Balance Patch Notes

Given cost and performance data for a small set of competing in-game options, build a real cost-effectiveness ratio and write the patch notes for the numeric change it justifies.

Due: 29 March 2027 · Weight: 20%

The brief#

Everyone has an opinion about which item is overpowered. Only some of those opinions survive being turned into a ratio.

Balance Sheet Clinic (Week 5) had you build a cost-effectiveness ratio from data provided in the room and use it to argue for a rebalance out loud. This assessment is the individually-marked, fuller version of the same exercise, against a fresh dataset you haven’t seen: a small set of competing in-game items or ships, each with a currency cost and a performance number (damage, defence, speed — whatever the dataset provides).

The numeric-balancing move from Week 5’s lecture is the one being tested here: performance-per-currency ratios expose which options are underpriced or overpriced relative to their peers, and a rebalance is just moving the outlier back toward the pack.

What you submit#

Real patch notes for one specific numeric change, backed by your working:

• the cost-effectiveness ratio you built, as a formula with the dataset’s numbers substituted in, for every option in the set
• one option identified as the outlier, with its ratio compared against the pack
• one specific change (a new price, stat, or unlock requirement) and the recalculated ratio showing the outlier now sits within a reasonable band

Keep the tone of an actual patch note — terse, numeric, and clear about what changed and why — rather than a discursive essay about balance in general.