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edwardvulture -> Passive to Actives: Inordinate Reprecussions (4/2/2014 8:20:18)
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Outline: Passives to Actives have directly or indirectly caused players to become dissatisfied with this game, either through the stress put on energy, the convergence of classes, or the dominance of a few viable builds within each class(and level, although I cannot exactly say this as I have been traversing through levels 34-36 on my multiple accounts) over other builds. This said dissatisfaction has led to what could be considered, more or less, an exodus. As part of the epicduel community, it is our duty to restore the integrity of this game and preserve it for future generations. My personal opinion on how to fix the problem of passives to actives is to split the skill tree into two distinct categories: free-costing skills and energy-costing skills. This would re-institute passives and move 0-energy active skills to the same category. The rationale behind this is that free-costing skills universally benefit every kind of build whereas energy-costing skills are often situational and build-specific. Also, the active skill tree can be expanded to incorporate more viable builds within classes. As you can see, passives to actives are not the only balance issue present within epicduel, stats, rage,cores, legendary mode and other mechanics are also other issues that can be discussed but I am trying to limit their scope from my essay so I can focus on a specific issue.
Passives to Actives have directly or indirectly caused players to become dissatisfied with this game, either through the ironic decline of the usage of actives skills that cost energy, the convergence of classes, or the dominance of a few viable builds within each class. The case of Passives to Actives as quoted by NightWraith from the design notes of 9/7/13 are “Currently, passives grant HUGE benefits with little sacrifice, especially for level cap players. Active skills require more sacrifice in terms of energy cost and turn cost. To compensate for these sacrifices, the effects of the skills will be modified. This change will affect all classes so we're really interested to see what new strategies emerge from this change. “ That is a valid point, passives did universally grant a class benefits that did not have a downside. Players, if they chose to, could max out passives with the only sacrifice being skill points and having to meet skill requirement. Every other skill at the time had an energy cost except assimilation, static charge, and static smash. Currently, using the same logic as Nightwraith, these skills grant “HUGE benefits with little sacrifice” but IMO they should not be removed, they should be relocated. Personally, I can see how passives to actives could make battles more strategic, but as we have seen, that is not the case upon implementation. WIth the few viable builds that are currently available for each class, stratagem and build diversity has arguably reached an all-time low.
In battles nowadays, I would say an average of 4 skills, or a 1/3 of a skill tree is going to be utilized in any given battle depending on the skill level of the player and the complexity of their build. But as I have stated, this game is taking less skill(different usage) to win than ever. An average battle probably consists of a buff/debuff, possibly heal, and the 0 energy skills that manipulate energy(2 if you’re a tech mage) Active skills such as plasma bolt, bunker buster, and other have been in decline in favor of strike, gun, robot attack, and the occasional aux. Part of this reason is the strain on energy. Ironically, very few people invest in energy as a stat. This is because many active skills dealing damage are underpowered and overpowered depending on your level and amount of stat investment in the given stat. For example, at high levels, no matter how much you invest in energy and dex, a dex bh that uses both stun grenade and multi-shot will suffer in both 1v1 and 2v2. The same build could be viable at lower levels, I would not know because it has been ages since I have been a low-level bh. Ideally, it should be an option for bh’s in every level but it is not. The death of this build was caused by many factors including an extensive round of diminishments, nerf to all multis(85% put in the wrong place), nerf to both multi-shot and stun grenade, and I’m guessing the removal of blood lust and shadow arts as passives slayed the build once more after it was already dead. Another reason why the usage of active skills are on a decline is because of the lack of synergy caused by the removal of passives. I’m going to use my beloved dex bh build as an example again. In gamma, bh had blood lust and its reflex boost used to give energy regeneration capabilities similar to the departed reroute. I had a varied arsenal of choices with that build. The skills were in perfect synergy. The reflex boost made me a tank and I was able to do massive damage with the first multi and it was possible for me to get in a 2nd multi with rage. The dex bh I created a classic example of strategy and build making ability at its finest. At the time, I used only non-varium gear and the dex bh build spread and I, inevitability, was beaten by the varium variant of my own build. This build arguably takes more skill to play than the heal-loop mage that Xendran created. It incorporated every skill on the skill tree except poison and massacre depending on the situation. It was not flat out overpowered like Xendran’s heal loop mage, it was more skill-driven than anything(at least the way I was using it, there are way too much copycats). Yet the heal-loop build lives on(now w/o support) while my dex bh build took several more nerfs after it was already dead. There needs to be a clear line drawn between synergy and over-poweredness. Right now, there are almost no viable options to synergize within the skill tree at any given level. Some might say that the removal of passives have killed the ability for builds to have synergy. Too much players have complained about certain builds being OP when in fact, it was just using synergy. These players only complain because they are not gifted with creativity, or lack the work ethic that allows them to find a counter to builds that incorporated synergy. I would say almost all “legendary” players are forced to conform to the likes of them, but I will get to that topic later.
