Solo and Multiplayer Balancing

Hello Knights of the Order,

Kyle back again – Game Director on Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap. We’ve been busy over in Germany showing off the game at Gamescom, but I still wanted to give y’all something to sink your teeth into. This week’s topic is something we see brought up a lot in the OMD community and Steam reviews: solo and cooperative multiplayer balance. So, let’s dig into how it’s been handled in the past and how we’re tackling it in OMDD to make sure the game is playable for everyone regardless of team size. If that sounds a bit dry to you, don’t worry - I’ve thrown in a few surprises as well.

“This game was clearly designed around co-op"

There’s a sentiment that shows up quite often that Orcs Must Die! 3 is designed and balanced around co-op, and that single player was an afterthought. And to be fair, the imagery is often presented that way: Max and Gabby, Kelsey and Egan, and Cygnus and Vorwick. But to give you a little peek behind the scenes, that was truly not the case. Orcs Must Die! 3 was designed, balanced, and primarily playtested as a solo experience. In fact, there are very few differences in cooperative play because it was not a focus when it came to balance. Yet it feels like the game was built around co-op first – why? And how do we make OMDD more flexible?

When you go from one player to two players in OMD!3, not a lot changes: enemy health and damage is the same, your loadout bar is the same size, the par time doesn’t get shorter, and the orcs come at you at the same pace. The only slight difference is that the waves of enemies, which we call Onslaughts, have a few extra orcs and friends. That means the challenge is basically identical, but now you have a second player to take aggro, hold a lane, deal damage, and keep your combos going - which equals more rune coins. So, here’s our issue: a second player simply makes the game easier regardless of the single-player focus - leading to a solo experience that feels unfair and a multiplayer experience that isn’t as challenging or interesting as it could be.

Solo Balance in Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap

It’s easy to look at what we’ve shown of OMDD and its four-player co-op and assume we’ve gone even further in neglecting the solo experience. But you don’t need to worry. Ironically, balancing the game first around four player teams and then tuning it down for three, two, and one has given us more knobs to play with and more determination that we get this right. Let’s get into exactly how we’re tackling this.

Enemy Health and Damage

When we set an enemy’s base health and damage values in OMDD, that’s for four player co-op. Then, we reduce both by a percentage for each “missing” player. So, if a light orc has 100 base health, he’d have 75 health with three players, 50 with two, and 25 with one. Our numbers aren’t always that clean, but you get the idea. It’s worked well so far with using the same percentage at each step, but if we need to really fine tune it, we can get more granular.

Doing it this way means we can balance our combat around not needing the enemies to be too spongey with four players while still making it fun and challenging for solo players.

Onslaught Pacing

Onslaughts, those groups of enemies we send out that make up a Wave, in previous games came out at the same speed regardless of the number of players. In OMDD, if you are playing solo, we pace out the Onslaught so that the groups of enemies from different doors have longer delays between their arrivals. This gives the solo player time to handle defending the Rift from multiple angles. And I’ll also get into how moving around the level can be made easier in a bit.

Take a look at this minimap to see the multiplayer Onslaught compared to the solo Onslaught pacing. This change is in addition to what was done in OMD!3 with multiplayer Onslaughts featuring a few more enemies, like two Gnoll Assassins instead of one.

“Go Breaks”

This change is more indirect but makes a huge difference. If you remember from the last blog, you now have as much time as you want between waves. In previous games, those waves that would start without a break were far more challenging to handle as a solo player. It often felt like you’d have to memorize the Onslaught to perform well. These “Go Breaks,” as we call them, now give you all the time you need to plan and implement your strategy for the next wave.

Barricades

I’m bracing myself for this one - but trust me when I tell you that the design team truly believes this is the best change made to the game.

Barricades in OMDD are now free to place…however, you only have a finite amount. The default number is 12, but this can be increased in multiple different ways through different Threads and Skill Tree upgrades. We’ve made this change for a few reasons - but the big one is how difficult it became to balance barricades between different skill levels. We find that less experienced players place far too many barricades, especially at the start of the level, then don’t have enough Rune Coin for traps, then rely on player damage, and then feel traps don’t deal any damage. While higher skilled players are able to use the Combo system to earn so much money for barricades that any challenge we could create becomes trivial.

The new barricade mechanic means all players get to spend the first couple minutes of a map planning out their pathing strategy without worrying about their Rune Coin budget. No more needing to learn between which waves to sell early traps to place more barricades for a new door.

So what does this have to do with solo and multiplayer balance? Well, it means that solo players now get the support of at least 12 barricades before the first wave begins without spending a single Rune Coin. Barricades are the most powerful tool in the game, and this is a big buff to the early game. And the barricade number is divided (mostly) evenly between players in multiplayer, while in solo play, it’s completely up to that player how they want to route the orcs.

Loadout

In OMDD, we’ve returned to reducing your number of loadout slots if you’re playing co-op. It’s minus one slot for each additional player. The first three slots are locked – with 1 being your weapon that allows you to use your War Mage abilities, 2 being your War Mage’s unique trap (which is also free and finite), and 3 being barricades. The remaining four to seven (really, it’s three to eight with upgrades and Distortions) are for whichever traps you want to bring.

Overdrive Combos

A War Mage’s ultimate ability in OMDD is called their Overdrive (Overdrive, Distortion, can you tell that this OST is going to go hard?). These are unique, powerful abilities that are built up by getting Combo kills. The Combo system in OMDD mostly works the same as in previous games: kill an orc quickly with multiple damage types and sources and you get a Combo that grants you extra coins and points.

However, in OMDD, the player that gets the killing blow on a Combo kill also gets Overdrive charges to build up their ultimate.

Co-op teams have more abilities, traps, and damage sources; but solo players have weaker enemies and every killing blow to themselves – giving them some advantages in charging up that Overdrive.

I’ll wait until a future blog to get into more specific Overdrive abilities; but related to that – it’s important to note that when I was designing the War Mage kits, I wanted each one to be a viable solo player option. While it’s inevitable that some might be a bit better for solo, or different comps, or new players – they are all well-equipped enough to handle things on their own.

Playtesting

We’ve already been doing some external playtesting – with much of that focused on the solo experience because we have to make sure we get that right. We are never done playtesting, but I couldn’t be happier with the results we’ve seen so far. The number of players, especially new players, who can jump in on their own and take down Missions has been great to see. And it’s worth stating that this game does not have the same slow buildup as the first five levels in OMD!3. We do have some cool new ways to teach players how to play, but we also throw them straight into the action with full loadouts and big four-gate maps – and they’ve been killing it.

Again, I’ll be back next week with more. In the meantime, come hang out with us in the official Discord.

Kyle – Game Director

Oh, I still owe you a surprise.

Don't forget to wishlist Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap now on our Steam page!

Get it? Steam? Steam Vent? It’s back. K, bye.