RotMG Classes, Balance, Intentions, Problems?

#1

So most people here knows how all classes in RotMG works. So I’ll go in straight to the topic.

I’ve been wondering, “How are RotMG classes balanced and is there any problems with it?”. Basic thoughts came to mind : Melees are broken, Some classes are just too selfish, DPS is not everyting, etc.

So I wanted to visually see the comparison between What classes are supposed to be and What classes are being right now when played by bad or new players.

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This is what I see with ‘what classes are supposed to be’. There might be variations with some UTs and Item setups, but I’ll say this is the basic to me. *The rushing ability didn’t really get in count, due to the fact that it doesn’t really help a group a LOT, unless you are in very special scenario (Rushing LH, etc.)

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This is what I see with ‘what classes are being played as by bad or new players’.

As you can see, A lot of classes moved to being defensive and self-centered. Good example : Trickster. Tricksters are supposed to either ‘properly drag the mobs’ or ‘use decoys to earn group some time to prepare, and control the fight, like mystic does.’
In reality, You would barely see any tricksters decoying properly unless you are in halls or in event. But they DO actively use teleport, which makes it self-centered(rushing doesn’t really count, except for certain situations, so I ignored that).

Wizard , Ninja, and Priest didn’t really change that much, due to the fact that they don’t really have ‘complex mechanics’, This, however, Does not mean that class is always Easy. The new players know what the class is supposed to do : what it’s simply made for : DPS or Heal.

MELEES. Melees shifted a LOT. All 3 melees have a good form of utility. Berserk, Healing/maxHPincrease/Damaging, and STUN. They lose their utility as they get more offensive.
But what happens at the second chart?

  • Warrior gets very self-centered due to the fact that they can’t properly use their berserk on the group because of it’s short buff range.
  • Paladin gets less offensive and self centered. This may look like a good thing, but considering how paladin is basically a second DPS machine next to warrior that also heals and buffs in way bigger radius, it really isn’t.
  • Knight is just… useless at this point. What’s the use of knight in endgame contents like Oryx 2 when it can’t land its stun whatsoever?

THIS IS A HUGE PROBLEM. If you think about it, in most RPG games, Defense and tanks doesn’t really matter. The boss ALWAYS finds a way to either Oneshot the tanks, or just pierce through them, rendering them useless. I wouldn’t directly blame DECA for this. This always happens in practically EVERY RPG games. But as a unique RPG RotMG is, I might as well love to see the change to these balancing.

The good example of solving the problem is Marble seal. It actually makes the good point of Tanks. They help the group take less damage and lets them focus on DPS. But rather, I hope there are ones that are a bit more original than Armored. There’s Mad god cloak, Mseal, Jugg, Prot, and now the new ST star is gonna give Armored… Maybe just a group Def increase? Or making piercing shots not piercing (somewhat wall idea, but implemented on the character)? Who knows, I’m just hoping for more changes in Unity client.

What do you guys think about class balancing? Do you think new UTs will help the game improve in balancing sides? Or do you think that there should be a whole class rework? let me know what you think.

#2

I’m confused as to why utility is opposed to being “self-centered” in your graph, and how melees " …lose their utility as they get more offensive." When you’ve moved pally and knight to defensive as they’ve lost utility on your graph.

#3

Knight loses utility because of the fact that they can’t land stuns on risky mobs, like Oryx, Crusade Commander, etc.

The meaning of ‘losing their utility as they get more offensive’ is referring to all 3 melees in the first graph : Knight has the highest utility out of 3 but have least amount of offense, while warrior is has the lowest utility out of all 3, instead gets gets the most amount of offense, and paladin is just between. Wasn’t referring to one paricular melee from first graph to other graph.

Oh, by utility I used there, I meant ‘being helpful to the group’. That’s why I ignored Rushing.

#4

You mean except for all these RPGs where aggro management actually matters? All those obscure little titles like WoW for instance?

There are several reasons why this is a RotMG-specific problem:

-lots of bosses that barely move, don’t move at all or don’t take players into account to decide their movement pattern;

-lots of bosses that shoot everywhere, meaning they don’t take players into account to decide their shooting pattern;

-extreme amounts of damage, meaning even the sturdiest characters can’t actually tank and have to dodge;

-co-mob gameplay, meaning the tank often doesn’t feel like taking risks because most players around are just strangers;

-perma-death, meaning the tank stands to lose a lot if he actually tries to tank.

