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The Illusion of Class Balancing


SamuelAU

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I'm starting this thread in regard to my concerns about Bioware's approach to balancing DPS in a PvE environment. I understand that class changes will undoubtedly have an effect on PvP and thus all changes have to take into consideration both environments, but the nuts and bolts of my argument are quite general.

 

Every class gets a variety of changes, either buffs or nerfs or both, every patch. Most recently (2.8) powertechs, sorcerers and assassins were on the receiving end of some massive buffs, and even marauders got some love. These are the new FOTM (Flavor of the Month) classes. Before that, it was operatives and juggernauts getting buffed in patch 2.6 and having their run as FOTM. If class balancing was really happening in SWTOR, then FOTM wouldn't be a thing. Every class would be equally viable, within a very small percentage, at all levels of play. I'm going to try and outline some of my problems with FOTM.

 

I'm just going to say that my main is a gunslinger, so I can't avoid being biased here. Why should I even play a gunslinger though? My healers don't need the ballistic shield to survive certain fights, and I have a sage and shadow at level 55. In equal gear, either of those classes will easily pull over 300 DPS more than my gunslinger. What reason do I have to stick with the class that I know and love? If I feel like I'm letting myself and my group down by playing the class which has been my main since before 2.0, surely something's not right.

 

On the other hand, you're giving average or below-average players an easy route to performing better in raids. Now I'm not trying to say I have a problem with people performing better, but forgoing the process of learning your class and how to best utilize it in different environments isn't the way to go about that. It doesn't feel fair that the best snipers and juggernauts are in the shadow of some really average shadows and sorcerers, because the latter jumped ship for easy results without actually doing anything.

 

Even within each class there isn't balancing. Deception doesn't have a chance against madness for assassins, with a disparity of 400-500 DPS. Madness even has the AoE capability that deception lacks, so the disparity becomes even more pronounced in fights where you can take advantage of death field on multiple targets. Concealment operatives are great, but lethality operatives under-perform so much in comparison, with slightly more AoE, significantly lower sustained DPS and significantly lower burst. Pyro powertechs are also top-notch DPS, and AP struggles to keep up even with flamethrower on multiple targets. See what I'm trying to get at? When considering buffs and nerfs, the devs seem to neglect one spec and throw a multitude of DPS upgrades at the other spec and call it 'balancing'.

 

Back before 2.8 was live, there was a great thread on the PTS about how the devs could make some small tweaks to numbers to bring deception assassin DPS back in line with the average across other classes. It was a great thread, really well thought out with everything clearly calculated, but no such change was seen. I can't recall the author of the thread, and the PTS forums have sinced been archived so I don't have any evidence. But even when someone already did the numbers work for the devs, they just ignored the topic. DPS imbalance won't go away if you just pretend it doesn't exist!

 

Getting to the end of my point, the idea of class balancing is that every DPS class, every DPS spec should be equally viable, leaving players free to choose a class that they like; whether it be play-style or some other arbitrary reason like the species of your character (guilty!). This isn't much of a problem at a SM level, becomes a problem at HM and is an actual issue at NiM. Having seasons of performing well and performing poorly for each class isn't going to cut it, and at the moment what we're seeing is big buffs to counter previous big buffs to counter previous buffs. A spec shouldn't go from being irrelevant to the highest performing spec in the game in one patch. There's no reason for there to be FOTM classes, no reason for each spec to not be equally viable, and it's okay to make small changes, little tweaks as necessary to keep the peace.

 

Input would be greatly appreciated, if only to make sure I'm not a lunatic who's missed the point.

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*snip*

Getting to the end of my point, the idea of class balancing is that every DPS class, every DPS spec should be equally viable, leaving players free to choose a class that they like; whether it be play-style or some other arbitrary reason like the species of your character (guilty!). This isn't much of a problem at a SM level, becomes a problem at HM and is an actual issue at NiM. Having seasons of performing well and performing poorly for each class isn't going to cut it, and at the moment what we're seeing is big buffs to counter previous big buffs to counter previous buffs. A spec shouldn't go from being irrelevant to the highest performing spec in the game in one patch. There's no reason for there to be FOTM classes, no reason for each spec to not be equally viable, and it's okay to make small changes, little tweaks as necessary to keep the peace.

