Balancing the system out? Options

[MagitekElite]

Hello good forum!

I'm trying to get my demo ready for my beta testers but I found the battle system, HP set up and everything is unbalanced and makes the game way too fast, especially for the boss fights.

I've done some google searching, even with this forum, but can't seem to find anything. So I was hoping that maybe someone has some links for me, or could help me out?

Thanks!

MagitekElite~

[Jens of Zanicuud]

Hello good forum!

I'm trying to get my demo ready for my beta testers but I found the battle system, HP set up and everything is unbalanced and makes the game way too fast, especially for the boss fights.

I've done some google searching, even with this forum, but can't seem to find anything. So I was hoping that maybe someone has some links for me, or could help me out?

Thanks!

MagitekElite~

Ok, first point:
what kind of battle system are you employing?
what kind of character growth are you employing?

If the answers are standard damage calculation and characters grow by means of EXP and gain level, I can give you a couple of advices.

I can read your question into two ways:

1. How damage calculation actually work?

Damage calculation is a sort of why???, since it's something not balanced at all. It's too simple to do 0 damage, with that crappy system.
When a character attacks, damage is calculated as (ATK parameter - target DEF/2) * (attacker STR+20)/20, plus a random 15%.
This means that you can foresight damage done at that point from your characters. You want them to do about 150 damage with regular attacks? If their attack is 200, and their STR is 300, your target DEF should be 200 too. Just use the formula above.
As regards skills, things are more difficult, BTW the mechanism is similar:
skill damage is about (skill power + ATK*skill atk force) - (target DEF/2*skill def force + target MDEF/2*skill def force)*K where K is
a parameter calculated as (20 + STR*skill str force + DEX*skill dex force + AGI*skill agi force + INT*skill int force)/20.
My suggestion si to set only one of the last four parameters to a value different than 0, because a skill which draws power from both STR and AGI - or any other combination - would do loads of damage.

So, as a result, enemies HP should be set considering how much damage can your characters do at that point of the game. Make them defeatable into one to three turns for normal enemies, something more for bosses (I suggest at least five turns and no more than ten).

2. How can I make a boss encounter longer?

First of all, remember that if yours is a level system, any boss will became ridicolous if the player decides to do a lot of battles to rise their characters' average level. I've got the same problem with one of my beta testers. I set a boss, meant for level 30, but when he reached it its party level was about 55, because of his mania of levelling up. As a result... no challenge.
BTW, first thing to do should be test the battle at the exact same level you plan for your party to reach that boss.
If you're employing an ATB or a standard battle system, and your party is composed by more than three elements, that could be a problem.

Usually, there something like no game in a four-against-one battle. If the player keeps on healing with one or two, and attacks with the reamining ones, the boss will surely got screwed in no time.
Alternative #1:
If you can, give the boss the ability to attack two or more times (like in Final Fantasy III). There are some scripts which work well this way.
In that case, the encounter would become harsher enough to give it a fair time length; in addition, if you give them a healing skill, that boss will cure and attack in the very same turn, becoming even more challenging.
Alternative #2:
Give the boss an ability which hit every single party member, such as Mass Darkness or stuff like that, and make they do that every three/four turns.

I hope this could prove useful.
If this wasn't the anwer you were looking for, just reply, maybe I could give some more advices...

Jens

[MagitekElite]

Thank you for the reply, Jens of Zanicuud! ! I appreciate it!

what kind of battle system are you employing?

My game's has a level based system and is a sideview battle type.

what kind of character growth are you employing? If the answers are standard damage calculation and characters grow by means of EXP and gain level, I can give you a couple of advices.

I'm not sure. I've never made games before, or messed with the actor's tab because I didn't want to mess anything up. I don't even know what the standard would be. I randomly messed around in the tab before and made it so they don't take away 1000 at level 5 and gain 500+HP each level up, though I don't understand the tab. I would like it something similar to the old FF titles, and have them take away around 50-90 at first and so they don't go from 90 DMG to 1000 DMG from just four or five level ups.

Right now its so messed up that level 4 and 5 actors are giving off 300-400 DMG and I have to set the bosses HP up passed 9000 to even offer a remotely challenging fight.

[Jens of Zanicuud]

Thank you for the reply, Jens of Zanicuud! ! I appreciate it!

what kind of battle system are you employing?

