this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2025
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Gaming

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[–] cecilkorik@piefed.ca 22 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Also, at least in single-player games, and sometimes in multi-player too (depending on exactly where and how) balance is actually not even necessarily a goal you should be pursuing at all. The imbalance is the point, the BFG should be allowed to be the BFG, it doesn't need to be balanced. Even better is subtle imbalances that are not necessarily telegraphed directly. Not only does imbalance indulge the power fantasy when players can take advantage of it, but discovering those hidden "broken" mechanics makes players feel like they've either lucked out or outsmarted the game and is actually deeply gratifying on its own.

It can also lead to some very emergent metagames that maybe haven't been considered. Sometimes the instinctual reaction to immediately patch out and hotfix any mechanic that is found to be unintentionally overpowered might mean you're just being the "no fun allowed" police. And games are supposed to be fun. And in multiplayer sure you have to think about the fun of all players instead of just one, but maybe you should give some thought to what would happen if you embrace the mechanic instead. Maybe it could be a per-game setting instead of just removing it. Maybe it could turn into a whole new game mode. If some people are having fun with it and could have fun using it against each other, maybe let them? It's understandable if you're trying to make your game into an e-Sport but even sports have different leagues with different sets of rules.

Balance is overrated IMO. Imbalance can be entertaining, hilarious, and fun. Consider trying it.

[–] Venator@lemmy.nz 1 points 2 weeks ago

Fun should take priority, and I think it usually does. It's just that in popular multiplayer games people usually find the optimum play style and then only do that, which can make the game quite boring and repetitive. One of the most viable ways to counteract that is to balance it so other play styles become more popular and make the game a bit more varied.

Another option can be to add some randomness to some mechanics so which play style is best isn't as obvious or changes more frequently.