Class balance is a key aspect to any MMO game that expects to be successful whether it be in PvE or PvP combat, however should classes be limited for no other reason than for the sake of balance?
In a recent interview at RockPaperShotgun, Matt Higby the Creative Director for PlanetSide 2 said something that got me thinking about what the role of developers should be in terms of balancing classes. When talking about distinctive gameplay roles in PlanetSide 2, Higby stated the following,
Like a dude with a sniper rifle AND jump jets, who can now get to a place where no-one can take him out; that’s too strong.
My questions to Mr. Higby would then be, why not allow every class to use jump jets? What is the reason, other than the developers not allowing it, that other classes cannot use them? And not just jump jets, any weapon/utility combination. Set classes and weapons are fine for FPS where the action takes place on an instanced map that never changes, but for MMOFPSs that are trying to give gamers a more dynamic battlefield, why give them static classes?
Why not allow any class to use any weapon or skill combination and allow the players themselves to find a natural balance. Games like MW2 allow players to equip any weapons, skills and utility items they want to combine and create their own custom class and while MW2 is still simplistic when compared to some MMO games, I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be introduced into MMOFPS.
One can argue that even with complete freedom in class customization a natural balance will eventually form where players figure out the best combinations of weapons and skills to combine to create the best classes. So the developers are removing that guess work and providing players with those best classes upfront. While I can see that point, I would much rather prefer the freedom to create my own class tailored to my specific play style than any premade class. What do you think? Should there be more class freedom in MMO games today?
I agree 100%. I have always prefered a class-lass character design. I also get really annoyed at artificial limits on class/race combo’s.
Outside of pre-existing lore, it makes for ease of design in PvE. Forcing people into one of the roles of the holy trinity makes things much easier. But it makes for harder balancing in PvP.
In general, PvP games tend to be more open if not class-less altogether. Even games that are class based are MUCH more open to modification within classes when they are more PvP focused games. Or course this is not always true, but it’s something I’ve noticed.
I’m not sure why they even have clases? Do the designers do it because they enjoy it in some way? Or do they just do it because everyone else does and so they really have no idea why they are coding things the way they are?
Given the whole “that’s too strong” comment, I’d suspect the latter. If the designers have classes because they enjoy them, it’s not about ‘too strong’, it’s about ‘is this delivering the thing that I enjoy’.
You know, Planetside was a good example of a classless game that worked pretty well, but you ultimately ended up with a pretty strict set of loadouts that were considered viable and a bunch of new players totally confused about what to do.
There are several reasons we like classes and added them to Planetside 2. Chief among them:
1) It creates a clear indication both to friendly and hostile forces who is who on the battlefield. Who can do what to you. If you need to be healed and you see a medic you know they can heal you, if you come around the corner and see a heavy assault enemy and you’re a light class you know to run before you get smashed. Sometimes just seeing what weapon they have equipped isn’t enough, it’s harder to read at range, etc.
2) compartmentalizing special abilities, weapons, armor types, etc. allows us to do cooler stuff and not be as worried about funky stuff happening when they’re combined. You can think of vehicles sort of like classes, they have a specific role and you accept the tradeoffs when you hop in one – and noone is upset when you can’t add jet flight to your main battle tank, are they? (Now they might be)
Could we achieve balance by letting everyone have access to every cool thing? Sure, that would be technically “balanced”, and way easier too, but, we’d probably end up with a few loadouts that were considered viable which would more than likely lead to a homogenization of infantry combat, and we’d have no concept of “recognizability”.
Some things to keep in mind: For Planetside 2 we’re talking about relatively loose restrictions that are primarily on weapon class and abilities, there will still be dozens of weapons you can can use to customize your loadout and personalize to suit your play style within those classes. Medics won’t be able to use the best heavy anti-infantry weapons, but they will have a lot of room to customize which weapons they do use. And we’re a open class game too, so if you’re bored of playing support for the night and want to wreck some shit with heavy assault, you’re never more than an equipment terminal away.
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mh
Thanks Matt for taking the time to address some of our concerns and questions :)
Hello Matt,
and noone is upset when you can’t add jet flight to your main battle tank, are they?
That’s because you have the choice to jump into a jet if you wanted flight. Your not locked into a choice on the matter.
*snip*
so if you’re bored of playing support for the night and want to wreck some shit with heavy assault, you’re never more than an equipment terminal away.
I’m not sure I understand you right – can you change classes at these equipment terminals? So much like the tank/jet change, you can change classes (at a certain change booth, basically? Ala superman in a phonebooth…)? That’s what your refering to with ‘open’ in open class?
If so it’d be worth stressing that – the gamer language for ‘class’ I’d hypothesize is heavily laden with being locked into that class forever. So people are going to read class that way, with all the ramifications they percieve to be the case. But your not, so they wont be getting to know the product your going to put out. Really have to underline the difference between classes and open classes. Imagine reading this article with the idea that classes are locked in (instead of what you know to be the case), and you can see the difference.
Or am I missunderstanding the equipment terminal?
Callan – you’re not misunderstanding at all, you’ve got it pretty much down.
Our roles/classes are closer to those in a Battlefield game than an EverQuest, you can switch any time you spawn or you can go to an equipment terminal to switch. You’re never stuck playing a role. Well, unless you’re getting browbeaten into playing support by your squad… =)
Thanks Matt,
Well, ‘open class’ is alot different from ‘class’ – really open class sounds simply like a new set of tactical choices to consider. I hope the class confusion doesn’t come up in any latter planetside 2 press! Good luck with it :)
Maybe Mike could weigh in as to whether he was taking that into account, or thinking of traditional classes when he wrote the article?
Mr. Higby you truly are a force to reckoned with.
I assumed classes would be changeable at anytime since that seems to be the norm with just about every FPS today, so I took that into account when writing this.
Planetside 2 was just my example, a lot of other MMOFPS have similar class system, so I don’t want to just pick on one game.
While I understand the argument that even in a class-less system, only a few viable loadouts/class combinations arise, it really comes down to preference and I prefer a class-less system. That said, I’ll still be playing PS2 from day one :)
I’d like to coin a couple of phrases here to help people talk about these things:
Soft Classing and Hard Classing
Think of it as a slider scale. On the “Soft” end, you have a game like Planetside 1 where there is no “Class”, but simply a mish-mash of equpiment options. On the “Hard” end you have games like Team Fortress Classic where each class is ridgedly designed and there is no variation.
I believe what the PS2 team is looking to do is find that sweet spot right in the middle. I remember an interview with Gabe Newell where he talked about “silouetting” the classes to make them quickly and easily identifiable from one another. Valve perfected that with TF2. SO I completely understand the mentality of the PS2 devs. It really is a “Best Practice” in the industry now.
And as many will recall, TF2 started out very Hard Classed, and now has softened quite a bit with the crafting / cash shop / F2P model. So, if a game like TF2 can soften and be successful, then it stands to reason that hardening up the classes in PS2 could be successful as well.
I’m excited! I can’t wait to play!
PS – Just saw the new screen shots released and all I can say is “OMG!OMG!OMG!OMG! MOOOOOOORE!!!”
D-Gen