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igfod13 -> Adding Levels into the Equation (7/15/2011 2:39:08)
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Skills are probably the most controversial thing right now, especially regarding the new classes. Complaints like: This skill is OPed, this skill is useless, nerf this, or buff that have all appeared. Early on in the game, some skills are extremely powerful, such as casting skills, but their usefulness tends to die out as one approaches higher levels. Other skills have constant numbers. Will a max hybrid armor, assimilate, or poison be useful in the far future where the level cap has been raised into the 40s or 50s? I think we can all agree that some skills are inherently better than others, but this changes as we level, and some skills will eventually become obsolete. I think the only way to maintain somewhat balance with skills at ALL levels is to include the character's level itself into the calculations of the skill's damage or effect.
Skills are pretty much put into three categories: ones that are static, ones that improve with a stat, and ones that are influenced by a percentage.
Percentage based skills are extremely fluid, and do not need any changing as we level, because everything is relative. Reroute, deadly aim, shadow arts, and bloodlust will be useful pretty much "forever". The only real question for these skills is finding the correct percentages, but that is not a leveling issue.
Skills that improve with stats seem to taper off as we level. One way we can stop this decrease in power is by adding a small damage boost determined by the level of the player. A casting skill, for example plasma bolt, could have a damage bonus from the player's level, lets say 1 damage every 2 or 3 levels. All of a sudden, a plasma bolt is not only going to deal more than 3 damage trained at level one, but able to deal devastating damage if maxed. The whole purpose of skills is to do a little more damage than we normally do at the cost of energy, am I right?
Static skills are probably the ones that need to be fixed the most. These skills will never change, regardless of our level, which is a big problem. Using levels to increase the powers of these skills could be a solution. If levels were used to determine the strength of Hybrid armor and poison damage, the effect would probably be minimal, like an increase of 1 damage every 10 levels is sufficient. After all, weren't TLMs just nerfed by decreasing the damage of poison JUST 2 damage? This would also allow hybrid armor to be nerfed at lower levels, which is an incredibly OPed skill right now.
So, would you guys be okay with skills being affected by player levels? What other ways can we improve and balance static skills and stat based skills? Other solutions for static skills are probably possible, such as giving them a stat that they improve by. Would you guys be more comfortable having Hybrid Armor improve, for example, by dex or tech? Maybe skills like plasma bolt just need to be buffed, or more heavily influenced by stats? What do you guys think?
Basically, I'm trying to say skills should have boosts based on player levels, instead of just stats or nothing at all.
For example, a lvl 30 character would have a 10 damage boost on plasma bolt, while a lvl 15 character would have a 5 damage boost, OR poison would do 3 more damage per turn for a level 30 character compared to a lvl 1 character, etc.
This makes sure that skills don't become more useless as we level, and diminishes our reliance on overloading on stats, which HOPEFULLY leads to less stat abuse.
-okdude (Long post, sorry)
Posts merged. ~Lectrix
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