Why NOT balance the game around 1v1?

#0 - Feb. 10, 2010, 6:29 p.m.

I mean... its it obvious? If you balance the game around 1v1 you will have balance around more vs more.

Many changes have gone through targeted at 1v1 Duels, like:

Mage Armor (helps Mages VS Warlocks 1v1)
...mages really didnt need mage armor against anything else

Shattering Throw (helps warriors 1v1 paladin and mages)
...do warriors really needed this? This seems a change that actually breaks mage and paladins in many vs many scenarios.. whats the point of having an emergency cooldown if one class can just render it useless?

Feral Druid Berserk
... this change is nothing but a 1v1 change aimed at ferals 1v1ing Warlocks, shadow priests once again are nerfed because of a 1v1 change.

Warlocks have always asked for some sort of Stun protection, and yet all we get is /spits and "lawl game isnt balanced around 1v1, l2p".

Giving warlock a stun protection will help them against rogues and warriors (which are hard counters for affliction)
Paladin will be hurt by this change, so give Blessing of Freedom a 100% chance to BREAK a fear (but not make him immune to it for the duration)

There, two classes fixed in one little paragraph

Ghostcrawler

#3 - Feb. 10, 2010, 6:51 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Why NOT balance the game around 1v1

I can answer that in three different ways:

1) Because there are healers.

2) We aren't going for a design where every player is a one person army with a counter for anything that gets thrown against you. We want you to have to rely on your allies. We want you to have weaknesses that someone else can exploit. How you handle your own weaknesses while trying to exploit those of your opponent is one of the ways you can demonstrate skill.

3) It's ultimately a social game and the PvP experience is largely designed as team vs. team.

Ghostcrawler

#154 - Feb. 11, 2010, 1:53 a.m.

Q u o t e:
That makes sense as it helps to keep classes different. Do you plan on balancing 2v2 if it's extremely out of wack or does balancing begin exclusively at 3v3?

We do try and keep 2v2 in check (and even 1v1 to some extent), but we spend more effort on 3v3 and 5v5 and BGs (though BG balance is a very different beast).

Ghostcrawler

#155 - Feb. 11, 2010, 1:55 a.m.

Q u o t e:
I think the idea is that in smaller settings, Healers are either going to be super overpowered, or damn near useless. If every dps has a shot at simply bursting a Healer down, why ever bring one? Conversely, if two DPS can't burn through his shields and interrupt him enough to bring him down, now you're in a situation where you HAVE to have one.

They try to avoid situations where you HAVE to do things.

Yeah, this was basically my point. Sorry if it sounded too obtuse. Either one dps can generally beat one healer, or they can't. If they can, then two dps vs. one healer is going to be a massacre, and having a 2 dps + 1 healer team doesn't really work.

Ghostcrawler

#157 - Feb. 11, 2010, 1:57 a.m.

Q u o t e:
I see... then you are going the path of encouraging comps based on syenergy, which is in my opinion the sole reason why people complain about them being unenjoyable, "Bring the player, not the class" doesnt apply there.

"Bring the player" refers to PvE. We like for comp and class synergy to matter in PvP.

Ghostcrawler

#159 - Feb. 11, 2010, 1:59 a.m.

Q u o t e:
The problem with these two arguments is that you have pvp realms. These are places where 1v1 is the norm, because the out of dungeon content is 99.99% solo oriented. Are you really just saying we shouldn't roll on pvp realms, if we want balanced/fair fights?

You're level 20. You get ganked by a level 50. We can't balance that to where it will ever work out favorably for you. Sorry. :)

I'd roll on a PvP server because you like PvP servers, not because you're looking for balanced / fair fights.

Ghostcrawler

#163 - Feb. 11, 2010, 2:05 a.m.

Q u o t e:
I think you missed the point of this GC. Its not a matter of everyone wanting to be a "1 man army". This is only wanting the game to be a fair shot 1 versus 1 so in turn the rest of the "brackets" are balanced.

You're arguing that if 1 = 1 then 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. That math doesn't work though, because we have class synergy. Essentially 1 + 1 + 1 > 3 in many PvP situations. To use a tenuous example, bullets and guns when used together kill much more efficiently than trying to use bullets or guns alone.

Ghostcrawler

#164 - Feb. 11, 2010, 2:07 a.m.

Q u o t e:
You don't go and quest with a team
You don't do your dailies as a team

GC you need to remember there is a lot of aspects of this game that was designed to do as a individual

And sense the game was designed for that to occur a lot of times it would only be right to give all class an equal chance to beat any other class to even the playing field when it comes to ganking

You can make a lot of progress in WoW as a lone wolf. No doubt about it. If you want the best gear though, guess what, you're going into dungeons or Arenas / BGs with a group.

Ghostcrawler

#167 - Feb. 11, 2010, 2:10 a.m.

Q u o t e:
"The problem with the PvP side of Warbringer is that when you consider prot warrior versus mage (just as an example), there was nothing a mage could do to a well versed warrior. The warrior carries a lot of stuns, silences, and then any attempt to root him is broken by multiple abilities." this quote is from Bornakk found in the warrior forums....

Blizz and your saying your not going to make changes to classes 1v1? Then Please explain...

I just did in the line you quoted. We want you to have weaknesses that someone else can exploit. The PvP Protection warrior had very few weaknesses. I don't want to debate them in this thread, but this is not the gotcha you think it is. Our balancing PvP mostly around larger engagements does not mean that anything that lets you destroy another class with no recourse is AOK.

Ghostcrawler

#171 - Feb. 11, 2010, 2:18 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Bgs are random , with a random bunch of players. Unless you are saying that every 5vs5 comp is completely balanced , bgs are by default not balanced. And to extend that , many bg scenario's surround 1vs1 , 2vs2 and 3vs3 scenario's. Yes i am with a group riding to lm , no that isn't always going to prevent me from being dropped by a counter class.

Yeah, and sometimes you're going to be riding along alone and get jumped by 20. We can't and don't really want to prevent that, and you have very few real options to counter or even survive that. That doesn't mean BGs are inherently unbalanced and unbalanceable. It does mean that the focus on BGs is generally on capturing flags or holding Mines instead of killing the other guy.