How should the best Large Scale PvP gameplay be balanced?

with more and more MMOs moving back to the Large Scale PvP focus of the past, how should large scale PvP be balanced?

PvP balance is a myth..  The only way you stand a chance to have any sort of balance to make it a ONE CLASS game, with the use of the same weapons..  As long as you have a variety of classes to play with different skills, there will always be one class that excells while another gets nerfed based upon what players min/max and use..   However,  if you ask me what I would do.. Make PvP more like Aterac Valley / Wintergrasp in WoW..  Preferably something realm vs realm..  OH.. and make classes divisive and unique and realistic..  Do you really think a person in full plate should run as fast as someone in leather or cloth? 

For Mass PvP to have any resembalence of balance, devs need to know what causes the imbalance.

From my experience, the are 2 things that are rather unbalanced in Mass PvP AoEs and Zerging.

Here is how I might consider taking on the AoE issue: Increase overall AoE Damage, but reduce damage based on how far away you are from the center of the explosions, the person who stands right in the middle is going to suffer more damae than someone who was barely hit by the blast.

Zerging: One huge issue with most mmos is that combat is designed and balanced around the very fact that your character is going to take hits, no matter how well you play. If it was up to me, combat would be considerably more lethal and take positioning far more into consideration. Good implementation of AoEs can help reduce zerging, but pretty much every mmo I have played have done a really poor job with this.

Edit: As for class balance, not going to happen. Each class will never be balanced for each and every encounter, what devs could do instead is to make some classes shine strongly in some encounters while faring poorly in others. Giving each class their own niche and use in the large scale war.

Originally posted by MMOExposed

How should the best Large Scale PvP gameplay be balanced?

 

with more and more MMOs moving back to the Large Scale PvP focus of the past, how should large scale PvP be balanced?

Why balance it? With large scale PvP the side with superior numbers and superior strategy should always win. A side with less numbers but better strategy should have a good chance to win, likewise a side with less strategy but better numbers should have a good chance too.

If a player alone or with a small group gets steamrolled by a zerg, well, that's not a lack of balance, that's the solo player or the small group being in the wrong spot. If a zerg gets caught in crowd control, well, that's what makes this zerg a mindless one - a good zerg won't get caught so easily.

It should be balanced like Planetside balanced it:

• 3 Factions.  While it's really only marginally better than a 2-faction system, better is better.
• Population limits for very large areas.  The limits should be large, as should the continents/worlds/galaxies, but they should be easily hit by a game's population. The easier they are to hit, the more fair battles will happen and the less unfair ones. This is important, because victories attained through superior player counts are borrrrring.  They're seriously a waste of my time.  I showed up to play a game, and I want my decisions to matter.  If I outnumber my opponents 5 to 1, my decisions don't really matter because the battle is over before it's begun.  Boring.
• Lateral advancement.  Progression doesn't make you stronger, it makes you more flexible.  So a Day 1 newbie who picks up combat rapidly will almost immediately be on the same footing as a Year 3 veteran.

It depends entirely on the design and focus of the PVP gameplay.

In battlegrounds type PVP, Axehilt pretty much nailed it. The gameplay is intended to be team-based matches, so capping the number of participants and keeping the level disparity to a minimum is key. In gameplay where there are more factors than just what happens in and during that battle, then balance isn't rally the priority, access to the necessary skills, tools and resources is much more important.