The Balancing Act: The Challenges of Class Balance in MMOGs


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Leading Devs Discuss Their Efforts to Bring Balance to MMORPGs

Removed of their visual and aural splendor, video and computer games are nothing more than a set of complex, interlocking systems and algorithms. Just how many of these are you experiencing on a regular basis? Several - it turns out. For example, there are programs to determine how much damage you cause with a single hit, how far you can jump, how tough your enemy should be, and how the animation plays out when you land at whatever point the program determines you should land. And, MMORPGs are probably the most complex programming framework among the games that are out there because so much of the decision making is left in the hands of the player. The game must have a set of algorithms that respond to, and factor in your every move.

At the heart of every online game is the concept of balance. Balance appeals to all of our notions of fairness and fun; it makes the boss mob finally beatable or the ignoble defeat a teaching moment. Combined with good information, it helps us decide what player or mob to attack successfully, and which would be pure suicide. And yet, it?s the most unstable of all game concepts, where changes to almost any aspect of the game - changes in a single spell, item, even crafting and the economy - can affect this balance in profound ways.

The player?s perception of imbalance has been the fatal (or nearly fatal) tipping point (haha--pun intended...) for more than a few MMORPGs. We chose this feature topic in hopes that one MMOG that has suffered from more than its share of balance concerns would come on and clear the air, but sadly Mythic didn?t respond to our repeated requests for a brief interview. Our selected panelists more than made up for the shortfall, though, and we were more than pleased to chat with Craig Morrison, Game Director for Age of Conan; James Laird, PvP Designer for Champions Online; Brian Urbanek, Powers Designer for Champions Online; and Todd Harris, Executive Producer of Global Agenda. These devs represent both traditional and emergent MMOG ideals, both the heavily classed and the class-less character development concepts, not to mention decades of design experience between tGrowing Complexitieses

It wasn?t so long ago that MMORPGs followed a fairly straightforward character advancement scheme based largely on their pencil-and-paper precursors. Put simply, new levels simply meant new items, new abilities, and more stats. This approach kept the math fairly simple, and many MMO game designers honed their craft by mastering the balancing intricacies involved in systems that seem fairly basic by today?s standards.

A storm of complexity was on the horizon, however, and the first few hesitating raindrops that fell were in the form of item proliferation. While more than a few online games recognized the inherent coolness of an ever-escalating progression of items and items sets that looked as powerful as they were, it was EverQuest that rendered these item sets with enough 3D graphical quality to show the incredible motivational power of an item whose actual existence was limited to bits and bytes. Armor sets with names like rubicite, adamantine, lambent, and ivy-etched were the status symbols of Norrath until they were replaced with other more epic and powerful (if not necessarily more meaningful or more stylish) items.

No MMOG has failed to capitalize on the player community?s consummate love affair with items since, but the familiar paradigm of armor, weapons, and jewelry might be called different things in different games. Global Agenda refers to these equipable items as ?implants.? Champions Online calls them ?upgrades,? with a special subcategory of ?power replacement upgrades? that potentially alter powers in addition to providing stats. Champions Online has also formulated clickable devices, which powers designer Brian Urbanek says ?were made, very intentionally, to be panic buttons.?

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