Game balance and character-system

[PJ]

I think (and feel free to correct me if I am wrong Narkano) he thinks there should be a further division in the priest spells based on these base classes that learn the skills. After all it makes sense that all the mage hybrids and prestiges can cast all the arcane spells they all have a little mage inside if you ignore the disciples. The same can not be said for priest hybrids.

Under the assumption that that is his mythical point....

I can accept a suggestion that schools only cast spells they get skill in. I may not like it, and I may argue against it, but the suggestion is coherent and applies to all schools.

Arguing that this should only apply to priest based schools and not arcaneis the most ridiculous thing I've read on these boards in awhile. Both from a "Balance" perspective and from a "Class Definition" perspective.

[evilkarl]

Arguing that this should only apply to priest based schools and not arcaneis the most ridiculous thing I've read on these boards in awhile. Both from a "Balance" perspective and from a "Class Definition" perspective.

Priest based classes is the only one it applies to. It doesn't apply to the Mage Prestiges/Hybrids because they all have mage requirement.

That is unless you propose we alter the spell system so only Priest classes can cast revitalises/gifts/raises/enhances or root/priest class bolts in which case you are correct.

[Seranthor]

PJ he's suggesting that priests are over powered and should have their abiliities cut so his own multiclassed arcane base can become relatively more powerful... he wants more power but doesn't want to invest the time that you or others have invested, so his plan is to cut the priestly powers to acheive that.

[PJ]

From a balance perspective.

A Knoc leveling up mage gives similar benefits to aPaladin leveling up Druid or Shaman or spiritist.

Sure the Knoc already has minimal skill in energy/ice/flame/mind. But those skills are essentially worthless to him. He can't hit anything unless he uses perfect spell, and then they won't do much damage. He's essentially gaining 4 new spell schools, just as the paladin is gaining 2 new spell schools by leveling Spiritist, 3 if he levels up druid or shaman also.

Either both are "balanced" or both are "unbalanced" (balance gets the quotes as its still undefined).

From a class definition perspective

Knoc isn't about being a wizard or sorceror and running about nuking and mezzing things. Its about being a knight (melee class) that can summon weapon, shields, etc. And cast the limited summoning line.Letting a Knoc cast all mind/ice/energy/flame spells is just as detrimental to class definition as letting a Paladin cast spirit/nature/blight spells.

[evilkarl]

Balance is such a broad term and can be interpreted many ways.

I agree there is no difference between a knoc being able to cast all arcane spells and a pally being able to cast all nature and spirit and blight.

[Pharcellus]

I'm going to use a simple analogy to characterize my feelings on this "Horizons school system sucks cause its not traditional D&D style"

I'veread a lot of sci/fi and fantansy style books. And to me, the best and most refreshing works are those that create new worlds instead of rehashing the same old tired Forgotten Realms etc. world over and over again. Now the world of Horizons is a mishmash of rehashed common concepts (dwarves, elves, gnomes, etc) and its a failing in my opinion. Although I don't think it makes the game bad, or worse than other games. What the world of horizons does have is a relatively unique system that has far more nuances than people give it credit for. To me this is a good point about the game, not a bad one.

Swing and a miss. A game system is not a world. A world is not a game system. However, a poor game system can ruin the even the best world. I am also fairly well-read, and I agree that something new and refreshing is a big plus. I never said that the Horizons school system sucks "cause its not traditional D&D style". I only use D&D as an example reference of a GAME SYSTEM (NOT world, get it right, please) that implements a fairly well-balanced and, more importantly, TIME-TESTED class-based rule set. Pretty much, if you have classes in a game, you are following behind some design already laid down by D&D and the various games that follow it. No, Horizons isn't D&D. I don't expect it to be, but if it is going to use classes, it needs to learn the lessons D&D learned and applied well decades ago on their proper balancing.

Horizons does have a certain level of detail as a game system, Frankenstein monster though it may be. The problem is that it is still young, and is learning the same hard lessons over again. No amount of detail alone is going to resolve them as they are fundamental design issues.

Order and the players on itdon't have a monopoly on RP in horizons. Just because a player is on Chaos doesn't mean they don't RP, or have character concepts.

Never said it did. Just because Order is RP-enforced doesn't mean players avoid playing it like Diablo, either. The point is that there is no REASON to expect that any particular person on Chaos will go out of their way to RP. I mean, how RP is it to deal with someone named "k3wl d00d" in a group day in and day out?

It strikes me as below the belt as it characterizes my shard as being power/money hungry, superficial and shallow. Regardless a comparison between diablo and chaos is a poor one. Sure there are players who are focused on attaining money and power and loot but they are on every shard and in every game. And focussing on attaining these things does not preclude roleplaying.

Sorry, then maybe your shard and its players are more RP-oriented than Order. *shrug*

Ah so you are telling me how I can and cannot roleplay? Just wanted to be clear on it.

Hardly. Are you suggesting that NOTHING MORE than pressing buttons is roleplaying? Give me a farging break. [8-)]

Rating has real meaning if you use it correctly. It isestablished for one on one, player versus mob balancing. And with the mobs in game it works fairly well. I have a rating of 161 and correspondingly I steamroll any one normal mob in the game(capped out at 120). Sure you can argue that's "Unbalanced" if you want, but the indicator is sound. Rating does not indicate performance of a player versus multiple mobs. There's no table that says a rating 161 player should be able to kill X level 100 mobs at once.

