This is something I have put some thought into lately because it seems that it is such an issue in most games, especially in PvP, an issue that noone can seem to solve.  One always seems to dominate the other, usually that is ranged dominates melee.

Now when I say balance I mean that a pure melee character and a pure ranged character can have equal chance to defeat each other, disregarding skill and level.  I don't mean just giving melee characters ranged attacks and vice verse.

So here on my thoughts on how each type should work and how they defend against each other.  Also for now I will ignore support characters and focus solely on damage and defense.  Also I am thinking in terms of a more action oriented game, nothing really major, but like Tabula Rasa.

Melee

Does the highest burst damage

Has the highest defense, meaning a defensive passive choosen by a ranged and a melee character would be more effective for the melee character than the ranged.

Is the most mobile wile attacking, meaning has the most options to move in quick bursts to close distance, this also means that every time you attack you lunge forward a bit rather than stand still.

Does not require precise targeting which means melee can switch targets quickly to fight multiple targets and attack in a general cone shape, though not every attak is an AoE.

Relies on stuns knockdowns and pulls, like chains and such, to keep targets in range.

Uses presses, taps and combos to execute abilities

Ranged

Does the highest sustained damage, meaning you do more damage over time than in a single strike.

Imploys more snares and roots to keep enemies at a range and to escape.

Not as mobile while shooting, aim improves while stationary.

Can precisely target enemies with a redicule to pick off individuals and focus fire.

Uses maintained, charged and toggles to execute abilities.

Now all characters can block all attacks, ranged or melee, not very realistic but who cares.  Of course blocks can be broken too.

What ways have you guys thought of to balance the two, without making everyone a hybrid?

I think there is a spectrum a game falls in that determines "what it needs".

[click and wait]---------------------------------|----------------------------------[action intensive]

The closer you get to a genral FPS's need of constant attention and quick relflexes - the less you want to impose a number game in areas ranging from armor mitigations and weapons outputs, to preemptive abilities or the typical cooldown/hotkey play.

I think FPS' have a good balance in that ranged is powerful enough to make fights quick, and melee (for the sake of even getting that close) is instant kill. Now the problem with this is that FPS'  typically play a classless game, and even in TF2's version of classes, the melee is really not even considerable since the emphasis is on range... and when you make a game you need to take a stance on if everybody is a ranged class with a bit of melee, or you are truely going to segregate them and attempt to balance it.

I am attempting this theoretical balance in an MMO concept of mine (actually a few use the same form) where there are 3 main classes as the Ranged/Melee/Support. Ranged is just that, Support is what you would figure, but Melee is a mixed bag. Basically it relies on changing forms, where as a humanoid you can wield a gun (but not as well as the Ranged guys) but in mech-form you can become an assortment of roles from the "quick, weak heavy hitter" to the "slow, high armored tank that lacks power". In a group you essentially become the guy flushing out the enemies from thier cover, or the guy providing a big meatshield of moving cover for the others and providing extremely inaccurate suppression fire. Really it's a balance of speed/power/defense - even reach... as it should be in all games.

Even that deserves a spectrum of it's own for certain weapon types to fall into that balance out with the others.

[reach]------------|------------[speed]

[speed]-----------|------------[power]

[power]-----------|------------[defense]

Defense and reach do not loop back on each other is the same fashion, since long reaching weapons are the best to keep a defensive with in reality (but this is subject to some issues). Otherwise by finding a point on one of the charts you can find out where the rest belong.

Daggers are low reach, so high speed. That speed factor determines it can't have much power on the next graph, and that lack in power means a compensation in defense is made, probably natural parry or something (which I am typically against using).

Spears are high reach, low speed - but high power - the issue is that they are naturally fitting to be a defensive weapon too - but in terms of tradeoff you will prolly have to suit the method by not making it so. Otherwise they will be a preferred method for having too many high-points and speed being the only low one... though in terms of how [action oriented] the game is, and how fast you can get merced on, that may be suiting.

[Speed] is the biggest factor overall in any game's melee functions though. Both in how fast you move, and how fast you attack... as well as how fast things die. It should govern everything else you do with it. If you make a slow, lumbering hulk of a melee dude you will realise people are content to not get near him to give the chance, besides other melee guys that have no other option but to engage up close. That is why you give that guy the option for ranged attacks that can help him reach a target by using typical CC, or simply suppression fire to round people into a bad position. I find TF2's minigun to be the perfect example of a horridly inaccurate gun making people tremble, simply by how it sounds. Even if it's not hitting the guy outright it [will] flush him to a direction that's not in the way of bullets.

~Also, I have to say the best ways I have found to balance melee is to make it the basis of everything. Got a good [low, really low] fantasy thing I am working on where melee is king because bow and arrows are realistically bad. They take time to ready, and you can be rushed and gutted quick - making ranged the tool of surprise, and not the main implement of death you will find yourself using. It's hard to do this in a modern or sci-fi setting because guns are king, but maybe games just need that approach - where melee is a situational thing and not the only way you do things. Oh, I have to add that this example of melee is at the far end of the [action intensive] spectrum. Attacks are made in real time, and that is why melee works - setup, timing, coordination - and the fact that everyone else is doing it.

Yeah in terms of of twitchyness I was thinking of requiring more action controls, ie manual target selection, which requires you to track targets to hit them and no auto attack, but also there would be some RPG elements in the combat too, because the damage to health ratio is such that fights last longer than in action games, so there is some concern with numbers, like buffs and such.  Still though melee does drop targets considerably faster than ranged does.

