The document outlines various concepts and methodologies related to game design, particularly focusing on balancing mechanics within a game. It discusses key aspects such as risk and reward, experience distribution, quest design, and the importance of playtesting to achieve a balanced gameplay experience. Additionally, it emphasizes the need for constant adjustment and iteration to ensure fair progression and player satisfaction.

2. Oscar Paskaruniawan
Gameloft Studio Lead Game Designer

3. 5 Balancing concepts

4. Linked Factor
“by linked we mean”
Any factor that can
change or can be
influenced when we
modify other variables

5. Level 20 is too long
GD make crops with BIGGER XP
BIG XP = BIG COINS
Can be unlocked earlier
Will impact the GOLD
diversity next time

6. Risk and Reward
Risk of any action/decision &
reward that user will receive
after completing any actions.
Ex; Dungeon with HARDER
difficulty will have BIGGER loot.

7. Synergy
Two actions give a better benefit
if done together or at the same time than
doing them separately

8. STUN + POISON = LETHAL DAMAGE
Enemy can’t perform self healing because he’s
paralyzed or stunned. If user perform only
poisoning, the damage will be lower because
enemy can cure the poison.

9. Dominant Strategy
A strategy that gives a
substantial advantage
over the others.
Ex; Mask of Madness
(MoM) in DOTA 2 6.83

10. Counter Weight
Any objects in game becomes
more appealing to the user.

12. We want to say that there isn’t any
magical recipe or any mechanic
formula to make balance processmagically work.
There are many different
possibilities to do this
Test and trial is your key.
CONSTANT is your friend

13. Lets have some FUN!!..
Freemium Tycoon
Economy Design

14. Step 1
Decide the Parameters; MAX level, Item list and their
stats, Quest flow, Social interaction system.
Step 2
Decide the premises first before making a balance system; Plant/
Harvest crops, Quest.

15. Also decide the EXP distribution; Harvesting 60%,
Quest 30%, & social action 10%. Sometimes,
harvesting is the mission of questing, and U can
adjust it by yourself, let say 40% of XP are
quest objectives.
Step 3

16. EXP System
>> Decide our level cap
>> Decide what kind of curve of the progress that we want,
mostly exponential.
>> Decide playing time, let say 1.5 month.

17. Base time * (LVL/1.3)= TTL
5 first level
Base time = 60
LVL= Character Level
1.3= Constant that we choose to reach the objective
TTL= Total Time to pass to the next level (in second)
We want them easily reach level 5

18. From level 6 onward we will use the next formula
Base time * (LVL^2)= TTL
Base time = 60
LVL= Character Level
TTL= Total Time to pass to the next level (in second)

21. Multipliers
From 3 to 5 1.3
From 6 to 10 Start from 2 add 0.2
From 11 to 25 add 0.4
From 26 to 49 add 0.6
From 50 to 55 add 0.8
From 56 to 60 1

22. Base XP*(LVL-2)*MULT= XPNL
Base XP = 100
(LVL-1)= Constant arbitrary created to achieve the required objective.
MULT= Multiplier; variable number that help us reach our experience curve.
XPNL= Experience needed to reach the next level.

24. We can decide the quest giver & the order to
make it clearly & easily.
Level NPC Quest giver
1 to 5 Tutorial Tutorial
6 to 10 1 2
11 to 15 1 1 2
16 to 20 1 1 2
21 to 25 1 1 2 3
26 to 30 1 1 2 3
31 to 35 1 1 2 2 3
36 to 40 1 1 2 2 3
41 to 45 1 1 2 2 3 3
46 to 50 1 1 2 2 3 3
51 to 55 1 1 2 2 3 3 4
56 to 60 1 1 2 2 3 3 4
Decide how many quest will be necessary for each level

25. With these tables we can also set the complexity of the each quest
based on % or set the short term quest or even special quest.
Level NPC Quest giver
1 to 5 45% 55%
6 to 10 45% 55%
11 to 15 25% 25% 50%
16 to 20 25% 25% 50%
21 to 25 15% 15% 30% 40%
26 to 30 15% 15% 30% 40%
31 to 35 15% 15% 15% 15% 40%
36 to 40 15% 15% 15% 15% 40%
41 to 45 15% 15% 15% 15% 20% 20%
46 to 50 15% 15% 15% 15% 20% 20%
51 to 55 10% 10% 10% 10% 12.50% 12.50% 35%
56 to 60 10% 10% 10% 10% 12.50% 12.50% 35%

26. Remember the previous slide!
Harvesting 60%, Quest 30%, and social actions 10
and 40% of XP are quest objectives.
Quest Multiplier XP coefficient for time by quest
0,3 0,4
Number of Quest Levels
2 1 to 10
3 11 to 20
4 21 to 30
5 31 to 40
6 41 to 50
7 51 to 60
We use 0.4 because 40% of
the total time will be used in
doing quest actions as we
stated before.

27. Total XP * 0.3 = TQXP
Distributed XP reward
Total XP= XP to reach the next level.
0.3= the multiplier decides before for quest.
TQXP= XP that should be distributed through the quest rewards.
Since we already knew how much XP that we need for each level, so we can
find the total XP that should distributed through the quest reward.

28. Total quest XP * Q% = XPQ
XP given for each single quest
TQXP= XP that should be distributed through the quest rewards.
Q%= % assigned by the designer (easily observable in the balance sheet)
XPQ= XP given for each quest Q.

