Today, we ask Funcom's Craig Morrison about his philosophies on attempting to balance ranged and melee combat styles in an MMO.

I think before you look at the challenges specific to MMO combat in terms of balance between any two sets of character types you have to define what we are usually trying to achieve in terms of balance.

You might think it was easiest to define it very straightforwardly as 'every time I fight I have a 50/50 chance of winning or losing based my skill and approach' but when you actually push players about what many feel about gameplay the reality is that they would feel balance was better when they have a chance of losing, but that they should win more than lose. Most seem to tend towards wanting something like a 75/25 mix of winning to losing...so they recognize the need for, and want, a chance of losing, but they generally feel that its more fun when they win more often than they lose, as long as it isn't too much.

Read Morrison On Melee vs. Ranged Balance.

Good article but I suspect it won't have the slightest impact on the amount of 'balance' whining in any MMO forums.  I assume Colin has already been well schooled in these areas, seeing as how his team is deep in the middle of a 'balance' overhaul?

That's one of the core problems of AoC; melee is fun and challenging, casting is boring but easy.  This article emphasizes datamining which really has nothing to do with real gameplay. While he's touching on it slightly towards the end but kinda brushing it off as whining, open PvP is not about 1v1 or dueling.

Casters:

• Get more notched PvP kills due to more splash, dots and AoE's
• More PvP xp due to above statement
• Get more chain-kills due to the above statement
• More PvE xp due to above statement
• Are always on top of the kill lists in minigames due to the above statement
• Are of much higher use in Sieges and raids due to the above statement
• Don't have to meddle with 4 inputs to deal dmg
• Range (demo has 32m, longer than the Ranger even)
• Don't have to chase and physically (virtually) hit to do dmg
• Don't have to use stamina to do attacks, which melee share for sprinting
• Will always move away, as oppose to the duel and joust of the melee

AoC is going down the bin more than ever anyway. Not even 5 ppl lined up for minigames on the top server, the zones are empty day around. Scrap half the servers and make a melee-only server instead.

Actually, he said " melee classes make up all of the top four most played classes in Age of Conan". Not casters, melee :) At least developers are sure about it and see no reason to believe in imbalance.

Originally posted by Mirandel

Actually, he said " melee classes make up all of the top four most played classes in Age of Conan". Not casters, melee :) At least developers are sure about it and see no reason to believe in imbalance.

He probably has better information than Craig.

Fine, I stand corrected. Core problem remains.

Originally posted by lmzz

Fine, I stand corrected. Core problem remains.

I'm sorry, what is the core problem?

Originally posted by lmzz

That's one of the core problems of AoC; melee is fun and challenging, casting is boring but easy.  This article emphasizes datamining which really has nothing to do with real gameplay. While he's touching on it slightly towards the end but kinda brushing it off as whining, open PvP is not about 1v1 or dueling.

 

Casters:

• Get more notched PvP kills due to more splash, dots and AoE's
• More PvP xp due to above statement
• Get more chain-kills due to the above statement
• More PvE xp due to above statement
• Are always on top of the kill lists in minigames due to the above statement
• Are of much higher use in Sieges and raids due to the above statement
• Don't have to meddle with 4 inputs to deal dmg
• Range (demo has 32m, longer than the Ranger even)
• Don't have to chase and physically (virtually) hit to do dmg
• Don't have to use stamina to do attacks, which melee share for sprinting
• Will always move away, as oppose to the duel and joust of the melee

 

AoC is going down the bin more than ever anyway. Not even 5 ppl lined up for minigames on the top server, the zones are empty day around. Scrap half the servers and make a melee-only server instead.

All right, and so the problem is what?

This is asymmetrical game system, there're always differences. Casters might be easier to play, but I still don't understand what the problem is. Did you read what this article is about or not? Or do you think that you are more competent than the statistics and balance item/spell/specs tables? 

If you have reading comprehension problems with my post, go read the article again as I'm augmenting those statements.

Originally posted by lmzz

If you have reading comprehension problems with my post, go read the article again as I'm augmenting those statements.

Why would I react to your bullet point mambo jambo. Half of your arguments are just non-true, and half of them are just silly. What is so surprising that casters are able to run off, you have to chase them and they can hit you from distance? 

