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<blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 7588279" data-attributes="member: 12731"><p>What good (=balanced) design absolutely must do is design for the extremes.</p><p></p><p>Calculate the absolutely optimized character build for each criteria (attack bonus, number of attacks, damage per attack... in short, DPR) and then ask your dev team "is this what we want?" </p><p></p><p>Specifically </p><p>* "is the gap big enough to satisfy system mastery players?"</p><p>* "is the gap narrow enough to avoid getting a bad reputation for our system being too-hard, too geeky?"</p><p></p><p>When you don't design for the extremes, you're flailing about in the dark. That is why your system fails, why it gets "wild power imbalances".</p><p></p><p>The problem is, far too many players are too "casual" to realize a system is horribly borked before it's too late (i.e. the publisher has already cashed in). Unfortunately history shows a poor correlation between balance and sales. </p><p></p><p>Partly because it's so easy to dazzle too many players that don't care enough about balance, partly because of systems like 4E which went (far) too far and made everything so damned balanced all the fun was sucked out of choosing between charbuild options.</p><p></p><p>It all boils down to the simple fact that most players either don't care about balance because they're fluffy or they say they care about balance but secretly hope to "break" the system and create Pun-Pun the Kobold (which is to say, they don't really want the system to be balanced, only balanced enough that you require real system-mastery to... well, master it).</p><p></p><p>Add to this the little fact that balancing a system requires a designer that's actually <em>good</em>. That you give <em>enough time</em> to do a decent job. Which costs <em>money</em>.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CapnZapp, post: 7588279, member: 12731"] What good (=balanced) design absolutely must do is design for the extremes. Calculate the absolutely optimized character build for each criteria (attack bonus, number of attacks, damage per attack... in short, DPR) and then ask your dev team "is this what we want?" Specifically * "is the gap big enough to satisfy system mastery players?" * "is the gap narrow enough to avoid getting a bad reputation for our system being too-hard, too geeky?" When you don't design for the extremes, you're flailing about in the dark. That is why your system fails, why it gets "wild power imbalances". The problem is, far too many players are too "casual" to realize a system is horribly borked before it's too late (i.e. the publisher has already cashed in). Unfortunately history shows a poor correlation between balance and sales. Partly because it's so easy to dazzle too many players that don't care enough about balance, partly because of systems like 4E which went (far) too far and made everything so damned balanced all the fun was sucked out of choosing between charbuild options. It all boils down to the simple fact that most players either don't care about balance because they're fluffy or they say they care about balance but secretly hope to "break" the system and create Pun-Pun the Kobold (which is to say, they don't really want the system to be balanced, only balanced enough that you require real system-mastery to... well, master it). Add to this the little fact that balancing a system requires a designer that's actually [I]good[/I]. That you give [I]enough time[/I] to do a decent job. Which costs [I]money[/I]. [/QUOTE]
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