AoE vs Single Target Damage - Balance Discussion

[Frostorm]

So I wanted to see what everyone else does when it comes to balancing your skills/spells. Obviously, a single target skill/spell usually deals more dmg to a single target compared to an equivalent tier AoE skill/spell. If this is the case in your project, I was wondering how much weaker is your AoE attack compared to the single target version? Only referring to damage on a single target, not the cumulative damage on all targets.

Of course, AoE attacks are meant to be used against multiple opponents, so the total damage is almost always more than a similar single-target attack. Let's assume there are 3 enemies in play and let's also say our single target attack, which we'll call "Strike" costs 20TP, while our AoE attack, which we can call "Cleave", costs 30TP but can hit up to 3 targets. How much damage should "Cleave" deal if "Strike" deals 100 dmg?

If we set Cleave's dmg to ~33 (1/3 of Strike), that would feel too weak even if it hits 3 targets. In fact, since Cleave costs more, the total damage (~33x3) should exceed Strike by 50% (since its TP cost is 50% greater), in other words, maybe it ought to deal 50 dmg per target? Does this sound balanced? Should the utility of being able to hit multiple targets count as part of the resource cost? Thoughts?

The above is just a simple example to get us started. You don't have to use it. I just wanted to get a feel for how other's balance things when it comes to AoE.

 

[EpicFILE]

In Front Mission, the direct target gets more damage
compared to other targets in AoE area (IIRC).

Illustration:
_____1
___1 1 1
__1 1 0 1 1
___1 1 1
_____1
The target at 0 gets more damage.

I think that works well in terms of balancing (considering higher TP use).
Maybe you can make the target at zero point gets full damage, or 75% damage.

 

[Dopan]

Example : assuming that all targets in an aoe get the same dmg..
(thats what happen in srpg)

i would probably make a dmg difference of 20%dmg aswell as lower success rate, with 10%,.. less than the single target skill.
(SRPG AOE Plugin from DrQ repeats the action on each Unit, instead of using 1 action that hits all units at the exact same moment)
=> it doesnt repeat all parts of the action.. like trigger-skillnotes or SkillCosts for EG but i dont want to go into deeper details if not needed

Also i would make higher MP cost for the Aoe depending on the AOE shape Size.
(EG: SingelTarget=10mp ,-> A shape that can hit 5 targets would cost 35 mp, even if the aoe is used on less than 5 targets)
Thats the main balance thing in my oppinnion because if the MP is to low an extra action is required to add MP
(thats one action which cant do any dmg)

 

[RachelTheSeeker]

Ooh man, this is a tough one. I'd prefer damaging (or healing) AoE to be less powerful than single-target moves, but also ponder by how much myself. If effects that hit all foes or allies are as potent as single-target ones, why bother with anything else? 100% damage feels too powerful, and I see the worry about lowering damage too.

My gut instincts? You might be onto something with the AoE doing ~33% less damage than normal. I feel half damage is too low, and ~25% or less too high. Thus 33% is a happy medium. I heavily vouch for increased TP cost. I'd say the TP cost should be anywhere from 150% to 250%, depending on how big your average enemy troop is. For instance, if your move costs 20 TP and you usually have three enemies per fight, I'd think 30 TP is fine. If you usually have five or more, perhaps upward to 50 TP? I think it should reflect how many enemies would be hit.

Another thought is that some AoE moves are okay to have a lower TP cost... if they don't affect HP directly. Status effects that only hit one target should be potent -- an AoE sleep spell (which is removed by getting hit) versus a single-foe paralysis spell (that requires an item or spell to remove prematurely), for instance. Otherwise, unconventional drawbacks could be applied? Something like "Power Within" from Dark Souls where an ATK-and-DEF buff drains HP, or a potent move also afflicting the user with a stun like Parasite Eve's Energyshot?

 

[ScorchedGround]

My AoE spells deal around 70% of the damage of the single target equivalent and cost ~200% more MP.

Example:
Holy Bolt -> 100% Damage for 4 MP
Holy Barrage -> 70% Damage for 12 MP

This way, the spell is only actually MP efficient at 3 enemies or more.

