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[LectureMaster]

Helldivers 2 director says "balance is a myth," and devs shouldn't spend more than 5% of their time on it: "If you balance out all the chaos, you've made an uninteresting game"

Arrowhead's Johan Pilestedt says if you spend all of your time on game balance, "you're an idiot"

www.gamesradar.com

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Helldivers 2 director Johan Pilestedt reckons game developers are spending too much time on balance and not enough time on fun.

There's no doubt that balance is one of the most buzzed-about topics in live-service games, with titles like Diablo 4, Marvel Rivals, and Overwatch constantly pushing out patches largely dedicated to nerfs and buffs in an effort to make the experience as fair to all players as possible.

However, Pilestedt argues that a perfectly balanced game is an illusion not worth chasing save for a small percentage of development time.

Speaking during a Game Developers Conference 2025 panel that GamesRadar+ attended, Pilestedt made the case for minimal balance updates in favor of interesting game design.

"Balance is a myth. Fun first, balance later," he said. "Game designers nowadays are obsessed with balance. Balance is 5% of the work that you should be doing. It's the polishing state of game design. If you start thinking about balance and using that as the method for success, you're an idiot.

"Balancing is not game design. Game design is about experience. If you balance out all the chaos, you've made an uninteresting game. Balance is the polishing of the object, and if you smoothen that out too much, it will just be a non-experience."

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[Sgt. Pinback]

 

[LectureMaster]

 

[BennyBlanco]

It’s entirely dependent on the type of game. An unbalanced fighting game is not fun at high level.

 

[Arachnid]

I'm down for the most part

Obviously not for anything PvP, but for anything else? Fuck yeah

 

[ZehDon]

I remember when Destiny 2 originally launched, and it's PVP / PVE was balanced. And when I say balanced, I really mean it - literally every weapon in the game was exactly the fucking same regardless of what it was. Everyone got bored; the community fell off, YouTubers walked away, steamers moved on. There was nothing to chase, nothing to optimise, nothing to discover. It fucking sucked. Was it impressive that, effectively, they'd "solved" balancing? Maybe. Did it make the game better? No, quite the opposite.

With that said, there's a degree of balance that's required for players to find fun with whatever they do, but there also needs to be systems in place that let players break that balance. Breaking the balance is what lets players feel powerful, and that feeling is where a lot of fun comes from. PVP is different, of course.

 

[clarky]

A completely balanced PVP game is boring as shit. You need a shifting meta to keep things fresh.

 

[coachmcguirk91]

It’s entirely dependent on the type of game. An unbalanced fighting game is not fun at high level.

100%. It's a lot easier to have an unbalanced PvE game than a PvP game.

It's funny hearing this from Arrowhead, as they lost a lot players from Helldivers 2 shortly after launch because they tried to balance all the weapons by nerfing the best weapons into the ground. They are no longer doing that, to their credit

 

[bitbydeath]

They learned that the hard way as they received a lot of negative feedback when they balanced/nerfed a lot of weapons.

 

[Akuji]

A completely balanced PVP game is boring as shit. You need a shifting meta to keep things fresh.

unless its starcraft broodwar, in which case it is just better then any other competetive 1on1 game while being perfetly balanced.

 

[Insane Metal]

In a shooter, sure. This is what killed The Division for example. In every update they nerfed some weapon, but there was at least some model in each weapon type that was better, it made fun trying to get said weapon. Then they simply nerfed EVERYTHING and the game became uninteresting indeed.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Totally depends on the game. Helldivers 2 is absurd and funny so some of the chaos is part of the fun. Hunt: Showdown throwing balancing out of the window seemingly in the past year or so has sucked ass and made the game increasingly frustrating.

 

[Loomy]

I remember when Destiny 2 originally launched, and it's PVP / PVE was balanced. And when I say balanced, I really mean it - literally every weapon in the game was exactly the fucking same regardless of what it was. Everyone got bored; the community fell off, YouTubers walked away, steamers moved on. There was nothing to chase, nothing to optimise, nothing to discover. It fucking sucked. Was it impressive that, effectively, they'd "solved" balancing? Maybe. Did it make the game better? No, quite the opposite.

With that said, there's a degree of balance that's required for players to find fun with whatever they do, but there also needs to be systems in place that let players break that balance. Breaking the balance is what lets players feel powerful, and that feeling is where a lot of fun comes from. PVP is different, of course.

To this day, I believe this is what killed D2. Because of this, they started on the back foot. They spent the next few years remaking MP, and then had to work on balancing the game all over again, and that killed any momentum the lackluster Red War campaign had.

However, Pilestedt argues that a perfectly balanced game is an illusion not worth chasing save for a small percentage of development time.

This is a team who knows what they're talking about. They tried this last year and the game was boring as shit because of it.

 

[ZehDon]

In a shooter, sure. This is what killed The Division for example. In every update they nerfed some weapon, but there was at least some model in each weapon type that was better, it made fun trying to get said weapon. Then they simply nerfed EVERYTHING and the game became uninteresting indeed.