My game's has a level based system and is a sideview battle type.

what kind of character growth are you employing? If the answers are standard damage calculation and characters grow by means of EXP and gain level, I can give you a couple of advices.

I'm not sure. I've never made games before, or messed with the actor's tab because I didn't want to mess anything up. I don't even know what the standard would be. I randomly messed around in the tab before and made it so they don't take away 1000 at level 5 and gain 500+HP each level up, though I don't understand the tab. I would like it something similar to the old FF titles, and have them take away around 50-90 at first and so they don't go from 90 DMG to 1000 DMG from just four or five level ups.

Right now its so messed up that level 4 and 5 actors are giving off 300-400 DMG and I have to set the bosses HP up passed 9000 to even offer a remotely challenging fight.

I actually talked about the standard system (untouched, not modified by scripts).
Well, those 300-400 damages are the standard in RPGXP. I can give some suggestion to balance better those values.

I've ever had problems in balancing encounters too, but I solved them by removing characters' growth (like in KNight Blade).
Obviously, that strategy only works if you are planning to use a different system.

BTW, I can suggest something I've learned with experience.

1. Never set the boss defence higher than your characters' weapons ATK multiplied by 2. The player should be able to beat that boss even if they depleted their characters' SP gauges. It would be shocking - a boss with 32 HP left and your characters with not enough attack to do that damage.

2. When creating a skill, set only one field between str f, int f, agi f and dex f to a value higher than 0. If not, the skill would become too much powerful. Also, never set both of def f and mdef f to 0, since that skill's damage wouldn't be affected by enemy defence.

3. The major physical damage is due to the strength, more than weapon atk. Lower this parameter and you'll see the damage falling to human values.
Same as before for intelligence in magical skills. Try setting both STR and INT in a more narrow range, (starting: about 40 - ending: about 200). This should dramatically reduce damage.

STR = 40 means a x2 multiplier applied to the damage
STR = 200 means a x10 multiplier applied to the damage

so, reminding this, try figuring out how much damage you want to be done from your characters.
Same for INT value for magic skills.

4. Let the boss use multiple target skill every 4 to 6 turns. This should make the player cure more often and the boss should become more challenging.

I hope this could prove useful,
ask freely if you need further information.

Jens

This post has been edited by Jens of Zanicuud: Jul 29 2012, 04:29 AM

[amerk]

For level-based games, there are methods you can use that will curb lengthy level grinding. Here are a couple of easy ones:

METHOD 1:
1. Event all your battles.
2. Make them respawn when you leave and return to the map.
3. The first time fought, have the battle drop EXP, Gold, and any items.
4. When they respawn, have them only drop Gold and any items. This allows the player to still grind for gold for equipment and items, and maybe even stat upgrades, but prevents them from taking advantage of an area for level grinding.

METHOD 2:
Tailor your EXP curve for each area based on the recommendation you should be at prior to reaching the end of that area and/or fighting the boss. Let's say you begin in a forest. By playing through, exploring, not running from your enemies, you should be at around Level 4 by the time you finish the forest. Take into account that some people do like to grind a little (we don't want to shut them out entirely), and while we want them to feel as if they accomplished something, we don't want the Forest Level Boss to be a cake walk, either.

So what you do is, account for a small bit of level grinding by a couple of levels. Average person will be at level 4 by the end, but other more determined souls may want to grind to level 6. However, after Level 6, make the EXP curve jump so high it's no longer worth grinding there. Your boss can be tailored around Level 5 stats, so anybody between Level 4 and 6 shouldn't have a problem, but will still need to employ strategy.

The next, harder area, will have monsters that give much higher EXP to balance out the jump, but after they've reached the max limit for that area, then make the EXP curve jump again. While this gives Level grinders a bit of an advantage early on, it's only for a couple of levels higher than average for each new area, and eventually as the game progresses, that gap will start to close.

Edit:

Keep in mind that regardless of what you do, there's no set rule that requires you to demand 100's of battles before the next level up, or that Level 3 must take an hour longer to reach than Level 2. If you follow Method 2, you can make each new area give a few quick Level Gains within the first 30 minutes or so before the EXP curve kicks in and you now need to grind for an hour or two to gain even one level.

