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76-397: In video games, as in tabletop role-playing games, an object usually loses health as a result of being attacked. Protection points or armor help them to reduce the damage taken. Characters acting as tanks usually have more health and armor. In many games, particularly role-playing video games, the player starts with a small number of health and defense points, but can increase them by gaining

152-438: A decoy for teammates. Since this requires them to endure concentrated enemy attacks, they typically rely on a high health pool or support by friendly healers to survive while sacrificing their own damage output. Since they keep other members of a team alive, tanks often take on an unofficial leadership role: The tank acts as the de facto leader of the group by pulling and holding monsters' attention. It's up to me to set

228-400: A knockout . Yie Ar Kung-Fu established health meters as a standard feature in fighting games. Kung-Fu Master (1984), an arcade beat 'em up developed by Irem , uses a health meter to represent player health, with the bar depleting when taking damage. In addition to the player character having a health meter, the bosses also have health meters, which leads to the game temporarily becoming

304-410: A meta . Game balance is commonly discussed among game designers, some of whom include Ernest Adams , Jeannie Novak, Ian Schreiber, David Sirlin , and Jesse Schell . The topic is also featured in many YouTube channels specializing in game design topics, including Extra Credits, GMTK and Adam Millard. Player versus player (PvP) describes games that feature a competition between players. PvE

380-444: A certain goal. Classic examples for this are a rush or focusing on economy in a real-time strategy game. Not only elementary decisions within a strategy, e.g. between game elements, also the decision between strategies should remain meaningful. A dominant strategy is a strategy that is always the most likely to lead to success, making it objectively the best strategy. This therefore renders all related decisions meaningless. Even if

456-572: A character with an attack; it can also indicate damage reduction to a character's health. AC is typically a representation of a character's physical defenses such as their ability to dodge attacks and their protective equipment. Armor class is a mechanic that can be used as part of health and combat game balancing . AC "is roughly equivalent to defensive dodging in war games". The health indicator can be represented in various ways. The most basic forms are fractions and health bars, as well as various icons such as hearts or shields. More recent games can use

532-409: A few with large effects to make results, that differ highly from average, less likely. The player should also receive a certain degree of information and control over random elements. Difficulty is especially important for PvE-games, but has at least some significance for PvP-games regarding the usability of game elements. The perception of the difficulty depends on mechanics and numbers, but also on

608-451: A game is balanced. This is particularly true of action games : Jaime Griesemer, design lead at Bungie , states that "every fight in Halo is unfair". This potential for unfairness creates uncertainty, leading to the tension and excitement that action games seek to deliver. In these cases balancing is instead the management of unfair scenarios, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that all of

684-414: A game only have a meaning in their given context. Subsystems can be dealt with separately and they might even have different balancing goals, but they also influence each other more or less. It is therefore crucial to consider how changes can affect the balance as a whole. (In-)transitivity is a term used for logical relations. In games, this usually refers to relations between game elements, e.g. between

760-450: A game to create the intended player experience. Game balance is generally understood as introducing a level of fairness for the players. This includes adjusting difficulty, win-loss conditions, game states, economy balancing, and so on to work in tandem with each other. The concept of game balance depends on the game genre. Most game designers agree that game balancing serves towards providing an engaging player experience, especially through

836-450: A game. They might actually harm the game by unnecessarily making it more complex. Additionally, a higher number of meaningful decisions can also make a game just more complex. Offered decisions should always be meaningful though. However, for the balancing irrelevant decisions might still influence the players experience, e.g. a decision between cosmetic alternatives like skins . Strategies are specific combinations of actions to achieve

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912-475: A health meter) are restored when the character does not move. Halo: Combat Evolved (2001) is credited with popularizing the use of regeneration in first-person shooters . However, according to GamesRadar+ 's Jeff Dunn, regeneration in its current form was introduced in The Getaway (2002), as Halo: Combat Evolved only used shield regeneration. Arneson is also credited for the term "armor class" which

988-449: A leg is injured, the character can get a fracture , which will reduce their movement speed, and if their arm is injured, the character can drop their weapon. Health can also serve as a plot element. In Assassin's Creed , if the protagonist takes too much damage, thus departing from the "correct" route, the game ends and returns the player to the nearest checkpoint. In some games such as The Legend of Zelda and Monster Hunter , only

