Counters: Short Explanation.

It took me this long?

I just realised that while I have referenced counters in many of my articles on balance, I have never explained them.

I really though I had already done this... perhaps I accidentally deleted an article that has all of this information in it. I hope not.

What is a Counter?

A counter is a situation where a Player Controlled Unit has an advantage over another, and can be applied in a number of different situations.

A unit may counter another if it:

• Limits the other player's options. (The simplest instance is where a unit will avoid a unit that counters it, limiting its maneuverability)
• Appeals to the other unit's weakness, and thus excels at eliminating it. (Example, a Sniper unit will often excel at killing a slow unit)
• Removes the other unit's main strengths, or nullifies its advantages. (Example, a 'true-sight' unit countering a steal unit by removing its invisibility)

Badly designed Counters usually result in:

• Content Redundancy. (Limited choices when deciding what units or content is viable to use)
• Fewer viable in-game choices, and fewer strategies that a player can employ. (Players have a harder time playing how they wish)

Soft vs. Hard Counters

A Soft Counter is one where a unit has a statistical advantage over another, but skill and circumstance still determine the overall outcome of a match-up between a unit and their Soft Counter. Most game balance should be based on Soft Counters - as they help to enforce balance between units, but don't limit the countered player too much. Soft Counters are often described by saying that a unit "has the edge" or a slight advantage over the other - but the main feature of a Soft Counter is that skill still prevails.

A Hard Counter is one where there one unit has such a one-sided advantage over another, that the countered unit is seen as redundant and useless when the counter is in play. More often than not, the only way a unit can beat its Hard Counter is when there is a massive shift in power due to luck, or circumstance (finding your hard counter unaware, for example - or getting a lucky critical hit on them).

These should be avoided like the plague for the most part, as they create Content Redundancy. Still, if planned and executed perfectly, Hard Counters can be used effectively to stop dominations by exceptionally powerful, specialised units. And example of where hard counters are acceptable, is in RTS where invisible units can easily dominate players who do not counter them with anti-stealth towers.

A counter in between Soft and hard counters are often called 'Solid' or 'Tough' - and more often then not rely on circumstance as to where the counter is Soft or Hard.

Rewarding Players and Item Management

Introduction:

Torchlight is an amazingly fun game - it's simple, easy to play, well paced... and monsters drop rare items like there's no tomorrow.

Torchlight rewards its players for playing, there is no doubt there. Hell, it rewards you for letting your pet kill everything.

But is it too much?

The following is a fairly common sight in Torchlight, especially if you have just killed a boss ora large mob of tough enemies:

Many players when discussing Torchlight say "It's great fun, there's a lot of loot!" but then "There's too much downtime when trying to sort your loot".

So, while Torchlight is great fun as you're accumulating all these items, trying to sort through them is a bit of a chore.

How much Loot is too much?

Well, this depends on the game - but there is rarely such a thing as a severe case of "too much reward" as long as some basic systems are implemented.

First let's look at the cons of over-rewarding, with the cons of under-rewarding.

Over-Rewarding:

• Can make players too powerful for their current place in the game.
• Can make challenges easier than was intended.
• "It's too noob-friendly"
• Can overwhelm players.
• Can lower player's excitement when loot drops.

Under-Rewarding:

• Makes players feel as if they haven't progressed in the game.
• Makes players feel unrewarded (well.... of course)
• Can force players to grind for rewards, rather than playing the game and enjoying it.

As you can see, it's better to over-reward than under-reward.

Simple System to Combat Over-Rewarding

Out of the 4 problems, the first two pertain to the player outgrowing the current state of the game - and becoming too powerful, or having alternate ways to navigate puzzles and challenges that defeat the purpose of the challenge.

The 3rd isn't really a problem - but a faulty attitude that some developers have. Developers shouldn't have it in for new players, and they shouldn't force players to jump through hoops to play their game. They should encourage different styles of play. End of rant about anti-player developers.

The fourth and fifth points are problems associated with Torchlight, and can be fixed in a couple of ways, which I'll get to later.

The best way to fix the player becoming to powerful for the game are:

Level Caps (in a random drop system)

Level caps make random drop systems. You cannot have a random drop system without some kind of level limit on equipment - otherwise yes, a level 8 Zombie might just drop a level 10 Hand Cannon. Other systems rely on level limits as well, such as trading systems - so that veteran players cannot give newer players their high level gear.

For looting systems, I think a good idea is to make a double-security system.

You can limit players from obtaining high level items by:

• Stopping them from dropping.
• Giving items a level cap, so only players of a certain level and higher can use them.

The second part is simple, and essential. I don't feel like I need to explain it at all.

The first can be more complex.

Many developers will instinctively say "Well, restrict drops to be that player's level and under." Though, while this works, there are definite reasons for making the system a little more complex. One such reason is that when a player gets an item that is really useful - but that is of a higher level than they are, they strive to wear it, and in fact make it another goal to aspire to.

Since they already have the item, and the goal is made up by the player, it's like a freebie reward that keeps the player playing with no additional work from the developer.

Just be mindful, you must restrict the items that can drop for the player. A Level 8 player is probably going to have forgotten about a Level 60 Chest-piece by the time they are able to wear it - and if all items are in the pool to be randomly dropped, your player may not find any relevant to his current place in the game, when he needs them.

A good idea is to make it so that only items a maximum of 5-6 levels away (though, this depends on your game and the speed of leveling) can be dropped. Also, a good idea is to make the system such that items 6 levels higher than the player are quite rare, while, items one level higher are more common.

Clamping the drop system around the lower limit range is important too, as, players don't want to be finding Level 8 items as a Level 10. For this reason, you may want to make it so no common items (of low standard) are dropped when the player is of a higher level. Rare items with special traits though, can perhaps take up a part of the random drop pool.

Common Sense (in a fixed drop system)

If there is no randomness to your equipment acquisition system, and your player is gaining items before they should - then... well.... that is a problem easily solved.