The only way you could make tanking viable in RotMG would be to design fights, or at least some phases, specifically to be tanked.

That’s also true for most other balance problems in the game: they’re not going away with just one or two class reworks and some new ultra-rare item slapped on top. You need to take the entire game into consideration if you want to make any kind of substantial change.

#5

That’s why the concept of tank in a bullet hell game is kinda hard to design.

Rotmg can be considered as a balance between two types of games that are somewhat opposed to each others :

  • Bullet hell game : You are supposed to dodge most, if not all attacks comming from foes. This comes by learning attack patterns and overall getting better at using your character’s abilities. This holds the “solo” value of a character’s gameplay, making the personnal skill matter the most.

  • MMORPG : You cannot, or can barely dodge attacks. Instead, you are supposed to team up with people having different strenghts and weaknesses to defeat foes, using strategy and teamwork. This holds the “team” value of a character’s gameplay, making teamwork and the division of tasks between classes matter the most.

Lately, the devs have put the accent on the bullet hell aspect of the game. For example, new end-game bosses, like the Nest’s bosses and Void Entity, have attacks filling the arena with unaimed bullets. Most of those bullets are piercing, meaning you can’t hide behind tanks, and they are very damaging, meaning in most situations you shouldn’t tank them. In particular, Daichi’s attacks made me feel like I was playing a Danmaku game.

I don’t know if this is a good thing or not (personnally that’s the aspect of the game that I love) but I feel like what makes Rotmg so special is this delicate balance between those two kinds of games. Hopefully Deca knows what they’re doing.

So yeah, in the bullet hell aspect of the game, support or tank classes don’t have much value. That’s probably why it feels like it has less impact on the current end-game.

#6

I’m confused, what are you saying is the problem? Different classes have different uses and have varying degrees of usefulness. If they were all equally useful that would be boring as hell.

#7

Well, theres a lot of self-centered classes in a mmo game. Plus, the primary vision of many of the classes are being overshadowed by pet’s crazy mpheal and heal.

#8

Interesting post!
When it comes to class balancing the only question ultimately is:

  • Is this class much better or worse than the other ones?

If it’s too good, or too bad, that class needs rebalance by altering the ability or the class stat caps.
Basic balancing can’t be done via introducing new UTs. No UT should be required to play a class, they are for exploring different playstyles and tactics, not the core game which is the tiered items.

I think we can get too obsessed about the minutiae, they all work and they all have a niche, none of them are broken. I probably wouldn’t alter any of the existing classes as it’d just be changing things for change’s sake when there are bigger things to fix (eg. immunities on bosses: maybe making stun and paralyse also do slow to lessen uselessness/annoyance). Continue with releasing a few more classes, a new weapontype, that will also naturally dilute things with a larger roster to choose from.

@ OP I think there is some finesse you could do with the premise you’ve used for the visuals, because the categories have IMO a lot that depends on an individual player’s style, and stronger conclusions could possibly be drawn if different axes were used. I’ll collapse these paragraphs since it’s wall-of-text.

The Offensive-Defensive axis

These metrics aren’t very useful to use, since there are no purely defensive tiered abilities; virtually all abilities are used in pursuit of offensive tactics. Only things like Marble Seal or Prot that raise defensive stats could arguably fall under defensive, or seal raising max HP, though damaging then makes seal both. Orb (curse+berzerk, with stasis) is more offensive than defensive, even heal isn’t strictly defensive, as it can be used to prolong an attacking phase. Helm’s speedy can be used to quickly escape danger so even that’s not pure offensive.

Simple DPS or a generalisation of it on that axis might be more instructive. Knight would be mid-to-high rated on the DPS Theoretical graph, but way down on the Bad/New Player graph because cowardly knights do 0 DPS due to out-of-range whereas cowardly ranges get their dmg in easier.

The Utility-Self-centred axis

The utility vs self-centred, I think we gotta start by only speaking about vanilla tiered classes, because bringing in UTs allows most every class to occupy about 5 different spots on the chart based on their gear. So wizard, ninja, sorcerer, assassin can’t be rated differently, as they’re all pure DPS with nothing else. Sorc especially is not justified being rated higher, it’s only fulmi that brings in the extra utility, and ninja also has UT star alternatives.

