Is ArmageddonMUD unbalanced?

[Forest Junkie]

A guild is only as powerful as the player makes it.

Any guild has the potential to become...anything it wants.

Each class has its own special set of unique quirks and abilities, which set it apart from the rest into a league of its own.

Higher karma classes, 'mentalists included, are separate from this fold. This is because they are designed for players who have earned the staff's trust over the years, as stated in the documentation.
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From my experiences on ArmageddonMUD:

1) I have seen 100+ day warriors destroyed by weaker, albeit more prepared players.

2) I have seen all-powerful mages and 'mentalists alike fall to their deaths due to -one- mishap where they left their guard down. All at the hands of a much weaker opponent.

3) I have seen rangers with half the experience and days played take out other hunters, or even seasoned warriors, using only the terrain and sharp wit.

4) I have seen merchants/advisors/concubines control vast quantities of soldiers/money/land/power not through their immense strength of body, but strength of manipulation and character/charisma.

5) I have seen the poorest, most pitiful pile of trash rise up from the shadows, grow in strength, character, ability, power, influence, etc, and draw others to them. Drawing others with similar ideas, of change. Through these ideas of change, they created entire tribes, or clans, or even social gatherings, and used their growing influence and power to create a watershed event that changed the course of history on Zalanthas.
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I ask you players:

Do you honestly think there is an unbalance between the guilds/classes in this game?

If so, where? How? Can it be fixed? What general experiences influenced your ideas and opinions?

[amoeba]

My be my opinion, but I think you just pointed out some strengths in the game.

[Forest Junkie]

My be my opinion, but I think you just pointed out some strengths in the game.

That's why I think this game is pretty much perfect.

I can't seem to find any faults, or unbalances. So, I ask of the playerbase:

Can you?

[Larrath]

In the macro, Armageddon is balanced to near perfection.

In the micro?  I don't like how certain 'non-skills' can only be used by certain guilds/subguilds.  Anyone should be able to dig around a little and hope to dig out a tuber or find a bit of water.  Anyone should be able to try and listen to that one table that's standing right next to them and hear the conversation.  Anyone should be able to try and hide, find someone hiding or even sneak up on someone and knock them out.

[Ghost]

The unbalance in the game is often defined as one class being more "powerful" than the other.

I agree some guild might have advantages over some fields.  Beating a warrior in close combat is not easy, nor keeping pace with a ranger in the wilds.

While some guilds might seem to have advantage, I still see a balance in there.  Every guild has either a short term or a long term advantage/disadvantage.  Assassins or rangers for example, gives some headache at the start..  But in the long run, they seem to have some advantages.
Warriors are easiest to play.  Life is almost always easier with them.  But not everybody likes them in the long run.  Not me at least.

A defiler is really difficult, or should be at the start.  But they may threaten an entire region or even a city-state if they grow powerful.
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I saw AC's post about it a while ago, but I don't think I will be able to dig through it and find it.  But I remember at least the paraghraph she described:
AC wrote:
"A twenty day old warrior can wipe the floor with a twenty day old merchant.  But a twenty day old merchant, with all the good coins he collected can hire a few guards, so that the warrior can't touch the merchant.  Yet the merchant can also hire a 20 day assassin, who kills the warrior.  But if the warrior sees the assassin, he may kill him.  But assassin poisons the warrior, so warrior dies as well...."

While it may be with different words and order, it was pretty much something like that.  And I think this clearly defines the balance.

[Marauder Moe]

No, the guilds are not balanced.  They don't need to be.  This isn't a hack'n'slash.  We're not competing against eachother to get to level 100.

[facehugger]

Wait.

Who said Armageddon was -supposed- to be balance? Since when is Zalanthas a fair place?

[WarriorPoet]

'Balance' was a problem at a WoT mud I used to play. It all came down to: "This isn't fair!" Well, buck up boys and girls. This is Armageddon, and it's not meant to be fair or 'sporting'.

