balance-check

$ARGUMENTS[0]

• Combat → weapon/ability DPS, time-to-kill, damage type interactions
• Economy → resource faucets/sinks, acquisition rates, item pricing
• Progression → XP/power curves, dead zones, power spikes
• Loot → rarity distribution, pity timers, inventory pressure
• File path given → load that file directly and infer domain from content

• Calculate DPS for all weapons/abilities at each power tier
• Check time-to-kill at each tier
• Identify any options that dominate all others (strictly better)
• Check if defensive options can create unkillable states
• Verify damage type/resistance interactions are balanced

• Map all resource faucets and sinks with flow rates
• Project resource accumulation over time
• Check for infinite resource loops
• Verify gold sinks scale with gold generation
• Check if any items are never worth purchasing

• Plot the XP curve and power curve
• Check for dead zones (no meaningful progression for too long)
• Check for power spikes (sudden jumps in capability)
• Verify content gates align with expected player power
• Check if skip/grind strategies break intended pacing

• Calculate expected time to acquire each rarity tier
• Check pity timer math
• Verify no loot is strictly useless at any stage
• Check inventory pressure vs acquisition rate

• [List of files read]

• [Strategy description and why it is problematic]

"Would you like to fix any of these balance issues now?"

• Ask which issue to address first (refer to the Recommendations table by priority row)
• Guide the user to update the relevant data file in

  assets/data/

  or formula in

  design/balance/

• After each fix, offer to re-run the relevant balance checks to verify no new outliers were introduced
• If the fix changes a tuning knob defined in a GDD or referenced by an ADR, remind the user:

  "This value is defined in a design document. Run

  /propagate-design-change [path]

  on the affected GDD to find downstream impacts before committing."

• Summarize open issues and suggest saving the report to

  design/balance/balance-check-[system]-[date].md

  for later

"Re-run

/balance-check

after fixes to verify."