Levels and skills
Learning paths through this topic
A player leaves the controller on the table and still collects every reward
In a long group session someone walks away but stays in the party, and the others fight for them. Kicking idle players is rude and they may simply be waiting to be revived. Here is a fair way to decide who counts as playing right now when the reward is shared.
Replaying a stage with a worse result takes away the stars the player already earned
Stage-based games hand out stars for how well a level went and use the total to open the next ones. The easy mistakes are overwriting good results with bad ones and counting a retry twice. Here is the bookkeeping that avoids both.
A character's strength never grows because every level adds less than one point
If a stat should grow by a fraction per level, rounding it at each level step either freezes it or inflates it. Here is how to give every level its fair share, so the total at any level is right and nobody gets short-changed.
A strong friend carries a new player to high levels in a single fight
When a veteran kills a tough monster with a beginner in the group, the beginner can jump many levels for doing nothing. Banning groups is unfriendly, so here is a gentler way to let friends play together while the reward for the far-behind player fades out smoothly.
Three players with the same aura skill make the whole group unbeatable
A skill that strengthens everyone nearby is wonderful until a group of three players all pick it and the bonus triples. Banning the skill in groups spoils choices. Here is a rule where different auras add up, the same aura counts once, and the total stays under a ceiling.
Towers that gain levels by damage should not farm experience from overkill
If a tower levels up from damage dealt, a huge hit on a nearly dead enemy, or several towers shooting at the same moment, pays far more than the enemy was worth. Strong towers rise too fast and the balance drifts away. This entry shows how to credit only what was needed and who gets it when many hit at once.
Selling an upgraded tower should return a share of what the player really paid
A player upgrades a tower three times and then sells it. If the refund is based on the list price of the top level, discounts and sales promotions become free money; if it is based on the base price, upgrading feels wasted. This entry shows what to remember per tower and why selling in the middle of an attack should pay less.
Three upgrade paths per tower, deep in one, a little in another, none in the third
A tower has three upgrade paths and the designer wants real choices, not one tower that has everything. The rule sounds easy to say and is easy to get wrong: players find a way to the forbidden mix by buying in a certain order. This entry gives one check that is correct for every order, and shows which buttons to grey out.
Make the main building set the ceiling, without locking the game when something burns down
A common rule says no building may be better than the town hall, and the town hall may only grow when the others have caught up. Written naively, one destroyed building freezes the whole base forever. This entry gives the rule in a form that can never deadlock and shows what to do when the hall itself is lost.
How steep should the experience curve be so level 30 arrives after ten hours
Most designers guess the numbers of a level curve and then fix them by playing for days. If you know how fast players earn and how long you want the journey to take, the steepness can be calculated. Here is how, and where it fails.
Experience earned in the same fight that reaches the top level is thrown away
Players at the highest level keep fighting, and many games just stop counting. Worse, the leftover from the very fight that gets them there often vanishes. Here is how to carry every point forward into a second, endless kind of progress without rounding errors.
With two builders and a long queue, work out when each upgrade really finishes
The player queues eight upgrades and has two builders. The game must show when each finishes, also after the player was away, and say what is done, what is running and what is still waiting. Adding all times together is wrong. This entry shows how to hand out jobs and how to read the state at any moment.