Except that it tends to be highly inaccurate for all sorts of things, including boss mobs and some of the WA, where the 1-on-1 balance isn't even close to the rating by comparison. Though I think it is funny you go from "hating" the notion, to defending it.

Yup versus 1 mob is no risk at all, just how I prefer it. That doesn't mean there are no challenges for me. Just I control the challenges and that's my preference. As for event mobs, they aren't being scaled to give bored uberpeds a challenge. Some Events are designed for groups, not for bored uberpeds.

You prefer it, I don't. I like the unknown. I like having something that makes my heart palpitate when I consider heading into it. When I soloed Mhedon for the first time, I was wound up so tight, I was amazed I actually won. In truth, my real first attempt, I failed, because I forgot to equip a crucial piece of equipment. However, I went back, and beat him. He was an unknown, and I liked it.

Event mobs (and some regular mobs as well) have already been scaled to provide uberpeds a challenge, and will be in the future. They have to. What's the point of putting out a Grizzlerot when a couple uberpeds steamroll him in 10 minutes? The monsters will be scaled to the playerbase to provide a challenge. They won't be taking an average of the available toons on the shard to gauge challenge, they will be designing them to be a challenge for the best of the best, THEN they have to consider grouping on top of that. Go figure.

Horizons has this form of class. The hybrid prestige classes. If I have one class at 100 and spend a month leveling up a new one, but if I lose power, and gain flexibility. I've essentially just wasted a month. Flexibility is power.

Yah, I know about the hybrid classes. Outside of the point. In my eyes, they should have predesigned hybrid classes, and then do away with multiclassing, since they will be balanced and reasonable. Yes, Flexibility IS Power (equivocated), but Flexibility and Power are also mutually exclusive.

If I spend X time learning skill A, then spend Y time learning skill B, I will and should never be as effective in skill A as someone else who spent X+Y time learning skill A alone. As for taking this notion to classes, you can't, because classes are PACKAGE DEALS. They are already prebalanced to take into account focuses in one direction and lack of focuses in another. It's like being in college forever. You can major in IT, but if you spend the majority of your time studying brain surgery, you are going to be one sucky IT guru, and if your core curriculum was IT-centric, you aren't going to be a very good brain surgeon, either.

I'm sorry, you defined uberped where? How can I have changed the meaning when I've been the first person here to establish its meaning?

In IRC discussions, and (I believe) in several posts in the forums here as well. I will be glad to locate them tomorrow if you want, but I will repost my definition here for your reading pleasure.

Uberped: n. A character whose player utilizes the multiclass feature to circumvent inherent class disadvantages and to accumulate heterogeneous class advantages, rendering the class and, thus, the role of the character in the game indistinct.

Oh and one final thing, the highest rated player on Orderhas a rating 205 (my best info to date), on Chaos 202. However I dont' have access to a database query so I doubt it'll match up to your standards of proof. But if you're requiring a database query none of the facts I've stated hold up to that [img]/Web//emoticons/emotion-43.gif[/img]

Funny thing is the highest I know of on Order is 201, and the highest I have heard on Chaos is 210+, and that there are several over 200 there now. *shrug* I guess anecdotes just don't make for good facts, eh?

I never said I required a database query. Thanks for twisting my words into something different than what they actually said, though. I said that the only way it most likely could be turned into a fact was via that method. Besides, you brought up the "fact" to use in your argument, and I did the proper thing and challenged it, because it contradicts what I know. You've done the same throughout this thread, so don't get on my back over it now.

[Narkano]

Yah, I know about the hybrid classes. Outside of the point. In my eyes, they should have predesigned hybrid classes, and then do away with multiclassing, since they will be balanced and reasonable. Yes, Flexibility IS Power (equivocated), but Flexibility and Power are also mutually exclusive.


This isn't always true.

First, you should take into account that a character might reach a point in his career, where he may have learned all that the available trainers can teach him. He might then well be able to focus his learning efforts to another field of knowlegde. This possibility might be (and should be) somewhat limitedin some cases and outright impossible in others.

An example:

A character might first train with the archers to pick up some skill with a bow and later live with the druids to study the aspects of nature magic. Then he decides his way to be that of a ranger. At some point in his career he reaches 100th level as a ranger, not being able to advance any further, since he now is among the greatest rangers of Istaria and for the time being no one will be able to teach him any more.As a ranger, hestill studied nature magic, although to a lesser degree. So he should well be able to return to the druids and pick up learning where his studiesas a ranger hadleft him. In game termsthat charactershould be able to also reach 100th level as a druid and gain the full benefits of his greater nature skill as well as some druid abilities.

Second, you should also take into account, that some skills and spells are closely related and might be easy to pick up once you understood similar concepts with another skill.

It would also seem reasonable forthe characterfrom my example to easily grip onto the aspects of life magic, perhaps to a somewhat lesser degree asnature is quite close to lifein manyaspects on one hand but also considering that the ranger currently has no skill with it on the other. That same character might also find some interesting knowledge to pick up from the guardian class.

