Jumpgate Evolution Dev Talks Class Balance

Hermann Peterscheck recently made a post on the Jumpgate Evolution developer blog about NetDevil's strategy for balancing the various classes of ships in the game. They seem to be taking a different approach from most MMOs in letting the PvP side of the gameplay set the baseline, rather than allowing PvE concerns to override that. From the section titled Combating Combat: "Early on our lead systems designer, Jay Ambrosini, came to the correct conclusion that all of the preliminary balancing was best done in a PvP context. The reasoning is that in PvE, the player needs to feel powerful, but in PvP the fight needs to feel balanced. Once ship classes are balanced in PvP, its not as hard to make the player feel powerful in PvE, but the opposite is not true. We spent many weeks playing just the first class of ship, the light fighter, in teams of 5 or 6 in order to evaluate what it was that made those ships fun to fly and fight. After daily battles, you begin to see what makes those ships work. We also started with the mid level ships as opposed to the low or high level ships. This is primarily because you can find the center point and then work upwards and downwards from there. ... It's very tempting to just throw a bunch of classes of ships together in order to say things like "our game has 15 classes of ships!" but this, we believe, is the wrong direction. People want meaningful and strong choices and not lots of meaningless, empty choices. Currently we plan to have 4-6 classes, but they will each have nearly endless possible configurations within those groups."

Comments

Wait and see

[Ksempac]

That looks like a good idea, and many people are already expecting Jumpgate Evolution as something fresh and new. However, every single MMORPG to date, has claimed before release to have new ideas, good balance between classes, interesting PvP and PvE. Most of them failed one of theses areas, and many failed all. That's why I take theses new claims with a big grain of salt.
So i say let's wait till the game is released and thoroughly tested by everyone...then we will see if this is more than marketing talk.

JGE v EVE

[castironpigeon]

EVE is good at what it does, but there's a reason it doesn't have more players and that's not because of the scifi theme. I pull this opinion out of my ass, but consider for a moment the plethora of MMOs (or even single player games) with a fantasy background. Any style of MMO fantasy gameplay that you could possibly want is covered. PvP, PvE, free, paid, large group, small group, free-for-all, instanced...

Now what about a space sim MMO? Aside from a few no-name indie offerings or a Freelancer hack to play multiplayer on a server with a few other people, your only option is EVE. One shard, PvP centric, click-orbit-wait navigation, learning curve like an overhanging cliff - love it or leave it.

Now maybe I give the JGE team too much credit, but I fully expected for them to deviate from this. It would only make sense that they not go for the exact same niche that EVE fills. Duh. So we get collision detection and some sort of real navigation - great. But now they're balancing around PvP? C'mon, seriously? So now we'll have EVE with point & click navigation and EVE with something else. And you can play the former in a universe already several years old with many bugs worked out or you can start in a fresh universe that's completely empty. This is seriously the most retarded thing I've heard from JGE to date.

And no, I don't believe JGE can properly balance PvP and PvE. It's never been done. You either focus on one or the other and whatever you don't focus on becomes some half-assed wannabe minigame that players will complain about until the end of time. See PvP in WoW and PvE in GW as examples...

Re:JGE v EVE

[Spectre]

Keeping in mind, while Jumpgate: Evolution may be a new title, it is based on a game that pre-dates EVE, Jumpgate (the Reconstruction).

A twitch-based space flight simulator with manual control of your ship, weapons aiming, etc, doesn't have much in common with EVE.

Yes, I've played both games for years each (the original Jumpgate and EVE). If the new release of Jumpgate keeps those twitch-based aspects of the classic version, I doubt there will be much overlap in the customer base between EVE and Jumpgate.

EVE is all about strategy, from the market to the control of regions, to the battles.

Jumpgate is all about tactics, again, from the market to control of regions, to the battles (assuming most of the mechanisms of the new version are at least similar to the classic version).

As to whether or not PVP and PVE can be balanced, well, the classic version balanced for PVP and did a great job of that. PVE was available but minimal but you could pick the difficulty of opponent you wanted, so rather like Guild Wars, the PVE was weak.

Perhaps some of the people participating in the beta of the new version would have some insight into how many of the changes to the game are substantive to the type of game and how much is updates to "modernize" the look and feel.

No one likes space sims?

[darkwing_bmf]

I'm seeing a lot of negative comments on this story. I don't know if this game will fail or not (it probably will), but at least we'll have a new space sim until it does. I'd like the chance to actually fly my internet spaceship with a joystick and out maneuver missiles while engaging full afterburners. They've already added a "Descent" style arena for those that remember that game. My hope is this will end up being a very good multi-player version of X-Wing or Wing Commander.

Not EVE and maybe that is good...

[space_jake]

I like Eve, but the biggest misconception I see people make when seeing the game is that they think they'll be flying the ship like a sim game and they're not. It turns a lot of people off because they think it is going to be an action game and its more of a strategy game. Jumpgate sounds like it is going to be more of an action/sim game and I think that'll work in its favor.

Jumpgate was a pvp game

[JuSTCHiLLiN]

I played the original Jumpgate and found it mostly PvP orintated. I liked how I could jump into combat and, while your ship did matter, player ability was the main factor. Killing Krakken (PvE) was a secondary goal when no action was taking place. My favourite thing to do was baiting greifers in my scout and taking them right to a waiting trap. Ah the memories.

Re:This is not EVE with PvP balancing...

[KermodeBear]

I used to think this was true as well, but I very quickly discovered that it isn't. I'll use myself as an example of this.

I came to Eve after hearing about the space theme and the PvP aspect; After a week or two of play, I felt much like you do: All of these people have been around for so long, how can I stand a chance?

Well, I didn't give up right away and, after talking to a few people, I ended up in a zero-security alliance. They showed me how I can be effective in a variety of roles without needing a lot of skill points or expensive ships.

I filled several very important roles:
1. Electronic Warfare. I fly Caldari ships, and the Griffin is a very cheap ECM frigate that, even with low-grade modules, is very effective.
2. Scouting and Intelligence. You don't need ANY SP to do this - just a brain. I flew a system or two ahead of my fleet and was very helpful.
3. Tackling. Big ships aren't good at this - they're too slow. However, a cheap frigate is great at locking quickly and holding other ships down.

This was in less than a month of starting. After a week or two, not only was I tolerated in fleets, I was welcome because I was willing to learn, not afraid to die, and I was able to follow orders.

Fast forward four, maybe five months. I decided that I wanted something different; now I fly with a pirate corporation. I now do solo and small gang work - and I regularly attack players with years more of SP than me. I win more often than I lose because I am prepared, I have a plan, and I know what I can and cannot do effectively.

The whole "Skill Point Gap", while true on paper, is completely false in practice. Not all those SPs are in fighting skills anyways. Experience plays a factor. Environment plays a factor. Dictating the engagement is a factor. The more I fly, the more I realize how little SP matters and how much everything else does.

That said, the best thing that someone new to the game can do it pick one or two things and specialize. It doesn't take long, for example, to become highly proficient SP-wise in something specific such as (as an example) interceptors.

The only advantage that the six year old player has over the six month old player is the number of things he can specialize in.