1064-404: A nerf may have an outsized impact on the virtual economy . As players respond, the nerf may cause prices to fluctuate before settling down in a different equilibrium. This impact on the economy, along with the original impact of the nerf, can cause large player resentment for even a small change. In particular, in the case of items or abilities which have been nerfed, players can become upset over

1140-483: A nonlinear health bar, where earlier hits take off more damage than later ones, in order to make the game appear more exciting. The indicator can be combined with other elements of the game interface. Doom uses a character portrait located at the bottom of the screen as such an indicator, in addition to a numerical health percentage display. If the hero takes damage, his face will appear increasingly pained and blood-covered. The health point indicator can also be part of

1216-475: A number of games do without such an indicator. In the Super Mario series, the player character initially only has one health point, and the character's appearance is used to signify the number of health points; if the character collects a Super Mushroom , they grow in size and gain an additional health point. In a number of first-person shooters , such as Call of Duty or Halo , the numerical value of

1292-516: A one-on-one fighting game during boss battles. Kung-Fu Master established health meters as a standard feature in side-scrolling action games such as beat 'em ups. Health meters also began being used to represent hit points in role-playing video games , starting with The Black Onyx (1984), developed by Bullet-Proof Software . This inspired the use of a health bar in Hydlide (1984), an action role-playing game by T&E Soft , which took it

1368-670: A result of strength-based exercises. The most popular use of these terms is found in most MMORPGs , where game designers use buffs and nerfs to maintain game balance shortly after introducing a new feature that may cause significant changes to the game's mechanics. This is sometimes due to a method of using or acquiring the object that was not considered by the developers. The frequency and scale of nerfing vary widely from game to game, but almost all MMOs have engaged in nerfing at some point. Nerfs in various online games, such as Anarchy Online , have spurred in-world protests. Since many items in virtual worlds are sold or traded among players,

1444-402: A set amount instead. Especially for online games, it therefore is important to design economies to make them “fun” and sustainable. A game is fair if all players have roughly the same chance of winning at the start independent of which offered options they choose. This makes fairness especially important for PvP games. Fairness also means, even for PvE games, that the player never feels like

1520-418: A similar level of experience . A player may gimp a character by assigning skills and abilities that are inappropriate for the character class, or by developing the character inefficiently. However, this is not always the case, as some characters are purposely "gimped" by the game's developers in order to provide an incentive for raising their level, or to give the player an early head-start. An example of this

1596-440: A simple compliment. Rewards should get bigger as the playtime increases. They give a player the feeling of doing something right and can enhance progress. A little bit of uncertainty about rewards makes them more desirable for many players. Colloquially speaking, solving a game refers to winning it or reaching its end. Ian Schreiber calls a game solvable if, for every situation, there is a recognizable best action. Generally, it

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1672-484: A step further with a regenerating health bar. Namco 's arcade action role-playing title Dragon Buster (1984) further popularized the use of a health bar in role-playing games. The 1982 Apple II platform game Crisis Mountain displays health as a number from 3 (full) to 0 (dead), and health gradually regenerates over time. In Hydlide (1984) and the Ys series, the character's health (represented as both hit points and

1748-420: A strategy does not always win, but clearly is the best, it can be called (almost) dominant. Dominant strategies damage games and should strongly be avoided when possible. However, there is no objective border when a slightly better strategy becomes dominant. Metagame describes a game around the actual game, including discussions, like in forums, interactions between players, e.g. on local tournaments, but also

1824-619: A very small advantage such as one pawn in chess. An alternative is to offer symmetry with restrictions. Players in Wizard's Quest and Catan have the same number of territories, but choose them in alternating order; the differing combination of territories causes asymmetry. Symmetry can be undone by human psychology; the advantage of players wearing red over players wearing blue is a well-documented example of this. In general, games can be viewed as systems of numbers and relations that typically consist of multiple subsystems. All numbers within

1900-461: Is Final Fantasy 's Mystic Knight class, which starts out weak, but is able to become the most powerful class if brought to a very high level. Gimps may also be accidental on the part of the developer, and may require a software patch to balance. Sometimes, especially in MMORPGs , gimp is used as a synonym for nerf to describe a rule modification that weakens the affected target. Unlike

1976-450: Is an acronym for player versus environment , where players instead compete with the environment and non-player characters (NPCs). Co-op is short for "cooperative" and refers to PvE and PvP games where you can work with other players. Game elements are things that appear within a video game that contribute to the gameplay experience. In most game design frameworks, game elements are categorized into groups to help describe their roles in

