Power Creeping and Power Shifting

Introduction:

Well, I haven't posted in a couple of weeks - and I've been feeling guilty. That said, I've got a splitting headache, and I'm a bit angry... so we'll see how this goes.

Anyway, this post is about balancing to a certain level of power - if you have one character who is much better than everyone, do you nerf him? Or buff everyone else?

If you have half of your units being too strong for the other half - what then?

Finding a power level, then rebalancing your units to that power level is called Power Shifting.

What is a Power Creep?

"Power Creep" is the term used to describe one solution to the problem of balancing units - where idea is to buff all units to the best unit's level of power, meaning that the average power of units in the game increases (thus, 'creeping'). The term is usually used in a negative tone - to give the idea that the changes were poorly planned - though a Power Creep isn't necessarily a bad thing.

How should units be balanced?

The thing is, this depends entirely on the game, and the current balance situation.

It can't even be generalised, for example - say you had a roster of 34 characters, where one was generally more powerful than the rest - then you had maybe 5 or 6 under it, that could stand a chance against it. Assume that the rest of the cast are unusable against these 7 characters.

What should you do?

Most people would logically say "Nerf the 7 units, and leave the other 27 as they are", assuming the other 27 are on par with each other - but, this is not always the best solution.

What if the other 27 characters are ridiculously bland, and no fun to play because they have limited options and strategies in battle?

What if the 7 characters up the top of the list are the game's only saving grace, and, the existing metagame and matchups between these characters are amazingly fun to play?

Nerfing them would be a mistake - you're taking away all the fun.

So what's the secret?

Always have fun in mind when choosing what power level you're going to balance to.

There's no use nerfing all your characters to a boring, pathetic level - and similarly you shouldn't be buffing all of your characters to such a height that the game loses strategic depth in favour of button-mashing, camping to punish, sheer luck, etc.

With each game individually - you must think of which characters have the balance of reliability, power, and fun - then move characters up and down to their level. Hopefully, you'll have a good group of characters at this level who are balanced with each other - but, other times, you have to form the group unit by unit.