If you know a player shouldn't get a Rocket Launcher before Level 20, and you feel you need to reward them more... do not give them the Rocket Launcher during Level 18. Balance is the top priority - use your common sense and work out another reward to give your player.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If the player is suffering from having simply too many items, the following systems could be implemented.

Selective Item Drops:

This system involves altering the probabilities that various items will drop, and is often accompanied by the drop rate being lowered. This essentially gives the effect of dropping all of the good items that the player wants (they feel rewarded), while hindering the probability of a 'trash item' dropping (the player has less to manage).

Obviously, items of a lower level than the player are going to be seen as trash, unless there are very unique traits on the item. As already explained, low level items should be somewhat uncommon.

A smart way of weeding out irrelevant item drops would also be to evaluate the player's character. Essentially, lower the probability of items that the player cannot (or will not) use, and raise the probability of a more useful item dropping. An example would be a player playing the staple Mage, rarely getting Plate and Chain Mail drops, while still finding Cloth armour.

This is simple, Class > Class-usable items. An even smarter way of selecting drops would be to analyse the player's actions. If this Mage is always using its fire spells over its ice spells - give it more equipment with fire damage.

Remember, in terms of rewarding players:

Quality of Item Drops x Frequency of Item Drops = Reward.

So that you can have great items dropping sparsely, good items dropping commonly, or terrible items dropping a lot - and, the total gain of power is somewhat the same.

Obviously, there is an optimal amount of items that a player wants to hold, and so it's your job to find that.

Note that frequent drops feel more rewarding than rare drops however. Find the right balance.

Easier Management of Items:

Players need to be able to easily manage the amount of items that they possess.

Depending on the number of items that they possess though, the systems will change. An FPS will likely only require enough item slots to carry weapons, grenades, and health packs - while a resource based RPG may have a bag spanning over 100 items.

Depending on the game you may want:

• Multiple item selection
• Stacking items
• Item sorting
• Item categories
• Item comparison

It's really up to the designer to know what tools are best for managing the items that their game gives to the player.

Storage Handling

Many games have a 'Safe Deposit Box' or 'Bank' where you can put items that you'll rarely use, but still want to hold on to.

Others, also have boxes where you can put items to trade them between your individual characters.

Depending on your game, it's something to think about. I would at least recommend a bank. It makes having lots of items much easier to handle.

Conclusion:

I think I'm done now, so:

Over-rewarding is better than under-rewarding.

And methods of dealing with rewards and item drop issues are:

• Level Caps
• Common Sense
• Selective Item Drops
• Item Management Systems
• Storage Handling

More articles coming soon (hopefully next week).

Concise Writing for Video Games

First Off:

Here we are, I'm back! I was never anywhere but here, but, I am back in the mood to write design articles.

I think what frightened me off is the amount of work that I'm doing at college, and on Pokemon Universe, as well as working, trying to catch up with friends, and gaming taking up a lot of my time. This coupled with the fact that when I wrote articles they were often a full day investment and usually had over 2000 words, meant that I was struggling to find the time and will to write.

To help myself, I have decided to change my style a little. Though, this is also to help people read my articles. While I enjoy describing my design ideas and philosophies to a detailed extent, it takes a lot of my time to write, and a lot of commitment from a reader to read in full.

Just like I say that a player shouldn't have to work through a game like a chore, readers shouldn't have to work through my articles.

I thought it would be fitting to make my first article back about concise storytelling and instruction in video games.

Introduction

Concise means: "Terseness and economy in writing and speaking achieved by expressing a great deal in just a few words"

Have you ever had a friend who tries to tell a story, or explain a concept - but, who gets so bogged down on the pointless details that you can't understand them?

And you're just tapping your foot, waiting for them to get to the point, and, even if they do, sometimes you don't understand?

Games are headed that way.

There are games that try to tell a story, or explain a gameplay mechanic - but, get so bogged down on the pointless details and backstory, that players don't bother paying attention.

The players just mindlessly tap 'A', waiting for the the cutscene or dialogue sequence to finish, and, when it does, the player doesn't even feel enriched.

It has to stop.

I would consider this problem to be a crime of hubris.

Designers need to always remember that they make the game for the players to enjoy, primarily. Badly designed communication often comes about when a company wants to show off their next generation cutscenes, or, thinks that every player wants to hear as much dialogue as can be thrown at them. Remember, the player is your priority.

Quality > Quantity

Nobody gains anything from lengthy dialogue and too-long-cutscenes. They intrude on the gameplay experience, and simply annoy players. Most players are just mashing their interact button and sighing, or taking a sip of their drink.

Unlike what you may think, storytelling is not enhanced with more words or time alloted to it. In novels, yes, there need to be a significant number of words allocated to setting up scenes, the nature of character interactions and mood - but don't be fooled. As much as you want your game to have a powerful story as if it's a novel, video games are a graphical medium. You don't need to write a novel to make a good story, as a large portion of the description is covered by the graphical elements of the game.

Dialogue, a major part of storytelling, needs to be direct and clear. Players want realistic dialogue - which, for the most part, is very brief in real life. As we covered before, people are irritated by others who cannot express themselves quickly, it is exactly the same in games and movies. Players find it very hard to sympathise with a dying character, who, for the last half of the game, they have been yelling at to "SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!"

Concise writing makes good story telling, and will give you the powerful emotional moments that you want.

Ways to Fix These Issues:

#1 Optimisation of Dialogue

To get realistic, succinct dialogue, look at good TV shows. TV shows have to stay within either a 25 minute, or a 45 minute time slot - and so, the writing has to be very optimised so that an episode can cover however many plot points it needs to within that time limit. Try to find shows with a similar tone and plot layout to your game, and analyse it.

Quick list of some well written TV shows:

• Heroes (Season 1) (drama/action/mystery/sci-fi);
• Dexter (crime drama/suspense/black comedy);
• NCIS (comedy/crime drama);
• Scrubs (comedy/drama);
• Get Smart (comedy/parody/action);
• Supernatural (horror/thriller/mystery)
• Boston Legal (legal drama/comedy) (anything by David E. Kelley is good.)
• Avatar: The Last Airbender (adventure/fantasy/action/comedy)
• Etc. etc.

