Fundamentals of Game Design, Ernest Adams, Chapter 11 : Game Balancing

What is a balanced game -

• Is fair to the players
• Is Neither too easy nor too hard
• Makes the skill of the player the most important factor in determining his success

 Balance is different between PvP and PvE

A well balanced game has

• provides meaningful choices
• Avoids dominant stratagies
• Each strategy must have a chance of victory
• Players skill must affect success - player skill must be more relevant that chance

PvP -

• Players must perceive the game to be fair
• A player who falls behind should have opportunities to catch up

PvE -

• The player perceives the game to be fair
• Level of difficulty must be consistent, without spikes or sharp drops

 Dominant Strategies -

• Strategy that reliablyy produces the best outcome
• Undesired because players have no reason to use any other strategy
• Avoiding -
• Transitive relationships
• A>B and B>C, then A>C - No reason to get B or C as A is better
• Assign cost to each choice
• Impose shadow costs for choices
•  Upgrades
• Start with C, then get B, then get A
• Intransitive relationships
• A beats B, B beats C, C beats A
• Orthogonal unit differentiation - unlike others in some way
• Uniquely different - no more or less powerful
• Each kind of unit has a unique function

Chance -

•  Use chance sparingly
• Use chance in frequent challenges with small risks and rewards
• Allow players to choose actions
• Allow players to choose how much risk

Making PvP Games Fair -

•  Symmetrical games
• Same rules, resources, victory conditions
• Asymmetric games
• Start with identical points, resources etc
• Players spend point to build units as they wish
• Players spend points to adjust unit attributes
• Presistent worlds 
• Intrinsically unbalanced
• New players ned protection
• Rebalanced on the fly

 Making PvE games Fair -

• Offer challenges at a consistent level of difficulty
• Avoid learn by dying designs
• Avoid stalemates
• Provide information for critical decisions
• Avoid requiring extrinsic informations
• Include challenges appropriate for the game

Managing Dificulty -

• Managing the challenges and difficulty of them to keep the players within a flow state
• Hand-eye coordination and reasoning skills
• Challenges similar to those in your game
• Types of difficulty
• Absolute difficulty - compare amounts of skill required and stress to that of a similar trivial challenge
• Relative difficulty - Difficulty relative to the players power provided by the game
• Perceived difficulty = absolute difficulty - (power provided + in-game experience)

 

• Establishing difficulty modes
• Single player games, allow players to choose a difficulty
• When a difficulty mode is elected, challenges must stay within that range
• If you can't adjust the difficulty of a challenge, provide a way around it for the easy mode and block the go-around route for the hard mode

Game Mechanics Must Be In Balance - J.Shell, The Art of Game Design : A book of lenses

Fairness

• Symmetrical Games
• Equal power / resources
• Perfect symmetry not always possible in games that 1 player starts first - This is usually balanced by a coin toss or random selection that is eventually evened out of a number of games.

• Asymmetrical Games
• Real world situation - no conflict has even been totally symmetrical
• Players can explore the game - different possibilities of play
• Personalization -  choice of powers to best suit a player or player style
• To level the playing field - handicaps depending on player skill and game
• Interesting situations - Decide whether the game is truly fair

Assign a value to each resource or power and make sure that the sum of the values is equal for both sides.

 As you balance, you learn more about relationships in the game, and you can make a better mathematical model that represents these relationships.

Challenge vs Success

• Increase difficulty with each success - Each level is harder than the last.
• Let the player get through easy parts fast - allowing skilled players to get to challenges faster while less skilled players are challenged by early levels. 
• Create "Layers of challenge" - Grade at the end of a level (A,B,C etc).
• Let the players choose the difficulty - easy, medium, hard etc.
• Play test with a variety of players - Mix of skilled and novice player.

As a designer it makes sense to ask yourself "Wat percentage of players do I want to be able to complete this game?" and then design for that.

• What are the challenges in my game?
• Are they too easy, too hard, or just right?
• Can my challenges accomodate a wide variety of skill levels?
• How does the level of challenge increase as the player succeeds?
• is ther enough variety in the challenges?
• What is the maximum level of challenge in my game?

Meaningful Choices

Lead them to ask themselves questions, such as:

• Where should I go?
• How should I spend my resource?
• What should I practice and try to perfect?
• How should I dress my character?
• Should I try to get through the game quickly or carefully?
• Should I focus on offense or defense?
• What strategy should I use in this situation?
• Which power should I choose?
• Should I play it safe, or take a big risk?

