Homogenization(Balance) is NOT more important than immersion, variety and satisfying development

[Tygrende]

A better way to put it is that, in a singleplayer game, various playstyles and builds should be balanced against the game's content rather than each other. Doesn't matter if some are stronger than other as long as all of them provide an unique, fun and at least adequate level of challenge.

 

[Üstad]

By the love of Adanos. All masterpieces among the RPG genre are extremely unbalanced. Baldur's Gate 2? Can be soloed with certain builds and is extremely hard in another. Diablo 1 and 2? Some builds can beat the game naked where others rely a lot of gear. Might & Magic VI? Your party composition will determine the game difficulty. Demon/Dark Souls? Beating DS2 as a Rapier of Chaos(or spearman) Hexer or a Black knight Halberd Paladin is far easier than with a unarmored swordsman without a shield.

On VtMB, there are no way to make the Nosferatu curse(being deformed and not being able to even be seen by kine without breaking the masquarede) and not make a highly social game exponentially harder than a Ventrue gameplay.

Gothic is considered a masterpiece among the genre exactly because of immersion, variety and amazing sense of progression. All Gothic games(except arcania) have you going from nothing to one of the most powerful entities on the world. On G1, you can start as a nobody that a wolf can tear apart in a fraction of second and end the game as someone capable to defeating a archdemon who isw worshiped as a God. Gothic 2 follows the same formula and put the player in valley of mines on chapter 2, where he needs to think outside the box to evade facing much tougher enemies and later in the game, in the same region, now he can defeat the enemies that he was fleeing, giving a amazing sense of progression . Gothic 3 too. As a Water mage, on the beginning, i din't even had magic, i had to find someone able and willing to teach me, spend some levels only on ancient knowledge and once i learned my first water magic spell, i could only cast 6 or 3 Ice Lances per rest(3 if charged). In end game? A image worth more than just words

In multi player games SURE, having fully realism and historical accuracy can be bad. For example, Me 262 Aircraft was vastly superior to most allies planes BUT germany was terrible outnumbered on late WW2 stages. War Thunder at least on arcade mode put Me 262 VS cold war era planes. They had to do that or nerf significantly the plane performance. But in a SP mission, you can have the player having to deal with a outnumbered battle OR against much faster planes and it being interesting, fun and engaging.

Most awful things that we see in modern games, the ludicrous level of ludonarrative dissonance, the immersion breaking mechanics like cooldowns, the repetitiveness, etc are all due the "balance cult". Having a easier or a hard time in a SP RPG due your choices is not a problem.

The same applies to TTRPG's. What is the most balanced D&D edition? 4e. And 4e is exactly the most BORING to play. Everyone feels the same, there are a lot of immersion breaking mechanics and the game feel more like a TT-WoW-Clone, not a proper D&D game. To be fair, D&D 3.5e also took some inspirations on other video game RPG's, but they took inspiration on 90s CRPG's, not from wow. 5e is extremely streamlined but since is not homogenized like 4e, is fun to play.

I'm suprised you didn't mention being a stealth archer in skyrim, so much immersion afterall.

 

[fantadomat]

Balance is for multiplayer garbage,it is cancer for a single player games!

 

[Serus]

Balance is for multiplayer garbage,it is cancer for a single player games!

True. To some extent, depending what you mean by "balance". On the other hand almost everything is more important than immersion so...

 

[AdamReith]

I think the trend that we have seen is a kind of reversal in how things are refined following a successful initial design.

First pass was somebody saying "how would I go about recreating the experiences of a medieval lord, what kind of choices would he have to make and what kind of consequences would he face."

Second pass is now "how do I make the pacifist path more viable. Medievel Lords that don't maintain strong garrisons keep getting killed!".

The second completely undermines the first fundamentally. If you want balance go play table tennis or mirror matches in Starcraft.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

While I agree with the general sentiment that balance is not a be-all-end-all goal mechanically or as part of larger design...


Nosferatu clan weakness doesn't actually matter that much in VtMB. Most of the time it just means using sewers to travel, and it locks you out of a handful of side quests (or possibly one, since off-hand I can only recall Samantha). I'd actually argue that the only social effect the weakness has is actually a benefit, since it keeps you from wasting points in Subterfuge (then again, VtMB has that fairly common RPG dialogue skill problem where you have the real dialogue skill and some hanger-ons for show just because), it has no effect on Persuasion. By same token there is no real benefit to being Ventrue, Dominate is just a more expensive and worse Persuasion.

The real "do you want to have a good time or do you want to torture yourself after the point of no return" divide is if you pick a Clan that has Celerity or a Clan that doesn't.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

To be fair, D&D 3.5e also took some inspirations on other video game RPG's, but they took inspiration on 90s CRPG's, not from wow.

