I'm maek gaem and I'm trying to le ebin balance it.It seems to me like every player-derived combat benefit that matters in a game reduces to one of these qualities-damage-defense/healing-evasion-status effect output-status effect defense/healing-encounter bypassing-moneyWhat I mean by this is that anything a player gets from leveling up and choosing perks or feats or whatever is going to tweak one of these numbers. If your new sword does +1 to hit, that's damage. If you learn Tasha's Hideous Laughter from a Sorcerer level up, that's status effect output. Etc.This is important because I'm trying to make a skill-leveling based game without collapsing into the stealth archer failure mode where there's a clear dominant option that players have to consciously choose not to go for.This is kind of in the weeds, so maybe it isn't that clear. Each of these benefits is a different means of resolving the binary outcomes of a combat encounter (win/lose). "Damage" is damage. "Defense/healing" are collapsed because they're both ways of outlasting the opponent. By "Evasion" I don't mean statistical evasion I mean moving your character out of the way of the enemy's attacks (in rtwp crpgs this is referred to as "micromanagement"); that's separate from defense because it involves a constant element of player execution and has accordingly variable results. "Status effects" refer to any process that has an exponential curve to the win/lose outcome- so if you land a status effect, that's a huge swing, whereas each "normal" attack is an additive, small change to the pile. "Encounter bypassing" refers to stuff like stealth or diplomacy that wins encounters by not engaging directly with combat. "Money" is a transferable benefit that can be used to purchase any of these other benefits, and must be used in this way before it actively contributes to player success.
>>3995767The obvious way to balance a game, then, is to make sure that no player acquisition achieves more of these benefits than any other. That is to say, you don't want two-handed weapons to just do "damage" while archery does "damage" and "evasion". A common game balance failure-mode is instead to tweak the efficiency of different playstyles, rather than tweaking their spread of benefits. The problem with this is that players make decisions largely on the margins- by this I mean that they choose the option that guarantees success in a broader range of scenarios over the option that succeeds more quickly but sometimes fails. This is because repeating content (because you died) is more tedious than doing content slowly most of the time. When a game makes the optimal route more tedious than gambling and hazarding the possibility of repeating content, players usually find it "unfair".So benefits are only valuable to a player if they enable them to do something they otherwise couldn't. Every benefit therefore needs to make a difference on the margins. At least, that's the ideal.
>>3995767I'm guessing this is another one of those "I'm thinking about making a game but not actually making a game" threads
>>3995767>I'm maek gaem and I'm trying to le ebin balance it.Balance is for autistic retards. Make it enjoyable for a couple of playstyles, leave in retarded exploits and you've got a golden game. It's that fucking simple. Balance autism suck ass.
>>3995841Nah I'm making it in Claude code. I'm cannibalizing my last game to make it, which was a Mausritter RPG fan game that reached alpha but nobody played it. The guys on the Mausritter discord refused because it used AI and I'm megabanned from reddit and haven't had the energy to get a burner device and go on the library wifi to share it there: https://obligate-brahmin-games.itch.io/factions-of-ek-a-mausritter-fangameMausritter really sucks as a videogame so I'm making my own IP. It's an attempt to turn the Elder Scrolls' skill system into something fun to play>>3995892I want to avoid the stealth archer problem.
>>3995767>If your new sword does +1 to hit, that's damage. If you learn Tasha's Hideous Laughter from a Sorcerer level up, that's status effect output. Etc.sounds very generic ,anon.why not just copypaste a script in RPGmaker?
>>3995841This.>>3995767That's neither structured nor thought through. If you want input from here you need something in return. Either custom content or good ideas.>>3997017Claude code?>>3997167>sounds very generic ,anon.Truly. Either you create something original, or fine tune something you stole. Both are better than this shit you deliver. Don't leave that shit here, take it with you.>damage formulaIt's a mathematical problem from the optimization field. What you want is a set of variables (eg stats) to induce or strengthen psychological experiences (eg fun) . Define the variables and the experience.
>>3995841No shit, Sherlock.OP is obviously too dumb to even collect his vague theorycrafting thoughts or understand RPGs, never mind design a game.
>>3997167>>3997193I'm using those as examples. I'm not saying my game will work like the model in the OP, I'm saying the combat in EVERY game works like the model in the OP.>>3997216Here's a photo of my previous game, which I've already linked to in another comment. It's free, you can play it right now. It has about 4 hours of content in the alpha. I stopped working on it because I don't own the IP and it was a proof of concept, but the first two major quests are done end-to-end along with the side content in those dungeons.
>>3997216>you're too dumb for my number crunching spreadsheet simulatornot op, but this is the cringeshit only RPGfags can type