Another idea you can try is just saying the dialogue to yourself. If the wording sounds clumsy, you can often simplify it just by trying to express the point in your own words. Another idea that can help is imagining that you're saying it to someone who doesn't have much patience - because when it comes down to it, audiences often have little.

Try to also optimise cutscenes - don't make one for every level opening and after every remotely difficult enemy. Players will buy a movie if they want to watch a movie.

That said, some games use frequent cutscenes to great effect - such as Bioware's recent titles Mass Effect and Dragon Age. The main point I'm trying to get across, is that your players aren't playing for movies - and, if they are not well planned and executed, cutscenes can be an annoying, obtrusive obstacle to the player's enjoyment of the gameplay.

Whether they are sparse or common, by making well directed, interesting cutscenes, players will enjoy, and cherish them - considering them to be a great feature of the game.

A good case study for good cutscenes would be Borderlands. The cutscenes are short, limited to important characters and bosses, and have a good sense of humour. Players like them, and they capture the tone of the scene perfectly, while not intruding on gameplay at all.

#2 Make all Cutscenes and Dialogue Boxes Skippable.

Simple, eh?

This one doesn't really have to be explained. Make it so that there is a skip button for cutscenes, and that the 'skip command' will near-immediately go to the next message box when it comes to dialogue. Hopefully, if you've optimised your dialogue well, players won't want to skip text at all, but this means that they can if they want to - and, there won't be as much to skip.

Another point I'd like to make is, if there's an NPC that doesn't say much of value - please, one message box of dialogue only. Players hate to accidentally hit the interact button at the wrong time, and get roped into 5 lines of slow, useless dialogue.

#3 Less Intrusive Dialogue Boxes.

One development that has positively affected communications in games is persistent, but unobtrusive messages. They're usually found near the top of the screen, giving you information - but they do not take control away from your character to close them, and often close when a criteria has been met (you've executed the command that they are instructing you do to, etc.).

These are good.

Players can ignore them if they wish, but they still give information to those who need it. It is a far better system than a message box which takes control away from the character, especially because the player can execute the command as they read the message. Another advantage, is that it doesn't have to pop up to remind the player of the correct key presses, if they fail to do the keypresses the first time.

If you're going to give instructions to your player, I definitely recommend using the less obtrusive message boxes. Just remember to give your players a way to turn them off.

Optimising Messages - Examples

Here I'll just put down a couple of examples of intrusive and annoying messages in games, and I'll try to fix them up. Starting with the queen of painful buttonmashing, Nurse Joy.

(// designates a new Message box)

"Hello, and welcome to the Pokemon Center. //

We restore your tired Pokemon to full health //

Would you like to rest your Pokemon? ( YES / NO prompt) // (YES chosen)

[Animation, as your Pokemon jumps onto the counter and the Pokeballs are put into the machine]

OK, I'll take your Pokemon for a few seconds... //

Thank you for waiting. //

We've restored your Pokemon to full health. //

[Animation, as player puts balls in pocket]

Please, come back again any time!" //

~ Nurse Joy healing your Pokemon in Pokemon Heart Gold.

That's 7 messages, and 2 animations, just to heal your Pokemon. Something that you're doing a LOT in this game. It takes roughly 15 seconds when I buttonmash as fast as I can. That is infuriating.

What is even more infuriating, is that this game's Message Box allows for 2 lines of dialogue at any one time - and yet, Nurse Joy uses only one line for each message.

I would optimise it as such:

"Welcome to the Pokemon Center, would you like me to heal your Pokemon? (YES/NO prompt) //

[Much shortened animation, perhaps a second of the machine flashing]

Your Pokemon have been fully restored, good luck!" //

Finished. It should only take at most, 2-3 seconds.

And really, for an action that players will be doing time and time again - it should be as quick as possible.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another example would be in Final Fantasy Advance Tactics 2 (which, by the way, has a game-start sequence of several minutes that is unskippable, terrible.) - when the main character is being inducted into the clan that he fights for.

"Quick! Join our clan! Your bones may be broken while in our clan but you can never die!"
"Why should I join?"
[Bird pecks at main character]

"Because I can guarantee that you'll get no such offer from him!"

"Okay so what do I do?"

"Swear your oath to the Judge! Say you'll join the clan!"

[Long animation as the judge is summoned]

"That's a judge?"

"Quickly! Before the beast has time to act!" (this sequence has taken so long that really, by now, a turtle could have slaughtered them all...)

"Hey judge, I swear my oath, let me join the clan!"

[Animation]

"Woah check it out!"

[Animation as 2 birds appear]

"Ah, he's brough the little ones along to feed"

"Stand back stranger, we'll handle this lot!"

"Ready yourselves!"

"You're going to fight them?"

"Once you stand back as I've told you, yes."

"Hey let me take a swing at them, I've sworn my oath, right? I cannot be killed as you said!"

"Harrrumph! Spoken like a true greenhorn!"

"You cannot die, but, if you take a peck in the eye, you might wish you had"

"Well I didn't mean I'd go in first or anything. And I'm no fan of getting beaked."

[Battle Start]

Okay I'm actually going to cut it there - it's starting to annoy me. By the time you get to actually take your first action that isn't filling in your character sheet, you've spent 4 minutes and 14 seconds mashing 'A' (like I said, terrible). And, as you can tell, the dialogue, while in character, is mostly pointless.

If I were to alter the above scene, I'd recognise that

a) Luso must be inducted into the clan (or must he? Truthfully, I think that inducting him into the clan so quickly was a bit of a stretch, why not just throw him a sword and say "We'll teach you how to fight, as it's a dangerous world out there"?)

b) The two additional birds must appear.

c) Luso must find a reason to fight.

"Quick! Join our clan! We can protect you!"

[Luso runs to clan leader]

"Okay! So what do I do?"

"Swear your oath to the Judge! Say you'll join the clan!"

[Shorter animation as the judge is summoned]

"Hey judge, I swear my oath, let me join the clan!"

