enhancements Class Balance Ideas

[Jova1106]

This is generally how I think most of the second classes should be balanced, in terms of general strengths and weaknesses, which would mostly be the skills that they have access to. I can probably go into further detail in the future, but this is how I'm going to do it for now. This list is going to be assuming the setting is a PVP 1v1. The two classes that I'm not going to be covering, because I think their roles aren't really suitable for 1v1s, are Cleric and Artisan. Although, I don't have enough experience on Artisan to say whether they're actually good at damaging anything. My assumption is that their primary purpose is for crafting, and Clerics are for healing and supporting, not dealing damage. I'm also going to assume that each class is neutral against itself, disregarding minor build differences. For the sake of this thread, also going to exclude Bourgeois in their current state, and instead list them as I would ideally like them to be, because it seems that they primarily rely on their summons to get stuff done, which would not be easy to balance for PVP. This stuff could most likely use a lot of refinement, but this is enough for now, and just about as well as I can do, until I can see the skill trees, to build more informed opinions.

The classes in this list are:
    Scout, Raider, Mage (no summons), Bourgeois (no summons), Champion, Knight

Scout: Ranged, typically with some kind of bow.

• Primary Strengths: High Attack Speed, High Accuracy, % Physical Defense Penetration
• Primary Weaknesses: Low Magic & Physical Defense, Low Max Health

Raider: Melee, typically with dual wielded weapons, like katars.

• Primary Strengths: High Movement Speed, High Attack Speed, High Accuracy, High Dodge Rate
• Primary Weaknesses: Low Magic & Physical Defense, Low Max Health

Mage: Melee, typically with a staff.

• Primary Strengths: Medium Magic Defense, High Magic Damage, High Burst Magic Damage, % Magic Defense Penetration, Crowd Control (Single Target & AOE Stuns, Slows, Snares, etc.)
• Primary Weaknesses: Low Physical Defense, Low Max Health

Bourgeois: Ranged, typically with a gun or a cannon.

• Primary Strengths: High Physical Damage, High Accuracy, % Physical Defense Penetration
• Primary Weaknesses: Low Attack Speed, Low Physical Defense, Low Max Health

Champion: Melee, typically with a two handed weapon, like an axe or a spear.

• Primary Strengths: Medium Max Health, High Physical Attack Damage, High Burst Physical Damage, Medium Physical Defense
• Primary Weaknesses: Low Magic Defense, Low Movement Speed

Knight: Melee, typically with a one handed weapon and a shield.

• Primary Strengths: High Max Health, High Physical Defense, % (Physical and/or Magic) Damage Absorption
• Primary Weaknesses: Low Damage Potential, Low Movement Speed

--

Synopsis:

Scout:

• Scouts should be good at dealing large amounts of damage, from somewhat far away, in a short amount of time. Given that they should be attacking quickly, and with high accuracy, they will be able to get a high number of consecutive hits on targets that don't have a high dodge rate. There should be a way for Scouts to be able to increase their physical defense penetration as a passive percentage debuff per attack, as well as abilities to temporarily increase their damage, hit-chance, and physical defense penetration for a few consecutive attacks, in addition to abilities that can slow/share their target for a brief moment.

Raider:

• Raiders should be good at moving around more swiftly than the average movement speed, but not TOO swiftly that nobody can ever catch them. There should be a couple of abilities on every class to slow/snare/debuff opponents, especially quick a opponent, like a Raider. They should also be good at hitting accurately, and with a passive percentage-based physical defense penetration, along with other abilities that help them beat up heavily armored opponents, and tear up opponents that have low physical defense. Against a Champion or Mage, Raiders should be required to be on their toes, otherwise they'll get a good chunk of their health taken away with a single ability.

Mage:

• I think a Mage should be treated like a magic version of a Champion. They should excel at dealing large amounts of magic damage in short bursts, but also have the ability to CC individuals and larger groups, which should make them stand out from other classes. The down side, however, is that they will be vulnerable to most of the other classes, due to their low max HP. They will have to skillfully shut their opponents down, before they take too much damage. In a mirror match, it should be down to who is more skilled and who has the better build, since both players will likely have decent magic defense.

Bourgeois:

• Since this is basically a version of Bourgeois that I made up, it likely conflicts with how it currently is, but that's okay. I think Bourgeois should be a version of Scout, but with guns/cannons, and a focus on low attack speed and high physical damage, rather than high attack speed and low damage. Scout and Bourgeois can both share the ability to penetrate physical defense, for the sake of countering knights. They'll be able to tear through classes with low max health as well.

