Damaging items was RE: [MUD-Dev] New Bartle article

[Brian Hook]

At 11:48 PM 2/25/01 -0800, msew wrote:

> I agree in theory with that :-) but from the muds I have played on
> they tried and tried to get it "balanced", with either holy symbols
> that cost $$ and had structure and components for the magic using
> classes.  Even with those drains in, the tanks would also have more
> of a burden on them.

Well, I didn't say balancing would be easy, just that it's possible =)

> What tools, mechanisms, strategies, do people use for balancing
> their games?  Which benchmarks?  How to implement changes in the
> game: Bottom up?  Top down?  Massive spreadsheets?

Well, I've never actually done an MMRPG from start to finish, but that
doesn't prevent me from having strong opinions on the matter.

If you're doing anything -- and I mean ANYTHING -- at all that
requires the equivalent of dice rolls, then I think the following
things are absolutely necessary:

  - a FORMAL and RIGID process for each mechanic that stipulates:
         * the design and intent of the mechanic
         * the intended implementation direction
         * the implementation
         * thorough testing that asks "Does the implementation meet
           the design"
         * thorough testing that asks "Does the design and intent
           still work?"

  - designers and programmers that have a passing knowledge of the
  relevant fields: statistics (to analyze data); combinatorics;
  probability; and at least a basic understanding of calculus.

If you lack the above, invariably you get a completely empirical model
of mechanics creation and deployment, and this will break.  There is
no getting around it.  Empirical methods -- you know the ones, where
designers/programmers randomly tweak variables and equations they
don't really understand until it "feels" right -- get utterly
destroyed and abused by power gamers that DO understand those numbers
even if they have to reverse engineer them.

I firmly believe that you must have a power gamer design your
mechanics simply because power gamers, as a group, understand the
issues involved with abusing a mechanic much better than anyone else.

As for the specific tools: good reference books; Excel; and possibly
something like MathCAD or Mathematica if you want to get hardcore.
It's always good to have two separate implementations of the mechanics
so that you can do cross-testing between implementations.

- Hook

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