Username
Password
Class balance is always a touchy subject, which depend on the class a player plays. In order to get to know well, we put together an impressive look a class balance in World of Warcraft. Most of the players do not understand why there are so few World of Warcraft classes, let's make it clear.
As a matter of fact, World of Warcraft has significantly lower number of classes, compared to a lot of other Massive Multiple Online games on the market. Some games have 20 or more classes to choose from, with all sorts of subclasses and dual specializations and the like. Why doesn't WoW, the most successful massively multiplayer game in history, have nearly as many? Well it all comes down to balance.
The more classes you add to a game, the exponentially more difficult it is to maintain balance. In effect, one of the most chronic and consistent complaints about every MMO is that the classes are imbalanced. Consider World of Warcraft, having fewer than 10 classes and still one of their biggest challenges is maintaining a balance between the classes.
Let us take Dark Age of Camelot as example. It was an excellent game, certainly the best thing on the market when it came out and for quite awhile afterwards as well. However, there were 3 different realms, all of which had their own sets of classes. As they added more skills and even more classes like Animist, things quickly spiraled out of control. The developers had to maintain a balance within the realm and maintain a balance between each of the realms as a whole as well when factoring in RvR and shared dungeons such as Darkness Falls.
Like this game, it can never be balanced. Here they nerf something and something else gets messed up. If a game's developers decided they need to upgrade their Rogue class damage output, they must figure out a way to upgrade the damage on a rogue enough so that it will at least be noticeable against a Warrior class but not so much that it instantly kills Mages outright. So perhaps the developers decide to add a "chink armor" bonus or something like that the Rogues can sneak their blade past the Warriors thick plate armor.
In PvE game-play, Warrior isn't a big deal but in PvP combat, it's making them useless against all the Rogues sneaking around the battlefield. If you have too many classes, you most have other classes similar to Rogues, such as mercenary or brigand, who specializes in melee damage dealing with low defense. So now the mercenaries come out and start complaining that Rogues are doing the same damage as them, but Rogues get sneaking and hide abilities that the mercenaries do not. They are justified in saying that since they do not get the special abilities of the Rogue, that they should have a damage bonus at least.
When it comes to fairness, these little changes to classes can have ripple effects across the entire span of game-play, the ability for a class to solo, group or join in PvP. They don't mind trying to add new classes, along with their whole sets of original abilities, to a game that has already been released!
Overall, World of Warcraft has been smart in realizing this constant challenge when it comes to classes and balance. They do the best but they still don't get it perfect. In general, games stay closer to the classic "fighter, Mage, cleric, thief" model with their classes are going to be more balanced than the games just keep adding classes and struggling with nerfs, tweaks throughout their lives.
As a matter of fact, World of Warcraft has significantly lower number of classes, compared to a lot of other Massive Multiple Online games on the market. Some games have 20 or more classes to choose from, with all sorts of subclasses and dual specializations and the like. Why doesn't WoW, the most successful massively multiplayer game in history, have nearly as many? Well it all comes down to balance.
The more classes you add to a game, the exponentially more difficult it is to maintain balance. In effect, one of the most chronic and consistent complaints about every MMO is that the classes are imbalanced. Consider World of Warcraft, having fewer than 10 classes and still one of their biggest challenges is maintaining a balance between the classes.
Let us take Dark Age of Camelot as example. It was an excellent game, certainly the best thing on the market when it came out and for quite awhile afterwards as well. However, there were 3 different realms, all of which had their own sets of classes. As they added more skills and even more classes like Animist, things quickly spiraled out of control. The developers had to maintain a balance within the realm and maintain a balance between each of the realms as a whole as well when factoring in RvR and shared dungeons such as Darkness Falls.
Like this game, it can never be balanced. Here they nerf something and something else gets messed up. If a game's developers decided they need to upgrade their Rogue class damage output, they must figure out a way to upgrade the damage on a rogue enough so that it will at least be noticeable against a Warrior class but not so much that it instantly kills Mages outright. So perhaps the developers decide to add a "chink armor" bonus or something like that the Rogues can sneak their blade past the Warriors thick plate armor.
In PvE game-play, Warrior isn't a big deal but in PvP combat, it's making them useless against all the Rogues sneaking around the battlefield. If you have too many classes, you most have other classes similar to Rogues, such as mercenary or brigand, who specializes in melee damage dealing with low defense. So now the mercenaries come out and start complaining that Rogues are doing the same damage as them, but Rogues get sneaking and hide abilities that the mercenaries do not. They are justified in saying that since they do not get the special abilities of the Rogue, that they should have a damage bonus at least.
When it comes to fairness, these little changes to classes can have ripple effects across the entire span of game-play, the ability for a class to solo, group or join in PvP. They don't mind trying to add new classes, along with their whole sets of original abilities, to a game that has already been released!
Overall, World of Warcraft has been smart in realizing this constant challenge when it comes to classes and balance. They do the best but they still don't get it perfect. In general, games stay closer to the classic "fighter, Mage, cleric, thief" model with their classes are going to be more balanced than the games just keep adding classes and struggling with nerfs, tweaks throughout their lives.
