game balancing

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzi

Game Balancing��Videogame Design and Programming


Readings

•  Jesse Schell. The Art of Game Design (2nd Edition) Morgan Kaufmann 2015

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Game Balancing adjusting the elements of the game until they deliver the experience you want


Balance Type #1 Fairness


Balance Type #1: Fairness

•  Fairness is the quality that players universally seek in games

•  Players want to feel that the forces working against them can be defeated

•  Symmetrical games are the simplest way to ensure that your game is fair, since all the players have all the same powers and resources

•  All tabletop games and most sports are symmetrical

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Asymmetrical Games

•  To simulate real-world situations

•  To give players another way to explore the game space

•  Personalization

•  To level the playing fields (noob vs expert)

•  To create interesting situations

§ Scotland Yard (players vs mr X)

§ Bhag-Chal (5 tigers vs 20 goats)

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-paper-scissors


Balance Type #2 Challenge vs Success


Balancing Challenge & Difficulty

•  Increase difficulty with each success

•  Let players get through easy parts fast

•  Create layers of challenge (with grades)

•  Let players choose the difficulty level

•  Playtest with a variety of players

•  Give the losers a break

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w


Balance Type #3 Meaningful Choices


Good games give players meaningful choices


dominant strategy


Once a dominant strategy is discovered, the game is no longer fun

the puzzle of the game has been solved

because there are no more choices to make


triangularity


Triangularity in Mario Kart

manual vs automatic? kart vs bike?

grab power-ups? use power-ups?

use speed boost pads?

left or right?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45PdtGDGhac


Balance Type #4 Skill vs Chance


dealing out cards = pure chance

choosing how to play them = skill


game design David Perry suggests that at each moment players should

exercising a skill

taking risks

working a strategy


Balance Type #5 Head vs Hand


“baseball is 90% mental. The other half is physical”

Yogi Berra


Balance Type #6 Competition vs Cooperation


Competition and cooperation are human basic urges


Balance Type #7 Short vs Long


Length of the gameplay is one important thing to balance

If the game is too short, players may not get

a chance to develop meaningful strategies

If the game goes on too long, players may grow bored, or they may avoid the game


Balance Type #8 Reward


Common Types of Rewards

• Praise

• Points

• Prolonged play

• A gateway

• Resources

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• Spectacle

• Expression

• Powers

• Status

• Completion


People tend to get acclimated to rewards the more they receive them

Variable reward is more powerful

than fixed reward


Balance Type #9 Punishment


Why Should a Game Punish Players?

•  Punishment creates endogenous value

•  Taking risks is exciting

•  Possible punishment increases challenge

•  Shaming

•  Loss of potions

•  Shortened play

•  Terminated play

•  Setback

•  Removal of powers

•  Resource depletion

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Gathering Food in Diablo

Version #1 collect food or suffer from

diminished powers due to hunger

Version #2 players are never hungry but get

a boost of ability if they eat


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_III:_Exodus


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea6UuRTjkKs


Balance Type #10 Freedom vs Controlled Experience


Games are interactive, and the point of interactivity is to give the player control,

or freedom, over the experience

How much control?

Giving the player control over everything is more development and can also be

boring for the player


Balance Type #11 Simple vs Complex


innate complexity (e.g., agricola)

emergent complexity

(othello, go, chess, etc.)


http://kotaku.com/every-wonderfully-complex-board-game-needs-a-tablet-ver-513844663


Natural vs Artificial Balancing space invaders go faster, the fewer they are

Elegance

dots in Pac-Man serve multiple purposes they provide a short term goal, a long term goal,

triangularity, points/success, extra life


“if a line in a script doesn’t serve at least two purposes, it should be cut”

Old Hollywood saying


Rule of thumb: a game element should have at least three purposes


Balance Type #12 Detail vs Imagination


Only detail what you can do well

Give details the imagination can use

Familiar worlds do not need much detail

Use the “binocular” effect

Give details that inspire imagination


Game Balancing Methodologies


Game Balancing Methodologies

•  Use the lens of the problem statement

•  Doubling and halving

•  Train your intuition by guessing exactly

•  Document your model

•  Tune your model as you tune your game

•  Plan to balance

•  Let the players do it

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Dynamic Game Balancing


It spoils the reality of the world

It is exploitable

Players improve with practice


Design in Detail: Changing the Time between Shots for the Sniper Rifle from 0.5 to 0.7 Seconds for Halo 3 by Jaime Griesemer. http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1012649/Design-in-Detail-Changing-the


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e31OSVZF77w


http://www.facebook.com/polimigamecollectivehttps://twitter.com/@POLIMIGC

http://www.youtube.com/PierLucaLanzihttp://www.polimigamecollective.org

game balancing

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