formula balancing

[Sagefire135]

Does anyone have a detailed way they go about balancing the formulas for their game? HP, exp to level, chance for lucky hits, cost of items, gym gains...? I am working on coming up with formulas for my battle system and i just cant find anything that works well so im looking for inspiration. The actual numbers to use in a formula really just need trial and error to balance, so i guess im asking what base formulas do people find themselves using for things and why?

*Random rant/thinking out loud*

I cant think of anything that a linear formula would actually work well for, rarely in life does actually work linearly.
a quadratic formula comes in handy for a nice start off thats slow but gets higher and higher as you move forward. i see this used for HP formulas alot but im not convienced that its the best becaues people end up with A TON of HP.
The exponential and logarithmic formulas are handy, these guys let you start off nice and easy but as time goes on it starts to get ridiculously hard to advance, for 'exp to next level' this is perfect. Anyone not using this for leveling is probably not a math wiz, or they are a genius who found something that works even better. Or they have a system where level isnt a major factor in the game and dont mind very high levels.

My problem, what about when you want something to increase from a min value to a max value. Arc tangent models exactly what i want but making it fit the parameters i want is painfully hard. and when you want a slow increase that also passes through a specific point...ugg...no fun at all. arctangent is just built for a rapid jump not a slow one.

[zykal]

linear formulas down work out so well at all for this. I have some formulas laying around somewhere if I can find them i'll post them they are all exponential sorts.

[Nox]

Here are some ideas
http://community.bbgamezone.net/index.php/topic,2232.msg14485.html#msg14485

As for the graphs... don't know, I usually make it somehow intuitively, how I feel it would be good.
I believe it's better to think 'how do I want this value to progress in game' rather than 'how to realisticaly represent this value in game' ... of course in some cases you might want realism, but game should above everything else be game

Like if you have it quadratical than it doesn't really matter (if other formulas have similar graph) when you compare people with similar power, but this way a person on lower level would compete much worse against person on higher level ... now it depends if this is what you want or not

I also pretty often combine these "types" or play with exponent/base/whatever (like exponent doesn't have to be the same during the whole time) in order to achieve what I want

I intend to use linear or something between linear and quadratical formula for experience, because I feel leveling up is fun and interesting so denying it for higher levels decreases amount of fun. I know it would become more rare so it would be more interesting to player, but... in some games the 'exp to next level' is so high in higher levels that I don't look forward to next level anymore as it's so far that its pointless. My view.

I was also thinking now, that by increasing their stats they should become better...you know, avoid the thing that 'I just leveled up and have more HP, but then all enemies deal more damage so what was the point?'. On the other hand it must stay competitive and not become too easy after some time

[Sagefire135]

the major formulas in my game are going to revolve around the battle system. mostly used to determine what your chance to hit, miss, block, avoid, resist, strike, critical strike, ... then there will be a the exp to level one, which is intentionally going to make leveling hard, from beginning to end.

for me, leveling up will increase HP by 1, which given the battle system is ridiculously helpful. and also given the system, too much HP will make battles impossibly long. so overall leveling is going to be harder, and a much bigger accomplishment. someone at level 100 will have 110 HP and be seriously awesome. It wont be impossible to do, but average levels will be lower due to how i am planning things. should this not work out, the battle system will need to be redesigned >.< which i hope hope hope hope doesn't happen.

I think i am set on battle formulas being the arctangent; partially because i know it will work once i figure it out, and partially because i haven't figured it out and feel like i have to now...because its goin to bother me until i do. the only other idea i can think of is a piecewise function which would probably be easier, but it would be multiple equations and id prefer to have just a single one if its possible. i might try both ways so if one doesn't end up working out, i still have one to fall back on.

[Chris]

experience per level = level*level*10
HP = 10+level*5

Sure, you can waste time inventing smarter formulas, but you are doing just that, wasting time, nothing more. No player will care, it won't matter.

What was shocking to me was when I found that there is no difference between exp=level*level and exp=level*level*level (without changing the expereince gain per kill). It is a huge difference math wise, but... players swallowed it without a blink of an eye, the game with power 3 formula is just slower and that's all. No player ever complained, I'm not sure if they even noticed...

[jannesiera]

What was shocking to me was when I found that there is no difference between exp=level*level and exp=level*level*level (without changing the expereince gain per kill). It is a huge difference math wise, but... players swallowed it without a blink of an eye, the game with power 3 formula is just slower and that's all. No player ever complained, I'm not sure if they even noticed...

Lol, that's funny .

Sagefire, I can't really help you with this. Maybe you could explain more in detail what you exactly need?

[JGadrow]

experience per level = level*level*10
HP = 10+level*5

Just a note here, this is achievable by:

Code: [Select]

$level = pow($level, 2) * 10;
As far as formulas are concerned... I doubt there's ever one "best" formula to use. If there was, every game developer in the universe would be utilizing it and there would be 101 books on, "The Greatest Game Progression Formula Ever Devised: For Dummies."

Determining formulas depends greatly upon the overall goal of the game. Are members with much time spent playing the game supposed to be able to trounce newbies? Is the game purely based upon skill rather than time playing (ie: chess, checkers, etc.)? Is the game purely based on luck (ie: dice, roulette, lottery, etc.)?

[Ongor the Republican]

Sure, you can waste time inventing smarter formulas, but you are doing just that, wasting time, nothing more. No player will care, it won't matter.

What was shocking to me was when I found that there is no difference between exp=level*level and exp=level*level*level (without changing the expereince gain per kill). It is a huge difference math wise, but... players swallowed it without a blink of an eye, the game with power 3 formula is just slower and that's all. No player ever complained, I'm not sure if they even noticed...

The only way I can buy this is if you increased the rewards for leveling when you increased the xp cost,  the rewards from leveling are outclassed by whatever secondary rewards there are for doing whatever it is that gains you xp, or your playerbase is getting something else(i.e. "having fun pwning their friends") out of the game than what the leveling system provides. 

No one is going to hit their, er, "breeding apparatus" with a hammer without getting something for it.

Edit: Via divine miracle, I have been granted the ability to spell words correctly. Too bad I did not have this power when I originally posted.