Tree of Savior Forum

[Game Design] 80 Classes and Balancing!

Class and Rank
#1

Hey Toasters and Saviors! Sharp here with another topic on Game Design!

Today let’s talk about Classes, 80 of 'em… wow 80 classes huh IMC?
That’s a lot, and it sounds cool and all but it’s not like it was never attempted before. The problem of this many classes is exactly what always happens in MMO RPG’s after a certain period of time, it’s called min-maxing, the boring art of crafting characters with the best stats and instantly break the balance of the game. Then from 80 classes it quickly gets down to 5 super-soldiers that do everything more effective than everyone else. Which is lame.

This happens because of one of the worst enemies of a game designer: The Dominant Strategy (Tan tan taaaaaan~)

¨A strategy is dominant if, regardless of what any other players do, the strategy earns a player a larger payoff than any other. Hence, a strategy is dominant if it is always better than any other strategy, for any profile of other players’ actions.¨ -Game Theory.net

And normally the end result of this lack of balance and compensation of choice results in this little graph:

Take note that because MMO’s have a lot of Player Competition the desire for a Dominant Strategy is amplified a gajillion-fold!

You: “But… ToS’s class system focuses less on whole different classes and more on Combos of little classes with a low amount of skills per class, doesn’t that make balancing easier?”

Me: Yes! Technically it is, but just take a look around the Theory Crafting post or some builds, most people are already min-maxing the hell out of the skill-simulator! I’ve seen a lot of Passive only Swordsman-Barbarians, Wizards-Elementalists. Most archers are picking Ranger because they don’t like the idea of changing Stances all the time, and man! How unlucky are the Krivis and the Priest just because of Cleric’s Divine Might.

You: But can’t Imc just nerf the OP classes everytime there is one?

Me: Also yes, but simply nerfing something doesn’t balance the game it just giver room for another class to become OP and ir ends up creating what I call the Patch HATE CYCLE!:

This feeling will be more aggravated on MMO’s because a player took months grinding and evolving one character when the character becomes mediocre compared to the rest the play will feel mediocre by proxy, creating an EXIT POINT in the game.

So what solutions is best then? Well I say it’s innovative game design that always will be the best solution but that’s an even more broad spectrum of solutions, for the sake of this Post I came down with two inter-related ideas using Bosses as the main mechanic:

Showcase Bosses
For most games, bosses are the ultimate challange. Taking that into account this Showcase Boss will use some Class skills in combat, overpowered versions or not, an example is a Boss that strats combat LINKING PC’s with the Linker’s Joint Penalty! Using this will create a sense of: “Wow! I want to do that!”

Class-Countered Bosses
This type of boss is easier if you have a certain class or skill in your party! Take for example a Boss that REVERSES any magic circle on the ground so that it benefits it, having a Thaumaturge with Reversi will make the battle a whole lot easier, making the Thaumaturge a justifiable pick!
It does not need to become super easier just a little bit.

Well this are my ideas, what do you guys think? Is ToS gonna become just another min-maxing fest? What are your ideas for balancing? I am interested to know.

21 Likes
#2

i’m gonna mim/max like a beast :^)
i’m all about that tryhard lyfe ! huehuehuehue

#3

There are only 80 “classes” because they basically give you a new costume everytime you take a different branch in the skill tree. The level of complexity isn’t as high as it seems over other games. They just market it differently.

#4

I hope they manage to balance the classes upon certain categories to which those classes can belong to.

For example:

PVPers: characters/classes that are good for pvps. (like 1v1 for example again)
Find out which combinations are the best for said role, which as you said the community is already doing, then try to balance all these classes n jobs combinations that fit into this category.

Supports: characters/classes that are good at supporting others with buffs, heals, etc.
Same as again, find all the supports in the game and balance them out, we don’t want 1 job being THE support class, it would be cool if we could have all supports balanced, even tho they’d not be able to 1v1 a PVPer.

Teamfighters: characters/classes that are good for things like 3v3, 5v5, 8v8 or any sort of big team fight. This category could probably fit a lot of AOE casters (like wizards, pyros, elementalists, etc) and would be characters that shine in big fights.

