Balancing spells and items

[Ommi]

Hey !

I'm really spamming with threads now but its all in preparation for my new map and I just want to work out the minor things before starting so that I don't make the whole map only to have to remake shitloads of it later because of the little things

Now I realize balancing is a continued task that takes a lot of fine tuning over time and as the map is played more the imbalances become more clear

however Im wondering how you all generally balance your maps to start off with.

I have seen a lot of spell threads on here that just seem to have rather generalized numbers, so I guess thats one way to do it, if pretty much no matter what the ability does if it always does 250 dmg then all the spells overall are gonna be fairly balanced.


I have been thinking about making something similar to World of Warcrafts item level system, where each item / ability is granted a specific "level" say for example item level 226, and then you have each attribute cost a specific amount of levels

So we could say for example (I haven't done any calculations so this is just an example on how the system would work)




Each lvl 1 spell gets 125 "Item level"

Each lvl 2 spell gets 200 "item level"
etc etc etc

+1 damage costs 1 levels

+0.1 second of stun costs 25 levels

+1 hp of heal costs 2 levels

+0.1 seconds of slow costs 10 levels

etc etc



same would go for items, maybe based on gold cost or something similar, so the system could go for something like this:

+1 damage per 5g

+1hp per 15g

+1% attack speed per 50g
etc etc

These are not real numbers, its just to make an example of the system

If the system would be implemented all the figures would have to be carefully calculated for obvious reasons, and there might apear some imbalances with heals / stuns / damage output etc but thats the "ongoing balancing" that any map has


so what do you guys think of this system ? would it be a bigger trouble to maintain something like this rather then go for a static number system and just balance as the map is played ?

give me your thoughts

 

[IronTrout]

Well that's one way to balance.. I spose.. It really does seem like a lot of effort. Personally, i prefer with heroes, 40 points to start with so say for a agil hero he'd start with (10 str, 10 intel, 20 agil) and move points around, keeping it at 40 points max. and 4 points max per level in the same fashion. That seems to make most instances pretty balanced. With Items however, your Item leveling seems like WAY too much effort if your going to have more then 30 items. I reckon just do it with your feeling, it seems pretty obvious an item you get at the start with +900 damage seems a little over powered . But even with the Item leveling, if you put 25 points for .1 second of stun, if thats too underpowered or overpowered, you're going to have to change every item thats counted for it. It really is best, if painstaking to go by feel.

 

[Ommi]

Hmm very good point, thanks a lot for the input, I supose your right that it would be a pain in the ass if I adjusted the system to balance out the stats that every single item and ability would have to be adjusted accordingly