Lsm's Dev Blog

(Fair warning: This post has quite a bit of math numbers and whatnot in the first half or so, if that's not your thing, skip down and find where the features coming soon starts) Balancing has proved an arduous task, particularly with trying to figure out how to properly have things like stat nerfs in the game. I'm trying to move away from static % numbers as these make it incredibly hard to make high-effect jutsu at lower ranks without rendering higher ranks useless. For instance, if you have a Genin speed nerf of 33% for 3 turns, which equals out to ~100% total effect, then what are you supposed to do at Jonin? 40% speed nerf for 3 turns? It becomes a game of either making higher ranked jutsu stupidly OP, or making lower ranked jutsu so low they're useless. 10% speed nerf for 3 turns, anyone? Kappa The key to making jutsu balanced at all ranks is to copy what is probably the most balanced effect in the game: Residual damage. Residual damage is perfect, because it's b...

Chuunin has been released on Shinobi Chronicles, and the release went fairly smoothly, with only a few bugs that had to be fixed. The big thing the game needs now is a complete balance review now that things are out and have been tried by the userbase, so pretty soon I'll be making a simulator to run damage curves, looking into damage, jutsu strengths, AI strengths, bloodline boosts, even money gains vs health costs at different strengths, trying to get everything sorted out to being fair. Up to this point I haven't been personally looking at too much of the content, I've been mostly leaving that up to my content admins, but now that Chuunin is in and it'll be a while before anyone is hitting the stat caps, I have time to look over everything myself. It's interesting being a game owner and having to oversee everything. To some extent my content admins I hired for a reason and they're good at their jobs, but it's my job to make sure their work meets my standa...