A Guide to Balancing
Introduction
Balancing is a common problem in many games. While many people may think of balancing as “oh, that weapon seems a bit too powerful” or something like that, that is not to it’s full extent. When thinking of balance, there are a few factors that should be thought about. The purpose of this guide is to explain these factors and how someone should think when developing something.
The Pillars Of Balance
The Pillars Of Balance
I often like to think of balancing as the pillars of a structure. Without the pillars, the structure would not be able to stand. However, it is possible for some pillars of the structure to break, making the structure less stable, yet still able to stand. Once too much of it is gone, however, it all comes crashing down.
As you can see in the image, there are 6 ‘pillars’, each aiding in supporting up the overall balance of the game. I will talk about each of these in detail.
Mechanical Balancing
Mechanically Balanced - Pillar I
The first aspect when thinking of balance is: “Is it mechanically balanced?” When I say mechanically balance, I am referring to how it overall works, such as damage, rate of fire, or whatever stat you can imagine. Each of these fall under this category.
Mechanically Balancing something can sometimes be a very challenging process. Of course, I am not saying that everything should be even. This is far from the case.
When thinking of balancing something mechanically, we should think about a few things:
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What are it’s strengths?
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What are it’s weaknesses?
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Do it’s strengths overpower its weaknesses by a severe amount? Or is it the other way around?
Here’s an example:
Let’s say you were making a simple fighting game and you had a tank, who are capable of taking a large amount of damage and the cost of reduced speed. Okay, that sounds reasonable. The average HP that a tank has is around 125 health, deals okay damage, and has poor mobility. However, this tank has 150 health and has lower than average base mobility for it’s class. However, their abilities provide great mobility while active and deal quite a bit of damage, though their abilities do have a rather lengthy cooldown.
Now, you may be saying to me: “Well, of course that is not balanced!” At first, this may not seem balanced, but let’s break it up.
Strengths:
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High HP
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Abilities deal fairly high damage.
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Some moves provide a great deal of mobility.
Weaknesses
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Lower than average base movement speed for those in it’s class.
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Lengthy Cooldowns
OK, now that we have that broken up, we can immediately see that they have more strengths than weaknesses. However, this does NOT mean that it is unbalanced. Here’s a way to think about it:
The class may have high health and a fairly high damage output with it’s mobility-based moves. That being said, they do have one major weakness: Their base mobility. We know their abilities have a fairly long cooldown. If their only means of engagement is used, that essentially means that they are unable to catch up, hence giving the opponent an advantage.
Progressive Balancing
Progressively Balanced - Pillar II
When a player levels up, we commonly think of them growing stronger. In some games, this is an okay feature. Other times, however, it tends to break balance. This is what I like to refer to as “Progressive Balancing”
In short, Progressive Balancing is how balanced something is over the course of a game. This can be from many things, ranging from level-ups, purchasing new things, and more. Now, obviously, I am not saying that growing stronger and rewarding players is a bad thing; this is far from the case. It is, however, something which must be thought about when balancing.
Elemental Battleground’s stat tree. When a player levels up, they may invest a skill point in one of various categories.
Elemental Battleground’s is a good example of a flawed system of progression. It is not my intention to criticize the game; my intention is to merely point out a few flaws in an educational manner.
When a player levels up in this game, they gain a skill point, as to which they can invest in a stat. Due to how how the game’s leveling system works, players who are level 40 (players whom have not even maxed out a single stat yet) are fighting against players with max stats. These stats greatly benefit a player’s ability in combat.
This is a major issue in breaking progressive balancing. Considering that the game is purely PVP, it’s not fair that player’s who are simply starting off are having to fight against people who are statistically, much stronger than them.
Skill Progression
Skill Progression - Pillar III
Naturally, as a player plays a game, they will get better. This can be at varying rates for each player, thus making it a naturally harder to a nearly impossible things to balance. This isn’t just for games. It can be as something as small as simply learning a class to play as well.
When a player joins a game for the first time, we can not consider that they are a master at the genre. Each person has to start off somewhere. For example, someone can’t be a master at fighting games if they never played a fighting game before. On the contrary, however, we also must think about the players who DO have prior experience in these kinds of games. The same concept also applies on a smaller level as well.
