原文作者：Kris Graft 译者ciel chen

毫无疑问地，机制和数据对多人实时竞技游戏的平衡很重要。但是对于移动平台上现在最火的游戏里的平衡来说，很多方向的想法其实是来自普普通通游戏设计者的直觉的。

“它真的可以归结为直觉，你可以看看【玩家】视频——然后自己实战玩玩。你会明白的。”皇室战争的设计者Stefan Engblom在这个月初举办的游戏开发者会议上的一次采访中这样说道。这次的采访中，他带给了我们信息量特别足的谈话——“追求健全的metagame：《皇室战争》的卡牌平衡”。

“我们没有真正程序化的东西，它真的就像一团乱麻似的，”他笑着说。“真的，大部分时候我们靠的是直觉。”

Supercell的超人气一对一卡牌战略游戏赚得盆满钵盈，每个月收入数千万美元，工作室身价估值直达102亿美元。中国互联网巨头腾讯是这家芬兰公司的大股东，他们开发的游戏还有《部落冲突》。

而在那些惊人的营收数据背后是一支由16人组成的《皇室战争》开发队伍，Engblom在他的GDC讲话上这样说。说游戏的后续开发是“一团乱麻”其实是有点自谦的。游戏卡牌系统中，对灵活度的强调是平衡进程中的重点内容，另外还有一点点的官僚作风和短暂的“想法释放”周期。整个过程也许有些松散，但是其设计目标是很明确的。

clash royale(from bilibili)

“我会说它是在【指导方针的驱动】下完成的，”Engblom告诉我们有关开发的过程。“那是个交互性很强，很实用的方法。我们就是把内容直接投放到游戏中，然后进行测试看看玩起来如何，然后反反复复不断地去测试它。”

以小团队游戏人的身份，他这么说：“小团队的主要好处之一，就是我不用把我的创意和设计交代给设计师，也不会有人会给我现成的能交给主程序员的东西，然后主程序员在往下给其他程序员这样的过程……我们不是这样做的。我就在我的转椅转啊转然后说，‘嗨！我觉得这么做会很酷！你们觉得呢？’”

“然后就在我去泡一杯咖啡的时间里，他已经把我说的内容放到游戏里了，然后我们就开始进行测试看看这个内容玩起来感觉如何。”

指导原则

Engblom在GDC会上说，尽管他是唯一职业叫“设计师”的人，但是《皇室战争》团队的全部组成员是真正意义上的“各种设计师”。尽管他主要的工作是负责卡牌平衡、经济以及系统的设计，但是最后依旧是整个团队进行决策。

Engblom解释说《皇室战争》是有一个基本法则去遵循的：每提高一级，玩家会增加10%的伤害值和10%的生命值。“这意味着所有处于相同水平的交互会保持不变”Engblom说道。不过可能更重要的是，“这能帮我保持理智，”他说。

Engblom说当在解决卡牌设计和平衡的时候,他跟他的团队有三个指导原则去遵守：有玩头、多样化和新鲜感。所有的变化，无论是削弱或增加一个单位，其目的都是为了遵循这三个原则中的至少一个而做的。

在遵循那些原则的过程中，要做的大部分事是保持和推进《皇室战争》的metagame性能。对于Engblom来说，它觉得matagame就是“有整个玩家群体能找到最高效的卡牌合成方法和战略。”

Metagame并不一定是一个开发者能够创造出的——那取决于玩家们，他说。就像一个玩具制作人做玩具本意是让孩子以某种特定方式去玩，但是当到了孩子们手上却出现了不同的好玩玩法。

尽管游戏设计者不一定能确切决定做出来的metagame会是什么样子，但他们好歹能影响它的方向。他说“平衡是控制【metagame】朝我们希望的方向行驶的工具。”

一个游戏设计师能做到的最好的事就是不去破坏metagame,以及明白“不存在完美的metagame”这个事实。一个介于健全和不健全之间的metagame才能让平衡起到作用。

“当然大家肯定想要一个健全的metagame,那我们究极目标就是追求一个健全的metagame。”

平衡的原则

那么，一个设计师要如何支持一款健全的metagame呢？这里有一些特定的原则是《皇室战争》团队在Supercell要遵守的：

做的一切要让人感到佩服。这里的重点是“感到”这个词。通过几个途径都可以达到这个效果，比如通过游戏的美术风格。但是从平衡的角度，为了达到这种感觉效果，每张卡都需要有它的“出彩之处”——就是一个明确的用途。“我们需要有足够多的场景让这些卡发挥它们强有力的作用，”Engblom说。

