M Files – Controlling the Balance

Balancing or Unbalancing a system

Once you understand the mechanics of a system you can “play” with it. You can drop in small abnormalities and see what changes and what remains stable. In MagicDuel’s case, I kind of understand its underlying mechanics, but it’s a mechanics I rarely made public to anyone (no it’s not about fighting system!). More on this shortly.

How can you balance a system? How can you unbalance it? It’s not that easy to destroy. In fact, it’s just an illusion that it’s easy to destroy. What is easy to do is to attempt to destroy. Complete destruction and creation are actually two things that are quite well-balanced. Creating something proved to be the same difficulty as fully destroying something. Attempting to create something proved to be as easy as attempting to destroy something, without stable results.

If you have for example a pendulum (like a weight bound to a piece of string) and it’s oscillating, moving a lot, how do you balance it? How do you stop it? You do that by bringing in information that is opposing the system. The “system” in this case is the oscillating movement of the pendulum. Opposite information would not be in the same direction like the system, but up and down. Move the oscillating pendulum up and down and you will see it will become stable and still eventually (this same technique is used in crane operating).

You can balance or unbalance a system in two ways: one is by adding information and one is by diluting the system. Adding information is simple, as long as you understand what information the system already holds.

How can you “dilute” a system? By increasing its step. This is actually a temporary solution. It’s like having a drop of ink in a glass of water–you can make the ink disappear by adding more water to the glass. Some systems that are very complex are more easily controlled by controlling the speed and quantity of the information that flows in, or by simply expanding the size. Example is the fighting system in MagicDuel. It’s a complex system, I managed to make it stable, or at least more stable than it could be, by increasing its complexity, not necessarily in the right direction. I could have made it a lot more unstable by cutting down its complexity (system would have been much more predictable and abusable). The fighting system in MagicDuel is probably the most messed up system in the realm, but it was never supposed to be a perfect system 😀