Top 10 Tips on How To Balance Your Game

Balancing can make or break your game. Here are my top 10 tips for making sure you end up with well balanced product.

My games:

Hope you enjoy. :)

[JonasTyroller]

Wanted to note that I'm obviously still learning and everything I say in the video here is just based on my personal experience.
Is there anything you disagree with? What else would you add to the list?
Looking forward to some inspiring discussions. :)

[happytofu]

I recommend playing around with extreme values, to get a feeling for what they do, before settling for the realistic ones. Sometimes you find surprises and new inspirations by doing that as well!

[maurosanchez]

I don't know from where you came out but you, blackthorn and brakeys are the best and more informatic channels in all youtube. Your quality is awesome, your content is becoming better and better. Thank you for everything.

[Failfer]

I've started and stopped alot of habits including game dev but I'm doing it more consistently now and honestly even just hearing you talking about these things is really helpful and a bit comforting

[welton.king.v]

great video man
every week you get even better at making these videos
I can confirm that working on a competitive game is always a gamble with balancing updates
like you said - take gambles, just make sure they are smart gambles

[Lugmillord]

When I first saw the 3D text, I thought you want to spend all of your time to make videos instead of games. Then I realized that it was basically an interactive app you probably made in Unity. I guess it's one of those "It'll save time in the long run" things. But one thing: If your mouse moves over black text to create black particles, it makes the text difficult to read ;)
"Save your game under a different name so you have a copy" - (And when you struggle with understanding how Git works, just make a copy of the repository and give it a different name xD)
As for balancing early, it depends. I think you should have a rough sense of balancing rather early on, like "section A comes before B, there A should be easier", but personally I'd put balancing actual precise numbers towards the later part. At least that's what I'm doing for my current game. How much damage a particular attack does under which circumstances - that can be a huge time sink that you don't want to block your early creative sessions.
Onto the guns: If there are quick enemies, you might miss 1 or 2 shots of the slow gun but maybe hit 3 shots with the fast one. So I'd consider the second one to be better. And then you said I'm right :D #SoProud. I'm a bit scared about the balancing I will have to do eventually. I think I won't be able to get around large spreadsheets because a wide range of choices have to be playable and that will probably be quite the challenge. ...but that's years in the future so I don't need to care now.
Huh, your "Rock Paper Scissors Action RPG" looks funny. I actually had an idea to make a small action RPG that only uses one button. That is, no sticks or anything, not even the menus. The core idea was already done but then I was too lazy to implement anything.

[Dark_Slayer]

6:40 On the other hand, if you're overwhelmed by 5HP enemies, then the top gun will be much better.
Or if it's not about DPS, or rather, how quickly you can deal a burst of 3-5 damage, then it will be better too.
Balancing truly depends on the surrounding factors :D

[videogamesarefun]

That's good. I like listening to a guy who enjoys what he's doing. 👍

[REAL-NANO]

I just love your handmade programs you use/make to do your videos. So much back end work but the originality is 100% worth it!

[Paikon]

At the same time about weapon balance, bc first shot is instant that means that despite the fact that both guns do 10dps on paper, first one will deal 15dmg after one second and second will deal 12dmg. Also in case of burst weapons like the first one you can use cover between the shots to mitagate damage from someone using second weapon. This is very common in tf2 if you fight shotgun vs a heavy with mashine gun, so both are good depending on the scenario

[bubblegum]

I know it's not related to this video (great video btw) but I have two ideas for a final boss in Will you snail!:
• AI tries to destroy you, so you have to escape him and lead him to his own traps
• You take control of the AI and place traps to destroy him

[PeterMilko]

Damn dude i think this is one of your best videos. Good work

[thenospeak]

0:59 Saw the mouse cursor 😁
Great video like always Jonas

[ryanfrank]

I've been watching your channel for a while and I just want to say that your content lately has really been valuable to me and i'm sure a ton of others. Thanks!

[supaactionmovie]

love the cool visaul effects and animation in the vid

[dewroot]

TL;DW:

10. Balance is connected with other game development disciplines.
9. There's more to balance than number parameters.
8. Be ready to change many, _many_ things at one. Don't fear to experiment!
7. Balance throughout development. Start early.
6. Take a look at the mathematics. (But don't obsess about it...)
5. Obtain analytics for objective truths. Try to get as big of a sample size as you can.
4. Be wary of mental pitfalls. (placebo effect, confirmation bias, misleading data, anecdotal evidence)
3. Use rock-paper-scissors advantages and disadvantages.
2. Make changes with positive expected payoffs.
1. Know. Your! Design! _Goals!!!_ For ALL OBJECTS!!!

[---]

the rock paper scissors situation is effing amazing

[Jari_FenixEXP]

Again thanks for the quality information Jonas! I am currently a designer on a project for the first time and I can see myself going back to this video during the project.

[YaenGamedev]

Awesome video. Love your Unity Powerpoint :D

[WolfpackPodcastOfficial]

Id like to add: Make everthing (for example all guns) overpowered rather than underpowered. Make the bad guns better, not the good guns bad.