每件东西都要有能克制它的天敌。然后就是互相克制。这正是metagame能够发展的原因。这不仅让游戏变得有意思、多样化和新鲜，而且减少了设计者的一些压力。当你游戏里有了很多“天敌”，然后他们又互相克制，你的metagame就基本不至于会完全崩溃了。Engblom说，这些“相克品”相当于给你的卡牌平衡织了一张“安全网”。

他还说，这并不一定是把游戏平衡做糟糕的借口，但是对于差劲的metagame调整是必不可免的，对于那样的情况来说，做出一个不健全的metagame总比一个完全崩坏掉的要好吧。

要让新增的卡牌有所意义。他说，新卡片需要有明确用途，增加新的单元内容不是为了让你有理由收玩家钱的。

“当你按下‘作战’按钮【在《皇室战争》中的】时，你就出了【货币化运作】领域了，”他在采访中说这个游戏是“为了发展充钱”而不是“为了赢而充钱”的。在《皇室战争》中，玩家充钱是为了解锁一些卡片以及能够比无充值玩家升级更快，但是并不存在那种购买了以后可以让玩家在与其他玩家一对一对战时更有优势的可消费增益。

Engblom说，与其创造新的卡片来单纯为了赚钱，不如试着用一些新卡来补足游戏中的不足；还有别把已经存在的卡牌和单位进行替换。

保持卡片的关联性。新卡片的引进不代表旧的卡片就没有用了，Engblom特意强调这点，要“忠于卡牌的灵魂。”但是如果要重新平衡就卡片的时候，要保证这几点：

避免完全重制那些卡片（只能在现有基础数字上做些小变动）

如果重制卡片，确保做出的变动要够简单让玩家可以预测

确保改变后卡片或单位的使用方法跟之前基本相同

重新保持游戏平衡。Supercell每个月会重新平衡一次游戏。Engblom 解释说：“关于这个频率是没有什么科学依据的，只不过是metagame每过一个月就会让人觉得有些过时了而已。”

“一开始这样重新平衡的做法得到的反应是有些消极的……但过了段时间，当我们坚持这样做下去的时候……玩家们开始认同这样的做法了，并且开始有些期盼。所以这个做法挺好的。”

Screenshot(from gamasutra)

“这个一个月周期保持了点平衡以及新鲜感，而且为metagame提供了时间去进化”

“做增强要比削弱要好”，因为“削弱是针对经常用的卡”，而“增强则是针对那些不怎么用到的卡”。

然而所有这样的调整不能停，所以跟你的游戏群体交流很重要——定期地整理通过明确版本说明和其他社区活动中玩家提出的期望，比如《皇室战争》的游戏内“皇室广播”秀。

需要平衡的内容（以及不需要平衡的内容）

对于什么需要平衡以及怎么平衡这个问题要取决于玩家的反馈、数据分析，但最主要的还是——《皇室战争》的开发者直觉。

Engblom说玩家反馈是“一个宝贵的工具”。通常，开发者需要细细阅读玩家的反馈内容他们对游戏组成内容的抱怨在可能真的是游戏中存在的问题。

“玩家能够并且将会教你认识自己的游戏”。对于《皇室战争》来说，游戏的顶尖玩家是那些为其他基础玩家引领游戏潮流的人，他们为基础玩家群众创造decks并且想出各种游戏策略。在跟踪《皇室战争》顶级玩家的过程中，开发者可以联想出剩余游戏群体会追随的设计方向。

“特别是当游戏平衡改变时，一些核心玩家会像这样‘好吧，发生了什么，这样的话meta变成什么样子？’之类的，更多休闲玩家有时会对这些变化感到沮丧……但是我认为从总体上这种变化对于游戏是有益的。”

把数据结合玩家反馈，就可以来核实以及进一步理解玩家输入的数据。对于《皇室战争》来说，当需要平衡的时候，“我们大多时候看玩家的使用频率和胜率”，——也就是说，研究玩家使用的卡牌以及他们怎么用这些卡牌胜利的。使用频率让Engblom和他的团队知道Metagame的现状并且推测做出有哪些卡是被过度赋能的。至于胜率则可以知道哪些卡被打入了冷宫。

