SmashingtonWho wrote:
I I undestand correctly, you are discussing game balance because you would prefer not to have defined party roles?
And further, defined party roles are necessary for a functional Dungeon Queue system? I am trying to follow this logic as to how it effects the availability of a Dungeon Queue system. I would like to better understand your viewpoint.
I would say that defined party roles are preferrable to a character development system that can be diversified to the point of all character classes being essentially identical. I do like the concept where any single class can perform multiple roles, but perform differently for each class. When you go to a group party situation, you pick the abilites and gear you bring to accomplishe that chosen role. It seems reasonable to chose the potential roles you would fill before entering the Queue.
With other MMO's offering fully functional Dungeon Queue systems, and the ability to set your level to any level previously attained to play with low-level friends (better than Level Sync, IMO) I am still skeptical that a new MMO without these features can be succesful. When these features are executed properly, the accessibility they provide for casual players, and therefore the success of the game across a wide market of potential subscribers, should not be underestimated.
No, not quite. Game balance is actually even more of an issue in "character development" systems than in party role systems. If players are emerging with identical skills and roles, then that is indicative of significant balance problems. The point of character development systems is not that players can just "be whatever they want to be," but to do it viably. It's when that fails and clearly superior configurations emerge, while other configurations are clearly crap, that players make characters which are essentially identical. So yes, I would agree that defined party roles are better than an unbalanced character development system, but when either are balanced, I think they are both absolutely fine... I happen to prefer a balanced character customization game to a balanced pre-established character game. But, that's sort of a separate issue.
To get to your point, the issue is with the balance in defined party role systems. At the bottom line, the game is an HP race, and every player contributes to the HP race in their own way, through their role. And that's cool-- great idea! Love it! But it's often designed so that the party roles are unbalanced in their contribution to this race. You have damage dealers who reduce the enemy's HP, tanks who protect the group's HP, and healer's who restore the group's HP (in the standard conception of the trinity, though you can easily see how there are actually plenty of other possible roles). Now, the dirty little secret of this approach is that teamwork isn't all its cracked up to be... as you know, it has more to do with the configuration of roles that you bring. That's because numerically, a healer usually contributes much bigger numbers to the HP race. The amount of HP they restore is vastly greater than the amount that a damage dealer does with respect to this race. I'm speaking in general of course, but you want to bring a group of very high-value units. If healers contribute 5x the amount of a damage dealer, then you want to bring as many healers as you can if victory is your concern. At some point, too many healers makes victory too easy, and you just want it to go faster. That's when you'd trade out some healers for some damage dealers, marginally increasing your risk of defeat, but significantly increasing the speed of your encounters. This is the way most party-role centered gaming systems work.
It's not the
removal of these roles that I'm suggesting; it's the
balancing of them. Because when you balance them, it no longer matters how many healers or tanks you have. All that matters is how many people you have and what they bring to the encounter as individuals. The game will still have healers and tank, but the people playing them will be the people who want to be healers and tanks. And they'll bring just as much to the battle as any damage dealer... just not necessarily "more."
And in that system, a way to sort players by role is simply inessential. You can just queue up any six players and send them on their way. They won't be at a tremendous disadvantage for lack of a healer or tank.
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Hyrist wrote:
Ok, now we're going to get slash fiction of Wint x Kachi somehere... rule 34 and all...
Never confuse your inference as the listener for an implication of the speaker.
Good games are subjective like good food is subjective. You're not going to seriously tell me that there's not a psychological basis for why pizza is great and lutefisk is revolting. The thing about subjectivity is that, as subjects go, humans actually have a great deal in common.
