Balance

[madpoet67]

One of the things I always enjoyed about CoH was its somewhat laissez-faire attitude toward balance. So many other MMOs seem to spend far too much development time tinkering with it. In that "other" game, they've taken balance to the point of homogenization. Every character feels the same. But CoH never seemed to make it a priority. Granted, until the release of CoV, this was not a PVP game, so balance only really mattered to the min/maxers.

 

I think that's why CoH is so alt friendly. Each archetype, and even each combination of power sets within an archetype, feels different. You can play through the same content over and over again and it almost feels like a different game. I had an interesting experience last night that really drove this home for me.

 

During the initial live run of the game, and in the last few months here on Homecoming, I probably ran the Frostfire story arc in the Hollows as a solo character 50 times or more. Each time I found the final mission challenging... a long, sometimes dangerous slog through a complicated maze of villains and obstacles culminating in the first really difficult fight of the game.... Frostfire.

 

Now, I'm no gamer. At 52-years-old, I don't have the reflexes of my younger compatriots (You grew up with Xbox, I grew up with Pong). So, I always got my butt kicked by Frostfire and his minions. Popping inspos and blowing cooldowns, I could, on certain builds, defeat him the first time, but it was always a challenge and more often than not, defeating him required several trips to the hospital. It always took close to an hour.

 

Then last night, I ran a dual blades stalker through the arc. I snuck past the first Outcasts, defeated the three guarding the artifact that unlocks the first door, snuck through to Keystone, defeated him, and snuck straight to Frostfire. I popped my inspos, snuck up behind him, hit Assassin's Blades, and clicked the blue button... 10 minutes... done.

 

Now that is NOT balance... but it was fun...  ;D

 

I'm so happy to have CoH back.

 

 

[GamerKate]

Awesome. This a million times.

 

And I don’t even think that’s unbalanced. Other toons will have Cleared All, and this got more XP and inf than you did for it.

 

I’ve never fought Frosty on a stalker, because I always start the ‘villain’ ATs redside lol, then if I want them to go blue, I redeem them the long way.

 

At least, that’s what I did on Live. Maybe I should roll up a lowbie heroic Stalker.  Stalkers are really fun to play.

 

MCM

[beloved]

I rolled a dual pistols/sonic resonance corruptor in Praetoria yesterday. I was soloing content when I got sent on a mission to fight through a massive horde of ghouls, to defeat two ghouls at the end. At level 5. Like 50+ ghouls easily. This is the first character I took flight on. You best believe I flew over all those ghouls just to kill the bosses. I was even satisfied with myself. Balanced? Nope. What my character would have done? Yep.

[iBot]

My 2 cents for what it is worth:

 

First you have to define balance.  In my opinion, balance simply means that given a primary power set, a secondary power set, and an AT can you complete the task given?  It should not matter that each PS and AT combination perform the same actions to complete said task.  Balance means that for a given task there are some that excel at it and others that are poor at it.  I think too many developers and especially players get hung up on "They can do it why can't I?"  Being able to approach the content differently to play to the strengths of a build and avoid its weaknesses is the essence of balance to me.  The fact that a particular set of powers allows you to skip to the end while another set is better off fighting to the end is just good design in my book.

[GritIron]

One of the things I always enjoyed about CoH was its somewhat laissez-faire attitude toward balance. So many other MMOs seem to spend far too much development time tinkering with it. In that "other" game, they've taken balance to the point of homogenization. Every character feels the same. But CoH never seemed to make it a priority. Granted, until the release of CoV, this was not a PVP game, so balance only really mattered to the min/maxers.

 

I think that's why CoH is so alt friendly. Each archetype, and even each combination of power sets within an archetype, feels different. You can play through the same content over and over again and it almost feels like a different game. I had an interesting experience last night that really drove this home for me.

 

During the initial live run of the game, and in the last few months here on Homecoming, I probably ran the Frostfire story arc in the Hollows as a solo character 50 times or more. Each time I found the final mission challenging... a long, sometimes dangerous slog through a complicated maze of villains and obstacles culminating in the first really difficult fight of the game.... Frostfire.

 

Now, I'm no gamer. At 52-years-old, I don't have the reflexes of my younger compatriots (You grew up with Xbox, I grew up with Pong). So, I always got my butt kicked by Frostfire and his minions. Popping inspos and blowing cooldowns, I could, on certain builds, defeat him the first time, but it was always a challenge and more often than not, defeating him required several trips to the hospital. It always took close to an hour.

 

Then last night, I ran a dual blades stalker through the arc. I snuck past the first Outcasts, defeated the three guarding the artifact that unlocks the first door, snuck through to Keystone, defeated him, and snuck straight to Frostfire. I popped my inspos, snuck up behind him, hit Assassin's Blades, and clicked the blue button... 10 minutes... done.

 

Now that is NOT balance... but it was fun...  ;D

 

I'm so happy to have CoH back.

 

This cant be stressed  enough.... ever!

[justicebeliever]

+1 Inf for the OP - great post - absolutely right on!

[TheSwamper]

I completely agree with the OP. To try to balance the classes in this game is like comparing apples to oranges to pears to pineapples. They are all very different, and this is part of what makes the game great.

[jubakumbi]

My standard is simple.

It is a (super)hero game.

Are Thor and Haweye 'balanced'?

:)