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Stat Balancing

 
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Abelhawk
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Joined: 22 Jan 2008
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 09, 2012 9:45 am    Post subject: Stat Balancing Reply with quote

Hey, does anyone have any tips for balancing stats? I usually just throw random stats on my enemies that I have, hoping that it'll be challenging depending on the level of the hero.
Does anyone use a homemade chart or something to put in basic values?
For example, Level 1-5 enemies: 10-35 strength, 20-40 accuracy, etc.? I'm just trying to think of different options, and would love suggestions.
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Chronoas




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PostPosted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 7:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I generally first decide approx. what level I think the character's should be when you fight the enemy, and then I input the player character's relevant stat progression into my graphing calculator, figure out how strong each enemy stat should be in comparison of the average player character stats at that level (ATK vs. DEF, ACC vs. EVA, etc.), taking into account what kind of enemy they are and whether they should be weaker/stronger in certain areas (A rock golem monster, for example, might have a higher than average DEF stat, so it's a bit tougher to damage physically).

And then test it. Adjust accordingly, repeat 'til it feels right. Essentially, my method is a mathematical approach. You'll still need to adjust for difficulty based on the amount of enemies in a grouping and what sort of attacks the enemies might have.

With the method I use, I can't really comment on the example you give, cause without knowing the hero's stats at level 1-5 (I generally would be looking at level 3 stats for a level 1-5 enemy), and what kind of enemy it would be (more evasive, tougher, etc.), I can't tell if it would be balanced.

Also, when you compare stats, you also need to take into consideration the equipment a character might have at any given level (usually just boosts to DEF from armour and ATK from your weapon). The quick and dirty method, if you haven't figured out all the equipment in your game yet, is to simply decide the strongest piece of equipment's (or second strongest, if you decide to have "ultimate" weapons, or w/e), decide what level you want the player's to be at the end of the game, and then do a percentage based off what level they'll be fighting the monster at.

For example: Say your final boss is balanced to be fought at about level 50. Your (first or second) strongest weapons/armour set boosts the relevant stat by 100, for simplicity. Now, you want to find out how strong of equipment they might have at level 10. 10 is 20% of 50, so figure out 20% of the strong equipment (at 100), which is, of course, 20. So add 20 to ATK/DEF stat when you are balancing your level 10 monsters. This is, of course, assuming a relatively linear progression on your equipment, and that the player will have the best equips possible at that point, but it's a quick method to get a rough estimate. As always, you'll need to test, test, and more test.
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Rya.Reisender
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 2:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some years ago, I used to help a few OHRRPGCE developers with balancing their games. Actually balancing the stats is like my favorite task of all times when making games (next to dungeon design).

In the end balancing can be a really long process if you want to really make it perfect. As in making battles so hard that the player is always at the edge of dieing but without giving him an obstacles that doesn't seem like he can get over it somehow.

Usually the first thing you'd do is decided for a character progression system. What stats do exist? How should they get stronger? How do you want to add tactic (if you want to make your battles interesting you usually would like the player to figure out a tactic with which he can beat the enemy much easier, this could be anything from using the correct spell or spell combination to having the proper gear for the current region)? How do equipments affect the stats and which equipments are available at a certain time (equipments can influence tactics a lot, items that increase dodge are nice against monsters that can instant kill you even with good gear, but have low accuracy for example)?
It might even be a matter of the whole leveling system if you want to add something unique.
After you're done with that you should have:
- character stat progression and leveling system
- equipments and the tactics behind them (in mind)
- spells and the tactics behind them (in mind)

Now you have some constants that you can actually work with when you create new monsters. Here while going by math is possible or at least gives you some good ideas on what values to put, the best thing is always testing thoroughly.
You don't want the enemies so easy that the players even defeat them with the worst tactic, but you also don't want the enemies so hard that the player doesn't even get time to figure out the right tactic. Here is a mistake developer's often do: They already know the tactic and thus don't consider not knowing the tactic, resulting in very frustrating games where players basically never can win on the first try. The maximum enjoyment is created when the player feels like he figured out the tactic just in time and defeated the enemy with only a few HPs left (if you system even has a HP stat). So what I do is trying to copy the player during the tests. I use a bunch of wrong spells and then use the correct tactic and see how well this ends. If I can't beat the enemy like that it's too hard. If I can beat the enemy but still had plenty of HP/time left, it's too easy. If I could just beat him right before he prepared his finishing blow, then it's perfect. It will give the players a feeling of having performed great and at the same time were challenged a lot. They should not die when their own feeling is that they performed really well. They can however die, if they feel themselves that they "messed up that one". As in "Yeah okay, took me too long to figure out the tactic, but next try I'll win for sure" or "Jeez, too hard, there must be some kind of trick to defeat him.", these are the points where you can allow player to die.

