RPG Battle Balancing - Enemy formations and Dungeons
A Feature by Mike Willis (msw188)

Contents:
I:THE GOAL
II:BATTLE FORMATIONS
III:FORMATION SETS
IV:MAP DESIGN
V:THE BIG PICTURE

There are lots of elements, both large and small, that go into making good battles for an RPG. This is the third and final article of a multi-part series where I have been focusing on properly balancing non-boss battles, which I feel can be the hardest part of the whole mess. I will be assuming some familiarity with the OHR engine, but more importantly I will be assuming menu-based RPGs (think Dragon Warrior/Final Fantasy, NOT Zelda or Secret of Mana). It may well be that some aspects discussed herein are applicable to other genres, but I shall bypass such considerations and type only concerning the menu-based gameplay system that the OHR was designed to sustain.

This article will focus on how to balance battles by constructing enemy formations, enemy formations sets, and ultimately the maps that will contain these enemies. Taken together, these three things are used to create a well-balanced area (usually a dungeon), which is usually the ultimate goal of battle balancing, as outlined below.

I:THE GOAL
The second article discussed some character-by-character methods of raising or lowering battle difficulty. While this is the most basic way of approaching the problem, it needs to be overarched by a larger guiding principle. The focus of this article will be on trying to consider an entire area as a whole. This consideration must be based upon the original discussion of the first article: How much should the area's difficulty be based on single battles, and how much on the cumulative effect of many battles? As we pointed out in the first article, these are not mutually exclusive ideas, but any battle that is not contributing to one of these two ideas is a waste from a difficulty perspective. The goal then will be to make sure that all of the battles in an area work together to balance the difficulty properly, based on how much we want to emphasize these two ideas.

II:BATTLE FORMATIONS
The first step after defining characters (as discussed in the second article) is to decide what kinds of battle formations to make. This means deciding what enemies should be grouped together for a single battle. Remember that a battle is pointless if it does not add either single-battle difficulty or to the cumulative effect of many battles. If we are trying to emphasize single-battle difficulty, it is important to make sure that we group enemies together whose roles complement each other well. For example, an enemy with stat-raising support skills adds a lot more difficulty when paired with an enemy who uses "sharp" attacks, rather than one who uses "blunt" attacks. An enemy who poisons is more dangerous when put in a formation with strong defensive enemies who will force a battle to last longer. Don't forget the heroes! We know what roles are available to the player, so we'd like to make sure that every single formation has some enemies with roles to counter them.

If we are trying to emphasize the cumulative effect of many battles, we should be careful about making our formations too difficult. If the player is likely to fight many battles in an area, not every one needs to present a serious challenge. In fact, it may be okay to have some formations defeatable with only one attack. What is important is that even these battles incur some cost upon the player that accumulates with time. If an entire formation can be wiped out by one attack, that attack had better cost some serious MP. This ensures that the player has a meaningful choice to make on whether to use the attack and lose MP, or fight longer and risk HP (and possibly other MP use). When emphasizing cumulative effects, enemies that can elongate battles in some way often add even more difficulty than usual. For example, a high defense enemy can be beaten with a couple MP-using blunt attacks, but pairing this enemy with one or two healing enemies can potentially drain a lot of the player's MP away in just one battle. A formation with enemies that can target the heroes' MP, even in small doses at a time, may quickly become the player's greatest fear, especially if you team these enemies up with others that can, say, put heroes to sleep.

One simple way to keep battles interesting (regardless of difficulty emphasis) is to make sure that there is a variety of weaknesses present in a single battle formation. This is especially helpful when dealing with elements. If the player has access to a cheap area elemental attack, it makes sense to have some enemies weak to it. However, any battle with only those enemies is mindless for the player. On the other hand, it also makes sense to have enemies who are strong to the element involved, or maybe even absorb it. Having these two kinds of enemies appear together in formations assures that the player has a reason to use that elemental attack, but that it never leads to an immediate victory. This way of balancing formations is not restricted to elements, but can be applied to any roles that any character might have, regardless of cost. This is a good way to increase either kind of battle difficulty while still allowing the player to make use of their abilities.

III:FORMATION SETS
In the OHR, a formation set refers to a group of formations from which random battles will be selected. Since not all people make their games using a random encounter system, I will use the word more loosely to mean, "the group of available enemy formations that a player may encounter in an area."

If we are only emphasizing single-battle difficulty, there is not much to say here that has not already been said. Simply put, make sure every formation has enemies within it to counter the roles available to the player. To keep single-battle difficulty high, we would like to cut down on repeat encounters, because the player will quickly learn how best to handle a certain formation. If we are using random encounters, this means we need a large variety of formations in our set. It may be better to use a different encounter system where we can control exactly what formations the player will face at all times.

If we are emphasizing the cumulative effect of battles, we should be careful in creating our formation set. Repeated encounters are not as much an issue, because even if a player figures out the most cost-effective way to handle a specific formation, it will still incur its cost. But we should avoid having too many formations that demand a high cost to be defeated. Just as we should make sure that every enemy and every single formation is beatable in a variety of ways, we need to make sure the player is allowed some leeway in his choices within an area. The proper balance of what formations to include, and at what frequency, will depend on detailed knowledge of the area itself, as discussed below.

