How do you balance your game?

[CrazyCrab]

Hi guys,

trying to finish at least one area so I can safely say that for now at least the introduction is complete.

At the same time I have no clue whether the monsters are too tough or too weak.. I can kill them without any major trouble, but I know all the stats so I know when to use what and what every single one does.

How do you balance your game, assuming that it's a simple zone where player has limited access to equipment and only one party member?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Kes]

 Here is a link to a very good introduction to the basics of how to do this.  http://forums.rpgmak...d-like +rodents

Also have a look at http://forums.rpgmak...nts#entry138009 and this http://forums.rpgmak...ents#entry75376

Between them they will give a very good grounding.  Then use battle test in the data base for each and every enemy troop that you create.

 

[Milennin]

Lots of play testing:

Try to play through the area at the lowest, highest and the average the player can be at that point.

Try to play through the area using auto-attack only.

Try to play through the area using no items at all.

If you have a boss at the end of the area, then see how well the party holds up against it if you skip as many encounters as possible.

After that you compare the results with what you were trying to go for (amount of turns needed to beat each encounter, feel of difficulty for each encounter and the area in general). Then balance encounters accordingly to that and repeat from the start.

 

[aozgolo]

Pacing is a good balance checker I've found. Basically determine how long your game will be, and how many bosses you will have. Each boss should have a benchmark level that you intend the player to be, this should be an average level. So let's say your max level in the game is 99, in most RPGs you can beat the main boss at significantly less than the level cap (usually around 50-60). So let's make 60 the benchmark level for the final boss. Now let's assume your bosses are fairly evenly spread (they usually aren't but as an example) and you have 12 total, well that's easy math, 60/12=5, so you're expecting the player to advance roughly 5 levels between bosses in this scenario.

By setting up the level you expect the player to be at on average for the boss you can do several things:

-Balance that particular boss's stats against that particular level, keeping in mind that the player could be under or over levelled for that encounter, this is just an average.

-Balance the experience gains on trash enemies so that it takes a certain number of battles (on average) to reach the next level benchmark. (So you fight roughly the same amount of battles between each level up with smaller margins of error)

-Balance skill sets to be available only when you feel the enemy difficulty begins to call for it (like upgrading from a low level ot a mid level heal only when enemies are frequently doing that amount of damage)

Obviously this was a perfect scenario and most RPGs don't work that way, no big deal you can easily adapt it. For example if it took twice as long between Boss B and C as it did between Boss A and B, then you just double the level requirement in your pacing.

Defining your pace is going to be the trickiest, it depends highly on the level of grinding you want players to do. Generally if you want to minimize grinding, a good goalpost is to have the pace set at no more or less battles (meaning no running from battles) than what it takes to fully explore each area. So if you zip through an area ignoring side passages, and looking for extra loot, you will probably be underlevelled, if you intentionally pace back and forth through an area fighting more monsters you will be overlevelled. There's other variables to factor in there, but for the average RPGMaker length game, I think this is as good a rule as any to follow without going TOO complex.

 

[Mouser]

You can set up numbers as close as you can ahead of time - for instance in my battle system if an attackers ATK is equal to his targets DEF, he has a 50% chance to hit, before evasion and shield block - so I need to keep the DEF of the enemies growing roughly as fast as the ATK of the players (which grows pretty quickly since damage is based primarily on weapon stats).

But after all that, there's no substitute for playtesting, playtesting, and yet more playtesting. The more people who play your game, the better it will be. Try to recruit people who don't normally play RPG's to try it as well as the RM fans. You want a wide spread of player "skill levels" and experience with these types of games.

Play it yourself different ways: try rushing through the main plot as fast as you can. Try grinding out all the sidequests and killing mobs till you buy (or acquire) all the best gear for your party. Try somewhere in the middle. What happens if one member of the party falls behind the others, say due to death and not sharing enough XP, or not joining right away? Can you put off having players join? What happens if you do? Take on challenges that _should_ be too tough for you - can you survive anyway?

 

[CWells]

Use a notepad. Get your classes. Look at their stats. Determine the starter stats and max level stats. That is the range in which most things, enemies and characters will fall into in your game. From there, keep those numbers in mind when you work out your damage formulas and enemy construction.

Do a separate thing for all equipment.

After doing this, think when working on damage formulas:

If my normal attack formula is a.atk * 12 - b.def - 9 then a character with 10 atk will do 120 minus defense X

like that.

 

[Leonardo Myst]

I'm also interested in your thoughts on side-quests and the effects of exp gained in those as an effect on main quest levels and balance.

I think the side-quests should be optional, therefore not necessary in the overall storyline completion but if someone were to play every side-quest, what would prevent them from then being over-powered?

Should side-quest rewards be more cosmetic and less effective?

 

[aozgolo]

I'm also interested in your thoughts on side-quests and the effects of exp gained in those as an effect on main quest levels and balance.

I think the side-quests should be optional, therefore not necessary in the overall storyline completion but if someone were to play every side-quest, what would prevent them from then being over-powered?

Should side-quest rewards be more cosmetic and less effective?

Side quests in older RPGs tended to give item rewards more often than XP rewards, the concept of just rewarding XP for quests tended to become more prevalent with the advent of open world and non-linear games. So typically if you just use item rewards the only XP bonus you get is from whatever extra enemies or bosses you fight. Considering that side quests will be taken up by completionist players who tend to spend lots of time levelling anyway (unless doing a low-level playthrough) then this just adds a more fun way for them to level than grinding trash mobs in a set area.

Also I think if you consider pacing that if you use boss battles as goalposts for a section of a game, then define a level range of what levels you expect people to be when they fight that boss, you can then balance the XP gains from any side-quest available in that section of the game to still keep you from levelling out of the next bosses' range. The difficulty range should be based upon the total levels available in your game adjusted by the total length, while considering "average play" as your control group, meaning no more or less than what is required to play the game start to finish without skipping things.

I think that if you use bosses as a goalpost though, then the ONLY way you should be able to surpass their level range that keeps them "challenging" is by excess grinding, not quests. Excess grinding is controlled either by creating diminishing returns on lower level enemy XP or just by signifcantly buffing the next XP requirement for the next level. So if you get to a new area at average level it might take you 10 battles in that area to level up, but by the time you're 5 levels higher and about to level past the point where the boss is really challenging, you make it where it would take like 100 of those battles to get to the next level. This allows players who want to play it a bit safe to overlevel a little bit to have an easier fight but discourages trash mob farming by making it obvious that it would only take 10 battles in the next area (who is gated by this one boss) whereas it's taking 100 battles here.

 

[Leonardo Myst]

Thanks, aozgolo.

I'll keep that in mind as I structure the side-quests.