The rest is self-explanatory, test it and see if it's too hard or too easy and adjust stats accordingly. The relation between the different stats strongly depends on the system and the tactics. Don't make all the stats the same for all mobs. Make a mob that has one stat very high and another mob that has a completely different stat very high. Make use of the variety. Combine monsters into a single formation that require different tactics and work well together tactic-wise. The easiest example would be: Attacker and defender. One monster with high attack and one monster with high defense. Obviously it creates the tactic that the player should kill the attacker first. You might even be tricky and place the attacker in the second slot so he doesn't get targetted by default. That way the player has to move the cursor instead of just keeping Enter pressed. It's important that the stats vary greatly between the different monsters, so the player doesn't feel like just fighting always the same monster with a different difficulty and sprite. He should feel like "OMG there is monster ABC in this formation, gotta be careful" and not "oh great another 3 random monsters".

Also: Don't make battles too much a matter of preserving healing potions, unless you make a survival-like game. Whether you want to make the game depend of preserving or not (i.e. full recover after every battle for example) is your decision, but even if you decide for preserving, every single battle should somewhat be a challenge. This can for example be accomplished by not giving the players ways to heal more than the monsters damage you for. Outside battles you can of course use several potions easily, but in-battle you might just slow down your death but not completely avoid it even if you have 99 or more potions in your inventory. Making healing too powerful in RPGs is another mistake many developers do. Making healing weak is one solution, but there are others. Like e.g. making healing spells strong, but don't allow MP recovery during a battle. Or using an even more unique skill system (for example always start battle without being able to use spells at all and only after doing some fighting you slowly gain access to stronger skills).

One more hint in regards of equipment: Make equipment MEAN something. Those 2 additional def that iron helmet gives over the wood bucket are pointless if the enemies deal 10 or more damage with one hit. It isn't even a damage reduction of 10%. Balancing has to go along with the available equipments. The player needs to feel that he couldn't beat an enemy with his old gear but now it's much easier with his new gear. This isn't only about giving new gear significantly higher def. There can be all kinds of factors on the equip. Like for example equipping a fire shield in the volcano dungeon that divides most damage your receive there by 8 (well I guess these days it's actually configurable, heh). It might not even have any def on it, but it's still better than your 20 def iron shield. While in all other dungeons the iron shield is clearly the better choice. And there might be a buckler that raising dodge instead of def or a mirror shield that has magic defense instead of physical defense.

Also: Don't make equipment give too many stats at the same time. This is not only making the player losing overview over his possible options but also makes it complicated for you to balance stuff. What is the point of an armor that raising all stats by 5? There is hardly any and it doesn't add to the tactics at all.

To emphasize the importance of gear you also need to make it not available from the start. What's the point if the party reaches a new town and directly can buy all new equips available there? You might as well not add a shop at all in that case. Make weaker and stronger equips available and the stronger equips can't be bought on first visit at all.
Also back to the volcano dungeon: You might find the fire shield in some optional dungeon before entering the volcano dungeon. Player enters, sees it's too hard, decides to go grinding, finds optional dungeon while doing so, gets fire shield, beats volcano dungeon, perfect.

Hope this helps.
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Abelhawk
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Joined: 22 Jan 2008
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you, Rya!

A lot of what you said made sense, and it looks like I'll definitely just have to test it all myself. I guess what I was looking for when I started this post was if anyone had a certain "mathematical" way of looking at it, but your explanation makes more sense. It all depends on the tactics.

So far I've been following most of your advice already---varying enemies' stats so that each enemy must be fought with a different strategy. For example, there is one "winged" enemy that attacks very fast and annoyingly, but is killed quickly, shedding its wings and spawning in its place a slower unit. I'm also trying to make each hero as unique as possible. I want to be able to let the player choose their heroes' formation in a tactical way that fits their style, also allowing them to try different methods if one doesn't work. For example, the high shadow-damage dealing weak-HP warlock would work well with the priest, who can protect and heal him while he does all the damage; while the rogue, who has the chance to do critical hits, would be a good choice if you want to rely more on luck.

I do need to remember the gear thing though. I think it's cool in games when the final end boss has an insanely high amount of hitpoints, but at that point you have insanely high gear so it makes it fun.
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Rya.Reisender
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 3:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well for the mathematical approach. Get the excel spreadsheet that shows the stat growth at each level. I'm 100% sure it's somewhere here on forums or maybe even as a game. On it you can just enter starting and ending stat and it will calculate all stats for each level.

Having that done you can estimate the stats a character has at a certain time into the game. Now it's pretty much simple math:

Enemy has x ATK and uses a 150% damage skill. My hero has 30 DEF and around 100 HP. What should x be if he should die in 3 hits, but the next level (32 DEF and 105 HP) he should be able to take 4 hits instead?
This would be the thinking you should do.

Then you put some value like 30 ATK and calculate it: 30 - 15 (DEF) = 15 * 1.5 (skill) = 22. That's about 12 damage too little. To increase damage by 12 with a 150% skill, I need to increase ATK by 8!

38 ATK: 38 - 15 = 23 * 1.5 = 34 = 3 hits to die
Next level: 38 - 16 = 22 * 1.5 = 33 = 4 hits to die

Perfect.
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1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
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