So the first Area is a Forest. Let the player gain their first 4 Levels within 30 minutes, and the last couple may take about an additional 30 to 45 minutes. Then make Level 7 unreachable in the Forest without an extra 1 to 2 hours of level grinding.

The next area, do it all over again. Players can reach the minimum (we'll say Level 7) within 30 minutes or less, Level 8 or 9 with an additional 45 minutes of grind on top of that, and anything over Level 9 nearly impossible without putting in about 2 hours more of grinding.

1. This makes each area require the same amount of grinding for that area, without making it too tedious.
2. This prevents people from spamming for high levels.
3. This keeps the overall experience of the game balanced, assuming monsters are properly evented to offer some unique challenges in the database.
4. If a person is determined to grind for 3 or 4 hours in any given spot in order to try and really boost their EXP and Levels, then more power to them and it's nothing you can really prevent.

[MagitekElite]

Thank you guys for the wonderful replies!

I have zero knowledge of the actors or enemies/troops tab, but I have learned quite a bit from the posts! I don't know how to curve the EXP based on areas or what some of it means like when you click into the parameters and there is "level" and "value", but I'm learning.

If the person playing wishes to grind for so long (2+ hours), then all the power to them! I would just like to make sure they aren't gaining1000 HP/ATT every level up. lol

[amerk]

Basically, to curve the EXP you need to create your own EXP requirements. I've heard it's possible with common events, but not sure how. I know in VX and Ace, there's a script that allows you to decide what amount of EXP is needed for each level up.

What I meant was, you could make:

Level 1 - 0 EXP
Level 2 - 20 EXP
Level 3 - 50 EXP
Level 4- 90 EXP
Level 5 - 150 EXP
Level 6 - 250 EXP
Level 7 - 550 EXP

The enemies in the initial area would drop about 5 EXP per battle, with some occasional enemies dropping around 10, and maybe midway through the area they might drop more, or encounter battles with multiple enemies. The first 4 levels would be easy enough to get, whereas the next 2 would require a bit of work (a little more than twice the time it took to gain the initial 4). But beginning with Level 7, the spike is so high, more than twice what it took to get to Level 6, that it makes grinding in that area no longer worth it.

The next area of monsters, enemies will probably drop higher amouns of EXP (ranging from 30 to 50), and come in most cases a multiple of 2, making it fairly easy to get to Level 7 when you are in the new area.

Level 7 - 550 EXP
Level 8 - 900 EXP
Level 9 - 1300 EXP
Level 10 - 2000 EXP

As you can see, even if you gained the minimum amount of EXP (to level 4) in the first area, you can easily gain ground in the new area with monsters dropping a higher amount of EXP. Getting to Level 9 won't be a big problem, but there is such a huge increase from Leve 9 to 10 that would get larger, making it not worth grinding for anything in this area passed Level 9.

In the next area, enemies would probably drop anywhere from 50 to 150 EXP, and so forth:

Level 10 - 2000 EXP
Level 11 - 2800 EXP
Level 12 - 3800 EXP
Level 13 - 5500 EXP

Basically, in each area, you'd create a high EXP curve that would make the area no longer worthwhile grinding through. This allows people who casually battle to gain ground each new area without being too under-leveled, while people who are hardcore fighters can't be too over-leveled.

If there is no script that allows you to tailor your level gains, and doing this through events (which I'm not sure how to do) proves to be daunting if not difficult, you could always go with method number 1, especially since a lot of people gripe about random encounters anyways. To do Method 1, you'd just event all battles the same as you do when creating a boss fight event. In the database, you'd create two every possible enemy (one with EXP, one without), and also two of every possible troop encounter. When you create the enemy events, the first page would be the regular encounter with EXP, and then after that fight flip a switch that turns on page 2 with the same battle, but without EXP.

Also, if you're trying to understand the databse for XP, you could check out these two decent tutorials:

http://www.rmxp.tigerseye.uk.com/

http://rmxptutorials.blogspot.com/

[MagitekElite]

Oh! Now I understand!

I feel stupid now...! I was confusing the enemy earned EXP to the requirement of the actors. I thought I had to set it up through the actors tab and that way the enemies would be told how much to give, based on the individual actor, automatically. I will try to handle the individual places (new levels, monsters etc etc) by adding new enemies in the tab for that select area, so I wouldn't get confused again. Well, now I know how to handle the EXP curving and earning *though its not changing in the enemies tab*!