That said, since I use the SV Battle system and I believe you use a tactical on-map battle system, you might make your AoE spells a little stronger because its more difficult to hit multiple enemies.

 

[Raith]

This is an interesting discussion.

I'll try to not answer with "it depend on ...".

My principle for balanced AoE is "A skill that is not going to be used/spammable if there is only single enemy attacking"

So, about damage and for the sake of player sanity, I never reduce total AoE damage less than 80% of its single-target counterpart. During playtesting, I even conclude to not reduce the damage at all if it is needed. The reason behind it is explained below:

During my project development, I noticed that AoE can be divided into two types: Standard and Finisher.

One of the root of RPG boredom is either extremely frequent or frequent needs of mobs encounter. The purpose of Standard AoE skill is mainly to clear such kind of mobs and to do quick grinding. Standard AoE skill is generally take one additional turn to kill a single same-level foe compared to its single-target counterpart. Damage variance plays a GREAT role in this kind of AoE, hence the 80% (because 20% variance can minimize the total output to just 60%).

About not reducing Standard AoE damage at all compared to its single-target counterpart, it is based on "bullet philosophy": a bullet can kill a target, and so are many bullets. The only difference is you're spending a lot more bullet if you chose to kill many targets. Since damage output of each bullet is the same against each target, the only hesitation to shoot many bullet is a knowledge how many bullet that you will spend. In conclusion, same damage output, but far more MP consumptions.

Finisher AoE skill is mainly for the "cool effect" and/or signature move. It is usually awesome (high-damage, cool animation, etc.), but impractical due to a lot of restrictions (high-MP consumption, weapon limitation, states infliction, etc).

 

[bgillisp]

What I did in my last game was the AOE was the same damage as the single target spell (most times), but it cost about 2.5 - 3x as much mana. So for example I had Hurl Fire at 7 MP, then Fireball was the AOE version which cost 17 MP. Against small groups Hurl Fire is more effective, but against mobs it is worth it to use Fireball instead.

 

[Redeye]

Ah yes, this discussion, as well as some others, are part of why I question the design choices of the earlier Final Fantasy games so much. (Why do -aga spells both deal MORE damage than its previous tiers AND cover a wider scope?? Also, why do Full Heals even exist? They kill the tension of any fight! This is kinda the reason why FF13 is my favorite, because these issues are alleviated in some way due to its underrated combat.)

So yeah, I tend to give AoE attacks less damage than Single Target. They typically deal 25%/30% less damage, maybe even less with some sort of bonus effect to make it worthwhile. I tend to base the cost/cooldown on how useful the skill is as a whole, asking myself "How many times should an early/mid/late game player be able to cast this before needing to restock?". A small Blizzard with a measly AGI debuff will probably just cost 2 more MP (or maybe even 2 less MP) than the generic Fireball attack.

 

[Wavelength]

In the example you gave, I would probably set the damage for the AoE spell (per target) around 60% of the expected damage for the single-target spell, maybe creeping toward 70%. There are several different factors that should go into the consideration of their value besides total damage dealt:

• How important is it in your battle system to thin the enemy's numbers early on in the combat? (Single-target spells that deal more damage will get your first kill quicker, even though AoE's will wipe the entire mob quicker)
• How is your damage formula designed? (If the enemy's MDF or other stats are subtracted from damage dealt, rather than used as a divisor, the AoE's total damage output will swing much more based on the MDF of the enemy than the single-target skill's damage output will)
• If using a resource that must be accumulated, like TP in your example, how much of a commitment is it to build up 20 TP vs. building up 30 TP? (The harder it is to comfortably accumulate, the more damage the AoE should deal)
• Does the character using either one of these skills also have access to the other type of skill? (If a character with AoE's doesn't have a good single-target skill to use as an alternative, that suggests the AoE should be stronger than usual so the character isn't useless against single-target troops; the same is true to a lesser extent for a character that only has single-targets and no AoE's)

I suggest checking out this thread about AoE's in Boss Fights, too, which you might remember - I sort of came at this question from the other direction and I got a lot of really good answers, which I think are quite applicable to this discussion too. One of the biggest takeaways was that sometimes you don't need to balance the damage to be a certain amount worse for AoE skills, but you can pull another lever such as MP cost instead.