In their defense, in The Division 1, Massive eventually added in the big sets which, when pieced together, were borderline stupid in how powerful they could make you. Playing DarkZone with some of that shit felt like straight up hacking.

 

[KyoZz]

This is really coming from the devs that almost killed their game the first year to chase this "perfect balance"?

 

[Insane Metal]

In their defense, in The Division 1, Massive eventually added in the big sets which, when pieced together, were borderline stupid in how powerful they could make you. Playing DarkZone with some of that shit felt like straight up hacking.

Nomad and its almost infinite healing comes to mind.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Arrowhead itself was guilty of too much balancing, especially early on.

I hope they learned the lesson and he is now sharing his experience, and that Arrowhead won't make the same mistakes.

 

[Black_Stride]

This is only fine in a PvE game.

 

[poppabk]

This is only fine in a PvE game.

Yeah in PvP the unbalanced stuff creates the opposite of chaos - everyone is running around with the same OP weapon, playing as the same OP character.

 

[Neolombax]

For pve games yes. Not for pvp, I dont prefer the idea of having metas. The only differentiation between me and my opponents should be skill.

 

[Grizzled Ghost]

Isn't this the game that nerfed all of the weapons so hard it nearly self destructed?

 

[Hawking Radiation]

PVP needs balance.
PVE needs meta.

 

[dreamstation]

Isn't this the game that nerfed all of the weapons so hard it nearly self destructed?

Yep they balanced hard at the start which turned me off

 

[Boss Man]

This is how I feel about FF14. Literally just alternate skins on the same playstyle 12x over.

 

[mopspear]

Maybe this is related but can I have a couple more bullets in my super powerful gun in a single-player FPS?

 

[clarky]

unless its starcraft broodwar, in which case it is just better then any other competetive 1on1 game while being perfetly balanced.

Not familiar with that title, but id say my comment refers to mainly skill based games.

Strategy games, good ones at least need balance, the best example of course being Chess.

 

[Lucifers Beard]

For their game I agree. it's PVE so why bother with balancing too much when you should be focusing on enemy variety, interesting mission types and just more in terms of game design. PVP games definitely do need balance though, otherwise the majority of people will just play the meta which is fucking boring. This used to annoy me in Warzone to no end since to have much of a chance I'd need to look up what the best weapons and attachments were each season or update.

 

[jwaxeman]

He’s right. Esports and streaming has to be the dumbest thing to happen to military shooters. War is asymmetrical. That’s what makes it interesting and cinematic and immersive. It’s not a tennis court.

 

[Crunchbox]

I agree. Just worry about completely broken things really. In coop enemies should always be op.

 

[Puscifer]

It’s entirely dependent on the type of game. An unbalanced fighting game is not fun at high level.

Truly, I hate saying this but the moment it becomes touch of death combos it's just not fun anymore because it's a poking game till the first combo. DBZ Fighterz is utterly ruined for me at this point but it's def my 2nd favorite game of all time regardless

 

[Complistic]

Depends on the game. The latest helldivers update is great though. They buffed a bunch of things but buffed the enemies AI also.

 

[Black_Stride]

Yeah in PvP the unbalanced stuff creates the opposite of chaos - everyone is running around with the same OP weapon, playing as the same OP character.

Yup.
An unbalanced PvP game leads people down one route.

 

[Kings Field]

Says the beta who nerfed the railgun after two weeks of the game being out. Fuck off.

 

[Dacvak]

I agree that devs aren’t spending enough time on “fun”, but the magic formula isn’t making an unbalanced game.

 

[Puscifer]

Depends on the game. The latest helldivers update is great though. They buffed a bunch of things but buffed the enemies AI also.

Diablo 3 had it right BUFF EVERYTHING

 

[Ribi]

The. WHY THE FUCK DID THEY TRY IT THEMSELVES

 

[Lucie Goosey]

It’s entirely dependent on the type of game. An unbalanced fighting game is not fun at high level.

Well said. Balance in service of Fun and the Spirit of Play.

 

[Lucie Goosey]

Diablo 3 had it right BUFF EVERYTHING

Buff the outliers, aye. Once we've tapped into that sweet spot of lightning in a bottle, that kind of fun, now give to those having less fun, not shatter the bottle or indirectly nerf the lightning through the environment

 

[Allandor]

This is correct for a PvE game. But not for a pvp game. If a pvp game isn't balanced, everyone will play the overpowered style soon and ignore the rest.
PvE l, yes overpowered can be fun, but at least for most games it shouldn't go to far, else the challenge is missing.


Btw, helldiver's 2 is one of the simplest games but yeah it's fun to play

 

[Spooky Scary Skeleton]

Bold statement considering they nerfed the fuck out of railgun and breaker shotgun because they were too "unbalanced". What a pillock.

 

[Rentahamster]

Depends on the game and the degree of unbalance. Too much disparity leads to a stale meta and a high degree of FOMO on players.