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-"Why not Rock, Paper and Scissors?"
-"Well, usually the balance isn't nearly as symmetrical as one would thought initially, and that's not necessarily a bad thing."
-"How so? I mean, if a choice is better won't everyone use it all the time?"
-"Well, if you can change your choice, it'll lead to an interesting gameplay."
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Balance is huge concern in many games. Sometimes is due the need to create depth, allowing different strategies, sometimes is to provide different approaches to the game, for example by giving different characters different advantages and disadvantages.
Even the very game Rock, Paper and Scissors with perfectly symmetrical balance isn't balanced in some contexts (amateurs tend to use rock because it feels "stronger", making paper better). But this is actually a complicated game to look at this aspect, because the players alter their choice too often.
Example 1: Vandal Hearts (playstation 1 rpg/strategy game)
In this game, units represent individuals and have a class type, making them always more effective against some other types and always less effective against others, as the following:
- Heavy Armor > Swordsman > Magic > Heavy Armor
- Bow > Mage > Heavy Armor > Bow
Unfortunately, the system fails when you consider armor is useless because it moves slowly across the battle field, hence both Bow and Swordsman always stay outs of it's range. Well, it can be used in some maps with lots of choke points, but the bow will just attack past the Heavy Armor anyway.
While this system is pretty interesting for a strategy game, it usually fails for a non-party based RPG.
Lesson: Alleged unit types advantages can be denied by intrinsic flaws.
Example 2 - Single character RPG
- Assume a game with the classical Fighter, Rogue and Mage Stereotypes, in a regular rock paper scissors relationship, and the player can only pick one.
- (disregard cases where mages are always weaker early game and overpowered lategame, but that is a different issue, power progression).
- This system is flawed in the sense a given player will always be weak against one kind and can't adapt.
- Now this is made even worse if most harder bosses are from a given class, making one class a better choice, and you find that out after 10+ hours of gameplay.
Lesson: Don't make your players commit too long to an irreversible uninformed decision.
Some ideas
A way to ameliorate this is to make shorter games.
Consider the old side scroller fighters, like Golden Axe (Genesis). In those you could pick one of the three characters, the balanced fighter, the fragile speedster and the mighty glacier. The game didn't take too long so it felt differently each playthrough.
Or you could give players several mutually exclusive options (consider a side scroller shooter where you can use a close ranged wide beam or a thin long ranged beam). Of course the choices need to be diverse enough to not feel too boring. This even works with power-ups, like in Super Mario World.
Maybe establishing a sense of progression could work as well.
Let's say beating the game with two different classes unlocks a third one, making it a "progression tree", which isn't better, but rather different. Binding of Isaac Rebirth is a great example of this.
Although the "higher tier" classes shouldn't be much stronger or weaker than their precedents, as players will be more skilled after beating the game before. If it's weak people won't bother using or earning it. If it's stronger it'll be similar to a god mode, given the player is already skilled enough to beat the game with a "weaker class".
Pokemon does this interestingly, if gives each pokemon the ability to use several different types of attacks, even outright giving a fire pokemon a move good against water (which usually would beat them). The possibility of having choices adds a lot of depth, but it only work because not just memorization. If my fire pokemon uses a grass type movement (Solar Beam), the opponent could:
- Predict such tactic and change their pokemon for one good against grass (like a flying pokemon)
- Use a movement that weakens that movement kind (Rain Dance).
- Accept the damage trade and use a long term investment buff (Dragon Dance).
Mix it up
Or a mixed approach like League of Legends, a player can choose not only different characters for each match (which are somewhat short, about 25-50 minutes long), but "build" (choose their progression) differently every time, making their mage either a burst-assassin or a team-support. You can also unlock more characters as you play, giving it a sense of progression as well.
Rogue Legacy (plataformer / rogue-like) combines short gameplay seasons with a progression tree. In this game you die often, but can use your achieved gold to unlock upgrades and class options which will make subsequent runs easier. If you beat the game, it allows you to start a new game+, where enemies are stronger, but rewards are greater. Actually this game becomes harder, leading to Empty Levels.
Closing thoughts
The choice on how the balance depends on how you intend to make the game.
Committing people to decisions isn't very healthy (look at the frustration of Diablo 2 players, when players discover their skill/attribute choice will make their character unable to finish hell difficulty, after playing for 10 hours), but it works in League of Legends, because the game is short, and there are still choices after the class pick.
A weakness doesn't need to be in both offensive and defense, as long as there is a third option that isn't using either the stronger or weaker type of attack, so it isn't plain memorization.
References
TV Tropes