[Animation as 2 birds appear]

"There are more of them, we might need your help!"

"But I don't know how to fight!"

"We'll teach you along the way!"

[Battle Start]

I do respect the humour that was added in to the situation, but, with the fact that the introduction has already spanned over 3 minutes at this point, it should be cut short.

Also, as said, when the sequence of initiation has easily been nearly 25 seconds, the humor of "Oh my God! Do it quick or it'll eat us!" isn't that charming. It's more annoying, at least for my taste.

Conclusion

The Pros of Optimised Communication

• Better storytelling.
• Players will read and understand your communication.
• Experienced players can skip conversation that they have already witnessed.

The Cons of Badly Written Communication

• Players will mindlessly buttonmash until they're past the dialogue/cutscene.
• Players will feel contempt for the majority of characters who have lengthy dialogue.
• Players will feel alienated and annoyed.

How to make sure your Communication is Concise and Well Written

• Time your dialogue sequences and cutscenes, and evaluate how long it should take.
• Read the dialogue a few times, and see if any seems clumsily worded or annoying.
• Look for inspiration from well-written media.
• Act out scenes to yourself.
• Make sure dialogue and cutscenes can be skipped.
• Use unobtrusive message boxes.

I think I'm done.

Another article coming tomorrow.

Upcoming articles.

I haven't updated in 3 months, and, well, it sucks a bit.

I need to motivate myself a little more, and so I figure that making a list of things to do will help with that somewhat.

- Make a 3 minute pitch for an idea I have, currently named "Sloth"

- Make a 3 minute pitch for an unnamed idea I have... it has zombie seals.

- An article on Game Introductions

- An article on maintaining your games.

- An article on tone (mainly humour) and music in games.

- An article on character depth.

- An article on rewarding players. (already touched on this)

If I don't get these done before Christmas, someone punch me in the balls.

Word Count!

I just did a word count of all of my blog posts, and the number was roughly 19500.
Cool I guess!

Pacing

Not updating for a month sucks. I have been a busy guy.

Introduction

Pacing is the rate at which a player progresses through the game, and the way in which progress is measured and rewarded.

I'll be blunt. Out of all of the gameplay mechanics you can consider, pacing is hands down the most important. I know I stress balance a lot - but really, with bad pacing, nobody will play your game long enough to find balance problems.

Pacing is what makes a good game concept a great game, or a total disappointment.

Unlike game balance, in the way that it can only be negative if done incorrectly, pacing influences your game positively. If you have good pacing, it will reward you, unlike if you have good balance that only doesn't fail you.

Why is it so important?

Time is very interesting to humans as while we can't perceive it, it has a profound effect on how we react to mediums.

Have you ever heard a song where the singer has an abrasive voice, the music is not in your taste, and yet... you still have the song stuck in your head for weeks?

You can never pick why you love that song so much - really, it shouldn't appeal to you at all - and yet it does.

Scientific studies have shown that this due to the song having a beat that you enjoy. Beat is pacing in the music world.

Similarly, have you ever watched a movie that really didn't appeal to your interests, the plot wasn't like the kind of movies you usually like, but... still... despite the fact that you hate romantic dramas, you secretly enjoyed this one? (Though you'll never admit that your girlfriend was right.)

Again, it's all the pacing of the movie.

This happens with games. You may think of yourself as a hardcore first person shooter player who loves gore and making 14 year olds cry - but then you'll find yourself obsessed with a simple comedic puzzle game for a week or two, until you finish it and get back to the shooting.

Despite the genre, this puzzle game likely had great pacing, that appealed to you.

Though, this can work against games as well. Let's say that you (the proverbial hardcore FPS addict with a penchant for dismembering babies) have been waiting for the goriest, most anti-baby shooting game EVER. It has rockets and chainsaws and zombies and twitch aiming - all of which appeal to you greatly.

You can pick up this game, and, if it has bad pacing and progression, you will simply find it a disappointment and go back to the puzzle game. You will often say "Ugh, it didn't really work for me" or "It was a little boring" or "It wasn't as fun as I thought it'd be" - and all of these will often point to a pacing issue.

Pacing is a mysterious fundamental to game design - but it is the most important aspect of it. Do it well, your game will be amazing to play, do it wrong, your game will be a disappointment.

Pacing is so important to fun, it's not even funny.

What does Pacing involve?

Pacing is made up of Progression, Measurement and Rewards. I guess we could call them the "PMR"s of Pacing. I've always wanted to have my own 3 letters of something. Now I do.

Progression - Pacing is the rate of progression throughout a game, game level, or encounter. In this post, I am mainly focusing on progression throughout the entire game.

Progression throughout the game needs to be just right. Too fast, and the player feels overwhelmed, too slow, and the player feels bored.

The setting, pursuit and achievement of goals should be timed such that the right amount of player effort is put into each goal depending on its over all importance on the game and the actions that must be taken.

If your goal requires too little effort, the player will feel like you're throwing simple content at them, or that the content was not explored properly ("That's all?"). If too much effort needs to be invested, players will simply feel like the outcome or reward simply isn't worth it, and they may stop playing if too many high effort, low payout plays occur in succession.

This is a problem with designers who don't design games to be fun, but more to control players and make them jump through hoops for the slightest congratulations. They don't recognise that if players don't find a game fun, they will just turn it off, and play one that is.

Remember guys, domineering designers don't hook players. You want your games to be enjoyable.

Measurement - A good practise with pacing is breaking up the game into clearly defined chunks that can aid players in progression consciously, or subconsciously. Most games break up their games into levels, areas, or rounds - all of which can help a player gauge their current progression throughout the game, and help them to decide what must be done next.

The best part is, designers do this without really thinking of it. When they think of a concept, they say "Okay, the game will have 20 levels" - and there you have it, the game has been clearly divided into stages.

When a player understands their position in the game, it helps greatly when they must remember what has already been done, and what needs to be done. If a player loads their save game in Level 13, they understand that they have already beaten 12 levels, and they will likely be able to recall a past level to remember what tools they have at their disposal.