2052-579: Is closer to losing their life". As examples of visualizing health loss, Rogers cited Arthur of Ghosts 'n Goblins , who loses a piece of armor with each sustained hit, as well as the cars in the Grand Theft Auto series, in which smoke begins to flow from the hood after the car takes a significant amount of damage. The use of health points simplifies the game development process (since developers do not need to create complex damage systems), allows computers to simplify calculations associated with

2128-433: Is either the best choice in a disproportionate number of situations (marginalizing other choices) and/or excessively hard to counter by the opponent compared to the effort required to use it. Underpowered often refers to when describing a specific class in an RPG, a specific faction in strategic games, or a specific tactic, ability, weapon or unit in various games as far weaker than average, resulting in it being always one of

2204-425: Is on net a strong positive feedback loop, early successes can multiply very rapidly, leading to the player eventually attaining a commanding position from which losing is almost impossible. See also dynamic game difficulty balancing . Power is everything that provides an advantage, while costs are essentially everything that is a disadvantage. Therefore, power and costs can be viewed as positive and negative values of

2280-480: Is one alternative clearly the best. This would make, for example, choosing between the numbers of a dice meaningless if 6 always gives the greatest benefit. This example is a dominant strategy, the most damaging type of meaningless decision, since it doesn't leave a reason to choose any alternative. Meaningful decisions consequently are a central part of the interactive medium games . Meaningless decisions, also called trivial decisions, do not add anything desirable to

2356-447: Is the simplest game balancing technique. Most competitive games feature some level of symmetry; some (such as Pong ) are completely symmetric, but those in which players alternate turns (such as chess ) can never achieve total symmetry as one player will always have a first-move advantage or disadvantage. Symmetry is unappealing in games because both sides can and will use any effective strategy simultaneously, or success depends on

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2432-423: Is undesirable if a game can easily be solved, since this makes decisions meaningless, and games become boring faster. There are multiple tiers of solvability: A game might be trivial to solve, but it might also be solvable only in theory with a lot of computing effort. Even games with random elements are solvable since a best action can be found using expected values. Besides high complexity, hidden information and

2508-430: The tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Gary Gygax based on the latter's previous game Chainmail , Arneson felt that it was more interesting for players to manage small squads than a large army. This also allowed them to act out the role of each squad member. However, this approach had one drawback: according to the rules of Chainmail , the player rolls the dice during each battle, and depending on

2584-516: The act of making such a change. The first established use of the term "nerf" was in Ultima Online , as a reference to the Nerf brand of toys due to their soft toy bullets. However, there is no concrete evidence to show where the term "buff" came from. It has been perceived that the term came from bodybuilding culture, where it is a slang term which refers to an individual's large musculature as

2660-427: The arcade DECO Cassette System , a scrolling action game based on the manga and anime series Astro Boy (1952–1968), has an energy bar that gradually depletes over time and some of which can be sacrificed for temporary invincibility. Punch-Out!! (1983), an arcade boxing game developed by Nintendo , has a stamina meter that replenishes every time the player successfully strikes the opponent and decreases if

2736-665: The character to survive several hits from an enemy. Some of the first home computer games to use hit points are Rogue (1980), in which health is represented by a fraction, and Dungeons of Daggorath (1982), which includes an audible heartbeat influenced by the player character 's condition. Action games also began moving away from one-hit deaths to health systems allowing players to take multiple hits, such as SNK 's arcade shoot 'em up game Ozma Wars (1979) numerically representing an energy supply that depletes when taking hits and Mattel 's Intellivision game Tron: Deadly Discs (1982) allowing players to take multiple hits at

2812-408: The character's health after a difficult battle. This system may allow the player to safely run through dangerous parts of the game without consequence. Tag team games often regenerate part of the health of a resting character. In some role-playing games, armor class (abbreviated AC ; also known as defense ) is a derived statistic that indicates how difficult it is to land a successful blow on

2888-459: The character's health points is hidden from the player. However, when the player character receives a large amount of damage, the game screen (or the part of the screen to which damage was dealt) is painted red, often including drops of blood, which simulates the effect of real-life injury. As health is restored, these effects gradually disappear. The term "hit points" was coined by Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Dave Arneson . While developing

