Player Balance

Design structures in a game which works towards players having equal chances of succeeding with actions in a game or with winning the game.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Most players want games to have the mechanics that give them the same or better chances to win or succeed with actions as other players. As this typically means that all players need the same chances to win or succeed, most games try to have Player Balance. However, this Player Balance does not usually consider the skill of players and usually only apply to the beginning of games.

Example: the symmetry in traditional board games such as Chess or Go guarantee a high level of initial Player Balance, although being the first player to do a move usually has some advantage.

Example: fighting games can allow players to modify their health by a percentage to give different players different health values and thereby counter imbalances in the skill of damaging the opponent.

Examples

Anti-Examples

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Relations

Instantiates: Illusion of Influence, Perceived Chance to Succeed, Team Balance

Modulates: Multiplayer Games, Player Defined Goals, Competition, Game Mastery

Instantiated by: Symmetry, Player Decided Results, Paper-Rock-Scissors, Handicaps, Balancing Effects, Randomness, Diminishing Returns, Negotiation

Modulated by: Tournaments, Red Queen Dilemmas, Supporting Goals, Symmetric Resource Distribution, Reconfigurable Game World, Decreased Abilities, Ability Losses, Spawning, Characters, Right Level of Difficulty, Role Reversal, Game World, Strategic Locations, Resources, Non-Renewable Resources

Potentially conflicting with: Asymmetric Abilities, Ephemeral Goals, Red Queen Dilemmas, Asymmetric Goals, Power-Ups, Privileged Movement, Camping, New Abilities, Empowerment, Privileged Abilities, Character Development, Asymmetric Resource Distribution, Geometric Rewards for Investments

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Can Modulate

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History

An updated version of the pattern Player Balance that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design.

Acknowledgements

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