I was just reading a post on the forums that said problem becoming with current MMOs is the need to balance PvP and PvE in MMOs.
So why bother? Why is it we need to see balance in our MMO characters? Seems to me, that a 400 pound warrior should be able to kick the crap out of a 150 pound mage. Sure the mage might get off a spell or two, but once that massive warrior gets on top of him, would be more like Brock Lesner attacking the bagboy at the grocery.
People always want more realizm to their MMOs, shouldn't no character/class balance be part of that realizm? Personally I think perhaps MMO devs should start looking at seperating the PvP/PvE gaming.
A PvE game should be made for the PvE crowd. No balance between classes. Warriors stronger than mages physically, mages stronger than warriors mentally. But both needing the other to survive, or at least increase their chances of getting futher into the game. Rather than devs wasting time to balance the classes, accept that some will be more powerfull in some situations, and others not. The devs instead could concentrate on adding content, story, fixing bugs.
A PvP game could spend the time balancing the classes for PvP. They then could build the world and combat around the PvP aspect.
It seems all too often in recent releases is that a game is made for PvP or PvE. One or the other is considered and afterthought and tossed into the game later. Then there is all kinds of PvP or PvE issues that ruin the game for many.
Personally I am glad to see games such as Darkfall, Mortal Online come along. And I hope they do well. Perhaps seeing the Devs on these games concentrate on the PvP crowd. I know we have many PvE MMOs, but they are all made in an attempt to satisfy both the PvP/PvE crowd.
I think the two genres should be seperated. Perhaps once this is done, we will see some truely amazing PvP or PvE MMORPGs.
You're absolutely correct, and this is actually becoming true next year. FFXIV will be completely PvE focused with only a little focus on PvP. At the same time, games like Guild Wars 2 will focus on the PvP aspect of MMO's, and of course there are those WoW copy MMO's that try to do both at the same time to get most profit.
Something for everyone, just as it should be.
Sun Aug 02 2009 5:24PMThere needs to be balance regardless of whether a game is intended for PvE or PvP. Also, you're falling into the stereotype trap that fighters are always Arnold Schwarzenegger-sized hulks (at least the younger version) while mages are pimply faced nerds.
But I agree with you that designers usually toss them in as an afterthought. It clearly shows in all too many games, in the way that they're released half-finished, bug-ridden, and just plain incomplete. I blame the ever increasing urge to showcase better graphics. There's a reason many of us find MMOs to be shallow and uninteresting grindfests.
Mon Aug 03 2009 2:47AMWhy must there be a balance?
Mon Aug 03 2009 7:27AMTrucidation, as Hyanmen said, why must there be balance? Don't you think if we took away balance, we would see more grouping and a more co-opertive community?
If a warrior is all bronze, but lacks the ability to fend off spells, he would need the mage to travel with. And if neither are adept at healing, they would need a cleric/healer to come along. My point is without balance, all classes would need each other in some form or another. I think you would see more community, rather than everybody out for themselves. Guilds would have a purpose rather than just being top ranked member number. I am speaking of PvE.
But I do agree with your point of the need to showcase graphics rather than giving us a decent MMO. I think AoC did an excellent job of doing this. They concentrated on showcasing graphics, and not saying too much about the gameplay in general. Remember how they showed off upto level 20 over and over, and it got rave reviews.
Mon Aug 03 2009 9:16AMIf there's no balance then why the heck would you want to play a weak class? I meant balance as in all classes should be roughly equally useful - i.e. fill needs other classes can't. I didn't mean they should all be able to solo - but actually, if they could ALL solo that's not bad either, that would be PvE balance. In that case you'd just have to fix PvP.
Your example proved the exact point i was trying to make: the classes need each other to cover their weaknesses. An unbalanced class would not need help because it covers ground other classes cover.
Better communication tools would go a long way to making a friendly and cooperative community. Far too many of these grindfest games feature rudimentary chat/buddy systems that don't even have things IRC had back in the 1990s. I mean, jeez. Atlantica Online had some really nice community tools, and it showed. Of the more recent games I tried it had the best community, and not a bit of that was because of the way players could interact.
Warning, rant:
I'm more of a PvE guy too. I hate FFA PvP simply because I've played literally hundreds of games (all the way from MUDs back in the 80s) and in general PvP brings out the bastard in people. Also, as a programmer, I hate FFA PvP because it shows laziness on the part of their programmers. "Ooh, let's allow players to damage each other, instant PvP! woot!". They should show some friggen effort - build arena style tournaments, realm vs realm, capture the flag, hold the fort, last man standing, pass the ball, the possibilities are endless. Not stupid free for all.
That's why you get gankfests in all these shit MMOs. Why should my playing enjoyment be cramped by some loser? FFA PvP is lazy PvP. The designers need to man up and put some freaking effort into their games. FFA PvP sends the message "oh we can't be assed to actually write PvP scenarios that are actually fair and fun - we'll just allow you guys to beat on each other... enjoy, kthxdie". It takes effort to design good tournaments, ladder systems, etc... but that's the freaking point. If designers are too lazy to design better systems then their games deserve to fail.
As i mentioned earlier, everything seems rushed to show "omg look at our leet graphics". Bleh. And they wonder why people come in, play 2-3 weeks, then bail.
Tue Aug 04 2009 10:24AMexample:
Aion - a pvp oreintated end-game mmo that wants people to pwn eachothers faces.
NCSoft - the company that is producing Aion.
"We understand that for an mmo to survive, you need a pve player base"
So, what did NCSoft do? They pumped up the pvp, and kept around the pve.
If Aion is a succesful as wow with PvE, and succeeds where WAR failed in PvP, we might see an mmo who's numbers rivals wow. (Face it, WoW can't be killed anymore by rival games....just a slow death by technology)
Tue Aug 04 2009 10:39PM(I got bad spelling) Ya, like with some games they'll have the side vs side pvp they don't have a lvl cap so it would be like lvl 1-max lvl. In that case you have to level up a whole lot be4 doing the pvp. Games like 12sky have SvS with lvl limits but 1 other thing differen diffuculity charaters. Normal mode: gain less stat/skill points and are not as strong. Hard: gain some more points and r stronger. And stronger for the last diffuculity.
And CTF pvp with SvS is great but not done great most of the time. Normal duels r fun to do if ur with just a friend. Games like domo where u can sub some skills from other classes isnt so great for pvp. Doctors have detox which make posion effects not work. Witch doctors are said to be great for pvp but they use mainly just posion skills. Which there r also cards u can obtain and use in pvp make u faster, bigger, and other stuff.
I dun play pvp much cause nvr rly good pvp for decent lvl players. But am looking forward to playing Turf Battles..but its having a 2nd closed beta they changed groups on whose working on it and stuff.
In more cases with the PvE: am gonna use the game LaTale for this for now. Warrior they got strong enough power to not have to worry bout not killing in time. Knights have enough stamina to be able to kill multiple enemies without dieing. Explorers: high luck for lots of critical hits, dodges, and hits in general. Mages: are messed up from my point of view there hp/def is to low with how low there magic is. In a lot of games mages r hard to lvl at 1st and solo but most other classes can solo lvl great. So all classes but Mages can fight solo pretty good.
A lot of games u gotta kit to fight solo but if u fight with just couple of other ppl u dun get so great exp. Its just all plainly crazy. And games with PvE/PvP another problem is tat theres a lot of pvpers tat dun talk much and it makes the game boring cause no 1 is there to hang out with, talk with, team with, and so on. PvP channals okay so they come in handy but that makes more work to make sure everything is in order so they dun get more stuff out much.
And US companies gotta stop just making item mall stuff for more moneh and work more on in game stuff >.<. Sure they need money to keep going but US companies all ways have prob more than double the costumes and stuff than other country companies. Myby if they stopd working on tat so much they can make the game pretty good for PvP and PvE..Most games dun even worry bout much on pvp. Hmm back to DOMO they only have duels and arena fights but arena starts at lvl 30 and due to being able to sub stuff some ppl r like gods >.<. but there is a option to not alow subs but no 1 will do tat cause they dun relay on just there class skills..u can have all the classes on 1 charater.
eh i think i've said enough and prob got off topic a lot
Wed Aug 19 2009 12:23AMMMORPG.com writes:
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