That is a degree to whichI would consider multi-classing an interesting aspect, as you might have an excellent character already (100th level ranger) but within reasonable limitscan developthat same character further. This makes for some long-term entertainment of even players with much time for gaming. It should becomemore and moredifficult to further add to the character to keep the whole idea reasonable, though. This is where the rating comes into play again and where thecurrent issuesallowing for reckless multi-classing should be adressed properly.

The reality currently is quite the opposite. The ranger from my example could as well completely leave his former life behind and become a battle hardened berserker of the highest ability and skill in no time. He could then turn from berserker to the ascetic life of a monk and reach the limits of thehighest techniques of martial arts, of course again in no time as well. The character becomes some kind of "jack of all trades" but not with the reasonable meaning of "beingproficientwithmany skillsand having masterednone". The character we're speaking about is a high grand-master of each of his chosen classes.

Not too reasonable as you might agree.

Narkano

[PJ]

Swing and a miss. A game system is not a world. A world is not a game system.

Maybe you missed where I said it was an analogy. The use of that example served no other purpose than to ilustrate how i felt that much like (like, does not imply equality) worlds, I find the Horizons game system refreshing and enjoyable because they have done something different instead of rehash D&D again. Other than that worlds were completely irrelevent, just an analogy. And I usedthat analogy because Isuspected a dragon of excellent tastes such as yourself probably shared an appreciation for new things in genre's so overrun by the same old same old.

I only use D&D as an example reference of a GAME SYSTEM (NOT world, get it right, please) that implements a fairly well-balanced and, more importantly, TIME-TESTED class-based rule set. Pretty much, if you have classes in a game, you are following behind some design already laid down by D&D and the various games that follow it. No, Horizons isn't D&D. I don't expect it to be, but if it is going to use classes, it needs to learn the lessons D&D learned and applied well decades ago on their proper balancing.

Time for another analogy. Euclid, when he developed his geometry, had 5 postulates which were considered to be true. They laid the foundations for his geometrywhich produced useful, accurate models of the world. Similarly, D&D's class system was part of their foundation for a fun and enjoyable world to play in.

However in the 19th century, Gauss and Lobachevsky and Riemann among others comitted heresy. They changed one of Euclids postulates which were at the time, considered literal Truth. However they wound up with Non-Euclidean geometries which still produced useful. accurate models of the world. Similarly Horizons, although they altered the foundation laid down by D&D (in a similarly heretical way to some). And they have also come up with a fun and enjoyable world to play in.

Is it perfect? Hardly. But horizons doesn't need to apply the same type of "proper balancing" that D&D did. They have a new system that has its own lessons to learn. But because they have gone a different route doesn't inherently make the system worse.

Sorry, then maybe your shard and its players are more RP-oriented than Order. *shrug*

Not sure about that either, I've never played on Order or any of the RP shards that merged into it. RP isn't rampant or even common on Chaos. But neither is the "None for all, all for me", No RP whatsoever style of play characterizing Diablo.

There are two spectrums to me. One the RP spectrum, withHeavyRP at one end and No RP at the other. Similarly there is theplayer motivation spectrum "None for all, all for me" at one end, and full dedication to the community at the other.

Order I suspect (never playerd there) leans towards the Heavy RP end, while still collecting some people from other parts. And I suspect Order collects all maners of people from the motivation spectrum.

Chaos has all types of players on the latter. And some RP, although its not common, and some are completely non-RP. But there is a middle ground on the RP spectrum.

Its where I fall. I don't have a formalized backstory, and emote all my actions. But I still consider my character a character within the world. The character has thoughts and opinions and motivationsfor his play within the world. For me, Its not me sitting at my computer running around killing stuff. Its my character, doing these things from the characters point of view. I'm a huge fan of immersion. And it doesn't break my immersion to have my character be the way he is. Having my character even care about how powerful he is in respect to the mobs or other characters from a balance perspective breaks his immersion. Does it make sense to my character for my character to be able to the things he does? To him it does, but only because they are allowed by the rules of the world. The rules of the world don't have to make sense to my character, they just are. The real world doesn't always make sense to me either, its just the way it works.

Hardly. Are you suggesting that NOTHING MORE than pressing buttons is roleplaying? Give me a farging break. [img]/Web//emoticons/emotion-43.gif[/img]

I'm sorry we must have a misunderstanding. Whenyousaid

However, don't tell me that focusing on nothing more than seeing how many neat and nifty buttons you can push in as many battles as possible is Roleplaying, because it does nothing more than fly in the face of it.

and I responded with

Ah so you are telling me how I can and cannot roleplay? Just wanted to be clear on it.

This whole sequence doesn't even make sense to me. I suspect that your neat and nifty button pushing comment was a reaction to a statement I made about how I enjoy having a wide array of spells and active abilities to use. But my statement had nothing to do with roleplay so that doesn't make sense at all.

All I will say is thathow many neat and nifty buttons I push and battle is how I play the game not my character. My character has a wide and varied skill/spell/ablity subset to choose from. My character finds them all useful depending on the situation.

I push buttons, andmore properRPers typetheir roleplay actions. Neither is actually roleplay to me. But casting the spells/abilities represented by those buttons or performing the actions as from the mindset of the character would constitute roleplaying.

Moving on.