Damage variance plays a GREAT role in this kind of AoE, hence the 80% (because 20% variance can minimize the total output to just 60%).

Just to clear up a small but important misconception here - in RPG Maker at least, the 80% damage can only be reduced to 64% or increased to 96% by 20% variance, as the variance amount will be 20% of the 80% (+ or - 16%). (And in fact, most of the time it will land close to 80%, due to the double-roll for Variance that's done under the hood in the code.) Therefore, the impact of variance should be no greater or lesser for the AoE skill than it was for the single-target skill. Taken to an extreme, imagine that your AoE damage formula was just 30% of the single target's damage. 20% Variance would modify this to anywhere between 24% and 36% - not 10% to 50%.

 

[Frostorm]

In the example you gave, I would probably set the damage for the AoE spell (per target) around 60% of the expected damage for the single-target spell, maybe creeping toward 70%. There are several different factors that should go into the consideration of their value besides total damage dealt:

Haha, that's cool cuz I had it set at 2/3 (66.7%) of single target damage, with an increased resource cost of course. I'd also like to emphasize utilizing resource costs as another lever as you mentioned. Though I have been having a bit of trouble w/ the magical AoEs since I've intentionally designed my game to be tight on MP in general, so there isn't as much leeway for me to adjust that lever. I guess cooldowns can be another lever, but imo that shouldn't be used to any bread 'n butter moves.

 

[Tai_MT]

It's difficult to say. I'll state my standard reply to anything about "Balance" first.

1. Balance is what you decide it should be. Nobody can answer that question for you except yourself. While 80% damage might be useful in my game, it might be horrifyingly overpowered in yours.
2. "Balance" is multiple factors other than just damage output. State inflicting, elemental weakness, stats of characters, purpose of each combat encounter, etcetera.

I handle it by just having "bonus damage". To clarify a little, I have skills that "level up" and the player is allowed to choose how those skills change along 1 of 2 lines (each skill has 10 variations on it). To that end, the damage formulas tend to remain exactly the same except for added effects, multipliers, targets, and the "bonus damage" added to the formula. The baseline skills usually have a +10 damage to the formula. The final versions of those same skills can go upwards of +100 bonus damage or as weak as +70 bonus damage.

Now, that does get handled differently with "multi-target" type skills.

The closest I have to a true and traditional "AOE" is probably "Water" which just hits everything on the battlefield (every single enemy, even if there are like 8 enemies). It's "Bonus Damage" starts at +4 at base level. It gets as high as +40 or as weak as +28. These are values that are far less than half of what most of my regular skills do. However, there is a reason to use these skills against only a few enemies. It inflicts "Confuse" and "Charm" states. The more damage it does, the lower chance of inflicting the states, but the lower damage it does, the higher chance of inflicting the states. "Water" is a skill that does far less damage if you have less than 3 enemies on the field to be hit by it. It does more overall damage the more enemies it hits (that includes those affected by Confuse and Charm who hit other enemies!).

Then, I've got a skill like "Thunder", which works differently. It's base extra damage is +5. At most, it will do +35 to +50 bonus damage. However, it works in a different way. It can hit a single target more times or it can hit multiple (random) targets. At the high end of the damage scale (+50), this would hit a single (random) target 4 times. At the low end of the damage scale (+35), this would hit 4 random targets a single time. For even further "balancing", Thunder has a 30% Variance and can inflict either "Stun" or "Paralyze".

My skills that multi-target with multipliers work the same way. The more targets they hit, the lower the multiplier. For example, a skill that hits 4 targets might only have a 4.5 multiplier. But, that same skill that hits a single target could push a multiplier of 6.

This is, of course, not accounting for cost of casting, whether or not enemies might be immune, or even hit chance.

In general, I like to balance "raw damage" with "extra effects". Weaker skills have powerful effects and inflict powerful states on top of their damage. Stronger skills have less powerful effects and less powerful states, but do a crapload of damage on hit. Multi-target skills are meant to be less powerful unless used on large groups. I force this emphasis as much as possible.

