Balancing the game: How i learned to do it (regarding enemy stats, gold, exp)

じ☆ve冰风

Hi there all. This is the first time i'm posting anything at this forum. Before anything, please keep in mind that:
1) English is not my native language, so, this thread may have some errors.
2) I don't consider myself an expert on RPG Maker

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A Small Background



I play around with RPG Maker since RPG Maker 2000 and i've been fooling around with it ever since. I did some complete games but never released any, because for some reason, i find the idea of making a game at the engine fun, but never had the need or thrill to publicize them.
I'm no expert in programming, thus, RPG Maker for me was fun exactly due to the fact you don't actually need to know programming to use it.
For some reason, i usually enjoy creating the database (enemies, weapons and such) much more than building maps and plot.
But i always had a specific problem with it: balancing.
I never knew exactly how the enemy stats should be, how much gold they should give, nor exp, how should i balance gear and so on.
I've read some guides about it and ended up developing my own method some time ago.
What i'm going to do here is to share my method of balancing a game. I'm sure this may not be the best method and there exist most probably other (and probably better) ways to do that, but since i use this method for quite some time, to fool around, and to other people's games who requested it, i felt i should finally share it. Maybe some other people can have a good use for it.
This method was tested on ACE, VX, MV and MZ but probably works for all versions of RPG Maker.
For lack of a better name, i called my method "The formula". I know, it is a lazy name, but stick with that.

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The 2 Principles of The Formula



In order for my method to work, your game need to rely on 2 principles:
1) The game must have the basic growth math of parameters for actors. That means that your game must use RPG Maker standar growth and not some other type of stat growth that you may have made. A game with numbers way lower or higher than the standard RPG Maker growth will probably work at The Formula, but i can't be sure.
2) The game must have some kind of level system, either the default RPG Maker levels or some other. If your game has a stat distribution system, it most probably works as well, if you kept the same overall growth and math. For instance, at the Quick Setting of parameter growth, if you apply C to all stats on actors, RPG Maker more or less increases parameters in a evenly distributive fashion, seen below.

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Understanding RPG Maker parameters



If you open MV or MZ and start a new game, go to the Classes and create a new class, RPG Maker defaults all parameters to a default, fixed "C" setting, with those numbers:



(the Growth there is in flat numbers).

This is the absolute "default" parameter growth of RPG Maker. Using the "Quick Setting" and clicking on A, B, C, D or E will apply different numbers with a random factor, that, more or less, follows the same overall growth, of course, being higher or lower than the standard.

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Understanding the EXP Math



The EXP Curve of a new class, by default, has a [30, 20, 30, 30] value (Base Value 30, Extra Value 20, Acceleration A 30, Acceleration B 30).
EXP Growth follows a percentage formula tha goes lower as the LV gets higher.
For instance, to go from LV 2 to LV 3 requires 124% more EXP.
To go from LV 12 to LV 13, the increase in EXP requirement is 16%
From LV 35 to LV 36, the increase in EXP is only 4%
From LV 98 to 99, the increase in EXP requirement is exactly +0,5%

Let's call that class with everything on default, Default Class, using the default parameters and default EXP curve.

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The Enemy Balancing



Now comes the catch: enemies on RPG Maker uses the same parameters as the players. Usually, in RPG games that follows the same system RPG maker uses (such as the old Final Fantasy titles, Chrono Trigger and such), the enemies are "a bit more stronger" than the players of the same level, and yes, enemies have levels in those games, you just usually don't see them.

So, to balance an enemy, you just need to use the Default Class above and create an enemy that is slightly stronger than that.

By default, the enemy parameters should be this higher than the Default Class:
HP: x 2 (or 100% higher)
MP: enemy HP / 1,5
Attack, Defense, M.Attack, M.Defense: x 1,3 (or 30% higher)
Agility and Luck: x 1,2 (or 20% higher)

Example:
If you expect the player to be at LV 12 at the Dungeon "Forest Way", then the enemies of Forest Way should be around LV12 to the LV you expect the player to finish said Dungeon. If you want the player to reach LV 15 at that dungeon, create enemies from LV 12 to LV 15 or 16. The enemy stats should be based on the Default Class at the same level.

The Default CLass at LV 12 is this:
HP: 1000. MP: 200. Attack: 30. Defense: 30. M.Attack: 30. M.Defense: 30. Agility: 60. Luck: 60.

So, a enemy at LV 12 should be this:
HP: 2000. MP: 1333. Attack: 39. Defense: 39. M.Attack: 39. M.Defense: 39. Agility: 72. Luck: 72.

