Game Balancing

Paul Taylor 2009

What is game balancing?

We already know what game mechanics are

Now we need to get those mechanics in balance

12 Common Game Balances

The following are a good summary of what you will confront as a designer!

Of course there are always exceptions and surprises!

Back to Game Flow!

• Story Time!

Balance #1 Fairness

• Players like a ‘fair’ game– By fair we mean they want to be challenged and

eventually win– The feeling of fairness is an emotion which players

tie closely with the flow of the game

Symmetrical

• This is simplest form of fairness• Give both players the exact same pieces and

moves– Is this always fair?

Symmetrical

• This is simplest form of fairness• Give both players the exact same pieces and

moves– Is this always fair?

Tic Tac ToeA masterful player who takes the first turn can

always win or draw.

Solutions to who goes first

• Roll a dice• Flip a coin• Give the first turn to the loser

Asymmetrical

• An asymmetrical game is far harder to balance• So why do we build them?

Real World Simulations

• An asymmetrical game is far harder to balance• So why do we build them?

Exploration

• Exploring a game world can be fun– Different player characters (Objects)– Different abilities

• Eg: Lego Games

Personalisation

Customisation of characters allows:Players to connect better Feel more powerful

Level the playing field

A symmetrical FPS game would have 1 enemy and 1 player.

.....

PacMan uses 4 ghosts to balance the challenge

The creation of interesting situations

• Objects of different abilities face each other• No clear strategies for winning• Exploration of abilities is required

Balancing Asymmetrical games

• Commonly achieved via Resource and Power balance– Vampire Guinea Pig Apocalypse

– Three main character classes:• Normal Guinea Pig• Vampire Guinea Pig• Exorcist Guinea Pig

Powers of Pigs

Exorcist Vampire GP Guinea PigDefence High Medium LowAttack Low High MediumAvoid Medium Low High

Checking the balance of powerExorcist Vampire GP Guinea Pig

Defence High Medium LowAttack Low High MediumAvoid Medium Low High

Exorcist Vampire GP Guinea PigDefence High (3) Medium (2) Low (1)Attack Low (1) High (3) Medium (2)Avoid Medium (2) Low (1) High (3)Total Power 6 6 6

Rock Paper Scissors

This is the circle of life version of fairnessUsed extensively by games like Pokémon In this form of fairness there is no most

powerful piece, for every power an object has, there is a weakness exploited by another object

Tuning

After generating a balance table, only through play-testing can your decisions be properly verified

Balance #2 - Challenge vs. Success

• Another approach to keeping the player in the flow, this balance is torn between challenging the player, and letting them feel success

Methods of keeping the balance

• Increase the difficulty with each success– This will keep the player challenged

• Don’t forget the rhythm so the players feel success!

• Let skilled players move quickly through easy parts– Every played a tutorial level forced to listen to the

narrative before moving forward?• Tetris challenges increase faster when you

score more!

• Let players choose their difficulty– This increases the number of games you have to

balance– Allows players to choose an appropriate difficulty– Can reduce immersion if in-game changes are

permitted• Creating additional challenges through grading

levels / missions

• Play-test with different players– You need your game to be enjoyable to both:

• Novice players• Experienced players

– You can not un-learn a game to play-test it as a novice. Go find someone!

Balance #3 Meaningful Choices

• Players enjoy being able to make decisions which impact the world– Selecting a character based on abilities– Good / Evil choices (not like BioShock)

• More like Fallout 3– The challenge is avoiding dominant strategies

How many choices do I give the player?

• 16

How many choices do I give the player?

• 16• Not!• Players have desires and are faced with choicesIf there are too many choices, players will be

overwhelmedIf there are too few choices, players get frustratedIf there is the right number of choices players get a

feeling of freedom

Triangularity

A very meaningful choice

Take a small risk with a small rewardOR

Take a large risk with a large reward

Qix

Balance #4 Skill vs. Chance

• This is UGLY– You need to strike a balance

• Too much skill removes the fun for many players• Too much chance infuriates players

– Some games alternate• Roll the Die, then skill• Deal the Cards, then skill

– There is no answer here, just knowledge so you can better judge what is wrong in the game

Balance #5 Head vs. Hands

• This is an easy one to understand• How much running, jumping and climbing• How much thinking, problem solving

remembering, etc– You need to base this on your target players

Balance #6 Competition vs. Cooperation

• Bertie Bot’s Beans• Competition and Cooperation are at different

ends of the field• Just be changing the end goal from the team

gets 5000 points to the highest scorer gets the 5000 points the game can drastically alter.?Perhaps even allowing for meaningful choices?

Balance #7 Short vs. Long

• How long should your game be?– 10cm 3” 2m??

• Aside from the length of the plot and cut scenes, the main control points you have are:– The win and lose conditions

• How difficult are the challenges• How much you punish players for losing

Balance #8 Rewards

• This is how we make players feel good!– When they feel good, they come back again

• Praise– Nintendo style

• Points– Allows the player to boast

• Prolonged Play– Pinball, arcade machines, extra lives

• Gateway Rewards– Opening up new areas of the game– These appease our urge to explore

• Spectacles– A sweet cut scene, a slow-motion kill.

