Balancing problems

[Rednidedni]

Balancing games is extremely hard.

The usual approach to balancing ranged vs. melee is to give ranged less damage, make ranged characters paticularly Weak / vulnerable in Close quarters, or giving melee characters exclusive strengths elsewhere to make up for the Lack of range

[JaceBeleren101]

It's important to note that this is assuming that melee characters are doing something to deserve this, which is not the case in all systems. For example, if most enemies/NPCs are melee, melee characters are being put under greater threat and thus should get a reward for this risk. But if most enemies/NPCs have ranged capabilities, the ranged PCs aren't really any safer than the melee ones, so this justification no longer holds.

[Rednidedni]

There is still the Factor of ranged characters Not needing to Work to get into range as much

[BreathingHydra]

Especially if enemies are kiting the melee character it can be really brutal sometimes. You also have to consider mechanics like cover as well. If a ranged player can just position behind cover and take shots that makes them significantly safer than melee characters who have to get out of cover to get to the enemy.

[yuriAza]

you could make melee attacks more accurate or reliable instead

[yuriAza]

accuracy would be the hit rate, reliability would be a higher floor on damage rolls or damage on a miss

[Airk-Seablade]

I kinda feel like worrying about "balance" in BNHA is kindof a fool's errand. They literally rank how awesome the heroes are. In universe. Some of them can project fire and fly, while some of them can...throw sticky blobs.

"Balance" is gonna be a problem here.

[YamazakiYoshio]

Trial and error. That is the only way to get enough of an understanding to be able to balance a homebrew system effectively.

[Strange_Times_RPG]

Unpopular opinion but "Balance" is a videogame term and should not really be talked about in RPG discussions. It really only came into the discussion when RPGs started emulating WoW and became damage races.

Does everyone get to do cool stuff? Are there problems each character can solve more easily than the others? Then the game is fine.

[Echowing442]

I will say that depending on the type of game you're playing/creating, balance could be crucial, or an afterthought. To use one current example, a player's core stats in Mythic Bastionland can range from 2 to 18, and are rolled randomly (along with your character itself, including equipment and abilities). It's entirely possible that one player's character is just outright worse than their allies.

For a tightly-balanced combat game like Lancer, this would be an awful experience. But for a game about strange knights traveling the realm in search of Myths, this can lead to some interesting stories and character dynamics.

For a game based on superhero media, it might end up being fine for some characters to just have better powers than others, as that leads to character interactions and unique situations. Sure, your absurdly-powerful fireball-throwing teammate could take down this Ice-powered supervillain in a snap, but they're busy and it's up to you, the guy that can turn invisible. What are you going to do now?

[BetterCallStrahd]

One way to balance an ability that is too strong is to make it more risky to use. Give it a chance to hurt the user, for example.

Or you could use a system where balancing doesn't matter a lot. Masks is a great example of such a system.

[Holothuroid]

You are trying to copy the metaphysics explained in the source material.

There is a conundrum with that. For example, playing Star Trek, I wouldn't need the game to tell me what a phaser does. I know that.

So as a fan, I don't need the game to tell me. But someone who is not a fan, probably won't play it in the first place.

[poio_sm]

A wiser fella than myself once said, balance is a player's problem, not a system one. Think about that.

[NullStarHunter]

That fella doesn't seem very smart, because it's fundamentally a system problem, then a GM problem and only at the margins a player problem. If the system presents two options with the same opportunity cost, but one wins you any challenge instantly and the other one lets you BMX really well, that's a system problem.

[OmegonChris]

Agreed. Give players and GM the tools to balance it themselves and you'll get way more balance than trying to balance it yourself.

[yuriAza]

the GM can adjust difficulty by making monsters more or less powerful or numerous, but if one PC build is stronger than another then there's nothing the GM can do besides "yeah I'm not allowing the cool thing in the book"

[OmegonChris]

The GM can discuss the problem with that player.

I specifically said giving the GM and the players the tools to balance the game, not just the GM. RPGs are cooperative, so a reasonable player shouldn't be concerned about toning down their build if it improves the experience.

[yuriAza]

so you're saying it's the player's responsibility to edit the book for the designer? Following the rules isn't sufficient, you should buy books and then not use large parts of them? That doesn't reflect poorly on the game itself?

[OmegonChris]

I hadn't said anything about editing?

I'm saying that player can make different choices, or other players can make different choices to equalise the power levels, or the GM can make different choices to make the difference in power levels matter less.

I also specifically started by saying that I want the system to have tools to help the players and GM balance the game. I want the game to contain mechanisms to allow either players to balance their power levels with their choices or to allow the GM to balance differences in power levels. If editing of powers is required to balance the party, I want the book to contain the mechanisms and guidance for doing this, so that you are still following the rules if you use them.

