Gonna stop using the word "balance" and start using the word "tuning." Whenever I talk about "balance", I get pulled into conversations about "overbalancing" and how "balance isn't that important actually"--which feel like non-sequitors to me. But I think I've just been using the wrong word. - ThreadSky

perryjon.bsky.social • 2 days ago

Gonna stop using the word "balance" and start using the word "tuning." Whenever I talk about "balance", I get pulled into conversations about "overbalancing" and how "balance isn't that important actually"--which feel like non-sequitors to me. But I think I've just been using the wrong word.

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kaboissonneault.bsky.social•2 days ago

It's so sad to leave a game in a state where many players don't explore most of the gameplay because there's one hammer that can turn everything into a nail. Tuning can help diversify gameplay without players feeling like they're playing with a handicap. Of course perfect equilibrium is not needed

perryjon.bsky.social•2 days ago

That's all correct, but I have even had designs where I am actively trying to tune for less equilibrium or trying to make certain aspects too strong on purpose. Which is why the word tuning works better for what I'm talking about.

qwertymartin.bsky.social•2 days ago

Ah yes, I like that distinction.

raventhon.com•2 days ago

Balance is a really interesting concept. I'm working on a game right now that's an autobattler royale with globally unique characters. I'm not even certain it's /possible/ to 'fully balance' - we have three different win conditions, so every character suits different playstyles, but...

raventhon.com•2 days ago

It also gets into some interesting territory when every character persists forever - figuring out how to balance incentivizing cycling through new characters with minimizing power creep is a very interesting problem.

perryjon.bsky.social•2 days ago

This is exactly my point -- I want to move the design conversation a way from this dead end where "it's not possible to fully balance" something. Instead, ask What are the specific dynamics I want? Can I shift the game closer to those by tweaking numbers or not?

raventhon.com•2 days ago

Yeah, it's a really thorny problem, especially with something with multiplayer. We're (I think, it's still early days) going to look at MMR on a per-character basis (or some sort of blended character/controlling player basis) because it seems impossible to ensure all units are balanced perfectly.

gamesbymanuel.bsky.social•2 days ago

"Seasoning"

bbornmueller.bsky.social•2 days ago

Tuning is a much better term. It’s also so much of the work.

jlobkowicz.bsky.social•2 days ago

This is a reasonable distinction. Though I'm probably going to keep saying balance when I mean balance even if some people will deliberately misunderstand it.

Honestly, I normally just say "it's in development."
When I am finished with the tweaking (and balancing), it becomes "ready."

perryjon.bsky.social•2 days ago

For sure. And in a many contexts, there's no need to worry about word precision like I'm talking about. It's really only when you're actively trying to hold heady conversations with other designers that it becomes important.

perryjon.bsky.social•2 days ago

To me, "tuning" describes the tweaking of numbers and other design dials to create the desired game dynamics. And it feels like fully 50% of my job as a game designer. It just feels so critical. I've had prototypes where the system itself appeared to be a failure but the issue was actually tuning.

perryjon.bsky.social•2 days ago

Furthermore, tuning is the part of the process that really gives way to effort and practice. Compared to say, building a core system, it doesn't rely as much on luck & flashes of insight. So it's a really good thing to work on as a designer. It's a skill you can get better at quickly.

perryjon.bsky.social•2 days ago

I think for some it's a tedious part of the process, but I love it -- I will happily spend a very long time tuning things. And I don't think it's wasted time. Maybe on the margin, you can spend too much time there -- certainly if it keeps you from finishing, that's bad. But mostly I embrace it.

perryjon.bsky.social•2 days ago

It seems to me that a good exercise in a game design class (and maybe this already exists, I wouldn't know) would be to hand students an intentionally broken game and then say you have to fix it, but you can't change any rules, you can only change numbers.

robhovak.bsky.social•2 days ago

Oh I love this so much! Changing rules is such a low hanging fruit when confronted with a problem, but often those early rules carry so much of the game's soul in them that changing them might fix the problem but also make the game more bland.

jwaaaap.com•2 days ago

100% the difference between a good and a bad dish can be the seasoning. love to get into a little “play-tune-play-tune” loop during development

robbobwill.bsky.social•2 days ago

Do you ever build simulators to run through iterations on a design? That's an activity I think I personally would enjoy (speaking as a layperson), especially if the goal is to make sure things don't come out *too* even.

perryjon.bsky.social•2 days ago

I actually build a fair number of simulations for my games these days, yes!

charlesjpratt.bsky.social•2 days ago

For our Intermediate Game Design class, @jessefuchs.bsky.social and I developed an exercise where students were given a copy of Ramen Fury with all the numbers removed, and they had to assign them all without changing any rules.

charlesjpratt.bsky.social•2 days ago

They were then allowed to design an expansion that introduced new rules, but they weren't allowed to re-tune the numbers.

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