res7less
Jumpkin
I. The Prologue
With the the upcoming skill system rework, there were several things circling around in my mind - sometimes it just takes a while until they turn into a presentable form if I don't give them my full attention. At first I was thinking about the most efficient way to analyze the current skills to find the flaws and balance them out, until it became apparent that it would require at least a weak full time work to do it properly without the background information of the basis those skills came to be in the first place. And while it does sound tempting, I should better not mess with my schedule - bad things happen to good people, if I do. It would require tedious testing to find out the numbers everything is based on and in the end I would still lack the exact knowledge of the back thoughts which made the skills what they are.
In short, I changed my approach to creating something like alternative chains of thoughts to consider. I'm fully aware that working on the same project over and over again may result in tunnel vision, when you start feeling like a hamster in a wheel, so fresh ideas and alternative perspective (which might coincide with the original ones, of course) may help finding the way that suits your requirements best - and those I am happy to provide.
II. The Setup
So, the game right now basically has three main modes that use their current skills. The Story Mode, the Hard Mode and the Arcade Mode. The essence of those three modes is inherently different and they provide gameplay for different types of players.
Story Mode
This is the basic mode, where the main aspect is obviously the story. The player is new to the game and continues to play to find out, what is there to see. He has no set goal except for just enjoying the content and having fun. The skills and combat represent a big chunk of the gameplay, but are not the player's focus. They provide the means for the player to develop his character and shape it to fit his own playstyle. Basically, fun is generated by exploring everything the game to offer, playing with friends, learning the game, meeting new characters and playing casually.
Hard Mode
This advanced Story Mode is supposed to give players a challenge. Here, the combat becomes the main focus and Skills and Equipment start to really matter. The player(s) no longer derive fun from exploring, but from managing to master the difficult challenges they get offered. The sense of achievement is what drives players, who focus on this mode. The skills are the tools that the player has to reach that goal.
Arcade Mode
The Arcade Mode's only difference to the Hard Mode in regard of satisfaction is, that the Hard Mode is finite. It can be completed and as soon as it is, the player is done and can drop the mic. The Arcade Mode however, is where the competitive aspect joins the fray. And as soon as that happens, the game is on as long as there are better players than yourself out there. Here, the combat is not only the main focus, it also matters how well you can theorycraft (or just copy others' builds).
While the things I explained may be obvious to some, it's still important to recall them as they are the basis for the skills' design or redesign. In each mode they serve different purposes and should be treated accordingly.
III. The Conclusion
So, what did we learn? The skills and combat are more important in some modes than in others. They require hardcore balancing in Arcade Mode to provide the player with what he needs to be able to contest other players, while they are only means to an end in the Story Mode.
This is why for the sake of balancing, I think the skills that can be used in those modes should be separated.
Think about it. You could take a certain, limited core set of skills into the Arcade Mode and perfectly balance them out. Then, you take that core, change it up to be more fun/flexible/crazy and add it to the Story Mode where balancing doesn't really matter. Plus, you have the creative freedom to conjure up new fun and crazy skills, add them to Story Mode all you like and they won't affect your precious hard earned Arcade Mode balancing at all!
Due to the different nature of the modes, Arcade Mode skills need balancing, Story Mode skills not necessarily. Sure, they shouldn't be completely wacky and out of this world, but even if they were, it won't matter as much as it has no influence on the sensitive Arcade Mode environment. That's most certainly the reason why Hearthstone has a Standard and Wild mode, why Starcraft ladder has different units than Campaign and so on. It's basically like PvE vs. PvP and Arcade Mode is sort of indirect PvP. It makes balancing easier for the parts that require it and simultaneously gives you the freedom to make the game rewarding for players who randomly pick skills with no clue about what they're doing.
The only outsider here, I guess, is the Hard Mode. It's actually more similar to the Arcade Mode than to the Story Mode in regard of the importance of combat, but unlike the Arcade Mode, you can influence your success by leveling, using pots and having proper equipment. So I think it would be fine to use the same kit in Story Mode and Hard Mode since in Hard Mode it's good if randomly picking skills doesn't work.