如何定下一张卡牌的使用率最终还是取决于团队根据“对游戏的了解”产生的直觉。设计者们应该找到某张卡受欢迎的原因、判断它是否被过度赋能，以及判断它是否对游戏有益。

平衡卡牌还涉及权衡Engblom称之为“黄油面包卡”和“辣椒卡”之间的平衡。所谓黄油面包卡就是那些在基础战略中使用率高的卡；而辣椒卡就是指那些不常用但是对于技术型玩家来说，使用得当的话其功效极好的卡。两种卡片在《皇室战争》中都有他们各自的地位。
了解最新战略概念

Engblom说，游戏的开发者必须要掌握玩家的先进战略，然后以此为根据不停地对游戏进行平衡。如果你对这些没有了解或者缺少了解你就没办法凭借直觉做决定了。

所以要了解战略、deck周期、常见的战斗方案等等。“这真的全靠玩玩玩玩玩玩，没完没了的玩——玩，跌送，玩，调整，周而复始。”

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Clash Royale’s card balancing guru leans less on metrics, more on design intuition

There’s no doubt that metrics and data are important when balancing a live multiplayer game. But when it comes to balancing the top-grossing title on mobile, a lot of the direction comes from plain ol’ game designer gut feeling.

“It really boils down to intuition, and looking at [player] videos — and playing the game yourself. You’re going to learn,” Clash Royale designer Stefan Engblom said in an interview at Game Developers Conference earlier this month, where he gave thehighly-informative talk, “Quest for the healthy metagame: Balancing cards in Clash Royale.”
 
“We don’t really have a process. It’s like random chaos,” he laughed. “That’s pretty much how it sometimes feels.”
 
Supercell’s hugely popular head-to-head card-based strategy game rakes in tens of millions of dollars in revenue per month, driving the studio’s reported $10.2 billion valuation. Chinese internet giant Tencent owns a majority stake in the Finnish studio, which also develops Clash of Clans.

Behind those staggering financials is a Clash Royale team made up of just 16 people, Engblom said in his GDC talk. Calling the game’s continued development “random chaos” is a bit self-deprecating. The important process for balancing the game’s card system emphasizes agility, with little bureaucracy and short idea-to-release cycles. The process may be loose, but the design goals are clear.

“I would say that it is [guideline-driven],” Engblom told us of the game’s development process. “It is a very iterative, very pragmatic approach. We tend to just put stuff in the game that we tested to see how it feels. Then we test it again, and so forth.”
 
“That’s one of the core benefits,” he said of being on a small team. “It’s not like I take something I created or designed, like a unit, then hand it over to the designer. [It’s not] as if someone would give something to me to take to a lead programmer [who would] take it to a programmer. … We don’t have that. I roll around in my chair and say, ‘Hey! This would be a cool thing to do! What do you think about it?’”
 
“Then I go and grab a coffee and when I’m back he’s already implemented it into the game,” he said. “Then we test it and see how it goes.”

The guidelines

Engblom said in his GDC session that even though he is the only one with the title of “designer,” the members of the Clash Royale team “are all kind of designers.” He specifically works on card balancing, economy, and system design, but the team collaborates on all decisions.

Engblom explained a baseline rule that Clash Royale’s design follows: for every level gained, players gain 10 percent damage and 10 percent hit points. “This means all interactions remain the same at all equivalence levels,” said Engblom. But perhaps more importantly, “This helps keep me sane,” he said.

When dealing with card design and balancing, Engblom said there are three guidelines he and his team follow: fun, variety, and freshness. All changes, whether it’s nerfing a unit or adding a new one, need to serve at least one of these categories.

A huge part of following those guidelines involve maintaining and improving Clash Royale’s metagame. For Engblom, he defines metagame as “cards combinations, and strategies that the community at large have found most effective.”

The metagame isn’t something a developer necessarily can create, he said — that’s up to the players. It’s like a toymaker making a toy with the intention for it to be played with in one specific way, but when in the hands of a child, they find a different way to enjoy it.

Even though game designers can’t necessarly decide exactly what the metagame will be, Engblom said designers can influence its path. “Balancing is the tool to steer [the metagame] in the direction we want,” he said.

The best that a game designer can do is to avoid a broken metagame, and understand that a perfect metagame is unrealistic. Landing somewhere in between a healthy and unhealthy metagame is where balancing comes into play.

“You want to have a healthy metagame,” he said. “That’s the ultimate goal. The quest for the healthy metagame.”

