Balance
Is dying too expensive? Measure the penalty in minutes of play, not in gold
A death that costs ten percent of your gold feels harsh to a rich player and meaningless to a poor one, and the walk back costs both the same time. This entry shows how to put every penalty on one scale and where the pain lands for each stage of the game.
Where on the map do players die most, once you count how often they go there?
A heat map of deaths is mostly a map of where people walk. A corner visited twice with one death looks deadlier than a busy crossing. This entry shows how to rank places fairly and keep tiny samples from topping the list.
Which fight makes players turn the difficulty down?
Most players never say they find a fight too hard; they quietly change a setting. This entry shows how to find the fights that trigger the change by comparing each against the rest, and how many deaths it usually takes before they give in.
Is one stat always the best pick? Compare what one extra point is worth in every build
When every strong player puts their points into the same place, the other choices are decoration. This entry shows how to measure what one more point is worth for each choice in real builds, and how to tell a dominant stat from a sensible default.
With what health do players reach the last room, and how many never get there?
A dungeon of fair rooms can still be unfair as a whole, because the losses add up and a few bad rolls end the run before the boss. This entry shows how to compute the spread of health on arrival from the rooms alone, before anyone has played it.
At which hours does a typical player stop finding better gear?
Even a loot table that looks generous can leave a long stretch where nothing better drops, and that is exactly where players feel stuck. This entry shows how to follow the best item a typical player owns over time and mark the dry stretches.
When does farming weak monsters stop being worth it, and how many kills is too many?
If monsters pay less the weaker they are compared to you, then some level is where the climb turns into a treadmill. This entry shows how to compute the number of kills needed per level, find the level where it passes what players accept, and set the floor.
A boss that is fair for one player is trivial for four: how much stronger should it get?
Making the monster four times as tough for four players sounds fair and still makes groups slower, because players do not add up perfectly. This entry shows how to work out the scaling that keeps the fight the same length and what to do about the damage it deals.
Players hoard a hundred elixirs and never drink one: broken item or just scary to use?
A consumable that sits in the bag for the whole game is a wasted idea, but the reason matters: it may be too weak, too strong to waste, or hidden. This entry shows how to tell the cases apart from the item counts you already have.
How long are players stuck with a full bag, and does it cost them loot?
Checking the bag only when something is picked up makes it look emptier than it was. This entry shows how to measure the real time a bag is nearly full and how much loot was left lying around because of it, so you can set the size of the bag with a reason.
Two players reach the same story quest at very different levels: can it be balanced?
Players who do every side task are far stronger than players who rush the story, and the same boss has to suit both. This entry shows how to compute the weakest and strongest possible arrival level for each story step and see where the spread is too wide.
Enemies scale with the hero, so does leveling up still feel like anything?
When monsters copy your level everywhere, gaining a level can change nothing. When they only copy it in some places, some stretches of the game are flat and others jump. This entry shows how to find the flat stretches before the players complain.