I have a design question... I'm working with a group of people on a game project and they haven't been able to explain to me this one thing (at least not to where I understand) Can you have Mystical Mages duking it out with Techno Driods (misspellings everywhere!) How do you balance gameplay in that situation? (thats just one example. Thanks for any input! Micah

You could have Oompa Loompas duking it out with Regis Philbin and balance the stats, I see no reason for being unable to balance the stats between a mage and a robot. It compltely depends on the gameplay you want to provide. Robots could shoot lazer beams and mages could shoot fireballs, robots could run an energy shiled, mages could cast a barrier spell. Robots could shoot sleeping gas or poison to blanket the ground and knock out the mage. The mage could attempt to short-circut the robot. Your question is too vague for a better answer.

The one and only exception to stat balancing ability comes down to a fight of anything vs Chuck Norris. His roundhouse is legendary and is unable to even be captured by the most robust stat engine let alone be balanced against other stats.


Above: Chuck getting ready to perform a super kick.

Quote:

The one and only exception to stat balancing ability comes down to a fight of anything vs Chuck Norris. His roundhouse is legendary and is unable to even be captured by the most robust stat engine let alone be balanced against other stats.

Quoted for truth [grin]

Sure, all you have to do is define a set of parallel and equivalent powers for the two races. Basically you give both the same type and power of attacks, but call them something different and give them a different animation. Like, a fire spell vs. a laser shot. (Edit: Wow that's funny M2tM and I picked the same example.) Look at Warcraft/Starcraft for an example of wonderful race balancing.

edit: hehe, yeah, I noticed you picked the same example I did, I thought it was neat.

Oh, yes, to expand on the last commenter (sunandshadow) the basic idea is to have a set of skill points:

max health
max mana
strength
intelligence
willpower
constitution
dexterity

something like that. Then a robot might be:

h 450
m 120
s 30
i 10
w 20
c 30
d 10

a mage might be

h 250
m 375
s 10
i 30
w 30
c 20
d 20

Now you have to come up with attacks that utilize these stats and cancel eachother. Using some of my examples:

ranged attack
character: Mage attack type: fireball
mana: 20
range: 30
targets constitution
damage 40

character: Robot attack type: lazer
mana: 20
range: 80
targets willpower
damage 30

And so on. Basically, balance the attacks and the stats and make everything work together. It involves a lot of tinkering.

How about a Sword vs a Laser Gun?

Mage v Robot doesn't sound so bad now -- and NO CHUCK NORRIS in this game... well, maybe for the admin =P

Micah

Quote:

Original post by micah_death How about a Sword vs a Laser Gun? Mage v Robot doesn't sound so bad now -- and NO CHUCK NORRIS in this game... well, maybe for the admin =P Micah

Sure, you can balance anything if you play around with the game elements a bit. In the case of a sword vs. a laser, you'll have to deal with swords having a much shorter range than a laser by either upping the damage of the sword, or having something else to counter a laser (for example, a mirrored shield). However the choices available to you are endless...

Have a brainstorm with your mates over the game details and see what you can come up with! Good luck with the game!

There are two basic ways of thinking about balance:



In the top method, we think of balance like a teeter-totter. Things have some kind of "power" and we want everything to have equal power. This means we end up trying to make everything more or less "weigh" the same, so it will balance out on the teeter-totter. Everything's power comes down to its weight. But then, if we need to weigh something like "wind," we're stuck; we can't weigh it the same way as we can weigh "Chuck Norris's boots." Since all the things we want to balance have to allow us to weigh them the same way, we limit the types of things we can balance successfully.


The second method is different. The overall power of all things in a game is split into a pie (because pie is just so awesome). The power of something (a mage, or a Jedi Knight, or a Stompy Mega Robot Guard) is determined by its slice of the pie. However, every slice of the pie comes from a different part of the pie itself. Some slices might have cherry filling (magic spells) and some might have mincemeat filling (Jedi Knights).

The idea of the pie-method is to look for complementary ways of balancing things. Consider guns: two good complementary stats are Damage and Firing Rate. A Death Cannon might do 500 damage, and fire once every 10 seconds; that's basically 50 damage/second on average. A Machine Gun might do 1 damage per round, but fire 50 times a second. Both guns do 50 damage/second, but they behave very differently. Throw in some other stats (like the availability of ammunition, the weight of the gun, range, etc.) and find ways to complement them; suddenly you've got a really potent way of diversifying guns, while keeping them all pretty much balanced.


The teeter-totter method of balance says that everyone has to have something the same - mages use "fire spells" and robots use "laser beams" to do the same kind of damage. This can work, if you plan it carefully, but it usually leads to less interesting gameplay.

Classics like the Warcraft series use the pie method, where you give everything a different "strength." In the pie method, you don't just pair off mages-vs-droids; you usually need at least two pairs. For example, the Mages and Knights against the Droids and Energy Changer Machines. Mages cast fire, which burns up droids; but Energy Changers turn it into more power that makes a deadly laser bolt. Knights have shiny armor, which deflects laser bolts, but they can easily get beaten to a pulp by a Droid. However, Knights can destroy Energy Changers without any negative effects. So mages are great against droids, but not ECMs, and knights are great against ECMs, but not droids. From the other perspective, an ECM can slaughter mages, but is screwed if a Knight shows up; similarly, a droid can beat up knights all day, but will panic if a mage comes along.

Look around for a demo of "The Lost Vikings" for a brilliant example of how three different strengths can be combined in different characters to make overall balance. It's a great arcade platformer, and it really underlines the power of the pie method. Another classic example of the pie system is Rock Paper Scissors; everything is strong against one thing, and weak against one other thing, and yet everything is different.

First, make a system where everything is magic. Have stone mages that can summon rock golems and ice mages that shoot snowy blasts and teleporting mages that can blip across the battlefield.

Then, arrange them into two teams, like mages that favor defense and long-range attacks against mages that prefer close-quarters fighting and speed.

Make sure that there's no horribly unbalanced advantage to one side or the other.

Change the graphics and names so that one of the teams is comprised of robots.

Release your game.

Listen to feedback.

Patch once a month for two years.

Bada-bing.

I don't see what's the problem...

Why not have your Wizard sucking out all the energy out of the droid then bombard it with meteors

Think, Justice League on cartoon network