2964-439: The character. In Dead Space , it is located on the main character's costume. In Trespasser , it is represented as a tattoo on the main character's chest. In Half-Life: Alyx , a VR game, the indicator is located on the back of the player's non-dominant hand, requiring the player to physically look at their tracked hand to check their health. The character's condition can be conveyed through sound. In Dungeons of Daggorath ,

3040-473: The connotatively neutral term nerf, gimp in this usage often implies that the rule change unfairly disadvantages the target. A revamp (or rework ) is a significant change to a game that is designed to improve (or balance out) the game's overall quality. This can include changes to the game's mechanics, art style, storyline, or any other aspect of the game. Revamps are often done in response to player feedback or to address problems that have been identified with

3116-467: The cost of reducing maneuverability. Before the introduction of health meters, action video games typically used a lives system in which the player could only take damage once, but could continue the game at the expense of a life. The introduction of health meters granted players the right to make mistakes and allowed game developers to influence a game's difficulty by adjusting the damage an enemy character inflicts. Data East 's Flash Boy (1981) for

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3192-488: The element A, B and C: In case of transitivity given A beats B and B beats C, A beats C. This means that A is the best element of those three. A transitive relation is especially useful as rewards for the player to receive more and more useful game elements. In case of intransitivity given A beats B and B beats C, A does not automatically beat C. On the contrary, it might even be the case that C beats A, like in rock-paper-scissors. Intransitive relations can be assessed within

3268-484: The enemy. Players can often restore a character's health by using various items such as potions, food or first-aid kits. In role-playing video games, the player often can also restore a character's health by visiting a doctor or resting at an inn . A number of games incorporate a mechanic known as "life steal" or "life leech", which allows a character to restore health by siphoning it from an enemy. Methods for replenishing health differ from each other and are dependent on

3344-420: The first place, e.g. a power curve. In addition to that, costs might not be explicitly quantified : Spending gold on something from any finite amount limits future purchases. Also, certain investments might have prerequisites before they even become available. Sometimes, a game does not even show disadvantages. All of this can be referred to as shadow costs. Every player desires rewards, e.g. new game content or

3420-519: The frequency of the player character's audible heartbeat is dependent on how much damage has been received. Silent Hill uses a similar system, but transmits the heartbeat via vibrations from the DualShock controller. The player character's health point indicator often occupies a significant position in the game's heads-up display . In The Legend of Zelda , it occupies one third of the HUD. However,

3496-442: The game will depend on the comparative strength of positive and negative feedback processes, and therefore decreasing the power of positive feedback processes has the same effect as introducing negative feedback processes. Positive feedback processes may be limited by making capabilities some concave function of a measure of raw success. For example: Strongly net negative feedback loops can lead to frequent ties . Conversely, if there

3572-416: The game's genre. In more dynamic action games , it is important to quickly restore a character's health, while role-playing games feature slower-paced methods of health restoration to achieve realism. A number of games incorporate a regeneration system that automatically replenishes health if the character does not take damage. This makes the game easier to play by giving the player the opportunity to restore

3648-423: The game, and makes it easier for the player to understand the game. However, more complex and realistic damage systems are used in a number of games. In Dwarf Fortress , instead of health points, dwarves have separate body parts, each of which can be damaged. The Fallout games use health points, but allow characters to inflict damage to different parts of the enemy's body, which affects gameplay. For example, if

3724-588: The game. An example would be moving objects in a game environment Within a game, everything that has an owner or is provided to a player can be called a resource. This includes commodities, units, tokens, but also information or time, for example. Those resource systems are similar to real economies, especially in regards to trading resources. There are some distinctions for video games though: There are open economies, that receive additional resources, but also closed ones that do not. Additionally, economies might provide indefinite resources, or all players have to share

3800-403: The game. They can also be done simply to refresh the game and keep it feeling fresh for players. Revamps can happen at any time during a game's development or after its release. The difference between a revamp and a remaster is that a remaster is simply an updated version of the game with better graphics and maybe some new content, while a revamp is a completely new game built on the foundation of

3876-506: The games. A game element refers to anything ranging from a player's special ability to the relations between different game mechanics in a game. Game mechanics are constructs that let the player interact with the game world. They define the goal, how players can achieve them and how they cannot, and what happens when they try. These would include challenges, competitive or cooperative gameplay, win-loss conditions and states, feedback loops, and how they relate to one another. Like game balance,