Except that it tends to be highly inaccurate for all sorts of things, including boss mobs and some of the WA, where the 1-on-1 balance isn't even close to the rating by comparison. Though I think it is funny you go from "hating" the notion, to defending it.

I can't comment on this from a dragons perspective. But which WAmobs are you refering to. To me only the Vexator is potentially unbalanced. But I consider this mob to be an easy mob for some classes, and a harder mob for others. I like that it provides mob diversity. Maybe the Vexator is still a bit extreme, but I imagine there are several pure classes which could take one 1v1 50% of the time as dictated by the concept of balance.

Most of the mobs I consider balanced (at least to level 100 pure bipeds). Many people object to this, and feel these mobs are overpowered. Many people feel they should be able to kill a mob their own rating every time and when they lose often the mob is overpowered.

I'm not waffling between "hating" the notion and defending it. I'm not defending the way things are balanced. I've already stated my displeaure with it. But I've found a way to cope.

I'm contending that things have been balanced they way they were intended to, despite my disagreementwith those intentions.

Event mobs (and some regular mobs as well) have already been scaled to provide uberpeds a challenge, and will be in the future. They have to. What's the point of putting out a Grizzlerot when a couple uberpeds steamroll him in 10 minutes?

Some regular mobs group up, and are designed for groups. I'm fine with that, my uberped can take them when necessary. The only thing I disagree with is making a group mob the sole source of a tech comp (and still drop lousily even though its a group kill). That's been an issue sticking in my craw for some time, and I hope it'll be addressed soon.

As for Grizzlerot, Grizzlerot and Co. were poorly designed mobs in my opinion. They steamrolled many, even the multiclassed (aside from those who had spirit walk/phoenix shield/staff of ribeth). And believe me I've expressed my displeasure with certain features of their design *cough* Rancourous Blow. But I dont' aggree they have to put out mobs like this.

I'm going to cite Gigaroth. Although I hesitate as he was released early without all of his attacks hooked up. They could yet screw the pooch on him. But in his prerelease teaser form he gave an example of how a mob could be balanced for groups of single classed players and multiclassed players alike.

Gigaroth was essentially a Blighted Kwellen, with the same skill/ability set. He hit harder than one, closer to what Gulgar or Dregorn does. But other than that functioned normally aside from his 1.5 million HP's. Now your well multiclassed player against a single target will be hard pressed to manage a damage per second out put equal to 2 Pure Single classed characters.The multiclassed charwill probably have higher burst damage, and better more suited to killing large numbers of mobs. As oppossed to mobs like Grizzlerot who slaughtered anybody within a 30 meter radius, Gigaroth was well suited to being killed by a group of Single Classers. But swap in multiclassed character and the best you're really doing is increasing the damage a bit, and you kill him in 1 hour instead of 1 hour and 5 minutes.

A single classed group could kill him, a multiclassed group with the same number of people could kill him a bit faster, some people could solo him in his prerelease form although it takes abominally long periods of time, and odds are you'll disconnect before then. [:P] This strikes me as a step forwards for the balance event mobs and single classed players and multiclassed players.

Yah, I know about the hybrid classes. Outside of the point. In my eyes, they should have predesigned hybrid classes, and then do away with multiclassing, since they will be balanced and reasonable. Yes, Flexibility IS Power (equivocated), but Flexibility and Power are also mutually exclusive.

Mutually exclusive is probably a bad term. I prefer inversly proportional. And they are Inversly proportional in the Real World and in D&D, but this is Horizons and the rules that govern it arent' those of the Real World or D&D.

In IRC discussions, and (I believe) in several posts in the forums here as well. I will be glad to locate them tomorrow if you want, but I will repost my definition here for your reading pleasure.

Sorry I meant it hadn't been defined in this thread before. Its good to clarify defintions of new words when they're meaning isn't really established anywhere official. Not everybody goes to IRC or reads all the threads. I was basing my statement entirely based on what has passed in this thread so far. But thanks for your definition (at least you've provided one unlike others [8-)]).

Now Lastly. I'm a very rigid person if you haven't already noticed [:P]. But I do know when I'm beat. And you trapped me skillfully and artfully [B] I think I was refering to adventure rating only, where Chaos' is 202 and we have but one over 200. Where as we have several 200+crafters including one Nearing 210 ish if he's not there already. Although my sources still tell me that you have a higher rated adventurer, you do have me trapped. So I'll conceed this, and consider all comments along the line withdrawn. Kudos

[Phillip]

not sure what sort mental illness one must possess to believe that there are invulnerable characters in this game.

retardation, maybe?

[Pharcellus]

Maybe you missed where I said it was an analogy. The use of that example served no other purpose than to ilustrate how i felt that much like (like, does not imply equality) worlds, I find the Horizons game system refreshing and enjoyable because they have done something different instead of rehash D&D again. Other than that worlds were completely irrelevent, just an analogy. And I usedthat analogy because Isuspected a dragon of excellent tastes such as yourself probably shared an appreciation for new things in genre's so overrun by the same old same old.

Sorry, but the link back to the subject of game system design was not clear to me, so I didn't see how the analogy applied. No, they really haven't done much different than rehash D&D again, minus a handful of (what I consider important) rules. I appreciate new things, but new shouldn't also have to mean "sucky rehash of the same old same old".

