Five important realisations about game balance

This post discusses some of the most interesting things we've learned about balance during development and live operations of our competitive multiplayer games Awesomenauts and Swords & Soldiers 1 & 2.

Joost van Dongen of Ronimo Games (Swords & Soldiers, Awesomenauts) shares five useful insights about balance in competitive games. My personal favorite is the point that it’s far worse to have overpowered options than underpowered ones, because players flock to the strongest options. One underpowered option means the rest are still viable; one overpowered option means only that one is viable.