• Expression– Player customisation, clothing, hair, etc.– Taunts in Unreal

• Powers– Increasing the power of the player– Kinging a checker– Eating Mushrooms– Quad Damage

• Resources– Food, energy, ammo, life, checkpoints

• Completion– This is the final reward, giving the player closure– How many times have you played an old game,

just because you never finished it?

Feeding the Rewards

• Players will begin to expect their rewards– Solutions include:

• Randomness• Slowly increasing the rewards• Changing the types of rewards• Allowing skill to increase the rewards (Combos, etc)

Balance #9 Punishment

• Punishment is a dangerous thing to use!!!– Imagine a game that takes away your last

savegame every time you die!– Punishment should be used in conjunction with

rewards– Now on to punishment!!!

About Punishment in Games

• It increases the value of resources if they can be stolen

• Risks are nothing without fitting punishments• The level of punishment can be used to

control challenge

Forms of Punishment

• Shaming– Missed– Defeated– Crushed– Game Over

• Loss of points– AA– Combos

• Resource Depletion

• Shortened Play– Loosing a life is a big punishment

• Terminated Play– Game over dude, Game over!

• Setbacks– Returning to a checkpoint– Restarting a level

• Losing Powers– Mario getting hit after a mushroom– Players will feel cheated if they had to earn the

power!!!– Temporary removal avoids this

Keep Your Challenges Coherent

• Challenges should be consistent– Adding a super hard puzzle to the last level of a

FPS is not going to be enjoyed• Perhaps as a Easter Egg, but not core

Shadow Cost

• What is a shadow cost?

Bad Examples of Shadow Cost

• Unreal Sniper Rifle– When not scoped damage was terribly weak

• Everyone knows you run faster with a knife!– Counterstrike FPS Doug

Balancing Rewards and Punishment

Psychology 101

Behaviour Management

Good behaviour Bad Behaviour

Give something Positive Reinforcement

Punishment

Remove something

Negative Reinforcement

Extinction

Balance #10 Freedom vs. Controlled Experience

• How much freedom do you give players?– Legally you must limit it sometimes– To create an environment for your experience you

may have to limit it– The more freedom you give players, the more

work you have to do!– Taking control of the camera can be necessary

• Batman style

Balance #11 Simple vs. Complex

• Both complexity and Simplicity can be good and bad!

• Simplicity– Great simple controls– Boring and Simple gameplay

• Complexity– Rich and intricately detailed story– Insanely confusing reward system

Innate Complexity

• This is one of the bad guys– When the rules of the game are getting far too

complex– Again based on the target audience– Typically when the rules have a lot of exceptions

you are going down this path– A high innate complexity is sometimes what the

audience want• Realistic Flight Sims

Emergent Complexity

• This is the happy type – Chess!

• You will get praise for this as players can easily pick up your game

• Development of skills will increase their abilities

• It’s also a difficult type of complexity to create

Natural vs. Artificial Balancing

• Natural Balancing is how the game balances itself– Number of enemies– Changing strategies– Hearing Gunshots

• Artificial Balancing is when you create extra rules to balance the game– Speed up AI in car races

Elegance

• This is what you get when you have created a game with simple innate complexity and a lot of emergent complexity

• Your game will be easy to learn and hard to master!

Character

• Character isn’t directly part of challenge• It’s something to remember when you are

building an elegant complexity system– The leaning tower of pisa should be fixed– The fact that females are not in the front line

should have them removed from halo– Who would make Guinea Pig sized Priest clothes,

they should not exist.

Balance #12 Detail vs. Imagination

• Now we enslave the minds of our audience to do the work for us.

• There are things we can no do well, we leave these parts up to the player to imagine– A player hears a scuffle, then sees the murder

room– Doom had no voice acting or cut scenes

• A story was written for the player to read and imagine

Feeding Imagination

• Give details for the players imagination– Chess is set in the medieval era, giving pieces

ranks, without playing you can guess the pawns are fairly worthless

• Familiar things do not need a lot of detailing– Super well detailed doors are still doors

• Close ups can imprint detail into the players mind

• Give details that will inspire the imagination– In Alone In the Dark, you quickly realise you are

fighting for survival, and every sound draws pictures in your head

How and when do we use these methods?

Binary half tuning

• Double and Halve variables you are trying to tune.– Subtle changes will be very hard to detect– Large changes will quickly show you what is being

impacted

Guessing

• Through practice you will gain a better ability to guess correct balances

Documentation

• This will help you go back• It can also clarify relationships

Game Economics

• There are two meaningful decisions in this context:– How do I make money?– How do I spend it?

• All of the balancing factors we covered can impact this relationship

Dynamic Balancing

• Danger!– Players want to achieve– It can destroy the suspension of disbelief– It can be exploited

• Burnout2– Players improve with practice

• The Incredible Hulk

Summarizer

• This is one of the fun areas of games design• A large part of the polish that goes into the

game• Easy balancing is a major consideration as you

build the game• This relates back to keeping the game

mechanics separate to the game world