A Quick Guide on Game Balancing

To start this off let me just say, game balancing was one of the toughest things I encountered when making games, it easy to understand but difficult to master much like most skills in life.

I am experienced but not exactly a master in game balancing so feel free to provide constructive feedback on anything you read here. This is all the stuff I wrote down from seminars, online videos & other events which i attended to learn about game balancing along with my personal knowledge on the subject.

This guide is just meant to help game designers rookie, experienced or otherwise, who struggle with game balancing, to understand a bit more about the topic and to provide them with a few tips and tricks. This is going to be extremely long so bare with me . . . :)

What is Game Balancing?

Game balance is a video game design concept where the strengths of a character or a particular strategy are offset by a proportional drawback in another area to prevent domination of one character or gaming approach. There is no such thing as a perfectly balanced game. Despite the best efforts of designers, some characters or strategies end up being stronger than others, both in specific areas and across the board.

Good Practices of Balancing

• Define your key stats when balancing games
• When modifying or upgrading any part of the balance upgrade your key stats first, only upgrade any other stats if you absolutely have to and have key stat values are not giving you the expected result.
• When assigning values, try to balance advance objects, items or playables in your game by giving them the higher level/upgraded values of “vanilla/default” objects, items or playables.
• Define a max limit/balance cap, no values should go above this set limit.

Goals of Balancing

• Fun & Interesting Gameplay which increases the depth of the game
• Variety to allow different play styles or combinations to play the game
• Freshness, to make the game feel fresh with add on, new content, or with surprising moments etc.

Healthy Vs Unhealthy Meta Game

• Can be defined as a combination of Fun, Variety & Freshness
• Broken Meta Game: This state rarely occurs and it quite unrealistic, but does occur if one objects, items or playables in your game is too over powered, causing no strategy, no variety, no interaction or instantly helps you win the game, use common sense to avoid this scenario.

• Perfect Meta Game: This state rarely occurs and it quite unrealistic, it occurs if everything is in perfect balance and seamless harmony, everyone is always happy, the game is always fun, the game always has variety, the game is always fresh, everybody loves everything in the game, a utopian state, it’s good to strive for it, but having a realistic understanding is best to get you something close to it.

• Unhealthy Meta Game: This state might be a bit tilted/focused on a single value, with 1 or more values being very low or all of them being very low, like not much variety, kind of fun for a while, same old type of game.
• Healthy Meta Game: This state is kind of state where several things are going on and it’s not just focused towards one of the values, like the game can be less varied but really fun (less varied means it should have a decent amount of variety in the game and not low levels or none at all)

Principles of Game Balancing

• Make everything feel overpowered or over exaggerated.
• Making a totally balanced game is not necessarily fun or exciting (i.e. Chess)
• Make sure all objects, items or playables in your game, although feel overpowered, should have their unique traits or key moments in the game. (i.e. Archers kill Spearmen, Spearmen kill Cavalry, Cavalry kill Archers)
• The concept behind making everything feel overpowered/over-exaggerated is to make everything feel fun and excited, unlike a mundane everyday life.

How to make things feel overpowered/over exaggerated:

• Each objects, items or playables should have its purpose or key moments in the game. (i.e. Archers kill Spearmen, Spearmen kill Cavalry, Cavalry kill Archers)
• There need to be enough situations where the objects, items or playables can bring huge positive value.

Everything needs a Counter Strategy

• The above point help to form an evolving meta-game, in way that players can form their own strategies instead of more predefined ones, which makes everything that feels overpowered to not actually be overpowered. (i.e. A very expensive war elephant can destroy infantry, cavalry or buildings, but moves slow and is easy to distract before it actually reaches the target, giving players to form a counter strategy against it)
• Having multiple counters to objects, items or playables in your game acts as safety net, as it give players the tools to react to the situation as they already exist in the game (i.e. even if the balancing goes wrong, players can form their own strategy to counter a objects, items or playables)

Make objects, items or payable’s meaningful

• Follow the goals of balancing to do so.
• If the objects, items or playables is not used then it defeats the purpose of creating it.
• Game balancing should not always be a tool for monetization, the main purpose of balancing is to add to the game more fun, variety and freshness and not monetize off it.
• If monetization is the goal for balancing then it will not only hurt your product in the short term, but especially hurt it in the long run due to its contradiction with the actual goals of balancing.

