Games - Game balance

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	Games - Game balance

Game balance is a concept in game design describing fairness or balance of power in a game between multiple players or strategic options. A game would be called unbalanced if one or more players have an unfair advantage over the others.

A more complex definition of game balance that critics have described is that, when players have multiple options or routes to victory, most or all of these options are about equally effective or feasible. To be perfectly balanced, each of these options would have to be strategically identical (in which case they wouldn't be substantial choices at all). In a game where various options (such as armies in a real-time strategy game, fighters in a fighting game, or character classes in a role-playing game) have significant qualitative differences between them, the game is balanced if the options are roughly equally likely to lead to success despite their differences. In a suitably balanced game, players would make such choices based on their personal preference, strengths, and playing style, rather than on an inherent advantage in one option. If one option were weaker than the others, then it would rarely be selected by any player and will not contribute to the complexity of the game.

When trying to create a complex or strategically rich game, game designers typically strive to maintain balance while offering the greatest possible number of these options, which in turn increases the difficulty of balancing the game. Balanced games are generally more enjoyable, and are considered better-made, than unbalanced ones.

Role-playing games

In role-playing games (RPGs) in which a game master (GM) creates or operates the adventure, one of the GM's duties is to create game balance. For example, creating monsters or other adversaries whose abilities are far beyond those of the players is acceptable only if the players have a way to avoid them or do not themselves need to defeat them. According to books such as the Dungeon Master's Guide
for Dungeons & Dragons
, players involved in such an imbalanced game are likely to complain of unfairness, and because most of the players' characters might also fail or die before their time, the players often feel that they have little power to influence the game with their choices. Conversely, a game whose imbalance favors the players will most often lack challenge and suspense, and typically the players will eventually feel that there is no point to playing. Players are more likely to feel satisfied by playing when the principles of game balance are applied skillfully.

Creating a balanced adventure is one of the challenges of acting as a GM. Most role-playing books that address the issue of being a GM give substantial attention to this issue.

Another aspect of game balance within RPGs is that of balance between the choices made upon character creation, such as race and class. This extends to RPGs that do not use a GM, such as computer and video RPGs. Character creation options that lead to ineffective or less powerful characters will largely go to waste if players feel they are not worth choosing. Players who choose them anyway will be prone to frustration if they feel they are stuck with a character that is inherently disadvantaged, especially after they have invested time and effort in it. Because this aspect of game balance depends most heavily on the rules of an RPG rather than the work of the GM, it is usually the responsibility of the game designer.

Multiplayer video games

Balance in a multiplayer video game can be generally determined by whether the skill of a player is sufficiently important in determining who wins; it is balanced if two players of equal skill have equal chances of winning.

Fighting games

Game balance in "versus" fighting games is usually defined in terms of the balance between the fighter characters that players can select. Ideally, the odds between two opposing players should be the same regardless of which characters they select, all other things being equal (and without taking into account the advantage a player might gain from choosing a character that favors his or her individual strengths or playing style). A game would be badly imbalanced if a novice could beat an expert simply because the novice uses an inherently superior character.

Real-time strategy

Game balance is a natural consideration in real-time strategy games where players can choose between multiple armies or sets of units with substantial differences between them.

For example, the real-time strategy game StarCraft has been critically identified as exceptionally well-balanced. The three races available to players (Terran, Protoss, and Zerg) are said to be almost perfectly balanced with each other, even though there are tremendous differences in the way they operate and their strategic strengths and weaknesses. There is no clear consensus among expert competitive players of StarCraft that any one race is superior in all cases.

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