The Myths of Class Balancing

by Loral on October 11, 2004

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about five meaningless terms of Everquest. One of these, Class Balance, is so overused that it now defines just about any problem one has with one's class. There is no such thing as class balance and if there were, we'd have no defined classes. There are nuggets of truth within this chaotic topic, however, and once we know what to ask for we can learn how to ask for it.

While there is no class balance, there is class tuning. Many of us focus on a particular class and with the time we've put in, we know bits and pieces of our class that under-perform.

Every class has advantages and disadvantages when compared to other classes. This should always be true. Adventurers depend on each other and always should. If we could all solo our way to 70 with greater efficiency than in a group, we would. Dependency forces us to group to progress and grouping is what makes Everquest different than any other single-player role playing game.

There are four main archetypes that current Everquest classes fall into. Powerful efficient groups require each of these four archetypes in order to battle at the best of their ability. These archetypes include healers, crowd controllers, tanks, and damage dealers.

Groups should not depend on any one of the sixteen classes. At worst, they should only require one from each of the four archetypes in order to group well. For the most part, this exists today. A group can earn excellent experience and a shot at some nice loot without any dependency on one class.

Now it is possible to have an ideal group. It is possible to have a perfect combination of classes that outperform a group of a different makeup. Again, this will probably always be true and even after extensive class tuning, will end up being true in some other configuration. Even if some sort of widespread class evaluation took place, equipment, AAs, and the skills of the players will always create imbalance between two different groups.

Here is one of Loral's Key to Happiness: Forget about the numbers. Throw away your damage per second parser. Ignore the experience per hour you hear people acquiring in Fire. Enjoy your class and your skills and go where you desire to hunt. Constantly worrying about the damage per second of your character and only hunting in the most profitable zones leads to boredom and anger.

This Key to Happiness is superseded by Loral's First Rule of Happiness: Have Fun. If you like delving into the numbers, go ahead. If they lead you to believe your class is worthless and weak and you end up spending days arguing with monks on the class boards, best to leave them aside.

When I brought up the topic of class balance with my editor, we decided we'd take a look at rangers. He plays a wizard and I play a cleric so we had to go to his wife, the only one we know personally who plays a ranger. When we asked what her top five ranger issues were, this is what she came back with:

- Rangers aren't big enough.
- The starting city is too hard.
- Rangers are a mishmosh class.
- After years of playing she is only level 24.
- Rangers get no respect.

I bring these up to show how perception changes our focus. You may think you're the voice of all rangers when you argue that the Epic 1.5 should be a bow, but you really only focus on high-level rangers capable of accomplishing the quest. The more narrow your view, the fewer people you help. While focus is fine, we should not lose sight of the bigger picture.

For the class correspondents I have one piece of advise. Always consider the class at all levels. Don't focus on only the highest level of the game. Classes have problems throughout their life and problems between level 30 and 50 effect more players than those at 65 and above.

So how can we help SOE improve our classes? First, consider what we ask for. If it bleeds into another class consider what impact it may have on them. If the impact is little, perhaps it is a reasonable request. If it impacts a lot, best to think about it further. The best chance for change is to focus on skills that do not dramatically effect the class.

Second, use your class correspondent. Find out who they are and what their issues are. They work with SOE directly to make sure top class issues are known. If your change is really as important as you think it is, you shouldn't have a hard time convincing them about it.

Third, speak in detail. Don't complain about your classes overall grouping benefit. Pick the abilities that require improvement and focus on them. When I read over the class requests on the EQLive forums, I see mixes of specific requests (Turn Undead needs to work better) with general ones (Clerics need a secondary role). Guess which one I'd fix first?

Like every other topic we bring up with SOE, avoid constant negativity, avoid threats, avoid woe-is-me statements about how your class is dead. No class is dead. Every class is still well represented on every server. Every class has use. Every class has advantages over others.

Above all, we should keep the whole game in mind when we consider changes. Vast ranges of players, classes, levels, and zones remind us that we have a huge world. SOE should always consider focusing on big changes first and smaller changes second. While SOE cannot ignore class changes, it is the large changes that improve the game the most. I would sacrifice Turn Undead in a minute if it meant we would see a new corpse recovery option.

Loral Ciriclight
11 October 2004
loral@loralciriclight.com

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Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 12, 2004 12:01 AM

You've got some really good points there. I agree with most of what you've said, but I disagree on one point - that of the archetypes.

As much as I'd love to say that groups are built around archetypes, they really aren't - especially in the high level game. More often, what I see for groups is cleric, slower, tank, and damage. Occasionally someone thinks about crowd control, but that really depends on where the group is going.

Now this happens most at the high levels, but because of the bleed-down effect of people playing twinks and what not, I see it happening at mid levels too. As an example, I was on my 29 shaman today. I got asked to do an ldon group (the first in weeks for him). The whole reason I was there, in the eyes of my groupmates, was to slow. That was it. They never once even considered that a shaman can substitute for a cleric in the kind of content we were doing. If we hadn't had a cleric, they would have disbanded the group.

Now I realize that player perceptions are very much to blame for this experience, but this sort of thing is very common - I have 8 characters on my account ranging from levels 20 to 64, and I encounter it in groups at all levels, even from people whose only characters are low or mid levels. To me, this is too common to simply be a misunderstanding. Somewhere, the game has taken the rules that used to really only apply to raiding and made them apply to single groups, and done that to an extent that now everyone believes they have to have certain classes to have an effective group, even when they really don't. That needs to change.

Comment Posted by: Loral on October 12, 2004 06:54 AM

You bring up some very good points, but yes, the problem is with perception. There is no reason a druid and a shadowknight can't be the healer and tank in a group throughout most of a game. Only in the most difficult areas (Ikkinz, Muramite Provingrounds, Riftseekers, Kodtaz+) are more selective groups required.

How do we convince stubborn people to experiment more with group configurations? How do we show groups that there is more than one way to pull and kill mobs? This isn't a problem that needs a game change, this is a social change. How can we accomplish that?

Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 12, 2004 08:31 AM

Unfortunately, we (as in individual players) really can't change this. It's too widespread, and its compounded by other "problems" within the game.

To just focus on healers first - at the low and mid-levels, 90% of the time a druid or shaman is not going to be able to keep up on heals in the eyes of the group. This isn't because the druid is any less effective as a healer than they should be, it's because the majority of your group will be walking around with 600-1000 more hp than they should have for their level. Where a druid or shaman used to be able to get by with a Greater Heal, now it's just not possible.

High-level groups are actually a little better off, as long as you stay out of the planes, hard ldon's, Gates, and Omens. This is because the monsters in those places hit too hard and too fast for a druid or shaman to be able to keep up generally. Incidentally, they hit too hard for most clerics to handle without slow. Teremar had a great point in a reply to one of the earlier articles about the difference between getting 5 mobs in OS and 5 mobs in a later zone.

There are always exceptions. I know a few druids or shamans that do a better job healing at the high levels than most clerics I group with. Likewise I've had a few low and mid-level groups that weren't twinked or buffed beyond the ability of a druid or shaman to heal. But these are few and far between.

In my opinion, if the folks at SOE were to do one thing regarding class tuning that would keep casual players around longer, cutting down on the cleric requirement would be the thing to do. That's the single biggest frustration for most players I know, that they can't get a group because no one wants to do much of anything without a cleric. There are a lot of other things that can be addressed, but this is the one that sticks out for me.

Comment Posted by: Maallycious Quintessence on October 12, 2004 09:04 AM

I agree whole heartedly that no class is an invaluable one whether it be in a group or on the solo path. All classes have their high and low points. Personally my main is a SK, granted that I can only iterate about my class. Sure I have run just about every class in game but I keep going back to my first choice, the SK. In the "old days" SK's were as sought after as Warriors and Paladins, for the tank of groups. Now it seems that all we are wanted for, if at all, is for added damage or for our ability to split a pull. And even then only if a Monk or Necro can't be found. Our role as tank, except in those rare instances when you run across a bunch of people who are of the "old school" thought, is unfortunately a dead one unless you are a member of some mass Uber guild with the most uber gear. For those of us who are not, I myself included, have more or less been forced to run the solo path. Or as is in my case, Box more then one toon to get anywhere remotely interesting. What I believe brought this change about was the introduction of the new Planes. Shortly after the arrival of PoP I began to notice these changes in what different people expected of certian classes while grouped. Honestly I have come to believe it is from the simple fact, that about the time PoP was released there was a flood of high-end geared level one toons running around, who were so rushed through their paces, per say, that they didn't take or have the time necessary to develop themselves within that particular class. Also about this time I noticed that there was a change in the wy many people percieved the game. It began to be about getting to 65. Not about character development as it once was. It was, and still seems to be, only about getting to the percieved "end-game". As I stated before I am, and will always be, about character development, not the end-game. I just wish that the new "cookie-cutter" characters, and people who run them would drop back five and realize that this game was originally intended to be one of "personal growth", within your character, not getting to the end game, or how "Uber" you can get and how quickly you can do it. Then perhaps more indiviuals would realized and utilize the different classes the way they were intended to be run.

Comment Posted by: Whobiny on October 12, 2004 09:05 AM

First of all Loral, there aren't 4 archetypes in EQ. There are no archtypes. What archtype do rangers fall into? They deal damage as well as they crowd control as well as they heal as well as they tank: crappy. In your archetype system Bards would be primarilly crowd control because out of your 4 archtypes that's the one they do best. Ask any bard (if you can find one) what their role in any group usually is and I doubt they'll say crowd control. Also the most effiecient groups are made up of one of each of those? What about caster AE groups that have no tank, no healing and no crowd control? Those seem to be doing alright.

Secondly class balance does exist. If classes are balanced than anyclass is equally desired in any group. The problem is that most groups in EQ are obsessed with effiency. The HAVE to have a cleric as the healer because he has the best healing and they HAVE to have a shaman as a slower (gasp! not an archtype) because they have the best slows. You don't see this problem because you play the most desirable class in the game.

Finally, the problem of the epic and rangers is that SOE was sending rangers mixed signals. All of the Ranger offensive AAs were melee, but their best weapon was a bow. Now at least there is consistency coming from SOE. The main problem is group desireablity. No one wants a class that is mediocre at everything. Go to the Glade, rangers are quitting in droves over problems like this.

Comment Posted by: Scott Adams on October 12, 2004 09:47 AM

I think that EQ2 is brekaing new ground by heading in the direction of the 4 archtypes. EQlive really doesn't have it.

Time will tell if it was a good choice in EQ2 or not. The idea sounds very good in principle but it does have its drawbacks. Personally I think it will work well and will solve more problems then it creates. But it is far from perfect!

You will get druids saying they are not differnet enough from shamans etc. And there will still be the mentality that you have to have a cleric to heal and that a druid or shammy won't do.

Anyway good article Loral, made me think about the issue even more.

Comment Posted by: Aazzn on October 12, 2004 10:20 AM

Your view on what the archtypes are is definately skewed. For one thing, its much more complicated than that. More classes need a rez for experience and earlier. Druids and Shamans need to get an uppgraded heal sooner. Perhaps druids should get a 1200hp or 75pct heal that takes 10 secs to cast at 39 and is 400 mana or something.

And shamans get a smaller version of stoicism at 34. Clerics need to have something to make them more versatile, perhaps removing recast penalty on their nukes, or perhaps revising the weapons they summon to have the same proc as the 56+ hammer (albeit without the proc rate mods). Also they shouldn't be getting their largest heal at 39. Maybe Touch of Life, a Harmtouch like ability that only works on undead. Or perhaps an innate damage shield against undead, that is equivalent to their level.

Also there is much to be said for the lack of a need for crowd control. If u pulled 5 mobs onto the average group in a 65+ zone, that group is evacing or doing a corpse retrieval.

A large portion of the problem comes from people not knowing their own class and playing it well. In my opinion it is entirely too easy to level to 65 and beyond with the only pre-requisite being playtime. The beauty of the kunark era game and before was if you were a bad player, you died so much, and gained exp so slowly that you either learned to play your class better or you reached a point where the exp you earned did not exceed the exp you were losing by dying excessively.

Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 12, 2004 10:32 AM

"A large portion of the problem comes from people not knowing their own class and playing it well. In my opinion it is entirely too easy to level to 65 and beyond with the only pre-requisite being playtime. The beauty of the kunark era game and before was if you were a bad player, you died so much, and gained exp so slowly that you either learned to play your class better or you reached a point where the exp you earned did not exceed the exp you were losing by dying excessively."

Well said.

/agree.

Comment Posted by: Zarros on October 12, 2004 11:06 AM

Archetypes can also be thought of as roles in a group, the most basic and fundamental social unit of gameplay in MMORPGs generally. I see them a bit differantly than Loral, but I think I see the point he's trying to make. Its not that these are cast in stone classifications that fit EQ perfectly, but that inside a group these four basic archetypal roles need to be filled.

I like to use the City of Heroes terms and descriptions myself, although they have 5 instead of 4. They take what I consider a single role, defender, and break it into two archetypes, the defender and the controller.

Tanker: Fairly self-explanatory. Hold the mobs' attention and to take the beating other's couldn't survive.

Defender: Their job is to weaken the enemies of the group, in terms of debilitating their ability to deal damage or cause problems otherwise (in EQ traditionally done via "mez" and through slow/cripple) and to enhance the offensive and defensive capabilities of their team (through buffs, heals, etc.)

Scrapper: Your basic up-close-and-personal melee damage type. If the tanker is high defense and moderate offense, these guys are moderate defense and high offense.

Blaster: Scrappers do it in melee, blasters do it from range. Whether the vehicle is power/mana or ammo for a weapon, they are capable of unloading the pain from range, and often high volumes of it fast, with the downside of being very low defense and "fuel based", that is dependant on mana or ammo.

Tank: Warrior, Paladin, Shadow Knight
Defender: Cleric, Druid, Shaman, Enchanter, Bard
Scrapper: Monk, Rogue, (new) Ranger, Beastlord, Berserker
Blaster: (old) Ranger (AM3/EQ AA for archery), Wizard, Magician, Necromancer

Is there overlap? Yes, but when you get down to is, a previous poster nailed it: you want a tank (tanker), a cleric (defender), and an enchanter (defender), and then damage (scrapper/blaster).

Are some classes weaker within their archetypal role than their competition? Yes, meaning they are weaker in terms of at a minimum group desirability/usefulness. Some like the cleric are so focused in a limited aspect of their role (healing, or "reactive defense") that they provide more than a typical group might need, making other defender types more desired for their additional secondary abilities in comparison.

So when I talk about "class balancing" I try and make sure its in terms of three things:

1) Can *all* classes that are intended to fill a given role in a group do so equivilently? In other words, is a group "penalized" in any way for taking class "A" over class "B" to fill a given role? If so, then either "A" needs to be enhanced, or "B" needs to be "nerfed".

2) Are the secondary abilities of each class within a common archtypal role, when taken as an aggregate for each level range, equivilently valuable to a group? This specifically means abilities that cannot adequately be provided for outside the group, functions like long-duration buffing or enemy debuffing (Aegolism and "Nine" lines, KEI+, Slows, Resurrection, etc.) that do not require the character in the group canot fairly be considered in balance. For a secondary ability to be "fair game" for class balance, it must as I see it be valuable within a group setting.

3) This one is a combination: Either no class should be able to solo or all classes should be able to solo. Now this doesn't mean all classes solo as fast as every other class, but that a minimum benchmark should be established, and a maximum effectiveness should likewise be benchmarked. Soloing should never be so inefficient that a class is effectively "trapped" into grouping, nor should a class be so effective soloing that it becomes a better vehicle for gaining experience than in a good group.

Part two of this is that if one class can effectively fill multiple archetypal roles in a group, then either its abilities need to be tuned down or all classes should have that ability (meaning specifically able to fill a second role) and as effectively. If a warrior is able to be half as effective at melee damage as a scrapper-class is, then all classes should be able to be half as effective in a second role.

The reason for the solo caveat is that if you achieve group balance, but some classes are strong soloists, you might as well consign the weak or group dependant competing classes to the dustbin. There simply would be no incentive to play them, except perhaps as "bots" or multi-box characters. The minimum and maximum efficiency compared to groups benchmarks ensures that regardless of class, a player who logs in and wants to play for even as little as 15-30 minutes, can go whack a monster or two before logging off. (I applaud the concept of the Task System for this, although from what I've read, it falls short in implementation of the concept.) Its more of a concession to time-constrained players than anything else really.

Well, longer than I planned, apologies for that and thanks to those who read it.

Zarros, once a cleric in EQ now a hero in Paragon City.

Comment Posted by: Loral on October 12, 2004 11:25 AM

In trying to destroy one worthless term I may have created another. It would appear no group can decide what the EQ archetypes are. I agree that I oversimplified it in the article. I also agree that classes almost always bleed between each of those four groups. When I think about archetypes, I don't think classes fit perfectly in one or another. Rangers can sometimes be tanks, sometimes crowd control, and mostly damage dealers. I also agree that there are roles like pullers and evacers with skills outside of those four I mention.

Most of this is player perception. If players cannot break out of the idea that they need clerics and warriors, no new skills given to them will help. The new skills will either not be powerful enough or so powerful that they make the original class unnecessary.

If everyone agrees that in many circumstances, Shaman and Druids can keep a group alive as well as a cleric (remember, this isn't just healing, this is in snaring and slowing and root-parking and killing mobs faster) than giving them greater healing abilities removes the use of a cleric.

Education, like so many things, is key.

Comment Posted by: on October 12, 2004 11:58 AM

This 'education' you speak of used to occur naturally. But like a post higher up, the fast increases of easy exp and the metoric rise of the newb lvl 65 (and now 70's to a certain extent). The for the long term player, it can be quite saddening to see the state of the game suffer to make it easier for joe newb to 'catch up'.

I don't have answer really, I guess it's just the age of the game and the battle scars of old age (long time players) that breed the hostility and/or apathy towards whatever perceptions you've developed over the course of playing the same game for up to 5 years.

Comment Posted by: Mnayar on October 12, 2004 12:53 PM

Just to clear up a few things. With Kunark there came the building and breaking of the Holy Trinity, the Warrior, the Cleric and the Chanter. In essence, The Tank, The Healer, The Slower.

After a while, Knights where giving upgrades to some of they're skills as well as other melee, casters where given upgrades and the other classes was given upgrades leading to 'The Great Class Balancing'

Things looked great for a while, Melee where interchangable, Rogue for Monk for Bard for Necro for Warrior for Sk for Pally for Cleric on down the line.

Enter the 'Disciplines'.

The most ground breakin moment in the history of EQ was when Defensive was introduced. The entire game shifted so that all encounters where balanced against Defensive. To over come that the Compelete Heal chain was used. Warrior agro's, warrior hits Defensive, Cleric1 Inc CH, on down the line. This left any others around as DPS, spot healers, crowd control and the knights became the premiere Offtanks.

Kunark was the best balanced expansion ever. A balance between low level to high level content. The encounters was not about endurance, mana regen, ch chain, defensive, it was about team work and having fun.

Enter Velious Era. The encounters was beefed up, Enrage was introduced as well as Rampage, Flurry. These where introduced because at the end of Kunark era the top knights where replacing Warriors as premiere tanks. Velious made the mistake thou, they continued to balance the encounters around Defensive + CH Chain. Warriors where given the spot light, let them tank the knights said, we'll off tank. Let them CH the shammy's druids said, we'll spot heal, dot and nuke. Let the shammy slow we'll mez and crowd control said the chanters. Mages vs Wizarads, Rangers vs Mobs that killed them to fast, Nercros said forget it and went and solo'd.

With Velious there came a shift in tactics, now we did have to think about mana regen, ch chain, hps, resists, off tanks, spot heals, AE's. Soon thou these as well was over come.

PoP introduced a whole new ball game. For the first time since Kunark it was all about DPS, FAST kills, get the mob to group kill it in under 2 mins, rinse repeat. There was mention of 'efficency' as in 'How efficent was my group while killing'

Knights we labeled THE premeire tank, soon they where all about Agro. This pleased them as they found they was in demand, for guilds, for groups, for mini raids. They're given utility finally paid off.

Warriors Bitched.

SoE listend to 1/3rd of the Holy Trinity saying, they can't get a group, they're not being recruited for raid guilds, they're quiting. The knights noticed this and agreed. They said, You guys suck on agro generation and definitely this needs to be fixed.

Welp it was, but the problem is, SoE went one step further. Warrior hps was increased, dps was increased, they was given new discplines, then they was given agro skills to be on par and in some cases exceed that of the knight.

The knights said, cool, you guys are fixed.

Enter GoD ( Gates of Discord )

Knights found themselves, not needed. Not because of any of they're skills, but simply because even the Top Knights couldn't tank in Single group enviorments, while the Bazzaar twinked lvl 65 warrior could. There was discusion. There was heavy thinking.

The warriors got Again a hp upgrade as well as dps AA skils along with New disciplines.

The Knights said, Hey, something is wrong.

SoE finally admited, Yes we built GoD around it being lvl 70 even thou we won't let you get to lvl 70. We'll gimp the content for you knights, Sorry.

Knights Shruged.

Enter Omens of War.

Balance has been lost, has been for two expansion. The ones that say 'classes are balanced, they just need tweeking' are the most of the time the people that play one of the holy trinity, the warrior, the cleric, the chanter.

At one point there was a 'blurring of lines between the classes' but then the legacy developers of SoE quit and that line was brought back into crystal clear focus. Developers are now going to put the Holy Trinity back into it's proper place as the Premier Group of Everquest.

Comment Posted by: Loral on October 12, 2004 01:01 PM

I watched a group with a druid and a paladin hunt named beasts in the tunnels in the Wall of Slaughter. When I hunt in any area where mobs hit for under 800, the group is better off with a druid than with me, especially if they have a paladin group healing.

There are a lot of successful group combinations that don't require any particular class.

Comment Posted by: Zarros on October 12, 2004 02:00 PM

The real danger of archetypes is already realized in many players' minds. Its pidgeon-holing the *way* a role is filled as 'X only' and how certain classes fit into them. In broad terms, any class in the game can "tank" any mob in the game they can survive melee contact with for more than 1 second (assuming 13+ clerics in rotation chaining cheal for instance), or any class that "helps keep their group alive" as a defender.

Obviously it shouldn't be taken like that.

Archetypes, when discussing class balance (which itself only matters group/raid really unless you consider "envy" a balance issue) should be understood as frameworks, or as tools that provide a foundation for the discussion.

I find archetype-thinking to really clarify some current game issues, particularly in high level content.

Rangers: The shift from archery to melee is basically an archetype change, its akin to changing a wizard into a monk or rogue. Ranged damage basically falls into the concept of "blasting" which has a particular playstyle whereas melee combat is "scrapping" which is quite differant.

Framed like that, stripped of emotional baggage, the upset of the subcommunity of rangers that really enjoyed their unique take on being "blasters" becomes more readily understood. How would paladins like it if they were changed from "tanker" to "defender", or clerics from "defender" to "scrapper"?

Many people stick with certain character types I believe because the style of play in a group for that character suits them. Combine that with the length of time it takes to get through content at reach "the top", an emtional investment in friends and community that doesn't shift well to "alts", and dismay over game changes is very human and understandable.

I don't think the term is worthless, certainly not as worthless as "uber" or "casual" are *wink* at any rate. But I think we should be careful in how we use them.

Comment Posted by: Bahlzaq on October 12, 2004 02:01 PM

The problem with the game is it takes so long to do what you want to do that EVERYONE becomes a min/maxer. Yes a druid can heal, but can you pull faster and have less danger (and get quicker exp rezzes) with a cleric? Yes a mage can be DPS, but will you kill faster with a wizard?

I agree that the game is for fun, and one of the things that is least fun is getting no group after hours of waiting, or having to wait long periods of time at all. I know there are ways around this: Guilds, making your own, etc. but the fact of the matter is that the game has changed. Soloing has ver little viability and almost no desirability, and it is limited to select classes. People have to log hundreds of hours to get where they want to be, in perfect groups, nobody is looking to tag an extra 20 hours on so they can take the INSERTBITCHCLASSHERE.

