Métrix — Game Balance Lab
Balance your game with data, not guesswork.
▶ Try Métrix live · no install, no account
Métrix is a balance lab for game designers working in any genre: card games, MOBAs, shooters, strategy, RPGs and board games. Import the catalog of your game (cards, champions, units, weapons, enemies) and Métrix shows you what spreadsheets hide:
- Clones (coming soon): entities that do almost the same thing.
- Off-curve entities (coming soon): too strong or too weak for their cost.
- Duel outcomes: who beats whom one-on-one, by how much and why.
- Walls: entities that some attackers cannot damage at all.
Everything runs locally in your browser. Your data is never uploaded and there is no account to create.
How to use Métrix
1. Get the template
Open Métrix and choose Download template or Copy template. To look around before preparing your own file, choose Try with example data. The template is a CSV file with eight invented characters across the six usual MOBA classes (tank, fighter, mage, marksman, assassin and support) and one complement per class. Each class has its own attack speed and move speed, and three complements raise them. It is balanced so every character wins some duels and loses others, by hits and by time, and the complements change who wins some of them:
id,kind,name,character,class,cost,hp,speed,move,atk:channel1,def:channel1,atk:channel2,def:channel2,tag:role
vanguard,unit,Iron Vanguard,Aria,tank,45,600,95,90,30,30,0,10,frontline
duelist,unit,Blade Duelist,Kael,fighter,47,500,105,100,26,20,26,12,frontline
archer,unit,Long Archer,Lysa,marksman,44,400,125,105,50,6,0,6,backline
shadow,unit,Night Shadow,Vex,assassin,46,380,110,120,54,10,0,8,flank
sorcerer,unit,Storm Sorcerer,Nyra,mage,49,440,105,100,0,10,42,20,backline
oracle,unit,Dawn Oracle,Sera,support,44,440,95,100,0,16,30,24,backline
warden,unit,Rune Warden,Toren,tank,48,640,90,85,0,26,28,14,frontline
witch,unit,Ember Witch,Mira,mage,42,320,95,105,0,8,44,18,flank
shield,complement,Tower Shield,,tank,,,,,,2,,10,
blade,complement,Twin Blade,,fighter,,,,10,10,,,,
bow,complement,Hunter Bow,,marksman,,,10,,6,,,,
dagger,complement,Venom Dagger,,assassin,,,5,,6,,,,
staff,complement,Arcane Staff,,mage,,,,,,,2,,
charm,complement,Ward Charm,,support,,,,,,8,,2,
2. Fill it with your catalog
Replace the example rows with your own, one per row. The kind column says what each row is:
unit: a character, unit, card or enemy of your catalog. Rows without kind (or files without the column) are units.complement: an item obtained during a match that adds attack or armor to every character of one class.rule: how much of each channel an armor stops (see Armor coverage below). Optional.
Every game value is a whole number of 0 or more: no decimals or units.
| Column | Required | In unit rows | In complement rows |
|---|
id | Yes | A unique identifier without spaces, e.g. iron-vanguard. | A unique identifier, e.g. tower-shield. |
kind | No | unit (or empty). | complement. |
name | Yes | The kind of unit, e.g. Iron Vanguard. | The name of the complement, e.g. Tower Shield. |
character | No | The character's own name, e.g. Aria. | Empty. |
class | No* | The class, e.g. tank. | *Required: the class that receives it. |
cost | No | Gold, mana, level… | Empty. |
hp | No | Health, at least 1. Needed to count hits to defeat. | Empty. |
speed | No | Attack speed as a whole percentage where 100 is normal, at least 1. If any unit has it, every unit needs it. | Speed it adds, or empty. |
move | No | Move speed as a whole percentage where 100 is normal, at least 1. Informative: it never changes who wins. If any unit has it, every unit needs it. | Move it adds, or empty. |
atk:<channel> | No | Attack on that channel. Values on both channels make a mixed attack. | Attack it adds. |
def:<channel> | No | Armor on that channel. | Armor it adds. |
tag:<name> | No | Text labels, e.g. tag:role with frontline. | Empty. |
| Any other column | No | Extra whole-number stats (range, crit…). Other columns are kept as they are and exported back untouched. | Empty. |
How damage works
- Attack on one or both channels. A mixed attacker (attack on both) works out each channel on its own and adds the results.
- Damage = attack − armor against it, never below 0.
- Armor coverage: by default each armor only stops its own channel, so
def:channel1 does nothing against atk:channel2. You can make an armor also stop a share of the other channel.
- No armor against a channel = full damage on that channel.
- Complements add their bonuses to every character of their class. Duels and Versus compare base values and values with complements.
Mixed attacker: atk:channel1 = 30 · atk:channel2 = 25
Defender: def:channel1 = 20 · def:channel2 = 5
Coverage: channel 1 armor also stops 20 % of channel 2
Channel 1: 30 − 20 = 10
Channel 2: 25 − (20 × 20 % + 5) = 25 − 9 = 16
Per hit: 10 + 16 = 26
Speed and movement
Both columns are optional: leave them empty and Métrix works as before. They are percentages where 100 is normal, so 125 is 25 % faster and 90 is 10 % slower. Complements can only add to them.
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
