Balance
A speed stat of 150 should mean one and a half turns, so why do fast heroes get more?
In turn-based fights a speed number decides who acts how often, and rounding quietly decides it too. Fast and slow characters end up with a gap that is bigger or smaller than their numbers say. This entry shows the counting mistake and how to keep the promise.
Players put points into a stat that is already capped by their gear: how much is wasted?
When a stat has a ceiling and equipment also adds to it, players can spend points that do nothing and never find out. This entry shows how to measure the waste by stat from real characters and how to tell a harmless overshoot from a trap in your menus.
What does it really cost to upgrade gear when a failed try can set you back?
Each try has its own chance and its own price, and a failure may drop the item a step or two. The cost of the whole climb is then not the sum of the steps. This entry shows how to compute the true average cost and decide where to put the safe steps.
Deaths of players who walked away from the game ruin your difficulty numbers
A character left standing in a dangerous place dies without the player noticing, and those deaths and idle hours pollute every rate you compute. This entry shows how to separate them out and what rate is left.
How much hunting can the wildlife take before the animals are gone for good?
Hunters can empty a region, and a small dip can become a point of no return. This entry shows how to find the hunting level the animals can sustain and the population below which they cannot recover.
What are the real odds of beating a boss when many players quit before they win?
Dividing winners by everyone who tried makes the boss look harder than it is, or easier, depending on who gave up when. This entry shows how to count the quitters fairly and to find the attempt where most people give up.
How long a run back to your lost gear can you ask before players quit?
A long walk back after dying feels fair in a designer's head and like punishment in a player's. This entry shows how to read the right limit from your own logs by comparing how many players leave after short and long walks.
What does a crafted item really cost in raw materials, with batches and leftovers?
Recipes that produce several pieces at once and need other crafted parts hide their true price, and the number on the wiki page is usually wrong by a wide margin. This entry shows how to work out both the average and the honest cost for one piece.
How long should crops take to grow if players only come back now and then?
Crops that are ready while nobody is around rot, and crops that are never ready on arrival feel pointless. This entry shows how to pick a growing time from the real gaps between visits so that most trips find something to harvest.
After how many days can most players afford the big base upgrade?
Adding up the typical daily income to guess when a goal becomes affordable gives the wrong day, and players who never get there vanish from the average. This entry shows how to read the real day for a share of your players from their own histories.
How much of the time do players just walk without anything happening?
A big world gives long walks, and the fun can drain out of them without anyone saying so. This entry shows how to measure the share of play time spent walking through nothing, and how to tell it from resting or crafting.
Which places on a huge map really kill players, and which only look deadly?
A spot that someone entered once and died in looks like the deadliest place in the world. This entry shows how to rank map areas by danger so that rarely visited ones do not crowd out the places that truly cause most trouble.