The game is different things to different people but i doubt anyone plays it who doesn't want to advance and doesn't have some sort of goals, reaching them means you need groups, needing groups means you must be desirable in groups, being desirable to groups, means being the MOST desirable. If you haven't been in groups that will wait for a cleric/bard/chanter/warrior then you have been in groups i have not. I think there are more classes who are seen as viable in the DPS field, but it seems to me that dps is the most populous segment of the eq playerbase who is waiting on groups, so you may not get overlooked for a wizzy, but they probably aren't looking for either of you.

To say class balance isn't the most important thing is a mistake, to say it is not important is a travesty, like saying money isn't important if you're bill gates.

Classes are broken in their current state because there are obvious "best" choices for each role. There are obvious best groups, and people will and do swap and switch for a variety of reasons, but these become the exceptions, and you can't have hundreds of players who have insvested hundreds of hours all hoping for the few "exceptions" and if you are one of the classes peropetually looked for, you look like a jackass if you pretend it is not the biggest issue in eq today.

I respect the fact that there can not be perfect balance, where balance equals sameness, but there does need to be balanced effectiveness in each role and there is decidedly not today. For instance if druids all had fast acting HoTs and clerics all had blast heals but druids had a little better efficiency, and they both blasted the same and they both had rezzes and they both had the same utility then there would be variety and balance, the problem is the designers loaded the game up with "versatility" when nobody thought people would be plotting their next 20 hours so they can get the next AA boost, there was a "fun" factor that was considered beyond the maximum efficiency brought to groups, that fun factor is quickly margianalized when the game gets to where it is at today.

Coincedentally, I think the same balance concerns should be considered in designing hunting spots as well. Exp should be scaled perfectly based on time and nothign else tryign to scale them based on time/danger makes them stupid when people's power curve changes.

-Bahlzaq

Comment Posted by: Teremar Talfirien on October 12, 2004 02:10 PM

Better to talk about abilities than archetypes, I think. A standard group needs the ability to take damage without dying, heal damage, and do damage. These are obvious. Plus the way EQ is now you pretty much need a slower to make the first of those work at high levels. In some zones you do need some sort of crowd control, but this is best understood as including all the various methods of single pulling or any other way of fighting one mob at a time, not just mezzing. (Every time I see someone talk about the necessity for CC or enchanters I want to ask them if I can come group with them in Old Seb, since that's just about the last place it was a necessity outside raids designed to require mezzing.)

The classes all have those abilities in various degrees, but there's no overall pattern. Thus they don't fit well into archetypes.

Now, I completely agree that what matters is that you're having fun with your class. But balance issues can have a direct impact on fun. If I were SOE I wouldn't take much of the class envy whining they see on the boards too seriously. But I would take a close look at two metrics:

One is average time spent LFG. No one likes looking for groups, yet some classes spend a whole lot more time doing it than others. SOE should figure out who is having trouble getting into groups and target them for improvements.

The other is simply number of active characters. This will tell you when a class has lost so much of its fun that people simply quit playing them.

Never mind the complaining on Monkly Business--what really tells me that monks are in trouble is that I hardly ever see them any more.

More on the difference between group desirability and fun later.

Comment Posted by: Eyepaq on October 12, 2004 02:58 PM

The thing that makes the healer archetype require a cleric, in my opinion, is that death happens, and when it does, if you don't have a cleric, it's game over.

Especially if you're going somewhere hard to get to - if your druid or shaman healer dies, now what? Evac out and fight your way back in. Blah. With a cleric, you res up and you're back in business.

A possible solution to this would be to have clerics able create or summon items with an effect of a 96% (or even 90%) xp res, only usable by one of the other healer archetype classes.

Comment Posted by: Zarros on October 12, 2004 02:59 PM

Abilities needed:
Take damage (tanker)
Heal damage (one aspect of defender)
Deal damage (scrapper + blaster)
Slow enemies (another aspect of defender)

The issue with identifying "healing" or "slowing" as group roles/abilities is they aren't really needed. If you sufficiently debuff a mobs ability to attack, or enhance the group's ability to resist, then the needed healing could be handled with bind wounds almost *wink*

Likewise with sufficient healing, debuffing a mob becomes superfluous assuming that whatever is acting as your "tanker" can survive long enough for the heals to land.

The above is true in any group configuration really. All a "kite group" is doing is "debuffing" the mob's ability to attack by making sure via runspeed augmentation of a kiter and runspeed debuffing of the mob, that it can never close to melee range. In a mob that lacks ranged attacks, that reduces incoming damage to zero, making healing unneeded.

A pet group achieves the same effect by "resurrecting" (ie. resummoning pets) its tankers, and forcing the mob to destroy multiple tankers before it can get to the damage-dealers.

"Defense" as a role isn't limited to healing at all.

Think of it like this:

Role 1: Someone to take the damage
Role 2: Someone to keep the PC/NPCs doing #1 alive (and the others too, but in normal circumstances, its role 1)
Role 3: Deal damage

Role 3 doesn't have to be divided to scrapper (melee) vs. blaster (ranged) technically, but slow and heal are both definitely role 2.

Comment Posted by: on October 12, 2004 03:21 PM

Defensive, CH, 50%+ slow all are core design faults that affect the game in the worst way, yet can never be removed without breaking the game at this point.

To a lesser extent, mez, mana recovery spells (to include necro mana pumps and mod rods) are also a problem that affect balance in a detrimental way.

Of course, if you take all that away, if your not careful you end up with a non-fun PoS game like SWG.

Comment Posted by: on October 12, 2004 03:51 PM

Zarros:

In theory you don't need slow, true.

But in EQ (and I think we're talking about EQ here) slow is just plain powerful. I'd agree even too powerful. The amount of other debuffs (what other debuffs really matter in EQ?), healing, etc. you need to compensate for not having slow on cutting edge content is huge.

I'm sure things are different in CoH, but in EQ slow is one of the major abilities a group almost must have.

Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 12, 2004 05:05 PM

A lot of good points have been brought up.

I seem to say this every few articles, but it's relevant here too. I'm a paladin. I have been playing my paladin since 1999. I have other characters, some of who are fairly high level, but when I think about the character I really enjoy most, it's the paladin.

As a paladin, I don't feel that there is really anything wrong with my class. In fact, I think that warriors still need a better way to control aggro with a high-damage group, because they still have trouble with it, and i generally don't.

Not to say that I don't have some frustrations - but when I sit back and look at things objectively, I don't see anything really wrong with my class. I can tank, I can heal, I can rez, I can even solo a little bit. I even have an ok damage output, although there are times where I wish i did more.

Since most of us agree that arechetypes are hard to define, maybe we should instead apply a different concept. Every character has multiple roles that they can fulfill. The way they differ is in which roles are their primary roles in a group, and which are secondary (or tertiary).

Here is my list of roles - I think it's pretty comprehensive, but maybe you all will see something I forgot.

Damage Taker
Melee Damage Dealer
Non-melee Damage Dealer
Support/Buffs
Reactive Crowd Control (roots, mezzes)
Proactive Crowd Control (pulling)
Debuffs/Slows
Heals

If we truly want to evaluate whether classes are "balanced" against each other, then we should consider what their primary/secondary/tertiary roles are. If you evaluate performance in a given role for a class on a scale of 1 to 10, and rate each class in the performance of each role, then you can start truly looking at who needs more help.

Each class is a different combination of roles and strengths in those roles. Ideally, there should be 3 or 4 classes who function well in a particular role, and even the best of those should not be much better than the others.

In some areas EQ has accomplished this, but in others it has not, and this is where the developers should truly focus any balancing efforts.

One other thing I have to say is that balancing should be done from the bottom up. If the developers only concentrate on the high levels without paying attention to whether the fundamentals at the low levels are balanced, all it amounts to is another bandaid fix that eventually will cause more problems.

Finally, I know we all use tanks as examples - but speaking as a tank, and one who regularly groups with warriors and shadowknights - we're more balanced than most other "categories" or "archetypes". Shadowknights have mana issues, and warriors have aggro issues, and paladins wish we could do more damage, but these are pretty minor compared to the problems and imbalances that exist between other classes. That's where the effort should be concentrated.

Comment Posted by: on October 12, 2004 05:15 PM

As an example to help illustrate my post above, I rated paladins vs warriors vs shadowknights. Hopefully this will help anyone to understand what I was trying to say :)

(DT=Damage Taker, ML=Melee, NM=Non-melee, SB=Support Buffs, RC=Reactive Crowd Control, PC=Pulling, DS=Debuffs/Slows, and HL=Healing Ability. Note these are ratings for grouped, not solo.)

Rating Guide:
10 = Best all around
7 = Good
5 = Moderate
3 = Situational
0 = Ineffective

Warrior - DT 10, ML 6, NM 0, SB 0, RC 0, PC 4, DS 0, HL 0

Paladin - DT 8, ML 5, NM 2, SB 3, RC 3, PC 5, DS 0, HL 6

Shadowknight - DT 7, ML 6, NM 3, SB 0, RC 3, PC 7, DS 3, HL 0

Anyway hope that example helps explain what I meant - you can argue with my numbers if you want, but that's really NOT the point.

Comment Posted by: Bahlzaq on October 12, 2004 05:23 PM

I see what you are saying, but you have to weight some and scale some of the abilities. For instance puller you only need one, and if you have the best one you don't need much reactive crowd control, and maybe no active crowd control. Slowers more than one is a complete waste in most groups. Healing doesn't stack well, damage does, but damage is usually the "left over" spots, since you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some monks/mages/wizzies/necros/etceteras who have been looking for group for 2 hours.

If you read my post I completely see your point, but when the going gets tough a decision must be made, and a group will wait for a warrior if max mitigation is needed, or will wait for a cleric to fill it's healer slot, it doesn't matter how good a monk pulls in a group with a bard and so on and so forth. In other words most of the secondary abilities one might have are useless... a typical monk is a good example of this.

And please don't nitpick by telling me the time your necro kited three mobs to save the group. That doesn't really matter because as I said before groups aren't built around that if it happens great, but the necro more than likely did not get invited for his kiting abilities.

And so you have characters who are well rounded, but the slots are only for specialists... that isn't always the case, but is very much the norm... and as for teh tank debate, I have never played a plate tank, but i would guess there would be groups who would wait for a pally when a warrior was available, so you have your niche as well, it may in fact be balanced for you depending on content and typical group makeup...

Comment Posted by: bahlzaq on October 12, 2004 05:31 PM

Sorry I'm at work and my post was rambly... the point for those who care, is that balance can not be done the way you have it(and coincidentally that is the way it currently is done I believe) because it doesn't balance group effectiveness. If it did then someone with straight 5s would be uber compared to anyone else, however you would never invite him to a group, as he would slow you down in whatever role you actually used his average abilities in...

A generalist is good in small groups or solo, the game is a min/max thing and both of those suck... the way EVERYONE wants to play is full group fast slaughter low danger, mad exp, and that leaves generalists and secondary abilities out... your perticular mix of secondary abilirties are nice, cause one is a nice when needed boost(healing) and 2 are actually a primary group called "best aggro grabbing tank" And I break that out because it isn't the weight or quantity of the abilities that make you desirable it is those 2 abilities together that make you desirable. For instance the best aggro grabber in teh game is probly a wizard.... not so good for him

Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 12, 2004 05:39 PM

It's true that there's more that goes into why a group wants a person besides just how the abilities of the classes balance out. It's also true that some abilities "stack" and others don't. Some of the things that cause certain classes to get groups over others can be addressed by changing existing classes, the rest can only be addressed by retuning content.

However, the point of "class balance" isn't that all classes should be equally desired in specific situations - it's that when you don't take specific encounter requirements into consideration, multiple classes can perform any given role, and every class has an equally desireable advantage that they can bring to a group - even if that advantage is versatility and the ability to fulfill multiple roles.

Encounter tuning is really a seperate issue and in a lot of ways probably an easier fix, but the groundwork has to be done first. If the developers can truly look objectively at class abilities and say "these seem balanced", then they need to be looking outside the class abilities for the reasons why certain classes are spending hours and hours lfg while others get snatched up almost immediately. Like most other things, I think any good solution is going to have multiple pieces to it.

