Balance Numbers

[MerlinCross]

So there's probably no easy answer for this but I'd like to get some advise.

Thus far, I've been balancing around what the party needs. How much damage they need to do, how much they need to heal based on their HP, etc etc.

However due to this I haven't really processed how much this would work with the enemies. Thus when I put in a skill, balanced for Actors/Characters, the balance breaks. As in, someone with 80 HP gets hit with 250+ damage.

I'm concerned about how to fix this. I see about 3 ways to figure this out but I'd like to hear if there's other ideas or how viable each solution I present here is.

1) Full rebalance. Put everything on the same level so both Player and Monsters are using the same formulas for everything.

2) Split Rebalance. Put a check into skills to make it realize "Use this formula for Actors, use this formula for enemies/monsters". Probably not possible without a plugin though but I think Yanfly has something.

3) Split skills. Simply put, make a list of skills for monsters and balance those around monster stats vs player. Example, player skill does 200 + Atk vs a monster with 1200 HP. Monster Skill might do 40 + Atk vs an Actor that has 80 HP.

Thoughts?

 

[palatkorn]

For me, repeating the test to get the power value was more fun than calculating. So I tried at the max level of characters and monsters and tried all the battles I had in each event, setting the basic stats parameters to the characters with yanfly plugins.

 

[bgillisp]

I'd be more interested to see your damage formula, as if someone with 80 HP is getting hit for 250 HP then why aren't they doing 250 HP to monsters? If not then why is your ATK lower than the monsters? And why do monsters have 3x your HP anyways that you need them to do 250 damage?

As for the question I had both use the same skills, and similar stats. I found that balanced pretty naturally though HP had to be tweaked some to account for the party having to do many battles and the monsters only one.

 

[MerlinCross]

I'd be more interested to see your damage formula, as if someone with 80 HP is getting hit for 250 HP then why aren't they doing 250 HP to monsters? If not then why is your ATK lower than the monsters? And why do monsters have 3x your HP anyways that you need them to do 250 damage?

As for the question I had both use the same skills, and similar stats. I found that balanced pretty naturally though HP had to be tweaked some to account for the party having to do many battles and the monsters only one.

Oh they do though. Right now I'm trying to keep what I think is a fairly simple formula. That, Flat damage boost.

Ice Skill does (250 damage + modifiers) - Defense of target.

For the player characters, this isn't a problem as the idea is to use these skills against bigger enemies or threats. For Enemies to just be allowed to delete a character at will.....

As for why the monsters have triple HP, well that's a boss for one. Most enemies have less. I guess I'm just starting to get frustrated by fiddling with all the math involved and wanted suggestions.

 

[bgillisp]

I mentioned this to you offsite, but will add it here too, as it may help others. What I found worked well for me was to make the base damage < the players HP at the point they learned the skill. That way if an enemy used it, once you do the rest of your modifications it should not KO them.

So for example let's say you learn Fireball when a player has 215 HP. I'd consider making it maybe 130 HP for base if single target, and if AOE maybe 75 - 80 HP? That way it is not too OP in the end.

Maybe a good starting point is to make the base 1/2 to 2/3 the players HP for single target. Once you do -DEF it should even it out some, but it will still be OUCH if a boss uses it on them for a while. And for AOE's maybe try making the base 1/4 to 1/3 the players HP?

 

[Dororo]

You're probably doing wrong in the compute of monsters HP.
Creating monsters with an uncanny HP value forced you into creating uncanny skills, that then revert back to players that instead use a rational HP progression.
Check monsters HP to have a ratio similar to PC one.

 

[MerlinCross]

You're probably doing wrong in the compute of monsters HP.
Creating monsters with an uncanny HP value forced you into creating uncanny skills, that then revert back to players that instead use a rational HP progression.
Check monsters HP to have a ratio similar to PC one.

Most games have this though.

 

[Kes]

The other factor which hasn't been mentioned when thinking about enemy HP and stats is: how many enemies in a troop and how may actors are in your party at the time you meet them? If your troops typically have 3 - 4 enemies, then their HP and stats can (and should) be lower than if the troop is a single enemy. If your active party is only 1 - 2, then I would expect the enemies to be lower than if the party is 4.

 

[Dororo]

Ok, probably I have the solution.
What you're doing right now is applying the default equation to two ranges of stats on different bases - like PC own a '10' based math and monsters a '100' based math.
That will break up the DragonQuest math equations, creating the unfair damage attribution you spotted.

You need to revert from DQ formula used by RM as hinted default to FinalFantasy ones.

