  Balancing is, especially among players, a highly debated topic of video
games. Whether a game is sufficiently balanced greatly influences its
reception, player satisfaction, churn rates and success. Yet, conceptions about
the definition of balance diverge across industry, academia and players, and
different understandings of designing balance can lead to worse player
experiences than actual imbalances. This work accumulates concepts of balancing
video games from industry and academia and introduces a player-driven approach
to optimize player experience and satisfaction. Using survey data from 680
participants and empirically recorded data of over 4 million in-game fights of
Guild Wars 2, we aggregate player opinions and requirements, contrast them to
the status quo and approach a democratized quantitative technique to
approximate closer configurations of balance. We contribute a strategy of
refining balancing notions, a methodology of tailoring balance to the actual
player base and point to an exemplary artifact that realizes this process.
