Balance is one of those nebulous things in MMORPGs. It's as flighty a term as "good guild" or "fun content." When people talk about their game, it seems a foregone conclusion that they don't think their game is balanced. A balanced game seems almost mythical to me at times. People complain that Guild Wars and StarCraft aren't balanced games. If even the pinnacle of real-time strategy isn't universally considered to be balanced, what is?

All MMORPG designers face this problem, but it poses a unique issue for Champions Online. Each Champion can freely select powers from any available ability in the game, with only a handful of exceptions that are mostly circumvented by the game's middle levels. Any character can select cross-archetype synergistic powers, even if the function was not intended for their archetype. A tank can select Miniaturization Drive (considered to be a support power) to make his foes less threatening while a ranged damage dealer could pick Enrage (considered to be mainly a bonus for melee) to provide a consistent damage buff.

This is made even more chaotic by the inclusion of extreme in-combat mobility and in-the-moment gameplay. This isn't EVE Online, and a lot of the overarching planning and strategy that takes place in other games is replaced by blocking, active defenses, and spur-of-the-moment decision-making.

And yet, CO's designers try to balance.

Continue reading Beyond the Mask: Who cares about balance?

Beyond the Mask: Who cares about balance? originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 20 May 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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