Does Class Balance = Number of People Playing That Class ?

[Burningho]

<div></div><div>I have seen a couple of people propose that the real reason that SOE has not yet fixed Guardians (and other classes like Templars) is that they have an unwritten goal to have the same number of people playing each class.  The theory goes that SOE wants its player base to play each class equally.  If one class is overplayed, it gets nerfed while an under represented class would get a boost in power.  Thus encouraging players to change from highly played classes to the lesser played classes.</div><div> </div><div>While I am not totally convinced of this "secret SOE conspiracy", it sure seems to explain the current situation for Guadians.  So the question is, does SOE use the popularity of a class to make balance decisions with the intent of encouraging its player base to switch classes?</div><div> </div><div>*EDIT* Fixed grammar.</div><p>Message Edited by Burninghope on <span class="date_text">01-21-2006</span><span class="time_text">07:08 AM</span></p>

[Landiin]

<div></div><p>I am sure they would like a balanced class base like that but I doubt that is the case.Ok I put myself in their place.I know that we are doing away with the class tree, so why really try and tune the classes before I implement this in game? Why do double work, it’s not productive. So I am going to hold off on really fixing class till I have the class tree removal implemented. Now when the I have this all done, I then can start slowing aligning classes where they should be. I wouldn’t do this in one big giant swoop like they did with LU13 that’s just nuts. I’ll do it over a series of live updates to slowly acclimate people to their class.</p><div></div>

[Pry]

<div></div><p>I still don't understand why the classes were changed in the first place, instead of the content *shrugs*.</p><p>Balance, or the illusion of balance is the argument, but then why not do it from the very beginning if this was the case?  Why set out for the Virgin Islands, and then change course of your ship to China in the middle while saying "Our intention was to go to China all along!"</p><p>While I have no doubt there are <strong>lots</strong> of shenanigans going on, I doubt one of them is to thin the herd.  Remember that any kind of drastic change = lost subscriptions.  And any time you lose a subscription (except in the case of EQLive), it is very difficult to win that customer back.  A company that wants to keep subscriptions will find ways to keep them, not to alienate them.  However, SOE seems to prefer the latter and that is baffling at times, to me anyway.</p>

[Wabit]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Prynn wrote:<div></div><p>I still don't understand why the classes were changed in the first place, instead of the content *shrugs*.</p><hr></blockquote><p>the classes were changed because the game mechanics were flawed... </p><p>take MotM raid instance prior to the revamp...  i actully had to debuff myself so the templars reactives would hold agro for me...</p><p>or how about SotL...  you know the ghost lizzy room...  i LDed in there when there were still 2 adds left alive and named pretty much at 90%...  come back in and the named is at 2% and i only lost agro once and then it came right back to me...  that definatly wasn't HtL keeping agro...  funny thing was my guildies didn't believe i had crashed...</p><p>before i could solo ok, wasn't fast but i could kill single lvl 49 heroics and live 9/10 times...  or most 47 named mobs (undertow and the labrinth shadow kicked my but all over)...  heck one day i was bored and kited the x2 in icespire (took me an hour)...  it was all about getting your defence as high as it could be...  but i was inline with half the other classes in the game for solo ability...</p><p>in groups i was king, needed very little healing and never lost agro (cept in nek 2, i hate that zone)...</p><p>in raids i was godly...  agro wasn't ever an issue, cept where it was supposed to be (kdal)...  i had more HP, more avoidance, and mitigated better in ebon than a paly did full fabled...</p><p>if i wasn't tanking a raid and playing a dps roll i'd normaly beat most everyone when grouped with a zerker and had some haste buffs (RGF ftw)...</p><p>then LU13 hit...</p><p>our class wasn't broken, we worked fine on paper and in a solo environment...  its just we could do so much with others buffs, and there were no reall hardcaps on stats...  no other tanks could come close to us...</p><p>now we are broken...  and trying to just be even with the other 5 tank classes...</p><p>Wabit</p>

[Pry]

<div></div><p>I hear what you are saying, and I understand that bit of it. </p><p>I guess what I mean to say is that if those things you mentioned were broken, then why not fix them instead of trying to change an entire combat system?</p><p>Contrary to popular belief, before LU13 I died.  I died in groups, I died in raids, I died when soloing.  So I didn't ever really feel invincible (I never had godmode myself).</p><p>What happened after LU13 was that I logged in.  Instantly, I found out my armor was worthless, my weapons were worthless, my abilities didn't work.  There was no compensation offered for drastically changing the mechanics of the game, there was no value to all the gear that I worked my face off getting and spent plat on.  There was no value to getting writs done for the guild anymore.  XP was borishly slow to boot, and because you could only kill greens and maybe some blues solo, you couldn't get gear upgrades to make LU13 work.  And I had no money to buy more, because the stuff I needed on the vendor was already rediculously priced and I had 20 gold.  I certainly couldn't "sell" my gear back to get more because handcrafted plate was worthless.  And I was a provisioner so even making new gear wasn't an option for me without "buying" someone's services at bloated prices.</p><p>What I found is that eventually I was logging on and re-arranging my inn room and talking to guildies for an hour before logging off.</p><p>So right after LU13, my feeling was that the class worked fine, but I was in a hole that was going to take countless hours of grinding, dying, and node collecting to even get to the point to where I could do my job, whether that be in a primary or secondary role.  It went from being fun to play EQ2, to having a gimped out toon that I spent a year of hard work on to get to where it was before LU13.</p><p>So the choices were abandon that entire year of work, roll an alt and experience all the same content again, or try to make due with a character that couldn't do anything.  And so that is why I am angry about it, if that makes sense. </p>