IV. The Approach
Having attended to that matter, I'd like to discuss ways to balance skills for the Arcade Mode. While I, too, enjoy just making up cool skills or realize neat ideas, in the Arcade Mode they would require a system backing them. It's fine and good having a sense of what might be right and wrong, but when you create skills based on the same system, they are more likely to turn out balanced, requiring minimal subsequent adjustment, than if you just make them up without any basis. Having said that, I don't have any information whether or not such a system exists for the current skills and trying to test everything myself, would, as I mentioned in the prologue, require a lot of time.
So, instead, I will give an example of how it could be done and try to explain why some of the current skills are much stronger than others.
The skills need some sort of a rating system to be able to compare them. Some way to say Skill A > Skill B. While it is almost impossible to solve it purely mathematically, you can create a rough rating system by taking major aspects of the skills' overall properties and bring them face to face. It does not matter much, if the rating system itself seems rough: as long as all skills are based off the same system, they will be balanced in contrast to each other. There are some exceptions of course, like skills that behave entirely different (those will need more attention and testing), but the core skills should be able to get balanced that way.
Let's at first take the properties into the rating system, where we can have actual numbers at first:
- stDPS (single-target Damage per Second)
- mtDPS (multi-target Damage per Second)
- Range
Those are the more obvious ones and can be compared almost directly. The mtDPS property rises with the number of enemies, even exponentially for some skills, of course, but the point here is to create some kind of 1-10 system to estimate the skills and put them on a scale. Since we also need to compare skills that cost Energy with auto-attacking or pets, we can't take the Energy Cost itself as a rating criteria.
Another property I would like to call Availability. This property basically tells you, how often you can use a skill, before you're forced to do something else, as in wait for EP to regenerate. Then, I would add the property Control - this tells you, how well you are able to utilize the skill without taking damage yourself by controlling enemies. Similar to Control, there should also be a Mobility property - this how well you are able to avoid damage, without influencing enemies when utilizing that skill. And lastly, Reliability - this property rates how likely a skill is to hit its target, covering for the possibility of using your EP, but failing to do any damage. There may be more valid criteria and more precise ones if you know the origin of the skills, which I don't, but I think those criteria will do for now.
Another problem hindering the rating's accuracy is comparing the criteria themselves to each other since not all properties are equal. When tweaking a skill by raising one property, it might be not as effective as raising another. But that is the nature of design: there is no right solution. Having been a perfectionist all my life, who tweaks and tinkers until it satisfies, I had to learn that perfect design results aren't always good as they sometimes might lack the soul, appearing perfect but sterile, devoid of life. Games have to be alive and imperfect - flaws are what makes them beautiful and charismatic. It's the (not really) ancient question of whether or not game design is an art or a science. Well, after straying a bit to invigorate the otherwise probably dry reading, I shall continue.
We have now our Frankenstein rating system:
- stDPS
- mtDPS
- Range
- Availability
- Reliability
- Mobility
- Control
And even with that makeshift system we can easily see, why, for example, Flamethrower is overpowered. Let's for example try to rate Heroic Slam, one of the basic 2-handed Abilities based on that system. My interpretation would be as follows:
Heroic Slam
stDPS: 8
mtDPS: 10
Range: 5
Availability: 2
Reliability: 7
Mobility: 2
Control: 7
Rating: 41
Flamethrower
stDPS: 7
mtDPS: 8
Range: 4
Availability: 7
Reliability: 8
Mobility: 10
Control: 9
Rating: 53
Having seven categories, max 10 points each, theoretically an average skill would be worth 35 points. Both skills are above average, but Flamethrower is well beyond. The reason why I gave it a 7 in Availability despite theoretically empty EP after one use is that you can turn it off at will, saving precious EP if you screw up the direction and because EP can regenerate while you're dealing damage. You can't do that with Heroic Slam. Overall, Flamethrower excels at all the important aspects of survivability in Arcade Mode: Mobility (avoid Damage by moving), Control (avoid Damage by moving enemies) and DPS (clearing enemies quickly for points). The only reason it's so good in control, is that enemies are pushed back by every damage they take. To balance it, its rating has to be lowered by at least 10 points, which is not easy to do without nerf the skill into the ground. Lowering mobility and DPS would be a good start.