Comment Posted by: bahlzaq on October 12, 2004 05:58 PM

I disagree that the point of class balance isn't group desirability... that i believe is exactly the point. Now, that doesn't mean i think all classes should be exactly the same, but it does mean that a DPS should be a DPS should be a DPS and they should all be equally good in any group, same with tanks etcetera... if warriors mitigate 8 so should pallies and sks, and warriors and sks should have downtime and secondary abilities exactly as desirable as yours, otherwise there isn't balance

The method of balance currently used is fine in theory and on paper, but all anyone cares about is group desirability, and there are some quirky groups that might need say root, but to most groups it is a completely superflous spell, therefore to balance around abilities like that really just blows ass for the generalists, frankly the original answer from SOE of "tough shit druids. You guys rock at soloing." is really the way things would still be today, if you use the method you used. I am not sure it isn't still that way, but i don't consider it balanced...

I really think they should balance exp and loot gains... like they should make an example of the best possible group and lets say it includes a wizzy for damage, and lets say a mage would be half as effective, well i think a group that is ideal except has a mage instead of a wizzy should get 109 percent exp and loot per kill.

Comment Posted by: menleniel on October 12, 2004 06:44 PM

I strongly disagree that if soloing was better xp than grouping we'd all become soloers. I'm surprised to hear that coming from a cleric. Sure I'd solo a bit more when I was pressed for time but most of us (and certainly most clerics) play the game for its social aspects (yes even those of us in uber guilds) and nothing is going to change the fact that grouping is more fun regardless of the xp earned.

Comment Posted by: Loral on October 12, 2004 06:51 PM

"The thing that makes the healer archetype require a cleric, in my opinion, is that death happens, and when it does, if you don't have a cleric, it's game over."

Both Paladins and Necromancers have the ability to res. Shaman and Druids have the abilitiy to recover the dead to their corpse, not really a res and it is only at level 70, but its a start.

Comment Posted by: Teremar on October 12, 2004 09:20 PM

But neither Paladins or Necros are healers. So when you're looking at your choices for healers, the fact that other classes can rez only matters if you happen to have one of them along to do something else.

So unless you're willing to go without available rezzes, you can skip the cleric only as part of an arrangement involving more than one person (druid & paladin vs. cleric & SK, for example). Given that pickup groups are normally formed one person at a time, the ability to rez is still a huge advantage to cleris.

Comment Posted by: FurryCrew on October 12, 2004 10:28 PM

You think it's just classes you gotta worry about @ the high/highest end (65-70) then you're dead wrong.

I freely admin I am in you typical "uber guild" well more than typical because we're an offpeak guild with no competition for mobs within 12 hour of our raid start time (Tx/Tacvi level raiding)

Now lets say I get a rare off night from raiding and the guild spilts up into number of "guild only" groups to hunt in MPG/Riftseekers etc. Some group are left with a spot or 2 missing, could be any kind of archtype healer/dps/slower etc. Now when I'm in that group we don't just look for classes but @ guildtags as well... we VERY VERY rarely take someone has doesn't have the proper "cred". I remember the howls of laughter when OoW 1st cam out about 5k unbuffed tanks LFG in MPG or Rogues still weidling there ragebringer begging for a group...or you're average_cleric with only FT1. Call it snobery but it's reality. I personally would love it if most anyone even with the best of skills could hack it in higher end EXP zones but without the proper eqiuipment it would actually be faster sometimes to go in with 5 than to carry a 6th under-equiped player

Comment Posted by: Naladini on October 13, 2004 01:50 AM

"For the class correspondents I have one piece of advise. Always consider the class at all levels. Don't focus on only the highest level of the game. Classes have problems throughout their life and problems between level 30 and 50 effect more players than those at 65 and above."

You could change that paragraph to begin with "For the Game Developers..." SOE's dev team has a long track record of ignoring classwide balance issues and trying to focus future improvements only at the highest end of the spectrum.

Reasons for this include:

1) Vocal players providing real data at higher levels, mainly anecdotal data available at lower levels. Note that raiding tends to provide more data and analysis than just about anything else, most parses tend to focus on "max level" for any given era of EQ.

2) Despite balance problems, people have a tendancy to fight through them and level up to a point where the same problems don't exist. A mentality of "If I can get through it, anyone can get through it" tends to ensue.

3) Analyzing and managing the change, for reasons stated in #1, its easier to make a change when you know you'll get good feedback and data about the change.

4) Limited time for non-expansion development: SOE is always working on another expansion. It is common for the developers to work on tuning for classes in the abilities of an upcoming expansion. To remain consistent, they work in a tightly focused level range. If lower level changes were added for one class, all classes would expect the same treatment.

Real world example: About a month before PoP was released, Rods of Mystical Transvergence were nerfed (note, most players felt this was a positive change overall). The reason, as it was explained at the time, was that magicians were intended to be "respected damage dealers" as opposed to providing mana for the rest of a raid. The catch is, not one single change was made to help magicians from level 56-60 become respected damage dealers.

As PoP was released, we did find a level 61 bolt spell available on a vendor, and the 61 pet was a huge improvement over just about anything except for the epic pet, but the fact remains, the dev's nerfed a class 5 weeks before an expansion, and then sold the players a fix within the expansion but not at the levels that were in need of improvement.

I agree that the class correspondants will be a big part of the solution, but I also maintain that the dev team needs to drop its practice of nerfing classes just before an expansion is released, then selling improvements within the expansion itself.

Comment Posted by: Blakyce on October 13, 2004 03:07 AM

I completely agree with bahlzaq's comments about class balancing being about group desirability. If you play one of the holy trinity classes then you have no appreciation for the frustration of LFG.

Chanters and clerics get endless requests for groups, whereas the damage dealers can sit for hours without any invites. If you don't have built in groups as a damage dealer, a group invite is like winning the lottery.

The current system had led to an overabundance of clerics and enchanters in the game. At this point any balancing/nerfing away from the trinity will only lead to many enraged clerics and chanters (for evidence just look at the uproar over druids/shamans getting the return to corpse ability).

As an example of this imbalance, after one week on my server, the number of level 70's online who were clerics (15) / enchanters (6)/ warriors (7) / pallys (8)/ sk's (7) was 43. The remaining eleven classes had 52 level 70's in total. I can't imagine that sony will ever take the nerf bat to half their player base's ability to group.

It is kind of funny though how whenever they add new character classes: monk / beastlord / berserker that they add more competition to the damage dealers grouping hopes.

Comment Posted by: Bahlzaq on October 13, 2004 10:19 AM

Alright if nobody likes the loot/exp scaling with group makeup... how bout a button on the lfg tool that says "lotto group" you hit that button and it invites 5 random looking for group folks to your group.(based on the tank/healer/slower/dpsother/dpsother/dpsother group make up) If you take those five and group you get a 20 percent exp and loot bonus... and the tool could use LFG times to decide who it was going to put in your "lotto group" It wouldn't completely alleviate the LFG worries, but it would at least keep a monk from LFG for 10 hours while poeple waited for another dps class to become available...

Comment Posted by: Teremar on October 13, 2004 10:57 AM

Can I come play with you in Old Seb Blakyce? It will be nice to be reminded of the days when enchanters were part of the "holy trinity."

These days I get invited to groups almost exclusively to slow. And of the slowing classes, enchanters have the worst slow (shaman slow slows for more, beastlord slow slows almost as much but lands much more quickly--and getting that slow in ASAP is more important than how much it does). Don't get me wrong--I am well aware that as a slower I get far more group invites than a DPS class. But the days of enchanters being part of the "holy trinity" ended with Velious and I'm really suprised people still talk about it.

My real complaint is that slowing is awfully boring compared to mezzing or charming. I promise I'll get to that post about the difference between a class being desirable to groups and being fun to play soon.

Comment Posted by: Loral on October 13, 2004 11:03 AM

"But neither Paladins or Necros are healers. So when you're looking at your choices for healers, the fact that other classes can rez only matters if you happen to have one of them along to do something else."

Most groups bring more than one ability to a group. Rogues have high damage and can drag bodies past see-invis mobs. Shadowknights can tank and pull. Druids can heal, blast, and evac. Wizards can blast and evac.

Clerics are not the only class that can res nor are they the only class that can heal. I've seen many successful groups that have no clerics in them.

Comment Posted by: Loral on October 13, 2004 11:05 AM

"Alright if nobody likes the loot/exp scaling with group makeup... how bout a button on the lfg tool that says "lotto group" you hit that button and it invites 5 random looking for group folks to your group."

Thats an interesting idea. There are a few problems with it but something like that might be a good way to get groups together quickly. Perhaps some sort of LDON style group, it throws you in a dungeon with five random people and gives you bonus experience if you accomplish the job.

Comment Posted by: on October 13, 2004 12:22 PM

yeah, EQ definately needs an 'instant action' type feature to push it over the edge fully into an action game instead of RPG.

/sarcasm off

Comment Posted by: Percrucem the Shadow Bard on October 13, 2004 12:33 PM

Just like to go back to what Aazzn said about how people play their characters. This "class balancing" and "archetypes" stuff is great if you have equally skilled players. I've been in groups before that constantly complain about "we need CC" or "we can't start... we don't have a cleric yet." I play an sk and while not considered the best pulling class I've never had a problem single pulling. Worst comes to worst I get an add and have to off tank it. I'm not that great of a tank (need more hps in my diet), but reputation and knowledge of your hunting ground is key especially in higher end content. One's group should be based off of this, NOT omg omg, where's a cleric/chanter/etc.

Yes, there are possible "fixes" that can be made to make it easier for classes to get a group during early and mid levels. From what I've seen, the higher end game needs more imagination in group building and less "my -insert class- can't get a group in -insert "uba" exp zone/camp-. I'll take a druid, pally, shammy, chanter, wizard, ranger, whatever and figure out how the group will work and go somewhere that the group will have fun, be challenged, and get a little exp/loot or maybe just head out to see a zone or kill a named that most have not seen or killed before. Stop the grind for a bit and have some fun! You may discover ways a group can work together to then head to PoF or MPG and be very successful.

Comment Posted by: Bahlzaq on October 13, 2004 12:50 PM

Just wanted to point out the irony in an anon poster pointing out that EQ is close to an "action" game, when just last week we had anon posters crying that it was to slow paced if someone could 5 box... go go gadget moron.

I guess RPG is synonumous with needlessly time consuming... it isn't like the game play would change if they added an "instant action." Although i don't like the idea of a button that instantly transports you from anywhere... but i do think it would be cool, if a group of wizards worked with a mercenary orginization to instantly transport your group to a dangerous mission area from the mercenary HQ... which could be a zone off of Freeport.. I love freeport, and it seems like if there was a mercenary HQ it should be off of freeport.

And if you "lottod" it could just pick people from the mercenary HQ, that way it would avoid problems of a warrior being lfg in the bottom of some dungeon somewhere and you having to wait 20 minutes for him...

I do think that since you do give up a lot in lottoing, that the missions themselves from the mercenary HQ should be twice as good as LDONs in loot and exp...

You know what is wrong with EQ? Idiots.

Comment Posted by: Loral on October 13, 2004 02:32 PM

Yes, evil shadow bard. You hit on something I tried to touch on in the article.

AAs, Equipment, and players skill will always unbalance a "balanced" group. There is no such thing as two equal but different classes. Each will always have an advantage over another in some cases and not in others. Balance can never exist. That is why Class Balance is a worthless and meaningless topic.

Comment Posted by: Zarros on October 13, 2004 03:22 PM

In reference to "slow" being an archtypal role as opposed to an aspect of a more general "defender" role. I believe the poster is confusing a content-designed necessity that has no viable alternative with a means of achieving the defense role in a group.

What if an alternative to slow were devised akin to an enchanter's targettable rune spell? What if this spell had a fixed duration, and immediately mitigated away the first 75% of damage the character took? Would a slow spell that achieved the same average (by perhaps causing the mob to take 4x as long to swing) be any better or worse?

What if this spell, like slow, were cast on an enemy mob and explained as a "force barrier" that blunted the power the blows landed with, and made incompatible with slow, so you could only have one or the other? Is taking 4 hits for 25 better or worse than taking 1 hit for 100?

