Northgard

Northgard is a survival, real-time strategy game with 4x elements. Pick a viking clan, and use their unique abilities and knowledges to survive, explore, and conquer the uncharted lands of Northgard.

How to expand the initial vision with new asymmetrical clans and mechanics, without damaging the balance of the competitive multiplayer experience?

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Since I've joined the project, I'm in charge of designing and balancing the new clans, features, and diverse additions and changes made to the game.

Go all in with the most extreme version, see how it feels, adjust, but listen to players when they tell you you've gone too far.

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In order to add new factions that feel unique and different, I prefer to push for most radical designs, try them, then adjust and discuss them with the team and the players to be sure of how they feel.

Imagine, define, plan, discuss.

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I start everything on Northgard by deciding which direction I want to take the game in. Then I design and decompose each features, plan the different changes, and I discuss them, first with the team, then with the players. There is no point is taking the game in a direction that players or the team do not agree with. So I make sure we all agree on how the design is gonna impact the overall experience before I move on with it.

Take things away from the players and let them break rules to compensate.

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An interesting approach to asymmetrical balancing as I figured working on Northgard is to have each player start with an unfair disadvantage they have to compensate for. Something that all the other players except them have access to, and to let each of them break one fundamental rule that all the others have to follow in exchange.

It is not always the easiest route to follow, but when done right it ensures that each player have a radically different experience, while maintaining a global balance across all of them.