Situational Combat and Class Ballance

[RemnantWolf]

With their promise to reward player innovation and creativity I have heard some worry about the class balancing. Which can be a real big issue in an MMO. I have heard of many times where a class will be completely ignored because it has such a large disadvantage due to being a close range fighter, or just not having a good enough DPS.

Maybe a good solution would be to base each class on a different situation.

Some examples would be if fighting a heavily armored enemy, such as a crab, you would do more damage as a Marauder, than as any other class, or if fighting a fast lightly armored enemy, like a Marmot, Pugilist would be the best option. Fighting Multiple enemies would be a job done best by Lancer and fighting element based enemies would be best handled by a conjurer.

By giving each class a specialty they give them all a role to play in raids and parties. It adds a great amount of strategy as you would have to think of how to equip your skills as well as build your party to cover your weaknesses. Because then you could party with a few classes, like a party of 3 archers, 3 gladiators and 2 healers. But in situations against heavily armored enemies or swarms of enemies you would have a major disadvantage because you have nothing in your party for these types of situations. If you had a lancer then maybe your party would not have been overwhelmed by that swarm of mobs, or if you had a marauder then maybe you would have been able to do enough damage to kill that large mob before it wiped your party.

Situation based class balance gives the options and strategy of combat to the players, while avoiding Parties only taking one or two classes because the other ones don't have any compared to the others.

Edit: Well after seeing everyone's arguments as to why this system would not be the best of ideas, I no longer support it as a main system for balance.

But as a system to encourage diverse parties and an added layer to the strategy, what do people think?

[Peregrine]

The mechanic won't work if you simply make a job better at a common task like damaging marmots versus crabs, and just leads to inbred parties.

You have to make a job irreplaceable and unnecessary at the same time by giving the job something everyone wants to have, and not giving them a reason to not invite them.

[RemnantWolf]

I'm sorry but I am not completely sure what you mean in your comment. Every party wants to have the most Offensive and defensive abilities possible. If the world can throw heavy enemies, light enemies, or swarms of enemies (there are more variations that could be used but these are the ones that come to mind) at you then the only way to ensure that you are keeping yourself secure and doing the most damage possible is to 1: study the area where you are going, and the monsters you will encounter, and 2: ensure you equip your party with the best men/women for the job.

If you are headed into an area where you will encounter a lot of light armor units, you would be better off for bringing more pugilists, but to leave without a marauder would be foolish as you would have a major hole in your offensive abilities against any armored enemies. The fact is that these classes become irreplaceable because they have something to offer that fills a hole in the weakness of the other classes.

So if you see a hole in my plan you are going to have to be more specific as to what it is because, honestly, I am kinda confused as to what you are trying to say is the right course of action, and why my idea fails.

[Micronowski]

So if you see a hole in my plan you are going to have to be more specific as to what it is.

"LFM leveling party"
"No marauders online "
"Ok guess we'll have to disband" <-- The hole in your plan

You can't give specific classes advantages like that because it will alienate people. Diversity should be encouraged, not demanded.

[Amineri]

So if you see a hole in my plan you are going to have to be more specific as to what it is because, honestly, I am kinda confused as to what you are trying to say is the right course of action, and why my idea fails.

"We're going to fight crabs" ~~> Form party of 7 gladiators and a token healer.
"We're going to fight marmots" ~~> Form party of 7 pugilists and a token healer.

Plus what Micronowski said ... the idea is NOT to exclude people as much as possible. So rather than forcing each particular class to be represented, introduce a mechanic that rewards diversity over 'monochromatic' parties.

The current Battle Regimen system attempted to do this. Chaining weaponskills and/or spells from different classes was required in order to maximize the regimen damage. It didn't matter quite as much which classes they were, as long as they were different. Unfortunately, the BR system didn't live up to it's promise ... in part because the harder content that would have required their use wasn't in play, in part for other reasons.

That said, there should be content where a smaller number of party compositions will "work", but requiring it in too many cases will lead to "LFM for hours", trying to find that one <insert class here>.

[RemnantWolf]

"LFM leveling party"
"No marauders online "
"Ok guess we'll have to disband" <-- The hole in your plan

You can't give specific classes advantages like that because it will alienate people. Diversity should be encouraged, not demanded.

I guess I can see how that would be a problem. But, the fact that classes can be switched at any time is definately something that helps aleviate this problem (although it doesn't fix it I know).

But something else to take into consideration is that with SE's current attitude towards keeping things at least casual friendly we can be pretty sure that a mechanic like this would not make not having a Marauder a party breaker, just one more thing to take into consideration for for people who want to take their game that extra mile. This was more an attempt to suggest ways for SE to reward strategy and innovation, as they say they wish to, by giving every class something to bring to the table.

I don't think systems like this should be forced onto players but I do think they make great additions for people who want them.

Also how would this alienate people? I am really kinda confused as to how this would have such an effect.

[Amineri]

Also how would this alienate people? I am really kinda confused as to how this would have such an effect.

I'm not really the best person to try and understand people's motivations (being more of a logical thinker than emotionally "in tune"), but I'll give it a stab.

If you join a party, and are ready to go, but the party lead says "Oh, we have to wait, we need a MRD", it makes your own class feel marginalized. Not that your class isn't necessary or useful, but it could just feel that way to people, I guess.

A happier situation is, the party lead looks at the composition and says, "okay, we have THM, LNC, PUG, so let's look for something else to round us out." Meaning that you are doing your job, and someone else being added will add something, without overshadowing the role that you play.

Another example, maybe. In your example MRD does more damage to a crab. So, if you AREN'T playing a MRD, you are going to feel overshadowed and useless, like you might as well just sit on the sidelines and watch the MRD do everything. Completely demoralizing.

Now, if the MRD had an ability that allowed other characters to ALSO do more damage, that would make for better party play. Thinking along the lines of Comrade in Arms II. It helps the caster generate TP faster, but also helps the entire party generate TP faster and kill faster. The Lancer is contributing, without making the other players superfluous.

[RedAffinity]

I think partially why the "jobs" currently in XIV are so watered down and lack clear definition is because it was probably their original vision and solution to the issue that XI (and other mmo's) ran into.

[Physic]

I'm not really the best person to try and understand people's motivations (being more of a logical thinker than emotionally "in tune"), but I'll give it a stab.

If you join a party, and are ready to go, but the party lead says "Oh, we have to wait, we need a MRD", it makes your own class feel marginalized. Not that your class isn't necessary or useful, but it could just feel that way to people, I guess.

A happier situation is, the party lead looks at the composition and says, "okay, we have THM, LNC, PUG, so let's look for something else to round us out." Meaning that you are doing your job, and someone else being added will add something, without overshadowing the role that you play.

Another example, maybe. In your example MRD does more damage to a crab. So, if you AREN'T playing a MRD, you are going to feel overshadowed and useless, like you might as well just sit on the sidelines and watch the MRD do everything. Completely demoralizing.

Now, if the MRD had an ability that allowed other characters to ALSO do more damage, that would make for better party play. Thinking along the lines of Comrade in Arms II. It helps the caster generate TP faster, but also helps the entire party generate TP faster and kill faster. The Lancer is contributing, without making the other players superfluous.

This is a good idea, the idea of armor break etc, which goes with the idea of the marauder being strong and wrecking stuff, but also helps the overall party. So really, It comes down to creating bonuses that either help the party, or you dont get as much reward for stacking the party, like on crabs, the first marauder is really useful for breaking their armor, but after that one, teh next marader isnt really better than a lancer or pug, maybe slightly less useful because you could get comrade or something else going on with a different member.

[Peregrine]

I dunno, the idea of different classes being good at certain types of damage, and mobs being susceptible or resistant to certain types of damages just has very little potential as a "diversity" engine. It causes more problems than it's worth because someone's always going to be on the out.

There will always be that one lolibri class that everyone wants to murder by the thousands all the way to 75 if they could, and it sucks to be pugilist in tha world. They never go to bones. They always go to what you suck at.

It always sucks to be someone in that system, and it always pays to be someone else instead. I think that system just needs dropped. Adds no real diversity or tactics to the game and just excludes people.

In XI, the heavy DDs were slashers, and their neutral DPS often beat piercer-bonuses on other DDs. Thus there was no point in being a piercer class (thief, dragoon) and blunt class even (monk) unless you were a ranger because duhranger.