Why? Make objects, items or payable’s meaningful

• To try to fill a gameplay gap
• Important part of making new content or objects, items or playables meaningful is to try and fill any gameplay gaps that might have occurred. (i.e. this has to be done by making sure the content, object, item, playable has its own place in the system and is not strictly a better version of some old content, object, item or playable.)

Keep old content or objects, items or playables relevant

• Keep re-balancing older content, object, item or playable to keep it relevant to the evolving meta-game
• Only as a last resort dump the content, object, item or playable as the player has already grown accustomed to using it.

How to keep old content or objects, items or playables relevant?

• Stay true to the purpose of the content, object, item or playable
• Avoid complete rework of the content, object, item or playable, make smaller manageable changes instead.
• Smaller manageable changes make it easier to predict the possible outcome of the content, object, item or playable after balancing.
• The content, object, item or playable should be usable like before, without involving a large learning curve.
• Smaller manageable changes help the player to get quickly accustomed to the changes as it doesn’t feel a lot different than before, basically it still remains familiar and can be used with familiar strategies.

Keep re-balancing the game

• Roughly once per month to add some change
• Or when the meta game feels old and stale
• The meta-game of any game needs time to evolve, re-balancing give the meta game said time. (i.e. Players find new and counter strategies instead of experiencing a deadlock and complain about the same meta game which might be running too short or too long)

Crutch Vs Frustration

• Re-balancing should act as a support to players and reduce frustration
• A game which remains unbalanced for too long will create a lot of frustration and cause people to quit
• Re-balance the game whenever a gap in content, object, item or playable is identified and validated.

Positive is always better than Negative

• Positive Re-balancing (Buffs) are always more welcomed than Negative Re-balancing (Nerfs)
• Negative re-balancing tend to be done to content, object, item or playable that are used a lot by players or are too powerful and end up causing a whole lot of disappointment.
• Do negative balancing only when it’s needed, or if an unhealthy meta-game is formed. (i.e. Makes sense when a single or few item(s) need to be negatively re-balanced than positively re-balancing majority of the cards)
• Positive re-balancing should mostly affect less used cards, this makes players who use the cards happier but it also makes other players happy as they see that a new content, object, item or playable can have different use, increasing its overall usage.
• Negative re-balancing should never have a goal of killing the content, object, item or playable
• Positive re-balancing should never have a goal of making the content, object, item or playable the most used in the game.

Communication is Important

• Manage player expectations by informing your players about changes to game.
• Always give reasons, backgrounds and context to your changes when communicating with players.

Decisions of Game Balancing (Know your Game)

What to re-balance?

• Never tamper with all aspects of your game at once, as that is too much of a change and the changes to the game become almost impossible to predict.
• When re-balancing content, object, item or playable

 Listen to your audience, take feedback from the players of your game.

Use the data collected from the game, or verify the feedback from the audience yourself even if your team has to play the game multiple times.

But in the end it all really boils down to your intuition and knowing your game, as the players are not always unbiased.

Listen to your audience

• Feedback and analysis from your player plays a big role, so try to build a very large and active player community.
• Although players can’t make the decision for you it’s an invaluable tool to help your judgement.
• Getting a pulse on the player’s feelings is important understand their feedback, sometimes you have to read in between the lines to find the root of the problem.(i.e. Players might find something that’s too powerful, but the root cause of it might just be that the content, object, item or playable just lacks variation of strategy and is used the same way by everyone.
• After a game matures a bit, do not trust the developers trust your players. They can teach you a lot about your game, there’s a lot to learn from their experience
• Top players are your trend setters in the game, when they do something everyone tries to follow to it’s a good idea to listen to and influence them as they create of the strategies in your game which are copied by others. (i.e. The usage stats of a “Deck of Cards” of a top player in Clash Royale used by other players after it was discovered by the community)

Utilize Data

• Get a second opinion using your analytical data, use it to verify all claims
• Define your game tracking parameters, make sure they are not too many or too complex and keep it simple. (i.e. Clash Royale uses only 2 parameters aka Use Rate – % of battles players have a card and used it & Win Rate - % of battles where a player used the card and won, this can vary from game to game like in an action game like street fighter, the win rate of different match-ups between different characters might be used instead.)