Knowing your position in a game is a memory-jogger.

With the player's memory jogged, they are more likely to understand what is expected of them in the future. This counters that horrible feeling when you enter a game, you look at your main map, and you have no idea of what you have done, or where you need to go.

I will note that you don't need to have numbered game levels. They are the simplest indicator of progression (Level 13/20), but other games have very effectively demonstrated the ability to measure progress through other methods.

A good example is in World of Warcraft, where certain areas have level recommendations. If you know the areas and their general level recommendation, you can quickly remember what you were doing, and what stage your character is at in the game.

Similarly, the games Bioshock and Batman: Arkham Asylum have you exploring themed areas, which can show your progress. The visual imagery of the "Medical Ward" can have the players remember a lot more than a simple fraction - so you can use this to your advantage when creating levels and areas, making them visually distinct from each other.

Just remember, if a player understand their position in the game, they will find the game far easier to get into - which is of course what you want. You want players to enjoy your game, and be able to pick it up quickly from where they last left off - whether they left the game for 5 minutes to get lunch, left it overnight, or didn't leave it at all and have just began the next stage of the game.

You want your game to clearly convey to the player what they are to do.

Rewards - Rewards are great. Rewards are what players want, whether the rewards are implicit or explicit - whether they add onto gameplay, or are simply a progression through a stage of the game.

While rewards are great - you must be mindful to not reward players too much (the rewards will get stale when they should be significant to the player), or too little (as previously explained, if a player feels as if their effort gets unrewarded, they will find the game less fun).

Rewards are important to pacing as they provide feedback for what players have done, they are a cherry on the cake of the player's achievement (you feel great killing a boss, but even better when he drops a massive sword!) - and they often lead into the next part of the game.

Different games offer different rewards, depending on the task that is being rewarded, and the genre of the game. Some rewards are explicitly shown and given to the player as a direct response to the player's achievement (such as defeating the boss and getting a magic item), while others are less advertised to players, but are still very much rewards for their effort.

An Explicit Reward is the reward that players see, and they know is a reward. These are rewards such as "You got 42 exp for completing that battle" and then, "You attained 600 exp! You leveled up!". Similarly, chests found in secret locations are explicit rewards as are items found after battle.

These are the rewards that many designers dislike because they can be intrusive, and can break the flow of the game in intense moments - though, there's no denying that the more explicit a reward is, the more likely a player will feel rewarded for their efforts.

An Implicit Reward is one that is quite subtle in comparison to the explicit rewards - the reward may be invisible to the player, or it may not be recognised as a reward by most players.

One particular example of a reward that often isn't considered a reward is story progression. With the decline of adventure gaming and plot-heavy RPGs in favour of action games, story progression is no longer considered as a reward as much as it was - though, games that reveal plot skillfully, and have great plots that take effort to unfold are still among the most rewarding games.

Implicit reward is preferred over explicit rewards by many designers as they make the game experience more mature, and lend emphasis to concepts and features such as story and theme, where power ups and new game mechanics to explore may not be a viable option.

There needs not to be adversity between designers who favour either reward however, as it is the careful placement of both rewards that will make a great game that appeals to many players.

Despite what you may prefer, using both effectively is far better than only using one.

The Importance of Pacing in World of Warcraft: A Case Study

I want to close through talking about the somewhat controversial game World of Warcraft.

People are always divided on their opinion on this game - some people think it's a time-vampire, others think it's a cost effective means of entertainment (compare the monthly price to seeing a movie at the cinemas - you'll be shocked).
Similarly, opinion is divided amongst designers - some designers think it is effectively designed - and that its popularity is testament to this, others think the design is poor.

Whatever side of whichever fence you're on, you should definitely admit that World of Warcraft is a marvel when it comes to pacing - and is an excellent example of the importance of pacing in games.

World of Warcraft's game play, in my opinion, is too repetitive. You fight the same spiders at level 1, 14, 25, 35, etc. - just with slightly different models, and scaled stats. Some may have a new ability every now and then, but, it's all very similar - and if you are the right level, you will likely fight them in very similar ways, most likely using upgraded versions of the same spells you were using last time.

Similarly, quests are recycled over and over. There are roughly 4 template quests.
- Kill a number of certain enemies
- Go to a position on the map to find an item.
- Gather certain items from the ground.
- Escort this unit from one map position to another (very rare).

There are subtle differences - for example some quest will ask you to kill boars and collect their tusks. Smart designers however, will realise that this is just a slight variation on the first quest.
If tusks drop 100% of the time, and you need 8 tusks, you essentially need to kill 8 boars.
If the tusks drop 50% of the time, this just means that you have an average number of kills to make (with a minimum number of kills, there is however no maximum). You will be able to finish this quest in 8 kills, but you will need to make 16 kills on average, and, there's the chance you'll need to make 100000 kills. (This is of course, assuming there is no Pseudorandom Distribution system in the game which increases the probability of an outcome every time it doesn't happen.)

Regardless, many players and designers still believe the gameplay of World of Warcraft is fairly lacking in variety. This conclusion is also supported by an amazing occurrence in many MMORPGs that at times require grinding - and that is when players pay others to play their game for them.

Why would they do this?
It's simple - the rewards the player wants to attain are considered more important to a player's enjoyment than the experience of gameplay, a player will play merely to get their character to the highest peak in the game.
This is of course, one of the main problems when creating an RPG - you want to avoid grinding.

Now, let's explore why players feel this need for basic progression, over the enjoyment of experience (I like to call them 'progressophiles').
World of Warcraft is ingenius in this respect, its pacing creates this desire for progress by bombarding you with rewards as you level.

Let's look at it like this.

