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terrorista
08-12-2007, 09:02 PM
Introduction
This is a fantasy section of the forums where we can invent our own units and think about their strength in the game. However, I think the best ideas are the ones where you have to think about the idea to see how it works. This does not mean every unit should be complicated, but I would like to see more units become balanced.

Basics of Unit Creation


Name: [Name]
HP: [# of Hit Points]
Armor: [Armor %]
Power: [Power of ability]
Range: [Range of attack]
Block: [Front blocking percentage, the side blocking is implied]
Movement: [Max tiles unit can be moved]
Wait: [Unit's recovery time if it moved and used it's ability,
the other two times are implied.]

Figure 1.1

New creations should use either the standard format (Shown in figure 1.1), or a variant of it to describe their idea(s). Once you have the basic concept of your unit, fill in your formating skeleton as you normally would (Shown in figure 1.2).


Name: Axe Thrower
HP: 50
Armor: 25%
Power: 22
Range: 2
Block: 70%
Movement: 2
Wait: 1

Figure 1.2

"Is it good yet?"

At this point in the creation of the Axe Thrower we have an slightly overpowered, an bland unit one which would get you little attention and that which you will get will be criticism. If we think about the units we have right now released in Tactics Arena, we may find this Axe Thrower fits in simularly to the Knight.

Now think about the concept in relation too the game itself. Do players need another knight-like unit? If the answer is no, then you might want to add a little something-something to it, a nice little zing!


Name: Ice Axe Thrower
HP: 50
Armor: 25%
Power: 22
Range: 2
Block: 70%
Movement: 2
Wait: 1
Special: Frostbite -- A Paralyze spell that doesn't involve focus,
but instead adds 2 counters. At the end of unit's controller's turn
remove a counter. Paralyze is removed once the last counter is removed.

Figure 1.3

Now that we have added that little bit of spice to make it more exciting (Shown in Figure 1.3), it's time to rethink the balance. It is now like a beefy Berseker. Let's twist the stats a bit more to adjust to a more original concept.

"Q: That's great, but how do I balance properly?"
"A: You think about your unit."

This is where the challenge of balancing comes in. If your unit is balanced or not will have a large impact on the ammount of praise or criticism you recieve on each unit.

Unit stats have large flexiblity due to their intergrate relationship with one another.

Health is what your units general health level is at.
Low -- 1-30 Medium -- 31-45 High -- 45+

Power is how much damage your unit deals when attacking.
Low -- 1-16 Medium -- 17-20 High -- 22+

Armor: Armor is were you tweak your units health to a well thought out number.
Armor has a mathmatical formula to work with.
Damage=D A=Armor R=Real Damage Dealt
[(100-A)0.01]D = R
This formula can be used to let you tweak your units health level to be stronger against some units and weaker against others. This formula can also be used to see how much Damage your unit does to others already created.

Movement is how far your unit can walk.
Low -- 0-1 Medium --2-3 High 4+

Range is how far your creature's attack reaches. Try and balance your range in accordance to the movement and power of your unit. high powered units should have low range, and low movement units should have high range. Try and play with the numbers to reach a balanced number.

Block is the probablity of the unit of blocking an attack. I use this as a slight tweak to adjust range and movement.


Name: Ice Axe Thrower
HP: 40
Armor: 8% 0.92Damage=Real Damage
Power: 18
Range: 4
Block: 60%
Movement: 3
Wait: 2
Special: Frostbite -- A Paralyze spell that doesn't involve focus,
but instead adds 2 counters. At the end of unit's controller's turn
remove a counter. Paralyze is removed once the last counter is removed.

Figure 1.4

Awesome, well almost. ;)

Questions and/or comments?

steve12
08-12-2007, 09:05 PM
Decent. I had an idea to do something like this some time. I do think it may need to go in depth a little more, but I'm not quite sure if this would be used to balance out unique units, as their stats would differ depending on their ability.

terrorista
08-12-2007, 09:09 PM
I tried to leave it vague due to special abilities and indiviual interpretation. It also came to a quick closing, as I want to sleep. Thanks for the quick reply, and good night.

bloodreign
08-13-2007, 07:19 PM
GOOD GUIDE 4 NOOBS.... well presented.

l2oving Elve
08-13-2007, 10:57 PM
Great guide but your a nerd ;)

steve12
08-14-2007, 08:04 AM
but your a nerd ;)

Was that really necessary?

l2oving Elve
08-14-2007, 11:10 AM
Was that really necessary?

Good point but the great guide part was. :p

Magician
08-14-2007, 03:01 PM
Your final unit is too similar to a scout in basic statistics. I love the idea and guide, however. :)

Nice work!

CRX687
08-14-2007, 10:51 PM
Actually, a much easier way to make sure something's balanced:

1) A current unit MUST be able to beat it 1 on 1 (probabilistically, so "if knight blocks 8 times in a row, then it can kill this" doesn't count)
2) No way to sacrifice the unit to "guarantee" the destruction of a scout, knight, or cleric can exist
3) It cannot have the ability to break focus without being vulnerable or requiring reasonable setup

bloodreign
08-14-2007, 11:22 PM
1) A current unit MUST be able to beat it 1 on 1
geeeeee you mean a berserker must be able to beat it? or an assassin? or a whisp?

Come on .. the template is the knight.. the unit in question must NOT be able to beat a knight 1 0n 1 at least that is my understanding. Unless it has SEVERE disabilities to ranged units....... heheheheh frost is my template.


It must be strong enough for a man but made for a woman.

CRX687
08-15-2007, 01:50 AM
geeeeee you mean a berserker must be able to beat it? or an assassin? or a whisp?