What do use and win rates do?

• Use rates tell the state of the meta-game
• Use rate show what players see
• Win rate shows items with potential, which are either over or under used

Use your Intuition & Know your Game

• Most answers to questions boil down to using intuition and knowing your game
• After all feedback and data is analyzed, the final step is using intuition to find the perfect balance between the evolving meta-game and player happiness.

Why is a content, object, item or playable popular? (Objective Method)

• It could be overpowered
• It could be because it works well in the meta-game
• It could just be because it is an extremely versatile item

Spiciness: Bread & Butter or Spicy (Subjective Method)

• Main and most used content, object, item or playable in the game are called Bread & Butter, these are supposed to have a high use rate and the game should encourage the usage of these.
• All Bread & Butter content, object, item or playable should act as viable alternatives to each other.
• The content, object, item or playable which add a little spice (excitement) to the game but you don’t want players using them too much are called Spicy, these are supposed to have a medium to low use rate.
• All spicy content, object, item or playable should be used/present for the purpose of variety.
• Spicy content, object, item or playable are important and should be used to add variety, fun and freshness to the game.
• The best way to identify a healthy spicy content, object, item or playable, is that it has a low use rate by players, but a high win rate, so only the most elitist and hardcore of players can use it well.

Understand Advance Concepts

• As a designer it is imperative you understand the advance concepts of your creations
• Know what strategies players might use, and then build content, object, item or playable around them to enhance the metagame and add variety.
• Knowing the strategies in your own game helps you control your game and players, while creating a better balanced game.

Balancing for Player Skills

One way is using raw power (Not so great)

Players skills in to power out (Ideal)

• This approach is non-linear (x skill = y power, x+2 not = y+2 power)
• High power low skill stuff help new players to compete and not feel left out, it gives them a comfortable place for them to understand why they enjoy the game, before you ask them to put in a lot of hours to master it and learn new time intensive things.
• Although there are complains about high power low skill items, they enable players to keep playing instead of getting destroyed by more experience players, helping them play long enough to actually stay and compete.
• Hence skilled players who have never used the high power low skill item benefit from it with more competition and higher number of players to play with.
• Remember to force the player to look for a strategy early in the game, so that they can move along the designers expected progression path.

If High power low skill stuff is not implemented

• Often tactics are something with a high skill low power ratio, can tend to become “First Order Optimum Strategies” (FOOS)
• FOOS strategies can be defined as ways to play the game that are not optimal, but are so much more powerful than the other things you can do in that point in player/games progression.
• FOOS strategies cause player to use that same thing over and over again and defeat the entire game.
• Although these are handy to the player they will cause the game to break if not thought out as a designer
• When designer don’t balance for skill, players tend to latch on to a FOOS and use it over and over again to win until it doesn’t work for them, which is ok as the player feels powerful and exited, but the point at which this strategy doesn’t work anymore must come early enough in a game experience.
• A FOOS can be eliminated early by giving players other strategies with a slightly higher skill level and a higher power, than the FOOS and this same strategy can be used at every point of game/player progression to keep things changing and so that any one strategy does not become a FOOS.
• A FOOS left uncheck will eventually cause players,
• To leave the game due to lack of variety and freshness, even if you were to add new content, since the skill required to execute the said content is high. The player will ignore everything, including the depth of the design and only execute the FOOS as a routine.
• The player gives up as by the time their FOOS becomes ineffective they haven’t learned any of the skills which the designer originally intended them to learn, as they never progressed the way the designer intended and eventually run into a brick wall or a difficult spike which they cannot overcome and end up resenting & leaving the game.

Reward players for new strategies

• Reward players for discovering/creating new strategies and then utilizing them
• Reward players for deviating from a FOO strategy.
• Present challenges for players, which don’t require a substantially greater level of skill, but does require a new tactic from players

Summary of Power Vs Skill

• When you analyse your game and find player using the same tactic over and over again, think about its skill to power relationship.
• Whether the above is a FOO strategy or simply something to get players over that initial hump, before the design takes them off it.

