How do you adjust "items that are too strong"? The secrets of game creation learned from masterpieces

"CYBER GOMOKU" has three powerful cyber items that are not found in ordinary Gomoku. In the early stages of development, all of them were either too strong or too weak, breaking Gomoku's original readability.

The axis of adjustment was based on the concept of risk and return, which states that ``strong effects should have risks and opportunity costs commensurate with them.'' Rather than simply lowering its power, we designed it to give you more room to judge when to use it.

Two ideas borrowed from classic games

This policy was learned from a long-running game. The following two ideas were particularly helpful.

• Make the reversal element “more effective on the inferior side”:Many reversal items in party games are designed to have little effect even when used by the winning player, and to have a large effect when used by the losing player. Cyber Gomoku's bomb was also designed as a "defensive reset" that would be more valuable when used by the cornered side than by the side leading the board.
• Make powerful effects pay a “cost”:In card games, stronger cards require a higher cost, and paying the cost itself becomes a strategy. Instead of currency, Cyber Gomoku assigns three types of costs to each ability: ``Consumes 1 move,'' ``Uses up to 2 times,'' and ``Gives information to the opponent.''

Extract only the mechanics from masterpieces of different genres and translate them into the rules of your own game. I believe this is the most reliable shortcut when adjusting balance in personal development.

Stealth Go stone: strong against attack, but unable to defend

Stealth Stones are attack items that allow you to place stones invisible to your opponent. While it is possible to line up five without being noticed, invisible stones cannot stop your opponent from lining up.

Furthermore, if your opponent tries to place a regular stone on the same square, the stealth Go stone will disappear. The side that disappears loses one valuable move and the number of uses, so it becomes a choice that requires reading the opponent's next move, rather than a safe move.

Go stone bomb: In exchange for changing the board, it also involves you.

A Go stone bomb is a trap that erases all the surrounding stones when the opponent steps on a designated square. You can destroy your opponent's near-completed line, but your stones within the explosion range will also disappear.

One turn is also used to place the bomb. It is a risk in itself to not place a stone while your opponent is attacking and to invest a move in a trap that you don't know if it will trigger. It combines powerful effects with a delay in placement and the possibility of self-destruction.

Stone Radar: consumes selection frames instead of the number of actions

Stone Radar is a defensive item that detects Stealth Stones and bombs within range. It does not consume a turn when used, but it uses one of the item slots that can be selected before the battle.

If your opponent doesn't use hidden items, there's no point in choosing radar. We designed the radar as a risk that the prediction that ``the opponent will use a trap'' would be incorrect.

Correspondence table between current specifications and risks

As a result of repeated adjustments, the current specifications of each item are as follows (the exact behavior is Rules/ability list).

• Stealth Stones:Can be used up to 2 times. The return is an ``invisible attack'', and the risk is ``if the opponent hits the same square, it will be detected and disappear, and you will lose one move and the number of uses.''
• Go stone bomb:Can be used up to 2 times. When detonated, 3x3 squares of stones will be destroyed regardless of friend or foe. The return is ``destroying the nearly completed chain'', and the risk is ``taking one move to set it up'' and ``involving your own stone''.
• Stone Radar:Can be used up to 2 times. Scan 5x5 squares for 5 turns. The return is ``revealing hidden information,'' and the risk is ``if the opponent does not use the hidden item, you will miss.''

If you line up the three, you can see that they have different roles: attack (stealth), counterattack (bomb), and counterattack (radar), and that they each pay different types of costs. The essence of balance is not to make the strengths the same, but to ``change the types of roles and costs.''

Rather than looking at numbers, look at whether the other person's judgment comes out.

Early in its development, there were times when the bomb range was too small and the radar could see the entire board. Each time we changed the effect range or number of uses, we checked to see if the target had other options and whether there was room to predict their next move.

A particularly striking failure was the early radar. Back when radar could scan the entire board, it became the complete answer to stealth, erasing the whole reason for stealth. By narrowing down the range to 5 x 5, a new decision was made on ``where to scan'', and the countermeasure for the stealth side remained: ``choose a place where the radar cannot reach''. It was an adjustment that made the game more interesting even though it made the items weaker.

I don't think the current balance is complete either. While checking match results and player opinions, we will continue to make adjustments so that each character has their own unique uses, rather than making them uniform in strength.

This article summarizes the rules and adjustment process actually implemented in Cyber Gomoku based on the developer's own experience.