29. TT * QP * 0.4 = ET
We must estimate now the duration for each quest
TT= Total time to pass to the next level (in second)
QP= Quest % assigned by the designer (easily
observable in the balance sheet)
0.4= Coefficient of quest time.
ET= Estimated time.
Note; we use 0.4 because 40% of the total time will be used in
doing quest actions as we started before

31. Coherence between user’s progression n quest objectives.
Ex: Most commonly this is due to objectives which force the user to interact
with obsoletes items or tutorial quest given too late in game.

32. Objective restrictions: a very common mistake is to
set as an objective to perform some action that will
be unlocked many levels later.
Ex: Construct a building that is available in level 4.
This kind of objectives are really frustrating for the
user because in most cases they force him to make
several actions that don’t belong to the quest in
order to level up.

33. Repetitive quest: We must avoid with all our effort
to make quest very similar or even have the same
objective but different number.
Ex: Kill 3 animals n then later on another quest that
says kill 10 animals 9 (of the same type)
These kinds of quest are really annoying for the
users n other important cause for losing users.

34. Risk/Reward: This is the balance concept applied
to the quest. Many times there are quest that
have no coherence between their rewards n
objectives. This kind of quest can be
too frustrating for user
which will probably stop
doing quest because their
rewards are too low or in
the other case they’ll
only do quest due their
high prize.

37. To make it easier, let’s put value on the table, so we can measure the exact condition.
It seems like the ROGUE have an unfair advantage over the others. This might lead us to
speculate that the most dominant strategy is boost the speed n armory only.

38. Also, it’s hard to make them have equal number, so we decide to add another same
variable but with multiple value. (Low: 2, Med: 4, High: 6) n only apply it for damage ONLY.

39. In the end, it’s only theory…the next step you still need to do PLAYTEST n same
experiment. Note that balancing can only really begin once the game is playable.
Then, Finally we can adjust all of those class to be like this;

41. Our previous curves are based in ideal cases. So with
the correct analysis we can make some corrections to
those curves that will result in other curves more
accurate to the real behavior.
“Play n record the real behavior!” In this part we need 3 kind of curve;
Intense user, average n relaxed user.
We should have; 3 curves for time vs
level n 3 curves for gold vs level

43. If you have an UNDERCOSTED
element, you can increase
the cost or decrease the
benefits to reach the
equilibrium point.
This BALANCE issue can be fixed easily.
If you have an OVERCOSTED
element, you can decrease
the cost or increase the
benefits to reach the
equilibrium point.
1
2

44. The real balance problem comes when you identify an element
that is just too powerful to exist in the game at any cost.
If an object has an
automatic “I WIN/You LOSE”
effect, the cost would have
to be so high that it would
be essentially unobtainable.
In such case, it is OVERPOWERED, that
the level of benefit must be reduced
(n a simple cost increase isn’t enough
to solve the problem)
3

45. As a counterpart if you have an object that’s already free, you can’t just
reduce the cost anymore, so it is possible you’ve found an effect that is
just too weak at any cost.
Reducing the cost more further is
impossible, so you have no choice;
INCREASE the benefits!
That object is UNDERPOWERED,
meaning that it is the level of
benefit (not the cost that must be
adjusted specifically.)
4

46. As a conclusion we have these 4 points in our line, the objective is to set
all in the center. For both extremes we have only one way solution, while
other points we can choose between 2. We can set the underpowered
result as a useless item and the overpowered as dominant strategy.

47. This is an area with extra PREUCATIONS.
We usually work with linear progression to establish many
premises in the game n make a balance around them.
But, sometimes, the linear formula not
match with the expected behavior
because we’re forgetting
some factors that make
the progression
NON-LINEAR
Name Attack Cost
Weapon A 10 100
Weapon B 20 200
Weapon C 30 300
Weapon D 40 400
Weapon E 50 500
This is a linear relation; 10 attack = 100 gold
This seems to be balanced in a way, but having C or D makes no diff
at all since user must hit 2 times with both weapon to kill foes.

48. There’s an inflexion
point when something
that was positive turns
negative.
Ex: Upkeep system
in WARCRAFT

49. In Racing, let say you always upgrade SPEED as
your top priority, without increasing ACC, sooner
you will find tracks with full curves n you will
never reach max speed.
CAR STATS:
ACC; 0/100 KPH 5 sec Max SPEED: 250 KPH
As U can see, u will never reach max speed. So the extra
speed acting like a diminishing return since we waste
money that should be spent in a more beneficial stats.

51. Doubling n Halving
The rule of doubling n halving
suggest that when changing
values to balance your game, u
will waste time by changing
them by small amounts.
Instead, start by doubling/halving
ur values in the direction they
need to go.

52. Intuition to guess exactly
The more game design you do, the better your intuition will become.
EX: If a projectile in your game move at 10 feet/sec n ur feeling
that’s too slow, concentrate on what exact number might be.
Your intuition might tells 13 is too low, but 14 is way too high,
“13.7 ??.... No, Maybe 13.8 … YES,
13.8 just feels RIGHT”

53. Guess exactly every time u put food in the
microwave;
“1;40? Too hot … 1;20 too cold … 1;30?
Hmm…no 1;32 seems right”

54. Thank you
Any Questions?...