Hi!
I stumbled upon this blog which is about game design. There is m u c h information there and I found it interesting, thought I should share it with with you guys!
7 Likes
indeed, gamebalance is a hard topic.
especially when someone make games like dota / mmorpg.
i will propably read it later in free time. because there are many to read :roll:
+1
yeh holy shit, u read all that? gonna take me a few months 
looks good though, thanks
That is a lot. Yeesh…
I’ll have to have a read though.
Another one I like to keep up with which is a bit lighter and broader on games as a whole (industry observations, dynamics, politics everything) is a video series hosted by Penny Arcade called Extra Credits. I find it very informative and thought provoking.
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/show/extra-credits
They typically have a new video every wednesday and with very few exceptions I find their video’s pretty top notch.
The main thing with game balance is just to throw something out there, test it, and don’t be afraid to iterate or too attached to your first ideas.
I’m reading the first post now though, nothing really new so far but the guy seems to know what he’s talking about.
(http://gamebalanceconcepts.wordpress.com/2010/07/ - Level 1).
@wezrule I’ve only read about 4 posts so far, and I find it interesting… but then this is the kind of theory that I like 
@zarch I guess this is something you know about, I’ve seen your game trailer
@thecyberbob Hmm, that seems interesting. I’ll have to check that out. Thanks for sharing!
I’m almost feel like writing a game now… and then I’m just here because of the shiny graphics, and the chics… or… wait -.-
I’ve been doing game balance in some form or other (mostly hobby stuff) since 1996 so I’ve had a fair amount of experience
I’ve just read the first 4 lessons. Interesting stuff and an excellent grounding although still nothing really new so far. I liked the coverage of probability-as-applied-to-game-balance though which is very important. (My maths degree helps there…you really need to at least get the basics of probability for a lot of balance decisions :))
One lesson I learnt early actually is mentioned in one of those lesson - some abilities are just too powerful. No matter how bad the downside you cannot balance them. I had a really strong item in a mud that also had a ridiculous downside (it could kill you if used wrongly although it had warnings and it was possible to survive if you weren’t stupid).
What happened was people tried it, hit the down side, got scared, didn’t use it for a few months…then someone figured out how to bypass the downside and suddenly everyone was using it and nothing else.
We went through multiple rounds of balancing and tweaking and rebalancing and in the end we just had to nerf the primary ability to the point that everyone stopped using it. The thing was just broken whatever we did 
Was a shame as it was a fun concept but it just couldn’t be balanced effectively even by the risk of death (especially once the players worked out how to mitigate that risk down to effectively zero).
@zarch said:
I've been doing game balance in some form or other (mostly hobby stuff) since 1996 so I've had a fair amount of experience :)
I've just read the first 4 lessons. Interesting stuff and an excellent grounding although still nothing really new so far. I liked the coverage of probability-as-applied-to-game-balance though which is very important. (My maths degree helps there...you really need to at least get the basics of probability for a lot of balance decisions :))
One lesson I learnt early actually is mentioned in one of those lesson - some abilities are just too powerful. No matter how bad the downside you cannot balance them. I had a really strong item in a mud that also had a ridiculous downside (it could kill you if used wrongly although it had warnings and it was possible to survive if you weren't stupid).
What happened was people tried it, hit the down side, got scared, didn't use it for a few months....then someone figured out how to bypass the downside and suddenly everyone was using it and nothing else.
We went through multiple rounds of balancing and tweaking and rebalancing and in the end we just had to nerf the primary ability to the point that everyone stopped using it. The thing was just broken whatever we did :( Was a shame as it was a fun concept but it just couldn't be balanced effectively even by the risk of death (especially once the players worked out how to mitigate that risk down to effectively zero).
This happens in RPGs a LOT. I think rather than "random risk" or "risk" it's sometimes better to just have a super-ability be super-expensive to use... constantly... no way to mitigate it. But as you say, sometimes something is just too powerful to begin with and no amount of mitigation will make it playable. At some point, I will be testing those extreme limits in Mythruna. "Is requiring 12 powerful mages to nearly die applying life force, 10s of thousands of gold in one-use material, and some amount of time of prep enough to keep a powerful death ray from being abused?" We'll see.