Perfect Imbalance: Unbalanced Design Creates Balanced Play

What is Perfect Imbalance?

• The idea in game design that you don’t want everything to be perfectly balanced.
• Most games actually have imbalances in their system, not great big haphazard ones, but carefully crafted subtle ones.
• Games can be made far more engaging with just a little imbalance.

Problems with a balanced game?

• Gameplay becomes boring over time
• Fixed strategies are created for gameplay over time
• No new variety or freshness feel
• Engagement level rises at first game and drastically drops per game
• Enjoyment level rises at first game and drastically drops per game
• New players have to memorise already established strategies and play sequences to actually get to a high enough level to compete.
• Kills experimentation

Benefits of Perfect Imbalance

• Perfect imbalance creates a meta game
• It creates an evolving state of gameplay
• It keeps any one play style from being definitively correct.
• Increases experimentation and approach to the game
• Gives players an interesting & evolving problem to think about.
• Allows players at all player levels to be continuously changing their strategies and growing
• Players can grow naturally. Rather than waiting to be involved in the strategic and experimental side of the game.
• Players can come up with strategies that fit their skill level and then abandoning them as their skills develop.
• Helps player rethink their play style, as they encounter more complex challenges or players.

Exploring Perfect Imbalance

• Perfect imbalance is not haphazard
• It does not mean game systems should be wildly out of scope with one another
• A perfect imbalance is a carefully crafted imbalances built into the system.
• It’s the difference between Broken Vs Out of balance

• A perfect imbalance is a carefully crafted imbalances built into the system.
• Have a mathematical formula/algorithm for what a reasonably balanced version of a game will look like.
• One well known mathematical formula is called “Jedi Curve” formula, this was a literal chart of what “Mana in to Power Out” would look like with a monster with no abilities with a set of multipliers.  

• Allow game elements to deviate from the original balance curve by 10% to 15%.
• Create a game around a game to try to figure the system out, this gives players the challenge of trying to figure out an edge in a nearly but not a perfectly balanced system.

The second part of a perfect imbalance is called “cyclical imbalance”

• It’s where a game element “A” is known to players to be slightly better than average elements.
• This leads player to believe that it’s imbalanced.
• This causes a large number of players to play with element “A” and adopt it into their strategy.
• This leads some players to find a solution to element “A” in the form of a counter strategy by using element “B”, which shows the weakness of element “A”
• This causes a large number of players to play with element “B” and adopt it into their strategy.
• This causes element “A” suddenly seem weak in the meta game and in the evolving gameplay.
• This causes less users to use element “A” and causes a drop off in usage rates
• Now most players are looking for a counter strategy for the current dominant element “B”
• This leads to some players to find element “C” which is a counter to element “B” and the cycle continues for a long time, until it finally comes full circle to element “A”
• A cyclical imbalance creates an interesting and engaging meta game environment
•  It keeps the game from feeling stale.
• Prevents players from feeling that they have mastered the game and there is nothing left to do.
• This imbalance can also help monetize a game.

Tips for Creating Cyclical Imbalance

• Create a game where no matter how skilled the player is, any one game element cannot be good at everything.
• Have a firm knowledge of how your pieces interact and “what beats what” on an intuitive and mathematical level.
• Give your players a wide enough pool of options to find the answer to whatever you are going to throw at them, without it having to be one specific predetermined answer to what you have planned.

Game Difficulty when Balancing

• There is a misconception that “Difficult” games don’t sell and this is false.

• The truth is “Punishing” games don’t sell

• Another misconception is that an “Everybody Wins” game is the best way to go, this is also partly true
• A game can be highly difficult but can still engage the player.
• But a game must not be highly punishing, as it leads to frustration and abandonment by players.
• Games can still be deliciously difficult, but cannot be controller crushingly punishing.

• Step it up on usability
• Create properly crafted learning curves
• Even out difficulty spikes
• Experiment with difficulty, make the game difficult but not punishing.

