Game Balance is Hard

Game balance is hard. Especially for speedrunning. 

Speedrunning is defined as "the act of beating a video game, or segment of a game, as quickly as possible while adhering to a set of rules which have been established by the game’s individual community." 

So now that we have that established, how does this relate to Snapback? Well Snapback is a speedrunner by design. Instead of using community rules we built the rules in. The main mechanic for Snapback is the eponymously titled snapback, an ability that pulls you back to a set location after a certain time. This establishes a set duration that each Snapback can have, and this is where the balance begins to come into play.

The average player doesn't seek out speedrunning games, they are very niche. When designing the game, I had to take into account the fact that most players don't enjoy the stress and pressure of every second being important. How to balance this then?

Tiers and ranks.

The tier and rank system I designed allows players to play at their own speed and see a reward based on their speed. In order to make this balanced I took in player data from our group of 58 testers and boiled it down to create averages. Using Steams leaderboard, I was able to create rough baselines for each threshold. Once this was established, I looked at the target players, those who played the games Snapback was inspired by, and used their times to shape the upper thresholds for the tiers.

Once I had a general idea and range the real challenge began; creating S tier times that would challenge the best players. In order to do this, I had to beat each level over and over to see what was possible. Each time I did this I would raise the threshold by half second or a few milliseconds and see if it was possible to beat, each time I did this I found new ways to break a level or shorten my time. 

An example below of the XML editing I used to edit the values. 

Once I had established the highest tier I then went to the lowest tier, in order to create the lowest tier, I decided to wander. I went level by level and walked through each room. Taking my time and occasionally getting lost to smell the roses (the roses are a lie). 

All in all, I ended up playing each level around 100 + times just to get to this point. I found out some incredible ways to play the game that we had never considered and I fully expect players to do the same. Balancing is fun but all that matters is that players enjoy themselves, my job is to set the groundwork to challenge a community. To create tiers that are challenging yet fair, in fact most of my best times are far faster than the S tier ranking I have set in game, and I fully took this into consideration. I want players to see those times and look for ways to beat me at my own game.