"Lol so OP, That better get nerfed."

Fridays lesson we began to discuss archetypes in games, and how to establish balance within a PVP (Player Vs. Player) environment. We spoke about the balance of Rock, Paper, Scissors, and how that may also apply to games with what I call "The holy trinity" of classes- Warrior, Ranger, Mage. However in modern games there aren't only 3 classes any more, making the unbreakable game of R,P,S, ineffective. We were then shown the internet made game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock. (commonly referred to on The Big Bang Theory).

This is a closer representation of something you would find within a game. A single class may be effective against multiple other classes, but in return should be weak to an equal amount of different classes. As a fairly experienced PvP gamer, I know that the victor isn't always the person that picks the class that's statistically fit to win before the game starts, but this is all down to the balancing of the things in discussion, to ensure there isn't something that is impossible to lose with, in class referred to as the "I Win Button", most commonly referred to as "OP" or "Over Powered", in the gaming community.

The way to counter this as a member of the balance team (apart from a ridiculously large number of hours crunching numbers and making formulas), is to consider "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". This applies in PvP games, it's then up to the player to minimize the drawbacks of the reaction. For example, if a player has a move that he can use to do a serious amount of damage to another enemy, at the risk of being in a bad position to then be killed himself, the player must determine when the best possible time would be to use the ability, without then being caught out.

All of the things discussed I'm very familiar with within the games that I play, yet I never really realised how hard it is to create balance, whilst still keeping a game fun. I believe this will be the hardest task when creating our board game.