Now the second topic, convergence of classes. Ever since passives and actives, many unique builds that only one class could have have ceased to exist. Examples are the tank TLM, support BH, dex spam BH, no focus tech Merc, i'm sure there were lots more. If you noticed, each class, before passives to actives had something different to offer, i'm sure some of you can elaborate on this point for me. Now all the classes do basically the same things, some more effective than the others. All classes are given an energy regeneration skill and an energy stealing skill. All classes have shields that cover both defense and offense, once again some "better" than others. All classes have viable strength builds. 5 bonus works almost as well for every class. None of the classes can spam dex except tech mages. Spamming tech without focus is no longer an option because of the huge stress this game has on energy. There are very few things that are unique to classes anymore. I copied this off a thread I created earlier, here are some responses by players who commented on it.
Exploding Penguin: quote:
I preferred it back then. I actually have no motivation to change classes now, and most other people wouldn't either if they weren't so focused on simple-minded fast win builds.
Mother1:quote:
I remember when you actually had to think when using some builds to win, as well as build diversity being a lot higher than it is now. I also remember when more than one build could counter flavor of the week builds as well.
Thylek Shran:quote:
I had the most fun during late Delta. Clone builds wasn´t much of a problem there as still
alot different builds existed. I think that the class change option combined with Omega
ruined ED as to many players now just hop to the next OPed class and build of the month
A "slight" exaggeration: Now there are Tech Mages and weaker Tech Mages
Now unto my last topic: the dominance of a few builds(about level 30+). The two builds that are universally viable within all classes are 5 bonus, Spike build(more or less 84 str/dex, High HP, little/no investment in energy/support and low to medium tech), and each of its many variants including tech spam 5 bonus, HP spam Spike, Supercharge 5 bonus etc. The reason that these builds are so successful is because of the concept of 0-energy damage. No energy or skill point is needed to strike,gun or use robots. That gives them the ability to inflict damage consistently and even more so on rage(which is also broken). Unfortunately, players that use these builds rarely synergize and incorporate the full use of their skill tree. A balance between skills that cost energy and moves that don’t such as strike,robot, etc, needs to be reached. Skills/attacks that don’t use energy are not as OP as much as how builds that rely on skill points and energy are unable to compete with them. This is a generalization as I personally have seen dex spam tech mage take out Spike/5 bonus builds. Another issue is the tech mage class, at this moment it is the most popular class because instead of one energy manipulating skill that costs no energy, it has two. The build I personally use right now is effective(albeit only in 1v1) and unique. I beat most builds that have less than 1200 HP. I use a high support/tech 4 focus supercharge build with 900+ energy. In some ways, it is the ultimate antithesis of the Spike build. If I’m able to find a build like this, maverick and successful when pitted against normal trends, why am I complaining about passives to actives? It is because I cannot repeat the feat for the rest of the 5 classes I play. Although you could abuse broken static charge on CH, but the Spike build and 5 bonus are the only viable options I have come across for the rest of the other classes. I know I am not the best build maker but if it was possible, I would have seen it by now right? When people read this they might say, nerf Tech Mage! but NO!, no more nerfs! How do you think we got into this situation in the first place?