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3952-538: The influence of extrinsic factors like finances. The “Meta”, as it is also called, can act as a self-balancing force, since counters to popular strategies become widely known and lead to players changing their play behavior appropriately. This self-balancing force should not prevent developers from intervening in extreme cases of imbalance though. Positive and negative feedback, also called positive and negative feedback loop, essentially describes game mechanics that reward or punish playing (usually well or bad) with power or

4028-525: The influence of other human players are what makes it impossible for a human to completely solve a game. Symmetric games offer all players identical starting conditions and are therefore automatically fair in the above stated sense. While they are easier to balance, they still must be balanced, e.g. regarding their game elements. Most modern games are asymmetric though, while the grade of asymmetry can vary greatly. Fairness becomes even more important for those. Giving each player identical resources

4104-433: The loss of it. Therefore, success leads to more power within a positive loop and therefore accelerates progress further, while a negative loop decreases power or adds additional costs to it. Feedback loops should be implemented carefully to only target the correct player, or otherwise they might determine the outcome too early or achieve nothing but simply delay the end of the game. Many games become more challenging if

4180-471: The lowest possible cost, it is overpowered. If it is too weak even with the highest possible cost, it is underpowered. On the other hand, a game element might simply be too expensive or not expensive enough for the benefit it provides. Colloquially, overpowered is often used when describing a specific class in an RPG , a specific faction in strategic games, or a specific tactic, ability, weapon or unit in various games. For something to be deemed overpowered, it

4256-480: The number rolled, the character either kills the enemy or is killed. Because players did not want to lose the characters they had become accustomed to, Arneson created a "hit point" system based on similar mechanics previously used in the wargames Don't Give Up the Ship and Ironclads . According to this system, each character has a certain number of hit points, which decreases with each blow dealt to them. This allows

4332-555: The opponents were unbeatable. Any good computer game must be totally fair. It must be possible for the player to reach the objective and win. This is not to say the game cannot be complicated or random or appear unfair. An important trait of any game is the illusion of winnability. If a game is to provide a continuing challenge to players, it must also provide a continuing motivation to play. The game must appear to be winnable to all players, beginners and experts, but it must never truly be winnable or it will lose its appeal. Dani Bunten

4408-427: The original. Revamps may be optional and may happen if something is not properly nerfed. While the optimal ratio between skill and chance are dependent on the target group, the outcome should be more influenced by skill. Chance and skill are viewed as partial opposites. Chance allows a weaker player to beat a stronger one. Generally, it is advised to favor many small random elements with little influence over

4484-429: The pace as we clear the dungeon. But more than knowing how much the party can handle at once, I need to know where those monsters need to be positioned, what direction they should face, and what abilities they can use that might threaten the group. I'm also expected to stay on top of all the current meta strategies for beating a dungeon. When shortcuts are found that let players skip monsters, I need to know them. The term

4560-407: The perceived wasted efforts in obtaining the now nerfed features. For games where avatars and items represent significant economic value, this may bring up legal issues over the lost value. The terms “overpowered” (OP) and “underpowered” (UP) are used on game elements and mechanics that are too good or bad to describe a lack of game balance. More precisely, if a game element is too strong even with

4636-415: The player fails to dodge the opponent's blow; if the meter is fully depleted, the player character loses consciousness. Yie Ar Kung-Fu (1984), an arcade fighting game developed by Konami , replaced the point-scoring system of Karate Champ (1984) with a health meter system. Each fighter has a health meter, which depletes as they take hits; once a fighter's health meter is fully depleted, it leads to

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4712-407: The player in some way. Game balance can be divided into a dynamic and a static component. Static balance is mostly concerned with a game's rules and elements, everything, that is set before a game or match starts. An example would be like player health and ammo left. Dynamic balance conversely describes the balance between players, environment and computer opponents and how it changes throughout

4788-677: The player is successful. For instance, real-time strategy games often feature "upkeep", a resource tax that scales with the number of units under a player's control. Team games which challenge players to invade their opponents' territory ( football , capture the flag ) have a negative feedback loop by default: the further a player pushes, the more opponents they are likely to face. Many games also feature positive feedback loops – where success (for example capturing an enemy territory) leads to greater resources or capabilities, and hence greater scope for further successes (for example further conquests or economic investments). The overall dynamic balance of