Principles for balancing

So how does a designer support a healthy metagame? There are a few specific principles the Clash Royale team at Supercell follow:

Make everything FEEL overpowered. The emphasis here is on the word “feel.” This can be achieved in a few ways, such as through a game’s art style. But from a balancing perspective, in order to achieve this feeling, each card needs to have its “moment” — a clear purpose. “There needs to be enough situations where the card can bring huge positive value,” Engblom said.

Everything needs a counter. Then counters to the counters. That’s where the metagame evolves. This doesn’t only contribute to the game’s fun, variety, and freshness, but it also takes some pressure off of the designers. When you have multiple counters, and counters to counters, you are that many steps away from totally breaking your metagame. The counters serve as a “safety net” for card balancing, Engblom said.

This isn’t necessarily an excuse for bad balancing, but poor metagame tweaks are inevitable, he said, and in those cases it’s better to have a fixable, unhealthy metagame than a totally broken one.

Make new cards meaningful. New cards need to serve a purpose, he said. Don’t just release a new unit so you have something you can charge players for.

“When you press ‘battle’ [in Clash Royale], you exit that realm [of monetization],” he said in an interview, calling the game “pay-to-progress” rather than “pay-to-win.” In Clash Royale, players pay to unlock cards and level them up more quickly than playing for free, but there are no consumable boosts one can buy and then deploy for an advantage when going head-to-head with other players.

Instead of creating new cards for the sole purpose of monetization, try to use new cards to fill gameplay gaps, he said. And don’t just reskin existing cards or units.

Keep old cards relevant. The introduction of new cards doesn’t mean that old ones should become useless, Engblom stressed, and to “stay true to the soul of the card.” But when rebalancing old cards, make sure to:

avoid complete reworks of those cards (only make small changes to the basic stats)

when reworking, make sure the changes are easy for the player to predict

make sure that the card or unit essentially plays like it did prior to the change

Keep on rebalancing. Supercell rebalances about once a month. “There’s no exact science to this cadence,” Engblom said. “That’s just when the metagame felt like it was getting a bit stale.”
“At the beginning the reactions were a bit negative,” he said, “…but over time, as we kept doing them…players began to appreciate them and look forward to them as well, so it was a good thing.”

That one-month cycle keeps balance on point and fresh, but it also gives the metagame time to evolve, said Engblom.

He added that “buffs are nicer than nerfs,” as “nerfs hit cards that most use.” On the other hand, “buffs hit cards that only a few use.”

While all of this tweaking is going on, communication with your community is important — regularly manage expectations via clear release notes and other community initiatives, such as Clash Royale’s in-app “Radio Royale” show.

What to balance (and what not to balance)

Decisions on what to balance and how are based on player feedback, data analysis, but most of all, the intuition of Clash Royale developers.

Engblom said player feedback is “an invaluable tool.” Often, devs need to read between the lines of player feedback — their complaints about one component of the game might have an actual cause elsewhere in the game.
 
“Players can and will teach you about your game,” said Engblom. For Clash Royale, the game’s top players are the trendsetters for the rest of the player base, creating decks and coming up with strategies that will be copied by the game’s playerbase. By following the highest-profile Clash Royaleplayers, he can get an idea of the direction the rest of the community will follow.

“Especially with the hardcore players, when the balance changes come, they’re like, ‘Ok, what will happen, how will the meta shift?’” he told us. “More casual players will sometimes be a bit upset…but I think in general it’s good for the game.”

Data feeds into player feedback, and can be used to verify or better understand player input. For Clash Royale, “it’s mostly looking at use rates and win rates,” when it comes to balancing — that is, what players use and what they use to win. Use rates tell Engblom and his team the state of the metagame and also indicate what cards might be overpowered. Win rates, he said, can show sleeper cards.

Determining a good use rate for card ultimately down to intuition and “knowing your game,” he said. Designers ought to figure out why a card is popular and determine if it is overpowered, and if it is good for the metagame.

Balancing cards also involves weighing the use rates of what Engblom calls “bread and butter” cards versus “spicy cards.” Bread and butter cards have high use rates and are commonly used for base strategies while spicy cards are ones that aren’t as commonly used but can be highly effective when used by skilled players. Both types have their own role in Clash Royale.

Understand advanced concepts

Developers on games that require constant balancing need to stay on top of advanced strategies that players use, said Engblom. You cannot rely on intuition to make decisions when you are un- or under-informed.

Know strategies, deck cycles, common opening moves, and so on. “It really does just boil down to play, play, play, play, play,” Engblom told us. “Just play the game, iterate, play, tweak.”（source：gamasutra.com ）