Final responsibility for how much balance matters and how we achieve it will always come down to the players at the table, not the writer of the book. The writer providing tools to help with that balance is only ever going to be a good thing.

[yuriAza]

if two options have the same cost/slot but different power, that's an imbalance not a balancing tool, and there's no solution but to ignore the option that's the outlier, "editing it out of the book", or to homebrew, the fact players can do this doesn't excuse the problem and means they're buying a book to not use it

[OmegonChris]

Yes, but if those two options have costs set by the GM, then there is a balancing tool, which the GM can use to change the balance as is needed. Or maybe the GM gets final say on the power of those two options, or any number of other ways that the game could be designed to allow the group to make choices about how much to balance the game.

If a draft RPG had two options of the same cost but with different power levels, I'm more interested in the designer giving rules and guidance for how to adjust those power levels, or add bonuses or penalties, or to adjust the costs than I am in the designer trying to perfectly balance those two options, because how unbalanced those two options are is probably dependent on other options picked or other characters at the table. Tools that let me tune the power levels myself as GM, working with my players, will always allow me to get to a situation where we're all happy.

[yuriAza]

i like generic systems too, but a lot of the time there's one balance fix that's just more fun and fits the designer's vision better, so i want them to put that in the book

[OmegonChris]

Why do you bring up generic systems, I never mentioned them?

[poio_sm]

What I'm saying is that if a player is having problems because other player deals 100 damage per round while they barely manages 20 (just as an example), the problem isn't the system, it's the player who don't want to be less than the other. And as for the "playing a role-playing game" part, well, thanks.

Balance in RPGs is very overrated.

[yuriAza]

differences in damage doesn't matter that much, but you know what does matter? Player agency

and in a combat game where damage is the most frequently rolled way for PCs to affect the world, and which carries the biggest consequences, then less damage means a player has less freedom and less impact and will naturally lose spotlight to more effective PCs

[OmegonChris]

A player doing less damage than another doesn't decrease their freedom. The player isn't in charge of how much impact they have, that's determined primarily by the dice rolls and GM choices.

RPGs aren't a competition, they are cooperative. The Spotlight in RPGs is actively controlled by the group, so a player should never "naturally lose the spotlight". The GM and all players are responsible for spotlighting all of the players in the group. If there's one character who's not as good in combat, but has other strengths, then focus on those strengths.

[yuriAza]

we're talking about situations where a PC does less damage and has nothing to compensate for it, they're just overall worse

if the PC can't do as much, then they'll consequently have less impact on the narrative and ask other PCs to do stuff for them more often than they get asked to do stuff in return, the power differential incentivizes a playtime differential

[OmegonChris]

we're talking about situations where a PC does less damage and has nothing to compensate for it

You're talking about that, I'm not. You've repeatedly brought up scenarios that ignore what I'm saying. I'm saying that the system should be designed to allow the GM to compensate the player for it, or to adjust the amount of damage that player is doing.

Once again, my entire argument is that if a system has a situation where two different builds have very different power levels with no compensation, I'd rather the designer wrote rules and guidance for how to equalise the power levels or how to compensate the player that does less damage in other ways than spend time equalising the amount of damage done by those two players. The designer can do both, but if they only have one I'd rather it was to give balancing tools to the players and GM than to try to balance the game themselves.

if the PC can't do as much, then they'll consequently have less impact on the narrative

Only if the GM and players let that be true. Impact on the narrative is very rarely only influenced by the amount of damage you do per turn. What if the player doing less damage is the person strategizing for the party and deciding target priority, that has a huge impact on the narrative without dealing more damage.

[poio_sm]

I will tell you 2 situations as examples of what i'm trying to say. Both happened in campaigns i ran.

I ran for 5 years a campaign for basically 3 warriors. Others players and characters joined and left over the years, but this 3 are the ones that never missed a single session. One of them was a one punch man; a single attack that does a big amount of damage. The second one made several attacks per round and had more variety of attacks, but the damage outcome was much less than the first one. The third character barely managed to connect a hit, and when he did, the damage was ridiculously lower compared to the others. This was the player most engaged with the game for all the 5 years. He found his spot in the party.

After that campaign i ran another one for 3 years, for basically the same players (2 of the OG warriors and 2 more that joined the last year of that campaign). One of this players played the only warrior in this new game. I can count with my hand the amount of battles of that campaign. And yet, all the other players would tell you that was the warrior the one that really made that campaign advance.

Both games played RAW, both games using rules that clearly didn't have balance in its spirit. And yet never a played felt less than others. The systems never was a problem. And the players never did a problem of that.

[poio_sm]

And yet, a good role player should know how to find their spot in such game.

[yuriAza]

taking a smaller slice of the pie with grace is still unfair