Howdy!

I've been working on a tower defense game and you know the technical mechanic side 'functions' as intended.. I'm just hitting a major wall with 'balancing' like without manually entering an infinite amount of code stating wave 1 maths = blah blah wave 2 etc etc.. We need to use some formula/equation that'll handle it. I understand the logic of how to input this so it will go on forever. My issue is figuring 'the balance' I quote balance because I don't know if that's what its called. It's not just for tower defense though, I mean anything that is endlessly progressing would need something here... Space Shooters, Idle Clickers, basically games with 'upgrade' features that never end really. 

Any ideas on how its done? Would you just work it out for the first 50 or 100 'levels' and then let it go from there and assume no one notices or reaches that point or is there a 'perfect formula' for this kind of thing? 

Many Thanks for any input!

Depending on how far you are taking this, I'd never bank on someone not noticing. Someone always eventually does if your game garners enough attention.

There a number of cheap solutions here. Always offer another upgrade to player units that linearly scales the stats of their defense/power/ect., give the player more, and more money as the game progresses so they always have enough money to combat the AI if they spend it wisely, and so on. 

A problem you may run into is if you don't set a cap on the number of units. If both sides can keep scaling up the amount of units they have, you'll want a map that can accommodate that.

Also, once you reach a certain point, you are also likely to run out of unique assets for the player/ai to use. At some point, you'll want to start generating unit-types & assets on the fly. This can be as simple of just having a large pool of assets, and randomly picking from them to throw together a new unit-type. This can give some interesting/hilarious results, but it can also throw balance out the window if not done carefully ? 

2 minutes ago, markypooch said:

Someone always eventually does if your game garners enough attention.

This is what I was thinking, surely if you do well enough someone will eventually 'beat' level number x and see how you let it go to waste lol.

With the number of units issue, I currently have only got 1 map and its almost 50/50 split between path and tower placement area which kinda might be poor design because in an older version you could just bang a couple of towers right and the entrance and nothing got through for like 15 waves! So this lead to gaining a ton of money and when needed you would spend a tiny bit of it to add a couple more towers OR you could almost fill the map and for the next 20 waves you've got nothing to do... So when making enemies harder and the money gain is less you're 'lucky' if you manage to keep on top of the enemy by placing enough towers. So I need to reduce the enemy health a bit but I also need to figure out a way to prevent you from putting all your towers down and sitting back doing nothing. (Someone had previously suggested having enemies be able to shoot back at towers so that requires you to keep replacing towers... I like that idea) 

I feel like every little improvement I make leads to the inevitable you can place x amount of towers and the enemies won't even get past that corner, once upgrades work as well they'd never get past ?

Its they if they spend wisely part I think i'm most stuck on really, I'm trying to figure out the right and wrong amounts of cash to give them so they could be wise and survive longer. I think i've relied a bit too much on 'random' which I think is also like the throwing balance out the window kinda thing really. I think the key solution i'm looking for would be this

12 minutes ago, markypooch said:

Always offer another upgrade to player units that linearly scales

and it may feel boring to those that know how it works but if executed right and hidden enough then people might not click on to just "Oh, I could just upgrade this once per wave and it'll keep me alive" -- Or maybe not THAT simple but yeah, Key is in the upgrade, and making sure they can afford it IF they choose to? 

Your problem is named "game design", ie finding answers to the question "how do I make the game fun to play?" You may want to head over to that forum for a discussion.

As to your problem, as you describe it, it sounds like it's too predictable to the player. There is a perfect counter strategy to the attacks that allows you to sit just back and let the game play by itself.

I think you need to add more parameters, more variation. On solution could be in having different types of units. Quick units, slow units, units that don't die very quickly by one type of weapon (but much faster with another type), etc.

If you add so many different types of enemies that the player simply doesn't have the room to kill all kinds of enemies in one spot, he has to think much more carefully what to do.

Start thinking outside your box. What can you add to the game? Just start brain-storming wild ideas. Most is crap, but that's fine, you just need a few good ideas, maybe some combination of things?

[I realize as I've just wrote this next line that it is very obvious..] I never thought of 'Game Design' as being the place/department to look at for the ideas side of things ? I always thought it was literally a designer is about the colours and how it looks  But yeah I'll have a look over there and see if I can get out of my jam ?

But yeah totally, its becoming predictable and I attempted to achieve that via throwing out some randomness like randomizing the speed in such a way that if the base value was 5 it'd randomly choose to be either 5 6 or 7 kinda deal.But it just wasn't enough like some enemies would get through but everything sharing the base hp meant by the time it came back around the map (it kinda loops itself) the tower would finish it off... 

I definitely need to go back to the (moment of realization...) drawing board... Is it called a 'drawing' board because its 'game design' department? ? Anyway weird n quirkiness aside. I think the whole 'Most is crap,' part hits me hard too like I just throw out ideas but maybe I should rethink something or 'give it a go' kinda thing. Not like I have much/anything to lose and I have a ton to gain if it goes right!

Next update of the game is guna have some godzilla laser beam frogs with explosive reindeers. Or not. That might stay in the crap pile ?

Thank you for your advice :)! -- On my way to Game Design squad!

wow like the section is actually called "Game Design and Theory" ?? now I know!! ty again