How do you measure balance between the professions

[Razaphysics]

A question relevant to every patch is how do you measure the balance between the professions/races?

So has this already been established? I couldn't find it.

Perhaps if we agreed on the way is which these things are measured we could stop squabbling about who should get nerfed or loved because it would be obvious. (I appreciate this would leave a few people with plenty of spare time... )

I'm not very good at this analysis lark but it seems to me that some of the things that should be considered are:

profession
breed
PVM
PVP
indoor missions
outdoor missions (you know what I mean)
level (i.e. 1-100, 100-150, 150+)
hand-to-hand fighting
gun fighting
nano attacks
pet damage
healing
stuns/mezzes/roots
buffing ability
trade skills

By some sort of weighting of the relative value of these abilities (and others I forgot I'm sure) it should be possible to get some sort of sense of how different professions stack up against one another at different levels in different scenarios.

What I am not advocating by the way is that every profession end up the same. It would be nice however if each profession were similar in terms of their overall usefullness/fun score.

Hmmmm.... this might be too tricky.

Oh well I'm sure there are smarter people than me who read these forums :d

Raza

[Servivious]

Originally posted by Razaphysics

Hmmmm.... this might be too tricky.

Oh well I'm sure there are smarter people than me who read these forums :d

Raza [/B]

Ok - so thats not me. But this is a question I've thought about, and it's not simple at all - there are too many variables.

Ignoring the exact in-game specifics can allow for a simplified view -

AO is (intended or not) a combat focused game. Theres no getting away from that, its true, so don't flame me. Non-combat prof abilities (eg. tradeskill, warp nanos, fixer grid, trader shop etc) add something to the game, but you cant spend your whole time in the fixer grid now, can you?

So - combats the main issue. Here, (in PvM) balance is easy:

Ability to kill stuff (should =) Ability to stay alive

for all proffessions.

So that if I can take a heavy beating, I shouldn't be able to kill unique mobs with a single hit, and vice versa.

It works in principle - NTs are supposed to be weak, but large damage dealers, docs are supposed to have weak combat dammage, but be able to survive long past any other prof, due to heals.

Effectively, the principle is illustrated by the two most extreme profs- NT and Enf; in that enfs can get kicked in the nuts for hours, and survive, while NT's die when you kick them in the shins. Thats supposed to be balanced with NTs doing enough damage to kill you before you kick them, and enfs enjoying long long fights.

Oh dear - it seems that thats broken already, since enfs do good damage.....

Obiously, FC decided that a more complex balance was required.

After that, I can't make head nor tail of it.

So - its combat and non-combat things then.. Oh dear.

Theres no [Adv = medium combat, excellent travel, no trades, funky morphs, colourful dmg shields, small heals, etc] = [MA = excellent dmg, ok heals, no trades, crit buffs, etc]

Thats down to personal preference (note - I love both my 88 MA and my 22 adv - so far..). That being the case, all profs are balanced - because they offer somethinng for a persons preferences - dont like the char, don't play the prof. To those of you who feel that 'their' char isn't what they thought the prof would be, you got the wrong end of the stick; sorry about that.

The only place where "balance" is of any importance is PvP, and even here it is stated (and very apparent) that no one prof will fare equally well against all others. Your prof may do well against some, but you'll loose to others, which is a kind of balance. I don't do a lot of PvP, but from the sounds of it, even this simple premise is broken.

So - while it is apparent that some things are way under represented in this game (the whole point of trade skills eg) the bottom line is that there are members of all professions at all level ranges, and no one prof is unable to pass a given level. Which means its a fine-tuning job, not a case of fiixing something thats broken. Which comes down to personal preference. Which is not something that wants balance, it wants "Imubergonnakickurasswithmylittlefingerthengosoloaq l200teammissiononmyownatlevel5". Lets face it - we all wanna be God, or we would be out in the real world, not sheltering in the safe, controllable, in-here-im-a-huge-soldier-with-a-gun universe that is online gaming, would we? (note the "we" -- I just broke my gaming habit of 12hour days in ao, i'm not judging anyone :-P )

[Whiteboog]

When people talk about balancing characters its mainly for pvp. There are some exeptions (such as pet pathing) but its all mainly pvp. In pvm the classes are balanced enough really.

[__________Beautyfarm]

Originally posted by Whiteboog
When people talk about balancing characters its mainly for pvp.

yes, and usually changes also affects pvm - mostly to the bad (crit buffs, trader heal nerf, general nano resist increase...)

[Darkbane]

Currently, PvP balance means 1-on-1 PvP. It is a total waste of time to even attempt to balance the professions on this basis. Provided the professions all have reasonable PvM solo capability (ie they *can* gain xp solo at all but perhaps the highest levels) and no single professions is essential in team PvP, then that's good enough.

Not that we're there yet mind you...

[Whiteboog]

the problem is that pvp and pvm is very very differnet, and things done in pvp can affect pvm greatly and visa versa. Both types of players have the same rights though (i hate when pvm players complain about how often the pvper complain, as if they have no right).
The only way i see this can be fixed is by completly seperating pvm and pvp, a pvp server would be nice

[Gearbox]

I measure it in inches, but some places measure it in centimeters. I think they're right in measuring professions metrically, as a system of 10 sounds pretty good to me.

[Downsizr]

I would say that *I* consider 4 scales to measure the performance of a profession :

Team Efficiency > Required in team | Very helpful | Bring some bonus | Nothing special brought to the team

Solo Efficiency > Does better xp solo | Can solo good | Can solo but slowly | Cannot really solo

PvP Efficiency > Cannot be touched | Ownz 70% | Is owned 70% | Killed by Crats

Money Making > Has to be anon | Have access to good money making | Must dedicate time to get money | Has no way to get money alone

Money making being very important for non-twinked characters, since it will dictate the way it will perfom with the addition of good weapons, implants, nanos and armor. It's a bit redundant with 'Solo Efficiency' since missions give access to all you need, but you can consider it independantly. For instance Docs 'Have access to good money making' while their solo efficiency is bad.

[Razaphysics]

Thx for the replies folks.

This is obviously a difficult thing to measure but I think with some help I will try and draft something.

First things first though I have to figure out how to do tables on this board.

Cheers,

Raza

[___________Stercoral]

Originally posted by Gummizluv

PvP Efficiency > Cannot be touched | Ownz 70% | Is owned 70% | Killed by Crats

Funny, my first real pvp experience was against a "crat" and I died... (the next was against a fixer and I died too)
I'll try to fight an engie, I bet I'll loose.

[________________Enri]

To be quite honest if everyone could agree on an answer to that question, there would be no arguing on these boards whatsoever.