IV:MAP DESIGN
Although there may be some instances where battles are fought regardless of movement, the vast majority of RPG battles will take place due to the map. A player will rarely fight a battle by choice. In 'standard' RPGs, battles are most often fought because they obstruct a player's movement in an area. In this sense, a battle's difficulty is just a piece of the area's total difficulty. As stated above, the goal of this article is to be able to balance an entire area as a whole. To do this we will need to create our battle formation set wisely according to the layout of the maps involved (maps taken in the OHR's sense of the word).

One concept that can be helpful to consider is the expected number of required battles in your area, and the expected number of optional battles. Required battles are those that must be fought to complete the area's objective taking the most direct route. Optional battles are those that could be avoided if the player took only the most direct route. Some things that contribute to optional battles are treasure chests out of the way, wrong turns, and general exploration. If a random encounter system is used, the number of required battles will only be a rough estimate, but the number of optional battles could be theoretically infinite.

With this in mind, we must coordinate our maps and formation sets carefully. If we are emphasizing single battle difficulty, perhaps we should consider keeping the number of required battles between a chance for the player to restore (like a healing spring) rather low. This can be done by making the map small, or by making battles occur less often. If we are not using random encounters, we have the option of having enemies respawn or not. Be careful with this choice. If enemies do not respawn at all, the player could complete the entire area 'piecemeal' by constantly returning to the last restoration point. But this is time consuming and does not add (or detract) any battle difficulty from having the exact same enemies capable of respawning, but having resoration points throughout the area. As an extreme case, we may even consider having all restoration free outside of battle in the area, although this nullifies any possible use of cumulative battle difficulty.

Emphasizing the cumulative effect of battles is trickier. To increase this difficulty, restoration points should be few and far between. Our battles should consistently wear down the player's supplies, especially the required battles. Ask yourself what the player will likely have available to him at the beginning of the area, and plan your balance from there. If healing HP is easy for the player, have MP-draining enemies prevalent in the formation set to increase difficulty. If HP healing is limited, go the other way. When making the map, consider how much the battles should contribute to the difficulty, and how much getting lost should. If the battles should contribute more, then paradoxically, it may be better to have them occur less, but have them be somewhat more damaging to the player's supplies. This will make things like levels and equipment that much more important for the player. If the maze should be the chief cause of the difficulty, have the optional battles occur much more frequently, but perhaps tone down the battles' singular difficulty. This will force the player to 'learn the map' in order to succeed.

There is also the question of whether our formation sets should have easier or harder formations be optional or required. One might argue as follows. Regardless of what we are trying to emphasize, the required battles should probably be the norm, meaning the most evenly balanced to challenge the player. Having optional battles be of the same difficulty is a standard approach that prevents the player from recognizing the difference. This tends to emphasize the 'maze-like' aspect in an area. But there may be reasons to do otherwise. Making optional battles easier might encourage exploration, without sacrificing the desired difficulty for the required fights. Making some optional battles harder depending on the player's setup (choice of heroes, equipment, etc) is a way to make the game feel different to different people in different playthroughs. Although required battles should ideally have multiple winning strategies available, optional battles can be more specialized, so to speak. However, if optional battles are very difficult or highly specialized in this way, we should probably make sure to reward the player well for his efforts in overcoming them.

V:THE BIG PICTURE
All of these things we have discussed in these three articles have been small pieces of the whole, and combining them to make a well balanced area is anything but simple. The need to consider so many different aspects at once means that it will be near impossible to get it all right on the first, second, or fifth try. There is only one truly general piece of advice for doing it as a whole: PLAYTEST YOUR GAME!!! Over and over. Seriously, this is the only way to see if the ideas are balancing out or not. Here in conclusion I have gathered some of the basic questions to ask yourself while playtesting.

1) Are these battles contributing difficulty, either singly or by adding cumulative effects? If not, do they really belong in the game as they are? This question should apply everywhere, to every battle in the game.

2) Do I find myself using the same attacks over and over again? Do some heroes ever seem useless, or some enemies too easy or too hard? If so, I should probably look at tweaking some character and attack definitions, and try assigning or emphasizing some different roles for my characters, especially if I am trying to emphasize single-battle difficulty.

3) Do I ever find myself walking around in an area running low on supplies, fearing for my characters' lives, and contemplating retreat? If not, the difficulty from the cumulative effect of battles is most likely failing to add true difficulty, and the battles may be in danger of becoming simple puzzles or chores. Depending on the kind of RPG you are making this might not be bad, but it is something to keep in mind. This can be especially hard to test when you know the direct route through an area, so having other playtesters can be helpful here.

4) Am I satisfied when I complete the objective of the area? That is the ultimate question of course, and the most subjective. At the very least, however, if you the author ever feel the frustration overcoming the ending satisfaction, then there is a good chance that the difficulty is too high. On the other hand, if you the author can breeze through the area and never feel in danger, chances are that others can too and your difficulty level may be too low.

In any case, I do have one final piece of advice. Care about the battles in your game. If you put thought and care into something, chances are it will be noticable. If you are going to have an RPG with areas with battles, those areas need your utmost care and attention if they are to be enjoyable, and that should be the overall goal after all. I'll leave on that note.