Time for another analogy. Euclid, when he developed his geometry, had 5 postulates which were considered to be true. They laid the foundations for his geometrywhich produced useful, accurate models of the world. Similarly, D&D's class system was part of their foundation for a fun and enjoyable world to play in.

However in the 19th century, Gauss and Lobachevsky and Riemann among others comitted heresy. They changed one of Euclids postulates which were at the time, considered literal Truth. However they wound up with Non-Euclidean geometries which still produced useful. accurate models of the world. Similarly Horizons, although they altered the foundation laid down by D&D (in a similarly heretical way to some). And they have also come up with a fun and enjoyable world to play in.

The only problem with this analogy is that Horizons bears NO resemblence to the "heresy" of non-Euclidean geometry (almost an insult to even draw such a ridiculous parallel, even for the purposes of an analogy). More accurately, Horizons took Euclid's postulates, removed one of them, and changed one of the others so that it represented nothing in the real world. As for fun and enjoyable world to play in, I think the jury has already spoken to that subject for many people.

Is it perfect? Hardly. But horizons doesn't need to apply the same type of "proper balancing" that D&D did. They have a new system that has its own lessons to learn. But because they have gone a different route doesn't inherently make the system worse.

Of course they do. All game systems need to have a significant amount of thought given to balance. Yes, they have a "new" system that has its own lessons to learn, but when it has ignored some of the most glaring lessons of the game systems it attempts to emulate (and it does emulate game systems like D&D quite a bit), what confidence does it give that they will learn the unique ones that only apply to it? I don't see it only as a "different route", but an "incomplete route".

Its where I fall. I don't have a formalized backstory, and emote all my actions. But I still consider my character a character within the world. The character has thoughts and opinions and motivationsfor his play within the world. For me, Its not me sitting at my computer running around killing stuff. Its my character, doing these things from the characters point of view. I'm a huge fan of immersion. And it doesn't break my immersion to have my character be the way he is. Having my character even care about how powerful he is in respect to the mobs or other characters from a balance perspective breaks his immersion. Does it make sense to my character for my character to be able to the things he does? To him it does, but only because they are allowed by the rules of the world. The rules of the world don't have to make sense to my character, they just are. The real world doesn't always make sense to me either, its just the way it works.

I am also a huge fan of immersion, and am very sensitive to game mechanics that adversely affect it. For a long time, I derided D&D even for breaking immersion of my characters, even actively avoiding playing it for a long period of time while I tried to find (then ultimately write) a game system which did not have those immersion-breaking flaws I saw in it that limited my enjoyment. In that time I also learned that a quality GM can take any game system, and subordinate it and modify it to fit his world to minimize its impact on the immersive quality of his world. Trouble is, computer games are not conducive to that level of arbitration and attention to detail, and Horizons even less so. We have the game system, and it either greases the rails on the track to fun, or horribly derails the train altogether. Yeah, I know it is not so black and white as that, but game systems, and peoples' reactions to them tend to exist at the extremes because of their nature.

I generally tend to rate how much I am enjoying a game by how often things like stupid story mechanics and game system mechanics pop up and smack me on the snout. The more often, the less I enjoy it. When my character encounters a situation where he would be prompted to ask "why" something happens or is the way it is, and the only answer possible is, more-or-less, "it's in the script", then I consider it one of those debilitating episodes to my enjoyment of the game. Disbelief is no longer suspended, immersion is severely impacted to ruined, and fun turns into tedium, boredom, or ennui. I might as well be playing cards or checkers. Something I don't have to pay $12.95 a month (x3 now) for.

As such, unlimited multiclassing and the resultant effects on the game as a whole is a major contributor to this problem for me. I also believe it is a big enough problem to extend to more than just myself, as I don't appear to be alone in my perceptions. Perhaps this game just isn't for me; I am well aware of the concept that no game suits everyone, as I preach it often enough. However, I do know and recognize many bad design decisions when I see them; I've seen enough of them to fill a shelf of books with just the resulting experiences alone. People can still have fun off of poorly-designed games, the question in this case is if this game can survive the limited audience its design will draw and retain. The more I think about it, I am not sure if that audience includes myself anymore. I just don't know.

This whole sequence doesn't even make sense to me. I suspect that your neat and nifty button pushing comment was a reaction to a statement I made about how I enjoy having a wide array of spells and active abilities to use. But my statement had nothing to do with roleplay so that doesn't make sense at all.

All I will say is thathow many neat and nifty buttons I push and battle is how I play the game not my character. My character has a wide and varied skill/spell/ablity subset to choose from. My character finds them all useful depending on the situation.

No, I wasn't specifically referring to your statement, except maybe in extrapolation. You more or less agreed with what I said anyway, which is strange that you keep attacking the point, hence:

However I dislike the fact that multiclassing has produced a large number of people who don't know how to play their characters. Its sad to me the number of level 100 druids or 100 shaman who play as a main a class that can cast all nature spells and yet don't have Shocking Blast, Thunder Cloud, Patch of Brambles, Root, or Ensnaring Roots scribed. I mean talk about gimping yourself. Its not that their PL'd noobs who don't know about the existence of their spell line. They know about them, they just dont' care about them. That's just my favorite example there are others.

