power/growth curves

[knghtstalkr]

One of the arguments being banters/battered about is how the power curve between melees and spell casters plays out in the beginning and in the long run. The spirit of the genre has that those who are versed in the physical arts are much more survivable earlier on that those who forsake the physical to develope magical prowess. But those who do pursue the mystical and the arcane will eventually get access to more power than those who chase skills in arms, armor and muscles.

You can't capture this dueling power curve properly in a MMORPG game when there is no penalty for being a physically weak character in the low levels of the game & when there is no real penalty for dying. Game developers will never implement a system that punishes people at the very start for choosing a potentually more powerful race/class. Game developers has to start everyone off on a level playing field and give everyone an even chance at being viable in a hostile world.

In PnP... this is one of the major balancing factors of the arcaner: You'd die in one hit from the ax wielding orc! And there is no-one who is going/can afford to pay to raise dead someone that will drop again from the next ax hit from an orc.

Did someone recently post that there was an arcaner solo DDO strategy to gather a huge herd of mobs, drop firewalls & CKs and then let the mobs kill you... then pop back into the quest while the mobs that are doing a victory dance over your corpes slowly die?

Maybe there is something in the Permadeath mentality...

I guess I am saying is that, in the end, high level arcaners should be like little godlings compared to the bricks, tanks and conans of comparable uber levels. But it is unbalanced if there is no downside like the fear of lowbie mortality. DDO starts off all classes balanced but the power to growth curve is too steep for arcaners. Unfortunately I can't see anything to "fix" this... this is just the nature of of an MMORPG beast that the more you play the powerful you become... not the more chance you have to die or suffer.

Lemme boil my point down even more: The great potential for power of arcaners is balanced with their high mortality in pursuit of power. If you take away the threat of mortality (as in "reset, replay, do-over, log back in gameplay style that seems to be predominate), it will always be the arcaners who will be the best exploiters of the game.

But... what am I saying - its jes a game. Carry on...

[GlassCannon]

And with my leet mad mouse clicking skills and 1,000 hours in MS Paint... I haev made a graph!


One day if I see this again I might delete it! For now I think it is quite hilarious!

[ghale]

And with my leet mad mouse clicking skills and 1,000 hours in MS Paint... I haev made a graph!


One day if I see this again I might delete it! For now I think it is quite hilarious!

Drinking is fun!

[GlassCannon]

Drinking is fun!

Why yes it is!

[Nevthial]

And with my leet mad mouse clicking skills and 1,000 hours in MS Paint... I haev made a graph!


One day if I see this again I might delete it! For now I think it is quite hilarious!

LOL that is awesome! Where can I get a "hot tub" like that?

[knghtstalkr]

graph looks about right... but if we're gonna talk drinking, then we need a BAR graph.

(let the hijacking begin!)

[WeaselKing]

graph looks about right... but if we're gonna talk drinking, then we need a BAR graph.

(let the hijacking begin!)

<groan>

[GlassCannon]

and I lol'd again