868-HACK's balancing act
I've been thinking a lot about balancing. Actually, I always think about balancing, whether it be analogue or digital games. The creator of 868-HACK wrote about how he went about balancing the complex 2D currency system against its abilities (progs) in the game, and I thought it was a great read, and a good insight into how balance can be examined.
Worth noting is that there are different schools that approach balance in different ways. I remember reading that one of them is to disregard statistical balance for emotional balance - that approach makes super weapons, but makes them situationally useful and different rather than statistically balanced. That's not wrong either :)
Enjoy :)
http://mightyvision.blogspot.com/2014/06/868-hack-prog-costs.html
[quote ="Michael Brough"]NOW I WILL SUM UP SOME IDEAS WITH BULLETPOINTS
Start by fixing some initial values to base things off (which could change later if needed).
Invent principles of symmetry to guide the rest. Symmetry is good because it cuts out a whole bunch of possibilities and also it might have some aesthetic value maybe?
Tools to convert between different resources are maybe interesting, but better if they vary situationally rather than just having a set exchange rate, and better the weirder the resources themselves are.
Be aware of non-linearity; don't assume the meaning of numbers scales in an intuitive way. It might be more than twice as hard to pay 6 as 3, doubling an effect shouldn't necessarily double its cost, etc.
Be aware of different types of cost - unreliability, difficulty of acquisition, opportunity costs - as well as the explicit numeric resources.
Breaking a pattern merits a higher cost.
The whole is more important than its component parts. Be comfortable making a component worse if it's better for the whole.
there's no perfect
What is balance anyway idk[/quote]
Worth noting is that there are different schools that approach balance in different ways. I remember reading that one of them is to disregard statistical balance for emotional balance - that approach makes super weapons, but makes them situationally useful and different rather than statistically balanced. That's not wrong either :)
Enjoy :)
http://mightyvision.blogspot.com/2014/06/868-hack-prog-costs.html
[quote ="Michael Brough"]NOW I WILL SUM UP SOME IDEAS WITH BULLETPOINTS
Start by fixing some initial values to base things off (which could change later if needed).
Invent principles of symmetry to guide the rest. Symmetry is good because it cuts out a whole bunch of possibilities and also it might have some aesthetic value maybe?
Tools to convert between different resources are maybe interesting, but better if they vary situationally rather than just having a set exchange rate, and better the weirder the resources themselves are.
Be aware of non-linearity; don't assume the meaning of numbers scales in an intuitive way. It might be more than twice as hard to pay 6 as 3, doubling an effect shouldn't necessarily double its cost, etc.
Be aware of different types of cost - unreliability, difficulty of acquisition, opportunity costs - as well as the explicit numeric resources.
Breaking a pattern merits a higher cost.
The whole is more important than its component parts. Be comfortable making a component worse if it's better for the whole.
there's no perfect
What is balance anyway idk[/quote]