 

[Raith]

Just to clear up a small but important misconception here - in RPG Maker at least, the 80% damage can only be reduced to 64% or increased to 96% by 20% variance, as the variance amount will be 20% of the 80% (+ or - 16%). (And in fact, most of the time it will land close to 80%, due to the double-roll for Variance that's done under the hood in the code.) Therefore, the impact of variance should be no greater or lesser for the AoE skill than it was for the single-target skill. Taken to an extreme, imagine that your AoE damage formula was just 30% of the single target's damage. 20% Variance would modify this to anywhere between 24% and 36% - not 10% to 50%.

Ahhh, thanks for the correction and pardon me for the bad calculation, I just realized that I multiply it with the single target damage formula

That also reminds me to discuss the importance of elements in the AoE damage balance. If there's any, elements should be able to prevent spammable AOE skill. Say, you don't want the player to use continuous Firestorm against Water Sprite mob just because it is strong enough to wipe them in one turn.

A good example of balanced elemental AoE is probably Surf in Gen. VI Pokemon. Surf has average base power and do AoE when used in mobs. However, it is still kind of weak when used against Pokemon with wrong element, prompting player to choose better move.

 

[Shikamon]

Say, you don't want the player to use continuous Firestorm against Water Sprite mob just because it is strong enough to wipe them in one turn.

WHAT?! but it's fun lol ! I mean that's the point of strong spell IMO. You could ease your game progression.

I guess I'm with traditional cost MP, multiply damage and add some cost MP, for TP which could regenerate, I think there should different mechanisms with AOE spell because it's easy to spam it without quite worried about the cost. maybe make it into different tier spell kinda works too.

 

[Raith]

WHAT?! but it's fun lol ! I mean that's the point of strong spell IMO. You could ease your game progression.

That's exactly the case in an elementless game; You can always go cast deadly Thunderstorm to Rubbersuit Troops.

In a game with element based spell, you gotta make it so an element is not pointless as well as not overpowered. The way devs balance this is usually by mix-matching different element enemies in one troop.

That is also why I in my first post, I suggest differentiating an AoE as "standard" or "finisher" move, as you have pointed out here:

there should different mechanisms with AOE spell because it's easy to spam it without quite worried about the cost. maybe make it into different tier spell kinda works too.

 

[duty]

There's not much point to reducing the damage output on an attack that hits all enemies once.

The increase in scope is only effective against multiple enemies, otherwise it's a more costly version of the standard attack.

I tend to shift the balance from an action's efficacy to its resource cost.

The standard attack formula becomes the baseline. Any diversion from that formula adds a resource cost. If the damage multiplier increases by an increment, the resource cost for that attack increases, too.

Personally, I've found the "X random enemy" scope to be more interesting and effective. It can still clear encounters with multiple enemies (albeit not as reliably), but has the benefit of being a damage multiplier against smaller groups.

 

[Frostorm]

There's not much point to reducing the damage output on an attack that hits all enemies once.

How about for realism? Could someone really swing a big melee weapon in a 360° just as hard as they would swinging downwards onto a single target? Conservation of momentum dictates that once you hit that 1st target while swinging in a wide arc, that swing will carry less energy going foward since a portion was imparted onto the 1st target (aka damage).

 

[duty]

@Frostrom I make the assumption that the resource cost represents that extra oomph in the attack.

After dwelling on this a bit, the real question is, what's the tactical advantage of using a "hit all" attack?

It seems the best criteria is that the "hit all" helps to resolve some battles faster, or mitigates the HP or other resource loss from that battle.

 

[RachelTheSeeker]

@duty, you make a good point about why things are AoE. The "hit all" effect for damage, in my opinion, is meant to end a fight quicker. Many times an AoE ailment that shuts down foes means that it just takes longer to coup-de-grace them all. An AoE heal seems great for emergencies, because it'd be downright OP if used otherwise.

Considering how boring I find Black Mages in Final Fantasy already, my 2¢ is that AoE damage is best left for big-time stuff if used at all. Summons and limit breaks, and nothing less. Thinking back to FF9, the majority of Garnet's summons became redundant once Vivi could just blast all foes with a similar spell for more damage. I'd rather a summon be like FF Tactic's -- slow use, serious MP cost, but will dang near wipe the board if not dealt with. Baraius Hill is the first fight where Summoners are encountered, and I remember it well -- it was one of the brick walls in progression that I hit as a kid.