What if we had a spell that caused a mob to only hit 25% as often as normal, but not because it swung 25% of normal, but because it's accuracy was massively debuffed?

Slow is a means to an end, nothing more or less. It is one tool that a defender archetype could use. Slow is not needed if the incoming damage is capable of being handled by heals, or if the creature cannot strike its enemy because it is being kited or is rooted.

Incoming damage mitigation can be handled proactive by slowing attack speed, reducing hit rate, or by reducing the raw force of an incoming hit. Incoming damage mitigation can be reactively handled via direct instant and over-time heals. Catastrophic damage mitigation (ie. the sucker died) is handled via resurrection ;)

Regardles of how, the role remains constant, the role is "keep the group alive when they are in contact with the enemy via beneficial effects on your group and detrimental effects on the enemy."

A group does not need "a slower" or "a healer" or "crowd control", they need someone who "makes sure they stay alive". A group does not need "a warrior" or "a paladin" or "a shadow knight", they need someone "who can take the damage the mobs create without dying". The issue with EQ is that the classes are not equally capable of filling the archtypal role that they seem designed for equally well.

Zarros, formerly of EQ, now enjoying CoH

Comment Posted by: on October 13, 2004 04:26 PM

"A group does not need "a slower" or "a healer" or "crowd control", they need someone who "makes sure they stay alive". A group does not need "a warrior" or "a paladin" or "a shadow knight", they need someone "who can take the damage the mobs create without dying". The issue with EQ is that the classes are not equally capable of filling the archtypal role that they seem designed for equally well."

Very well stated!

Comment Posted by: Teremar on October 13, 2004 04:45 PM

"I believe the poster is confusing a content-designed necessity that has no viable alternative with a means of achieving the defense role in a group."

Assuming by "content-designed" you mean "how EQ works" then I don't consider it confusion at all. I'm only interested in EQ. Of course in other games there are other abilities that can and do substitute for slowing. But in EQ there really aren't. In EQ slowing is a fundamental ability and in the high end groups will suffer without it. Thus it must be treated as a separate category if the topic is balancing classes in EQ.

If you want to talk about balancing classes in CoH feel free (though perhaps it would be more appropriate on a CoH website) but please don't tell me I'm wrong because what I'm saying isn't true in CoH.

Comment Posted by: bahlzaq on October 13, 2004 05:40 PM

Loral Wrote: "AAs, Equipment, and players skill will always unbalance a "balanced" group. There is no such thing as two equal but different classes. Each will always have an advantage over another in some cases and not in others. Balance can never exist. That is why Class Balance is a worthless and meaningless topic."

Dude, I have never flamed you before, but this just doesn't follow at all. I will first qualify this by saying that when I say class balance. I mean "Classes being equally desirable to fill a needed group role." If you think that is a meaningless and worthless topic, then you are completely out of touch with the game. Since the beginning of the game there has been a concerted effort by the dev team to "encourage" grouping. We are at the point now, where it is essentially required for many things, and is certainly desired to get the most bang for your buck out of your gaming hour. In a game where goals can only be achieved with literally hundreds and hundreds of hours playing, maximizing your bang for the buck is key.

There are certain classes played by apparently elitist and completely out of touch people who think that since they don't have huge problems getting groups class balance, and the LFG concerns they are a product of must be completely worthless and meaningless to talk about. Congratulations on not only sounding like a overly optimistic fanboy(which I have no problem with), but on now sounding like a total moron.

And just so you know, the fact that there are considerations outside of the dev's control that change balance and desirability, does not mean that design flaws that also negatively impact certain players desirability through no fault of their own are meaningless... I guess they are only meaningless if they don't happen to you...

Comment Posted by: Percrucem the Shadow Bard on October 13, 2004 07:53 PM

Loral, I understand what you are saying, but I cannot figure out what the point of discussing said topics is. It is nice that so many are getting involved, but these types of topics always turn into: a) a flame-fest or b) 3 different opinions being expressed again and again in different ways even though we all know that no one is "right."

Comment Posted by: Percrucem on October 13, 2004 07:59 PM

Bahlz, I think you hit the nail on the head. Well, you opened up yet again what these kinds of discussion are...fodder. Definitions... we have many different ones. Class balancing, uber, etc is all ... well, poop imho. *launches uber poop at everyone* Now, everyone throw it back at everyone else so we can be like eqlive forums. Oh yea, someone flame Brenlo or some other poor dude that always gets plugged in the face for random "broken stuff" and needed "definition." Fodder... I like that almost as much as filibuster.

Comment Posted by: Snaz on October 13, 2004 10:52 PM

Make clerics waayyyyyy better melees, not too far behind pallies, then give exp rezzes to druids and shamans.

Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 14, 2004 07:19 AM

The one constant I've seen so far from everyone's posts (other than mine) is that the real issue that causes problems in EQ is content, not the abilities of the classes themselves.

Most of you probably just read that statement and said "that's not right", but let me explain.

We talk a lot about clerics being more desired for healing, or groups wanting the best possible slower. Someone mentioned the warrior defensive discipline.

The problem isn't that the classes have these abilities - it's that a large portion of existing content has been designed to require these abilities. This is especially true at the high end of the game.

You can not fight in at least 50% of high-end zones without a slow and still have an efficient group. Even if you can pull it off at all, you will have enormous amounts of downtime.

Likewise, you can't fight in a lot of high-end zones without the ability to land high-hp fast heals on your tank. For this, most of the time, you really need a cleric.

We can argue all we want about how groups should think outside the box, or whatever, but the truth of the matter is that most players are simply building their groups in the manner that is best suited for the content they want to do.

Any fix to balance the desirability of classes is going to have to either retune existing content, or bring classes to a level playing field with respect to the abilities demanded by the current content, or both.

Slightly off topic - but Teremar, enchanters are still very much needed for most things off the beaten path. To give you two examples: 1) Last night we were in the Akheva Ruins to try for cleric epic 1.5 bits, our second time there. The zone is insanely challenging and an enchanter is very much needed. We didn't have one and it wiped out 2 groups and resulted in a whole lot of coffins getting bought. 2) We spend a lot of time in Ferubi lately, for various epic 1.5 drops and just for experience, with a single group. The best we've ever had it was with an enchanter handling slows/debuffs, not a shaman. This is because most of the mobs in ferubi want dispelling first, then debuffs, and adds pretty much have to be mezzed unless we're bringing an extra group along. Our shaman does as well as he can, but with the mitigation, his slow isn't really any better than an enchanter's, and he tends to die more often than not, where a chanter would have a better chance. I realize these are not zones a lot of people go to, but I wanted to point out that chanters are still very much needed in many places in the game.

Comment Posted by: Bahlzaq on October 14, 2004 09:48 AM

While I agree that nobody may be "right" the logic of "well there are things like player skill that affect character 'balance' and therefore the overarching conversation about 'balance' is worthless" just does not follow at all. That's like saying people will always find away around security, therefore security is worthless. Where there is a problem (perceived or real) and it is contributed to actively by current and past design choices, then the discourse resulting from those issues can only be healthy.

It may be an overused term, and there may be a lot of whining that isn't justified, however to make the statement Loral did in his last post was just illogical and assinine. I at first thought his editorial was about whining, but he is mkaing a value judgment on something that IS in game. He admits that certain classes have strengths over others, and obviously those ARE affecting group desirability, he must recognize it as a problem, because one of his recommended fixes is educating the user base on the underutilized class' strengths. If there is a problem then how can the discussion surrounding that problem and trying to make it better be worthless and meaningless??

Comment Posted by: Loral on October 14, 2004 09:58 AM

I had a couple of purposes for this article:

I hoped to get people thinking about class tuning instead of class balance. Every class needs tuning to fix things that don't work as they should. Class balance, however, cannot exist. There is no such thing as equal desirability in a group when group makeups, their level, equipment, AAs, and player skills are so vastly different.

The second goal is to get people to think about how different group configurations can work. I hope to help break the myth that you need clerics, warriors, and enchanters to have a successful group. You don't. It is a hard myth to break, but perhaps even discussing it will get people to give it a try.

Bahlzaq says "He admits that certain classes have strengths over others, and obviously those ARE affecting group desirability, he must recognize it as a problem, because one of his recommended fixes is educating the user base on the underutilized class' strengths."

Yes. Every class has strengths in some areas and weaknesses in others. Every class depends on the strength of other classes in order to build an effective group, that is what makes EQ work. I disagree that this is a problem.

A group with a paladin and a druid can hunt just as effectivly as one with a cleric. Paladins have fast group heals, druids have more powerful longer-term heals. Its not about healing, its about proper health management. This means rooting on the way in and not engaging until the beast is slowed. This means killing it fast so healers don't run out of mana. There are thousands of successful group configurations and they don't all need a cleric.

There is also no one class that has no advantages over another. Every class is still represented after five years. The numbers go up and down but no class has ever "died".

Three things need to be done:

- SOE needs to address class problems and fix a lot of the little stuff.

- Players need to worry about their own class problems instead of pointing fingers at other classes. Complain about content and complain about class bugs or problems but don't worry if you don't mitigate damage 5% less than a berserker.

- Players need to be more willing to experiment and try different places with different groups.

Comment Posted by: Bahlzaq on October 14, 2004 10:50 AM

I agree with what you are stating as facts: classes do have different strengths and weaknesses. I agree that overall SOE has tried to balance "overall" strength, and that if taken as a whole classes are relatively well designed, however I don't agree that it follows that therefore there are currently no balance issues, however I have no new things that I have not already said.

You keep mentioning that a druid and a pally can be just as effective as a group with a cleric, which I find humorous, as a cleric can take any tank in the game, or in some cases even a pet class and do well. You are certainly entitled to your opinion and to split hairs about calling it tuning instead of balance, or in saying talk about your own class not others, but EQ is about competition for group spots. If they gave druids a 96 percent rez and gave no compensation to clerics, and then gave them a real CH for the cost you pay, I bet you'd be talking about class balance real quick... it's easy to say breathing's not a problem when you have the lone oxygen tank...

Oh well im through repeating myself. Keep on rocking on I guess.

Comment Posted by: Zarros on October 14, 2004 11:40 AM

Start Quoted Text ->"Assuming by "content-designed" you mean "how EQ works" then I don't consider it confusion at all. I'm only interested in EQ. Of course in other games there are other abilities that can and do substitute for slowing. But in EQ there really aren't. In EQ slowing is a fundamental ability and in the high end groups will suffer without it. Thus it must be treated as a separate category if the topic is balancing classes in EQ.

If you want to talk about balancing classes in CoH feel free (though perhaps it would be more appropriate on a CoH website) but please don't tell me I'm wrong because what I'm saying isn't true in CoH." <-- End Quoted Text

What I am discussing is not specific to CoH, please do not confuse my using CoH archetype names as such. This is also intentional so as to avoid getting bogged down in class discussions, which really are pointless.

Replace "defender" with "healer" if it makes it easier. What a healer has to do is make sure the person/pet/whatever that is doing the tanking stays alive. There are multiple ways of doing this.

1. Repair the damage as taken, aka "healing".
2. Reduce the damage taken per hit.
3. Reduce the chance of a hit landing.
4. Reduce the number of potential hits per unit time by slowing the mob's attacks or freezing it in place.

Choice #1 is "reactive healing" - repair damage done.

Choices #2-4 are forms of "preventative healing" - minimize the initial damage done.

If the damage output of a mob is 100, and one defender class can repair 100, the group survives. If the damage output of a mob is 100, and another defender class can prevent 50 from ever happening, and then can repair 50 at a minimum, the group survives. If the damage output of a mob is 100, and a third defender can prevent 100 from ever happening, then no repair is needed. All that the defender has to do is ensure that the damage dealt does not result in deaths in their team, the means by which it is done become purely semantics.

So long as any one of the three can fill the designated role of "keep everyone alive", they are universally desired as "defenders" or "healers" depending on the term you prefer. In other words, slow is just a form of "healing" really. If you take 60% less damage, you don't need to be healed the 60% you didn't take, a fact that is self-evidently axiomatic.

