[Discussion] How would you balance fakemons (or other similar characters) in a game

[ResidentEcruteak]

In a Pokemon game, or any similar game, what is the best way to go in order to have balanced pokemon, fakemon or other creatures of choice in your game? I'm not just talking about the aspect of getting correct levels for opponent for a playthrough. I'm talking about having all the creatures (or as many as possible) balanced so that every one is revelant for player vs player battles. In other words I'm wondering how to have pool of 50 or 100 or 150 or more creatures where as few as possible of the creatures are non-viable choices for team - and vice versa, not too many over powered creatures.

I know that there should be slight unbalance and the familiar rock-paper-scissors thing going on in order to create interesting meta game where players discover few better than average strategies. And then later other players find strategies to counter those better than average strategies and so on. But how to design the system, creatures with all the stats and abilities and preferably the moves also in the best way?

I'm just now making a pokemon inspired turn based battling game so I was wondering solutions to this topic. My way of going about it is to create a spreadsheet with all the creatures (or robots in the case of my game) with their stats and have them numerically balanced. Then I would test them in action and if something proved too weak or too strong I would adjust the stats accordingly. This takes lot of time and testing so I wondered if there are shortcuts, or tips from others to use and maybe some pitfalls to avoid in the process.

I know this is not relevant if one is making pokemon game with only official creatures and moves, but for games with lots of or only fakemon this could be an issue or if you're like me making game from scratch it definately is.

So... any tips, experiences, ideas, pitfalls to share regarding this process?

 

[Shad0wedPixel]

This is largely one of the reasons why I've never really worked on making a strictly fakemon game- depending on the amount of species you wanted to create, that's a lot of database that you need to test and create. It would be super rewarding to put that much work into it. But it's a daunting task to do with only one person.

If you're building everything from complete scratch it's hard to say exactly how to go about it- but if their based on Pokemon and the system that they've built, you can always research real Pokemon stats and balances. It's also important that you get people who have no prior experience in your game to test it out. The problem if you're doing all the testing, you're going to know all the ins and outs of the game already. You want to make sure that it's an organic learning experience for the player, and that the system in place makes sense to someone who's never played.

 

[silver-wind]

balance sounds good in theory, but a good game needs a few weaker/stronger pokemon . weaker pokemon are good for easy training, and for the first routes, when you only have a lv.5 starter with no STAB move. stronger pokemon are good for gyms and other challenging battles. and average pokemon, slightly weaker than your party are needed so you can travel through a cave/ long route and beat ~20 of them in a row.
what I suggest is having weak, average and strong classes. each class with its own Base Stat Total. next, make sure some TMs / move tutors can turn an average wild fakemon to a great one. the pokemon games do that by giving pokemon strong moves at lv.1. this way, wild pokemon never have these moves, but once caught you can go to a move tutor and learn them. now, just because a pokemon has average stats doesn't mean no one will use it. the pokemon's type, moves and ability are important, sometimes, even their location in-game matters (being the only ground type before an Electric gym, etc).

 

[ResidentEcruteak]

Thanks for the input :) The point about having the game tested by others was probably the most important point for me. Learning from pokemon is also very good although my game will have somewhat different stats and also types and abilities are replaced by other kind of system, but regarding balance many things that apply to pokemon apply to this game as well.

And yeah, it's not just about balancing the pokemon/fakemon etc., but the whole game - that's what I was actually after. My game doesn't have story though; it's more like turn based battling/fighting game little bit like Pokemon Stadium or Battle Revolution, so the setting is little bit different from normal pokemon rpg. Nevertheless, having also weaker battlers could also be a thing in this kind of game to make it easier for new players to get in so they don't need to fight strong opponents right away...

Again thanks for the input.

 

[FenrisXP]

Best answer is C+P an existing mons stats that are similar to what you would want or think your fakemon should be like. Then edit your #/name/Internal name and typing. Thats the easiest and probably most accurate way i could think of offering balanced mons.