Levels and skills
Learning paths through this topic
Upgrading a spearman to a pikeman should keep the progress, though ranks cost differently
When a unit changes into a better kind, its experience points mean something else, because the new kind has a different scale. Copying the number gives a free rank or sends the unit back to start. This entry shows how to keep the rank and the share of progress inside it, and what to do when the new kind has fewer or more ranks.
A player jumps three levels at once and misses the unlocks in between
Levels unlock things such as areas, recipes or abilities. If the game only looks at the new level, everything that sat on the levels skipped over never appears. Here is how to announce each unlock exactly once and how to repair a loaded save.
Detect an upgrade that costs more than the storage can ever hold
The button says "not enough wood", the player waits for hours, and the wood never reaches the price because the store is full below it. Nothing in the game explains this. This entry shows how to tell apart ready, still waiting and impossible until the store grows, with a time estimate for the middle case and one clear message for the last.
When economy, army and science share one price rule, work out the price of the next step
A game with three tracks makes each next level dearer, depending both on the track and on how far the whole empire has come. Players want to know what a plan of several steps costs, and the price after each step changes. This entry shows the price rule, how many steps a budget buys, and which track is cheapest now.
Veteran, technology and hero bonuses should stack without runaway strength
A unit has a bonus for its rank, another from research, another from a nearby leader. Add them and weak early choices look the same as strong late ones; multiply them all and a few upgrades make an army unbeatable. This entry shows a middle road with two groups and how to round so the screen and the fight agree.
Choose which veterans follow the army to the next mission when room is short
Between missions the roster is bigger than what the next map allows. If the game picks by list order, a veteran can be left behind on a whim and the order changes between loads. This entry gives a pick that is the same every time, keeps the story characters in whatever happens, and spends the places on the units who earned them.
A weekly boss reward resets on the wrong day or lets a player collect twice
Co-op games often let a character beat each boss for rewards once a week. The reset day is easy to get wrong, and a kill just before the reset must not block the fight just after it. Here is how to count weeks so every player agrees when a new one starts.
A high-level player waits forever for a match because nobody is close enough
Matching only players of similar level keeps fights fair, but at the top and bottom of the ladder the queue never fills. Widening the range as people wait is the obvious answer, yet doing it carelessly drags a fresh newcomer into a hopeless match. Here is a rule that balances both.
A winning streak bonus makes players quit the moment a match goes badly
A bonus for winning several matches in a row is exciting, until the player sees the match is lost and simply leaves to protect the streak. That ruins the game for their team. Here is how to build the streak so quitting is never the clever move and one loss does not feel like the end.
A big reward should lift the player several levels and keep the leftover
After a boss or a quest the reward can be bigger than a whole level, and games that only check once either lose the extra or stay a level behind. Here is the loop that handles any size of reward, including the top of the ladder.
Players farm weak enemies for experience, and strong ones give barely more
If every enemy pays the same, the safest enemy is the best deal and the game turns into grinding. Here is how to let the reward follow the gap between player and enemy, so weak ones fade out and brave fights pay a bit more.