 

Input would be greatly appreciated, if only to make sure I'm not a lunatic who's missed the point.

 

I was with you until this last bit. To be clear, I agree BioWare's efforts to balance each AC and spec's DPS has not been very good, and it has led to FOTM specs as well as some specs going from zero to hero.

 

However, I must disagree that every AC and class should all be equally viable. I want specs and ACs to be unique; I want them to play differently. The homogenization of ACs/specs leads to bland game play in my opinion.

 

I believe each spec should offer a unique damage profile; the obvious variations include: sustained, burst and AoE. For pure DPS classes - Snipers/Gunslingers and Maras/Sents - I would expect them to have access to all three damage profiles. Other classes would only have access to two given their ability to tank or heal as well. Now, I would expect all ACs sustained DPS specs to be approximately equal on the dummy. (In a real fight, this would change some due to fight mechanics.) Similarly, I would expect near parity for the various AoE and burst specs.

 

Ultimately, I think it comes down to fight design to ensure that each AC/spec has at least one viable option for the fight. However, not every spec should be equally viable, but they all should be viable.

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I was with you until this last bit. To be clear, I agree BioWare's efforts to balance each AC and spec's DPS has not been very good, and it has led to FOTM specs as well as some specs going from zero to hero.

 

However, I must disagree that every AC and class should all be equally viable. I want specs and ACs to be unique; I want them to play differently. The homogenization of ACs/specs leads to bland game play in my opinion.

 

I believe each spec should offer a unique damage profile; the obvious variations include: sustained, burst and AoE. For pure DPS classes - Snipers/Gunslingers and Maras/Sents - I would expect them to have access to all three damage profiles. Other classes would only have access to two given their ability to tank or heal as well. Now, I would expect all ACs sustained DPS specs to be approximately equal on the dummy. (In a real fight, this would change some due to fight mechanics.) Similarly, I would expect near parity for the various AoE and burst specs.

 

Ultimately, I think it comes down to fight design to ensure that each AC/spec has at least one viable option for the fight. However, not every spec should be equally viable, but they all should be viable.

I should have elaborated a bit more, but thought the OP was getting a bit lengthy. Case in point for every spec being viable but not equally viable is rage vs vengeance. Rage is subpar on a dummy but becomes equal or superior to vengenace in AoE situations, which makes both specs viable depending on the situation. Appreciate the reply :)

Edited by SamuelAU
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I think a large part of that is a big community problem.

 

Even when receiving the slightest well deserved nerfs (just read the current threads about the Enraged Defense nerf), almost every person that plays this class completely freaks out on the forum.

 

Bioware even ackknowledged that and said that they will more or less only buff classes ("because it makes people happy"), which is why we currently see an even bigger disparity in class balance (especially regarding tank vs dps balance) then ever before. 2.8 was a big step backwards in terms of class balance.

 

Bioware is interested in paying costumers, not in class balance. As 95%+ of the community is not interested in class balance but in buffs we will never see class balance.

 

About the sustained dummy dps from the top post: There's anyway no sustained single target dummy dps check in the game, so i don't think that dummy dps is important for raids. Snipers are very good for all dps checks in the game in my opinion (yes also for dread council second phase).