• Every level, you get a Talent Point to spend on your skill trees.
• Every 2 levels, you attain new spells, and upgrades to old spells.
• Every 3-4 levels, you get access to new instances (dungeons with bosses that require a team to complete), and quests in the area.
• Every 5 levels, you get access to new tiers in your talent tree, opening up more ways to diversify your character.
• Every 10 levels, you get access to a new battleground (PvP), abilities pivotal to your character are gained through the Talent Tree, and you gain new class skills that are key to the definition to your character (for example, the Druid's animal forms, a Warlock's summons, etc.). Every 10 levels, the recommended region for you to level in also changes, resulting in a new environment to explore.
• Ever 20 levels, you get access to massive game mechanics that greatly change how how your character can interact with the world - such as through mounts.

Then, at levels 60, 70 and 80, the amount of content that you can access explodes, as they are the end of the game for each expansion, and you can access all content your expansion limit has to offer - with each expansion adding new worlds, raids, and other activities.

You can kind see how World of Warcraft hooks people in, can't you?
You are bombarded by rewards every time you level, all of which giving you access to many new ways to diversify your character and interact with the game.
People love to be rewarded, and this game delivers to an extraordinary degree. This keeps them playing, and playing, often just to get more and more.

With this knowledge of why World of Warcraft is so successful, it's quite easy to see why so many MMORPGs that try to stand against it fail. That element of constant recognition of achievement and reward is often far less present in these competitors, and, as such, the repetitive gameplay often associated with MMORPGs stands out more - which bores players.
And that is exactly what I mean when I say pacing is extremely important - with great pacing, your game is far more fun to play, regardless of some possible shortcomings. Similarly, a game with bad pacing will be no fun to play, despite other features that would otherwise make it amazing.

For all those would-be-rewarders though, I must warn you. While World of Warcraft does deal out great numbers of rewards often, you still should be mindful of over-rewarding players for simple actions.
World of Warcraft is able to dish out the rewards because levelling does take a fair amount of time as you progress. While leveling from 1 to 6 often takes around an hour for experienced players, 6-10 can be several more, 10-20 can take days.
Don't reward players with new swords, guns, and characters every 10 minutes - keep in mind your genre, and the difficulty associated with the achievements that unlock that reward.

Summing Up

• Pacing is extremely important to all games.
• Pacing can subconsciously affect the player players respond to game.
• Pacing is defined by the rate of progression through a task in the game (or throughout the whole game)
• Games should move at different ideal paces depending on genre - not too fast or too slow.
• Pacing often involves breaking up the game into distinct sections. (Measurement)
• When players recognise these sections it allows them to evaluate what has been done, and needs to be done easily.
• Pacing also very much deals with the way in which rewards are given to the player for achievement.
• Rewards don't have to be explicitly shown and given to the player, though both types of reward should be given.
• Rewards should be given according to the effort required to complete the tasks set.
• Over-rewarding can work against you when players are used to the rewards given, and as such, don't feel as rewarded when they attain them.
• Under-rewarding will definitely work against you, as players will quit your game if they feel the effort is not worth the reward.
• Pacing is extremely important to all games.

I hope you all found the post a good read - and I'll try to update again soon.

How to Set Up Balance

So as you all know, the Undeadables is in development as a Warcraft 3 map.

Hewie sleeps over once a week, and we just make progress, watch movies, stuff our faces, and then as I wake up earlier than him in the morning I sneak out making him feel like a cheap whore.

Err... for the last reference I'd recommend seeing Up In The Air.

Also, a classmate at the AIE kind of pointed out an issue with game design blogs (or more, a personal reason for why he doesn't blog) - and that's because of people possibly stealing ideas.

I made my blog for educational reasons - both for myself and others. I like to clarify my thought by writing it all down, and I hope people read it so they can maybe refine the way they think about games - or, in some cases, they can flat out disagree and perhaps change mine.

That said, projects such as The Undeadables, and any other full game concepts I post here are my intellectual property (and any others who I am working with), and pretty much don't steal them.

Not saying they're good enough to be stolen, but in a world where they're selling L4D expansions as totally new games - I'm just being careful.

Introduction

This blog post is about starting your game, and setting it up to be balanced.

This is something you need to get right from the start. Prepare for it before you start making the first prototype. If you don't set it up properly at the start, you're going to regret it - especially if you don't apply any other methods of balance, or test it extensively.

Test your changes throughly with reference to balance. For every change you make to a player's stats and such, don't just boot up the game and see if it updated properly... makes tests to see how many enemies you can take on at once (for example), in comparison to what you'd like the player to be able to do.

Not testing as you go creates not only potential for massive code errors, but potential for terrible balance problems.

I follow this process when creating a game idea, when thinking of balance.

7 Steps to Ensuring Balance

1. Create expectations for all basic variables that will affect play, and evaluate how they will affect balance.
2. Apply any simple balance strategies that will be used.
3. Develop expectations for a battle between two or three basic units.
4. Test the match ups.
5. Alter until expected results are reached.
6. Repeat step 3-5 for all other units, with reference to step 1-2.
7. Test over and over and over whenever changes are made.

Now I'll go over each step.

Step 1 - Create expectations for all basic variables that will affect play, and evaluate how they will affect balance.

#1 is extremely important, but very few people even think of it. Most people jump right into "Okay how many backstabs should it take to kill a Mage?" without thinking of variables that will make these numbers vary a lot.

You should consider such variables as:

1. Game Time - The average time total in an instance of the game (such as a 'round' or a 'game'), as well as the rate at which players progress through the game is extremely important when it comes to balance.

For example, A character who slowly amasses massive amounts of power throughout a game will love a full 80 minute game as it suits his play style, while a character who totally dominates early in the game would love a game style that can be beaten within 10-20 minutes.

The game time in a single instance of play greatly affects balance depending on PCU's rate of power gain throughout the curve, so Game Time should be clearly defined.

That said, game time should be clearly defined anyway - as let's face it, most players can't play a 3 hour game, and others won't get much satisfaction from a 1 minute skirmish.

For the most part, most team based player vs. player games are focused around 40 minute times, often split into halves and quarters. For individual versus individual games, the time may be anywhere from 5-10 minutes.

That said, it depends on the game, and its gameplay. An RTS will always be slower than a fighting game, and an RPG will hopefully be even slower than that.

Pick a game similar to yours, and shoot for that game time.