The problem is that content has been designed around requiring multiple "forms of healing", or means by which a class in the archetype of "defender" gets its job done, and that no one class can provide the needed level of each ability. This assignment of abilities from an archetype does not mean there are two archetypes, it means the classes assigned to those archetypes are missing tools that the content has made mandatory, thus making multiple defenders mandatory, and specific types of defenders at that.

The "fix" among the defenders of EverQuest is either to remove the mandatory need for multiple and disparate forms of "defense" or to give all defenders varying amounts of each kind of defense so long as within one class, the effectiveness of these combines to meet the same level/power.

Zarros, former EQ cleric

Comment Posted by: Marrgill on October 14, 2004 11:42 AM

You call "class balance" a meaningless term; yet you go ahead and state this in a following paragraph: "Every class has advantages and disadvantages when compared to other classes. This should always be true." That is precisely what class balance is all about. If you give up on class balance, then you will develop an unbalanced game.

Loral, you should stop trying to "destroy" meaningless terms and instead focus on how SOE could make the game more fun for everyone.

Comment Posted by: Teremar on October 14, 2004 12:20 PM

"The "fix" among the defenders of EverQuest is either to remove the mandatory need for multiple and disparate forms of "defense" or to give all defenders varying amounts of each kind of defense so long as within one class, the effectiveness of these combines to meet the same level/power."

So if I'm translating this correctly: either remove slow from the game completely, or make healers without slow so effective at healing that slow isn't needed, and slowers without heals so effective at slowing that heals are not needed.

First off it wouldn't be EQ any more. More importantly people would no longer be playing the classes they chose to play. Both are very bad ideas in a five-year-old game.

I don't like the idea of reducing the number of abilities neeeded in a group myself, but it sounds like there's a game out there that has what you want. I'm happy for you.

Comment Posted by: Loral on October 14, 2004 02:01 PM

"Loral, you should stop trying to "destroy" meaningless terms and instead focus on how SOE could make the game more fun for everyone."

This is exactly what I try to do and I think constant arguments about "class balance" makes the game less fun. I joke with friends that the worst thing you can do in Everquest is go read class boards, but its not that funny anymore. Spending your days thinking that your class sucks because you don't mitigate 5% damage like warriors do isn't making the game fun.

Comment Posted by: Basheba on October 14, 2004 04:42 PM

[Quote]
So if I'm translating this correctly: either remove slow from the game completely, or make healers without slow so effective at healing that slow isn't needed, and slowers without heals so effective at slowing that heals are not needed.
[Quote]

Hmmm isn't this how everquest is pretty much before 50? Having had a shaman I know isn't essential at all at that level. While Clerics do have complete heal, an untwinked Cleric usually doesn't have enough mana to keep it up without breaks. Shamans get mini topor that is very mana efficient healing. Druids get snare to augment thier weaker healing abilities. I remember my necro keeping groups alive in Karnor's Castle when I was 58. (I know a little low for my level but it could be done)

It could be said after level 50 or , EQ isn't EQ anymore. It goes from a game of archetypes to a game of haves and have nots. If you have the flavor of the month build, youre in and you fiercely defend your edge (Slow,CH,Defensive). If not well... Hope that CoH pulls enough people away when they get crafting that SoE will 'borrow' archetypes from them.

Comment Posted by: Ravenspire on October 14, 2004 05:33 PM

As much as I would like to believe what you say in this article about giving up on the numbers game the sad fact of the matter is that it is just not going to happen.

I play a Mage and we are one of those misunderstood classes in EQ. People who come to our boards sometimes tell us that we complain to much but it is hard to play your class for "fun" when it is all about the numbers in today's game.

I can sit in PoK for hours with a LFG tag over my head and get nothing. This has nothing to do with my rep as a player because all but a select few of the players I have grouped with know that I know what I am doing. The fact of the matter is that people look for certain things when they form groups. First and foremost is the cleric or a good druid, second we need a tank in which (sad to say) most choose a warrior or a pally and leave the poor SK out in the cold. third, we have crowd control with a bard or enchanter in dangerous zones, Enchanters or shaman are then looked to slow at the high end. Last on the list comes DPS classes and as a mage I find myself most of the time pasted up for the nearest wizard or rogue.

My girlfriend plays an enchanter and I can not count the number of times that people have sent her tells asking her if she would be willing to group without the "mage". Even if they still have spots in the group that need to be filled they would rather save it for a rogue or a wizard because of Parses and the like.

It is sad fact, one that should be overlooked for fun and enjoyment but sadly it is not. This game has become all about getting to the end game. You can hardly be a casual player and just have fun anymore.

It is all about the perfect groups and raiding the high end mobs. I really like my class and enjoy playing it but I find myself so often dragged down by the constant negative stream toward my class as being "second rate" damage dealers.

You can deny it all you want and in a perfect world it would be that way but it is kind of hard to ingore when you have that purple text staring you in the face.

Comment Posted by: FurryCrew on October 14, 2004 11:32 PM

Mage Misunderstood....

..try playing a bard...not even SOE knows what the hell to do with bards...

Comment Posted by: Brue on October 15, 2004 12:49 AM

There are no classes that are *needed* for a good exp group. There are however certain classes that do better in certain situations. If there were good exp zones with mobs with ultra high HP and low dps, I bet all those dps folks would suddenly get soaked up pretty quick as any healer could get the job done very well. In fact Clerics, being mostly about heals and not having much else, would for the first time find themselves not being very desirable. EQ however is designed around high dps mobs without a lto of HP. It's true that it's a problem with content more than classes, but it's the classes that suffer.

There are also certain classes that only shine when grouped with a certain combonations of classes. I have often felt that a good Paladin/Druid will beat Cleric/AnyTank for general exping... but Cleric/AnyTank will beat Druid/AnyNonPaladinTank and Shaman/AnyTank for general exp groups. This leaves Clerics better in most situations, such as time a pally isn't lfg or when having a warrior tank will make the difference, or when you're not going to have a plate tank at all (ya know when exploring other grouping possibilities). As I said before, you don't need them, but if both a cleric and druid are LFG and I'm looking for a healer, guess who gets the tell. All that other stuff druids can do doesn't mena squat when they are using all their mana to heal. Need <> desirability. Just because you don't need a cleric does not mean a druid is just as desirable healer.

I, like most other people, feel that PoP was when it all went bad, but for slightly different reasons. This is when DPS became so high that healer/slower/tank became a required part of just about all groups. I remember groups in previous expansions that had no slower or no plate tank and did just fine. Either of those class types would have certianly helped in some way, but we would have lost dps or something else so it all *balanced* out. Heck, I remember a Dalnir's group with 5 monks and a mage summoning bandages. After each fight we'd banage the monk that just anked to 50 and by the time it was his turn again he'd regened enough to tank the next mob. THAT is what class balance is. If that goup had a cleric, we wouldn't have needed to waste time bandaging, but kills would take a bit longer. THAT is class balance. If we swapped the mage for another monk, sure we couldn't have really done much for long, at least not in Dalnir's, but I'll accept that not every possible combo will work. In todays EQ, the number of successful combos and the sharp drop off in effectiveness when getting past the top few most effective combos is the main problem.

Comment Posted by: Doh? on October 15, 2004 05:39 AM

Wow thanks for the advice on how to get SOE to listen to class issues Loral. What would we all do without you telling us how to get things done? Especially since some classes have been having issues for YEARS, and have done all the things you said with no results. Again another drivel article. The reason things don't get done is not because people playing those classes don't know how to properly ask SOE for changes, they don't get done because SOE puts in as little effort as possible. Also SOE really doesn't understand their own game on the same level some of the people who play it do. A perfect example was Absor saying "classes are not out of balance" a year or so ago.

It is not about perception, it is about the reality of EQ. The reality is that certain classes are so much better at their roles in EQ than others that the others are not needed or wanted. There are too many classes (16) in EQ with too many sharing the same roles. How many classes can fill the role of damage dealer? Probably 9 or 10, this is insane. Why would anyone pick say a ranger as a damage dealer over a wizard? There are too many classes competing for those precious 6 spots in a group. Add on to that there have been too many expansions that have thrown some classes further out of balance every time, while making others even more needed. EQ is well past it's prime. The problems with the game aren't being addressed so it continues to degrade and show it's age. No matter how many excuses people make for SOE or how hard of a case they make for EQ this is a fact. It doesn't have to be as bad as it is but you can blame the idiots running the game for that. They have blinders on and so don't the fanboys.

Comment Posted by: on October 15, 2004 09:23 AM

Quoting:
So if I'm translating this correctly: either remove slow from the game completely, or make healers without slow so effective at healing that slow isn't needed, and slowers without heals so effective at slowing that heals are not needed.
------

Not exactly. What it means is that if the mob(s) put out X amount of DPS, your "defender" needs to compensate for that. They can either do it reactively (healing) or proactively (reduce incoming damage). If the incoming damage is reduced to zero, then no healing is needed (this is how kiting works, runspeed debuffs the mobs ability to do zero melee damage due to range and it cannot close because of the snare.) If the incoming damage is reduced by 90%, then you only need 10% of the healing.

The problem in EQ among its "defenders" is its two premiere defender classes are cleric (reactive) and shaman (proactive) and both can cover 40-50% of the normal DPS of high level mobs. This means you need to combine them and their individual contributions in order to stay alive. If mob DPS is greater than the defender(s)' ability to compensate for it, the team likely wipes.

So what I mean is that each of the "defender" classes in EQ ostensibly should be able to cover 100% of the defensive needs of their group. In a game with 4 basic archetypes (tanker, defender, scrapper, and blaster) you can tune content around groups needing one of each, and then two of anything else is gravy. After all, you only need one tanker typically, although 2 is nice sometimes, so why should you need 2 defenders?

Of course, this presupposes all classes are equivilently capable (through differant means) of filling the role of their archetype. Right now that is not the case.

Zarros, ex-EQ cleric

Comment Posted by: Teremar on October 15, 2004 10:35 AM

"So what I mean is that each of the "defender" classes in EQ ostensibly should be able to cover 100% of the defensive needs of their group."

Well, if your goal is to reduce the number of required roles in a group, that would be a good thing. I don't want that at all. Nor do I want my class redefined to either have heals or somehow prevent all damage.

Though I'll grant having more spaces for DPS classes would be a good thing. But if that's the goal increasing the group size to eight would be simpler and require less retuning of content.

Comment Posted by: on October 15, 2004 12:03 PM

The main problem with making (for example) clerics heal so well they dont need slow, you will *STILL* have slow most of time and this simply makes it trivial when a cleric DOES have slow.

The same can be applied to any of your other suggested combinations.

The only way it could work if these powerful abilities could not stack (ie slow + heal so good you dont need slow).

You fundamentally can not really prevent damage mitigation between direct healing and mob debuff/player buffs from stacking.

You can prevent stacking debuffs (ie multiple cripples dont work, slows overwrite each other, etc), buff combinations that dont stack, but that is already in the game.

Comment Posted by: Teremar on October 15, 2004 12:19 PM

I promised a post on how fun and desirability to groups were different issues, and wrote a long one. Too long--here's the Reader's Digest version.
Still darn long (sorry) but better.

People have fun doing different things. I would quit if I had to play a pure DPS class (32 Ranger, retired, 24 Mage, retired). Other people love it. So SOE's task should be to get people playing the class that's fun for them, and let them continue doing so.

Remember the battle druid? You know, the level 20ish druid who insisted on meleeing during fights and then making everyone wait afterwards while he medded for heals? But it wasn't really his fault. Meleeing worked well for 20 levels, he got used to meleeing, and enjoyed meleeing. And then his class changed.

If SOE wanted to do something for new players, I'd say the top priority would be to give them the same role at level 1 that they will have at level 20 or level 70. Tweak the low level spells, give casters med at level one, do whatever needs to be done so that right from the beginning nukers nuke, healers heal, and melees melee. No one should have to wait until level 20 to find out if they like the class they've chosen. (Incidentally this is one reason I'm not excited about EQ2).

But it's far worse to change classes at the high end.

Rangers have already been mentioned: first they're melee DPS, then they're ranged DPS, now they're melee DPS again. Of course they're divided: you've got a substantial contingent of people who made a ranger because they wanted to melee and another substantial contingent who made a ranger because they wanted to shoot arrows. Now it's going to be impossible to make both of them happy. Very bad move, SOE.