Sorcerers are supposed to rule you. A warrior is simply better at combat than a merchant. A thief may be the richest fuck on Zalanthas from his slick fingers, but if a Templar takes a dislike for him, that's that. 'Balance' is a moot point here at Armageddon, because in the end it's not supposed to be fair or equal. That's just not in the cards here. Each guild/sub have their own strengths and weaknesses, but balanced? Why would you even want that?

-WP

[Zharal]

it's only unbalanced when things don't work for you the way you want them to.  It's kind of like the old, I dont like it so it must be your fault.

Yes.
Duh.

[Tamarin]

Is life unbalanced?

[Cuusardo]

Life is not fair.  Zalanthas is especially unfair.

Different guilds and subguilds have different advantages and weaknesses.  How you use them determines how powerful you are.  But no matter how powerful you THINK you are, there is going to be someone who can topple you.

Balance???  Who needs it?

[Hexxaex]

Just keep in mind that the days played is a totally OOC thing, meant for the player.  If you start out as a 16 year old that has no idea which way is up on a sword, but starts to learn and becomes good at fighting when he's say, 20 or 21, you've probably got a lot of playing time on that character.  It's still very conceivable that he could get killed by someone with WAY less playing time on the character, but ICly, he's a 40 year old who kills magickers and gith for fun.

It is also conveivable that this "new" 40 year old could get killed by the "old" 16 year old, which sometimes doesn't make much sense at all, because ICly, the 40 year old guy is -way- more experienced in the art of battle.

[Savak]

Of course the guilds and races are not balanced.

The game, however, is pretty well balanced overall.  This is primarily because players balance it in-game, with more or less guidance or limitation from staff, as required.  The obvious "limitations" which exist are in what guilds/races a given player can choose from to play, and what skills/abilities/etc. those races & guilds have.  The other obvious "limitations" are IC ones -- muls, while powerful & dangerous, are either slaves or runaways; sorcerers are pretty much universally despised; elves are lying cheating double-crossing backstabbers; and the list goes on.

So.. there is balance and there is "balance."  On the one hand, we don't want any one guild, race, skill, or spell to be too overpowered & easy to utilize.  On the other hand, a decent combination of those with wit, intelligence, preparation -- all those personal qualities players give their characters -- makes a tremendous difference, especially in the context of the IC world.  A smart merchant with no real "skills" can pretty much rule the universe, while a "maxxed" warrior wearing steel can get whacked by a drunk mugger (both loosely based on true stories).

The idea is that with more "power" comes more responsibility, and more in-game work required in achieving it.  Even templars & nobles are limited by their superiors and politics, though they may wield a lot of "power" at any given moment.

Anyway.

-Savak

[Spoon]

No, the guilds are not balanced.  They don't need to be.  This isn't a hack'n'slash.  We're not competing against eachother to get to level 100.

Need anyone say more?

Personally, I despise any reference to PC's being 'more powerful' than one another. I hate references to whatever-day characters. This is because I've only EVER seen them used to make references to combat skills which, quite frankly, is insignificant to the other wonderful goings-on in this MUD.

[lazycritic]

A guild is only as powerful as the player makes it.

No.

Any guild has the potential to become...anything it wants.

No.

Each class has its own special set of unique quirks and abilities, which set it apart from the rest into a league of its own.

Yes.

The guilds do balance out overall.

I think the guild/class system does impose unrealistic restrictions, though. It hurts RP.

[moab]

I agree with Savak completely....HOWEVER...guilds suck.
Class based systems are the worst and while I understand they are an artifact of the Dikus system Armageddon has been built upon,  it would do the game good (though god knows how much code would have to be gutted) to dump classes completely and go with something that is completely skill based and driven (after initial skill picks) by the IG teach command and one's natural abilities

[LoD Snarf]

These always sound great, but they just wouldn't work.

What would happen is 75% of the people would pick the set of skills that lend them the optimal advantage in any given situation.  The backstabbing, disarming, fireballing, sneaking/hiding, poisoning uber character would become the template of choice.

People then retort "Well, there's be certain skills people could choose from large pools which would make them make some choices so they couldn't have everything."  Yes, and those are called guilds or classes.