Choices that will have real impact on what happens next, and the how the game turns out 

When choices are offered to a player, but one of them is clearly better than the rest, this is called a dominant strategy.

• If Choices > Desires, then the player is overwhelmed
• If Choices < Desired, the player is frustrated
• If Choices = Desired, the player has a feeling of freedom and fulfillment

Triangularity

• Low Risk / Low Reward
• High Risk / High Reward

 Skill vs Chance

Skill games - Usually more like contests, systems of judgement that determine which player is better
Chance games - relaxed, casual nature, fate

Target audience to get a balance - preference determined by age, gender or even culture.

Using both skill & chance in a game is a good way of finding a balance between the two e.g Die for chance on number of moves, skill for where to move.

  Head vs Hands

Physical activity vs mental activity (thinking) - able to be used in conjunction with each other such as puzzle solving while preforming actions within a game e.g. Boss battle that requires you to do something to make him vulnerable then doing something quickly to damage him.

• Are my players looking for mindless action, or an intellectual challenge
• would adding more places that involve puzzle-solving in my game make it more interesting?
• Are there places where the player can relax their brain, and just play the game without thinking
• Can I give the player a choice - either succeed by exercising a high level of dexterity, or by finding a clever strategy that work with a minimum of physical skill
• If "1" means all physical, and "10" means all mental, what number would my game get?

 Competition vs Cooperation

Basic instincts - Animal urges, All higher animals are driven to compete against others partly for survival, and partly to establish their statues in the community.Cooperate with others is always more powerful than an individual.

Short vs Long

To short - Players may not get a chance to develop and execute meaningful stratagies
To Long - Players may grow bored, or then may avoid the game because playing it requires too much of a time commitment

• What is it that determined the length of my gameplay activities?
• Are my players frustrated because the game ends to early? How can I change that?
•  Are my players frustrated because the game on for to long? How can I change that?
• Setting a time limit can make gameplay more exciting. Is it a good idea for my game?
• Would a hierarchy of time structures help my game? That is, several short rounds that together comprise a large round?

Rewards

Rewards - Tells the player "you have done well"

Praise - Text, Sound effect, etc
Points - Measurement of your success and can lead to larger rewards
Prolonged Play - Games that you have a limited amount of turns / tries / lives, the reward of an extra one is most valuable. Also adding time to their play session works. Both things tap into the natural human drive for survival.
A Gateway - Reward in a form of progression, moving forward within the game e.g keys open doors into new level.
Spectacle - Music, animation, cinematic
Expression - Giving the player the choice or means to change the game e.g character customization
Powers - Becoming more powerful
Resources - Something that can use to help them in the game or access another reward
Completion - Feeling of closure to the players

• What rewards is my game giving out now? Can it give out other aswell?
• Are players excited when they get rewards in my game, or are they bored by them? why?
• Getting a reward you don't understand is like getting no reward at all. Do my players understand the rewards they are getting?
• Are the rewards my game gives out to regular? Can they be given out in a more variable way?
• How are my rewards related to one another? Is there a way that they could be better connected?
• How are my rewards building? Too fast, too slow, or just right?

Punishment

• Punishment creates endogenous value - Resources in a game are worth more if there's is a chance they can be taken away
• Taking risks is exciting - Giving players a chance to risk terrible consequences makes success much, much sweeter
• Possible punishment increases challenge - Increasing the punishment that comes with failure can be one way to increase the challenge
• Shaming - Discouraging animations, sounds, music. Simply telling the player they are doing a bad job
• Loss of points -  Cheapens the value of the earned points, points that can't be taken away are very valuable.
• Shortened Play - Timers or lives
• Terminated Play - Game Over
• Setback - death or fail move your back to the start or to a checkpoint. Punishment must be meaningful, not unreasonable
• Removal of Powers - Permanent remove or time based removal
• Resource Depletion - Loss of money, good, ammunition, hit points

• What are the punishments in my game?
• Why am I punishing the players? What do I hope to achieve by it?
• Do my punishments seem fair to the players? Why or why not?
• Is there a way to turn there punishments into rewards and get the same, or a better effect?
• Are my strong punishments balance against commensurately strong rewards?

Freedom vs Controlled Experience

Where to give the player freedom, and how much freedom to give.

Simple vs Complex