How I Balance my Indie Game! #devlog #indiedev #retrogaming

Here's a look at how I handle game balance my indie game. It's pretty simple but also effective. The trick is to not just look at what is too strong and apply nerfs, but also look at the overall health of the game to see what other implications those nerfs might have. In this case, nerfing Magic Bolt, which everyone has access to and is too powerful - will incidentally nerf a core part of the Mage identity, which is already the least represented of the 3 classes. The best changes are the ones that solve two problems at once, so I took some power away from Magic Bolt, and gave it to the Mage's early game items. These exchanges aren't necessarily a 1 to 1 copy and paste, but overall restore the power that was lost in the nerfs. This brings Magic Bolt in line while making the Mage a more attractive class option.

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[xraenon]

Relative nerfs/buffs are _such_ an important tool in balancing, especially in PvP games. If the shield wall ultimate ability is too good, you don’t have to cut down the amount of damage it can take. Instead, say another ultimate fires a piercing laser that slowly tracks opponents — maybe increase how fast the laser tracks targets or how large it is, and you can effectively control how risky it is to crowd behind that barrier. If you don’t stay moving or have too many people in one spot, the laser will cause issues for everyone. But if you have just a few players that stay mobile behind the shield, you can still make full use of it.
Congratulations, you’ve taken an overturned ability that’s been almost required for high-level play and toned it back, without nerfing it into the ground or creating another overpowered ability.

[Arbidarb]

Or remove it from other classes... Why are non- magic classes getting spells?

[hill]

I know that there are some games that use your total maximum mana that a character has to calculate damage. I think that that might work in a scenario like this other than what you already have. I do not know if your other classes use mp, but that's just one way that I have seen it fixed

[BudewFan_]

You could give mage a stronger version of the spell, or cut it from the list of mage spells and go to the 2nd weakest “neutral” spell (idk if magic has types in your game, I assume it does) or just apply a base buff to all magic damage for mage,

If you want to be goofy let mage be the weird underplayed niche class and give it a bunch of odd utility stuff that’s potentially insanely strong if you know how to combo it all together

[I-mTheGuy]

Can also make it like non-mages aren’t as good at magic

[lokithegodkiller]

Why, why not nerf it for the other classes but keep it strong for mages, since its a magic spell....

[rabidpanda]

Why are you giving a mage spell to non mage classes if you want more people to play mage? If it's decimating so much, it probably still needs balancing, but you should first remove it from the other classes and see if the loss of that spell is enough to make people flock to mage in the majority first, and if so nerf. If it merely balances the class selection towards mage but not overwhelmingly so, then the spell is well balanced within the class in terms of power vs survivability. The glass cannon SHOULD have strong spells, the mistake is giving strong spells to the class that's also the most tanky...

[kingacrisius]

How would nerfing it make people choose mage less often? It's on all the classes anyways... If anything I would expect nerfing it to make people choose mage more often, since there would actually be a reason to use any other magic.