Armageddon's guild system is about as classless as it gets while retaining some built in "checks and balances" against people creating "super guilds".  You aren't forced to "train" certain skills and the ones your character works upon are the ones that are improved upon.  If you REALLY feel like your character needs a skill that the guild doesn't normally provide, you can always submit your request to the Imm Staff and see if they'll allow it.

If it's not something that will completely unbalance the class, I don't see why they wouldn't make a concession.  (i.e. substituting a weapon skill for another weapon skill, changing a craft skill with another, etc...)  The kinds of requests that likely wouldn't be approved would be ones that asked to give a warrior backstab, or an elementalist a weapon skill, etc...

Besides, skills shouldn't be the driving force of your play.  They should provide for you a sturdy backdrop upon which you drape your character.  They lend credence to the actions you take and provide a tangible reward system for time spent practicing ICly to improve yourself.  The subclasses were built in as a way to help people meet the exact need that you express.  To have a few more "skills" that aren't normally associated with the class to help round them out a bit.

I don't see how a classless system would improve anything.

-LoD

[Bestatte]

I know of one game that allows for "customized" classes. Translated to Arm, it -might- possibly work like this:

You're in chargen.

>Will you be playing 1) combat oriented or 2) non-combat oriented?
1

>You will be playing a combat-oriented character. Please pick your primary weapon preference.

1) slashing
2) crushing
3) piercing

2

Please pick your secondary weapon preference.
1) slashing
2) piercing

2

Okay, you've picked piercing. You may also pick backstabbing, but will forfeit three auxiliary skills in exchange. Do you want backstabbing? Y/N

n

Auxiliary skills
All characters come with shield and dual-wield.

You may pick any two from the following:
1) kick
2) disarm
3) subdue
4) blah blah blah etc. etc. etc.

*** you are now done with the combat portion of chargen. We now move on to non-combat skills ***

All characters come with cooking.

Do you want a boost in cooking, in exchange for a choice in crafting skills? Y/N

n

You now may choose any one of the following crafting skills:
(and list of the crafting skills)

blah blah blah blah blah

It would take longer, but it's 100% customizable, with the limit that your choices may only be what is offered, given your previous choices and karma options.

[Armaddict]

Does this seem extremely similar to a lot of chargens of 'rp' hack 'n slashes to anyone else?

I've heard a lot of ideas for vamping the class system...and I just don't agree with any of them.  Subclasses offer a variation from the normal class, but there's something else that does as well.  Playing style.

Not all assassins are the same, because the characters are different.  Sure, they can do the same things, but some people put more emphasis on things. Some play 'out of norm' roles for it, an assassin who specializes in maces or some such, for example.

I, myself, don't feel any changes are needed to classes.  They -are- balanced, but not in the way everyone thinks about it.  All are specialized for different situations, which is the way it should be.

[Maybe42or54]

Bestatte. I picked Arm because I didn't have to spend a day and a half getting past the App and then another day tog et the app back.

[Bestatte]

I didn't say it was a -good- idea

Someone said the game would be better if it was classless. Someone else said classless doesn't work. I posted how it -does- work in another game. Personally I like things the way they are now. I like the classes because they give me perimeters to work with.

[Trenidor]

Do you honestly think there is an unbalance between the guilds/classes in this game?

If so, where? How? Can it be fixed? What general experiences influenced your ideas and opinions?

No. There isn't a problem
There isn't a place that it's broken
There doesn't seam to be a reason for it to be broken at all
If it's not broke, don't fix it.

Well, I'd have to say the fact that ARMAGEDDON IS AN RP MUD, NOT A DICE MATCH.

IRL...stupid mistakes sink a boat...like drilling a tiny hole in the side. So IG, your seasoned warrior is always going to make a mistake here and there that could cost them their life. (ever tripped over a knife? It's deadly)

So really...When it all comes down to it, 'there's always someone better' applies to armageddon as well as RL. Just because you think your good, doesn't mean someone else can't come along and be better at it.

As for bestatte's customized classes---

It has merrit, but takes way too long, and someone always finds a way to abuse it. If it's really a problem that people don't get the skills they want, why not add a few more classess and subclasses that anyone can access and are a larger varriety of skills?