I've never heard of this. Elaborate.

3e's feats owe more than a little to Fallout's perks. The XP tables are the same too.

 

[Harthwain]

On VtMB, there are no way to make the Nosferatu curse(being deformed and not being able to even be seen by kine without breaking the masquarede) and not make a highly social game exponentially harder than a Ventrue gameplay.

I did play Bloodlines as Nosferatu and I was literally able to walk the streets without problem (people got scared pretty much only when you bumped directly into them). I was walking the streets, because I found walking the sewers too confusing at the beginning of the game. I think I used them [sewers] for a single quest, where you couldn't reach a location otherwise (the haunted motel/hotel, I think?). I had no issues talking to pretty much anybody who wasn't a no-name NPC and I had a reaction to me being a Nosferatu maybe twice in the entire game. One of which was entirely quest-related (something about a murderer), so I'd say Bloodlines did a pretty bad job at the whole Nosferatu thing. This is a huge reason why I didn't like Bloodlines whatsoever after playing it through to the end.

On balance - I think that's the wrong word to use. The problem isn't the balance or the lack of it. The problem is how different any given playstyle is and what upsides and drawbacks it has. In terms of how broken something is: if we talk about singleplayer, then I say it's not that big of a deal, although personally I'd rather have game being difficult over it being too easy. Too easy gets boring faster. Challenge encourages me to think how to overcome it (unless we're talking about something literally broken, but I doubt this is the case).

 

[Tyranicon]

Generally I don't think balance is a high priority in singleplayer RPG dev. My personal philosophy is that players like discovering exploits to game the system, so if they start rocking single-class parties all equipped with broken items and spells, then hey, that's their right as a paying customer.

However, be aware that extreme balance issues, especially in more difficult games, narrow the scope of available builds and playstyles, and that's a no-no.

 

[luj1]

Generally I don't think balance is a high priority in singleplayer RPG dev. My personal philosophy is that players like discovering exploits to game the system, so if they start rocking single-class parties all equipped with broken items and spells, then hey, that's their right as a paying customer.

However, be aware that extreme balance issues, especially in more difficult games, narrow the scope of available builds and playstyles, and that's a no-no.

This post is too balanced. Get him boys.

 

[Cryomancer]

• Immersion breaking mechanics like CDs
• Bullet spongee long boring combat
• Lack of variety
• Lack of replay value
• High level of ludonarrative dissoannce
• Awful necromancy that can't cast OHK spells nor reanimate armies
• Repetitiveness(every encounter feels the same)

All of this BS is justified by "balance"

 

[Mortmal]

. 5e is extremely streamlined but since is not homogenized like 4e, is fun to play.

No, streamlining is not extreme, you should try it some day with a good group. last weekend i held a game, group of oldschool vétérans (40-50+) from 8pm to 1am, no one asked for a pause or to stop and i was congratulated for DMing a true classic D&D session with great tactical encounters ..5e is true classic d&d indeed ,what you could do in AD&D or becmi you can still do now , the good ol'dungeon delve mainly, with enough depth to make it worth playing.
Some may prefer the now absurd amount of bloat pathfinder has although, and its ok too,completely understandable, its fun to make builds but really hard to keep track of everything now and slower to play.

 

[Tyranicon]

. 5e is extremely streamlined but since is not homogenized like 4e, is fun to play.

No, streamlining is not extreme, you should try it some day with a good group. last weekend i held a game, group of oldschool vétérans (40-50+) from 8pm to 1am, no one asked for a pause or to stop and i was congratulated for DMing a true classic D&D session with great tactical encounters ..5e is true classic d&d indeed ,what you could do in AD&D or becmi you can still do now , the good ol'dungeon delve mainly, with enough depth to make it worth playing.
Some may prefer the now absurd amount of bloat pathfinder has although, and its ok too,completely understandable, its fun to make builds but really hard to keep track of everything now and slower to play.

I personally like 5e, but I feel the ruleset was really designed around low-level play, and the authors kind of figured that at high-level (15+) games the players would figure things out for themselves/use lots of homebrewed stuff.

On the subject of this thread's topic though, I find 5e to be horribly balanced and since it is not a singleplayer game, it causes a lot of frustration. While I won't mind having a party full of sorcadins or coffeelocks in a singleplayer game, that really doesn't work when you play with five other people.

 

[Mortmal]

. 5e is extremely streamlined but since is not homogenized like 4e, is fun to play.

