Troglodyte In Underbelly: Balance of play

  Author : Daniel Reder

In almost every video game, balance is a very important aspect. A game where the player is over tuned feels too easy to play, while a game where the enemies are overturned may make gameplay tedious. Troglodyte In Underbelly is no different, where as the enemies must be tuned to match the areas they reside in or the player may run into scenarios that are too easy or too difficult. 

In this case, the rat enemy's default stats had it tuned for a much more open area. However, the area the rat actually resides in is very tight quarters. 

Because of this, the values of the rat had to be tweaked in this instance in order for the rat to not simply run the player down upon arriving in this area. The rat works off of sound, meaning that when the player sprints, the rat moves towards the players last known location. When the player walks, the rat's ability to detect the player is diminished. The rat was hearing the player from too far away, while also not hearing the player walking when basically on top of the rat. I had to increase the area of which the rat could hear the player while close, while reducing the listen radius of a sprinting player. I also reduced the time the rat chases the player, as having the rat chase the player for a duration many times longer than it would take for the player to traverse said area made no sense.