T Bearce

I’m a Principal Systems Designer with 14+ years architecting progression, economy, and meta-systems for live-service RPGs. My focus is ARPG reward frameworks, player-lifecycle pacing, and long-term retention design—systems that feel great now and keep working months later.

I build and validate systemic behavior through data-driven prototypes, telemetry instrumentation, and controlled playtests. I work across engineering, analytics, QA, and content teams to confirm expected vs. actual player behavior and to uncover second and third-order effects before they become production problems.

Most recently, I’ve led acting systems design at Stoic Studio on Towerborne, authoring feature specs and system documentation while shaping the progression and reward ecosystem (XP flow, loot tables, rarity tiers, end-game scaling, gear score, affixes, set bonuses, and perk logic). I’ve also mentored designers, set quality standards, and driven major system refactors to keep live-service design resilient as goals shift.