Now, let's rate some skills that are underused:
Ice Nova
stDPS: 1
mtDPS: 3
Range: 4
Availability: 4
Reliability: 8
Mobility: 5
Control: 9
Rating: 34
According to the rating, it's about average, but we all know it's a bad skill. This is what I meant by the varying importance of single parameters. In order the skill to be useful, it needs to have higher DPS and availability (lower EP cost).
Chain Lightning
stDPS: 2
mtDPS: 5
Range: 3
Availability: 4
Reliability: 8
Mobility: 5
Control: 3
Rating: 30
It's unbelievable, but it actually got a worse rating than Ice Nova. I guess it's because they're similar except for the control aspect, where Chain Lightning is supposed to be strong in mtDPS, which is currently not the case, though. When testing, I needed about 30 EP to kill 4 Enemies with Flame Thrower, whereas it wasn't enough to empty the EP bar to kill them with Chain Lightning.
Let's try rating Frosty Friend. Summons are probably those skills which will always require special attention and tweaking when balancing since they can't be put into some categories.
Frosty Friend
stDPS: 5
mtDPS: 3
Range: 10
Availability: 6
Reliability: 4
Mobility: 10
Control: 7
Rating: 45
My logic is that since he acts without your input, the Range and Mobility are basically unlimited. Availability takes into account that he blocks out a huge chunk of EP, but also that he becomes unavailable if he dies. Control is high because enemies target him instead of its master. Altogether, not as high a rating as Flame Thrower, but still pretty decent. Since his Mobility and Range basically can't be nerfed, perhaps lowering his Control is a possibility by aggroing only damaged enemies on him. He only seems slightly overpowered, though.
Well, I could go on with other skills, but this thread has taken me already about 3 hours to write (while testing in the background), so I will stop now. Point is, there is a way to align all skills to each other based on a system, rather than making them from scratch and balancing afterwards. But since they're already there, it might be done this way. And don't forget considering the skill kit separation.
Greetz,
res7less
PS: I was also thinking about Support Skills, but I don't have the energy right now to finish it, but maybe next time. Hope this helps!
With the the upcoming skill system rework, there were several things circling around in my mind - sometimes it just takes a while until they turn into a presentable form if I don't give them my full attention. At first I was thinking about the most efficient way to analyze the current skills to find the flaws and balance them out, until it became apparent that it would require at least a weak full time work to do it properly without the background information of the basis those skills came to be in the first place. And while it does sound tempting, I should better not mess with my schedule - bad things happen to good people, if I do. It would require tedious testing to find out the numbers everything is based on and in the end I would still lack the exact knowledge of the back thoughts which made the skills what they are.
In short, I changed my approach to creating something like alternative chains of thoughts to consider. I'm fully aware that working on the same project over and over again may result in tunnel vision, when you start feeling like a hamster in a wheel, so fresh ideas and alternative perspective (which might coincide with the original ones, of course) may help finding the way that suits your requirements best - and those I am happy to provide.
II. The Setup
So, the game right now basically has three main modes that use their current skills. The Story Mode, the Hard Mode and the Arcade Mode. The essence of those three modes is inherently different and they provide gameplay for different types of players.
Story Mode
This is the basic mode, where the main aspect is obviously the story. The player is new to the game and continues to play to find out, what is there to see. He has no set goal except for just enjoying the content and having fun. The skills and combat represent a big chunk of the gameplay, but are not the player's focus. They provide the means for the player to develop his character and shape it to fit his own playstyle. Basically, fun is generated by exploring everything the game to offer, playing with friends, learning the game, meeting new characters and playing casually.
Hard Mode
This advanced Story Mode is supposed to give players a challenge. Here, the combat becomes the main focus and Skills and Equipment start to really matter. The player(s) no longer derive fun from exploring, but from managing to master the difficult challenges they get offered. The sense of achievement is what drives players, who focus on this mode. The skills are the tools that the player has to reach that goal.
Arcade Mode
The Arcade Mode's only difference to the Hard Mode in regard of satisfaction is, that the Hard Mode is finite. It can be completed and as soon as it is, the player is done and can drop the mic. The Arcade Mode however, is where the competitive aspect joins the fray. And as soon as that happens, the game is on as long as there are better players than yourself out there. Here, the combat is not only the main focus, it also matters how well you can theorycraft (or just copy others' builds).