FinalFantasy damage formula is strictly stat based with less operators.
(ATK-DEF) + modifiers.
But the most interesting fact is that monster DEF continue to fall into a low level scale, while PC DEF grow by level.
So, when your hero own 200 DEF, the monsters continue to have fairly low DEF values.
Monster attacks instead grow normally (usually even higher than PC one).
The effect of this unfair grow is that a 250dmg spell is a breeze against high level characters, and will be always painfull for any monster.
To compensate this and avoid instakill the whole game, usually monsters got higher amount of HP than party members.

To resume:

• Simplify the math
• PC rise their DEF a lot
• Monsters barely rise DEF and instead rise HP and ATK a lot.

 

[Milennin]

I ran into some balance issues with my game's combat, so I made separate damage formulas for heroes and monsters. Monster attacks take the target hero's defence stat into account, while heroes strike with nothing more than an "a.atk" formula at 5% variance on their base attack.
I do want keep the defence stat on heroes, because I like the idea of having difference toughness between them without inflating HP values, while on monsters, it doesn't really matter since you don't see their total HP anyway. It also makes it easier putting monsters together, since I only really need to balance their HP and their Attack stat.
I always like to make separate skill lists for both heroes and monsters, just in case I want to add something gimmicky that only works for one side, and not the other. It's a bit of extra work to manage, but having the extra control over things is nice.

 

[AfroKat]

I get around this just using atk*2-def*1 *(modifier) so enemies usually have lower Def and alot of HP not to mention players have alot of modifiers to boost their damage while enemies have very few. So I can keep base defenses higher for players and lower hp.

 

[MerlinCross]

I don't know if this is a good idea or not but I'm experimenting with something.

Since the most damaging attacks come from "Strains" an equipment type, I'm testing out the idea of having said strains AMP the elemental attacks PCs would get from bosses. This allows me to make them more damaging when in the player's hands as opposed to the enemy bosses.

Yes there's some loss of realism(Why can I do more damage than the boss can) but enemies have more HP than PCs so it makes more sense to deal more damage to enemies than they can you.

 

[Black Pagan]

An easy way to assign Damage for Skills would be to base everything on the Default Normal Attack formula and set a fixed amount of range, i.e, Lets say 125% ~ 250% of Normal Attack dmg as Damage for Skills, Depending on their Function, Type etc.

An easy way to assign enemy stats would be to base their stats on Player stats at Level "x" so you can assign each enemy an Imaginary level and look up Player stats at that level as reference and make sure to tone down the enemies to be 30% of that or 50% of that etc.

I base Enemy Life depending on how many Turns I want the Player to kill them.

 

[Zerothedarklord]

Generally, as long as you have a decent comprehension of Math, you can figure this out as you do it.
For example, in my game, I use low numbers, so I know about how much the player characters health can be expected to be at most levels, let's say at level 10, you would have 180 health. I am not going to make an enemy who's attack will deal, say, 100 + a.atk, because that would be ridiculous.


Obviously, things should often be playtested for balance, especially bosses, but like I said, as long as you have a decent grasp of what you're doing and how the numbers are going to work together, you shouldn't really have many drastic issues.

 

[MerlinCross]

Generally, as long as you have a decent comprehension of Math, you can figure this out as you do it.
For example, in my game, I use low numbers, so I know about how much the player characters health can be expected to be at most levels, let's say at level 10, you would have 180 health. I am not going to make an enemy who's attack will deal, say, 100 + a.atk, because that would be ridiculous.


Obviously, things should often be playtested for balance, especially bosses, but like I said, as long as you have a decent grasp of what you're doing and how the numbers are going to work together, you shouldn't really have many drastic issues.

I'm also trying to keep with low numbers. At the end of the little demo I'm trying to get together for halloween, at most you might be level 10 and I'm trying to set it up so you don't need to grind(either enough fights anyway or enough supplies/items given out)

 

[Zerothedarklord]

I'm also trying to keep with low numbers. At the end of the little demo I'm trying to get together for halloween, at most you might be level 10 and I'm trying to set it up so you don't need to grind(either enough fights anyway or enough supplies/items given out)

if you'd like a hand with anything in terms of balance, combat, etc., feel free to hit me up, my discord is Zerothedarklord#8459

 

[MerlinCross]

An easy way to assign Damage for Skills would be to base everything on the Default Normal Attack formula and set a fixed amount of range, i.e, Lets say 125% ~ 250% of Normal Attack dmg as Damage for Skills, Depending on their Function, Type etc.

An easy way to assign enemy stats would be to base their stats on Player stats at Level "x" so you can assign each enemy an Imaginary level and look up Player stats at that level as reference and make sure to tone down the enemies to be 30% of that or 50% of that etc.

I base Enemy Life depending on how many Turns I want the Player to kill them.

I too try to base enemy HP/Defense around how many turns I want them to last, give or take.

I might try to rework at least the base attack formula. I'm of the opinion that any Skill that does damage should do at least the minium amount of damage that a default attack does. Higher damage skills are allowed by anything closer to default damage should carry a rider effect(Poison, Debuff, Leech, Ignore DEF) .