Also, as a little pointer, if you're having trouble finding find the best game time for your game, shorter is better than longer for the majority of players.

2. Number of Players - the number of players in an instance of a game is important. Thankfully, most people will immediately define this, unlike average game time. Like game time, number of players definitely affects game balance.

If the game is based around teams of 2, and one character has the ability to disable another for a long period of time, that player will have a lot of power as he can reduce the power of a team by half, and potentially make combinations of that team's abilities impossible to pull of. Rather, if he was in a game where teams were of hundreds of units, being able to disable one is fairly pointless.

Similarly, Area of Effect abilities become more useful than single target abilities when teams get larger. Common sense.

Pretty much, make sure you know how many players will be playing, and how it will affect your game.

3. Player Skills - How much skill can a player apply to your game? And what skills in particular? Will your players have to out-aim each other, or will other skills be called into play?

If you haven't read my article about Skill Ceilings and Floors, I recommend you do so.

Remember how your effectiveness at your skill ceiling is equal to your absolute potential?

If a unit can reach their absolute potential, and it is far more effective than other units at this potential or skill level - you have an imbalance.

This one can be difficult to test, as you don't know how players will play until you have them playing and developing skills. Still, applying logical reason will at least lower the chances of massive imbalance if players formulate unexpected play styles.

First off, know your genre and how it's played - if you're making an FPS, know that there are Quake players out there who will hit players in the air with rockets from half the map away, and there'll be Counter Strike Snipers who can hit a head with less then half a second exposure.

Research other games and skill levels of players who at the top of these games.

Another concept to understand is... simple inbuilt restrictions. Cooldowns on abilities means they can't be spammed as fast as a user clicks a button. Move speed limits means a player can't zip around the map as fast as they can hammer the WASD buttons.

I feel like I'm babying you all, but - well, if you introduce simple time limitations on each action that require it, you're not going to have strange bugs and combinations of actions that can result in imbalanced movements and attack strategies.

The last point relates largely to the first two - know your engine. If you're creating your own engine, your software designers are going to have to understand the game and what is and is not allowed. You need to communicate properly.
Make sure they are knowledgeable of similar games and bugs/exploits/etc. that were in those. You may want to make a list of possible problems, and you will need good communication to ensure no bugs pop up.

If you're using another engine, play the games that have been made on it- and test bugs yourself. If one has a large following, especially a competitive scene - ask them about any bugs that are due to technicalities in the game (they may call them 'Advanced Techniques').

4. Game Area
The playable area in game also affects balance. This is quite obvious - someone who can maneuver faster will be able to run rings around slower opponents in enclosed areas, while Area of Effect attacks are extremely effective in enclosed spaces.
To limit the effects of game area on your game, you can try to make neutral areas that don't particularly favour any character - this is best for games where a stage advantage will imbalance match ups and can't be compensated for with intelligent play or team strategy (such as fighting games, in which stage balance is required as it's 1v1 and games are often very close and skill based).

There are many other variables that you must consider - and they will definitely change for individual games.
Find these variables then define them and their impact on your game's balance.

Step 2 - Apply any simple balance strategies that will be used.
Balance strategies are theoretical approaches to game balance that don't necessarily rely on number crunching to balance.

1. Role-based Balance
Role-based balance is a widely used balancing strategy - or, at least, it should be.
The approach involves looking at your PCUs, and giving them very specific and different roles within a team - while ensuring that the more rounded PCUs do not encroach too heavily on these roles.
If done correctly, you have a range of units who are not only exceptionally different and appeal to different players, but you ensure that no PCU is considered useless the entire role is considered redundant (in which case you have quite an issue and you may need to refocus your unit).

2. Strength/Weakness-based Balance.
Strength/Weakness-based Balance is where you give every PCU a main area of strength, and an easily exploitable weakness. The weakness is the key balancing point here. With the weakness, the PCU can be outplayed and exploited by hopefully any other PCU, whose own weaknesses can be played on. Similarly, with the different weaknesses come different strengths - and so players strive to battle in their element. The winner is ultimately the player who exploits the other's weaknesses and plays on their own strengths best - or, if both players evaluate the situation properly (and so don't enter situations where they will be weaker), it is defined by other skills.

The only issue is that often encounters will thus be based on luck, and running into someone who's in the wrong place at the wrong time. To counter this, map/game awareness should be highlighted as an important skill to players - and all PCUs should have the opportunity to act on awareness and turn ambushes around.

3. Counter-based Balance
Counter-based balance basically says "If every PCU has a reliable way of countering a strategy, unit or move, less attention needs to be focussed on balancing individual moves, units and strategies."

This is true to a point - but, well, you obviously can't smack an easy-to-use OHKO on a single PCU and tell everyone to "just dodge it" (much to the contrary of what many gamers think). Similarly, this strategy has the limitation of not being usable for all games

The idea is that if counters are readily available, and every player and PCU has access to them - there are no situations in which a player will be totally overpowered by another equally skilled player unless there are ridiculous mistakes (a character starts with 10% of the HP of other characters) or bugs in the game.

A good example is in Guilty Gear XX - where characters have the ability to do such things as

• Make their upper hitboxes invulnerable
• Emit a force that pushes enemies away.
• Do an immediate counter attack from block.

But that's not all, they can also use "Burst" which lets them totally break out of a combo if they are locked - counterattacking their opponent to break the combo.

Now here's the kicker - all characters have access to these moves. This means they have an array of defensive moves that effectively break them out of any situation, so, they always have a way of countering their opponent's actions.

Though, just so you don't read the above features of Guilty Gear and think people are unkillable turtles because they have too many defensive options, rest assured - every action above takes up 'Super' - meaning that you can't use them too many times unless you regenerate super by playing effectively.
The Burst actually uses up the Player's burst power, which regenerates slowly such that you will likely only get one burst per round. Also, if you fail to hit with a burst (which are fairly easy to block and punish), you lose all of your burst power, meaning you no longer have such a strong counter measure.
Pretty much, the game isn't too defensive - but every player has a lot of defence options to counter all imbalanced situations. This means you can have a larger variety of characters with a large variety of moves - with the potential for imbalance being far less than other games with a similarly varied roster.

