How would I go about balancing combat?

[Colonello]

So now formulas are out for Intersect but I still have no idea how to properly balance combat related content. Is there some sort of calculator or guide I can use to do so effectively?

[Giligis]

Pulled this from another website: offers good insight!

A guide to making a balanced game


Table of Contents

1. EXP Curve
2. Parameter Curves
3. Creating Enemies
- Basic Enemies
- Bosses
4. Skills
5. Weapons, Armor, and Items
6. Money
7. Last Words


 

EXP Curve


This is pretty simple, what it does is change how fast, or slow you want your class to level up. What I normally do is leave this alone, but feel free to change it how you want! I'll do a little walk through of what each slider does.

Base Value: It does what it says! It is the "base" number of EXP it will take to level up. Say you slide everything else down, and leave this one at 30. It will take 30 EXP to level up.

Extra Value:This is basically just like the base value. What it does is just add on to what you have for your base value. Say again, we set the base value at 30, and the extra value at 10, it would then take 40 EXP to level up. It just adds it up.

Acceleration A: This speeds up or slows down how much EXP it will take to level up.

Acceleration B: Does the same thing as Acceleration A.
 

Parameter Curves


All these really do is change how much of a certain parameter to will have at a certain level. There are two main ways to change these. The first one is to just drag a line or curve you think is good, I don't recommend doing this. The second one is clicking on Generate Curve. Here is one rule I always use. For health, add two zeros on for level 99. For the rest only add one. I will walk you though all of them.

MHP: (Max Health Points) This is how much health you will have in total at a certain level. Say you set your level one health to 57, set your level 99 to 5700. For this one you add two zeros.

MMP: (Max Magic Points) This is how much magic you will have in total at a certain level. If you set your magic to 36 at level one, set your level 99 to 360. From here and the rest you add one zero.

ATK: (Attack) This is how much physical damage you can do at a certain level.

DEF: (Defense) This is how much physical damage you can take at a certain level.

MAT: (Magic Attack) This is how much magical damage you can do at a certain level.

MDF: (Magic Defence) This is how much magical damage you can take at a certain level.

AGI: (Agility) This is how fast you are. It controls if you miss or not, and if you have certain scripts installed, how fast you attack.

LUK: (Luck) This controls if you will contract a state or not. The higher your luck, the lower chance you have of getting a certain state, such as poison.
 

Creating Enemies


When making enemies, it's kind of hard to figure out how much health they will need so they won't be too easy or too hard to kill. It goes the same way for the rest of the stats. I'll give a quick walk through of what you can do to solve that problem! It is also hard to tell what level you are when you will need to kill them. So play every once in a while to tell. Remember to always check if the enemy is too strong with the Battle Test after. Also, when I make enemies, I don't just make them. I make them as I go in my game! If you make them right from the start, you don't know if they will be too strong, also you might not use most of them.
 

Basic Enemies


Normal Enemy

MHP: Double the player's health.
MMP: Depends on the skills the enemy has. If it's a magic user, like a mage, give the same amount or double the enemies health. If it isn't a magic user, I recommend either none, or half of the enemies health.
ATK: Around 30% less than the player's attack if you are using low health and such as I am. (Using 15 health at level one.) If you are using stuff like 250 health at level one, keep it the same as the player's. If it is a magic user, I recommend half the player's attack.
DEF: Same as the player.
MAT: If it's a magic user, Around 30% less than the player's attack, or magic attack. (Which one is higher.) If it isn't, either none or half of the player's.
MDF: Same as the player.
AGI: I would recommend around one or two points higher than the player's agility.
LUK: Same as players.

Dungeon Enemy

MHP: Triple the player's Health.
MMP: Depends on the skills the enemy has. If it's a magic user, like a mage, give the same amount or double the enemies health. If it isn't a magic user, I recommend either none, or half of the enemies health.
ATK: Same as the player, or one point higher. If it is a magic user, around 30% higher than the player's attack.
DEF: Around 10% higher.
MAT: If it's a magic user, the same as the player's attack, or magic attack. (Which one is higher.) If it isn't, either none or half of the player's.
MDF: Around 10% higher.
AGI: Same as the player's or one point less if you use certain scripts.
LUK: Same or two points higher than the player's.

