2. What is game balance?  Getting the numbers right  Some explicit, some implicit  All about relations between numbers  Nuance of relationships  Game and metagame  Metagame examples  Poker tells  Sports leagues rules

3. Aspects of Game Balance  Single-player  Multi-player  Within game  Objects

4. Types of Balance  Challenge/Success  Fairness  Meaningful choices  Skill /Chance  Head/Hands  Competition vs. Cooperation  Short/Long  Rewards  Punishment  Freedom/Control  Simple/Complex  Derail?imagination

5. Determinism  Determinism: given a move in a particular context, will always have the same result  Chess, go deterministic, but very large state space  Original Pac-man AI too deterministic – became a game of memorization (added ransdomness isn Ms Pac-man)

6. Solvability  Trivial  Tic-Tac-Toe  Theoretical complete  Chess, go  Checkers?  Non-deterministic: maximize probability  Perfect vs. privileged information

7. In the Flow  Individual differences  Choosing difficulty level  Pacing  Levels: increase difficulty with success  Go through easy parts quickly

8. Why Asymmetry  Real world  Exploration  Personalization  Level playing field  Interest

9. Dealing with Asymmetry  Asymmetry of starting position  Turn-based: who goes first  Balancing asymmetry  Class equivalence  Different objectives

10. Balancing Strategies  Dominant strategy  Eliminates all other decisions  Multiple winning strategies

11. Game Objects  Cost/benefit ratios  Purchases of spells, units, …  Each object  Too weak: useless  Too powerful: makes other object useless  Techniques  Cost curve (transitive)  Rock-paper-scissors (intransitive) Rock-paper-scissors  Incomparable

12. Object Relationships  How significant  Linear  … (Pascal’s Triangle)Pascal’s Triangle  Exponential  One-way or two  Gold may buy food but has other purposes as well  Do you have a central measure?

13. Helpful Hints  One change at a time  Rule of 2  Balancing first-turn advantage  Resource: Ian Schreiber on-line course (blog)on-line course