That’s something I think could work, or could simplify their work towards balancing. I don’t really expect some sort of healer support class to beat down a idk, Barbarian in a 1v1 fight, but I’d also not like to have ONE class being superior to all others in PVP, or at supporting.

#5

Everyone keeps worrying about there being OP classes and such…it’s like they think this is a single player game. However, each class has it’s own role, of which it excels at when solo. But with proper party management, of which should be required of endgame content and group PvP, it won’t exactly matter what class everyone is, as long as there is balance among the party. Sure, Shepard might not be the best for PvP, but that doesn’t downplay their other potential (even if they aren’t good at bosses, they’ll have some purpose).

I don’t know - I just feel it ignorant to say there will be min-maxing in the sense that there will be only a few classes viable in the meta. IMC doesn’t want that - they want everyone to excel in their role.

In regard to combat, it’s about playstyle and strategy. If you’re really good at microing, you might be a much better hunter than the guy who plays an auto attack swordie. If you like nuking the hell of stuff, you’re probably going to be better off at a mage class than a cleric, but that doesn’t mean there’s just one path you can take. Maybe there’s only one AoE mage class, but that undermines the other classes and skills surrounding that one.

2 Likes
#6

One experienced game-designer I know says that “What makes game interesting is controlled unbalance” =)
And looking at StarCraft for example I’d say it sounds quite cogently.

1 Like
#7

That’s in the post, read it all then comment Please.

#8

This is one of the best threads I’ve ever seen here :+1:

8 Likes
#9

Thank you fine sir!!!

#10

I think it’s too early to talk about OPNESS let’s revive this post on the Open Beta. The only thing I’m going to say is that I don’t mind being a weak in battle if I feel useful somehow.

Keep up the good work!

5 Likes
#11

With good design I also see a way to balance the PvP with the same concepts of “Class-countered Bosses”

1 Like
#12

We can’t really find out until the game has been out for quite some time, but this is something to watch out for. The game is still in development.

#13

What you wrote is correct for the most part and a good observation.
From my personal standpoint (as a player and designer / developer ), balncing isn’t even aaaas important of an aspect in an RPG. Of course some ~kind~ of light balancing is important, but there will always be the DPS classes / combinations, the HEALER classes, the TANKS and the BUFF- / DEBUFFERS. And I think a MMORPG should present an environment to the players, that makes them all equally important.
Even classes that just focus on money making or item crafting. They can be important, too and should also get a legitimate way to earn their exp without having to partake in the super hardcore battles and raids. (For the kind of players, that don’t even want to focus on fighting, but on other RP aspects )
As long as the game allows the player to take his character’s future in his own hands, there is nothing to complain about. And no character should be allmighty and good at every game aspect.
That’s balancing to me. Not who deals the most damage.

#14

Games need something called “Perfect Inbalance” in order to be atractive to players and always be evolving.
There is a nice video explaining this:

As with fighting games, I think ToS will be based more on playstyle rather than min-maxing characters. For example, you might want to level up mobbing (AoE killing) low lvl monsters with a AoE Wizard or maybe 1v1 stronger monsters with an Archer. As long as both give similar exp/time the game can be “balanced”.

1 Like
#15

damn happen in every mmorpg with so many classes in it… my last mmo trigger the hatred like you described above with those cute ms paint pic… couldn’t agree more
but it always the player that make the class intresting actually

1 Like
#16

Yup. It looks awesome if you can dominate with a class that’s not that popular. Don’t you think?

#17

Just wait for the game before thinking about balance, and im sure allot of tweeking will happen just like any other game till it becomes good

#18

@SheepPoop
The point of this post is not to criticize a game that is not out yet, it’s a study based on past experiences and knowledge.

2 Likes
#19

as our sharpy person has spoken before our accumulating experience playing mmo can affect our experience to the new one, it can’t be helped tho. There’ll always be feeling that something didn’t work as we expected… hope tos can minimaliza that feeling… ugh :cold_sweat:

#20

I disagree.
Devs should think about balancing the classes even BEFORE the game is being planned. That is the most crucial part of a game especially game like TOS where 80 classes do exist. (Not to mention, they will bring another 20 later in CBT3).

So, I generally support Sharp for his analysis to balancing the classes as it is required for the devs to step up in balancing the classes because the sheer amount of classes that they will bring in the game.