Balancing the Aspects of an RPG

[NextEraGaming]

Hello.

As of now, my team consists of me and my brother, and we're both more of game creators instead of designers…therefore, I'm at a loss:
How would one go about the balancing of an RPG?

Things that seem simple such as HP:Damage ratio and stat balance are completely non-existent in my current project.

Any ideas or suggestions?

[Anna Comnena]

What are you creating, exactly? :huh:

If you're gonna be "creators" and not know anything about "design" then what's the point?

Anyway, EVERYTHING can affect balance in an rpg. Is all of your player growth purely from combat related actions (killing enemies)? Are you expecting to have and open player-versus-player model? Cooperative play model? Are your classes different? Do you even have classes? Will the enemies be strong and rare, or weak and numerous?

The basic thing is, how long do you want the player to survive assuming they make reasonable correct decisions and actions? If you know how that will go, then it will help. Because again, everything is related with this regard. MAPPING is related; if a map is a chokepoint full of enemies, it can add or detract from the game's balance too.

It's not something that can simply be answered in a single post.

[Jeff]

Grab a game designer to join your team?  There will be people willing to do that probably, most of them will be new but they'd probably still do.

[Anna Comnena]

That's bullshit, because everyone is a game designer. If you are a "creator" without designing anything, there is something wrong.

[Bret]

I'm pretty much just going to expand on Anna's idea of the fact that everything is related. Every aspect of your game should web within each other.

You could make the most complicated set of equations to try to "balance" a game,  which is just fantastic if you bother to, but keep this is mind:

If I kill a squirrel, making 100 EXP an hour, out of my 1000 EXP to level, WOOT!
I hit level 2, squirrels give 0 EXP now. I move on to bird. At birds, I'm hitting harder, so are the birds. They have more HP so they take just as long to kill. I make 200 EXP an hour, but it takes 3000 EXP to level. So I make EXP at a slightly faster rate but I need more so it takes just that extra bit longer to level.

Why don't you just call everything squirrels that give variable amounts of EXP while you're at it. I absolutely hate games like this. If you balance the game too far to an extreme, its boring.

In my mind, you can't just have a Level to HP to EXP to Damage Ratio. Its just the same thing over and over. Now you may make the argument that you can throw rare awesome shiny drops in there. Sure that helps, now I'm fighting the same squirrel, leveling up at the same rate of EXP, but it drops shiny things 1 out of 100000 drops. (Which ironically enough, end up being some trash equip you can buy in the store with loot you made in 10 seconds of fighting mobs).

(I could start a rant here about making items that have character… err.. that are renowned in the world)...(Think runescape... oldschool? Everyone wanted that damn Rune 2H, now everyone wants the whip! (maybe? i don't really follow it anymore.))

A game in my mind needs to give me a good reason to go fight something new. Give me the sense of adventure in the game. I'm not gonna go find the flying turtles unless I have skills that give me bonus damage against flying reptiles. No, I have skills that allow me to AOE kittens for faster exp.

The monsters could dodge your attacks, be immune to your freeze spells, block your arrows, have a chance of exploding, light you on fire,

Okay so I'm going to stop ranting about finding the perfect balance. Yes, it's NICE to have a general idea to your balance. But ultimately the players will find what works for them. If your game is simple, maybe a HP to EXP ratio works... if its more complicated you could go for respawn rates, effectiveness of a skill or item, add randomness, add a need for strategy.

Use your imagination, use inspiration from games that came before yours, and if you you truely want a challenge: be different from other games. Set a new standard for these PW/Eclipse/Mirage games. God knows someone really needs to raise the bar.

[Robin]

@Bret:

> Think runescape… oldschool? Everyone wanted that damn Rune 2H, now everyone wants the whip! (maybe? I don't really follow it anymore.)

It was the strongest weapon in the game and required the highest level of blacksmithing. Was going as much as 1m each at the time. Taking into account inflation, that's a lot of cash.

Now-a-days the best weapon can be got from training the new skill to level 85\. It does require you to pay 2m to re-charge it each time you've used it for 10 hours of combat.

[NextEraGaming]

Is balance not an essential part of any RPG? For instance, what if in Oblivion you could farm mudcrabs for blades, destruction and block EXP until 100? What would be the point in going out to annihilate Umbra or Mehrunez? The way Bethesda balanced Oblivion was by scaling monster spawns to the level of the PC, solving the problem of the previous TES, Morrowind, which allowed players to rest for an hour, then go back to a Dremora spawn(whose level was higher than yours) and kill him, some Scamps and his Hunger girlfriend until you reach the skill cap or level up(whichever comes first)

I understand this sort of balancing system is irrelevant to the conversation, seeing as Eclipse doesn't have these sort of problems, but the point is, how can I give the Player incentive to go out on a perilous adventure in one of my many painstakingly crafted dungeons?

[Robin]

Oblivion's level scaling was one of the worst design choices of all time. They made it much more acceptable in Fallout 3 where the level you visit an area is the level that area is scaled to.

As for balance being essential part of an RPG, none of us are disputing that fact. We're simply saying that it's not something you can sum up in a post. Balancing is something which should be done from start to finish whilst developing all aspects of your game. We can't do it for you.