Planning introduction: numerical design starts from these three aspects

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Numerical design is actually born for experience, feeling (fun) and strategy.

Tradition includes three parts: combat, growth, and economy.

fighting

In fact, I think a real numerical planner must make his own battles, occupations, skill systems and levels, because these four are inevitable. The relationship between the first three lies in the management and application of combat elements. For a battle from scratch, the numerical planner must first think clearly about what kind of combat experience is needed before organizing the necessary combat elements to achieve this combat experience. Instead of randomly designing some redundant combat elements. It is not impossible to directly copy the ready-made combat form, but this cannot be called powerful. At most, you are a craftsman, not a designer. To do a battle, you must understand the meaning of any combat element and setting. For example, many numerical plans have never thought about the following issues:

Why are there spell defense and physical defense in turn-based games, or why is damage divided into different attributes?

The combat elements in turn-based games are limited. By adding this strategic attribute, you can make a difference in level design or combat strategy. But this is just a plan, not a necessity. Remember, in orthodox combat games, except for life and attack, all other attributes are not necessary. Think about what kind of combat experience (strategy) you need, and then design such an attribute.

How to make an interesting (strategic) combat/core game system

Sorry to equate fun with strategy, but I believe strategy is an important part of fun, along with performance, of course.

What you need to understand about combat is that it is actually the process of managing and applying combat elements. The player's profession uses different call interfaces (i.e. skills) to achieve combat goals. Professions can be seen as encapsulations of attributes and skills. So, if you think this way, then how to make combat strategic is actually the following points:

• Limited access and resources

• What elements to use, what interfaces to call - the creation of battles is essentially the problem that level design solves.

• When to use/call - The design of combat values ​​makes the benefits of different call times different (to explain why Dota pays attention to the timing of skill release)

• Used there - the same combat values ​​and level design, so that the same means can produce different benefits for different goals.

The above 4 points apply to all game types.

The essence and steps of career/skill design

The essence of a profession is the encapsulation of skills and attributes. To create a distinctive profession or hero, you must start with the concept, then select the combat elements that are suitable for him to call, and then use your creativity to call these elements.

For example, in LOL, I want to design a profession, the Phantom Archer. The concept is that the archer is a bitch/archer who is erratic, dodges around, and shoots people invisibly. The characteristics are fragile, mainly avoiding attacks by dodging or phase, high sudden damage, and very easy to operate.

OK, let's choose an element. Because of his erratic figure and strong operability, it is easy for us to think of a combat element: distance. High sudden damage, ok, critical hit. Then if we think deeply about these two points, we can think of the following design ideas:

An archer who is very fragile but can flash. The critical hit chance of the attack depends on the attack distance. To achieve maximum output, it is necessary to control the distance from the target.

OK, then you can roughly design the skill effects: flash, deceleration, single damage skills, phase skills. Passive skills are: the critical hit rate increases with the increase of attack distance. Equipment ideas: critical hit damage, attack speed, movement speed, etc.

Look at the Wandering Mage, isn't that how he was designed? A high-burst mage, features: spell combo. Utilizes elements: maximum mana, skill CD.

Attribute Balance

In fact, the balance I understand is not the complete balance of values. Since there are many interesting battles, complete balance is impossible (it is also undefinable, so it is meaningless to pursue it). Generally speaking, it is enough to establish a numerical model that can be verified by mathematics at the beginning to deduce the attribute balance output. You will definitely leave it aside when adjusting the balance later. Its significance is that nothing will go wrong under normal circumstances, that's enough.

What he actually did was to determine the combat formula system (in fact, this is also driven by experience. Different combat formula systems produce different combat experiences, atk-def, characteristics, large marginal effects, upper and lower limits, and defense penetration. The multiplication formula of World of Warcraft focuses on the accumulation of attributes, the stability of single-point attribute values, no defense penetration, etc.), and use the formula system and combat situations to deduce various attribute values. Obtain attribute delivery plans through single attribute values. You can also force the use of the level-attribute upper and lower limits method to stabilize attribute delivery. You can do whatever you want. The key is to look at actual needs and experience needs.

growing up

This is actually what we talk about a lot now. The cost-effectiveness, positioning, and relevance of various growth paths. The pressure-release rhythm during the game (the so-called interest curve, experience curve... a bunch of high-sounding terms). The principle is very simple, but it also takes the most time, and you have to grind it slowly.

economy

It is now popular to do closed-loop in this area. The release, recycling, and circulation of resources. In addition to numerical values, it is usually necessary to cooperate with rule design.