Right now the formula is looking like

a.atk - (b.def * 0.5)

With attacks adding a percentage increase to the attack stat. Thus far it's worked out decently well but I'm only messing around with small numbers right now. Also raw buffs/defense boosts might be more important.

if you'd like a hand with anything in terms of balance, combat, etc., feel free to hit me up, my discord is Zerothedarklord#8459

I might take you up on this.

 

[Black Pagan]

Well, Personally i use small numbers so my Base Damage Formula for Normal Attack is :
a.atk * 0.5 - b.def * 0.25

With this Formula, You don't have to think much in allocating Stats. With this Base Formula, You only have to follow one rule :
HP > Atk > Def.

Example of Low Level Player Stats : 45 Life, 35 Attack, 15 Defense.
Example of Mid Level Player Stats : 125 Life, 75 Attack, 45 Defense
Example of High Level Player Stats : 215 Life, 135 Attack, 85 Defense

Now assign enemies 30% ~ 50% of the above Stats and they should automatically balance out, You don't even have to think hard about it Skills could have a Bonus or Multiplier (Altering the a.atk* 0.5) value.

Examples of a Damage Formula for Skill :
- Adding Bonus Damage (15) and Bonus Multiplier (0.25%) to above Formula,
15 + a.atk * 0.75 - b.def * 0.25

Basically, You are restricting Attack Stat to Half its efficiency and keeping Defense Stat to a bare minimum. So you have the Freedom to increase the Attack Stat to its Full Potency whenever required with this Base Damage Formula.

 

[Wavelength]

Many (though certainly not all) professional games use a setup that goes something like this:

• Heroes have approximately equal HP to normal mob enemies
• Heroes have much higher Attack and higher Defense than normal mob enemies
• Therefore, Heroes do a lot of damage to mob enemies, and can kill them in a couple hits, and mob enemies only do a little to the Heroes and would need many hits to kill them
• Bosses have much, much higher HP than Heroes (usually 20 to 100 times as high)
• Bosses have similar Attack and Defense to Heroes
• Therefore, Heroes and Bosses do about equal amounts of damage to each other, but while Bosses can kill Heroes in 2-3 hits if unhealed, it takes dozens of hits to kill a Boss Enemy

My instinct is that your system is breaking down because the base damages play too much of a role in your formulas, and the modifiers/defense doesn't play enough of a role. That 250 is probably way too large, and maybe you need to increase the multiplier on any modifiers you're using (e.g. subtract DEF * 3 instead of DEF).

The other thing that could be causing the problems (and you might need to do both) is that you may have designed normal mob monsters to have stats that are too similar to your heroes' stats. If you look at the "normal way of doing things" above, you'll see that if the heroes and monsters have similar amounts of HP, then the heroes' ATK should be way higher (or their skills' base damages should be higher, if you don't include ATK in your damage formula), and their DEF should also be somewhat higher.

 

[MerlinCross]

Many (though certainly not all) professional games use a setup that goes something like this:

• Heroes have approximately equal HP to normal mob enemies
• Heroes have much higher Attack and higher Defense than normal mob enemies
• Therefore, Heroes do a lot of damage to mob enemies, and can kill them in a couple hits, and mob enemies only do a little to the Heroes and would need many hits to kill them
• Bosses have much, much higher HP than Heroes (usually 20 to 100 times as high)
• Bosses have similar Attack and Defense to Heroes
• Therefore, Heroes and Bosses do about equal amounts of damage to each other, but while Bosses can kill Heroes in 2-3 hits if unhealed, it takes dozens of hits to kill a Boss Enemy

My instinct is that your system is breaking down because the base damages play too much of a role in your formulas, and the modifiers/defense doesn't play enough of a role. That 250 is probably way too large, and maybe you need to increase the multiplier on any modifiers you're using (e.g. subtract DEF * 3 instead of DEF).

The other thing that could be causing the problems (and you might need to do both) is that you may have designed normal mob monsters to have stats that are too similar to your heroes' stats. If you look at the "normal way of doing things" above, you'll see that if the heroes and monsters have similar amounts of HP, then the heroes' ATK should be way higher (or their skills' base damages should be higher, if you don't include ATK in your damage formula), and their DEF should also be somewhat higher.

I've changed from a flat damage buff to a more percentage system and that's working better though some fine tunning is needed. Again the problem was if I gave the attack to a Monster, it would break due to the fact that players don't have the HP to take a 250 hit. And giving it some massive defense boost to avoid instant killing players would give the boost to monsters and thus, not be worth using. The point is to have an attack that can inflict good damage to enemies without making it an instant kill vs players.

I could get some balance numbers out later tonight if people are interested in seeing how it looks now.