I can't comment on this from a dragons perspective. But which WAmobs are you refering to. To me only the Vexator is potentially unbalanced. But I consider this mob to be an easy mob for some classes, and a harder mob for others. I like that it provides mob diversity. Maybe the Vexator is still a bit extreme, but I imagine there are several pure classes which could take one 1v1 50% of the time as dictated by the concept of balance.

Purple necroflies, some of the Veteran Undead, Wolves/Spiders (mostly lower-level ones), Satyr bosses (Discords, Inhibitions, etc), some boss mobs, and event mobs (Grizzlerot, Titus and minions, etc) are what I can come up with off the top of my head. For many of those mobs, their rating is not representative of their average power level when compared to an average character's power level of the same rating 1v1.

Most of the mobs I consider balanced (at least to level 100 pure bipeds). Many people object to this, and feel these mobs are overpowered. Many people feel they should be able to kill a mob their own rating every time and when they lose often the mob is overpowered.

For rating to be significantly useful, equal-rated mobs vs toons need to have a 50/50 chance. I get so sick of seeing event mobs rated at 100-110 that absolutely wipe two full veteran groups of rating 120+ characters. When it comes to event mobs I just assume that they will kick everyone's tail, regardless of whether their rating is 1 or 1000.

I'm going to cite Gigaroth. Although I hesitate as he was released early without all of his attacks hooked up. They could yet screw the pooch on him. But in his prerelease teaser form he gave an example of how a mob could be balanced for groups of single classed players and multiclassed players alike.

I would hesitate a lot. From what I was told, he was a test mob, and not even planned to ever go to release at this point. I don't agree that having billyuns of hitpoints with lots of regen makes a mob "balanced" for all characters. We had minimally multiclassed characters soloing him. The only problem they kept having was damage output from someone solo was not enough to counter the effectiveness of his regeneration abilities. A group of multiclassed characters were in no danger whatsoever from him. The only issue was whether they had a dedicated healer so that they could keep up the damage output instead of having to take time to detox/heal themselves.

Mutually exclusive is probably a bad term. I prefer inversly proportional. And they are Inversly proportional in the Real World and in D&D, but this is Horizons and the rules that govern it arent' those of the Real World or D&D.

Aye, I think that phrase fits better as well. You are right, Horizons doesn't follow (what I call) "sensible" rules, which is my whole point. I mean, to me, it is no less immersion-breaking than a rule making fire damage heal an ice creature, or a rule saying the more experienced you are at something the less effective you are in the world as a result. They just don't jive with anything that I have ever experienced, let alone anything that I find familiar. Thus, I cannot identify with them and, without a rational explanation for them, my character goes "Snuh?". When the gods answer back "it's in the script; cope", I end up in a metagame malaise where the world becomes abstract and the immersion line between the real world and the fantasy world becomes blurry and indistinct. I then realize I am only aware of the real world, a human pushing buttons on a computer, watching little two dimensional patches of colored light play across a surface, all immersion, and thus fun for me, lost for that session.

I guess I can just turn off my expectation that the world makes sense to sustain my immersion, my suspension of disbelief, but I might as well be playing Diablo II in that case, or maybe a nice game of Solitaire.

[refuse]

As such, unlimited multiclassing and the resultant effects on the game as a whole is a major contributor to this problem for me. I also believe it is a big enough problem to extend to more than just myself, as I don't appear to be alone in my perceptions. Perhaps this game just isn't for me; I am well aware of the concept that no game suits everyone, as I preach it often enough. However, I do know and recognize many bad design decisions when I see them; I've seen enough of them to fill a shelf of books with just the resulting experiences alone. People can still have fun off of poorly-designed games, the question in this case is if this game can survive the limited audience its design will draw and retain. The more I think about it, I am not sure if that audience includes myself anymore. I just don't know.

I would like to make a point here.

I kind of agree with both sides, but let me add a bit of my perception.

I do think unlimited multi-classing may be an issue, but it is an issue (as mentioned before) because of the artificial cap on levels.

Let me give you an example or two.

Example 1: Dragon
Plays, plays plays hits cap. Choices, make an alt, or wait.

Example 2: Player starts game as biped.
Plays, plays plays hits cap. Choices, pick a new class, make an alt or wait.
Here many players add a new class to continue playing. Repeat #2 until 6x100.

Expample 3: Player stars game as biped, and knows limitation of cap.
Starts several classes, to keep playing. This delays hitting the level cap, and can provide a more broad experience in the game (i.e. being independent).


So in all cases, except for dragons the players can use multi-classing for content beyond the artificial cap.

Second set of Examples

Example 1: Dragon
Player does quests (annoying to some, content to others) up to level 70 then blamo no quests (a complaint from dragons) and nothing to do. These quests improve the "base dragon stats" (admittedly needed but as dragons are mage/lite healer/fighter the base is lower, so the quests are needed).

Example 2: Biped (single class)
Depending on the class there are minimal to no quests (content, annoyance) to do. There is no way to improve stats beyond class. Depedning on class very limited scope of functionality.

Example 3: Biped (planned multi class)
Depending on the main class, there are minimal to no quests. Content/stats are increased by using additional classes to fill in missing parts, thus making them a jack of all trades (though some classes do this better).