That's ridiculous. I asked you, why do you think you are more competent than an exact and precise balance item/spell/spec tables? It is usually a simple math. Just because you percieve it as being unfair doesn't mean it is so. Additionally Craig's statement is supported by the fact that casters are least played and top 4 most played classes are all melee. So again, what is the core problem you keep talking about?

Damage parsing means squat in actual gameplay. It's easy claiming something to be mumbo jumbo on the internet,  so if you want to disprove me, lay forth the proof or your words are null and void and mine persist.

I've been playing AoC since November of 2007 and I'm a good friend of the former AI coder, I believe I know what I'm talking about, along with hundreds of guildies and the rest of the AoC community. If there wouldn't be a problem, there wouldn't be a PvP problem-survey out as well as this article.

Ta-ta.

Originally posted by lmzz

,  so if you want to disprove me, lay forth the proof or your words are null and void and mine persist.

Do you realize, you're just another forum-poster whining about certain subjective imbalance between classes? There's nothing to be disproved. There's some sort of weirdos that have a dream that everything must be perfectly balanced, and they keep their own flame wars on respective class forums. For the rest of the gamers, this is just way too irrelevant and has nothing to do whether they enjoy the game or not.

So before you go again all doomy and gloomy, please think twice about your attitude.

He screwed up ao so bad and aoc will see just how he did it. He listened to whoever whined, bitched moaned and complained on the forums until they got what they wanted. Its a practice that still continues to this day even with his successor. Whoever trolled the most got what they wanted when it came to class balance and its no different now.

Originally posted by Stradden

Mostly it is about scaling and distribution. If for example your maximum value for DPS was 100 in your game, but 90 of that was contributed by a really rare item late in the game, then in effect your average player only have access to 10, which could become an issue if the mobs are balanced on a sliding scale.

Golly.  Do ya' think?

What a thought-provoking look into the process of balancing a computer game.

Originally posted by lmzz

Casters:

• Don't have to use stamina to do attacks, which melee share for sprinting

 

its all you need to say. its one of the big imbalance in the game... Im an assassin with 5k stamina! AN ASSASSIN! ROGUE CLASSE! but demo and necros have more stamina than me and can run more. They dont need stamina to attack so the stamina bar is only to sprint and they do it better than rogues.. damn casters!

"They may want some classes to be more newbie friendly to allow less skilled or experienced players to participate, likewise they might design a class to be rewarding if you get into the complexity of their skills, and one may not have a higher maximum output than the other.

We face this issue all the time in Age of Conan for example as the game was designed to have the casting system to be inherently simpler to help support players who did not want to deal with the faster paced melee combo system. This makes an inherent imbalance that is supported to some extent by the original design. For us in some way it works, and achieves its objective without slanting the players only towards casters (most players in Conan still play melee classes despite the mechanic imbalance) in other ways it does frustrate experienced players who would prefer everyone was equal."

This is the BIG problem.. fix it and 60% of the balance will be done.

Haven't played a caster yet. I'm happy with my fragile, yet hard hitting Barbarian atm. Yep, I tend to die fast at the slightest mistake, there is a good challenge and it keeps me on my toes so to speak. Sometime in the future I may get tired of my character and will reroll a different one, a caster maybe, and try a different approach to the game. 

In my other game I fly different ships with different attributes, some are close range, some are faster, some are armored behemonts. Each class and ship that is different enough posses a different challenge to the player and requires a different approach to game play. Sure, some classes in AoC may be simpler to play and will appeal to some players, others prefer the more challenging ones.  In AoC classes are different enough to be worth trying several of them.

Balancing is overstated, keeping the different classes different and interesting is more important in my book. As such, AoC is doing a great work. Jm2c.

Craig Morrison read it 2 times please:

forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php

got it?

no?

read again!

Originally posted by fred2911

Craig Morrison read it 2 times please:

forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php

 

got it?

no?

read again!

 

I am pretty sure he has read it since he has actually replied a couple of times in that very thread you link

That article was the biggest..

"Working as intended"

....statement I have ever seen come FC's lips.

(and Ive seen alot)