While the things I explained may be obvious to some, it's still important to recall them as they are the basis for the skills' design or redesign. In each mode they serve different purposes and should be treated accordingly.
III. The Conclusion
So, what did we learn? The skills and combat are more important in some modes than in others. They require hardcore balancing in Arcade Mode to provide the player with what he needs to be able to contest other players, while they are only means to an end in the Story Mode.
This is why for the sake of balancing, I think the skills that can be used in those modes should be separated.
Think about it. You could take a certain, limited core set of skills into the Arcade Mode and perfectly balance them out. Then, you take that core, change it up to be more fun/flexible/crazy and add it to the Story Mode where balancing doesn't really matter. Plus, you have the creative freedom to conjure up new fun and crazy skills, add them to Story Mode all you like and they won't affect your precious hard earned Arcade Mode balancing at all!
Due to the different nature of the modes, Arcade Mode skills need balancing, Story Mode skills not necessarily. Sure, they shouldn't be completely wacky and out of this world, but even if they were, it won't matter as much as it has no influence on the sensitive Arcade Mode environment. That's most certainly the reason why Hearthstone has a Standard and Wild mode, why Starcraft ladder has different units than Campaign and so on. It's basically like PvE vs. PvP and Arcade Mode is sort of indirect PvP. It makes balancing easier for the parts that require it and simultaneously gives you the freedom to make the game rewarding for players who randomly pick skills with no clue about what they're doing.
The only outsider here, I guess, is the Hard Mode. It's actually more similar to the Arcade Mode than to the Story Mode in regard of the importance of combat, but unlike the Arcade Mode, you can influence your success by leveling, using pots and having proper equipment. So I think it would be fine to use the same kit in Story Mode and Hard Mode since in Hard Mode it's good if randomly picking skills doesn't work.
IV. The Approach
Having attended to that matter, I'd like to discuss ways to balance skills for the Arcade Mode. While I, too, enjoy just making up cool skills or realize neat ideas, in the Arcade Mode they would require a system backing them. It's fine and good having a sense of what might be right and wrong, but when you create skills based on the same system, they are more likely to turn out balanced, requiring minimal subsequent adjustment, than if you just make them up without any basis. Having said that, I don't have any information whether or not such a system exists for the current skills and trying to test everything myself, would, as I mentioned in the prologue, require a lot of time.
So, instead, I will give an example of how it could be done and try to explain why some of the current skills are much stronger than others.
The skills need some sort of a rating system to be able to compare them. Some way to say Skill A > Skill B. While it is almost impossible to solve it purely mathematically, you can create a rough rating system by taking major aspects of the skills' overall properties and bring them face to face. It does not matter much, if the rating system itself seems rough: as long as all skills are based off the same system, they will be balanced in contrast to each other. There are some exceptions of course, like skills that behave entirely different (those will need more attention and testing), but the core skills should be able to get balanced that way.
Let's at first take the properties into the rating system, where we can have actual numbers at first:
- stDPS (single-target Damage per Second)
- mtDPS (multi-target Damage per Second)
- Range
Those are the more obvious ones and can be compared almost directly. The mtDPS property rises with the number of enemies, even exponentially for some skills, of course, but the point here is to create some kind of 1-10 system to estimate the skills and put them on a scale. Since we also need to compare skills that cost Energy with auto-attacking or pets, we can't take the Energy Cost itself as a rating criteria.
Another property I would like to call Availability. This property basically tells you, how often you can use a skill, before you're forced to do something else, as in wait for EP to regenerate. Then, I would add the property Control - this tells you, how well you are able to utilize the skill without taking damage yourself by controlling enemies. Similar to Control, there should also be a Mobility property - this how well you are able to avoid damage, without influencing enemies when utilizing that skill. And lastly, Reliability - this property rates how likely a skill is to hit its target, covering for the possibility of using your EP, but failing to do any damage. There may be more valid criteria and more precise ones if you know the origin of the skills, which I don't, but I think those criteria will do for now.
