Level 9 of the Los Angeles Film School's Game Mechanics class.

1. Level 9
David Mullich
Game Mechanics
The Los Angeles Film School

2. What Is Game Balance?

3. Game Balance
 Single Player Games: The game’s difficulty
is matched to the player’s skill level
throughout the entire game.
 Multiplayer Games: All players have an
equal opportunity to win regardless of their
starting position, resources, goals, or skill
level.

5. Complexity vs. Difficulty
Difficulty: The skill required to successfully
reach a goal.
Complexity: The number of actions required
to successfully reach a game goal.

6. Right Level of Difficulty
The right level of difficulty is the one intended
by the game designer.

7. Why Designers Want Right Level of
Difficulty
 If challenges are too easy, players will become
Bored
 If they are too difficult, players will become
Frustrated
Other reasons:
 Provide Smooth Learning Curves
 Combine Tension and Empowerment
 Promote Game Mastery

8. Difficulty Level Design
Considerations
 Which challenges should be made easier?
 Which challenges should be made harder?
 Which challenges should occur at another
point in the game?

9. Balancing Difficulty
Less Difficulty:
 Clues about solving Challenge
 Make actions easier to perform
 Selectable Goals
 Varied Gameplay
Harder:
 More Obstacles and Enemies
 Make Actions harder to perform

10. Right Level of Complexity
The right level of complexity is the one
intended by the game designer.

11. Why Designers Want Right Level of
Complexity
• Influences Level of Difficulty
• Makes Game Mastery easier to Achieve
• Supports Experimenting
• Promotes Constructive Play
Warning! Can lead to:
 Analysis Paralysis

12. Complexity Design Considerations
 Does the game have rhythm-based
actions?
 How many game elements does the player
need to interact with?
 How many relationships do these elements
have with each other?
 How complex is the narrative structure?

13. Balancing Complexity
Less Complex
 Ability Losses
More Complex
 Attention Swapping
 Indirect Control
 Producer-Consumer Chains
 Resource Consumers
 Red Herrings
 Role Reversals

14. Smooth Learning Curves
Games designed to provide players with the
possibility of smoothly progressing from novice to
master.

15. Requirements
 Right Level of Difficulty
 Right Level of Complexity
 Consistent Reality Logic

16. Why Designers Want Smooth Learning
Curves
Allows:
 Immersion
 Game Mastery
Supports:
 Illusion of Influence
 Perceived Chance to Succeed

17. Smooth Learning Curves Design
Considerations
 What information can be provided to
players for overcoming challenges?
 How can challenge difficulty be adjusted to
the player’s skill?
 How can players adjust challenge
difficulty?

18. Balancing Smooth Learning Curves
More Smooth:
 Easy Challenges Sooner
 Harder Challenges Later
 Limited Foresight
 Save-Load Cycles
 Luck

20. Balancing For Skill In Multiplayer
Games
Extra Credits: The Link from Optimal Power to Strategy

21. What Was The Main Message Of This
Video?

22. Balancing Effects
Rules and effects that lessen the difference of
value used to measure competition between
players.

23. Pre-Emptive Balancing Effects
• Handicaps
• Making Extended Actions into Interruptible
Actions
• Delayed Effects
• Selectable Set of Goals
• Diminishing Returns

24. Correcting Balancing Effects
Favoring Disadvantaged Players through:
 Better Rewards for Completing Goals
 New/Improved Abilities
 Shared Rewards
 Spawning
 Turn Taking
Handicapping Advantaged Players through:
 Worse Penalties for Failing Goals
 Lost/Decreased Abilities

25. Why Designers Use Balancing Effects
Allows:
 Smooth Learning Curves
 Right Level of Difficulty
 Perceived Chance to Succeed
 High-Level Closures
Also:
 Maintains Tension
 Minimizes differences in Asymmetric Abilities

26. Balancing Effects Design
Considerations
 Is the balancing effect designed to be pre-
emptive or correcting?
 Is limited foresight used to mask an
imbalance?
 Are there more than two players or teams
competing?

27. Symmetry
Symmetrical relations exist between players
regarding the goals, resources, and actions they
can perform.

28. Why Designers Use Symmetry
Allows:
 Player Balance (set-up only)
 Team Balance (set-up only)
Supports:
 Game Mastery

29. Symmetry Design Considerations
 Do players have the same abilities?
 Do players have symmetric goals?
 Are resources distributed symmetrically?
 Do teams have symmetry?

30. Balancing Symmetry
Less Symmetrical:
 Asymmetric Abilities
 Asymmetric Goals
 Asymmetric Resource Distribution

31. Rock-Paper-Scissors
Sets of three or more actions form cycles where
every action has an advantage over another
action.

32. Rock-Paper-Scissors in Quick Games
 Choices tend to have immediate
consequences
 Played repeated so that a Metagame
evolves of gaining knowledge of
opponent’s strategies

33. Rock-Paper-Scissors in Long-Term
Games
 Investments gain Asymmetric Abilities
 Players gain information about other
players by
 Public Information
 Sending Units into Fog of War

34. Why Designers Use Rock-Paper-
Scissors
Provides:
 Symmetry between actions or tactics
Promotes:
 Tension about chosen action/tactic
Supports:
 Game Mastery through knowledge of
successful actions/tactics

35. Rock-Paper-Scissors Design
Considerations
 What is the set of elements in which each
element have an advantage over another
one?
 Is the game quick or long-term?