Difference between what makes a game Difficult or Punishing

Consistency of Rules

• When rules of the game are consistent for everything the game is difficult, but still enjoyable.
• When the rules of the game are inconsistent it is punishing, and leads to rage quits.
• Example: A game which lets an enemy attack you, but you cannot attack back, is more punishing than difficult.
• The rules of the game should be consistent for all elements of that game
• Your game should follow its own rules at every moment.
• The ideology for difficult games should normally be “If you can find a solution, you can do it”
• The harder your game is the less you can and should not change your rules on the fly.

Enough Tools for the Player

• The part and parcel of the above and the second important part of enjoyable difficulty is giving the player enough tools to work with.
• For a game to be enjoyably difficult rather than punishing it has to allow the player an outlet to approach problems in new ways.
• Example: When your players fail to beat a challenge, your players’ needs to analyse the situation, and realize something on the lines of, “Hmmm, maybe I needed to slide here, instead of jumping or ducking” rather than rely simply on memorization.

Telegraphing

• Players need the ability to make informed choices about the game, even if they are split second ones.
• Everything has to hint at its consequences in some small way, as an uninformed choice is not a choice at all.
• Example: 90% of the pits in Mario used to kill you, but 10% of them had hidden rooms or important stuff in them. This is not only an inconsistency in the rules but a failure to telegraph. This is punishing rather than difficult as there is no choice no player skill involved and makes the player rely on memorized foreknowledge of where these items are in the game, if he chooses to restart the game.

Iteration Time

• To make a game not punishing lower its iteration time.
• Example: In some games you re-spawn at the same point or never more than 10 seconds from the challenge you failed at, this helps players try something new instantly and the re-spawn time is not arbitrarily clogged with a “do you want to continue?” screen, its back into the action right away to try to solve the puzzle again.

Usability

• Complexity does not = Difficulty
• The more your players are able to understand and instantly utilize the tools you have given them, the wider variety of problems you can present them with and the larger range of interesting answers they can come up with.
• Making a game that must be mastered, doesn’t mean it has to be hard to get into and understand.
• Example: The game “Ikaruga” with simple mechanics that are readily understandable, yet they give the player the tools they need to face an excessive amount of challenges in an incredibly difficult game.
• Making the player comfortable with the tools given is quite essential
• A big part of the aforementioned comfort are the controls of the game and not just the user interface or tutorials. If something is great but can’t be executed consistently might as well not be in the game

Difficulty Curve

• Do not ignore difficulty curve
• Just because a game is meant to be difficult doesn’t mean that its difficulty can fluctuate wildly, have huge spikes or be unreasonably difficult upfront.
• As a designer, you should not try to defeat the players, you want them to overcome the challenges you are setting before them.
• A goal of the designer is to get the player so invested, so engaged they want to beat the game even though it’s difficult.
• Never set a challenge that forces player to walk away because it’s too tough, too early, that’s just punishing.
• It is quite challenging making and getting the player through a difficult game but very easy to make a punishing game which makes players quit.

Summary of Game Balancing

• Do not give up on making difficult games
• As a designer, when your players fail you want them to always think they could have done better, you need them to have that “AHA!!! I understand!” moment, where they realize some small thing they can do differently and be hungry to try again.
• If players feel like the game has made them fail, then you have failed in your design.
• If your rules are inconsistent, then you have failed in your design.
• If your players are not presented with choices they can work with, then you have failed in your design.
• If your players are not given a gameplay that is not usable enough, then you have failed in your design.
• If you demand the player wait through minutes of content they already mastered just to get another chance at the thing they failed at, then you have failed in your design.
• If you fail to follow the above points, then have created a game that is punishing and not difficult. And punishing games will never succeed.

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So now we've reached the end of my brain bump, hope this helps you in more ways than one. And hope this gets me a better job than i currently have :)

Thank you for reading and please share if you like it :)

Please Note:

• These are my views of the above mentioned subject/topics.
• All artwork is from the internet and does not belong to me.
• These are not hard and fast rules to success(you gotta work your ass off for that to happen).
• My views can be subject to scrutiny and mistakes, as i am not yet a god (but aspire to be).
• These are just simple guidelines for the benefit of the gaming and game design community and for anyone who seeks this knowledge.

Cheers and Good Luck to all you Game Designers out there . . . get you freak on !!!