Edited by THoK-Zeus
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I should have elaborated a bit more, but thought the OP was getting a bit lengthy. Case in point for every spec being viable but not equally viable is rage vs vengeance. Rage is subpar on a dummy but becomes equal or superior to vengenace in AoE situations, which makes both specs viable depending on the situation. Appreciate the reply :)

 

I appreciate how fight requirements affect the optimal spec. Still, I read your diatribe as "I like playing Sharpshooter better than Saboteur or Dirty Fighting so I should be able to play this spec in every fight and preform equally as well." (I know this is a simplistic version of your post, and my simplification is not meant to sound argumentative.) I disagree with this notion; I do however think the following statements should be true:

 

  • I like playing Sharpshooter, which is a burst spec. Thus, I would expect to perform approximately equal to a Combat Sentinel, another burst spec.
  • By playing Sharpshooter, I accept that in a single target boss fight with high uptime I expect to do less damage than Dirty Fighting, which is DoT-based and better designed for sustained damage.
  • Further by playing Sharpshooter, I accept that in an add-heavy boss fight I expect to do less damage than Saboteur, which is an AoE spec.
  • Finally, I accept that my sub-optimal damage profile will make some fights more challenging - in the case of nightmare fights it may be impossible depending on the rest of my group.

 

So to recap my perspective, each spec should be unique, but there should be parity across similar damage profiles. Further, some specs will outperform others depending on the fight mechanics. I think this is an important distinction from what you outlined.

 

I think we generally agree on the rest of the issues. And not to restate everything you said, but class balancing has been frustratingly slow, and often the changes result in wild discrepancies in the attractiveness of each AC/spec. Certainly there is a better way to do this - either more thought-out significant changes for all or more frequent smaller changes for a few?

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Very good post, tough as others above have said not all specs should parse same.

Lets take Sentinel's Combat and Watchman to comparation: Combat has good burst and mediocore sustained; Watchman has arguably the highest sustained in game but about zero burst. Then it's up to players preference.

 

Also my main annoyance is Bio's too hard-handed nerfs and buffs: Focus needed nerf, but not as big as it got with 2.7

Shadow's Balance also got a bit too much buff last patch. But just a little bit too much.

Bio seems to have "everything or nothing" mentality when thinking about class balance, which, as mentioned above, leads to FOTM and zero to hero specs (or hero to zero)

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I tend to agree with Oofalong on balanceing with regards to strengths and weaknesses of speccs. And I also think Sharpshooter/Marksman is still in a pretty good place for a lot of fights.

 

But what they really should have done in 2.8. for Slingers/Snipers: Give them something to make up for lost DPS from relic double procs, like they did for Watchmen/Annihilation with increased DoT damage!

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The devs simply don't have the time to work on every spec of every AC simultaneously in every major patch.

 

So they pick a few specs they think are underperforming, try to bring them up to par and play more smoothly, then evaluate the effect of their changes before moving on to the next spec.

 

Yes this creates FOTMs and it sucks waiting for your own class's turn in the spotlight.

 

But what would you have them do? Have an entire year between each balance change so they can include every spec, and release them all simultaneously with no real idea what the combined effect will be of all those changes?

 

And hey, IIRC Gunslinger/Sniper (specifically right and middle tree) is set to be the next FOTM.

Edited by OniGanon
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And hey, IIRC Gunslinger/Sniper (specifically right and middle tree) is set to be the next FOTM.

 

I think you may be right, but to be honest, where 2.8 knocked snipers down to the bottom on the dummy, in a lot of raids they're still really good, zorz cleared timed run on DP with 1 or 2 snipers every fight and severity had 4(?) on their clear. IMO snipers will get a minor damage buff to lethality in 3.0 or earlier but nothing close to the shadow/assassin's last to first jump to make them ridiculous. Merely my opinion and I know its been debated a ton ever since 2.8 showed up on PTS.

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So they pick a few specs they think are underperforming, try to bring them up to par and play more smoothly, then evaluate the effect of their changes before moving on to the next spec.

My main issue with this method is that a) other specs that are underperforming get left behind for the next few months and b) the buffs are so heavy-handed that the DPS outputs shoot up dramatically for those affected specs; other specs which were previously performing quite well fall behind. Vengeance juggernauts is the best example I can think of right now, with the top parses falling around the 3.9k mark.

Edited by SamuelAU
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