Fourth Year Honours Project
For my final year honours project at Abertay University I undertook a research project entitled "Using Orthogonal Unit Differentiation To Design Tools For Weapon Balancing In First-Person Shooter Games". The primary goal of this project was to research the process of designing tools in the Unity game engine and the use of orthogonal unit differentiation as a tool for weapon balancing. My Unity graphs tool "Graphs ++" played a large part in this project and allowed for the analysis of abstract game data in the Unity editor. I am still working on this project and hope to release a version of it soon.
"Using Orthogonal Unit Differentiation to Design Tools for Weapon Balancing in First-Person Shooter Games"
Abstract
This project focuses on the design and development of tools within the Unity game engine to test the effectiveness of orthogonal unit differentiation (OUD) as an approach to weapon balancing in shooter games. The main objective was to explore various game balancing techniques and apply them specifically to weapon balancing. Through an extensive literature review, a solid theoretical foundation was established, revealing that fully automated balancing systems have had limited success. Consequently, a hybrid approach, combining manual and automatic tools, was deemed optimal for enhancing the efficiency of weapon balancing. Despite the project's successes, certain limitations were encountered, such as the absence of user testing. Nonetheless, the findings demonstrate that OUD is a viable method for achieving balanced gun mechanics. By working in parallel with manual tools, the integration of automatic tools proved to be an efficient and effective means of weapon balancing. This project contributes to the broader understanding of game balancing techniques and highlights the potential benefits of combining manual and automated approaches in achieving optimal game balance.
