User:Raine Valen/Musings/Skillcraft

SkillCraft

For such a time when original content is the norm.

A Brief Analysis

It's been said time and time again that "balance is about much more than mere numbers".
It's been said equally as often that "bullshit, everything can be balanced numerically".

Normally, here, I would examine the merits of both claims, seeking to thrust a logical spear from one into a hole in the other. But not today: instead, I'll cut right to the chase and tell you why the first claim is wrong.
The person who makes the first claim doesn't understand that everything is based on numbers. The world we inhabit is based on numbers often-simple rules; do you think that the world inhabited by our warriors and monks and mesmers is less so? It seems like it would be readily apparent that that is not the case, but there is something about the subtleties and nuances of how the game works that makes it seem almost like a trap to say that the game is based on simple math.

Well, it's not simple math. This, I think, is where the confusion comes in. The system is intricate and detailed, based on permutations rather than combinations; its subtleties reach far and wide and, at the end of the day, it's apparently easier to balance the game based on observation and deduction of what something does than on analysis of what that thing can do.
It's because there are a lot of things that we fail to take into consideration.
To that end, I'm going to indulge myself in dreaming up a new system, one that handles subtle possibilities outright, and changes the numbers based on that.

Jumbled Thoughts

You might consider me a relatively well-organized person. I may seem that way, but I'm not – I only look that way because you see finished, polished things, for the most part.
This isn't finished or polished. This is typed here as it was thought out.
It may become organized, shiny, complete at some subsequent date, but, for here and now, these are my thoughts.

Every Skill Has a Value

This value is arbitrary, but should be the same for every skill. If Flare is worth 1000, then every skill should be worth 1000. The question becomes, "how do we assign value"? The goal of this system is to answer that question.

I'll start drawing it out with an example:

Jimmy Wants a Great Ball of Fire

Jimmy the Fire Ele presses 'k' to open his Skills Menu.

Instead of the interface that we're familiar with, he sees a somewhat different screen. The Attributes panel at the top remains the same, as does the 8-skill bar at the bottom. In the center field, even the attribute headings remain true to form. However, the listing of skills we see is entirely different. As Jimmy hovers his mouse over a skill, gives some information about the skill, as usual: it is a 25-energy spell with a three-quarter-second casting time and 7-second recharge that shoots a projectile at a foe which, on impact, deals 7...91...112 fire damage to adjacent foes. It looks almost familiar, doesn't it? As customary, the pop-up information also tells us the skill's name: it's called "Jimmy's Fast Fireball 2". Finally, on top of the traditional information, it also tells us that this skill is stored at C:/Program Files/Guild Wars/skills/User_Jimmy/Jimmy's_Fast_Fireball_2.gws".

Indeed, the list of selectable skills is different. However, that's not the only change to the interface. By far, the most drastic difference is a large fourth panel titled "skill settings". Currently, the panel is blank, but he drags his Jimmy's Fast Fireball 2 skill into the interface, and the Skill Settings panel populates to display the parameters of the skill in question; it's almost reminiscent of the 'J' menu that we know and love. At the top of the interface, it is prominently indicated that the skill has 20 points remaining of 1000. Jimmy navigates to one of the fields, this one labeled "AoE". He changes the setting from "Adjacent" to "Nearby"; the top of the screen updates to indicate, in a bright red font, that the skill has -120 points remaining, of 1000. Jimmy tries to save his changes, but the updated skill cannot be saved because its value exceeds the 1000-point maximum. Jimmy sighs, and looks for ways to decrease the points used by the skill.

The energy cost can't be raised, because 25 energy is the maximum allowed. He knows that he can decrease the skill's value by decreasing the damage, but he doesn't want to do that. He can also increase the casting time, but he doesn't want to do that, either. Instead, he looks through the list of available drawbacks and conditions. He scrolls through the list, seeing options like "touch-range" and "easily-interrupted", but he's not happy with any of them. He finally settles on adding Exhaustion, which frees up quite a few points: the indicator at the top happily displays that the skill is using only 720 of 1000 points!

