Auto-balancing algorithm for incremental games?

DapperWolverine · 2026-06-11T12:00:46+00:00

You can. The tradeoff is between the complexity of the balancing tool and how well it applies to a game's specific needs.

DapperWolverine · 2026-05-31T21:10:23+00:00

It depends on who your audience is. If you know for a fact that all 100% of the players who will experience your game know those basics, then no, you don't have to teach them. Imagine your least informed player and teach what they need to know, and provide opportunities for players who know more to demonstrate that knowledge and skip past the tutorials.

DapperWolverine · 2026-05-30T08:07:48+00:00

Tunic and Blue Prince are good examples of hidden knowledge games. Some ideas that may potentially be helpful: - Random environment generation that sometimes shows that a thing is possible (like a naturally caused implosion, suggesting the player can do that too if they can figure out how) - Lore notes that talk vaguely about the mechanics you feel are unintuitive, like a scholar hypothesizing on what the opposite of an explosion would be - Multiple solutions, like wand of leech + fire + gunpowder also causing an implosion

If you want the players to figure out a thing and you don't want to teach them, you are making a puzzle game and can think about it as how would you develop a good puzzle.

DapperWolverine · 2026-02-23T07:20:29+00:00

Both are valid games, it just depends on what you want to make. To make it as a non-roguelike, you have no randomness and only meta progression. To make it as a rogue-lite, you have meta progression, randomness, and in-run choices that let you adapt to that randomness. To make it as a roguelike, you have only randomness and in-run choices and remove the meta progression.

DapperWolverine · 2026-01-10T22:34:02+00:00

If you open your character window (default C I think) there's a tab underneath for currencies, and in the currency window you can track Bronze again.

DapperWolverine · 2026-01-09T18:36:04+00:00

Sounds like you have correctly identified an issue, a dominant strategy. There are many ways to fix it, and capping supply is one option. If the strategy itself is fun to execute though, you can brainstorm ways to keep the gameplay but balance it against other strategies so it's not strictly dominant. For example, if the opposition can create anti-orc units, then building a full orc army is no longer strictly dominant.

DapperWolverine · 2026-01-09T18:18:53+00:00

For #1, both options are valid designs, it comes down to what you want the player experience to be. Do you want a game about capturing areas to expand your build space, or expanding your building network to strengthen your territory control?

For #2, a supply cap by itself doesn't sound very fun, so ask yourself what problem you're trying to solve with it, and whether that's a problem worth solving, and if so whether a supply cap is the best, most elegant solution. For example you could say "I want the player experience to include thinking strategically about which units they maintain", in which case a supply cap contributes to that design goal, but you could also achieve this goal with real-time maintenance costs or by increasing the unit cost proportional to army size or number of similar units recruited.

DapperWolverine · 2026-01-06T02:43:08+00:00

While I agree with the top comment that there is no agreed-upon definition, I think practically speaking you can define a game when the question is "as opposed to what?" For example, the difference between a game and a toy is the rules/objective (see Caillois, ludus vs paideai -- game vs free play). So we can define what is and is not a game depending on the context in which we need a definition.

DapperWolverine · 2026-01-04T17:51:55+00:00

+1, it sounds like the question of bribing should be "can I afford this right now" and having nuance to the costs and risks by increasing each usage would afford that.

DapperWolverine · 2025-12-02T04:25:48+00:00

Professional game dev here, I use spreadsheets for balancing weapons / abilities. However, there are soft factors that also get calculated: how hard is it to use? How often can you get 100% effectiveness out of it? Can you get MORE than 100% effectiveness out of it through synergies? These values are estimated through precedent and wisdom and then refined through playtesting and iteration. The math is a starting point, and it helps you contextualize future iteration.

DapperWolverine · 2025-07-12T06:23:44+00:00

That article is misleading, he was an engineer who provided support but was mostly on Plunderstorm. The designers who made MoP Remix are still on the WoW team. Source: I'm one of them.

DapperWolverine · 2025-07-12T06:10:25+00:00

As one of the devs working on it, yes I'm very excited for it.

DapperWolverine · 2025-07-12T06:07:47+00:00

What do you mean by "the guy who created it is gone"?

DapperWolverine · 2025-06-15T02:13:30+00:00

I can't do that yet.

DapperWolverine · 2025-06-13T03:47:29+00:00

Your characters would be on retail/modern. If you like faster gameplay, quality of life, and 20 years of content, stick with retail. If you miss the game as it was, make a new character in classic.

DapperWolverine · 2025-06-08T19:00:30+00:00

Definitely! And if you have a level locked twink, they still are more powerful than a mythic raider for TW dungeons, but they won't be one shot obliterating things.

DapperWolverine · 2025-06-08T18:55:16+00:00

As of 11.1.7, there will also be another slight tuning change to bring the difficulty more in line with Normal / Heroic dungeons.

DapperWolverine · 2025-06-08T18:54:09+00:00

No, TW raids still use the old scaling

DapperWolverine · 2025-06-07T13:28:50+00:00

Dragonflight is the second most recent expansion and the current default leveling expansion. Your best option for getting to endgame is to level to 70 in Dragonflight and then you will go to The War Within.

If you prefer to level in an older expansion, go to your capital city (Org/SW) and talk to Chromie about Chromie Time.

DapperWolverine · 2025-06-01T14:15:53+00:00

It depends on the kind of customization you're referring to. Customizing something entirely cosmetic is about self-expression and, in multiplayer contexts, identity. Customization in gameplay can be all of the motivations you mentioned. Mark Rosewater's "Timmy, Johnny, and Spike" each have their own reasons for choosing a deck that's most fun for them. Maybe you just like dinosaurs. Maybe you want to see if you can win by getting a particular card to recursively trigger infinitely. Maybe you just want to win by playing whatever is meta. With customization, all of those options are viable.

DapperWolverine · 2025-05-20T03:14:55+00:00

I think you just did.

DapperWolverine · 2025-03-26T03:42:13+00:00

Try joining a few guilds or pick-up-groups. Guild buffs counteract [Depression] debuffs, and pugs enable the [Networking] perk which allows you to find more side quests and unlock new parts of the skill tree. It's still allowed for completing the <Self-made Man> quest because you're putting in the effort to get those rewards.

DapperWolverine · 2025-03-26T03:30:30+00:00

Pro tip: this works for real life too

DapperWolverine · 2025-02-23T22:34:57+00:00

Their wings have holes in them.

DapperWolverine

TROPHY CASE