Massively^™

The idea of 'Balance' is a myth and a trap. Pen and paper couldn't manage it it, text MUDs couldn't manage it, and MMOs still can't manage it. There's always going to be a class or skillset viewed as undesireable or weaker than it should be (whether rightfully or wrongly).

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You can only approach balance really, not try to enforce it. Gamers are an inventive bunch.

And sometimes, balance may not be what you're after. My favorite theory from a few months back was that the classes in a certain MMO weren't supposed to be balanced, but that changes were designed to change the dynamics between them every once and a while.

I doubt that was the case, but the idea certainly was interesting.

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I think Guild Wars had a creative take on balance. They didn't aim for balance. They aimed for opening up all the options so that you could be practically any class you wanted (switching secondary professions, alts for new primaries) and swap all your skills in and out as desired.

They nerfed things here and there to keep some change in motion, and basically force constant redesign of counters and counters to those counters. But it never really felt personal to the extent that it would cripple the way you played, simply because you could -change- the way you played, any time, to go hunting for the next OP build.

Meanwhile in other games, any time the balancing axe swings, you worry that you'll no longer be able to do something you're accustomed to doing, and wonder what imposition on one's playstyle is going to happen this time.

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Greatest system for game balance is the use of the triangle, also known as Scissors, paper, and rock.

The problem with MMOs is that the game cannot adhere to the level of gameplay that gamers exert. Another words players are always going to find a way around the rigid systems or poorly scripted AI to advance (PVE). Even more problematic it that players don't often follow the rigid system among themselves (PVP).

1.) The solution is to enforce fair play in PVP with more education and openness of strategies and techniques.

2.) Improving the AIs script to more accurately adjust to the player skill level.

Unfortunately its very hard to do these two things, so there's always going to be someone who finds the crack in the system because they were thinking outside the box.

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