Enough about Guilty Gear, anyway, I might make an entire separate post for it if I really feel like I need to give some praise for excellent balance strategy.

Step 3 - Develop expectations for a battle between two or three basic units.
Okay, so by now you're expected to know what variables will affect your game's balance, and you know what kinds of balancing techniques you can apply to your game (I also recommend you use one or create your own - think of what your game requires and what has been used in the genre.) - now you must highlight some basic combat situations and the outcomes of these situations.
Consider a couple of the units you wish to make, and say "X should be able to beat Y at close range, but should lose at close range" - or "X should be effective when pursuing this objective, but should be less effective when carrying out this task".
Do this with the most basic units - ones who are generally effective in most combat situations (for example a Sniper is not a good unit to start with because he sucks at close and moderate range combat, he is too much of a specialist).

A good idea is to use hit-counting and timing to describe exactly what you want to happen. This is not necessary, but useful of course.
If you want Unit X to kill Unit

Then you create these units in your prototype.

Step 4 - Test the match ups.
So you have your prototype and your units - you have your expectations for these units... let's get testing!
make
Play out several scenarios with the units and expectations in mind, and repeat them with slightly different positions etc. and make sure you're happy with the results - especially with regards to timing and hits.

If you're not, simply look at the values turning up, and see what can be tuned to make the match ups meet expectations.

As many scenarios as possible should be tested - but certain scenarios are well favoured over others.

You want to focus on common occurrences in the game - such as:

'Unit A counters Unit B. Unit B however has a slight level advantage over Unit A, and has ambushed the unit in favourable terrain at mid range - Unit B should win, but should sustain moderate damage (60% or so)'

This situation will arise.

However, there are obviously situations that are so unlikely that they aren't worth testing.

'Unit A counters Unit B, but has been afk for the whole game and so is still Level 1. Unit B is level 10 but ambushes Unit A in very unfavorable terrain at extremely long range. Unit B should still win without much problem.'

I think what I'm trying to say is, be thorough - but don't waste your time.

Really this is all just about controlled repetitions under different pretenses and tweaking the balance until it works well.

Repetition, repetition, repetition.

Step 5 - Alter until expected results are reached.

Ah I think I went over this in Step 4 with tweaking.

But, make sure you tweak intelligently. Make small changes, and make sure you clearly identify Variable Scope.

If you do this while tweaking, you should be fine. Save regularly, document and analyse any possible issues, test rigorously.

You know, all the good stuff.

Step 6 - Repeat step 3-5 for all other units, with reference to step 1-2.

Pretty much what we've covered so far - but more testing.

When you create a new unit - you need to know how the variables of the game will affect it (step 1), and if you have a balancing strategy in mind, you want to know how it will fit into that strategy (step 2), you want to know how it will interact with every other unit under different situations (step 3), you need to create and test these match-ups (step 4), then you need to make any alterations (step 5).

As said, we've covered it so far.

One little additional point I will make however is that as you create more units, the number of things you have to test increases and increases.

Think of it this way in a shooting game with 2 units you need to test perhaps 3 main situations - long range, medium range, close range.

Then you might want to test these in 3 areas, open area, moderately spaced area, enclosed area. That's 9 tests.

Let's add Unit 3 - you need to test him with 1 and 2 in each of these, so that's 18.

Perhaps units can be on teams, how will 2 unit 3s match up with a unit 1 and a unit 2.

What if unit 3 can choose between 2 weapons? What now?

As you add more and more, and there are more and more variables - the number of situations you need to test is astounding.

This is where balancing strategies come in.

The reason I recommend using balancing strategies is because they reduce necessary testing a bit - or, at the very least, aid it greatly.

This sounds awesome. But... well, let me be very clear.

You still need to test.

You still need to balance.

You still need to analyse.

I know some game designers that have taken a very devil may care attitude towards balance and testing because they think a balancing strategy will do all the heavy lifting for them.

"Hey, it's okay, we can do X because character Y still has a weakness to Z!"

No.

You're not allowed to arrive at that conclusion, unless you've done a lot of testing and analysis to come to it.

Don't get lazy.

Even with balancing strategies, I still test everything rigorously. Why? So I don't overlook an obvious problem and have to eat my words later.

Step 7 - Test over and over and over whenever changes are made.

This point has likely been sufficiently covered as well.

If I want you to go away with any knowledge after reading this blog post, it's constant testing is key to balance.

Conclusion:

This blog post was actually written over 2 weeks and had many paragraphs added and deleted over the period of writing, so frankly I'm just hoping it ties together nicely - but here's what I want you to go away with.

• Follow the 7 step process. If you follow it properly, and can follow the steps in reference to your game design - you won't miss a thing. Just know your game type, what variables will affect your balance, and possible balance strategies than can be applied and you'll be fine.
• Testing is key to balance.
• While balance strategies ease up on testing thousands of situations, don't even think of being lazy with it. You still need a lot of testing.
• If you're designing, do a lot of testing. If you're a programmer, get your designer to test. Designers often know what should and shouldn't happen, and how long it should take - or at least have a good idea of this.
• Setting up balance takes a lot of time, and must happen from the first prototype and units made, right through to the end. If you start too late, you'll likely need to totally remake some systems that would have been visibly problematic from the start. If you consider balance until the end, you'll likely have to backtrack changes.
• A monkey who understands balance scope and tweaking, testing a game for an infinite amount of time will eventually create a perfectly balanced game. Basically - don't give up. Keep testing, and thinking, and you'll get there with some hard work and ingenuity.

Anyway, thanks guys. I'd like to go in-depth for some balancing strategies.

Here's my to-do list for the moment:

• Pacing
• Single Player vs. Multiplayer Balance Concerns
• Balancing Strategies in Depth
• Canon vs. Gameplay
• Untitled Puzzle-Horror game idea.
• Untitled Puzzle-Adventure game idea.

I'll keep you all posted.