Don't Confuse FUN! with Balance...

First of all, this game is amazing. Most fun I've had with an arcade game in a while. (probably ever)

But after learning every class and excelling with them all, I began to notice balancing issues and inconsistencies. So I joined the forum to follow the game and its community.

Immediately I see tons of posts regarding under and OP classes.

At the same time, others claimed the game to be balanced and that each class is equally effective at their "role". (I disagree, the game is FUN! but not perfectly balanced.)

Its not so much a class being over or under powered but more so inconsistent mechanics.
Certain classes are designed for certain "roles" But aren't consistently the best at those roles. Other classes can fill those roles while also being consistently the most effective at their given role.

(Simplified for Discussion)
THE CONCEPT: There are classes that excel at different ranges, circumstances, roles etc..

Sniper: Best long range.
Gunner: Best mid range (minigun also effective at close range)
Tank: Best Close range
Support: Best supplemental/AI use (FB, turrets, bots etc.)
Assault: Most well rounded.
Assassin: Best Stealth/Assassin (For lack of a better phrase)

THE ISSUE: Certain classes have strong counters outside of their designed role while others do not. (meaning much less effective measure have to be taken)

For Example:

Sniper: Strongest grapple + freeze traps close range (traps nullify opposition) Smg + Flak effective at mid range. (All round defense)
Gunner: Ground Slam Close range + mini-gun up close. (slam nullifies close range attackers) Mortar at range.
Tank: Rail Gun + grenade (rail gun most effective outside of mid range)
Support: Shot gun + heal/hurt + FB + Air strike (All round defense)
Assault: Charge + Rifle + grenade launcher (All round defense)
Assassin: Cloak + Grapple + shuriken (Mostly effective up close)

BREAKDOWN: Support, Sniper, Gunner are best at what they're designed for while being able to counter other class specialties effectively.

Assault: although not the "Best" in any area, still has the ability to compete in any area. (Can kill, or be killed by any class consistently) The most balanced class.

Tank: the most dangerous close range, but classes have counters for this. The tank is disadvantaged mid range. The rail gun is out matched mid range.

Assassin: although the fastest and stealthy, she is not the strongest grappler. Other classes have close range counters. She is out matched mid to long range.


CONCLUSION: The reason there are certain classes people feel to be overpowered is because they're well rounded while other classes are limited to one or two counter-able roles.

I don't believe any class should be nerfed but there are classes that deserve an extra buff to compensate for their being countered.

Amazing game. Awesome Fun. Just Not perfectly Balanced.

Feel Free to comment.

I agree that the balance of the game is a little... off.

One thing, however is that I approach the game less from a specialist point of view and more a generalist one. That is, that I like the idea that all classes can perform most roles just in different ways; variety rather than railroading. As such I've got little issue with the sniper having some teeth at close range, though I'll easily agree with you that perhaps they shouldn't be so big, especially when it seems so strong in other areas too

In my mind you should be able to quite happily play with 6 of the same class on your team and still win as long as you use valid tactics. I've never been a fan of games constructed in such a way that if one or two classes are left unrepresented the whole team suffers, but luckily MNC isn't one of those games... yet

I'm guessing you're thinking of this in a generalist way too, so no worries there, but I already worry about people coming in trying to specialise the classes more :3

Are you certain those are their roles? Or are they the roles you want them to have?

Perhaps the assault's specialty is his mobility.

Perhaps the tank's specialty is his durability.

Perhaps the assassin's specialty is her stealth.

There is no such thing as perfect balance. It's actually something that can never be achieved in any game. Why? It's because balance is an opinion. One man's balance is another man's broken garbage so to speak.

Couldn't agree more. "Unbalance" is also biased by the difference of skill between players.

Uh, yes, I am certain. And I didn't go into great detail regarding their "roles" for a reason. I simply stuck to which range they are "most" effective.

In terms of roles and their depth, thats up to the player. But it wont change class mechanics such as a Jet gun being most effective at close range.

As I've stated:

An assault is well rounded. Therefore his mobility wouldn't contradict that.

The Tank is Best at close range. Durability would compliment that.

And I actually said the "Assassin: Best stealth".

So I'm kinda lost as to what the point of your post is/was.