In order to effectively use his free points, he looks through another menu, this one displaying possible perks for the skill. He settles on adding 5 seconds of Burning and reducing the Energy cost to 15, which increases the value of the skill to 970; this is close enough to 1000 to be considered a viable skill, so Jimmy keeps it on his bar.

So What Are the Fine Points?

The example above details one specific case but, obviously, the system's got to be more accommodating than that, right?

Well, fear not: it is.

One of the things that defines Guild Wars is the distinction between skills, attributes, and character roles. One of the things that emphasizes this is the clear distinction between attributes: Water Magic cannot set foes on fire; Protection Prayers does not inflict Deep Wound; Hammer Mastery doesn't heal; Domination Magic doesn't remove conditions. In fact, if we look at each "attribute", what we're really looking at is a list of things that it can and cannot do, and the ease with which it can do the things that it is allowed to do. Fire Magic and Smiting Prayers both cause AoE DoT and Burning, but while it's bread-and-butter for many Fire Magic builds, it's elite-worthy in Smiting.

The attribute system also rewards specialization in that every skill in the same attribute gains power as points are distributed on an attribute-by-attribute basis. Someone who adds points to Fire Magic doesn't get stronger Earth Prayers; that would be silly. As a result, different characters tend to be good at specialized things under our current system.

This doesn't change that.

For example, take Jimmy from above. He may later see that, hey, snares are pretty cool! However, as long as he's specced into Fire Magic and Fire Magic does not offer the capability for snares, he will have to spec something else in order to obtain that functionality. Accordingly, he can either dual-spec, as is currently possible, or he can change attributes altogether. Either way, we're not diminishing the team-play aspect of the game.

While it's mechanically easy to say "Skills that will be tied to Fire Magic cannot do x, y, and z", it's not quite so intuitive to say that "Knockdown should be harder for Scythes than for Hammers." However, our system allows for this, too: simply increase the number of points required for a functionality on an attribute-to-attribute basis". For example, knockdown might cost 900 points on a Hammer Mastery skill, but 1300 on a Scythe Mastery skill (meaning that it have serious drawbacks).

And, while we're on the topic, please also consider that, as one skill's parameters are changed, the cost of the others needs to be re-evaluated. Adding Burning to a skill with Nearby AoE should cost more than adding Burning to a skill with Adjacent AoE, for example. Adding Blind to an over-time effect (e.g. Eruption) should cost more than adding it to a one-shot cast.

So How Do We Balance Skills?

This is where it gets fun: you don't.

You stop balancing skills and start balancing effects on a broad spectrum.

For example, let say that a certain user skill called Crippling Spear becomes exceptionally popular and Arena Net decides that it's become popular because it's too strong (skills don't become strong because they're too popular; it's the opposite). All they have to do is decide that "Whoa, hold on, cripple should be more expensive on that weapon" and raise the cost of Cripple in Spear Mastery accordingly and voila: they not only eliminate the problem skill, but also any other similar possible problems that might pop up.

Let's Talk About Ramifications.

The Green Numbers

Traditionally, increasing an attribute simply increased a specific number on each skill in that attribute (sometimes). However, with our new system, we can do something cool: we can just increase the points allotted for skills in a particular attribute. A player with 16 Fire Magic can have 1600 points, and they might use those points to increase the damage of a skill (as is customary), or to expand its functionality.

The complex part, there, might be in scaling back skills for, say, Weakness, or skills with Wail-of-Doom-esque effects. To this end, I suggest that the system automatically scale back numerical parameters until the skill fits into the player's attribute level (which will mean reducing damage, or durations, or whatever else). For skills that simply cannot fit (e.g. Hammer Bash's 900-point knockdown at 6 adrenaline with a "lose-all-adrenaline" clause simply doesn't work for attribute levels with fewer than 900 points), add a failure chance that scales with the attribute level.

Easy.