For status AoE, I again feel lesser de/buffs (sleep that ends after a hit, +30% DEF boost for the fight) should be spread across all friends or all foes. More potent stuff (paralysis that can't be removed easily, +100% ATK boost for the fight, etc) should be single-target. AoE healing *needs* to be less potent in my mind, if anything, due to how broken a full-heal on the whole party can be.

 

[Wavelength]

Regarding @duty's point, while I think that making increased MP/resource cost the only tradeoff for AoE damage can be a solution (and in fact a really good and satisfying one) in the right battle design, there are a lot of scenarios where it won't be.

The most common of those scenarios would be ones where MP restoration is cheap and easy (meaning that the single-target skill will never be the right choice when there are two or more enemies), or where battle flow is such that wiping a couple enemies quickly is the difference between a nearly-flawless victory and a terribly damaging encounter (meaning that that more-costly AoE skill still breaks the balance wide open).

In such cases, I do think that less damage (and perhaps an equal MP cost to the single-target) is a fair tradeoff for the AoE effect. Against a troop where a Dragon has 350 HP and two Whelps each have 200 HP, it would be a legitimate and interesting decision whether to use a single-target attack that deals 105 damage, or an AoE attack that deals 60 damage. The former will start thinning the enemies' numbers quicker, while the latter will clear the entire troop in fewer turns.

I also reject the notion that RPGs tend to be so tightly balanced and controlled that the 60-80% damage offered by an AoE will always increase the number of hits it takes to destroy an enemy. This is definitely true in some multiplayer games where characters have fixed stats - but in single-player adventures where characters level up, gain stat boosts from other sources, and (hopefully) have access to a wide variety of build options, there will be a lot of times where the AoE can finish enemies in the same number of hits, and a lot of times where it can't.

Finally, I hate the default "X Random Hits" scope. Such a scope is actually far more effective and reliable against single targets than it is against troops, which makes no sense and rewards the player for not playing the randomness element of it. It's dumb. Systems that use this but offer less damage for subsequent hits on the same target do offer a happy and satisfying middle ground, though.

 

[Tai_MT]

Finally, I hate the default "X Random Hits" scope. Such a scope is actually far more effective and reliable against single targets than it is against troops, which makes no sense and rewards the player for not playing the randomness element of it. It's dumb. Systems that use this but offer less damage for subsequent hits on the same target do offer a happy and satisfying middle ground, though.

I think the only systems I've ever seen this be interesting in are ones in which enemies can be immune to the skills, troop compositions are wildly varied (monsters weak to water are mixed with monsters weak to electricity are mixed in with monsters weak to earth, etcetera), or where the skills themselves are powerful enough that any random hit COULD kill the enemy.

But, of course, this requires quite a lot of work on the part of the dev to design a system that uses these effectively.

For example, if all your troop compositions are wildly varied, there is no reason to use the "random hit" attacks since you're guaranteed a good chunk of those hits are going to do minimal or almost no damage.

A dev would need to design encounters in which these skills would be highly effective and some in which they wouldn't be effective at all. Maybe even a few in between where they're varying degrees of effectiveness. But, this can easily lead to "Guide-Dang-It!" moments. As in, the player needing to memorize effectiveness of skills against specific troop compositions. You can minimize this to some degree with a Pokemon-like "type chart" of the monsters, but the player is still required to memorize something.

If you design skills that are highly effective against any enemy they hit, then you also have to worry about them being far too powerful in comparison to the single-cast skills. With MP being nearly the most efficient resource to manage in almost every RPG... There's no way you're going to balance damage using just MP cost alone.

Personally, I prefer when these skills are part of "builds" instead of just something the dev gives to the players. For example, if the player has to choose between hitting 1 enemy multiple times or hitting many enemies once. This could potentially change the playstyle of the character. They could be "boss killers" with their single target, multi-hit skill... or they could be "scrub killers" with their multi-target single-hit skill. The power difference in the skills doesn't even need to be that different as just splitting up how the damage is dealt and who is being killed off would be the important part of combat.

More often than not, it is better to avoid implementing such skills unless you have a specific design decision in mind for their usage other than "raw damage output".