Great, so lets give the Tank the assassins speed and cloak plus the snipers rifle. lol.

Of course not because that would ruin the balance of the game. IMO. lol.

Although the balance comes down to opinion, it still can be improved upon.

Besides, if it didn't come down to opinion, we really wouldn't need a forum now would we?

Anyway its not a discussion about "perfection". But more so about what can be done to improve whats already there.

IMO the tank is the 2nd best ranged unit...

And depending on the situation, it can lose close range a lot due to assault/sniper/gunner ring outs

"Balance" assumes equally skilled players.

Well now your just being rediculous using the utmost extremes. I was referring to your original comment that it wasn't 'perfectly balanced' & just pointing out that it will never be. Honestly I hope the devs don't pay too much attention to the forums because it's usually a vocal minority pushing their 'view' on the rest as you can probably see already in half the forums being 'overpowered this, underpowered that, nerf this, nerf that. In fact one of the changes the community asked for backfired. That one being the change of 8 players to start a match to 6. That's created more imbalanced matches and being forced into matches that your far behind in.

Plus imo balance is a moot point till they fix the core gameplay since the money ball shields can be shot down. Once that's sorted and a few of the hacks are removed we can all get a better sense of 'balance' based on the core gameplay as opposed to the current deathmatch game it is at the moment.

I do have things I would change to but I could easily be in the minority (ie: More health on turrets, 2 turrets on the top level of bases, ease back on the range of 3.3 firebases (note I said range...not damage..and I am a support mostly), greater normal bot health, less jackbots spawned in overtime, removal of buying Juice etc) and half the people here could say I'm crazy and totally disagree.

Which is hard to find on MNC

Don't confuse opinions with insults.. Let's all just get along please.

I've made this comment 128903461976 times. IT DEPENDS ON THE PERSON PLAYING THE CLASS.

^ That's a lot of comments.

I bet you haven't ;D

Anyhoo, balance is always a difficult thing to judge. That's why whenever I've encountered a class that just seemed to be at an advantage against me, I've always made a point of playing them myself. General rule goes something like this...

1) If I get destroyed while playing as the class that was previously kicking my rear, even after getting used to its quirks, then it's probably fine and it was just a good player.
2) If I destroy the the person who was playing said class with their own class along witht he entire rest of their team then there's prooooobably a balance issue.

I did this with the soldier in TF2 before they tweaked the rocket launcher because I was tired of getting destroyed by soldiers even after ambushing them unseen with my pyro. End result was one of the biggest kill streaks I've ever had in the game, all while typing lengthy rants about the soldier class in chat ("Go soldier! It makes all your problems go away! I used to have cancer until I played soldier, but now I'm cured!")
Within the course of 7 minutes everyone on the server had switched to soldier and a few weeks later Valve started reducing the amount of rockets a soldier could carry as well as increasing the friendly fire damage they took from their own rockets XD

Which is beside the point.

This general balance breakdown makes a crucial error: this game does not solely revolve around combat efficiency in Pro v Pro situations. Slaying pro's is only a part of this game. It is ultimately about killing the damn money ball, and after the patch, you WILL have to push and kill bots to do this unless every one of your games goes to overtime. A better break down would be some of these additional categories:

Bot killing Efficiency (how quick can you kill a bot wave): (IE: Tank and Assassin are top tier, as they can kill entire waves on low cool downs or simple auto attacks)

Pushing Efficiency (How quick you can ESCORT your bot wave up a lane): (IE: Assassin is Top Tier, since she can push 2 lanes at once due to her mobility and cloaking which dumps bot/turret aggro, AND she can blind/solo most turrets)

Turret Killing Efficiency (How quickly can a Pro take out a turret without juice, and how much risk they put themselves at while doing it. This gets more difficult to rate since Assassins Gunners and Tanks all kill turrets quickly, but all at different ranges and manners.)

Juice Rates (Support, Assassin, and Sniper are top tier because of how quickly they gain juice)

Strength of Class while Juicing (The tank is probably the most scary when juiced due to his increased high damage and armor and reduced reload, but this is very hard to quantify.)

