What about me? Part 2

In light of some of the discussion over the previous post (thanks as always for your feedback!), I thought I'd address some individual points a little bit.

"I'm just afraid that Whim won't get all of the changes in before August..."

I'll be honest with you upfront - I won't. =) There's no way I could do that, because there is no "all of the changes"; I guarantee you that base classes will continue to be developed beyond that point. My intention isn't to rush in a bunch of abilities for the base classes; it's to ensure that each has a fair minimum share of fun, viable, and representative abilities so that players can make an informed decision as to which class(es) they really want to play. I don't think we're so far off the mark; every class has its perks. Right now, I'm simply shoring up the weaknesses that shouldn't be there (keeping in mind that every class does and should have some sort of gap) and trying to ensure that each class is fun in its own right while addressing the more egregious balance issues. The next blog entry will touch on this subject a little further.

"If a subclass needs a quick tweak, why not just do that? What's the big deal?"

This thought process is common to a lot of games, I think, and it's a seductive one (I still catch myself thinking this way quite often). Here are the problems with it:

1. There's no such thing as a truly quick tweak. Any change needs to be thought through, coded (and coded right), and then tested. Testing is huge - I spend a crazy proportion of my development time on local testing, far more than coding or design time (unless you start counting the time I spend thinking in the car or the shower...) Even a seemingly trivial fix can easily be done wrong. "Hey, boot-to-the-head is such a weak attack. Let's boost the damage by 100." Why 100? It could be too much, which could throw the skill out of balance (which becomes hard to fix down the line if players start to rely on it or, worse, to invest practices into it). It could be too little, which would require another fix down the line, turning this process into mostly wasted time. It could even be wrong at its foundation - what if 100 is a good value right now, but the problem is that boot-to-the-head doesn't scale properly with stats? Will it just end up weak again down the line? These may seem like trivial, fixable issues - and in some cases, they are - but embracing the "quick tweak" philosophy too often can easily result in a huge pile of "trivial, fixable" issues, and they add up. Especially when...

2. There isn't just a quick tweak. Is quickbolt - oe naj'k too strong, or watermark of binshou too weak? Absolutely, I would agree with both assessments without hesitation. Unfortunately, Nodeka has (as of now) 90 major remort subclasses, 253 spells, and 270 skills (and growing...) There are a lot of "quick tweaks" out there that need to be looked at, and each person's going to have their own laundry list. In the unique situation we're in now (with an incoming deadline for penalty-less class changes), I think the most important thing we can do is to fix the truly over-strong while accenting the unique - giving players an honest representation of each class to choose from. The underpowered skills and subclasses will be addressed, but they need to be addressed at the right time and with the proper care and attention. Which leads to...

"It makes me sad that my subclass won't get attention until later."

It shouldn't. =) Not getting a "quick tweak" now just means that I will be able to truly focus on and address the issues with each given ability/subclass. That's the difference between a half-hearted numerical tweak (which may or may not address the issue sufficiently) and an actual, well-thought-out attempt to make your subclass interesting and viable.