Icarus Studios News

In any MMO, post-launch balance is one of the thorniest development tasks, from a community perspective. While most of the community will come down hard against cheaters and hackers in its midst, and it is generally accepting of major exploits being removed, the leeway stops when it comes to long-term character features. Your players grow attached to the things that make their character feel powerful, even if their level of power was unintended, and will fight tooth-and-nail to keep their abilities.

This issue is only exacerbated by competition. Even if your game does not directly feature PvP, individuals in one role may be in competition for resources and esteem from those in similar roles. Damage classes are particularly problematic for this; with several character types meant primarily to deal damage, your players are very good at making spreadsheets comparing these classes with a high degree of accuracy. If one class can put out more damage for longer than any other damage class, it will make your other damage dealers feel disenfranchised from their role in a group. And the class with the most damage is obviously resented by those that face them in PvP.

The most recent example (example may be out of date :) ) of this balance problem is the Warlock in World of Warcraft. Beyond any damage dealing comparisons, Warlocks have extensive damage dealing endurance, as they can simply convert their health to mana to keep casting damage spells at a very efficient rate for healing vs. the normal means of regaining mana. Blizzard’s recent attempt to rebalance the class to be more on par, however, also drastically changes the class dynamics. By making this health to mana shifting proportional (lose 10% health to regain 10% mana) rather than direct (lose 100 health to regain 100 mana), the class immediately switches from one that wants lots of health and little mana to one that wants lots of mana and little health. Those that built their characters in the previously optimal way are now not only weaker, they face a new challenge to rebuild their characters in the opposite way. And, ultimately, a high-mana, low-health Warlock trading 100 health for 1000 mana might turn out to be just as unbalancing a few months down the line.

But, from a developer’s perspective, something had to be done. An early class feature lost its balance in the face of expanded game features and player ingenuity. In the long term, a single drastic change may be far more palatable to the community than regular monthly nerfs. A drastic rebalance today means skilled Warlocks will be telling their compatriots to “learn to stack mana, newb,” in only a few months. A gradual rebalance will mean these same community leaders are taking their unhappiness to the forums daily for months to come. Necessary game rebalancing strategies really boil down to the same risk analysis as tearing off an adhesive bandage: do it fast, make it hurt, get it over with or do it slow, reduce the pain, but feel it over a much longer period.

-Stephen Cheney, Virtual Worlds Team