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Once again we return to creating video games. Now discussing a less creative and fun, but equally important aspect of the process. Balancing a game is the act of figuring out how to change the numbers that go into the skills and weapons of a player in such a way as to make sure that the scales of power do not tip in any one direction to far. There are several types of balance and they can all aim to achieve different goals. Games like Darksouls and Bloodborn aim to balance the game in a way so as to put the player at a disadvantage. Games like Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch aim to keep players on even footing as to make the combat feel fair. And games like Nuclear Throne and Borderlands 2 give the players a power trip without making the games to easy.
Making a game difficult but fair requires an immense amount of discipline, time and testing. Darkest Dungeon does this excellently presenting the player with options that will all lead to bad results but feel fair. The game provides an impressive amount of choice in play style with benefits and flaws in every decision. Each of these choices from driving your group insane or equipping a amulet that can provide a boon for a character but will also decrease one of their stats is tested to make your player better overall but more fragile in certain situations. The key idea that the developers had in mind was to make the players choices change the result of the game but to make sure that newer players weren't at a disadvantage in the balancing. At early levels when players don't know what each monster or ability does the effect of every bad choice is less punishing. But as you increase in levels the game gets more difficult to the point where one bad choice can ruin you. The game is balanced in such a way as to keep newer players from being dissuaded by giving them more strength while providing higher level players with a challenge by making each of their items give them greater buffs and debuffs. having their attacks deal more damage but also making the enemies deal more damage and making the characters use more resources. This change to the scales of the game over time was tested for months before the proper balance was found. This unique balance gives the game an air of difficulty requiring the player to learn but also fairness in giving the player a base to start from. but games can also do this wrong. The Binding of Issac Rebirth is an excellent game. However players can quickly become very over powered with certain item combinations. In an effort to increase the difficulty of the game Edward McMillen created a enemy that can only have a certain amount of damage done to it per second. This means that no matter your skill in inquiring items you will be equal to someone who just started playing in terms of damage dealt. This does balance the playing field but the creator didn't change anything else in the game. New players could achieve an amazing run, become very powerful and then run into the Husk (the new enemy added). The husk would level the playing field and the new player would be overwhelmed. you see there was nothing added to the game at the very beginning that trained the players for the husk, so while it made the game more difficult and balanced for more experience players. It felt out of place and far to unfair to be dealt with properly by newer players.
Balancing for multiplayer games is very difficult. To be interesting a multiplayer game must require an amount of items that do different things. but the more variety there is the harder it is to balance them. Overwatch is a good example for what Multiplayer games should strive for. Overwatch works well in two ways, simplification, and feedback. Overwatch simplifies what you can do with its characters, you have your character, it does 2-4 things and has 1 ultimate, nothing more, nothing less. This allows testers to work with what is given to them to the greatest effect. When balancing, the developers only need to pay attention to how the character will interact with the map environment and with the players around him instead of how he will interact with items or runes or weapons. The second and arguably more important thing they do is listening to their players. When developing any game listening to your player base is important but ten fold in multiplayer games. Players become much more competitive in multiplayer games and as such are more vocal about problems you might have. Overwatch gives you the ability to submit any sort of response you might want to give through its main website and the numerous in game reporting systems. This allows developers to quickly change any issues with the game. The game also has a PTR or Public Test Realm where changes are given to the public in a protected environment where small groups of players can test them out. This gives the developers the chance to fix things before the rest of the world sees them. Star Wars Battle Front 2 on the other hand does none of these things. Battle Front had a plethora of different abilities that players could use. As such balancing all of them was difficult. However this was punctuated by the players bases inability to have such items. Locked behind a pay wall the developers could only receive feedback from a fraction of the players and never implemented any changes to the game.
Balancing a game to make the player feel powerful can be easily screwed up but even when failed can still result in a fun experience. 2015's Doom did an excellent job of making the player feel like they were a one man demon killing machine while at the same time creating a very balanced game and it did this through two ways. 1: Damage. Both the player and the enemies around him deal large amounts of damage, the player has the ability to one shot the hardest enemies in the game with his BFG 9000 and the barons of hell can shred through all of the armor that a player has, match this with the inability for the player to regenerate health and you force him to keep moving, constantly being in the open. Subconsciously the player is telling himself "I am in the open and i am quickly killing these demons, i mush be doing very well" even if he is on the verge of death he believes that he is destroying the enemy. 2: Speed. The speed a player can move at in doom is incredible and makes the player feel like a bad ass when he dodges the fire ball of a Kaka demon. This speed also helps to balance against the overwhelming damage of the enemies by allowing the player to avoid taking most of it. Games like the Binding of Isaac also give the player overpowered abilities but balance it less. In The Binding of Isaac the items that a player picks up stack on top of one another allowing for ridiculous combinations. While this isn't balanced within the game leading to unfair games where the player can sweep through entire floors of foes with little to no resistance. The game is instead balanced by its randomness. you might find an incredibly powerful item in one run but that is one run of many and it feels fun as you aren't always over powered. This doesn't necessarily fix any of the problems with balance but it keeps the game fun.
Balance is an important part of any game. You might want to do one thing but balance dictates that you do another. Just remember to keep the ideals of your game in mind, listen to your player base and if all else fails call it a feature.