NDB
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Hey Ginger,
I think part of the long battle problem is probably an indirect of the developers attempting to encourage the use of skills, particularly caster skills, in battles which, historically, were underutilized. For the large part of Beta, Gamma, and probably Delta, "regular" attacks (i.e. strike, gun, auxiliary, robot) were the basis of one's moveset, at least in 1vs1. Debuffs, strength skills, passive skills were popular because they simply enhanced these regular attacks without being distinct attacks on their own. The only way to make caster skills more appealing, it seemed, was to drastically decrease the effectiveness of regular attacks while simultaneously buffing the caster skills. Under this model, however, average damage often becomes too low when one does not have energy to use caster skills, hence the developer's need for creating energy regeneration skills.
As a result, what I see today is not necessarily a problem with damage itself, but the way that it is distributed. That is, the standard deviation of the damage of an individual player's attacks is far greater than before. Because the majority of attacks are too weak to break the 408 threshold in four rounds, there is an extreme emphasis on landing the few powerful attacks correctly such that most battles have become sort of a war of attrition: stall until the time is right to hit hard. Opportunistic gameplay is the dominate strategy for all builds such that those that rely on more consistent (less variable) damage, such as Strength builds, are lackluster. Unsurprisingly, Rage, which offers a sudden burst of irregularly high damage, has become far more important than in previous balance eras. Another problem arises when both players are too weak; the model then becomes "stall until you have energy but your opponent does not".
In order to correct this issue, (1) the standard deviation of the damage of attacks must be greatly lowered and (2) the mean damage of attacks must be raised above 408/4 (102). This could mean slightly increasing the damage of the regular attacks to be near or at this average, as you have suggested, while slightly decreasing the effectiveness of caster skills. By making caster skills and healing less appealing, energy regeneration skills will naturally become less useful such that players will have to once again think twice about using all of these skills. To facilitate this shift, the 408 base for heal could be adjusted to be lower, if necessary.
Hopefully, this writing is not too convoluted and sort of aligns with what you are suggesting/expressing.
I just want to say, though, that I personally don't have a particular dislike of long battles or energy/heal regeneration. I also don't have a particular dislike for the quicker battles of pre-Omega phases. I think both are valid gameplay models that can bother offer strategic and exciting battles. Whether battles should be long or short, in my opinion, is more a matter of personal preference than anything.
< Message edited by NDB -- 6/21/2018 17:57:14 >
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