4864-497: The player's health points are visible. This is done so that the player does not know how many blows still need to be delivered, which makes the game less predictable. Contrariwise, other games such as the Street Fighter series have both the player's and the opponent's health meters clearly visible, which allows the player to understand how successful their combat strategy is and how many remaining blows need to be inflicted on

4940-566: The players abilities and expectations. The ideal difficulty therefore depends on individual player and should put the player in a state of flow . Consequently, for the development, it can be useful or even necessary to focus on a certain target group. Difficulty should increase throughout the game since players get better and usually unlock more power. Achieving all those goals is problematic since, among other things, skill cannot be measured objectively and testers also get continuously better. In any case, difficulty should be adjustable for or by

5016-533: The real-world teams they represent regardless of the implications for players who pick them. Player perception can also affect the appearance of fairness. Sid Meier stated that he omitted multiplayer alliances in Civilization because he found that the computer was almost as good as humans in exploiting them, which caused players to think that the computer was cheating. Meaningful decisions are decisions whose alternatives are neither without any effect nor

5092-401: The required number of experience points and raising the character's level. In game design , it is considered important to clearly show that the player's character (or other object that they control) is losing health. In his book Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design , game designer Scott Rogers wrote that "health should deplete in an obvious manner, because with every hit, a player

5168-401: The same scale. This allows calculations with both of them at the same time. Sometimes, it is only a matter of perspective if something is an advantage or a disadvantage: Is it a benefit to have bonus damage against dragons? Or is it a drawback not to receive it against other targets? A crucial part of game balancing consists in relating power and costs to each other and find a suitable relation in

5244-422: The strategies which the game intends to support are viable. The extent to which those strategies are equal to one another defines the character of the game in question. Simulation games can be balanced unfairly in order to be true to life. A wargame may cast the player into the role of a general who was defeated by an overwhelming force, and it is common for the abilities of teams in sports games to mirror those of

5320-460: The term "armor class" and simply replaced the term with "defense". Tank (video games) A tank or meat shield is a character class commonly seen in co-op video games such as real-time strategy games , role-playing games , fighting games , multiplayer online battle arenas and MUDs . Tank characters deliberately attract enemy attention and attacks (potentially by using game mechanics that force them to be targeted ) to act as

5396-520: The terminology behind game mechanics can vary depending on the designer or the resource's author. Buffs are changes to a game which increase the utility of game elements, items, environments, mechanics and so on, while nerfs are changes that decrease the utility of said game elements and alike. Buffs and nerfs are common methods for adjusting the challenge for the player. Both can be achieved indirectly by changing other elements and mechanics or introducing new ones. Both terms can also be used as verbs for

5472-497: The worst options to pick in most situations. In such way, it is often marginalized by other choices because it's inherently weaker than similar options or it's much more easily countered by opponents. A gimp is a character, character class or character ability that is underpowered in the context of the game (e.g. a close range warrior class equipping a full healing boosting armor set, despite having no healing abilities). Gimped characters lack effectiveness compared to other characters at

5548-417: Was once asked how to play-balance a game. Her one word answer was "Cheat." Asked what to do if gamers complained, she said, "Lie!" Chris Crawford wrote in 1982 of the importance of a game's "illusion of winnability"; Pac-Man is popular because it "appears winnable to most players, yet is never quite winnable". When defeated "the player must perceive", Computer Gaming World wrote in 1984, "that failure

5624-495: Was the player's fault (not the game's) but can be corrected by playing better the next time". The illusion of winnability, Crawford said, "is very difficult to maintain. Some games maintain it for the expert but never achieve it for the beginner; these games intimidate all but the most determined players", citing Tempest as an example. A fair game is winnable but, InfoWorld stated in 1981, can be "complicated or random or appear unfair". Fairness does not necessarily mean that

5700-486: Was used as early as 1992 on Usenet to describe the warrior class on BatMUD . In most games with tank classes, three factors contribute to a tank's survivability: Depending on the game, a tank may employ any combination of these: Game balancing Game balance is a branch of game design with the intention of improving gameplay and user experience by balancing difficulty and fairness. Game balance consists of adjusting rewards, challenges, and/or elements of

5776-545: Was used in Chainmail and then Dungeons & Dragons ; "although armor class might have been inspired by the rules in Don't Give Up the Ship! , there is not an explicit attribute with that name in the game's rules. [...] It seems more likely that Arneson's house rules for armor class never made it into the final published version of the wargame". However, many role-playing games that followed Dungeons & Dragons moved away from

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