Champion:

• Champions should be able to deal large amounts of physical damage in bursts, and per auto attack, but not have high physical armor penetration, and be restricted by their low movement speed and magic defense. They should be somewhat unfavored, but not too much, against Raiders, due to their medium physical defense, and somewhat favored against Knights. Due to their low physical armor penetration, but high physical damage potential, and a Knight's lack of ability to deal a lot of damage in a short amount of time, Champions should come out on top in that matchup maybe 60-70% of the time, on an equal-skill playing field. Against Mages, in most cases, I think it will be a matter of whether or not the Champion can get close enough to deal crippling blows to the Mage, before they're locked down by CC and defeated by a lot of magic damage.

Knight:

• Knights should be the class that can appeal to defensive players. I think they should have some passive abilities to deal thorns damage, which returns some damage to the attacker, for both physical and magic damage, as well as have high resistances to both physical and magic damage. Their main weakness should be their lack of ability to deal a lot of damage over a short time period, and their low movement speed. They will have to rely on absorbing and returning damage over time, and dealing smaller amounts of damage with some of their other abilities. Knights could have some physical damage CC, like the ability that slams into the ground and stuns in a radius. I think slower movement speed classes should have ranged abilities that can slow/stun their target, to help them against stronger opponents. They could also have some abilities that they can spec into, which would reduce their max potential resistances, but increase their damage potential to a somewhat medium range, to be maybe 60% of a champion's damage potential.

--

Conclusion:

• Other than these strengths and weaknesses, each class should also have abilities that help them in some minor way against their weaknesses, but not enough to significantly turn the tide of a battle by themselves. If used skillfully, you should be able to win against a hard counter maybe 35-40% of the time, if both players are equally skilled. In a game like ROSE, I think all classes should have one ability that you can skillfully time to avoid any incoming ability, and either be immune, take reduced damage, or maybe revive with a small % of your max health if you are killed (which could probably be best utilized as a passive ability). This would allow classes to fare better against stronger opponents, both skillfully and balance-wise. This post isn't perfect, and likely has a few holes that people will point out, but I think it points to the beginning of a good path for class balance.

* I think it would be a good feature to slightly increase miss chance on all attacks/abilities if a target is moving perpendicular to their attacker.

Edited July 26, 2022 by Jova1106

[Wondertje]

20 minutes ago, Jova1106 said:

I think all classes should have one ability that you can skillfully time to avoid any incoming ability, and either be immune, take reduced damage, or maybe revive with a small % of your max health if you are killed

Sounds like prayer flicking, I like this. We covered this on the Discord and I mentioned already then that I totally agree. Balancing classes like this for PvP would be a hugely beneficial move for this game!

[Ashura]

 

22 minutes ago, Jova1106 said:

This is generally how I think most of the second classes should be balanced, in terms of general strengths and weaknesses, which would mostly be the skills that they have access to. I can probably go into further detail in the future, but this is how I'm going to do it for now. This list is going to be assuming the setting is a PVP 1v1. The two classes that I'm not going to be covering, because I think their roles aren't really suitable for 1v1s, are Cleric and Artisan. Although, I don't have enough experience on Artisan to say whether they're actually good at damaging anything. My assumption is that their primary purpose is for crafting, and Clerics are for healing and supporting, not dealing damage. I'm also going to assume that each class is neutral against itself, disregarding minor build differences. For the sake of this thread, also going to exclude Bourgeois in their current state, and instead list them as I would ideally like them to be, because it seems that they primarily rely on their summons to get stuff done, which would not be easy to balance for PVP. This stuff could most likely use a lot of refinement, but this is enough for now, and just about as well as I can do, until I can see the skill trees, to build more informed opinions.

The classes in this list are:
    Scout, Raider, Mage (no summons), Bourgeois (no summons), Champion, Knight

Scout: Ranged, typically with some kind of bow.

• Primary Strengths: High Attack Speed, High Accuracy, % Physical Defense Penetration
• Primary Weaknesses: Low Magic & Physical Defense, Low Max Health

Raider: Melee, typically with dual wielded weapons, like katars.

• Primary Strengths: High Movement Speed, High Attack Speed, High Accuracy, High Dodge Rate
• Primary Weaknesses: Low Magic & Physical Defense, Low Max Health

Mage: Melee, typically with a staff.

• Primary Strengths: Medium Magic Defense, High Magic Damage, High Burst Magic Damage, % Magic Defense Penetration, Crowd Control (Single Target & AOE Stuns, Slows, Snares, etc.)
• Primary Weaknesses: Low Physical Defense, Low Max Health

Bourgeois: Ranged, typically with a gun or a cannon.

• Primary Strengths: High Physical Damage, High Accuracy, % Physical Defense Penetration
• Primary Weaknesses: Low Attack Speed, Low Physical Defense, Low Max Health

Champion: Melee, typically with a two handed weapon, like an axe or a spear.

• Primary Strengths: Medium Max Health, High Physical Attack Damage, High Burst Physical Damage, Medium Physical Defense
• Primary Weaknesses: Low Magic Defense, Low Movement Speed

Knight: Melee, typically with a one handed weapon and a shield.