Perhaps this axis might be improved if more focused on the ability and what effects each (tiered) class brings, heal, curse, paralyse, stun, etc. So solo ability vs party ability maybe? Though still open to debate and tactics, aiming this axis directly at the ability might allow rogue to be safely classed as one extreme (contributes no party effect, other player around can actively detract) with paladin at the other (contributes three useful effects, no party downside).

Alternate axes/charts conclusion

Graphing High DPS to Low DPS on the x, and Solo Ability to Party Ability on the y could sweep away some of the personal tactics and preferences, since these are more tangible things.

And keep it to tiered items for each class, unless wanting to have multiple icons for a class on the chart, eg. T6 necro = medium party ability (heal, dmg), but Esben necro = very high party ability (area slow on demand plus heal & dmg).

On tanking, or lack of:

It’s the fault of pet design.
Because it causes such a chasm between the tanking abilities of those with mighty pets and those without, the only option available is to make bullets pierce and force everyone to deal with them the same. It’s virtually impossible otherwise to calibrate in such a way that they’re tankable because either they’re pinpricks in the hide of those with strong pets, or they’re a lethal barrage to those with weak pets.

You recall they reworked Reef, adding pierce, to actively remove tanking tactics that large groups were using to cheese through that with minimal threat. So tanking is not exactly in favour at DecaHQ.

A status effect that accumulates, causing escalating incoming dmg could be a solution, whereby the more you tank the worse it gets until eventually the shots will do deadly dmg until you go a time without being hit. (Also how I’d like to see things such as lava/magma dmg.)

#9

Here’s my attempt. Implemented data via Pfiffel’s DPS calc, with T12 weapons, T6 abilities, T13 armors, no ring.

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Per level, a short explanation:
Top: Paladin. Paladins provide both good healing, a boost in health, and a major damage increase.
High-end: Warrior, Priest, Knight, Huntress, Archer. Warriors provide another highly beneficial damage boost, single-handedly bringing them up quite high.
Priest provides the bulk of all heals in any group, and also provides additional Healing for a long duration.
Knight can Stun enemies, essentially providing the group a period of safety.
Huntress and Archer immobilize targets partially/wholly, which enhances group DPS on faster-moving targets, as well as lowering the chance of them being close, and therefore (usually) lowering the chance of getting hit.
Middle: Mystic, Trickster, Samurai. Mystic, too, provides a decent damage boost for the group, and can temporarily remove enemies from needing to be focused on.
Trickster can, potentially, fully lure all shots from a boss away. However, this niche is a bit too specific to place her higher.
Samurai provides the lowest effective damage boost of all classes, but it still counts.
Low-end: Assassin, Sorcerer. The best both of these can do is clear minions, at which neither are as consistent at as an Archer, let alone a Huntress. Assassin’s higher spread damage landed him a higher spot than Sorcerer.
Bottom: Rogue, Ninja, Wizard. All of their abilities are damage-oriented, and not for clearing minions, therefore removing their last potential team aspect. Ninja might be placed higher due to piercing, but its short range and lack of ground-covering doesn’t help in that regard.

These aren’t fact, more my thoughts on how I’d place them. Some might not be fully correct, and the sprites look a little weird cause I had to resize them I’m not perfect, so keep that in mind.

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#10

Going to dispute a few of these things. Mystic is entirely a team based class. It sacrifices all of his stats in exchange for an ability that takes out enemies and boosting damage. The same thing occurs with priest so I believe that both of them should have a higher spot on the team based scale.

#11

TrapsAreGay

Also, mystics have a buff. Self buff : Speedy, Damaging, Berserk. That’s probably why Seelpit put them in the middle.

#12

But if we are to judge classes, we have to judge by some standard and his standard was tiered which offer generally less self buffs

#13

her*

Also Tiered orb is only a proper source of Self-Berserk for mystics

#14

Only traps and Apache helicopters correct gender pronouns. Also there are some male mystic skins. The whole class isn’t just a mosh pit of women.

#15

:man_facepalming: it’s right there on the description:
image
Please lets not steer this into some misogynist battleground. Nobody talks about wizard as ‘she’ despite the possibility of Miss Shamrock etc, so it’s also mistaken to call mystic ‘him’.

#16

Thats a tuff call. Everyone could and has argued this point to death.

What it really comes down to … for me is … “Can I have fun with this class?” My answer is generally a yes, for all classes atm. It may come down to a certain setup and or the way I play that class that can make it fun for me. However, like many I do have my favorite classes.

#17

Sorry

#18

Hmm pretty accurate poster though

#19

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