MMORPG Developers Shouldn’t Worry About Balance

Should classes in MMORPGs like Fighter, Mage, Thief and Archer be balanced? Well, balance is important, but know what’s more important? Having LOTS of somewhat balanced classes. Example. I prefer games like EverQuest II and Vanguard from Sony Online Entertainment which each have over 15 playable classes to more “balanced” MMORPGs like Florensia from Alaplaya and Fiesta Online from Outspark which have 4-5 classes. Sure balance is good, but again, I’d rather play a game that gives me more choice. This is ESPECIALLY true for PvE MMORPGs like MapleStory and Cloud Nine which have very limited PvP options. When a game isn’t too PvP intensive, why should you or I even care if say a Warrior is over powered a Mage is a bit weaker? It’s not like it’s a competition or anything. I can see a need for balance in highly competitive PvP MMORPGs like Aika Online, Metin 2 and 4Story.

I’m not saying that MMORPG developers should TOTALLY ignore MMO class balances, as that would be stupid. I’m suggesting that game designers try to make the classes as balanced as possible, but instead of trying to achieve “perfect balance” through time consuming and expensive testing, they should simply let the dice fall where they may – even if one or two classes are a bit more powerful than others. If any class is TOO weak, they can get buffed in future patches. The point is to make all the classes “somewhat” balanced, while focusing on introducing new classes to the game regularly. The only two games that takes this approach, I feel, is League of Legends and Avalon Heroes – two aion of strife MMOs which each have 30+ playable characters. Sure, they aren’t all balanced, but who cares? Both games are fun, and their respective game designers are tweaking the classes as they go while also introducing new ones regularly. I think League of Legends is actually up to 40+ heroes now.

What I want from a game is constant variety, which is why one MMORPG just isn’t enough for me. After I play through all of the archetypes in a game, I move on to the next. Perfect World only has like 8 classes, so after trying each class and leveling them all up to 20 or so, I went ahead and downloaded Battle of the Immortals and played that for a while. Then I moved on to Heroes of Three Kingdoms. MapleStory kept me occupied for over a year because it has 15+ classes and many different job advancements. By the time I got done with fully trying out one character, Nexon would release another one! Which is why I love Nexon games. They’re on the ball with updates. I only played Valkyrie Sky for a short period of time, as it only has a handful of classes, though I loved it. It’s an original MMO.

Anyway. Anyone here agreew with me on the whole “wanting more classes” thing? Or is that just me?