I apologize if this has been mentioned before, but you know, search feature and all. It seems to me that a lot of games I''ve played have lost some enjoyability due to the balance of various play strategies. Either one or two strategies were "overpowered", or the game was so balanced that there was no point to thinking up a strategy, you''d do just as well picking random things. Battlerealms for example. It''s die-hard fans love it, because every unit has about the same amount of weaknesses. There is no superior unit. I kinda like that, to a degree, but not when 3rd tier units can be killed as easily as 1st tier. I''m all for having every unit have some weaknesses so you can''t just mass the strongest unit, but it goes too far. Another thing, perhaps even more bothersome, is locking the enemy''s strength/levels at or above the player''s strength/levels. It completely nullifies the point of building up. Heck, I could have sworn Saga Frontier got harder if I built up because the monsters started using instant death and other status effects in addition to being harder to kill. Of course if you don''t do something, the player will just find a single strategy and do it to death. For example build up and kill everything in 1 hit, or mass the strongest unit, or just the jump powerslash over and over again. Any ideas regarding this matter?

All competitive games require a method for breaking the game balance, otherwise no one would ever win. Different methods will give you different gameplay - it''s up to the designer to what type of gameplay he wants.

Example: RTS

1. If all units are perfectly balanced, and forces are equal, then balance can only be broken by superior control and or tactics.

2. If all units are perfectly balanced, but the forces'' size depends on some other factor e.g resource management, then balance can be broken by superior control, superior tactics, and superior resource management.

3. If units are not perfectly balanced, but designed so that all tier 1 units are equivalent to each other, but less powerful than tier 2 units, etc, then balance can be broken by superior teching.

In a game of style 3, the gameplay may well be heavily oriented towards teching. In a game of style 2, you''d expect peon pumping to be popular. In a game of style 1, control and strategy are the only things that can win you the game.

4) If balance is interactive, and strength of units changes over time, then balance needs to be established before it can be broken

Example: every time you pick a certain unit to play with, or every time you use a certain unit more in combat, the value of that unit goes up, and the value of all unused units goes down. To use the exact same strategy in the next battle, you would have to use less units, because their combined value has gone up.
As the value of units is forever changing, there is no real established balance. The players that simply want to feel like they are breaking the balance and overpowering the game can still do so (by eternally trying to outsmart the system, using mainly unit A for 5 battles, then switching to unit B for the next 5 battles)

This system would work for a single-player game, but will be most effective in multi-player online gaming.

Good idea silvermyst, and it''s semi-logical. Like say, you deploy tanks for $5 million each, and then the price raises to $7 million each next battle cause you bought all those tanks before and it jacked up the price.

That would mean you have to find at least a couple of units you can use well, cause if you try to stick to just one it''ll eventually leave you too weak/poor to win.

Another way to balance things is to make everything strong and useful, in very different ways.

Using Unreal Tournament 2003 for example:
The Biorifle is low-range and less powerful than a rocket launcher, but it can be very effective because you can both charge it up and litter the ground with sludge for people to trip over. Of all the guns, I hear more people say it is the best balanced in the game, which is not surprising because it is the most unique.

If you make different weapons effective in different ways, then you can safely make them still be powerful. In starcraft, sure you can mass out on Battlecruisers and try and just overwhelm an opponent, but you might have trouble when they all get locked down by a couple little ghosts, or blown up by a couple scourges.

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MSN: nmaster42@hotmail.com, AIM: LockePick42, ICQ: 74128155
"It''s all part of the conspiracy of conspirators conspiring to conspire their own conspiracies..."

Also
Just because a game is easy for you doesn''t mean it is easy for another. It could be that the game is in balance for a person that has less skill or strategy, but if the game is too hard then it''s for people that have more skill and strategy.

If you have 5 bullets and 5 targets it might seem like a balance but you have to take account if the person will miss. Or you can give more bullets depending on how well you do and the balance would be tipped.

Chart things out to get a balance have a pros and con list. It’s hard to make a perfect level and to place every thing in the right place since it takes a lot of work. I think its best to have the game adjust to the person’s skill in some cases.

Well it’s not easy to get a balance since it takes time and effort to see the game. And sometimes you have to adjust an entire game to do that it seems.

It is faster just to throw anything in a level than to strategically place an every block and enemy.

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Original post by LockePick
Another way to balance things is to make everything strong and useful, in very different ways.

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Definitely the best way, imo.

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
Original post by LockePick
Another way to balance things is to make everything strong and useful, in very different ways.

Definitely the best way, imo.

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Also tricky to balance right...