No, streamlining is not extreme, you should try it some day with a good group. last weekend i held a game, group of oldschool vétérans (40-50+) from 8pm to 1am, no one asked for a pause or to stop and i was congratulated for DMing a true classic D&D session with great tactical encounters ..5e is true classic d&d indeed ,what you could do in AD&D or becmi you can still do now , the good ol'dungeon delve mainly, with enough depth to make it worth playing.
Some may prefer the now absurd amount of bloat pathfinder has although, and its ok too,completely understandable, its fun to make builds but really hard to keep track of everything now and slower to play.

I personally like 5e, but I feel the ruleset was really designed around low-level play, and the authors kind of figured that at high-level (15+) games the players would figure things out for themselves/use lots of homebrewed stuff.

On the subject of this thread's topic though, I find 5e to be horribly balanced and since it is not a singleplayer game, it causes a lot of frustration. While I won't mind having a party full of sorcadins or coffeelocks in a singleplayer game, that really doesn't work when you play with five other people.

Its horribly balanced if you use builds to break the system , there's lot more than sorcadin and such ,you probably know it already . But pathfinder is even worse.Thats why you have a DM to limit things , you can always upscale encounters, or outlaw some builds in your setting . Lack of balance and testing stuff is big part of the fun.Break them and drink their tears
So 15+ you homebrew stuff yes no big deal its almost the end. Pick stronghold and followers pdf, you could take inspiration from old companion and master manuals, those were pretty extensive about high level campaigns , adapt it with 5E encounters. Not a big issue for me use Fantasy grounds i can easily field an horde of 30+ monsters ,or whole squads, that's the beauty of scripts and automation.

 

[Metronome]

I think it depends on the difficulty. If a lack of balance makes an easy game easier, it's no skin off my back. But if it makes a difficult game even harder, it just reduces my roleplaying options.

A lot of older roguelikes for example have a habit of not balancing classes intentionally. All this means for the majority of players is that certain ones are not worth playing. If my plan is to actually beat the game, I don't want to be pressured that way. I don't want to be told by someone "Go play the minotaur barbarian your first time, because it's easy." That's telling me to ignore the roleplaying aspect of the game entirely and to just treat it as a sub-par tactical game.

Also you can only allow a build to be so suboptimal before you're basically pitching adventure game logic. Unless you are really upfront with the calculations that go into everything, you can't judge someone for picking one build over the other. This leads to me making a lot of cynical decisions when playing RPGs. I don't want to learn my character is a dud once I've already sunk tens of hours into a game. "What would the developer do?" has become my motto and I'm not happy about it.

So that's the thing. Either make the game (relatively) easy or make it balanced. It's not so important for ARPGs as others. If player skill can act as a surrogate for a good build, that's a plus if anything. At least for games of that genre. It rewards bad builds with a pat on the back for good skill.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Balance is actually a term people use when they really mean to say, "I wish I could stop being awful at this game."

 

[Max Damage]

I doubt anybody likes same abilities/classes with different coat of paint, what I see most of time is people asking for stuff to actually get playtested so you don't get D&D 3.5E or TES levels of useless bloat and false promises.

 

[Fishy]

That's why Slitherine's planned "Master of Magic 2" can only be a disappointment. The original was one of the most gloriously broken asymmetrical games ever. The sequel will have multiplayer, and therefore will likely have an unhealthy obsession with balance. Enjoy your tier 5 world domination spell: "+3.4% critical chance to all your non-elite units during daytime (excluding bank holidays)".

 

[Cryomancer]

I'm suprised you didn't mention being a stealth archer in skyrim, so much immersion afterall.

The problem with skyrim archery is that at low/mid level is amazing. At high level, you hit the enemy head with a explosive crossbow bolt and

"must be the wind"

ts fun to make builds but really hard to keep track of everything now and slower to play.

When i used a lot of minions on 3.5e long time ago, i have used a notebook, so how much my minion army hit and how much damage they dealt was calculated by the computer. That way, 3.5e can be pretty amazing.

I doubt anybody likes same abilities/classes with different coat of paint, what I see most of time is people asking for stuff to actually get playtested so you don't get D&D 3.5E or TES levels of useless bloat and false promises.

Nice point. 3.5e Pun Pun builds are a problem, but everyone the same like 4e is also a problem and IMO is a worse problem.

That's why Slitherine's planned "Master of Magic 2" can only be a disappointment. The original was one of the most gloriously broken asymmetrical games ever. The sequel will have multiplayer, and therefore will likely have an unhealthy obsession with balance. Enjoy your tier 5 world domination spell: "+3.4% critical chance to all your non-elite units during daytime (excluding bank holidays)".

HoMM3 had MP and was extremely unbalanced.