Another problem hindering the rating's accuracy is comparing the criteria themselves to each other since not all properties are equal. When tweaking a skill by raising one property, it might be not as effective as raising another. But that is the nature of design: there is no right solution. Having been a perfectionist all my life, who tweaks and tinkers until it satisfies, I had to learn that perfect design results aren't always good as they sometimes might lack the soul, appearing perfect but sterile, devoid of life. Games have to be alive and imperfect - flaws are what makes them beautiful and charismatic. It's the (not really) ancient question of whether or not game design is an art or a science. Well, after straying a bit to invigorate the otherwise probably dry reading, I shall continue.
We have now our Frankenstein rating system:
- stDPS
- mtDPS
- Range
- Availability
- Reliability
- Mobility
- Control
And even with that makeshift system we can easily see, why, for example, Flamethrower is overpowered. Let's for example try to rate Heroic Slam, one of the basic 2-handed Abilities based on that system. My interpretation would be as follows:
Heroic Slam
stDPS: 8
mtDPS: 10
Range: 5
Availability: 2
Reliability: 7
Mobility: 2
Control: 7
Rating: 41
Flamethrower
stDPS: 7
mtDPS: 8
Range: 4
Availability: 7
Reliability: 8
Mobility: 10
Control: 9
Rating: 53
Having seven categories, max 10 points each, theoretically an average skill would be worth 35 points. Both skills are above average, but Flamethrower is well beyond. The reason why I gave it a 7 in Availability despite theoretically empty EP after one use is that you can turn it off at will, saving precious EP if you screw up the direction and because EP can regenerate while you're dealing damage. You can't do that with Heroic Slam. Overall, Flamethrower excels at all the important aspects of survivability in Arcade Mode: Mobility (avoid Damage by moving), Control (avoid Damage by moving enemies) and DPS (clearing enemies quickly for points). The only reason it's so good in control, is that enemies are pushed back by every damage they take. To balance it, its rating has to be lowered by at least 10 points, which is not easy to do without nerf the skill into the ground. Lowering mobility and DPS would be a good start.
Now, let's rate some skills that are underused:
Ice Nova
stDPS: 1
mtDPS: 3
Range: 4
Availability: 4
Reliability: 8
Mobility: 5
Control: 9
Rating: 34
According to the rating, it's about average, but we all know it's a bad skill. This is what I meant by the varying importance of single parameters. In order the skill to be useful, it needs to have higher DPS and availability (lower EP cost).
Chain Lightning
stDPS: 2
mtDPS: 5
Range: 3
Availability: 4
Reliability: 8
Mobility: 5
Control: 3
Rating: 30
It's unbelievable, but it actually got a worse rating than Ice Nova. I guess it's because they're similar except for the control aspect, where Chain Lightning is supposed to be strong in mtDPS, which is currently not the case, though. When testing, I needed about 30 EP to kill 4 Enemies with Flame Thrower, whereas it wasn't enough to empty the EP bar to kill them with Chain Lightning.
Let's try rating Frosty Friend. Summons are probably those skills which will always require special attention and tweaking when balancing since they can't be put into some categories.
Frosty Friend
stDPS: 5
mtDPS: 3
Range: 10
Availability: 6
Reliability: 4
Mobility: 10
Control: 7
Rating: 45
My logic is that since he acts without your input, the Range and Mobility are basically unlimited. Availability takes into account that he blocks out a huge chunk of EP, but also that he becomes unavailable if he dies. Control is high because enemies target him instead of its master. Altogether, not as high a rating as Flame Thrower, but still pretty decent. Since his Mobility and Range basically can't be nerfed, perhaps lowering his Control is a possibility by aggroing only damaged enemies on him. He only seems slightly overpowered, though.
Well, I could go on with other skills, but this thread has taken me already about 3 hours to write (while testing in the background), so I will stop now. Point is, there is a way to align all skills to each other based on a system, rather than making them from scratch and balancing afterwards. But since they're already there, it might be done this way. And don't forget considering the skill kit separation.
Greetz,
res7less
PS: I was also thinking about Support Skills, but I don't have the energy right now to finish it, but maybe next time. Hope this helps!
Last edited:
I only meant that when the competetive aspect joins the fray, there needs to be some kind of system core skills can be based off to have a solid ground to build on.
)