Or Monks: they used to be the premier pulling class, and pulling was complex and required skill. Now they're just about last of those with special pulling abilities, and, worse yet, pulling abilities are rarely needed at all. The most common pulling class these days is a tank with a bow, and monks are straightforward DPS (and not very good at that). No wonder I hardly ever see a monk online any more.

And enchanters (you knew this was coming): from 1-50 we're definitely there to mez mobs. But at the high end it completely depends on the expansion. One expansion we're CC gods, the next we're buffbots. Then we're solid DPS, and in two zones DPS gods (with a good supporting cast). Now we're slower/buffbots.

For charm I really don't think the devs realize that the risk is so great that groups are better off not charming in OoW at all (amazing as that is to the enchanter community). The devs put in too much work creating alternate damage tables to have intended to kill charm, though that's what they've done. Maybe if they'd communicate with the enchanter community at all...

For mez, the one consistent trend is skyrocketing mob DPS, which means enchanters have a hard time surviving mez resists, and tanks have a hard time surviving adds even if they are mezzed ASAP. And SOE says the future is more of the same, so we're all expecting single-pulling to continue to be the predominant way of dealing with multiple mobs--when SOE puts in multiples at all.

Now don't get me wrong, enchanters still contribute to groups. Slow is vital, our buffs are good (though you don't need to group with an enchanter to get the best one), and having mez available for emergencies is a good thing (kind of like evac, though not that extreme). But we're not doing what we love to do, what we made our enchanters to do.

Controlling crowds is dynamic, different every time, and requires quick thinking. It's one of the few activities in EQ that depend on player skill, not character power. Charm is similar, though not all CC enchanters like it (and vice versa). Most of all, CC is just plain fun--in a recent thread on the runes enchanters were asked why they made their character and one of the most common responses was "I made my enchanter to cast KEI but got hooked on crowd control."

Slowing is very different. Yes it's vital, but it's one spell cast at the same time in the same way over and over again. With all due respect to shamans and any enchanters who really enjoy slowing, it's not what most enchanters chose to do.

It is possible to make it work: LDoN normals did it. There were multiple mobs, and you had to have a strategy for dealing with them, but it didn't require an enchanter. (Okay, if you were all 65 and well geared you didn't need much of a strategy, but that just means they were a bit too easy). LDoN had its flaws, but that was one thing it got right. Too bad SOE hasn't built on that.

SOE has to fine tune, obviously. But to change the fundamental nature of a class at this point is to betray the people who chose to play that class and in many cases have spent years doing so.

I have to end with a related note: one of our guild rangers logged off last night complaining he had spent the last three days LFG and was giving up (needless to say this caused a wave of guild-wide guilt and a resolve to do better at including everyone). Before you start in on how he needs to start his own groups, etc. let me observe that I can rarely go LFG for three MINUTES on my cleric alt without getting an invitation. And with my enchanter I rarely go half an hour. So Loral, to say that class balance doesn't matter is missing the huge impact the ability to get a group has on a person's ability to enjoy the game. I don't know if it's the result of playing a cleric or what, but it doesn't seem to be consistent with your normal desire to help those who are disadvantaged in EQ.

Again, my apologies for the length--I feel strongly about this and it just came flowing out. I hope it gives people something to think about.

Comment Posted by: on October 15, 2004 01:00 PM

"Class Balance" is more of a *SOCIAL* problem than a game or game play problem. (not saying that there arent game play problems)

It's the *perceptions* of a class that primarily determine whether you send a tell to that player LFG or a different player LFG.

It is of course certain realities that help shape those perceptions.

I leave you with a final thought about 'class balance'.

"There is no spoon."

Comment Posted by: Bahlzaq on October 15, 2004 01:42 PM

I don't know how you can read all of the posts on here at all, but I certainly don't know why at the end of all this "discussion" you would put some lame ass "it's all social" post with no explanation at the bottom. WTG einstein. It's all social. There have been no design decisions that make certain classes necessary and some superfluous, no overarchign design techniques that force generalists into sub par roles as specialists, no definitive best class for almost every situation, no exponentially longer time sinks for incremental rewards that force any rational person to be a min/maxxer.... Yeah you're right it's all social... all the mages and monks ever made are retarded and all teh clerics are the most popular social gods ever to grace an overused desk chair...

get bent.. i hate all you bastards.

Comment Posted by: Loral on October 15, 2004 02:50 PM

Don't hate us because we're social.

People blame LFG issues on classes when there may be a variety of other factors.

My most recent and very successful hunting groups have been put together from the basic group needs (tank, crowd control, healer, damage) but without regards to a specific class. Granted, I'm a cleric, but every other class in the group has been shaman, enchanter, shadowknights, paladins, mages, necros, and rangers. We've had a variety of all classes and have had some excellent hunts in the Wall of Slaughter, the Ruined City of Dranik, and the level 68 version of Dranik's Hollows.

It is sometimes difficult to get a group and this is something SOE needs to improve. I see little data to support the theory that certain classes are just worthless and no one wants them.

The problem is a social one. So how do we solve that?

Comment Posted by: bahlzaq on October 15, 2004 03:18 PM

I think you are perceiving it as social, and I think it is compounded somewhat by perception, but perception isn't the only thing that matters, the numbers don't lie. There is a perception mages are low on the dps scale because they ARE... now clearly a group can do great with a mage, but typically that same group could do better with a different DPS... now yes you can say the same thing about a warrior with better weaps or whatever... the difference here is that these are things that are tied to a specific class.. so if the numbers say a new 70 mage is 80 percent as efficient at dealing damage as a newly 70 wizzy the wizzy is going to get groups more, and rightly so, now does that mean the mage can't get groups? no, does it mean a mage who is extra cool isn't going to be better off than a guy who never speaks to anyone outside of his group macros? no.

But again, every argument "against" the idea that classes are fubar... is an exception argument... a "well a group with a mage CAN do well" that is true... it's sort of like saying a black guy can be coach/ceo whatever so there must not be discrimination... exceptions do not make a problem go away... and if the perception of a class being poor at a given role is based on hard data, then it IS not a PERCEPTION problem, although a change in perception and attitude would fix it, it would be essentially a change away from maximum efficiency, which is a change that the current game is not going to support. The FACTS of the matter are that as long as people will analyze who contributes more, people will take those who they believe will contribute more... are there mages that outdamage other classes? absolutely, but if their arsenal is weaker than say wizards, on average, then you know that you are better off going wizard, when the only thing you know about the two is class/level.

Comment Posted by: Teremar on October 15, 2004 03:36 PM

"I see little data to support the theory that certain classes are just worthless and no one wants them."

C'mon Loral...

Do you use the LFG tool? Ever noticed that there usually lots of certain classes LFG and very few of others?

Do you pay attention to /ooc? Ever noticed how some classes rarely have to repeat that they are LFG and others can be at it for hours?

Yes, I'd love to see good statistics, but I doubt SOE will provide them so we better use what data we've got. And they indicate a problem.

No, no class is worthless. I like you try to invite anyone that can do the job I need without always trying to get the class who can do it best every time. Others are more picky. The result is that some classes, those who are perceived as less useful, have a much harder time finding groups.

Yes, it's all about perceptions, but what on earth are those perceptions based on if not the actual abilities of each class?

Comment Posted by: Loral on October 15, 2004 04:28 PM

"C'mon Loral...

Do you use the LFG tool?"

Yes

Ever noticed that there usually lots of certain classes LFG and very few of others?"

No

"Do you pay attention to /ooc?"

Yes, it tells me when Shadowhunter will eat me.

"Ever noticed how some classes rarely have to repeat that they are LFG and others can be at it for hours?"

No

Using the LFG tool and OOC on one server in one zone isn't a large enough statistical sampling. I see every class complaining about inabilities to get groups. I see every class saying that they feel inferior to some other class who says they're inferior to another.

I have hunted with mages and shaman and rangers and monks and found all of them to be excellent and worth while members of the group.

Comment Posted by: Zolina on October 15, 2004 04:28 PM

The biggest problem with class balance is that SoE listens to the complaints of some classes and ignores the complaints of other classes. They play favorites. Rogues complain of not enough DPS? Here, have some new disciplines and 25 damage piercers, now you do double warrior damage. Rangers complain of not enough DPS? Quit whining, get lost.

Comment Posted by: Teremar on October 15, 2004 05:14 PM

"Using the LFG tool and OOC on one server in one zone isn't a large enough statistical sampling."

If you pay attention day after day, week after week, and month after month and see the same patterns, that's not a bad sample. Unless you can drag some data out of SOE it's the best we're going to get.

I'm not arguing that any class is worthless. I am arguing that some classes have a harder time finding groups than others, and I do think the best data we have available back that up. Open up the LFG window a few times a night for the next week and see if I'm right.

Comment Posted by: on October 15, 2004 05:38 PM

Of course there are class problems, I never said there wasnt (and in fact I specifically said that I wasn't saying there are not class problems).

What I am saying, is that the perceptions of other classes is one of the primary driving factors of picking and choosing LFG people that are not part of your normal circle of friends.

Guess what, how do I get perceptions of classes I dont play? I listen to the whine and complaints of those classes.

How do we solve it you ask?

You solve it by stop yelling and screaming, whining and complaining to everyone and their mother about how bad sucks and is broken and no one ever wants to group me.

If you want to fix your LFG woes, start by changing the perception of your class to a positive one.

Sooner or later people will begin to believe start to beleive the hype... do you want that to be good hype or bad hype?

And guess, there is still no spoon, and all the time and effort, posting and posturing, PM'ing and petitioning is all over electronic bits that don't exist anywhere outside the circuits of sony's servers and the computers that connect to them.

Time to wake up.

Comment Posted by: Percrucem on October 15, 2004 05:39 PM

You say the data is plentiful...day after day, hour after hour. What if these are the same fools day after day? It may not be the class. It's the player. It's the guild. It's the level, aa's, etc. I hate to agree with the unsocial cleric (everyone hates you guys...hehe) but I think you may be looking in the wrong directions. I believe my sk could use some improved abilities, tweak this tweak that, but I don't have a problem getting into a group. That's where the "social" aspect of things come in. Don't just sit there in a group. Talk, meet, or whatever floats your boat (nastiness) and those people will remember you and how you play. Be it good or bad however. I personally know of a few guilds on Torv that I will never group with. Whether I'm playing my alts or my main, 8 out of 10 times they don't know what they're doing. When I see one of them LFG, I'm not going to invite them... cleric, warrior, ranger, mage, etc. I don't care. That's how the data can be inaccurate.
-Perc

Comment Posted by: on October 15, 2004 05:41 PM

After that rambling... I believe I need some more coffee. Sorry if it's a little incoherent.
-Perc

Comment Posted by: on October 15, 2004 06:06 PM

very interesting about the slow/debuff/heal equivalence.

maybe Clerics should have a small ability to Slow. And then all Slowers should have the ability to heal. Mobs that mitigate slow should also somehow mitigate heal (heals aren't as effective against the damage they do?). Multiple types of damage maybe? But it would be extremely hard to do and make EQ into somewhat of a different game.

I do understand the concept but there's an even further simplification you could make: offense vs defense. Healers, slowers, some debuffers, buffers, tanks, are all defense. They're keeping their team from dying. DPS and some debuffers are offense. They're destroying the bad guy. Now figure in that faster offense means less need for defense. If you can destroy the bad guys before it can start hitting you... you only need DPS.

At this point there aren't roles anymore. There's just a team that can beat the monsters in the fight. And that's all there really is. The urge to simplify and oversimplify is excessive.

EQ really does have separate roles for healer, nuker, melee'er, slower, crowd control, puller, tanker, snarer, evacer, rezzer, and a bunch more even smaller role-lets (like resist debuffer and lifetap preventer and charmer). Several however can substitute one for another and you don't need all the roles in every group. Several roles are always secondary as they are only needed when things go wrong (the last 2 mainly). Several roles are only needed in some places and not most; none are needed in all places by all groups.

I've duo'ed with an enchanter and a magician. The magician did nuking and tanking (via pet), the enchanter did crowd control and a bunch of 'role-lets' like mitigating damage with component-less STR buff runes and debuffing magic resistance and hasting the pet so it did more damage... no healer. no plate tank.

