Balance plays an important role in MMORPGs, especially when you want to experience fair races for World Firsts or battles in PvP. However, in the past, it was much more common for players to create their own builds and even discover a few mistakes along the way. Yet, such moments remain memorable and have made games special, according to Alexander Leitsch.
Since 2005, I have been playing almost exclusively MMORPGs, and I have accumulated thousands of memories. However, it is rarely the fair moments that stick in your head, but rather the curious and surprising situations that stand out. And these were usually accompanied by creative skill builds.
No matter if it was a totally overpowered farm build with the Summoner in Aion, a 100% evasion build in Last Chaos, or the 55-HP monk in Guild Wars 1 – all these skill builds were never intended by the developers and would probably lead to a huge outcry today.
But they create memories. Memories that I will never have in Final Fantasy XIV or New World because they don’t offer this kind of build variety.
Old MMORPGs often had elements that players could exploit
What are these creative builds? In 2007 – over 2 years after the release – the 55-HP monk in Guild Wars 1 became famous.
Usually, players have at least 480 base health and aim to increase their health, for example through runes on equipment. However, there are also runes that grant additional attributes but take away health points. And here, some players came up with a curious idea.
The monk ability Protective Spirit ensures that a player cannot lose more than 10% of their maximum health points. The fewer health points a character has, the less they need to be healed.
Players managed to reduce their health points to 55, allowing them to take a maximum of only 6 damage. With other spells like Protective Hands and Shield of Absorption, incoming damage was reduced by 5-15. Basically, they took 0 damage as long as they could maintain the abilities.
Additionally, a new MMORPG called Lost Ark was released, which offers many classes, but every class can also do all the important things. Everyone can jump, counter, evade, and even large classes like the Berserker are not particularly clumsy or slow.
Yet, the prime examples for missing build variety for me are FFXIV and New World:
- In Final Fantasy XIV, play style and build for each job are basically predefined. You get the appropriate equipment and have no talent trees. Here you can’t make mistakes, but you also can’t experiment.
- New World basically offers only 6 abilities per weapon and thus only 84 abilities total. That no crazy builds or major balance problems can arise from this is obvious. In comparison: In Guild Wars 1, each class has about 200 abilities + a secondary class + special PvE skills, so I have access to over 2,000 skills with one character.
Without build variety, I feel an important core of role-playing games is lost: the freedom to create my own build. Yes, I know that there will always be meta builds even with many abilities and freedoms, which I would even spread here on MeinMMO.
But sometimes crazy creations develop or simply a combo that is only cool in one specific scenario – but really cool for that.
What do you think about build variety and balance? When was the last time you spent hours crafting a build? And should there always be perfect balance?
Looking to the future, several MMORPGs are promising more abilities and build diversity. We have gathered the games in development for you:
All 59 MMORPGs currently in development for PC
Other crazy builds were also possible in Guild Wars 1, such as a permanent immunity to spells, which allowed one to tank heavy bosses or farm entire groups of enemies solo.
My colleague Mark Sellner told me about another example in our joint podcast MMO News. With a trick involving scaling, he managed to create a build with 100% evasion in Last Chaos. This only worked in PvE, but he was able to defeat the hardest bosses solo – even if it took hours.
But besides that, I can think of more examples:
- In Aion, for example, elemental spirits of the Summoner were far too strong at release. This allowed players to virtually farm enemies AFK.
- In Ragnarok Online, there was a 100%-evasion build, but that only applied to attacks and not abilities. However, it also worked in PvP.
- Age of Conan was terribly unbalanced at release, and one weapon type completely dominated the first weeks.
Even in WoW, there were big balance discussions, mainly concerning the situation between Paladins and Shamans. During the Vanilla times, the Alliance could not play Shamans while the Horde could not have Paladins. This affected some races for World Firsts and also PvP.
But not only in MMORPGs is perfect balance sometimes a hindrance. In LoL, for example, almost every new champion appears in an overly strong version. However, this makes them interesting, causing many players to want to try them out immediately. Champions that appear with good balance, like Rell, quickly disappear into obscurity and receive much less attention.
Modern MMORPGs are forsaking too many abilities, becoming increasingly cautious
What does it look like today? Many new and established MMORPGs have become more cautious and simpler.
Guild Wars 2, for example, has removed many class-specific buffs in recent years, which Mark also criticized in a column. This supposedly provides more freedom in group composition, but also leads to boredom because everyone can do everything.
In WoW, the number of talents and abilities has also been reduced over the years, although there has been a slight reversal with Dragonflight.
Additionally, a new MMORPG called Lost Ark was released, which offers many classes, but every class can also do all the important things. Everyone can jump, counter, evade, and even large classes like the Berserker are not particularly clumsy or slow.
Yet, the prime examples for missing build variety for me are FFXIV and New World:
- In Final Fantasy XIV, play style and build for each job are basically predefined. You get the appropriate equipment and have no talent trees. Here you can’t make mistakes, but you also can’t experiment.
- New World basically offers only 6 abilities per weapon and thus only 84 abilities total. That no crazy builds or major balance problems can arise from this is obvious. In comparison: In Guild Wars 1, each class has about 200 abilities + a secondary class + special PvE skills, so I have access to over 2,000 skills with one character.
Without build variety, I feel an important core of role-playing games is lost: the freedom to create my own build. Yes, I know that there will always be meta builds even with many abilities and freedoms, which I would even spread here on MeinMMO.
But sometimes crazy creations develop or simply a combo that is only cool in one specific scenario – but really cool for that.
What do you think about build variety and balance? When was the last time you spent hours crafting a build? And should there always be perfect balance?
Looking to the future, several MMORPGs are promising more abilities and build diversity. We have gathered the games in development for you:
