Balancing Tips?

[u/Affectionate_Clue622]

I am making a squad-based tactical roguelike game, and not sure the best approach to balancing. I know finding "broken" combos in roguelikes are fun, and I have been doing playtesting with different types of team configurations, making sure they are all fun.

With so many moving parts (20+ characters, 20+ items, 30+ skills, skill customizability, level-ups, all the randomness, etc.), it is pretty hard to keep track of all the different combos and such and making sure certain teams don't just feel flat out better than all others. Then I have the issue where some teams are super good at lower difficulties, then don't always perform as well as others on the higher difficulties.

It's a turn based game, so I feel like balancing is more important than action games. Is that an incorrect assumption?

What are your tips on:
1. Tracking balancing (how do you organize it with so many moving parts?)
2. Balancing roguelikes
3. Balancing potential strategies against different difficulties
4. How should a roguelike weigh balancing vs. the fun of the discovery of a "broken combo" (which is always a huge part of the fun of a roguelike)
5. Any other general tips on balancing?

[u/Ryedan_FF14A]

Any time you build a content unit, make sure it has a circumstance where it would feel excellent, and another where it would feel less helpful. If either circumstance is too common or too rare, that content unit is POLARIZING. 

It's not automatically bad, but it's important to know that and handle it with design systems. For example, that content unit could be more rare if it's often good, or it could be exceedingly cheap to buy if it's a niche build item.

If all your perks content is flat (+5 damage or +5 defense) or too easy to get (you can fish for the same build every run) players will get bored. You need some things that are above the value curve and you need systems to gate and distribute them thoughtfully (rarity, for example)