Bot Spawns (How strong are the bots your class spawns? Hard to rate other than saying the sniper's suck and the assaults glitch into walls)

Mobility (Assassin is top tier due to being able to ignore most terrain obstacles with a smoke bomb jump, and dash and cloak to go where she pleases, with assault also in the mix because of fly.)

Crowd Control (Disabling or slowing other pros): The tank has a Grapple, Blind, and Knock down which also slows (all on a low Cool down). The Gunner has a knock back which slows, and a grapple. The sniper has a snare and a grapple. Assassin has a blind and grapple. The assault has a charge into a grapple, and knock back from his bomb. Etc. The tank has the most forms of crowd control, across long, mid, and close range.

There are probably more way to compare pros. Notice that the two "underpowered" pros (tank and assassin) are some of the strongest pros in other areas. This is ultimately a team OBJECTIVE game. Comparing killing power alone at various ranges does not even remotely assess the balance issues of this game.

Actually the 6-player requirement is just fine. The problem is due to the fact that once the timer starts it will not stop regardless of how many players are in the lobby. To compound this is how MNC breaks up parties on a regular basis in an effort to create equal teams. Making the minimum player requirement 6-players has made parties of 4+ very difficult to keep together especially with the host migration failing so often. So no, the 6-player minimum is not at fault but it did demonstrate the weaknesses of the MNC party system among other things.

I've played like, one game this week with only 3 players to a side. Usually we get up to 9 or 10 players between hitting 6 and starting the game. I've only joined a couple of games late enough I was seriously troubled by it, though I understand YMMV. I have been playing the crap out of this game, too, so seeing them so rarely should say something.

I'm not personally seeing the backfire here, that's for sure. I love not waiting to get a lobby into a game.

@Im Hudson - While I agree with your overall point, I think you must not play support very much due to your assessment and leaving them out of some of their best areas: bot killing and turret destruction. Level 3 airstrike can destroy large clumps of bots, and placing a hacked firebase in a bot lane will effectively stop bot creep toward your base until it is destroyed. As far as turrets go, I think support is extremely effective in this area is well simply because 3 well placed airstrikes (which can all be tossed out almost simultaneously at level 3) will immediately destroy almost all turrets, regardless of level or overhealing. I think maybe a level 3 rocket or shaved ice may survive if overhealed, but I see those so rarely I'm not honestly sure. A level 3 laser turret only takes 2, and those are what I run into most often. And if you can't destroy it, you can always hack it and then let the other team destroy it for you.

Also despite popular belief support doesn't gain juice THAT quickly. Yes, we get juice from healing stuff, but it's not terribly quick. I've played sniper some and they get it MUCH faster just from sniping bots/turrets from afar.

^THIS^

Now in response to class balance, some of you have discussed the proficiency of pros killing bots and turrets.

And as others have mentioned that the game is about knocking down the money ball.

Uh, these things are true. Obviously. But thats besides the point of this topic.

In crossfire there IS an opposing team. And if they are destroying your bots, you "WILL" have to kill them in order to proceed.

And NO I'm not being ridiculous and NO Bot destroying isn't crucial to "THIS" discussion.

I completely understand that Class vs Class match ups are only part of the game. Thats the part we're discussing. My aim here isn't to discuss the entire game.

For one, other pros can kill bots and turrets on both sides of the map while simultaneously killing tanks and assassins without ever leaving their spawn. i.e. Sniper (hows that for speed)

Yea, some classes are great at both.

And Heres a little riddle: How fast can an assassin clear lanes, while they're respawning? (ok, i'm being silly now)

I'm certain that there are other topics about which pro can kill a turret or bot faster.

But this one is NOT.

This topic is PURELY about Class vs Class Balance. Not Class vs bot, turret etc.

ON TOPIC: If your in a pub match and your team is out fighting, destroying enemy money ball or out doing nothing because they're not any good and you happen to be defending the base on lazer razor alone. Lets say you notice a pro in your left side tunnel nailing your money ball.

Depending on class this could be handled quickly or be a disaster.

If its a tank or a sniper surrounded by traps, you're pretty screwed if your an assassin. But if you a gunner, you can be pretty effective. (Based on equally skilled players)

Thats ONE example of what this topic is about.

CLASS VS CLASS BALANCE.

So please try to stay on topic.