And in terms of mechanics I think the ranged mechanics are pretty straight forward, use knockback  and snares to keep people at a distance, with escape abilities like backwards lunges to create distance.

But for melee it is a little harder to describe, you will have plenty of stuns snares and knockdowns, but the physical flow of the combat would be highly mobile, closing distance would be much easier as your character has bursts of speed to lunge over a distance and get with in melee range, consequently this makes reach in melee weapon kind of moot.  It is hard to try and tell people what I mean so I think the best way is to show what I mean with the lunges and the highly mobile combat in close range, Batman Arkham Asylum is a good example, though the guy in the video kinda sucks, and of course the guys he is fighting are just goons.

I was also thinking about the whole offense defense and support roles thing, and switching between them, which could be filled by both melee and ranged, but melee has an inherent bonus to defense, so if you are really though, or dodgy or regen health or use stealth as your defense passive, then it is more effective for melee than ranged.

And even though the setting is more sci-fi and guns are plentiful, I still want melee to be a viable option, in that if you want to use nothing but you can, what I think helps in this situation is that ranged requires you to aim, while melee doesn't, also factoring in reloading and kickback, I actually think melee has a good chance.

The balance problems is inherent in the tactical characteristics of both combat styles.

Its not a 1 on 1 problem, as that is reasonably easy to fix. The problem comes from stacking: Ranged Damage scales better with numbers, as it does not require much movement, and it can reach critical mass of killing the enemy before they get in range.

 Melee does not ever have that advantage, as melee cannot do damage without taking damage itself.

Balancing Melee vs. Range for a game depends a lot on how many players on each side in a battle you wish to accommodate for. With a low player count, melee can survive getting into melee range reliably and in good health, enough to then make use of their advantage in that range.

With huge numbers, you run into the typical "mexican standoff" scenario with two fronts of ranged classes, shooting at anything that steps into the killing zone in the center. Under such circumstances, melee can only work if they can rush, and even then will likely lose several players in the process. This isnt very fun for those players who died, even if the battle itself was won, as they usually dont gain much reward, and will likely not take part in the attempted charge the next time.

I dont think its possible to create a game where melee vs. ranged is balanced for ANY number on each side, just for specific numbers utilized in that game.

Good amount of thought, and I think you're pretty close. I think ranged needs to have a higher spike damage potential than melee though (each attack hits harder), lending themselves to preparative techniques to get the advantage before a fight starts. Melee on the other hand, should generally have skills designed to either surprise an opponent / shift the balance of the fight towards his favor. I think (for a while) guild wars struck a good balance between these two play styles. Melee could do nasty burst damage, but ranged could do more damage in a single hit. Furthermore, melee could use skills to make them very difficult to pin down, or to make them generally have higher survivability.

Ranged, on the other hand, had more prep type abilities. Traps, buffs, and spells designed to control the fight. So in combat you get this tug of war over the melee trying to interrupt the control of the ranged class, and the ranged trying to keep it. The person who was more successful generally won the fight (provided the enemies' allies didn't step in).

Great thoughts, and I think you've gotten a great first step into understand one of the more difficult things to balance in a game. On paper the two classes must almost look imbalanced to achieve balance, which is counter intuitive, but if you know what you are doing you'll realize the other aspects besides damage that are important to balancing out combat.

I'm not sure if you really can balance both styles. I mean you have two specialized archetypes and the terrain where the fight will take place has an impact on the fight too.

Hmmm, what was that quote from Iron Man?
Something about the Bow and Arrow and controlling a large amount of land.

Since "ranged" attacks were invented, people chose them over old melee combat en masse, because of the ridiculous effectiveness. You all have good points in how things could be done in a game, though.

You could make the melee vs. ranged standoff a situational thing
You could make the melee vs. ranged a simple statistical difference
You could give melee additional moves to catch up to ranged characters, and ranged additional moves to avoid such circumstances

I enjoy the idea that is generally implemented in FPSs, such as Call of Duty, where melee knife attacks are simply a one-shot kill, and ranged attacks are effective, but require decent aim (and good god, a full ammo clip)

To apply this to an MMO, I suppose the same idea could be implemented in that ranged, I don't know, has decent damage, but is very costly to mana/energy/whatever costs your game has. Ammo, even. And melee would have high damage, with a very low, or nill cost attached.

This stance on melee vs. ranged would make people think about how they wanted to build themselves, and would probably work best in a classless setting, or skill based (as in spells/abilities skills, not player skills) MMO.

So, let's just say I have brought my mana up a fair bit, I'm some sort of mage. I have ranged firebolt style spells, and they do pretty good fire-magic damage, say, 100. I can only cast maybe twenty of these things before I run out of mana.

I might come up against someone who has just gotten their melee skills up, they can run pretty fast, and their big two handed sword does about 200 damage to me, and he can just keep on swinging that thing with no real cost - well, maybe some sort of low cost to energy, or something.

Simple theory craft here, and in the above example the warrior-style guy would likely win, but again with a ten vs. ten group, the ranged characters would likely have an advantage, at first, being able to possibly kill two or three enemies before they get into melee range and start hammering at the casters.

This hasn't even considered Crowd Control spells, or charging/lunging abilities.

There are far too many possible ways to go through them all, but hey, maybe reading through this will have helped your thinking a bit - or at least made you feel better about your own thoughts on the subject.

-Blaise

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