Third set of examples:
If there was no multi-classing (remember people accuse multi-classing of making all characters the same)

Example 1: Dragons
All dragons are pretty much the same now. (this is the prime example of what happens when there are not enough choices)

Example 2: Bipeds
As bipeds would not be warriors OR mages OR healers, the prestige classes (those require two sub classe) would be gone. Many players that want to solo would have to choose Druid (heal, fight, cast like a dragon). Other players would be a "cleric", "mage", "warrior". Not sure how this adds more value, but I guess some people see it this way. But to me this makes no sense.


Fourth set of Examples:
racial choice indicates class choice.
Here we get into one of the things that keeps me from playing other games. If you want to be a mage, you have to be an elf. If you want to be a fighter you have to be a 1/2 giant. In many case you "have to be" in other cases "you are hindered if you don't". Not sure how this is good. All mages are elfs, if you see an elf, you know they are a mage. Humans are fighters/clerics, 1/2 giants are warriors. . . .

Not sure how this adds value.



Now why do I say all this.

Well, if they removed the cap, then we would see less Multi-classing to the extreme. The 2x100 XP - Raiting they have used could have been spent on their primary class. They could progress and progress and progress within their class, they would be a very powerful individual. If they multi-class they trade power, for versitility. Do they follow the "ranger" class to 200, or Ranger/druid to 100 each? The ranger would have many better abilities, more TPs, more HP, more specific power. The Ranger/Druid would have a larger selection of abilities, but 1/2 the power (level 100 abilites vs the ranger's level 200 abilities) but the R/D would be able to handle more situations.

Add in a third class. They could be level 200 in once class or perhaps 75 in 3 classes. 50 if they had 4. . . . So the leveling would be balanced, you spread your XP out, or you focus.

The same would go for dragons. Now their "inherent" multi-class would start showing off. THey are a level 200 dragon, with heals/casts/fighting, and their power would be level 200. Would they be equivalent to a multi-class 200/200/200/200 no, but Xp spent for XP spent they are as powerful as the 100/100, or 75/75/75 or 50/50/50/50 multi-class biped. Their TP/level 200 abilities would far outweigh the 50th level abilities of a 4x class biped.

So multi-classing is the trading of versitility for power. In our current situation, the cap artifically limits dragons from growing as much as bipeds. And bipeds can grow beyond the 100 rating.

Limiting bipeds to the same requirements of Dragons is a subtractive solution. Opening the cap (i.e. allow progression beyond 100 for all classes) would be a better solution.


Races, add some flavor to the race, let that flavor indicate a direction for the players to use their class, but nothing in the Horizons lore indicates that races can/cannont be any class. Perhaps they should rename some of the classes. Druid/Cleric to a more generic/non-implication name. But ultimately, let the player play with a starting disadvantage and make a racial/class that suits them.

A dwarven ranger, an elven beserker. . . Don't put other game system limitations on it.

[refuse]

Couldn't edit my previous post. :(

For rating to be significantly useful, equal-rated mobs vs toons need to have a 50/50 chance. I get so sick of seeing event mobs rated at 100-110 that absolutely wipe two full veteran groups of rating 120+ characters. When it comes to event mobs I just assume that they will kick everyone's tail, regardless of whether their rating is 1 or 1000.

I would actually say this shouldn't be 100 true.


Mobs that mez/root/stun are/would be tougher for Warriors.

Mobs that are warriors would be easier if the class in question had ranges stunes/roots.

Archer mobs would be immune (for all intent purposes) to roots.

Some mobs have higher slash defense and thus harder for characters using slash attacks.

Some mobs have higher spirit/nature/life/fire/ice/primal resistance and thus harder for casters/fighters using those abilties.


Some mobs may have many small attacks and thus less powerful against heavy armoredcharacters (armor removing from each attack), while cloth armored characters would have a harder time.

Some mobs may use nature/fire/spirit/ice/primal/mind attacks and characters with higher resistances/wards agains those would find the mobs easier.

Classes with access to multiple forms of attack would find more mobs easier (use the appropriate attack at the appropriate time), so mages with a choice of energy/fire/ice/mind would have a larger selection of attacks vs a druid with nature/HtH.

so the 50/50 doesn't work all the time, and thus the inherent "this mob is too difficult" issue.


A druidmay find a mob easy, while a healer of the same level may find a mob very hard, and time consuming to beat.

A warrior facing a WA sorcerer may find themselves at a serious disadvantage as compared to a Sorcerer facing the sorcerer.

A satyr may find facing an opponent that uses roots easier then a 1/2 giant facing the same.

A dryad using dazzle may find the mob that hits will all their big attacks up front (dazzle helping to avoid them) alot easier then an elf. A dryad mage/monk (increased magic evasion or regular evasion) may find mobs easier then a dryad warrior.

Things that can contribute to win/loss
Teched armor/scales with the appropriate tech (damage/resistance/ward)
Class abilities.
Racial Abilities.
Scribed spells (roots, mez, appropriate damage)

[refuse]

They need to add negative masteries.

At level XX (Whatever multicast is mastered) you also master the ability "Cannot Wear Plate Armor" or "May not use two handed weapons or utilize a shield as the other hand is used to cast spells" or "Magical study has caused atrophy. 99% Str Stat."

That wouldn't be that bad, except for battlemage.

