Balancing?

[Skyler]

I'm going through early stages for items, equipment, skills/spells, enemies, and bosses. It's a little overwhelming starting from scratch but it gives me the freedom to do whatever I wish. One of them main downfalls to this is a balance issue.

For instance, I have 4 main characters and each of them have different roles (i.e., they can't change classes). I would like to put a variety of items in the game to let players have as much flexibility as possible, but I don't want to overcomplicate the game itself for the sake of letting players do what they wish.

Is there a good system for balancing items and levels and skills? Or perhaps an algorithm of some sort to live by? I'm finding it tough to advance when I'm so unsure of where I'm going.

 

[Injury]

Honestly, it's all testing. A lot of us have tested these systems from RPG Maker for a while now, so you kind of get used to what they do.

Either way, test. Make a system that makes sense to you.

The hardest thing to balance is skills. You really want to focus on balance MP cost vs effective ratings/etc and all that stuff.

Hopefully this helps!

 

[ZenVirZan]

I think the hardest part is scaling HP with PDEF/MDEF. I remember there was a tool around that let you simulate different attacks on enemies without needing to playtest, but I don't know where it went.
I guess this is where the Battle-Test option is useful.

 

[coyotecraft]

Consider stat penalties along side bonuses.
Fire up; Ice down.
Attack up, speed down.
Regeneration, Mdef down.

I've heard Disgaea gave enemies 3 elemental Strength and Weakness. That seems like a good idea, because who knows what attributes the player will want to use.

One of my favorite items in FFX-2 was BloodLust. When worn it lowered HP 40% and inflicted berserk & poison, but significantly raised the Character's Strength. I think the idea behind it was to end battles in fewer turns, but take the same amount of damage.

FFX-2 also had items that dramatically raised a stat, but removed any exp or rewards from battle.
The reverse would be sacrificing combat bonuses for things like Item/Gold Drop rates and movement speed.
'course, gold is only good if there is stuff worth buying. If it's just recovery items, and you have a healer for that, then gold becomes worthless except when the healer is gone.

Which brings up another issue about party based combat, the story doesn't always allow a full party. A dungeon might require the party to split up into teams of 2.
A regular enemy can be a challenge fighting solo. I suppose that's the idea behind battle arenas.

 

[Injury]

I think the hardest part is scaling HP with PDEF/MDEF. I remember there was a tool around that let you simulate different attacks on enemies without needing to playtest, but I don't know where it went.
I guess this is where the Battle-Test option is useful.

I was going to mention some tool like that I had found but I couldn't find it again

I want stats that go into the millions/billions.