Thank you Amerk!

Now I just gotta practice with the parameters part and lower their strength etc etc!

[amerk]

I'm sure there are scripts that do alter what the enemies give in terms of EXP, and if not I'm sure it's possible to create one. The problem with scripts when it comes to level gaining though, is there really is no substitution for play testing, and I tend to want more control through my own events than to rely on a script.

There was a pretty decent discussion on EXP curves awhile back at RMWeb::

http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/t...oper-xp-curves/

Touchfuzzy gave a really good post and example of increasing the curve, which is primarily the source of my own post here. While his average amount of battles for a level up was a bit high, that could always be tailored by a small amount of battles with multiple enemies (so instead of fighting 6 battles of single enemies to get to level 2, you may only need to fight 3 or 4 battles with 1 or 2 of them involving 2 or 3 enemies at once).

Definitely worth reading through, though.

Edit:

As for stats, I try to balance mine with a mixture, using the following guide (which also includes a link to a decent balance guide made by Zero Man Army):

http://www.rpgrevolution.com/forums/index....showtopic=55905

I made this with VX/Ace in mind, but it can be carried over into other makers as well. I've also since started finding ways to create a hybrid class mixture, such as Monk and Thief might make a Rogue with a mixture of strengths and weaknesses from both classes, as well as new skills.

Basically, stats can be gained high, low, or average. Usually a mage will have high MP, SPI, and Agi, but low Health, Strength, and Defense, whereas a warrior may have high HP, Str, Average Def, and low agi, mp, and spi.

For enemy stats, I tend to make their HP/MP about 1.5 to 2 times that of my party, and the other stats about the same or a little higher as my own party at the level expected to encounter them, keeping in mind if I give them high in one stat, I should give them average to low in another. So if I'm expected to fight rats at Level 3, and my warrior has around 30 for strength at Level 3 but only 15 in MP/SPI, my rats may follow suit at 30 to 35 in attack, and around 15 to 20 for MP/SPI.

My recommendation is to combine different enemy types like you do party types to create a more flexible battle. So you might have mage/cleric enemies with warrior/physical type of enemies.

Boss Fights I recommend 3 to 4 times HP/MP of the party at the level expected to fight him/her, with the tougher bosses being around 5 to 6 times higher. Level stats for bosses can get tough, but creating strategical moves can help balance this out, such as a boss may hit all every 2 or 3 rounds, or may cause a devastating blow that reduces the party to 1 HP, but then needs to recharge the next round.

You can also create states that can help or hinder a battle through common events. Let's use Berserk for example. We all know what it does, and we know it can get boring using the same states over and over again. I haven't tested this out, but I believe you can tailor new states by through common events and a lot of practice. Here are a couple I had in mind:

Burn: Similar to Berserk, but more unique. Under this state, you no longer have control of the character's move. Every round of battle, the character loses HP, like poison. And they now take double the damage for Water Attacks. But... under the Burn state, any Fire Attacks will heal them, they are now much stronger, and their defense has gone up against physical attacks.

Freeze: Similar to petrify, but like Burn, it's more unique. Under this state, the character is frozen and cannot move, and they are very weak to physical damage and Fire. However, Ice Attacks will heal them, and any other magic attacks not Fire related are reflected back to the enemy.

[MagitekElite]

Wow, thank you for the links and informative post, amerk!

With your previous post, I made it possible to level up form 1 to 2 with 5 to 6 battles, depending on the earned EXP. Everything is already 100* better than it was before! The first boss fight is challenging, but not so hard it discourages—at least not for me. My betas will have to tell me more, though.

I'm going over the links right now, then I'll start on your post! Takes me a bit to read posts of this size.

EDIT:

I like your idea of the states effecting the overall battle, as well! I'll definitely be implementing that!

This post has been edited by MagitekElite: Jul 30 2012, 08:11 PM

[amerk]

I'm too far into my current project, which is intended to be a light hearted comedy, to go back and add a lot of strategy, although I've tried to keep the need for grinding down to a minimum. However, now that I'm more familiar with the program, I do intend for my next project to employ certain ideas and tactics. I think something like what I had in mind for different states would be possible with events, but I haven't had the chance to put it into practice yet. If you, or anybody else figures it out before me, feel free to share the idea.

Good luck, though!