But yeah, you could tie spells into checking equipment.

Or +10% casting time for metaal armor.

Stuff like that is fine.

[kengar]

Equally important is I can become a Knoc without ever being a mage. Knoc requires 200 1hs (it might be 2hs i forget) and160 summoning. The later is typically gained via 20 mage, but the requirement can be gainied entirely through training points, and you will get a knoc with no extraneous mage skills who could cast all arcane spells if he chose to multiclass. This works for all prestiges.

While I agree with most of your arguments, this one is wrong. You can't spend TP on a skill you don't have. You can join the mage school, getting 8 points for lvl 1, then spend TP to get the other 152 points required, letting you become KnoC without earning a single point of mage XP, but you do still have to be a mage, unless you take a really convoluted path to one of the mage prestige classes (monk->disciple->mage prestige).

My take on multiclassing is that Hz multiclassing isn't broken. The ease of powerleveling is broken, and this warps multiclassing into something that maybe it shouldn't be.

In a perfect world, all XP would require effort, all classes would lend equally compared to other classes in a pure class, as primary class in a multiclassed character, or as a secondary class (note, comparing all classes to each other in those three cases individually, not saying that a class should provide equal benefit if primary/secondary class), adventure rating would accurately reflect the usefulness of the character, and farming creatures that pose no threat to you would net no XP because they're too far below your AR. In that perfect world, Hz multiclassing would work fine. We're not there, but that isn't to say that Hz multiclassing is THE problem.

Yes, Hz multiclassing complicates balancing classes. Yes, any serious effort to balance the classes is going to either upset a lot of people, or involve bringing the weaker classes up to the level of the stronger classes, and even then, changes in what abilities are masterable or what spells can be cast by what classes will probably upset people. Yes, the mobs need balancing too, there's lvl 80-100 mobs that pose a much greater threat to me than a lvl 120 purple necrofly. Take multiclassing out, and you make balancing the classes a little easier, but all the other problems still remain.

For the record my main biped is a Paladin, lvl 100. Early on, I took Druid to lvl 28 to master Field of Growth and Nature's Fury, because I look on him as group support, not the uber soloist. Since hitting lvl 100 Paladin, I've started taking Healer up so that I can move most of my training points away from Life/Augmentation. I've been working on Druid to get the Vivacity/Vigor line, Field of Growth II, and Forest Mist. I've been working on Spiritist for the silliest of reasons, Ethereal Armor. Sure, he can farm solo. But when he groups as a Paladin, his sword is his main offensive ability, the other stuff is just to be a better damage-soaker.

[evilkarl]

They need to add negative masteries.

At level XX (Whatever multicast is mastered) you also master the ability "Cannot Wear Plate Armor" or "May not use two handed weapons or utilize a shield as the other hand is used to cast spells" or "Magical study has caused atrophy. 99% Str Stat."

Well you can not have the full power of the mage in plate (no burnout, multicast III, etc etc). And a mage uses a staff so you can't prevent them from using two handed weapons. And if a level below 50 is enough to affect your str forever more thats a bit umm stupid.

[Joaqim]

Hmm OK,

just talking about the non Mage clases as I did Mage just for additional Power, MC and Flame/Energy/Ice attack anyway.

As I was basicly a RVR/HLR (Cleric/HLR for self buffs and reduced downtime initally) I feel a little uncomfortable with the suggestion. Yes there are about three lines, Healing based schools (HLR and CLRC), the Nature using schools (Druid, etc using Nature skill as attack and healing skill) and the Spirit (and mostly) Blight using schools.... SHMN is somewhat a combo of last two.

Well I with another point of view, I don't see why 2 of those lines should be able to build a combo and the spiri one should stay alone.... Maybe it depends of the main multiclass of the poster... one solution would be to seperate all three lines, but that would take most of the reasons to multiclass and hey quite a lot of us are there because of that....

If you really think the folks are to overpowered there is a really easy solution, take shared timers for all Tiers of Spells!

I'm a combo of lvl 100 RVR, HLR, SHMN, SPRT, Mageand SPRD basicly to max my skills and stats. Yeah HLR for less downtime and nature..oh yes Dark Cyclone is just looking cool so I wanted that one too^^
But yes I'm intended to be overpowered - or most of the mobs are underpowered (those stuff like beetles, Spiders, Fyakkis)? Well if I am, why cant I just run in the middle of Island of Alged and make my stand there? I still need to run through quite quickly to reach a place around the coast and make my pulls to rather mob free zones.
I'm Rating 152, and with some luck I can take 2 Red Vexators - if ability are up - so other solution, make upcoming high lvl stuff at least in that strenght.

Well just my view here....

[PJ]

He's not a monk...he's a Spirit Disciple

[evilkarl]

C) I still think yer not a monk...

I'm not a monk I'm a spirit disciple. I played spirit disciple from 20-100 with only minimal multiclassing namely cleric (max of 50) so I was more valuable to a group.

But I'm not a base spirit disciple either its my main class and i'm a multiclassed enhanced spirit disciple. I punch and spirit bolt my way through my life with the occasional root, stun and heal. I'm always buffed as I wish to be (much the same as you a dragon are). If I choose to farm I can with my nature aoes and my spirit spells. If I choose to equip a staff and take a swing I can do that as well.