The Art of Balancing Autonomy-Driven Game Mechanics: Exploring Turrets, Necromancy, and Spirit Casting
Challenges and Strategies for Creating Engaging Gameplay with Passive Ability Suites in Single and Multiplayer Settings
Join the Open Playtest for Exoprimal: A Dinosaur B-Movie Hoard Defense Game
Ok so a bit of fun this post. This is the kind of stuff I look forward to!
Though I was not able to get into any of the early playtests for The Finals it looks like Exoprimal the dinosaur b-movie hoard defense game is having an open playtest this weekend!
Go ahead and give that a sign up on steam here. It is also going to be available on multiple other gaming platforms so if you’re interested go ahead and give it a look on your respective console!
I’ve been waiting for Earth Defense Force 5 to go on sale so I can play it with some friends. I’m hoping that this scratches some of the same itch as that. The open playtest should be a good way to get a feel for what the game is. If you are interested in giving the game a shot with me, go ahead and join the Bits N Pixels Discord Channel where I’ll be giving the game a shot and having some fun with it.
The Fascinating Challenge of Balancing Autonomy-Driven Game Mechanics: A Look at Turrets, Necromancy, and Spirit Casting
After yesterday’s article it got me thinking about the kinds of mechanics that I really enjoy in games. Obviously turrets were a core theme for me, but I always feel like I’ve really enjoyed the classes that make things that do stuff for me. Yes, turrets definitely fit that description, however they are not the only things in that category. Other things in that list that I enjoy are necromancy, spirit casting, and any kind of hypnosis.
To someone who does not play games, having access to ability suites like those might seem a bit much. Which to be honest, they might be right. Most of the games that I can think of that contain said mechanics nerf the crap out of them to the point where they are just barely useable, even the single player games. It breaks my heart to see a mechanic that could easily carry me through an entire playthrough of an rpg get crushed by the weight of the weaker mechanics.
As a game dev there is a lot about these mechanics that make them very challenging, especially when balancing a big game. The last thing you want the player doing, is nothing. Which is a problem considering the entire goal of turrets, skeleton armies, and familiars is for the player controlling them to do… nothing. Perhaps that doesn’t have to be the case. There certainly is a world where these mechanics are fleshed out with more gameplay and actually made mechanically interesting without taking away the intrigue and autonomy that drove me to them in the first place.
Especially now with the rise of the “Vampire Survivor-Like” games where the player does ostensibly nothing I think something could be learned from those games to make a necromancy/turret character more fun and engaging in the short term. The largest problem is when you implement mechanics like these into multiplayer setting. Balancing AI against actual opponents is almost impossible. Either the turret is too good, and the player is slandered by other classes because they don’t have to do anything, or the turret is bad and the player would be better off picking a different class. There really is no in-between in a multiplayer setting. Plus dying to a turret just sucks, I would hazard a guess to say that people probably dislike dying to a turret more than they dislike dying to a player.
This is a topic I really feel like I don’t have enough information yet to talk about with a lot of confidence other than a gut feeling. I’d love to get some feedback from y’all on this so I can look at more specific examples in games and have something a little more researched.
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