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Rules of thumb for game variable balance?
I am interested in learning the proper way to determine ratios between variables in order to keep the game balanced. For example let's say weapons cost gold and stone, and have an attack and defence. weapons with higher attack and defense could either cost more gold or more stone, or a combination of the two. Also price per attack/defense point increase on a linear or exponential graph as weapons get stronger. These are the kinds of things I would like to know how to figure out mathematically.
Does anyone have any tips or pointers on this subject?
Thank you in advance.
Answer by theotherkaki · Sep 28, 2012 at 06:15 AM
Check this out:
Mostly it comes down to designer instinct and hours and hours and more hours of playtesting, by people who deliberately try to break/abuse things in the game...
Answer by dscroggi · Sep 28, 2012 at 06:09 AM
Calculus ><
You could even adjust the prices in real time based on what's being bought. Although, if that's something you're interested in, you might be best off working the stock market.
Could make a function how you want the prices to vary. Let's say you want the price to go down when no one's buying, but want it to go up when even fewer of them are being bought due to rarity, then go up when they begin to be purchased from an auction house at regular intervals or whatnot then go down again due to excess supply. So you'd end up with a chunk of some odd sin wave function raised to some crazy exponent. Then you could iterate through your item list, setting the prices equal to the result of that function after feeding it the number of purchases over some time frame?
I don't know if that's what you're looking for but could be fun and dynamic. Some players could get excited when their crafted goods are all the sudden rare.
I wasn't thinking so much about players exchanging with eachother i was thinking of it in simpler terms, as in buying items that will be used on npc characters rather than an $$anonymous$$$$anonymous$$O type of thing. I don't know a whole lot of economics at this point. Thanks for the idea though!
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