Balancing stats in a monster fighting game (similar to Pokemon battle/stats)

Question

I'm trying to create a game that uses a battle and monster system like Pokemon. I'm using some similar equations that I've modified to fit my desired level/tier system. One thing I'm trying to figure out is how to balance my monsters when I am creating them. I will have stats for health, attack, defense, special attack, special defense, and possibly speed. Unlike Pokemon, I'd like to have all my monsters be relatively balanced so that at high levels you could conceivably use any one.

One thought I had was to write a simple program that allowed me to create a monster. Its stats would start at a base 50 and every time I increased its stat by 4, the other stats would drop by 1. I could then tailor my monsters to be defense heavy while lacking offense, etc. One issues, is that my health equation yields a higher amount of health per increase in stat point versus the other stats.

Do you have any suggestions for improvements or a new system.

Answer 1

Slightly off topic, but I saw this video recently.

This is mostly only an issue in multiplayer games, but if things are balanced completely? There will only be a few ways in which you can play it.

Answer 2

What you could do is simply leave health out of the stat equations and keep it at 50. The other stats would account for higher level battles, like if you're defensive then you won't get hurt as much when attacked, when you're offensive then you give more damage and the opponent loses more health.

Answer 3

Balance is pretty meaningless if one doesn't understand how the numbers interact. Your proposed solution, or even TMP's both assume that the 'value' of your stats are all closely related. The reality is that, depending on the underlying mathematics that govern your system, they could very well be far out of sync.

A good example of this is the '+3' cycle from the first release of Magic: the Gathering. There was one card of each color that did 3 of something. And in the noble MtG tradition, the blue one was so ridiculously overpowered that it blew the others out of the water. The value of '3' for the blue card was way WAY more than the value of the '3' on the other cards. The same could be true for your monster stats.

Balance isn't just a switch that you can flip. It's a complicated and nuanced process that goes directly to the heart of your game. The only way to even begin to make some kind of auto-balancing system is to generate a simple genetic AI that can play your game (or a simulation of it) and look at it's play to try to find degenerate strategies.

Answer 4

You mentioned pokemon game, therefore I'll assume you want to include skills for your monsters.

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I'd say your main problem would not be stats, but rather skills (as far as I can remember Pokemons ;)). Your problem has a bit different category than, let's say, RTS games face. In most of RTS games units don't usually have skills (or if they do, like in Starcraft, they serve particular situation(s), but not general case) and it's easier to evaluate their overall value* and design stats - even concerning leveling possibilities.

But onto your case. Let's imagine situation in which you possess two different Pokemons A and B (stats described relative to each other):

• pokemon A has less HP, little more attack, little less defense, attack debuff skill;
• pokemon B has more HP, less attack, little more defense, no skills at all

From stats point of view, Pokemon B is more valuable as defensive one. If you design Pokemon B to acquire slightly more defense and HP with each level than Pokemon A does, you can notice how his value increases with each level even further. But, take into consideration how this one attack debuff skill can affect battle result. If this skill's power rises with each level then it becomes less clear which of these two is more valuable in general. Going even further, you can use Pokemon A for weakening opponent's Pokemon-with-powerful-attack-and-powerful-attack-skills, take as much damage as he can handle (assuming Pokemons' skills are restricted in use count) and then use Pokemon B to finish him or even use other offensive Pokemon C. Considering greater effects of one Pokemon type on other Pokemon type - possibilities are endless.

Conclusion is: you should not concentrate purely on Pokemon stats, but on overall mix of fighting/defensive/put-what-you-need-here stats including skills. In your case, skills are probably most vital for gameplay, thus making your task even more difficult. My advice is not to concentrate on balancing stats in early/late game, but make them unique in terms of stats and skills. Diversity is what makes your units more attractive to their owners and serves well the purpose of putting greater challenge to the player.

* value does not mean costs, but overall usefulness of this unit

Answer 5

In games I've designed I sometimes assign a value to different stats. Perhaps Damage is more valuable than Speed and Health is a higher number than other stats, so if your base number is 50 Damage, 50 Speed and 500 Health, I might say for every 2 points of Damage changed would equal 3 Speed or 40 Health. Could turn out like 56 Damage, 50 Speed and 380 Health or 40 Damage, 59 Speed and 580 Health. When I have made games I've noticed some things are just more valuable than others and a consistent change across the board unbalances things.