[General] Question about balance and scaling in RPG maps

[VooDooRex]

Hey everyone,

So I have an RPG map in the works. It's mainly for me and two friends to play. I currently have 4 different areas / "dungeons" and a final boss dungeon.

I have my max hero level set to 50, I know how to make custom units to place as enemies and to modify their damage, health, bounty, and increase their level to change the exp gain

My question is, what's a good rule of thumb when advancing through an RPG style game in terms of difficulty? Is balancing the difficulty and damage / HP values just a huge trial and error thing?

Any help or tips on this would be appreciated. It's my first map and I want to make something I'll enjoy at least for a short time before my next project.

Thanks!

 

[Jamir]

Balancing is all about playtesting. You have to get the feel for the right difficulty yourself and others not related to the production of your map. The unrelated others are important here, because as the creator, you would be very familiar with your map so obviously, you'll know all the secrets, monster abilities & weaknesses and so on. So get others to play, preferably with minimal help coming from you, and then get their opinions on the matter.

To get the right feel without playtesting however, you should balance your monsters' strength with your players' strength, not the other way around.

 

[Dr Super Good]

There is some mathematics involved. Assuming no items, hero power does not increase linearly with level but rather quadratically.

Agility and Strength both increase toughness by multiplying each other.
Agility and main stat both increase damage by multiplying each other. Caps at +400% attack speed from all sources, after which it becomes linear growth.

As such you will have to increase enemy toughness in a similar way for enemies to keep up. Make sure to cap attack speed when +400% is reached.

 

[VooDooRex]

There is some mathematics involved. Assuming no items, hero power does not increase linearly with level but rather quadratically.

Agility and Strength both increase toughness by multiplying each other.
Agility and main stat both increase damage by multiplying each other. Caps at +400% attack speed from all sources, after which it becomes linear growth.

As such you will have to increase enemy toughness in a similar way for enemies to keep up. Make sure to cap attack speed when +400% is reached.

Ok so you mean by adding extra HP / damage to the enemies in the unit editor?

I noticed something while play testing last night as well. So in my starting area the creeps are level 2 - 5 or so. I also made a few level 10 creeps around the map just to see how the XP gain works with higher level creeps. The level 10 ones just stopped giving me XP after I killed one or two of them.

Increasing a creeps level is supposed to determine the amount of XP given (unless I'm mistaken) but is there any reason for the stop of XP?

 

[Dr Super Good]

but is there any reason for the stop of XP?

To prevent one creep rushing to level 10 in melee, Neutral Hostile units stop giving experience past level 5.

One can change this in the gameplay constants. Specifically modify the creep reduction table.