Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Game Realm: Balance

Balance is an important concept in games. It gets talked about frequently, especially in any game with a competitive element. But what is balance? It turns out that that question can be surprisingly difficult to answer, in part, because it can refer to a lot of things. Conceptually, balance is the equivalence of two measures; that is, an even scale. It can also refer to stability; something that is well balanced won't fall down.

The concept of game balance is generally derived from that first definition; the equivalence of two measures. I call this Balance of Power (BoP) because the two measures are usually the power (strength, effectiveness, efficiency, etc.) of two "things", such as weapons or skills. The problem with determining the evenness of Balance of Power is that everyone has a different scale, and each scale is weighted differently. These scales are built from a person's perspective, and they are influenced by their skill, preferences, and prejudices. Effectively, there is nearly no such thing as an objective balance of power. Put another way, balance of power is almost entirely subjective.

Now, there is one clear instance where balance of power is objective, and that is when the only difference between two objects is one number – for example, a sword that deals 8 damage a hit versus a sword that deals 12 damage a hit. The sword that deals 8 damage is strictly worse than the one that deals 12, and thus, they are imbalanced. Of course, people generally don't complain about this sort of imbalance, because in the genres of games where this occurs, such imbalances are not only expected, but often desirable, as they allow for progression.

This concept leads straight into another definition of balance, and one that I think is far more useful: Balance of Environment (BoE). This balance refers to the environment in which a player plays, and can also be referred to as the balance of emotion or the balance of experience. It is this type of balance that asks the question, "Does this thing, or the relationship between these things, result in a desirable experience/emotional response/environment for the player?"

Too often we, players and game creators alike, get caught up in arguments about the balance of power; too much effort is put into trying to achievement a flat power curve – whatever that even looks like given that everyone has their own idea of its appearance. Far more time needs to go into evaluating that above question. There needs to be a responsiveness to the concerns of the community; though remember, complaints about balance of power are flavored by their perspectives. That said, if something prevents the community from having fun, enjoying, or engaging with the game, then I argue that it is imbalanced from a Balance of Environment perspective.


And so, I leave you, dear reader, with these thoughts: Remember that your concept of balance of power is influenced by your perspective, and seek to find solutions when you answer, “No,” to the question, “Does this thing, or the relationship between these things, result in a desirable experience/emotional response/environment for the player?" Also, remember that the balance of power is part of the balance of environment, and that in order to have a true feeling for what the balance of power most approximately is requires understanding the people who are making claims about its nature.