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Balance

Balance. What is game balance?. Putting the pieces together! Getting the numbers right Some explicit, some implicit All about relations between numbers Nuance of relationships Game and metagame Metagame examples Poker tells Sports leagues rules. Types of Balance. Fairness

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Balance

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  1. Balance

  2. What is game balance? • Putting the pieces together! • Getting the numbers right • Some explicit, some implicit • All about relations between numbers • Nuance of relationships • Game and metagame • Metagameexamples • Poker tells • Sports leagues rules

  3. Types of Balance • Fairness • Challenge and Success • Skill vs. Chance • Strategy vs. Action • Game Length • Meaningful choices (risk/reward) • Rewards • Punishment • Freedom/Control • Simple/Complex • Detail vs. imagination • Competition vs. Cooperation

  4. Aspects of Game Balance • Single-player • Multi-player • Within game • Objects

  5. In the Flow • Individual differences • Choosing difficulty level • Pacing • Levels: increase difficulty with success • Go through easy parts quickly

  6. Difficulty Levels • Reach a wider audience. • Added replay value.

  7. Difficulty is Difficult • Artificial: Scaling up/down numeric values on higher difficulties. • Easy, cheap. • Designed: Actively altering puzzles, behavior, and level design to become more challenging. • More rewarding, but takes much more effort. • The Illusion of Fairness • Checkpoints

  8. Marketing Difficulty Levels • Easy to enjoy the story • Hard to enjoy the challenge • Deus Ex Human Revolution • Tell Me A Story • Give Me A Challenge • Give Me Deus Ex

  9. Idiosyncratic Naming Wolfenstein 3D • "Can I play, Daddy?" • "Don't hurt me." • "Bring 'em on!" • "I am Death incarnate!" Doom • "I'm Too Young to Die" • "Hey, Not Too Rough" • "Hurt Me Plenty" • "Ultra-Violence" • "Nightmare!" Carmageddon • Easy as killing bunnies with axes • Normal everyday carnage • Hard - as french-kissing a cobra Blood II • Genocide • Homocide • Suicide

  10. How Impossible is Impossible? Devil May Cry • Heaven or Hell • Everyone, including you, dies in one hit • Hell or Hell • Only you die in one hit Legend of Mana • Normal (first playthrough) • Nightmare (Enemies are 20 levels higher than normal) • No Future (All enemies are level 99)

  11. Determinism • Determinism: given a move in a particular context, will always have the same result • Chess, go • deterministic, but very large state space • Original Pac-man • AI too deterministic – became a game of memorization (added randomness in Ms Pac-man) • Any game with chance is not deterministic

  12. Solvability • Trivial • Tic-Tac-Toe • Theoretical complete • Chess, go • Checkers? • Non-deterministic: maximize probability • Perfect vs. privileged information

  13. Asymmetry • Asymmetry of starting position • Turn-based: who goes first • Balancing asymmetry • Class equivalence • Different objectives

  14. Why Asymmetry? • Real world • Exploration • Personalization • Level playing field • Interest

  15. Dealing with Asymmetry • Asymmetry of starting position • Turn-based: who goes first • Balancing asymmetry • Class equivalence • Different objectives

  16. Balancing Strategies • Dominant strategy • Eliminates all other decisions • Multiple winning strategies

  17. Other Factors that impact balance • Intransitivity • Information knowledge

  18. Metagame • Outside the game • Balancing • Sports leagues • Social aspects • Tells • Bluffing • Ganging up

  19. Game Objects • Cost/benefit ratios • Purchases of spells, units, … • Each object • Too weak: useless • Too powerful: makes other object useless • Techniques • Cost curve (transitive) • Rock-paper-scissors(intransitive) • Incomparable

  20. Object Relationships • How significant • Linear • … (Pascal’s Triangle) • Exponential • One-way or two • Gold may buy food but has other purposes as well • Do you have a central measure?

  21. Detecting Imbalance: Community Feedback Pros Cons • Huge amount of feedback without much work • Different perspectives, both high and low level players • Bias possible • Uneducated or illogical feedback (as well as trolls) • Many opposing opinions because of diversity of users

  22. Detecting Imbalance: Data Analysis Pros Cons • Mathematical and objective approach • Targeting players or situations • Hard to compile large amounts of data • Must be careful of different types of skewed data • Difficult to pin-point specifics of imbalance

  23. Detecting Imbalance: Tournaments and Pros Pros Cons • Very accurate information • Most experienced players • Financial and/or sponsor bias • Only taking into consideration the top skill level of players

  24. Adjusting Balance After Shipping Bad • Completely changing an ability • Changing parts of what an ability does possibly changing its' purpose • Making an ability useless or taking away it's fun Good • Damage/Healing number tweaking • Changing the non-fun part of the ability/combo • Overhauls to the system that affects everyone equally

  25. Resource • Ian Schreiber on-line course (blog)

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