Week 9 in Game Design

Today in our lecture we were looking at game balance and how difficult it is to make an effective and fun game balance. We looked at multiple tried and tested ways of game balancing including:


Static balancing, this class involves building the game so that the game is fair and that nothing can break the rules of the game or interact with it in ways that the programmers didn't design. This is most often used to prevent one dominant strategy from arising since it would be unfair to punish players who want to be different by giving them a disadvantage.

The easiest way of achieving static balance is by making sure that all plays, and AI start and play with the same equipment, conditions and abilities. This ensures that nobody is left with an unfair advantage but it can make the game seem very boring if done incorrectly. Another way of achieving this kind of balance is by giving players equipment and abilities that are the equivalent  to the other side.

Transitive relationships is a form of balancing where one entity (Weapon, armour, ability) is useful in a wide variety of situations and this will usually cost more currency / time to acquire ensuring that you have to work for the better gear.

The flip side to this is Intransitive relationships, where elements are effective against another element, but each to a certain element. An example of this would be the classic game Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper and paper beats rock.

This ensures a fair play between all three elements depending on the situation, and is used for real time strategy games and RPGs. An example for how it would work in a strategy game would be having three unit types. For example, Infantry, Air and Vehicle. The infantry would be effective against air, air would be effective against vehicles and vehicles would be effective against infantry.


Something the developers might not be able to prevent is emergence. Emergence occurs when a player finds a combination of certain elements and can create a completely new style of playing that wasn't foreseen during production of the game.
If emergence is handled well, it can make a game that is quirky and fun to play since you can develop your own style of game play, however if it is done badly the nit could lead to there becoming a dominant strategy which we have already identified as a bad point to a game.


Difficulty levels are another thing that is hard to balance during game design, since players with different skill ranges will be playing the game. If you have only one mode of difficulty then it can lead to players either being bored or frustrated depending on their skill level.
One way to avoid this is to include difficulty levels in which the game can be played, but this can be seen to be the lazy option since players that have to play on the easiest option will feel pressured to play on a higher level.

Another way of developing skill level is by allowing the AI to grow and level up depending on how well the player is progressing skill wise. Intelligent AI design allows them to adapt strategy depending on how good the player is which can lead to enemies growing in level, being smarter, more tactical and a number of things.

All of these things attribute to making a balanced game and will be important to look at when making a game


















oba games typically have three lanes connecting the bases  with a "river" running perpendicular and we thought it best to continue this trend. Below is the map Summoner's Rift from League of Legends.


http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130131074330/leagueoflegends/images/archive/4/49/20131205125131!Summoner's_Rift_jungle_map_with_monsters.png

Our map layout will be of a similar style with slight alterations. Traditionally the middle lane is a straight path between the bases. We feel it would be good to have some sort of feature in the centre of the map with the lane going past it.The map is asymmetrical to a point, each important point on the map is mirrored and flipped in order to maintain a sense of balance while keeping the map interesting.

The area in between lanes in Moba games is known as the jungle. Within the jungle there are a number of enemies for the player to slay for experience and gold.

Jungle Monsters:
Giant Bear - Large bear and cub, Bear gives a buff granting extra health and resource regeneration in addition to gold.
Serpents - Grouping of 3 snake like creatures, one of which grants more gold and experience and is stronger than the other 2.
Sylph - Group of 5 air spirits.One of which is stronger and grants more gold and experience when slain.
Cyclops - Single enemy, strongest of the above enemies excluding the Giant bear.

In addition to the jungle creatures, each faction has an epic creature on their side that resides in the jungle. In order to slay the enemy epic, the central crystal must be in their factions control.

The Holy Order:
Gabriel is an angelic being that is seen as a messenger for the Sky Empire. With wings as white as snow, this being wards off enemies with waves of pure energy.
Energy ward: Gabriel is immune to all debuffs.

Heretic's Curse: The nearest enemy takes increased damage from all sources.
Blinding Light: All nearby enemies are blinded for 2 seconds.
Lights Binding: Snares all nearby enemies for 1 second.

The Shadow Sect:
Old Oak is a giant gnarled treant that channels natures spirits through it's leaves. It swings it's it's branches violently to defend against attackers.
Old Oak has a number of abilities it uses when being attacked by the Sky Empire.

Tough Bark: Old Oak is immune to all debuffs.
Thrashing branches: Old Oak lashes out with his branches smashing the nearest enemy for a lot of damage.
Seedling's Aid:Old Oak summons a seedling that runs a short distance away, taunting all nearby enemies for 2 seconds.
Force of Nature:Old Oak knocks back all close range enemies with a sudden gust of wind from his branches.

This is the layout of our map with the key showing each important area and enemy. .