[Burningho]

<div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>Prynn wrote:<div></div><p>So the choices were abandon that entire year of work, roll an alt and experience all the same content again, or try to make due with a character that couldn't do anything.  And so that is why I am angry about it, if that makes sense. </p><hr></blockquote>Makes perfect sense.  Do you think that part of SOE's motivation is to try and get you to roll a different class?  Because quite frankly after LU13, my bruiser, fury, and necro are way more fun to play than my Guardian.<p>Message Edited by Burninghope on <span class="date_text">01-15-2006</span><span class="time_text">09:24 AM</span></p>

[Wabit]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Prynn wrote:<div></div><p>Contrary to popular belief, before LU13 I died.  I died in groups, I died in raids, I died when soloing.  So I didn't ever really feel invincible (I never had godmode myself).</p><hr></blockquote><p>i died alot too...  alot of it was jsut to see where the limits were...  and i couldn't pass undertow without trying it at least once ([Removed for Content] mob)... </p><p>god mode was really harclave...  i hated that zone...  it was too easy...  train everything into a group and just sit afk while the damage shield killed everything...  but you'd get that godly feeling after tanking Vox (we wiped more too other ppl training zone while buffing than we did to fighting her)... </p><p>now with everything membluring it feels like failure for not having the agro under control...  i think thats where our agro abilitys (or lack of) really show through...  first agro wipe is reinforcement, second is rescue...  if there is a third we're screwed...</p><p>i think there is a flaw with how guardians are designed (we need to build hate, then maintain it at plateau), and how the mobs work (need the instant hate then build to a peak, then repeat on blur)...</p><p>Wabit</p>

[Pry]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Burninghope wrote:<div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>Prynn wrote:<div></div><p>So the choices were abandon that entire year of work, roll an alt and experience all the same content again, or try to make due with a character that couldn't do anything.  And so that is why I am angry about it, if that makes sense. </p><hr></blockquote>Makes perfect sense.  Do you think that part of SOE's motivation is to try and get you to roll a different class?  Because quite frankly after LU13, my bruiser, fury, and necro are way more fun to play than my Guardian.<p>Message Edited by Burninghope on <span class="date_text">01-15-2006</span><span class="time_text">09:24 AM</span></p><hr></blockquote><p>That was always my first thought, because you can't have true balance with 100 people playing Guardians, and 10 playing 5 other classes.  But the changes were so crippling to not only Guardians but a lot of other classes too.  Of course, I guess the argument could be made that the point was to reduce the amounts of other classes too.</p><p>I would just think that SOE as a corporation wouldn't want to risk losing one subscriber, but rather attract more subscribers.  And if you take me for example, as someone who has been with SOE since the beginning of EQ, played ALL of their games (even the one on PSP) and has tons of friends that play MMOG's too that discuss games and such, it seems wierd that they would want to alienate folks like me who when asked are going to say "Don't go to EQ2 unless you don't mind getting your character totally blown away after days and days of playing it (game time)".</p><p>No, I think it's more of what looks excellent on paper not translating into game.  Sociological experiments gone awry if you will.  And an unwillingness to correct those mistakes due to certain factors.  </p><p>I look at it this way, if you are working at a company managing their IT, and you make a change that angers all of your end users, are you going to revert back to that issue knowing it is not good for the long term health of your environment to appease them,  or are you going to stay the course knowing that it will probably fetter itself out through attrition?  Even if it means that you will have to go through a lot of hurdles by gaining the trust of your end user community back.</p><p>In this case, attrition for them likely means that people will leave and more new people will come on board later.  And those new people will become the core of the EQ2 player, and the few veterans who stay will become advocates for the game. </p><p>Problem is that in companies there is only one choice (unless they fire the IT staff), and in this case there is *tons* of competition out there.  So the player you lose today is probably going to go to another game, be an advocate for that game, and bring as many people as they can with them.  We have heard many stories of entire guilds packing up and going somewhere else when they weren't happy with the environment.  Heck, it happened to me on more than one occassion.</p><p>So what has to happen is that SOE has to find a way to make the veteran happy, while making sure the game is working for the long term health of the game, and that is a very difficult proposition.  The only thing I have an issue with is that they haven't paid much attention (IMO) to the former, and a whole heck of a lot more to the latter, and this is ultimately going to be the downfall if they don't change their method of thinking on this issue.</p>

[Chaksis]

