Mewn wrote:Not sure I like the idea of giving each race some sort of non-class based advantage like faster attack speed or additional targets. Sounds good on paper but what do you do when you end up playing catch-up to feedback all the time in an effort to balance these not-easily quantifiable abilities? It could be a real headache, despite how cool it sounds. A period of beta testing for this would definitely be necessary.
I'm fine with having balance suffer a bit in favor of more diversity. Adding "interesting" things always makes it suffer, anyway:
Adding type customizations for weapons means that instead of balancing 5 classes (which, in itself, is going to lead to issues; one AT will be way more valuable than any other class, but the second will be worthless), you have to deal with 5 classes
each of which can raise 26 different weapons (how do grenades synergize with Ra- techs? will a class with axe and rifle be more useful than one with longbow and rifle?).
Like themed areas with contaminated enemies? Bit of a shame lightning ones are hilariously anti-melee! That's okay, though, ground areas are totally anti-force, so it balances out... ha ha, no, not even close.
Bosses? Half are horribly anti-melee, half are horribly anti-range. Most are horribly anti-force (that single hitbox per attack thing is a real killer, and even if you remove that, not being able to
aim at range breaks it all).
Diversity in monster spawns? I'm sure you could probably balance it, but it'll be a challenge. Larger groups favor laser+linear tech play, smaller groups (and larger multi-target monsters) favor hunters and shotguns to an inordinate degree.
Even simply changing the map but leaving all the monsters the same will unbalance it slightly. Take the same monsters from Raffon Meadow to Rozenom, and all of a sudden regardless of how well balanced it was, ranger weapons (and to a lesser extent slicers) will suddenly be way better.
I kinda went off on a tangent there, but my point still stands. We aren't going to get the game perfectly balanced, the problem's when the decrease in "balance" doesn't add to an increase in "interesting," which is a huge issue in PSU. Playing a cast didn't let you play differently from a newman, it just made you stronger if you were certain types. Having "Mad Creatures" and "Plains Overlord" didn't add diversity, it just added an extra two blocks (indistinguishable from the Plains Overlord ones!) for anyone who wanted to fight a dragon. Having three weapon/armor manufacturers created noticeable stat differences in exchange for... minor aesthetic tweaks? Master classes, did pretty much exactly the same thing as forte classes, but better! Garbage, all around.
EDIT: Actually, on a related note, the more homogeneous the game is, the more important relatively minor flaws will become. Looking at PSU, for instance, the difference between playing a male character and a female one on the same race is pretty much utterly insurmountable purely because neither brings anything to the table (inb4 boobs) besides their stats. If you're playing a class that uses ATP to attack, a male character
will be superior, and vice versa if you're playing a magic class.