• Primary Strengths: High Max Health, High Physical Defense, % (Physical and/or Magic) Damage Absorption
• Primary Weaknesses: Low Damage Potential, Low Movement Speed

--

Synopsis:

Scout:

• Scouts should be good at dealing large amounts of damage, from somewhat far away, in a short amount of time. Given that they should be attacking quickly, and with high accuracy, they will be able to get a high number of consecutive hits on targets that don't have a high dodge rate. There should be a way for Scouts to be able to increase their physical defense penetration as a passive percentage debuff per attack, as well as abilities to temporarily increase their damage, hit-chance, and physical defense penetration for a few consecutive attacks, in addition to abilities that can slow/share their target for a brief moment.

Raider:

• Raiders should be good at moving around more swiftly than the average movement speed, but not TOO swiftly that nobody can ever catch them. There should be a couple of abilities on every class to slow/snare/debuff opponents, especially quick a opponent, like a Raider. They should also be good at hitting accurately, and with a passive percentage-based physical defense penetration, along with other abilities that help them beat up heavily armored opponents, and tear up opponents that have low physical defense. Against a Champion or Mage, Raiders should be required to be on their toes, otherwise they'll get a good chunk of their health taken away with a single ability.

Mage:

• I think a Mage should be treated like a magic version of a Champion. They should excel at dealing large amounts of magic damage in short bursts, but also have the ability to CC individuals and larger groups, which should make them stand out from other classes. The down side, however, is that they will be vulnerable to most of the other classes, due to their low max HP. They will have to skillfully shut their opponents down, before they take too much damage. In a mirror match, it should be down to who is more skilled and who has the better build, since both players will likely have decent magic defense.

Bourgeois:

• Since this is basically a version of Bourgeois that I made up, it likely conflicts with how it currently is, but that's okay. I think Bourgeois should be a version of Scout, but with guns/cannons, and a focus on low attack speed and high physical damage, rather than high attack speed and low damage. Scout and Bourgeois can both share the ability to penetrate physical defense, for the sake of countering knights. They'll be able to tear through classes with low max health as well.

Champion:

• Champions should be able to deal large amounts of physical damage in bursts, and per auto attack, but not have high physical armor penetration, and be restricted by their low movement speed and magic defense. They should be somewhat unfavored, but not too much, against Raiders, due to their medium physical defense, and somewhat favored against Knights. Due to their low physical armor penetration, but high physical damage potential, and a Knight's lack of ability to deal a lot of damage in a short amount of time, Champions should come out on top in that matchup maybe 60-70% of the time, on an equal-skill playing field. Against Mages, in most cases, I think it will be a matter of whether or not the Champion can get close enough to deal crippling blows to the Mage, before they're locked down by CC and defeated by a lot of magic damage.

Knight:

• Knights should be the class that can appeal to defensive players. I think they should have some passive abilities to deal thorns damage, which returns some damage to the attacker, for both physical and magic damage, as well as have high resistances to both physical and magic damage. Their main weakness should be their lack of ability to deal a lot of damage over a short time period, and their low movement speed. They will have to rely on absorbing and returning damage over time, and dealing smaller amounts of damage with some of their other abilities. Knights could have some physical damage CC, like the ability that slams into the ground and stuns in a radius. I think slower movement speed classes should have ranged abilities that can slow/stun their target, to help them against stronger opponents. They could also have some abilities that they can spec into, which would reduce their max potential resistances, but increase their damage potential to a somewhat medium range, to be maybe 60% of a champion's damage potential.

--

Conclusion:

• Other than these strengths and weaknesses, each class should also have abilities that help them in some minor way against their weaknesses, but not enough to significantly turn the tide of a battle by themselves. If used skillfully, you should be able to win against a hard counter maybe 35-40% of the time, if both players are equally skilled. In a game like ROSE, I think all classes should have one ability that you can skillfully time to avoid any incoming ability, and either be immune, take reduced damage, or maybe revive with a small % of your max health if you are killed (which could probably be best utilized as a passive ability). This would allow classes to fare better against stronger opponents, both skillfully and balance-wise. This post isn't perfect, and likely has a few holes that people will point out, but I think it points to the beginning of a good path for class balance.

* I think it would be a good feature to slightly increase miss chance on all attacks/abilities if a target is moving perpendicular to their attacker.

Excellent post love the breakdown of pros and cons this would balance the game considerably. The considerably high dodge and high accuracy rate on raiders is the main concern as champs are the only class that looks on paper a decent test for them but the average accuracy is what tips the scales in the raiders favor.

[Ashura]

Perhaps the accuracy can be dialed a bit down to favor scouts more and to balance the competition.

Guns on a bourg will definitely help them more as their explosion skills packs a punch and if i remember correctly the skill is not locked on weapon type but class type.