<div></div><div></div><div>Prynn, i do agree with your point and semi agree with OP, but i wouldn't suggest to throw the faith into a trash bin yet - waiting out the KoS release is best option, if that doesn't make the 'oh god it's so beatiful' feeling, most will be going and Eq2 ends up being a partial game for maybe 10k subscribers like eq1 is now.</div><div> </div><div>what i'm trying to say / bring across - is that this kos expension might be like the ol' velious when it came out back in the day, but with the additional compulsion of losing more subscribers if it's not to other games,  because we do have an alternative option now to different games, not saying WoW but as you mentioned above games like Vanguard, which i'm looking forword too - if it's not as time consuming as EQ1 was...</div><div> </div><div>when i read your post, i see you made a lot of game experience in the past, but keep in mind we at a stage where it's swapping to a new part of gamers, which haven't touched yet games like this, that's part of the customers sony wants to atract now, hence the real different game play of EQ2 compared to EQ1 (imo eq2 is more like zelda^^)</div><div> </div><div>hope it made a bit sense <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></div><div> </div><div>edit: corrected a bit of spelling...</div><p>Message Edited by Chaksis81 on <span class="date_text">01-16-2006</span><span class="time_text">07:43 AM</span></p>

[Salgo]

<div></div>OK I was thinkg about this and there is only one real way to test this....let's all play monk alts until the expansion comes out. Who's with me? :smileyvery-happy:

[mastersard]

<div></div>I rolled a zerker, close 'nuff?

[Ebjelen]

<div></div><div></div><p>The definitive answer to the original question is yes. Somehow the original question has been twisted into another anti-guardian whine.</p><p>Way back in the Verant days of EQ 1 the developers did openly state that balance meant to them that there was no motivation to play any one class other than personal preference. This was to divert arguments that class balance should be based on dueling ability. In those days, too many people thought that class balance should mean equal chances in a 1v1 duel of equal levels. The boards were flooded with posts like "So-n-So beat me in a duel so their class is way over-powered." It was worse than the stuff you see on this board. So the balance bar was defined as no reason to play a specific class other than personal preference.</p><p>So, how do you measure if all the classes are equally enjoyable? or equally playable? These boards can not count in this determination. Why? Because this is only a vocal MINORITY. The vast majority of the prople playing EQ2 do not read these boards. They just don't have the time. Between jobs, family and social lives, most people are just too busy to both play EQ2 and keep up with these boards. Why punish them if they are enjoying their game time while someone louder and with more free time rants on public bulliten board? Especially when a lot of the ranters don't even play the game. Yes, there are people that will buy a subscrition just to rant and troll. I remember when people payed by the hour for internet time just to post text. AOL made the second half of their fortune when they offered unlimited online time for a mere $75 a month, just to post text chat. If people paid that in the 1980s, what's $15 a month for a subscription to this board?</p><p>So, how do you measure if all the classes are equally playable? How do you measure if people are playing all classes? You can't just look at total numbers. What if people switch classes and don't delete? What if people stage some kind of protest and delete or create a single class in massive numbers? That doesn't validate results, it skews results.</p><p>What good are these boards for class balance? SoE does read these boards. I have found many times in the past that if you post clearly, concisely, and without malice, that SoE does listen. They do test out problems if you can post clearly how to recreate problems. The changes don't happen overnight. It takes time to test, evaluate, code, test and then rollout. But once this thread turned into another whine, it got marked as worthless.</p><p>Message Edited by Ebjelen on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">12:21 AM</span></p>

[MrDiz]

The simple answer has to be no. If Sony really wanted people to stop playing guards and play something else they would have added a /reclass. They had to know that making a popular class unpopular would probably loose them a lot of accounts. They must have assumed after a few days of grumbling guardians would settle down and get on with it in the new 'balanced' game.No, as much as I like a good conspiricy theory Im afraid Im going with occums razor here and im assuming the following theory to be more likely correct: They trusted the view of the game described to them by a bitter few who complained in person to Sony, and in a fit of panic nerfed and boosted this way and that with the best intentions and worst results. In short: Lu13 happened because of plain old incompetence and stupidity.<p>Message Edited by MrDizzi on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">04:29 AM</span></p>

[Wabit]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>MrDizzi wrote:The simple answer has to be no. If Sony really wanted people to stop playing guards and play something else they would have added a /reclass. They had to know that making a popular class unpopular would probably loose them a lot of accounts. They must have assumed after a few days of grumbling guardians would settle down and get on with it in the new 'balanced' game.No, as much as I like a good conspiricy theory Im afraid Im going with occums razor here and im assuming the following theory to be more likely correct: They trusted the view of the game described to them by a bitter few who complained in person to Sony, and in a fit of panic nerfed and boosted this way and that with the best intentions and worst results.<font color="#ff00ff" size="4"> In short: Lu13 happened because of plain old incompetence and stupidity.</font><p>Message Edited by MrDizzi on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">04:29 AM</span></p><hr></blockquote>Quote of the day :smileysad:

[MrDiz]

Wabit... Guardian AND Carpenter? Wow, lu13 must have been fun surprise for you <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Wabit]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>MrDizzi wrote:Wabit... Guardian AND Carpenter? Wow, lu13 must have been fun surprise for you <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><hr></blockquote>ehh my main alt at LU 13 was a mid lvl illus too...  never did figure out why i'd want a colne following me around...  yes this game hates me :smileysad: