A different angle about game balance

There is no permanent balance in game space

Ecological balance is shaped by all the players in game space, thus the unpredicted development in game space is created by players but not designer. Even the Chinese farmer is one of them which helped to build this ecological balance. There will always have one animal leaving in the top biological chain, it not only happened in reality but also the virtual world. Once the certain farmers have been banned by game manger (GM), I do believe another new force whatever Chinese farmer or America farmer will instead their position to maintain the ecological balance or, we can say, the world frame. One superpower will always exist, thus to prevent professional famer is impossible.

Mechanism against Company profit

I have to say, the current mechanism in online game has the reverse effect to the game company’s profit. For instance, these farmers sometimes are main character in big clans. It means they properly are the most actively players in the game, thus the big event in game space need their involvement. The game company also needs a high activity environment to induce the newcomers’ involvement. Base on this point, even the companies clearly understand farmer’s negative influence. Due to these players’ high public influence, they have no option but to acquiesce.

 Ecological balance on economics

On one hand, because the farmers always focus on the high level material, thus it makes the high level material more expensive than the initial period. On the other hand, compare with high level material, the weapon’s price cut down. Meanwhile, as they do not care the low level material, it makes more benefits for newcomer. As a result, the high level players have cheaper weapon and the newcomers earn more from primary material.

The ways to restrict the imbalance

The original purpose for the game is amusement. In some certain level, due to the game balance is based on the involvement degree of players, thus one 12 hours online professional players definitely will have more influence than those players who only take the game as a casual amusement. If the professional famer cannot be prevented, there are some optional ways to reduce the imbalance in online game space. First, In China, the current online game ‘Addiction Prevention System’ (APS.) is especially designed for teenage player who is under 18. According to this system, if the teenage that played more than 5 hours, their harvest in the game will reduce to naught. Thus it will force them to leave game. Nowadays, the APS is only running on those servers which located in China. Probably they need an advanced version especially for adults’ player. Second, as Constance mentioned the situation of ‘kill-stealer’. From my experience in the online game, the reason that causes this happening is the designer but not player. If the player has real power to gain the dropped items form monster, then there won’t have the words ‘kill-stealer’ at all. Because most of online game will give the dropped items to those people who made the highest totally damage to monster. It means the real powerful play will get the dropped items logically. Compare with that, some games allowed the player who made the last attack to get the dropped items. Thus it equates to encourage this ‘kill-stealer’ appear in the game.