On the other hand I feel for people who have no online friends (probably don't play regularly enough to meet up with the same people twice) and therefore have to LFG, and can't find pickup groups no matter what they do. That's a real problem and better 'matchmaking' services need to be in place for them to find groups they can enjoy. Ideally they could group up with each other and come up with groups that work.

Comment Posted by: on October 15, 2004 06:45 PM

I beleive the Vie line of spells was introduced to help clerics both in exp groups and raids to have very minor form of mob debuffability.

Unfortunately, as was indicated a few posts up, its not quite worth using most times, it certainly won't take the place of slow, and in fact stacks with slow (and other mob debuffs) so that both used in conjunction can make encouters even easier.

One thing that could have been done, or be done with a new similar line, is make a more powerful VIE type spell that only lands on unslowable mobs, or that can be cast on mobs (instead of players) but does not stack with slow.

Comment Posted by: Solistic on October 15, 2004 07:45 PM

My fiance is a druid. I play a Cleric, Warrior, Monk. When I group with her, we use whom ever is avialable. We look for our basic ideas, Tank, Slower, Healer, DPS. When I am on my Warrior, we look for a slower (Shaman, Echanter, Necro, Beast Lord) we look for DPS (Ranger, Mage, Wiz, Monk and etc) Healer Druid (I trust her healing). I know a lot of people think that some classes are missing out on certain things. But I have always felt, it is not the classes fault, nor the race. It is how well you play and enjoy your toon. We have invited people into groups that were in the elite raid guilds, had all the bells and whistles for their class and hundreds of AA. I would never invite them again, they never learned how to play as a group, and enjoy their time playing.
Grouping should be a social time, and just maybe those people you see that are LFG all the time are people no one would invite, no matter what class or race they play.

Comment Posted by: on October 15, 2004 09:09 PM

I play a monk and have NEVER since I started playing him in '99 had anybody tell me I suck at pulling. I have been told many many times that I am very good. I've had several guildies tell me that they love having me pull over anyone else in the guild (including bards) because I do it so much better. I was once in a group with 4 "uber guilders" that had the leader sign us up for a hard LDoN as a joke despite the fact that we had no CC and no slow, and we won. The entire group congratulated me on doing such a great job pulling and making the win possible. I always pay attention to make sure I am behind the mob, I bother to click my epic buff when it will stack, and always click my flying kick as soon as it pops. I'm not trying to brag, but the point I am making is that I have every reason to believe I am a very skilled monk.

I have never, not once the entire time I have played my monk, got an invite outside of my guild to anything more difficult than BoT (the LDoN mentioned above was bult to farm normals). No OoW, no tactics, no hard LDoN, no GoD trials (not even sewers). Zip, zero, zilch. The groups I do get invites to are usually filled with people in guilds behind mine in progress (I am currently VT/Sol Ro). It's not that I'm saying I don't want to group with them, it's that only those people would consider me for a group because I can out gear them to incease my relative worth. I am usually lfg for hours without getting a group before I get something through my guild or I log off. I do try to make groups a lot, but after mostly bad experiences with making pickup groups, I usually only do it within my guild over the past several months. I have been lfg for over six hours twice while working on tradeskilling in PoK without a single tell. It would probably be more if I had more reasons to be logged on for six hours lfg. So what is causing my LFG woes?

Skill? nope
Guild? possibly a little bit, but then again the clerics, bards, and enchanters always complain about all the invites they need to turn down when we are lfg for a raid
Class? Considering that most monks complain of similar problems, it looks like we have a winner

I don't hate EQ and am perfectly happy to play within my guild, but anybody that suggests that some classes don't have LFG problems, regardless of the reason, is completely off their rocker.

Comment Posted by: Feign Fun on October 16, 2004 05:54 AM

I can tell you right now if you have ever played with a skilled monk as a puller in a LDoN and a skilled bard, the bard is WAY faster at bringing non trains to the group. Sure the monk can do it too but it's too slow. If you want to just run into a room and agro everything in the room than just send out a warrior or something because any idiot can do that. That is one problem with EQ. SOE took away any advantage monks had in pulling by giving the same abilities to bards, only better. Lull, mez, fading memories on demand and more reliable than the crappy monk version (the phantom line is a joke)? Who can compete with that? Great planning there SOE.

As for Loral not noticing certain groups LFG with way more frequency than others just shows how observant he is, or just plain dishonest for not admitting what pretty much everyone with a clue knows.

Comment Posted by: Loramin on October 16, 2004 07:52 AM

Pre-Note: You really need to add a help link for this site, which could explain how one could add paragraphs to their post. I tried html, I tried \n (and /n just in case), I tried :newline: and :paragraph:. Ultimately I had to settle for this:
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Loral, I've read every one of your articles (though not usually the comments) since I came back to EQ several months ago, and I was so impressed with the insight in the worthless terms article that I linked it on my class forum and started a great discussion about it (again, sorry for mistaking your gender). And honestly, while I don't think this article was one of your best, I also don't think it was bad either.
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However, in response to some of the comments you've made here, I have to say that for someone who I thought had their ear to the ground of the EQ community, you have instead shown that your ear (and thus also head) is in fact burried in the sand (and burried deep).
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You play a cleric. Congratulations, you are a member of the single most popular class in all of EQ. Take a look at any roster of any major raid guild on any server, and if you want to be hardcore make a list with all of them. I guarantee that one class will have far more members on that list than any other class in the game (probably more than the lowest two or three classes combined), and that class is Cleric.
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Try doing any sort of empirical study (as the head of mobhunter I'm sure you can find 16 wiling people of the same level to conduct this study). Get a player of each class, at whatever level you wish to conduct the study at, and have them sit LFG in PoK with no comments, for a few hours. If possible, get them all to deguild temporarily for the duration of the study. Make sure they all do it on the same day of the week, and at the same time of day (if you can get them to actually do it at the exact same date and time even better). Now, have them all politely decline any invites they get, but record how many they recieve total. You also might want to keep track of how many invites were conditional ("do you have such and such spell?", "do you have EQ/AM3?", "do you have ...?", etc.). And if you want to be truly accurate get some person who is good with statistics to tell you how many times you should repeat this to get a truly representative sample.
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Now, after conducting this study, publish your findings here on mobhunter. Even though it hasn't been conducted yet, I'm willing to bet 100k plat on Bristlebane that the cleric will get the most invites, no matter what level you run the study at. Why? Because the classes are not balanced. They are not balanced against each other, they are not balanced in desirability, and they are not balanced against the content. And one of the most extreme examples of this imbalance is the popularity of clerics.
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To paraphrase some old advertising slogan, a million (or whatever number we are up to now) EQ players can't be wrong. Popularity/perception of classes is different from the reality of their effectiveness, but the disparity is not so extreme as to cause people to overwhelmingly desire one class over another unless there is some significant difference between the two classes. In this case, the difference is that clerics fufill the "healer" archetype, or role, or whatever, significantly better than anyone other class in the game.
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You claimed that a druid and paladin based group worked better than a cleric based one, for mobs that hit under 800. Congratulations, you found a single group makeup, which is good for camps where the mobs are pathetically weak hitters for their level. And I'm not even convinced that such a combo is better. But here's a list of combos that are good for just about every other type of camp: cleric+warrior, cleric+paladin, cleric+shadowknight. Depending on the character, cleric+bard, cleric+necro, cleric+mage, cleric+beastlord, cleric+ranger, or maybe even cleric+berserker could be better.
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Basically, if the tank has enough hitpoints, and the mob does any significant amount of damage, the cleric will be better, because of CH and their other superior heals. With slow mitigation becoming standard, this is all the more true. Hell, even in divergent groups, like AE groups or enchanter charm duos (remember the days of enchanters and clerics gaining an AA every half hour in the planes?) clerics are preferred.-------------------------------------------------
Clerics aren't the only class with balance issues, but I chose them because you are one, and as a member of a priveleged group you are evidently blind to the problems facing everyone else. Clerics popularity prevents other healers from getting groups, and prevents players of any other class from getting in to many guilds. And to be fair, it is not so much a class issue as a content one, which is that almost all raid content cannot be done without a large number of clerics (this remains true even with the many new events that prohibit CH chains), and that almost all existing group content makes having the best healer possible a requirement for an optimal group.-------------------------------------------------
While we can debate until we are blue in the face whether this is a class ability problem, or a content problem, and either way how we can best fix this problem (my feeling is that SoE should give increased healing abilities to existing classes and add more priest classes to the game instead of more DPS classes like BLs and Zerkers). But denying that the problem exists is like denying that serious widespread famine issues exist, just because you are blessed enough to live in America. It only shows your own ignorance from viewing the world from inside a bubble, and by trying to convince others that this sheltered view is correct, you end up doing harm to anyone who doesn't also enjoy the benefits of living in such a bubble.------------------------------------------------- P.S. You have my full permission to edit this post to remove the awful --- lines and replace them with paragraph markers. And please, please, add some sort of documentation to the site explaining how to make paragraphs in posts (or just change your code to replace newline characters with html P tags, or just accept the form results as is but put each response inside a PRE tag).

Comment Posted by: Impact on October 16, 2004 09:04 AM

All you have to do for new paragraphs is just put a blank line in between in the post editor.

Also I want to say that EQ is the best game ever. It's better than anything before it, better than anything now, and will be better than anything coming out soon. It's better because it's been out a long time, has a lot of expansions, classes, spells and everything. A lot always = better. I really don't think Sony has made any mistakes ever. They really have a good grasp on how to make a good game and keep the customers happy. After all they have 1 million susbscribers. I agree with Loral on most of what he/she wrties. EQ is the best thing since sliced bread and there is nothign wrong with it at all. If people would just accept this and never complain they could probably reach 5 million subscribers. The only thing maybe I could find wrong with EQ is that I can't marry it.

Comment Posted by: Loral on October 16, 2004 09:18 AM

Paragraphs are created by pressing ENTER twice. The comment script recognizes newlines and properly puts in BR or P tags.

While raiding plays a significant role in the class balance discussions on various forums, not enough players raid for me to spend much time focusing on it. I've heard raiders claim that far more clerics are needed for a raid than any other class and I don't know enough about the encounters to know whether or not they can be done with fewer clerics or not. The better way to handle this is to change the encounter so it requires fewer clerics and more of other classes.

Again, the study you propose does not offer enough meaningful data to prove that class X is weak. If a cleric happens to log on at a time when every other cleric also happens to be LFG, the cleric may sit AFK longer than anyone.

The study you mention only represents one time period on one server at one level. If we could conduct this survey over a few weeks at every 10 levels on every server for five or six hours a night, that would be enough data. I'm not sure I have that kind of time.

When I look at the class boards, I see every class complaining about being LFG (yes, including clerics). I hear the same thing over and over: "If you just opened your stupid Cleric eyes, you'd see that Rangers|Monks|Mages|Enchanters|Shaman|Warriors|Paladins|Shadowknights aren't getting groups!"

I have been in many excellent groups where due to a paladin healing with a group heal, a druid healing and blasting, and a shaman slowing and dotting, that I haven't had to cast a single direct heal all night. Instead I blast my blast all evening.

Loramin says "You claimed that a druid and paladin based group worked better than a cleric based one, for mobs that hit under 800. Congratulations, you found a single group makeup, which is good for camps where the mobs are pathetically weak hitters for their level."

If you consider hitting for 800 to be pathetically weak, I think you need to step outside of your own view a little bit. 800 damage is a lot of damage for most groups. Thats what mobs in Ruins of Dranik, Wall of Slaughter, 68 Hollows, and LDON hards hit for.

All class bickery aside, if our primary problem is being LFG for too long, what can we do to help?

1. Change class perception. Argue with group leaders and tell them to try out non-standard group configurations.

2. Build our own groups based on general requirements: Tank, Healer, Crowd Control, Damage.

3. Think up new ways to build groups. Think of suggestions to send to SOE that will improve grouping such as improvements to the LFG tool, random group generators, and content for mixed level ranges.

What other suggestions do you have?

Comment Posted by: Talaen on October 16, 2004 09:47 AM

I have to agree that certain classes have it way harder with LFG.