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Five important lessons about game balance


All the games that we created with our Ronimo studio put a lot of emphasis on the competitive multiplayer mode. The design, testing and iterative improvement of these games, and especially of our biggest hit Awesomenauts , allowed us to learn a lot about balance. Today I want to share the most important lessons learned in the process.

1. Too strong is much worse than too weak


At first glance, it seems that from the point of view of the game balance, too weak and too strong are equally bad: both mean that somewhere there is an error in the balance and it needs to be improved. This is true, but in practice, too strong elements have a much stronger effect than too weak.

The reason is that the players strive for what is the strongest, and use only that. For example, in Awesomenauts there are 34 characters. If three of them are too weak , then most players will not play them, and they will have 31 characters to choose from. That is, they still have a lot of choice and diversity. On the other hand, if three characters were too strong, then the players would play only with these characters and would not pay attention to the rest. This would make the game very monotonous and it would quickly get bored.

This knowledge can be used as a crude tool in a situation where it is not possible to use the solution better. For example, if something is too strong, but only under certain conditions, then you can decide to weaken (nerf) this element until its strength under these conditions is acceptable, and in all other situations it will be weak. At least he will cease to dominate the game.

2. Diversity always brings imbalance


A game with only one weapon on one symmetric map will most likely automatically be balanced, even if it happened just because all players are in exactly the same situation. However, such a game is likely to be not only balanced, but also boring . Therefore, we need to add variety: more weapons, more cards, more items, more builds, most. Perhaps even asymmetric cards. Moreover, it is most important to realize that when the game becomes more complex, it is increasingly difficult to find a “perfect” balance. You quickly get to the point where a “perfect” balance is not possible, and every element of diversity introduced makes the game a little less balanced.

Let's look at a very simple example: walking speed. Let's say some characters are fast and others are slow. This creates a hindrance for slow characters that can be balanced, giving them more health and damage. However, now we need to add cards of different sizes. On large cards, the flaw of slow characters will manifest itself more strongly than on small ones. This happens because when the arena is small, slow characters can still get to its other edge quite quickly enough. No changes in the amount of health or damage will fix the problem, because the situation on each map is different.


Awesomenauts has a great variety: even the mechanics of jumping are different. For example, Lonestar has a double jump, Clunk can jump higher, and Yuri can fly. This is interesting and adds depth to the game, but greatly complicates the balance. Early prototypes even had cat hooks, reverse gravity and walking on walls. These elements had to be abandoned, because they were very limited maps.

One solution to this problem can be found in our Swords & Soldiers 2 game . In online matches with matchmaking, we use only a few cards: those that seem to us the most balanced. On the other hand, when you invite a friend to play, you can choose from anycards, including some rather strange ones. Perhaps they may be less balanced, but add to the game sharpness and interest. Depending on how much you want to attract players who like to compete, you can use these various, but unbalanced cards, or not.

3. Competitive players often dislike chance and luck


At the time of the release of the Awesomenauts, the game had random critical hits, causing a lot of extra damage. This added surprise and tension: every blow could be very powerful! It also meant that even if the adversary is better than you, you can accidentally win because you are lucky. This makes the game much more attractive for beginners. An extreme example of such a situation can be seen in Mario Kart: this game contains a large degree of randomness. Given the presence of a set of catch-up mechanics, Mario Kart has become a game in which a noob can randomly defeat a professional.

However, randomness adds to failure.: sometimes you obviously replay the enemy and still lose, because the enemy was lucky and he inflicted several crits in a row. In a sense, this may seem enjoyable: since the opponent is obviously lucky, you should not blame yourself for losing. However, many competitive players do not want this aspect of the game. They want a very simple thing: the best player must win. “ If I practice and improve more, then I should always win. ” Over the several years of the Awesomenauts existence, many players have improved and become more competitive, and there came a time when a significant number of users wanted random crits to be removed from the game. For this reason, we replaced the crit with a predictable system in which every third hit does more damage.


To avoid randomness in RTS, this must be taken into account in the code. For example, in Swords & Soldiers II we made sure that when two identical units battle, they always die in the same frame.

4. Over time, the balance automatically gets worse


Even if you think that the balance in your game is good, if you leave it unchanged, then it will go bad. Over time, players better master the game, learn new tricks and communicate with each other. This changes the style of the game, and therefore the feeling of balance. And usually not for the better: if you don’t make changes to the balance sheet over time, it usually gets worse.

One example that we observed at Awesomenauts: at some point, after several months of stable balance, one team discovered a new tactic that turned out to be super-strong. This tactic could be used many months ago, but for some reason nobody found it. Then this tactic was first used in a tournament where the team beat everyone else and won. After the tournament, news spread instantly and all of a sudden this tactic was used in almost every match. We had no choice but to quickly release a balance patch to specifically nerf this particular tactic. (The fact that our game is deep enough for players to discover new tactics is the biggest source of pride in my gamedev career.)

Another example of a deteriorating balance over time may not even be caused by the fact that some element turned out to be too strong. Perhaps something is quite a bit stronger, so small that it really isn’t important. Over time, players write guides and discuss the best tactics. They tell each other about this insignificant advantage, forcing more and more people to use it. Even if this advantage is very small, and in the worst case, it does not even exist, and the players just imagined it, it still spoils the game for a very simple reason: everyone starts to do the same thing. Because of this, the game becomes predictable and boring.

Sometimes you are lucky and players begin to respond to this imbalance. Too weak a character can be very strong in one particular situation. Since this situation now arises very often, this weak character suddenly turns out to be super-strong in most matches, which is why many players begin to choose him. Thanks to this, the dominant strategy naturally shifts, adding variety and interest. I was told that some games from the Super Smash Brothers series are perfectly balanced for such an approach: as soon as one character becomes dominant, it immediately turns out to be very interesting that character that can resist it, after which it becomes useful one that can withstand the opposing one, and so Further. This leads to a slow but steady shift in balance.

5. “Perfect” balance is not possible


In the last paragraph, I would like to share both a calming and extremely annoying fact: in any game that has significant complexity and diversity, perfect balance is impossible . This thought reassures, because it makes you realize - even if you were the best game designer in the world, your game would still not have the perfect balance. But this is annoying, because the goal of the game designer is to create a very good balance. Knowing that balance will never be truly fantastic makes balancing the game an annoying process.

So why is an “ideal” balance impossible? As I said above, with an increase in diversity, it becomes impossible to make all options equally strong under all conditions. But that's not all. How about players with different skill levels? Some characters / weapons / cards are designed for more complex tactics than others. As a result, for beginners, the balance will be different from the balance for professionals. And you need to consider different tastes. Some players prefer fun and variety, others prefer predictability and skill. Balance cannot fully satisfy both groups. Given all these elements, it is impossible to achieve an “ideal” balance.

PS Some of the topics of this post were discussed in more detail in previous articles. If you want to know more, I recommend reading the following posts:

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