 

[Drowed]

I think the "balance issue" depends mainly on how obvious and easy it is for you to find the most efficient strategies. If you're a storyfag and don't care about the game at all and what you're looking for is essentially an interactive book, or a controllable movie, then you may not care much. And that's all right, more power to you, I won't question your preferences in that sense.

But an integral part of every game is the challenge. It's the difficulty you have in getting to the ultimate goal. So for me, it's much less a matter of balance itself, but a matter of design. If you create a game where in the first 5 minutes the player discovers a "strategy" that he will use for the rest of the game, repeating in every encounter, without any need to think about it or require any kind of skill or reflexes, then without a doubt it's a failure of the game. It's worth mentioning that there is a difference between simply using the mechanics of the game and a strategy. Waiting for an enemy to attack you, dodging (or rolling) to make a counter-attack is a normal use of the game mechanics. Technically you could call it strategy, but essentially it's the way the game is designed to be played. But mashing buttons quickly while you rotate the control to defeat all enemies is not the same thing.

The point is, if you immediately discover a series of actions that you repeat in exactly the same way, in every encounter with all enemies and your victory is guaranteed... Are you really having fun playing? Most likely you'll say that the game is garbage and it's not funny at all. The game may as well just give you a magic sword with +1000 of damage that leaves you immortal if that is the case. In those cases and in that specific sense, I think there should be some level of "balance", which here I use in the sense that the game should be designed so that players find some kind of challenge no matter how they try to use the mechanics of the game. After all, that is (or should be) the goal of putting opponents in a game.

But if an experienced or intelligent player can think of an extremely powerful or efficient strategy that required creativity and/or effort to achieve that perhaps actually trivializes the rest of the game challenge... Leave him be. It was his merit, he discovered this combination and it is a choice he is making. Just like some players create artificial challenges to make the game more interesting for themselves (like winning a game without the party, or without magicians, or in ironman mode), there are players who have fun finding ways to break the game. You don't have to create a game where everyone will have the same experience and difficulty with the same enemies at the same intensity, no matter what they choose to do. First because it's impossible, then it's a waste of time, and second because in a way you end up with just one of the challenges of the game - now, players don't have to think about the best way to create a character or use them, just pick whatever. And push some buttons.

There are different ways of dealing with challenges and it is normal that some are more or less easy in certain contexts. Not only normal, it is expected.

 

[Cryomancer]

If you create a game where in the first 5 minutes the player discovers a "strategy" that he will use for the rest of the game, repeating in every encounter, without any need to think about it or require any kind of skill or reflexes,

I saw exactly overbalanced games with this flaw, mostly mmos where you spam the same rotation over and over...

The game may as well just give you a magic sword with +1000 of damage that leaves you immortal if that is the case. In those cases and in that specific sense

The problem with it is not necessarily balance is because :

• Why a noob is having access to such weaponry that warlords all over the world would fight to the death for the chance of getting such weaponry?
• Who created such a item?
• Why the guy who created such a item only created one item?
• Why nobody tried to replicate the effect of such item?
• Why no one tries to disarm the player?
• Why such weapon is indestructible?
• The spell effect of this weapon can be dispelled?

Give such a item to the low level PC would't make any sense.

At the same way that start FNV with Anti Materiel rifle and unlimited amount of explosive .50 BMG ammo would't make any sense. IS a weapon hard to obtain by a reason.

Or VtMB, Kindred is weak to fire, so the Flamethrower is the best "anti kindred" weapon in the game but ammo is extremely expensive and due the fact that vampires have influence on society, they try to make this weapons hard to obtain even illegally.

If you have enemies, a progression, a magic or a weapon combat that makes sense, this "one strategy to complete the game" wouldn't be even possible.

PS ; I an much more a "immersion fag" than a "storyfag". M&B is a amazing game and have no story.

 

[Cryomancer]

All of my most played games are extremely unbalanced.

 

[fantadomat]

All of my most played games are extremely unbalanced.

Fuck,your top list does looks pretty much like mine

 

[Momock]

The need for "balance" comes from players selecting the "wrong" class for a noob a getting powned by the game. Then they think they need balance, while in reality what they need is just a label (easy, medium, hard, or beginner, normal, pro) in the classes descriptions. Then the game isn't "unbalanced" anymore (a negative), you just select a difficulty level that in addition changes your playstyle (a big positive). It's all psychological.

 

[AscendedFlames]

Not only is it a problem of people selecting the wrong difficulty, but also a lack of mastery of the mechanics itself. I think for you to have "fun" you have to spend time learning the mechanics first and knowing all of your options, which can then lead to make the decisions that you want so there won't be any doubt of whether you think you lost due to lack of knowledge on your part or because of bad strategy. Then again you would have to slowly introduce additional mechanics and new enemies to keep the game fresh.