Now, for making the experience they give you is kind of difficult. What I did was keep changing it until I found a decent amount. It depends on your EXP curve you set. I left mine how it was, so the first enemy I encountered has the EXP of 8. Then for the next enemy, you have to see what level you encounter it. Say I encounter the next enemy at a level of 3. I sat that enemies EXP to 14. For the gold, I use half the amount of the EXP. So for 14 EXP, I give 7 gold.









 

Bosses


For bosses it is pretty much the same as basic enemies, but with higher stats. For the experience, I give them a lot. Use the same technique as the one for basic enemies, but double the value of the experience. Then for the gold, give half of the amount from the experience.

MHP: 5 times higher than the player's.
For All the Rest: Times it by 1.5 higher (Or 150%) than the player's.
 

Skills


The skills are always one thing I've hated doing. Even after finding a clever way of doing the skills, I stikk hate doing it, but that is my opinion. You could love doing it! But either way, I'll share my technic of how to make the skills.

The first thing you want to do, is decide how much Magic (Or Technical) Points you need it to be. To do that, decide how many skills you want the class to have. Say you want to have 20 skills. Use that, and divide it by 100, then you get 5. So that means, every 5 levels, that class will get a skill. So say your first skill will be at level 5. Go to the class and find out how many MMP you will have at level 5. Once you find out, divide it by 5. That is how much MP the skill will cost!

Now we move on to the damage, the rest is pretty self explanatory.

Type: Pretty easy, what does the spell do?

Element: What element is it?

Formula: This is wear the magic happens. Click on quick, for Base Value, set that as double of your ATK or MAT. (Depending on if it's a magic user or not.) Then for Physical and Magical it's pretty simple. If it is a physical skill, set the Physical to 100, if it is a magical skill, set the Magical at 100.

Variance: This is the range of damage. Say you leave it at 20. It will do between 20% higher or lower of what you set as your formula.

Critical: Does the skill have a chance to land a critical?
 

Weapons, Armor, and Items


Alright, we've came a long way haven't we? Well we are almost done!

Let's move on, first to weapons. If it is a one handed weapon, it should be half of the player's attack. So if a player has an attack of 18, the weapon should be 9. If it is a two handed weapon, it should be 75% of the player's attack. If it is a dual wield weapon, it should be around 30% of the player's attack.

For armor, we have three parts. The body, head, and shield. All three pieces should offer a total of 50% defense. If your player doesn't want to use a shield, then take that off and have it offer a total of 35% defense to balance it out. The body armor should offer 25% defense, the head should offer 10%, and the shield should offer 15%.

Now for items, for now, I will just explain a healing potion. Potions for HP, it is a good idea to have the potion heal a little more than what the player actually has, for other classes as well. You should also make a potion for around every ten levels. Now, lets say you were making a potion for a level 10 player, with the HP of 198. You want the potion to heal 20% more than what you have. So for that, 39.6 is 198 of 20%. So you use 198, and round that up to 40. Then you add it, to get a total of 238. That would be how much it would heal.
 

Money


Now we are moving on to money, how much will it cost to buy certain items? Will you have enough money at the time of the game?

This is pretty simple. For weapons and armor, the price should be around 10 to 15 times the amount of stats they have. Say you have a sword with 16 ATK, 6 AGI, and 2 LUK. add that up to 24, and times it around 10 to 15. I will use 10, so the price would be 240. For weapons/armor that have states or resit elements and such, they amount of the item should increase by around 25%.

For Inns, the should make the price of it fit in with the theme of the town/city. If it is a broken up town who just came out of a war, the price should be cheap. If it is the richest kingdom in the world, it should cost a lot.

For items, I'll again use a HP potion for example. The price should be half of what the potion does. If you have a HP potion that heals 500 HP, it should cost 250. As for other items, such as those that remove poison, or stun, they should cost around how important the state is. Something that cures poison should be cheaper than something that cures stone, while something that cures stone, should be cheaper than something that revives a character from death.

[lurv]

Using reference material is a good way to make a frame for your game. I'm using league of legends which isn't even an MMORPG making it very experimental. I'm trying to make level 1 equal early game league and level 50 (max level) equal late game league where you're level 18 with full build (the build strength depending on your equipment, of course).

[Kibbelz]

Might be worth posting that in a resource topic @DudeItsCorey

[Colonello]

Thank you everyone for the replies! I'll be sure to follow all the advice.