EXP
The EXP the enemy gives to the actors should be the exact number required to level up, divided by how many enemies you feel they should kill to level up, at the same level.

Using the same example as above:
You expect the player to be, overall, at LV 12 at the Dungeon Forest Way. To go from LV 12 to 13, using the Default Class as pattern, requires 2425 EXP. If you feel that killing 15 enemies to level up is a good number, then the EXP the LV 12 enemy should give is 162 (2425 / 15).

GOLD
Gold is really hard because each game has it's own way to work around economy. Through my personal testings, considering a game where the lowest piece of equipment is around 1500 Gold and the best one costs around 30000 Gold, where a common potion should cost around 200 or 250, for instance, the amout of Gold each enemy should give would be EXP divided by 1,5.
So, the LV 12 enemy from the example above, that gives 162 EXP, should give 108 Gold.


Bosses
Bosses can use the same exact principles for common enemies, with higher numbers.
A Default Boss should be:
HP: x 5 (or 500% higher)
MP: boss HP / 1,5 or 9999 if you don't intend for the boss to run out of MP.
Attack, Defense, M.Attack, M.Defense: x 2,3 (or 130% higher)
Agility and Luck: x 1,5 (or 50% higher)

EXP should be half of the requirement for that LV, while gold should be ten times higher than what a common enemy of that level should drop.

Starting enemies
It mostly depends on the game, but usually, the starting enemies are weaker than the players, specially if the player party start with only one or two characters, so the numbers should be lowered.

Variations
Enemies must vary and so should their parameters. Following the formula above, most stats will have the same number and this, abeit easy, make things stale. If you want to keep everything balanced, you can increase a stat while lowering others. If you increase the default HP by 30%, make sure to lower other things by 30% (for instance, lower Attack by 5%, Defense by 10% and Agi by 15%).
You can also make enemies simply stronger by increasing said stats by percentage, while also increasing EXP and Gold by the same amount (an enemy with all stats 30% higher should give 30% more EXP and 30% more gold).

Actors variations
Actors will mostly not be the Default Class and will vary greatly, which is good. Variation is the core for this system to work, ensuring some enemies that are easier against certain actors or harder against other ones.

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The Formula in a Nutshell
1) Create a Default Class with the same exact numbers RPG Maker gives by default or with your own, if you prefer.
2) Use the Default Class to do all the parameters for enemies and bosses, making them stronger. If you expect or want the players to be at a certain LV at a certain place, the enemies should also be at the same LV and follow a growth pace to the LV you desire the players to finish said Dungeon. HP should be double the Default Class, while most parameters should be around 20 to 30% higher.
For Bosses, HP should be five times higher than the Default Class, while most parameters should go from to around 130% higher, with Agility and Luck being around 50% higher.
3) EXP should be how much is required to Level up divided by how many enemies you feel the player should kill to level up. So, if you want the players to kill 15 enemies before leveling up, the enemy should give how much EXP is required to level up divided by 15.
For Bosses, EXP should be around half of what is needed to level up at that level.
4) Gold can be tied to EXP or not, depending no how much your items cost. For bosses, should be around ten times of what a normal enemy of the same level would drop.

All those numbers can be changed to your tastes, of course.

A Table
You can do a table using Excel formulas to create all levels and quickly access them. You can fill all levels following the RPG Maker Default Class or simply checking your Default Class at the database itself whetever needed.
Here is a table as an example:




Closing comments

This formula is not perfect. You will need to test and adjust sometimes, but it is the closest i personally was able to get to a more stable and easy way to create enemies without the need of programming, higher degrees of calculation, configuration or scripting.

I hope this can help people balance their enemies. I simply wanted to share this because i created this method myself and thought it would be cool to share. As stated above, i'm sure there must be scripts or methods out there that are better to use, but this one i made in order to have something without the need of any programming, script or higher configuration.
If someone has suggestions over this method or anything else, it would be highly appreciable.

Cheers.


本贴来自国际rpgmaker官方论坛作者:fakepow处,因国际论坛即将永久关站,为了存档多年珍贵资料,署名转载到本论坛存档,由于官方帖子为英文原帖，需要中文翻译请点击论坛顶部切换语言为中文就可以将帖子翻译成中文浏览,方便大家随时查看,原文地址：https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/threads/balancing-the-game-how-i-learned-to-do-it-regarding-enemy-stats-gold-exp.154498/