Balancing in Games (Crazy Thoughts & Complaints)

What is the definition of perfect balance for game? Does it exist in MMO?

Offline game is always balanced due to the fact that it exists for a single player to be able to experience the "feel" that the developers’ desire and that should already be catered as balance. Is it really as simple as that? I believe so.

What is a perfect balance for games? Are there any MMOs that are balanced?

Does balance actually exists in MMO?

I start reviewing all the old games that I played. There's not really a real balance point. All MMOs have players ranting in the forums on how the balance is really screwed up for specific classes.

Imagine a tanker who should not really experience high damage will feel unbalance as he is not able to kill. However other people cannot kill him too. But people will complain. It's impossible for him to win. But it is possible for him to lose. Is it true?

A healer cannot damage but able to heal. Are they able to kill? Is it really true they are at a disadvantage?

I believe that balance should not be look at how fight is like 1-1 but on how players will play the character class and also if the game system supports that play style. A healer/tanker can never do short fight. However, are they able to survive for long period of time? Will the system allow them to?

A classic problem will be the warlock versus mage in WOW. A warlock can make enormous damage and fear a mage. However, a mage can polymorph. Such scenario will generally turn out to be whoever "crowd control" first and damage enough to kill fast wins (There are exceptional cases). Is it good? Future increase in damage will generally lead it to "who hits first wins" scenario. Is it nice? An important factor in MMO is latency. Should we penalize players with such scenarios when latency varies from place to place and is not really within players' control? WOW might not be a good example as it is generally more towards PVE and not PVP. However such scenarios happen too in PVP oriented games like AOC/Guild wars. Are there ways to change it?

Another type of balance problem is economy.

We see inflation in game which does not happen in offline game. New items, new equipment, new skill to learn, new attributes to change, new stuff all make players need to "farm" in MMO. They will cost more as generally players become "rich" in game. How to solve this inflation? Will it affect the lifespan of a game? I am looking at a recent problem in real life in one country (which I forget). A man actually brings millions of dollars (literally) to buy grocery. A sweet itself cost more than 500k.

Aren’t we creating banana notes in the game too by generating the new content? We have depreciated the value of the currency in game. Is such game economic suitable? Is it avoidable? How can it be changed?

Some people blame it for the lack of money sink in game. I beg to differ. It is obviously short sighted and the developers do not understand MMORPG in many countries. Players like to farm. I have seen players who spend hours in front of the computer because they want to have thousands of gold / or whatever currency in game. This is because in nature, we like to keep "reserve" so that next time new items will cost more and they can afford it. Lack of money sink IS a problem but it will never exist as the only problem to economic balancing.

One way of coz, create new currency. For example, we call the currency in a game now KDOllars. So literally each expansion/or large content patch will lead to a change in the world in game and new ruling. Hence the currencies become "LDollar" and so forth. (Literally x (say 10) KDollars will have the value of 1 LDollar) Will this work? Will players complain? Or is banana notes really a problem in MMO?

Economic balance should not consider how the system limitation. In a game if a players' limit is 10000 gold. Should a developers' limitation be 10000? Players like to farm. Some players came in game to just spend time. There are cases whereby players like to keep farming till their gold reserve reaches max.