Game Balance

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Dugg, Feb 18, 2022.

  1. Dugg New Member

    Why are monks significantly higher dps than everyone else from start to finish?
    Why do shamans perform as well as they do from start to finish?
    Significantly defined as a discrepancy of greater than or equal to 10%

    In more competitive games these sorts of imbalances would cause mass exclusion and prejudice in the community. My only guess is that because success can be achieved at a lower threshold, these imbalances are acknowledged, but put aside in order to play a preferred class.

    There are no complex rotations, tight timings, or difficult to execute moves that people have to accomplish, it's mostly pay attention and react quickly. This does not stop people who have a coded handicap in their favor from crowing from the rooftops about x, y, and z though. The difference between scare-city and abundance players. It's very difficult to quantify performance and any time people are reduced to numbers the community suffers.

    I very much enjoy EQ and decided to post this as a modest rant in an effort to cease the endless internal monologue of the Optometrist, "better this or better that?"
  2. Baldur Augur

    Because monks are one of the worst melee dps classes on live and they aren't going to do any major rebalances for TLP.

    Just wait, it gets worse in GoD. It does depend on the expansion as well, bards can top parses in TSS, mages in SoF, wizards in SoD, at least on phinigel, but monks are always up there. I'd assume now with the necro DoT revamp post 75+ necros will dominate.

    Shamans have benefited from the DoT revamp.
  3. Gorg00 Augur


    Tell me you've never seen the finish line without telling me you've never seen the finish line.
    Duder, code-zero and FranktheBank like this.
  4. FranktheBank Augur


    Is your finish line halfway through the expacs?
  5. sieger Augur

    As noted, some of your premises are wrong and likely based exclusively on first half of TLP not the back half (which is fine--but don't call TSS or even VoA the finish line--the finish line is ToL, the current live expansion.)

    Your core observation, that EQ has significantly less class balance than a "typical" MMO, is largely spot on--and there isn't actually a tremendously great way to change it without imploding everything that makes EQ unique. EQ has a decently large class count with each class having fairly distinct abilities and playstyles, while they have tried to homogenize things in the last ~10 years it is still not a very homogenized game across the 16 classes. Getting anything like "within 1-5%" balance is just not likely in this environment, most classes that achieve it have over-arching design principles that make the core functionality of most classes somewhat analogous to one another which allows for easier balancing.

    EQ's AA system and spell system is a significant source of this because unlike modern MMO design which opts for a narrow field of abilities, EQ has a very broad field.

    The other aspect specific to your concern is EQ Live and EQ TLP run on the same code base, they are not branched products. This means changes to AA lines and spell lines intended for TLP, can have carry over effects on Live--most commonly that is not done, usually it's balance changes on Live that filter back to TLP because it is non-trivial in some cases to prevent that. There are some things that have been done to try to address this on TLPs, but it's always going to be somewhat of a losing battle to try to keep the TLP classes anywhere close to balanced when they have to share a code base with live.

    TLDR--partially this situation is because of core EQ design, partially because segregating TLP and Live any more than it already is would be difficult and supporting two independent branches of EQ would be labor intensive for the dev team.
  6. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    TL;DR

    Balancing classses in a new game is quite hard, in a game with a few expansions for it very hard, so doing it for a game that's been around as long as EQ with as many expansions as it has had is a nigh on herculean (and hence expensive) task - if you are attempting to have them balanced across every expansion that is.

    Power gaps that are really obnoxious, sickening, disgusting enough to make you spit out your coffee then purposely take another mouthful & deliberately spit that out too are probably always going to be happen.

    And for comfort they will only sometimes be addressed in a somewhat timely manner.
    (for timely read within 3 years, maybe).

    But balance changes are not impossible & huge gaps do get addressed from time to time.

    on TLP Monks are seriously OP in classic but the gap between them & the rest gets smaller over time, by 100 they are statistically competitive but not dominant any more.
  7. Triconix Augur

    Is your finish line Gates of Discord? Monks get laughed out the building by multiple classes, most notably Ber and Necro. Almost every dps classes is equal or better than them right now.
  8. Xhartor Augur

    Monk's biggest advantage is most of the disc's are 20 minute reuse timers, this allows to them pop discs regularly. The other melee DPS classes generally have longer reuse timers, this allow Monks to more consistently put up high numbers then the melee DPS classes.

    Also FD gives them superior ability to avoid death wiping out their endurance bar.

    If they are going to address game balance issues, they really need to look into improving Silk classes during OoW-PoR.
  9. Doranur_Aleguzzler Filthy Casual™

    Seriously? Even the Force can't be balanced. Why would an MMORPG ever be?
  10. Arclyte Augur

    People's definition of "balance" is often boring and homogeneous. The R in RPG is usually very watered-down in modern games.

    Casual-bad zoomers feel entitled to being good at everything, and devs inevitably make their game easier and easier by giving everyone overpowered tools for every situation. Case in point: Skyrim Shovelware Edition #72 where you can be Dragonborn/Archmage/Master Warrior/Thief Guildmaster all at once.

    As long as your class fills a useful and enjoyable role in what you want to do (solo/group/raid), your class is in good shape. Every character shouldn't be "The Hero" like it's some crappy anime protagonist.
    Thewiz and Gnothappening like this.
  11. Skrab East Cabilis #1 Realtor

    You’re blaming EQ balance on the generation that doesn’t play EQ?
  12. brickz Augur

    Very few people who play everquest, let alone those who play on TLPs, have any business calling anyone else casual or bad.
  13. Arclyte Augur

    I'm calling you both. Got a problem with it? Talk to my lawyer in Ak'anon.