20 Jan, 2013, salindor wrote in the 1st comment:
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So this question has been plaguing me for a long while. I actually did a little bit of reading on how at least one professional balances games akin to mortal combat etc.. balance their games.

I think that could work on any player-vs-player feature. But still since I have never actually balanced anything I was hoping some of the experts would be willing to share what they do to go about balancing a mud.

My thought to tackling this problem from a high level looks like this:
- balance player vs player using the tips for the online articles I had read in the skill system
- once complete balance player vs environment. The thought is setting a target time a player should be in combat and adjusting approprately. Then adjust the leveling based on how long I think it should take to earn a level.

Am I on the right track? Any thoughts or improvements to my approach?
21 Jan, 2013, Scandum wrote in the 2nd comment:
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Automatic balancing is generally best. Alter repop times and spawn ratios in areas that are over used. Add genetic algorithms to allow for evolution.

Add defensive skills that are raised and lowered depending on use, if most players use swords this will give someone with a spear an advantage as most players will have raised their sword defense skill at the expense of other defensive skills.

Add a real economy that uses supply and demand to determine prices. Limit the amount of money players can carry so they have to figure out alternative ways to store wealth.

Don't make equipment all important and add repairable and permanent damage so equipment is eventually destroyed.
21 Jan, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 3rd comment:
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Look at the various successful MMO's out there and see what they do.

Understand that you will NEVER make the PvP crowd and the PvE crowd happy at the same time, unless you segregate their activities so they have no influence upon one another. The vast majority of the whining in MMO forums is from PvE people griping about nerfs that happened because it rebalanced the PvP people, and visa-versa.

People talk about balance, but there are really several distinct issues.

One is the balance of one player against another… the is most important for PvP games. Nobody likes being told that their fighter will always die when fighting a mage of similar level and gear.

Another is the single player vs. the enviornment balance. Some people think any player should be able to have the same difficulty killing the same things, regardless of their class. Those people like auto-balance systems, since it makes sure that happens, at the expense of making everything feel somewhat generic. Others think it's fine for some areas to be mage-friendly, and others to be fighter-friendly, and expect the players to pick and choose areas that give them the right level of challenge for their class. The only gotcha is to ensure that every class HAS areas for each level range.

Finally, there's the group vs. group or group vs. environment balance. That's how you balance the environment to challenge a group of people playing together. The classic group of figher/mage/cleric/thief is often used as the prototype. The idea here is, some areas should be extremely difficult to solo, but offer spectacular rewards… so a group will have a much better time, and a diverse group even moreso. In graphical MMO's these are called dungeons or raids. The same kind of thinking can be applied to group PvP.

So, step 1 is to decide which of these things is important, and start thinking about how your game would react to each situation.
21 Jan, 2013, salindor wrote in the 4th comment:
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Well going to prioritize the balancing around pvp. It has been my experience with the MMOs I have played that you can always take pvp balanced characters and emerge them in a world; but you can't go the otherway around.

My hope is that there will be enough content to keep the pve guy happy; and if not well you can't please everyone. I think wow had some skills that were specific to the pve, and maybe I could take the same tact. If a particular character type is having trouble vs the environment giving that player a skill which doesn't work in pvp just to help equalize him out.

Salindor
22 Jan, 2013, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 5th comment:
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Quote
Understand that you will NEVER make the PvP crowd and the PvE crowd happy at the same time, unless you segregate their activities so they have no influence upon one another. The vast majority of the whining in MMO forums is from PvE people griping about nerfs that happened because it rebalanced the PvP people, and visa-versa.


People always whine when you change anything that change their relative power over other people anyway. What I decided a long time ago is that mobiles use the exact same skills/spell in the exact same way than characters. But they are much more limited (no multiclass, and well, a lot dumber in their skills use pattern). This way when I change something it affect pve and pvp player the exact same way.
There are also multiple skills that are quite useless in depending if you use them in pvp or pve, but they still have the exact same effect. (mostly the curses and affliction)
As a mob will usually fight you to the death, and wont try to run for its life at the first occasion. But again it is more because I made them dumber than players.
22 Jan, 2013, salindor wrote in the 6th comment:
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I like the tact you took Rarva. Honestly left to my own devices that is the exact path I am on.

How did that work out for you?
Any regrets?
How did you go about the AI? Was it more or less just a rock-paper-scissors engine with random chance? (thats the engine I am considering), or did you go a different direction.
Finally when you were designing your skills, did you have a method to your design?
22 Jan, 2013, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
salindor said:
I like the tact you took Rarva. Honestly left to my own devices that is the exact path I am on.
How did that work out for you?
Any regrets?
How did you go about the AI? Was it more or less just a rock-paper-scissors engine with random chance? (thats the engine I am considering), or did you go a different direction.
Finally when you were designing your skills, did you have a method to your design?


The few playes that I have loves the thing, pve and pvp are very different gameplay.
About the basic AI, I kind of limited it. Every mob is one class only, and only use a subset of their skill (and only the one their level has access to). The higher the level they less stupid they are though (they wont cast affliction if they already managed to do it etc). They also have some spec that can be used as well. I have a zombie spec that gives them a zombie like attitude (going where they 'hear' fighting, fighting in group, infecting other mobiles) grouping to the higher level zombie, evolving in lich etc)
And you can add mprog on top of that.

Also damage is random enough, in order to keep the 'epic' feel of it. The most damaging skill of a warrior has enough chance to fail that if he is unlucky and fail three or four times in a row he could die from a way weaker war (equipment wise) that is just lucky. It keeps the 'you never know what will happen' feel. Kinda like in sport. (mobs are off course a lot more predictable, the fight are longer as they have way more hp than players)

Quote
Finally when you were designing your skills, did you have a method to your design?

No method at all. If it sounds cool it is done. Even if it has very very few use. But I only code skills if they have an actual use, even if very limited.
(as an example I have a ventrilocate skill, that can trigger mprog from a mob as an example, like..an aggressive behaviour ;p)

For damage balancing, I have many commands that allow me to set everything I want real time, and 'accelerate' the game.
If I want to balance two fighter one using two handed weapon and another being dual handed, I just pit them against each other with humongous hp, accelerate the fight and see the result at the end.
The damaging skills are tuned differently though. I do not balance a mage raw power against a fighter raw power.
A mage should hold the warrior, dispel him from everything that helps him take less damage then apply damage. so I balance damage once afflictions are applied not before.
Some classes are obviously low in damage output, but they will far more than compensate in others ways.
A ninja will have a way to disarm an opponent and steal its weapon without the need to kill him, a cleric may walk through some places safely while a warrior would be totally swarmed, a thief will get unoticed and steal stuff.
22 Jan, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 8th comment:
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22 Jan, 2013, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 9th comment:
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Oh I also mitigated the inherently unbalanced (damaging wise) solo classes in my perticular game with use of one pet, that can be of every class. So a warrior can get a magic pet, a cleric a warrior pet etc. dependings on his gameplay wish.
23 Jan, 2013, salindor wrote in the 10th comment:
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Hey wanted to thank you all for your input. Especially Rarva and KaVir (the links you posted are a gold mine of information).
0.0/10