Levels and skills
Learning paths through this topic
Players reset their skills every fight and the choice stops mattering
If rearranging skills is cheap, every player swaps to the perfect build before each boss and builds mean nothing. If it is expensive, people fear trying anything. Here is a price that stays low for the occasional change, climbs for spam, and recovers on its own, plus a rule for when a reset is not allowed at all.
Give experience by final place in a match, and share fairly when scores tie
After a multiplayer match the best place gets the most experience. Then two players end with the same score and the code gives one of them first place by accident, or both get first place and the second place's reward is never paid. This entry shows how to number the places and share the rewards of a tie.
Two devices saved the same character differently and one version has to win
A player leveled up on the console, then on the phone while it was offline. Keeping the newest file throws away real progress, and simply combining everything brings back skills they had deliberately removed. Here is a way to merge the two so the character stays legal.
Merging fresh recruits into a veteran squad should not give a free rank
Players learn to top up their best squad with new recruits, or to split it and merge it back. If experience is added up the wrong way, the squad ranks up for nothing, or loses its rank for no reason. This entry shows what to store so joining, splitting and losing soldiers all stay fair, and the numbers never drift.
The next era needs a mix of buildings, and one building must not fill two slots
To enter a new age the player must own, say, three kinds of buildings, each slot accepting a few alternatives. Counting each slot on its own lets one building tick two boxes, and the player enters the age while missing something. This entry shows how to match buildings to slots correctly and why the age, once won, is never lost again.
A patch moves an unlock to another level, and old saves get it wrong
After the designer moves a building from level 2 to level 3, someone with an old save already owns it. Rebuild the list from the level and they lose it; hand out rewards again and they get paid twice. This entry shows how to reconcile old saves with a changed table, so nobody loses a thing and nobody is paid twice.
A mentor is paid again and again as a newcomer's level goes up and down
Rewarding experienced players for guiding a newcomer is a good way to keep both in the game. The reward must be paid exactly once per milestone, even when the newcomer jumps several levels, loses a level after a rebalance, or gets back to it later. Here is the bookkeeping.
Let a player who fell behind catch up faster, without overtaking the leader
In a match with several players, one early disaster can decide the game. A catch-up bonus helps, but a bad one makes the leader feel punished, or makes players who left the game count as the leader. This entry shows a bonus that fades with the gap and reads the right players as the benchmark.
When a city loses people, its policy slots shrink, so decide which policies pause
A town gets a new slot for a law or policy at each population milestone. Then people leave and a slot disappears. If the game deletes a chosen policy, the player pays again later; if it keeps all of them, the limit means nothing. This entry shows how to pause in a fixed order, keep the choices and bring them back in the same order.
Starting over for a bonus feels bad when the bonus is smaller than the loss
Many long games let players reset everything for a permanent boost. Done badly, the first reset is too early, later ones barely help, and players cannot tell which. Here is how to calculate the gain, show it, and say when a reset is worth it.
Work out what the base made while the player was away, across an upgrade
When someone returns after hours, the game must say what piled up. The rate changed halfway through because an upgrade finished, and the storage filled up before the end. One multiplication cannot do that, and rounding at each step loses pieces. This entry shows how to walk the stretches in order and round only once.
A promotion makes a unit cost more supply and the army is suddenly over its limit
In games with an army size limit, better units take more room. When a squad ranks up in battle, the army can end up over the limit with nobody having built anything. Counting changes one by one makes the number drift from the truth. This entry shows what to count, what to forbid, and what never to delete.