36. Handicaps
Making gameplay easier for certain players to
ensure that all players have the same chance to
succeed.

37. How Handicaps Are Provided
 Asymmetric Abilities
 Asymmetric Resource Distribution
 Asymmetric Goals
 Reversible Actions For Novices
 Reconfigurable Game Worlds

38. Why Designers Use Handicaps
Provides:
 Right Level of Difficulty in Multiplayer
Games
 Player or Team Balance
 Trans-Game Information
Warning! Conflicts with:
 Symmetry

39. Handicaps Design Considerations
 Can players set individual levels of difficulty?
 Can players set individual resources or abilities?
 Can players set individual negative consequences to
be limited or ignored?
 Can players set different thresholds for evaluation
functions?
 Can players set individual bonuses to score values?
 Can players set individual starting locations or skill
advantages?
 Can player take back actions and perform other
actions?

40. Team Balance
Teams have equal chances of succeeding
with actions in a game or winning a game.

41. Ways To Provide Team Balance
Before Game:
 Team Configuration with Player Balance
 Symmetric Competency Areas and
Privileged Abilities
 Starting Positions
During Game:
 Handicaps
 Spawning

42. Why Designers Want Team Balance
 Gives players a Perceived Chance of
Winning
 Encourages Team Play and therefore
Social Status
 Players feel Empowerment

43. Team Balance Design Considerations
 Is there total player balance between all
players?
 How can teams’ starting positions be
balanced?
 What privileged abilities need to be mitigated?
 What handicaps need to be applied?
 What other balancing effects need to be
applied during gameplay?

45. Game Mastery
That one can clearly distinguish between skillful
and incompetent players when they are using all
their skills and abilities in a game.

46. The Player’s Journey

47. Allowing For Game Mastery
Requires:
 Right Level of Difficulty
 Smooth Learning Curves with Right Levels
of Difficulty
Nullified by:
 Randomness
 Balancing

48. Why Designers Promote Game
Mastery
 Empowerment
 Emotional Immersion
 Replayablity
 Varied Gameplay
 Competency Areas
 Strategic Knowledge
 Risk-Reward Trade-offs
 Trans-Game Information
 Social Statuses
 Investments in Gameplay

49. Game Mastery Design Considerations
 What dexterity-based skills can a player train
and develop?
 What mental-based skills can a player train
and develop?
 What social-based skills can a player train and
develop?
 How is mastery revealed?
 How can mastery be maintained past game
sessions?

50. Empowerment
Players feel that they can affect the events
and final outcome of the game.

51. Ways To Provide Empowerment
 Right Level of Difficulty
 Privileged/New/Improved Abilities
 Producers & Converters
 Strategic Planning & Knowledge
 Freedom of Choice
 Player-Decided Results
 Creative Control
 Social Status
 Game Mastery

52. Why Designers Provide
Empowerment
 Emotional Immersion
 Competence Areas
 Higher Level Closures as Gameplay
Progresses
Warning! Can conflict with:
 Player Balance
 Team Balance

53. Empowerment Design Considerations
 How empowered does the player feel at
the beginning of the game?
 Does the empowerment increase
incrementally?
 What opportunities does the player have
for creative control?
 Do the players vote on anything?
 Can the player construct the game world?

54. Timing
The effect on gameplay that actions have to be performed
at certain points in game time to be performed at all or
that the direct effects of actions varies greatly depending
on when they are performed.

55. Timing In Real-Time Games
 Maneuvering and Deadly Traps
 Combat through Aim & Shoot with
Overcome Goals
 Aim & Shoot for Capture and Configuration
Goals

56. Timing in Turn-Based Games
 Privileged Abilities with Delayed Effects
 Geometric Rewards for Investments

57. Why Designers Use Timing
 Allows Rhythm-Based Actions
 Encourages Game Mastery

58. Timing Design Considerations
 Is the game turn-based or real-time?

59. Rhythm-Based Actions
Actions that require players to time their
actions several times in a row.

60. Implementation of Rhythm-Based
Actions
 Extended Actions
 Combos
 Moveable Tiles
 Deadly Traps

61. Why Designers Use Rhythm-Based
Actions
 Sensory-Motoric Immersion
 Game Mastery

62. Rhythm-Based Action Design
Considerations
 What is the extended action to be
performed?
 How long should it be performed?
 What feedback is provided to the player?
 What rewards or penalties are associated
with performing the action?

63. Balancing Rhythm-Based Actions
• Level of Difficulty based on Tempo
• Level of Complexity based on Actions

64. Dexterity-Based Actions
Actions where success or failure depends on
some form of dexterity, usually hand-eye
coordination.

65. Implementation of Dexterity-Based
Actions
 Real-Time Game with Timing
 Maneuvering to avoid Obstacles
 Combat, especially Aim & Shoot
 Extended Actions

66. Why Designers Use Dexterity-Based
Actions
 Sensory-Motoric Immersion
 Spatial Immersion
 Game Mastery

67. Dexterity-Based Action Design
Considerations
 What is the action to be performed?
 How fast is the response time, if it is a
digital game?

68. Balancing Dexterity-Based Actions
Less Difficult:
 Third-Person POV
More Difficult:
 First-Person POV
 Indirect Control
 Surprises
 Disruption of Focused Attention

69. Group Quest
Balance one of the games you previously
designed in class.

70. Research and use the LMS to report on
games using balancing patterns discussed in
class.