As you probably figured out by now, a player’s skill level is also a major influence in balance as well. This is what I like to call “Skill Progression.” The reason why this is so hard to balance is simply because of how unpredictable someone’s skill at something is. However, it is safe to assume that as someone uses/plays something more, their skill with it will grow.
Now, I often see many games doing a “high skill = high reward” kind of style. For example, lets say you were about to fire an ability which was hard to land but did large amounts of damage. If you land it, you’ll be rewarded heavily as you displayed your skill.
Is this a good system of balancing? This question has no definite answer. I will do my best to explain the two arguments of this, and I will leave the question to you to decide for yourself.
Yes:
Using something which takes a large amount of skill should be rewarded more heavily. Players should feel satisfied about their accomplishments when they perform an otherwise hard task.
No:
Players should not be rewarded. As a player’s experience with a class grows, the more consistent their attacks land to a point where it’s too consistent, thus breaking the balance as it becomes second nature.
Comparative Balancing
Comparative Balancing
Comparative Balancing is the idea of finding balance between multiple subjects. When thinking of Comparative Balancing, you may think of something like class vs class or weapon vs weapon. When you compare the two things, you may think of something like: “Oh, this class is better than another.”
When comparing two subjects, it is important to break up the defining characteristics of each. For example, let’s say you have two classes: Class 1 and Class 2. We’d want to break up each class almost like so:
Presume Green = Stronger, Red = Weaker, and Grey = Neutral
Now, you could go deeper and deeper into each attribute, such as covering each stat of each ability. It is important to note that some attributes are stronger/more important than others, and that not everything is weighed the same. From there, you’d make a logical verdict.
Will some classes be stronger than others? Sure. However, it is important to note that each class should hold an almost equal advantage. If there is a major issue between two classes, those issues should be addressed. What counts as a major issue will depend on the person, but generally speaking, you can find a major issue through the following:
When the focused class is compared to other classes, is there still a major issue, or is it merely a counter? If the issue persists across all classes, it is safe to presume that the class is too strong and should be adjusted properly. The same also applies to classes that are too weak as well.
Conceptually
Conceptual Balancing
Sometimes, a class can just be too conceptually unbalanced. When something is conceptually unbalanced, it means that, despite it’s quality of an idea, it simply does not fit into the type of game. This could be for many reasons, though the most common is that it’s central idea does not work as well as anticipated.
One of my favorite examples is “Ruler”, from Critical Strike. For those of you who have never played the game, here is a brief example as to what it does:
https://gyazo.com/f1ac43b79d5b58a627c03f5cd9d81abd
The class revolves around aerial offense, capable of flying into the air for extended periods of time before unleashing devastating attacks. Cool, right? However, there is a major issue.
You see, in Critical Strike, most abilities can’t be aimed vertically, but rather hit in a straight line. If a class is constantly in the air, they can’t be hit. And when they are grounded, they can simply go right back up in to the air after a brief moment. Now, repeat that a few times and you have a class which is practically invincible.
The kit’s central idea conflicts with the design of the game, hence making it conceptually unbalanced. Now, what if it’s kit wasn’t only reliant in the air? What if it had some access to air moves, but didn’t rely on it? That would make the class feasible.
Executional Balancing
And finally… executional balancing. This is one of the easiest things to balance as it goes around the concept of: “How does it actually function in game?” It could work as intended or there could be a few bugs. As something is more buggy, the less balanced it becomes.
It isn’t all about bugs, however. Simply the design choice as to how a projectile, for example, is fired can also be a major flaw to a class. For example, if most projectiles in a game fired in the center, but one fired to the side, it would make that weaker as it essentially doesn’t work as a player would want it to intend to?
There can be many reasons as to what could influence this category. If the developer made the ability cleanly and efficiently, players will like to use that move. On the other hand, if it has a few major bugs, players should be concerned about using the move.
Thank you for spending your time reading through this guide. I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments. I’ll happily hear any criticism or anything that I had missed.