Knowing What You Want

When it comes to game design, it can be quite difficult knowing what one wants especially with regard to balance. I love the mid production phase when a lot of stuff isn't in yet, but it's sufficiently complete that people start believing that they have an idea of just where the balance should go. It's a real awkward situation.

In fact, it can be somewhat bewildering. On one paw it's entirely possible to keep tweaking the balance until everyone is satisfied. However, by doing so, not only is there unnecessary work from the constant tweaking, it also becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of less than legit changes made to achieve balance in the interim state of the game. This is a comparatively small matter on a small project, but the difficulty of maintaining documentation on a large project is very much harder.

Then again, the tweaks can also be viewed as iterations. In general, the higher the number of iterations, the more the balance is refined. By that logic, the balance should be constantly tweaked.

Of course, I did figure a balance point to my balancing approach. Specifically, that the tweaks should be made periodically to address the most significant flaws, while keeping in mind the overall direction of the project. That basically means leaving some flaws out of the fixing cycle such that they serve as a constant reminder of just what is still missing. It is not pleasant, but it serves its purpose.