Levels and skills
Learning paths through this topic
A promotion series keeps going after it is already won or lost
Some team games make a player win several matches out of a few to move up a rank. Players hate being forced to play matches that no longer matter, hate that leaving counts for nothing, and hate coming back after a week to a half-finished series. Here is how the series decides itself.
A player is promoted to a new rank and loses it again after one bad match
In team ranked play, rank points move after each match. A promotion that vanishes in the next defeat feels awful and makes people stop playing. Here is how to size the gains against a team's average strength and give a new rank a short protected period.
A co-op dungeon key goes up the same amount whether the group barely made it or won easily
Some co-op games hand the group a key whose level sets the next dungeon's difficulty. Raising it by one every time ignores how well the run went, and punishing every failure drives the group away. Here is a rule that rewards fast clears, counts deaths as lost time, and never sinks below a floor.
A level leaderboard has hundreds of players tied at the top
Once many players reach the highest level, a ranking by level alone means everyone is first, and the list looks random or flips on every refresh. Here is how to order such a board so it is stable, rewards who got there earlier, and still shows true ties as ties.
A weekly experience limit makes players stop playing at the exact moment they hit it
Limiting how fast one person can level in a week keeps a shared game balanced, but a hard wall teaches players to log off. A gentler rule lets the reward shrink in stages. Getting the stages wrong is easy: a reward crossing a boundary needs care, or the numbers jump.
Removing an upgrade from the build queue must also remove what depends on it
The queue holds farm level 2, then 3, then a hall upgrade that needs that farm. The player deletes the first entry and the rest sit there, waiting forever for something that will never come, while their cost stays locked up. This entry shows how to clean the queue in one pass and keep the rest in order.
A big research gain should finish several technologies and lose nothing
After a long time away or a lucky bonus, a lot of research points arrive at once. Naive code finishes one technology and throws the rest away, or finishes none because the points never reach the next price. This entry shows how to hand the surplus down the line correctly and what to do when the line runs out.
A technology gets pricier as the empire grows, even when it is half researched
In many empire games every new city makes research dearer. If the saved progress is a point count, conquering one town can either wipe out half the work or hand out a free technology. This entry shows what to store so growth never cheats the player or punishes them for work already done.
The daily bonus resets at a different moment for players in different countries
A daily reward sounds simple until a player flies abroad, changes the clock, or logs in just before and just after the reset. Using the phone's date lets people claim twice or lose a streak unfairly. Here is a day counter that every player shares, with the streak rules that go with it.
Healers who heal a full-health ally all fight long earn more than the ones who save lives
Damage is easy to measure, so supporters in a group often end up with nothing. Counting the healing they do fixes that, until someone heals a player who is not hurt just to pump the number. Here is a fair way to credit support in the seconds before a kill.
A rare item drops and a player who cannot use it wins the roll
When a group shares drops by rolling dice, someone too low in level to equip the item can claim it anyway, selling it for a profit while the player who needed it watches. Equal dice make it worse. Here is a roll rule that is fair, handles ties, and is checkable from the dice alone.
A high-level friend joins a low-level area and flattens everything in one hit
Players want to play with a friend who is far ahead, but the veteran makes the area pointless for everyone else. Scaling the veteran down is the usual answer, and it hides traps: what happens to their equipment, their skills, and the real character they must get back later.