta if there is one, before we start slinging around words like balance.

 

I agree that it's an extremely difficult proposition to balance it all out but let's at least give Obsi a chance.

[MortyTheGobbo]

I'm pretty sure everyone is concerned about it to some degree.

[jf8350143]

I don't really mind the balance in a single player game, unless some classes are so weak they can't even beat the game.

[geala]

Exactly. In multiplayer you have to do all the strange stuff, so that a guy with a big knife is balanced to one with a M16 rifle. In SPG I really don't care and luckily they are the only games I play meanwhile. I don't think they will make a class absolutely useless.

Edited April 3, 2018 by geala

[M4xw0lf]

I don't really mind the balance in a single player game, unless some classes are so weak they can't even beat the game.

 

Exactly. In multiplayer you have to do all the strange stuff, so that a guy with a big knife is balanced to one with a M16 rifle. In SPG I really don't care and luckily they are the only games I play meanwhile. I don't think they will make a class absolutely useless.

This already worked nicely in PoE. Even if you tried, you could hardly make a character so useless that you couldn't beat the game (on difficulties below PotD and with full party of course). I'm fine with this state of affairs.

Where would be the fun of fiddling with talents and stats when every class and class-combo were equally strong out of the box, what would Boeroer and MaxQuest do from now on?

Edited April 3, 2018 by M4xw0lf

[Mannock]

I'm pretty sure everyone is concerned about it to some degree.

I'm not.

 

As long as every class is viable enough to beat the game on normal (together with the other party memebers) I'm fine with it.

[jf8350143]

Comparing to balance issue, I'm more worried about they make some of the classes boring to play. You can have an extremely OP class, but that alone doesn't make it fun.

Edited April 6, 2018 by jf8350143

[Faustus2]

I just posted this in another thread (apologies).

 

I'm also concerned @Stardusk78

 

Josh pretty much admitted in the Twitch Q&A (at around the 22 min mark) that multi-classing felt better than single-classing (with the exception of some combos).

[injurai]

Almost no concern as long as feedback is being considered, which will continue to happen post launch.

 

There will always be discrepancies between possible builds. I've been feeling better about single-class builds lately and that was where my real concern was.

[JerekKruger]

Josh pretty much admitted in the Twitch Q&A (at around the 22 min mark) that multi-classing felt better than single-classing (with the exception of some combos).

 

As I mentioned in the "tweets and teasers" thread, no he didn't.

[Achilles]

 

Josh pretty much admitted in the Twitch Q&A (at around the 22 min mark) that multi-classing felt better than single-classing (with the exception of some combos).

As I mentioned in the "tweets and teasers" thread, no he didn't.

Yeah, apparently lying about something that is easily verifiable is going to...actually I have no idea what he’s hoping to get out of this. Virtue signalling for his anti-Josh buddies or something?

[Faustus2]

At ~21:30 Josh said, "Overall, playing multiclass, in my opinion, which is just my opinion, so certainly people can disagree with it, feels pretty good.  Um, I think that single class felt like fairly far behind even though they had higher power level and access to more-to higher level abilities sooner, they still felt like they were kinda losing out because they just didn't have anywhere near the same number of abilities."

[JerekKruger]

At ~21:30 Josh said, "Overall, playing multiclass, in my opinion, which is just my opinion, so certainly people can disagree with it, feels pretty good.  Um, I think that single class felt like fairly far behind even though they had higher power level and access to more-to higher level abilities sooner, they still felt like they were kinda losing out because they just didn't have anywhere near the same number of abilities."

 

Again, past tense (bolded for emphasis).

 

What was the reason they felt weaker? They didn't have "anywhere near the same number of abilies". What big change was made to single class characters in the latest beta? They were given an extra ability point every power level. When combined with Josh's comments that neither multi- or single-class characters feel, overall, more powerful, I think it's safe to conclude that Josh was not saying that multiclass characters are more powerful.

[Achilles]

At ~21:30 Josh said, "Overall, playing multiclass, in my opinion, which is just my opinion, so certainly people can disagree with it, feels pretty good. Um, I think that single class felt like fairly far behind even though they had higher power level and access to more-to higher level abilities sooner, they still felt like they were kinda losing out because they just didn't have anywhere near the same number of abilities."

oh, so you ignored everything after that?

 

Again: legitimately confused or pushing an agenda?

[Achilles]

 

At ~21:30 Josh said, "Overall, playing multiclass, in my opinion, which is just my opinion, so certainly people can disagree with it, feels pretty good. Um, I think that single class felt like fairly far behind even though they had higher power level and access to more-to higher level abilities sooner, they still felt like they were kinda losing out because they just didn't have anywhere near the same number of abilities."

Again, past tense (bolded for emphasis).

 

What was the reason they felt weaker? They didn't have "anywhere near the same number of abilies". What big change was made to single class characters in the latest beta? They were given an extra ability point every power level. When combined with Josh's comments that neither multi- or single-class characters feel, overall, more powerful, I think it's safe to conclude that Josh was not saying that multiclass characters are not currently more powerful.

FTFY

[Faustus2]

Maybe you're right.  The past tense to me was the last time he played it, like, right before the Q&A.

 

P.S.  Should we pick one thread to discuss this on?  (It is my fault we are on two)

[Faustus2]

 

At ~21:30 Josh said, "Overall, playing multiclass, in my opinion, which is just my opinion, so certainly people can disagree with it, feels pretty good. Um, I think that single class felt like fairly far behind even though they had higher power level and access to more-to higher level abilities sooner, they still felt like they were kinda losing out because they just didn't have anywhere near the same number of abilities."

oh, so you ignored everything after that?

 

Again: legitimately confused or pushing an agenda?

 

 

I didn't hear anything referencing balances he made after that statement... only that they could continue to tune some of that stuff as time goes on.  Then he rubbed his eye.

[Achilles]

 

 

At ~21:30 Josh said, "Overall, playing multiclass, in my opinion, which is just my opinion, so certainly people can disagree with it, feels pretty good. Um, I think that single class felt like fairly far behind even though they had higher power level and access to more-to higher level abilities sooner, they still felt like they were kinda losing out because they just didn't have anywhere near the same number of abilities."

oh, so you ignored everything after that?

 

Again: legitimately confused or pushing an agenda?

I didn't hear anything referencing balances he made after that statement... only that they could continue to tune some of that stuff as time goes on. Then he rubbed his eye.

I just posted the entirety of the question and it’s response in the other thread. You’re welcome to review it at your leisure.

 

I am curious: why would Josh, reputed to hate imbalance and willing to nerf any sacred cow in order to ruin fun, go online and say “yep, this part of the game that I’m designing is really unbalanced”? Help me understand.

[rjshae]

I'm concerned about how many tweaks it is going to take to the final release before it is considered "in balance". Will it take months of feedback? Years? The game play for the initial release will be completely different from the ultimate balanced version, even more so than PoE was.

[rothamon81]

Why does it need to be "balanced"? Its a single player game, not dota or overwatch. One good ingame item might throw all the careful balance in the gutter, so what?

[Achilles]

Why does it need to be "balanced"? Its a single player game, not dota or overwatch. One good ingame item might throw all the careful balance in the gutter, so what?

Because Josh is a design snob