Why is balancing apparently so difficult?

[jasdasm]

the "best" they ever balanced was probably in cataclysm

[AwkwardSquirtle]

You're not getting it.

Here's some made up numbers to illustrate my point.

Say Fire mages at 700 ilvl are doing about 10,000 DPS. Obviously this is a made up number, but whatever, it doesn't matter for the purposes of this example. Say every increase of a point in ilvl is giving them +100 crit, increasing their DPS by 10. At 800 ilvl, they'll be doing 11000 DPS. At 900 ilvl they'll be doing 12000 DPS.

Now say Frost mages are doing about 9,500 DPS. They're not as fortunate as Fire mages, they don't scale as well with haste as fire does with crit, so we'll say that every ilvl only bumps them up 5 DPS. That means at 800 ilvl they'd be doing 10,000 DPS and at 900 ilvl they'd be doing 10,500 DPS.

Say Blizzard doesn't like how low Frost's DPS is, so they bump it up by 5%. Now, at 700 ilvl they're doing 9,975 DPS, so cool, they're competitive. But they haven't fixed the difference in how the two specs scale with their preferred stats, so at 800 ilvl Frost is doing 10,475 DPS and at 900 it's doing 10,975 DPS. A flat damage increase to Frost narrowed the gap at 700, but by 900 it's back to being way behind fire.

This is an extremely simplified example but that's why it's not as simple as just buffing things with a flat percentage. Your assumption that an increase of 1 ilvl benefits everyone by the same percentage is where your argument is flawed. Some specs get more of a benefit from an increase in ilvl than others.

The relationship between specs and stats is not linear, and it is not nearly the same between all classes. The only way to make it linear is to turn every ability into Frostbolt, a straight damage ability with no interesting mechanics, and the only way to make the relationship between stats and damage the same for every spec is to homogenize them all to the point where having individual classes is completely pointless because they're all the same.

And this doesn't even account for the fact that gear doesn't all give crit. 3 Fire mages at ilvl 800 might have 1200, 1000 and 800 crit respectively, so each is affected differently. So are players balanced around BiS gear? Set bonuses?
Then you have considerations like is it a single target fight or a cleave fight? Are there add phases? How long do they last? How much movement is required? How much does mechanic X affect players of skill level Y? This is well balanced for the average player but at the top end this is out of control? Who do we screw over?

[Deathquoi]

And this doesn't even account for the fact that gear doesn't all give crit. 3 Fire mages at ilvl 800 might have 1200, 1000 and 800 crit respectively, so each is affected differently. So are players balanced around BiS gear? Set bonuses?
Then you have considerations like is it a single target fight or a cleave fight? Are there add phases? How long do they last? How much movement is required? How much does mechanic X affect players of skill level Y? This is well balanced for the average player but at the top end this is out of control? Who do we screw over?

Exactly, there are so many variables that, as other posters pointed out, it's virtually impossible to balance the game. The best Blizzard could possibly do is a series of nerfs and buffs and tweaks with every patch to at least keep everyone close, which is what they do. Perfect balance isn't the goal, because perfect balance is unattainable with so many variables.

[satimy]

Because 50% of a classes dos is based off of tier and legendaries now. They don't bother balancing for people that don't have them.

[ikotanya]

because life isn't fair, get over it

[D3cadent]

And balancing for the top end PvE (PvP is already being taken care of) means balancing it at the top gear (+ couple ilvl's) of previous raid (or entry level gear with new expansions) as progression is what really matters in PvE.

You'd need to take into account the tier sets of the current t raid when doing the balancing as they still play a part in progression, especially with split farming being a thing, but yes, that's probably where balance is most important. Seeing repeats of M BH where certain melee are just not taken is not something I'd like to see often.

[Deleted]

Because 50% of a classes dos is based off of tier and legendaries now. They don't bother balancing for people that don't have them.

Yes they do. If you didnt notice Blizz balance class vs class and leg items/artifact weapons againts each other they dont balance them together with classes.

- - - Updated - - -

Balancing WoW isn't just difficult, it's virtually impossible. You have to use the same base damage and the same scaling to try and balance out every differential. Imagine trying to balance all the DPS classes with their different abilities and rotations so they are equally viable with A) every gear level B) every talent and artifact combination C) in every encounter, beit player, patchwerk, cleave, AoE, Burst, council, high mobility, and everything in between and D) also make them reasonably balanced in terms of non-simplistic matters such as differing player skill levels, utility, and try and predict the changes that will come in the future that will shake up the balance. And even if you could do that I'm sure I missed some niche situation that will break the balance so all that work would ultimately not result in balance. But, the truth is true balance isn't even a goal, instead the goal is to make it so everyone is close enough.

Ion told us taht mathematicaly balance games is very easy. But you want preserve unique gameplay for each spec than balacing become bit struggle. Thats why most mmoprpg balance around group conflict and no for 1v1 situation.

[StupidPerson]

Legendary Dude. Just no. No no no no no. It's simply The Dude, or Dude for short. That or His Dudeness, or Duder, or El Duderino, if you are not into the whole brevity thing.

