So how do you make sure that players in BitCraft’s open-world dungeon get rewarded for their contributions while avoiding bosses dying too quickly? The game’s latest early access patch is all about balancing exactly that, and the patch notes go into a lot of detail about how the balancing works first. As the Clockwork Labs developers explain, one of the important points is to make sure that the boss scales up and down for the number of players fighting in the area, but also that loot is rewarded for hitting fixed damage thresholds rather than the person who does the most damage getting the most loot.

The goal, then, is to make sure players are contributing and doing their best without being afraid that more people showing up means they won’t get as much out of the encounter.

“With this week’s update we are adding both of these which should hopefully bring the design of the dungeon more inline with our original goals,” the studio says.

This patch also features some more subtle balance changes for mechanics as well, so check out the full notes after you’ve read the philosophical breakdown of how the boss encounters are designed in a non-instanced environment.