Come on .. the template is the knight.. the unit in question must NOT be able to beat a knight 1 0n 1 at least that is my understanding. Unless it has SEVERE disabilities to ranged units....... heheheheh frost is my template.


It must be strong enough for a man but made for a woman.

A current... meaning at least one... not ALL.

Using a specific unit as the template just limits creativity.

Cuz if that's the case, then frost golem and furgon are are overpowered immediately. As long as one of the commonly used units can beat it one on one, it's fine. And by beat, I mean outright beat. Frost and win any one on one save against a scout. And furgon and force a draw against knights. But the frost golem cannot beat a well used scout and a furgon can never escape a mud golem.

The way I think about it, people should be TRYING to design units that can beat knight in one on one but cannot beat some other unit, like assassin or scout.

terrorista
08-15-2007, 06:27 AM
What if the created unit has good synergy with other units, like the stone golem? One on One it always loses, however it is still a credible unit.

FreddyAdu23
08-15-2007, 06:42 AM
hmmmm.....dont make it make people have beastily units besides of course the knight becoming a beast cause it does that with stonie

gryph89
08-15-2007, 07:10 AM
What if the created unit has good synergy with other units, like the stone golem? One on One it always loses, however it is still a credible unit.

Just as long as the unit doesn't completely say "oh gee, win for me" is alright in the long run. That gets a good grade in my book.

Hoolwath
08-15-2007, 07:27 AM
The unit is a good one and the guide is brilliant, well done!

steve12
08-15-2007, 10:54 AM
With a little more information, I'd say this is Sticky-Worthy on this Forum Board.

The Ass
08-15-2007, 04:06 PM
Yeah.

terrorista
08-15-2007, 04:09 PM
Feel free to contribute your thoughts on unit balance.

Hoolwath
08-16-2007, 02:24 AM
This is definitely worth a sticky. Something like this is needed.

Kyir
08-16-2007, 05:17 PM
I'd just like to say, you should try to balance massive power or movement with a high recovery.

FreddyAdu23
08-16-2007, 05:25 PM
This is definitely worth a sticky. Something like this is needed.
i agree with this guy he is cool :cool:

Kyir
08-16-2007, 06:52 PM
i agree with this guy he is cool :cool:

Sucking up is fun?

FreddyAdu23
08-16-2007, 07:01 PM
Sucking up is fun?
nope but i want to lol :p

Hoolwath
08-17-2007, 03:39 AM
Sucking up is fun?

You are Geeealous!


You are cool too Freddy. :cool:

The Wild
08-17-2007, 11:56 PM
This guide is pretty cool. I find it hard to believe someone who joined on August 2007 could write this. Kudos. :)

inked
08-21-2007, 03:47 PM
Who cares who wrote it, maybe they used a new name because they didn't want credit.

...

or its an awesome new guy. :P

Kyir
08-21-2007, 03:51 PM
Who cares who wrote it, maybe they used a new name because they didn't want credit.

...

or its an awesome new guy. :P

Indeed.

map13
08-24-2007, 08:01 PM
usefull i actually learned something lol but heres a suggestion (pleas tell peeps to do this
wait for... move, attack, move+attack, and also front block % and side block %

terrorista
08-28-2007, 10:38 AM
Unit Statistic Guidelines-

1. Blocking Percentage: All units (other than the wards) use the same formula for blocking. The blocking percentage from the front is the number listed under the units special abilities. The blocking percentage from the side is equal to half of the front blocking percentage, rounded down. Only wards can block from behind, this is because wards have 100% blocking from all sides.

2. Recovery Time: All units (except for wards) use the same formula for recovery time. The number given under a unit's special abilities is the recovery time for when a unit both uses it's ability (attacks, heals, etc.) and moves on the same turn. The recovery time for when a unit only moves is one-half the given recovery time rounded down. For just using an ability it is half the given recovery time rounded up. (So if a Pyromancer moves and attacks it has to wait 3 turns before it can move again. If it attacks, but doesn't move, it has to wait 2 turns. If it moves, but doesn't attack, it has to wait 1 turn.) Wards serve the full wait time for just attacking, since they can't move.
This was covered in the Stickied thread, if this is what you were refering to. Thanks for the suggestion.

Serge
08-29-2007, 01:39 AM
Wow. Someone actually used my guidelines! Awesome!

Anyway, I really like where you are going with this. It still needs some work, but you've got the basics down. I really like your scholarly approach. I must say, I'm quite impressed.

As I said in my rep, you missed one of my secrets to using code tags for unit stats. You need to insert linebreaks on long lines of text to avoid that stupid scroll bar. Below I've reformatted all of your code tags so as to make them fit on the screen.



Name: Ice Axe Thrower
HP: 50
Armor: 25%
Power: 22
Range: 2
Block: 70%
Movement: 2
Wait: 1
Special: Frostbite -- A Paralyze spell
that doesn't involve focus, but instead
adds 2 counters. At the end of unit's
controller's turn remove a counter. Paralyze
is removed once the last counter is removed.



Name: Ice Axe Thrower
HP: 40
Armor: 8% 0.92Damage=Real Damage
Power: 18
Range: 4
Block: 60%
Movement: 3
Wait: 2
Special: Frostbite -- A Paralyze spell
that doesn't involve focus, but instead
adds 2 counters. At the end of unit's
controller's turn remove a counter. Paralyze
is removed once the last counter is removed.

terrorista
08-29-2007, 06:35 AM
Thank you on the tip, I might try and do more updates sometime soon. Update suggestions highly welcome! Thank you.

Serge
08-30-2007, 01:41 PM
I think mostly you need to work on the language / grammar right now. It kinda makes it a hard read.