That being said. Balancing all the systems in a game, such as WoW, that make up the experience that we know as 'ingame combat', is so much more complex than the vast majority of people would claim to the able to overstand. As such we should shut the hell up.

Here is a thing. Often in game balance you'll increase or decrease by 50%. Rinse and repeat until whatever you are trying to achieve is somewhat true. It's a process. A neverending one, as long as we crave - and are willing to pay for - new content and changes within the game.

Here is another thing. Sometimes ability X will be "nerfed". Sometimes it is because said ability is doing too well. But not always. Sometimes ability X will be "nerfed" in order to feel good in relation to the rotation/other abilities - all of which later on can be scaled up or down. Here is an example straight out of my butthole. Mortal Strike gets nerfed by 30% and arms is scaled up 15%. Arms now does roughly 5% more damage per second post MS-nerf.

Now look at me posting on MMO-C. One of the many contenders for the place on the net of wide with the least reason and intellect to be found. That's right. I'm calling the vast majority of you all a bunch of naive idiots (the writers on here; not the readers). You shouldn't care though, unless I am in some way somewhat perfectly spot on. In a vague way.

Mind that beverage Duder.

I wish upon you all an extremely decent time. Mine is to fuck off.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

buffing or nerfing every ability by 13% damage would not result in a 13% damage increase/decrease

This. Buff all attacks by 13% and you end up with a very destructive buff. Somes are exponential, somes are additive. Change too much and the whole rotation will change, making it even harder as it might have opened an exploit. If you close the exploit, you'll have to deal with "class is borked" threads all over, even if the class may be balanced just because it's weaker.

[Terahertz]

In the past it was due to too many variables with gear scaling etc. In Legion, I think they made it a lot easier for themselves to balance classes.

One thing I've noticed of Blizzard in the past as well is they often went overboard with buffs/nerfs. That in combination with very infrequent balancing patches made class balance really volatile. Add on top of that the relative ease of maintaining numerous alts and people would change ships very easily.

I'm optimistic about Legion in terms of balancing. It looks like they're fine tuning classes a lot more often and also much less harshly. Frequency + smaller buffs/nerfs should polish classes to be much closer to each other in terms of DPS/healing numbers.

[Tharkkun]

So, we all know how it goes, every single time Blizzard changes something about the classes, we end up with wildly different dps numbers across all classes, with a lot of people claiming that class x is underpowered, class y is overpowered, and so on and so forth. Then it takes Blizzard some time (sometimes a long time) and several ballance passes to change things, only to end up with wildly different numbers again. But why is that? Lets take the following example:

We are looking at classes 1,2,3,4, and 5. For the sake of this example, they are all wearing the best possible gear available, and are played by equally skilled players. So lets assume that classes 1,2,3, and 4 are dealing the exact same amount of damage (+/- 1%, depending on crit luck and proccs). Along comes class 5, and does 13% more damage than the other 4. So you take class 5, and reduce the damage output of every single damage ability they have by 13%. Class 5 is now doing the same amount of dps as 1,2,3, and 4. Balance achieved.

Likewise , if class 5 did 13% less damage than the others, you would buff all of their abilities by 13%. I mean, it really is that simple, or is it not? I dont know squat about game development, so someone please enlighten me as to why this is apparently not the best way to go about this.

Because what makes sense in a SIM doesn't translate to the actual game. Plus Blizzard doesn't publish the perfect rotations so you're left with players guessing. Sometimes players play the class in an unintended way which results in higher dps or lower dps so Blizzard uses tuning to correct that.

In the end classes are balanced so tightly that players nitpick over 1% difference. You don't see that in other games.

[Aydinx2]

Likewise , if class 5 did 13% less damage than the others, you would buff all of their abilities by 13%. I mean, it really is that simple, or is it not? I dont know squat about game development, so someone please enlighten me as to why this is apparently not the best way to go about this.

No, it doesn't work that way. Maybe if you buff all their damaging abilities, but some abilities get cast more than others, and then there's crit chance and other stats to take into account.

[Deleted]

Beacuse they aren't balancing it, we're on a rollercoaster instead.

This.

While they certainly make sure you can't oneshot 10 player every 5 minutes for obvious reasons, their 'balancing' serves more as as 'filler' to fluff up light content patches with 'changes', wastes peoples time = money to adapt to the changes Blizzard can make in a few seconds and of course lets everyone who sucks at the game have a moment of shine with the one true 'balanced' class which just means the lucky one that is overpowered.

Why fix something in the beta when you can make a patch out of it?
Why fix something when everyone who doesn't get the shaft enjoys it?
Why fix something when you can make people who got the shaft wait months for that patch that promises to make their class competitive again?

When you see how unbalanced classes where in the beta of the SIXST expansion and it looks like as if Blizzard just tested its first MMO in alpha state, it should make any person doubt that they have true balance high on their priority list.

[Elim Garak]

Is this a thread in which people believe that:
1. Balancing is hard
2. Blizzard cannot balance right
3. Imbalances are always mistakes
4. ???

[Mhyroth]

Balancing all these Speccs and Classes is a tough job as others have said, but I don't understand why the same Class always ends up on the top spot every ... single ... time ... so balancing-wise something must be off no ?