Nov 02 2007 -
Vocation Balancing II
 ast August, we gave you some insight into how we approached the issue of balancing the power in Tibia in the summer update. Today, we are happy to present you with some additional information on how we intend to further improve the overall balance of the vocations.1. "Last Time" In the summer update, we explicitly addressed the balance in power. We focused on the damage output of all vocations and adjusted it so that there would be no more extreme differences. Understandably, many complained that our ideal graphs were hypothetical and could never be reached in the game by actual players for many different reasons. Of course, we were aware of that, which is why we have been working on these other factors ever since the last update. These past changes in the power balancing, however, needed to be done in order to build a working basis on which we can now tune those other factors. In the first featured article on vocation balancing we gave you detailed information on how exactly we changed the damage output and on what it was we wanted to do. Furthermore, we defined what we understand as a good total balance and specified how each vocation is to be seen. These general definitions are the basis for the upcoming balancing features. 2. "This Time" In the upcoming update, we will address many of the mentioned factors that have direct influence on the ability of the vocations to reach their full potential. This article will list all aspects that we have been working on, discuss why we considered each individual aspect to need improvement and in which way we will reach that improvement. A few of the influencing factors may be obvious, while others have a more indirect impact. Still, none should be disregarded since the final goal of total balance can only be achieved if every part of the puzzle fits the picture. None of the following aspects stands alone. They all influence each other in some way. These effects also have been accounted for in the planning. 2.1 The role of each vocation
a) Current Situation Of course, the example given here (as all the others, too) is exaggerated. Certainly, the druid vocation has quite a few abilities that do make it special and worthwhile playing. However, we agree with many of you that the druid lacks distinction to the sorcerer vocation. b) Solution We have given the definition of the vocations more thought and decided to give the druid special attention this time. Generally speaking, we intend to introduce a host of new features that will provide each vocation with at least one special area in which that vocation is the undisputed master. Consequently, each vocation will have certain groups of monsters which are especially comfortable for that vocation to hunt. The druid will benefit most from these new features, but all other vocations will also find that there is more diversity in their daily hunting routines. 2.2 The cost of hunting
a) Current situation Even though the actual ability to hunt with similar effectiveness is given for all vocations now, it is unevenly hard for some vocations to finance their hunts while others have no trouble doing that at all.
Generally speaking, the cost of an attack that requires resources must stand in relation to the cost of all other kinds of attacks that also need resources. In order to reach a fair distribution of the prices, it is necessary to first list all properties defining an attack. The next step is to determine a fitting value for each property and how the price should change when the value of a property changes. These considerations will be applied to all old and new runes, spells, ammunition and throwing weapons. We have considered the following factors:
When considering all these factors, there are numerous ways to reach a good result. Basically, if a certain attack proves to be too good or too bad in some way, it can be corrected by adjusting just one of the above factors. For example, if we saw that spears were too good for their price, we could simply raise the price to correct that. Alternatively, we could also, for example, increase the breakability and thus reduce the average usages of one spear for the same price, or we could change the range within which the spear can reach its target. These considerations are taken for every single form of attack and, of course, we will change the parameters which are the most logical to be changed. For example, if an attack rune is generally well designed and fits into our concept of that rune, though it is clearly too costly, we would prefer to increase the charges on that rune rather than change the price and thereby risk to influence the economy without wanting to do so. The result of these recalculations will bring the hunting costs of paladins, druids and sorcerers into a reasonable balance, but it will not affect the knights since melee weapons do not need resources. We will, however, also alter the values and effectiveness of resources that are specifically needed by knights and thereby increase their costs for hunting in order to fit them into the picture. 2.3 The duration of one hunting session   The time a character can go on a hunt before needing to return is essentially limited by how much that character needs to carry to hunt and how much that character actually can carry. A knight, for example, can carry impressive amounts of runes due to his strength, yet he does not really need to bring many. A mage, on the other hand, is dependent on his runes and mana fluids, yet he usually cannot carry enough to last for more than just a few hours of hunting. b) Solution One way to deal with this problem would be to alter the actual capacity of each vocation. Since, however, we consider it natural that mage classes do not have extraordinary physical strength while knights, for example, are muscle packed heroes, we feel that an alteration of the capacity would contradict the definition of the vocations.  2.4 The defense a) Current Situation One of the old principles concerning the balance between the vocations has always been that if a vocation has stronger attack powers than another, it should have less defense. This is the reason why the mage classes have always had weaker defense than knights and paladins, and of course, this will not change in the future. However, as the gap in attack power has been reduced in the last update, the gap in defense power now seems disproportionate. b) Solution It is not our intention to change the defense system in itself. We also do not plan to significantly increase the defense power of mage classes. However, we have designed some new features that will endow mainly the mage classes with the ability to defend themselves a little better against specific types of attacks from certain types of monsters. 2.5 The risk of death a) Current Situation Considering the large difference in overall hit points between the vocations as well as the advantage in defense which the vocations with more hit points enjoy, it is generally safe to say that mage classes face a higher risk of death against similar monsters and other players than paladins and knights.
This is very closely related to the defensive measures that each vocation has at its disposal. Therefore, it should suffice to say that we are, of course, planning to address all of the above mentioned aspects with both alterations of existing systems and new features. In fact, many of the measures described above will reduce the differences in the risk of death for each vocation as a welcome side effect. 3. "Next Time" Yes, there will be a next time. Tibia is evolving constantly, not only with every update, but also with every new player that arrives, with every legend that leaves, with every step each and every one of you takes within its realms. This constant change also means that the balance will never be fully complete. There will always be some tuning to be done, now and in the future. One example concerns yet another different aspect of game balance. This one, however, is less related to vocations, but much more to individual playing styles. Every online game needs to have a very good balance between single play and multi play. Considering the current focus on single play hunting in Tibia, we hope to make hunting in groups more attractive in the future. To sum up, we are convinced that after this balancing round, further steps will involve only minor alterations, fine tuning and additional features rather than significant changes to the gameplay. The crucial steps have now been taken, but of course, we will still keep walking. You are all very welcome to accompany us on that path by giving your opinion about this article and the future in this thread on the proposal board. Have fun in Tibia! Your CipSoft Team |