I present to you, in the following paragraphs, my own solution to this lack of synergy and every other problem caused by passives to actives/past nerfs. I will only lay out the frame work because I do not particularly have high hopes for this because for all we know nobody reads this and the suggestion isn’t even considered. We are all left to speculate because the ED staff do not really interact with us forumites due to past experiences. Also note that I am not directly suggesting stats, rage, or other mechanics of this game that also needs a second look at.
Before anything, we need A LOT more balance testers because a truly effective adjustment to just one skill takes level, class, build, and everything in between into consideration and that has not been done in a long time or at all in the history of epicduel. That part is why players are dissatisfied with balance.
1. Split the skill tree and reinstitute old passives, limit the amount of skills available for investment depending on level.
2. Add more skills, both passive, active, and 0-cost
3. Test skills, adjust progressions, adjust how skills fundamentally work(This could mean investing in a skill point not increase the cost which is similar to blood shield, probably the most innovative skill in a long time)
Rationale for
1.
There are really only two types of skills on the skill tree. Skills that have 0 cost, and skills that have an energy/health cost. Static charge, battery backup, static smash,static charge,assimilation, and energy parasite all belong in the 0 energy cost category. When you think about it passives are also 0 energy cost skills and could be instituted so that each class can really be distinctive again. Players tend to invest in them way more than energy cost skills like plasma bolt, overload, etc. because they benefit every kind of build whereas skills that cost energy are situational and often used only in specialized builds. Without the splitting of the skill tree, cost skills and "0" cost skills (technically a turn's usage is an opportunity cost but that is not really it’s used in this fashion) will never be balanced with energy/skill point cost skills in terms of power and usage. Skills for tech mage that belongs on this 0-cost tree include reroute, assimilation, battery backup, deadly aim, and possibly 0-energy bloodscythe if that novelty of an idea ever catches on.
2.
There are certain things that classes just cannot do, an example of this is playing bloodmage offensively with support. It has no “damage” skill that scales on support, neither does bh. Also, giving each class two options of multi isn’t such a bad idea, how about a multi on tech, because 4 classes have multis that scale on strength. Also, more 0-cost active skills can be incorporated and so could new passives that have never existed before can be made to put on the new “0-cost” skill tree. In addition, it could be argued that the effectiveness of half the skill tree on the mercenary class is directly dependent on strength, that undeniably leans build makers towards strength and dex in an attempt to synergize, that is why there needs to be more skills that accommodate the synergy of other stats. Also, why not the choice of two ultimates? The sky is the limit
3.
A really peculiar example of why skills need adjustments is atom smash and static charge, one is just a better version of another. Skills like this should never have that direct relation of “better than” because that doesn’t help balance at all. Another example is how EMP grenade is not so hot compared to static grenade.
And now, a very vague example I copy and pasted from another thread
"0-cost skills" (20) points available for investment at level cap)
{Plasma Armor}-{Static Charge*}-{Shadow Arts}-{Static Grenade}
"cost skills" (25 points available for investment at level cap)
{Heal}-{EMP*}-{Static Kick*}-{Defense Matrix}
{Malfunction}-(Multi Shot)-{Venom Strike}-{Plasma Surge*}
{Plasma Grenade*}-(Massacre)-{Infrastructure Breakdown*}
Plasma Armor and Shadow Arts are pre-Passives to Actives
Static Charge*(needs to be reworked...possibly a static amount based on weapon damage)
EMP*(now does 50% gun damage along with drain)
Static Kick*(Cheap shot with 20% energy drain)
Plasma Surge*(Multi-shot scaling on tech)
Plasma Grenade*(needs to be redone)
Infrastructure Breakdown*(the second ultimate, does physical damage based on dex and has a poison effect based on support)
Cost skills addendum: Instead of having energy costs set by increasing amounts of 10's or 20's, why not 5's and also, instead of having energy cost increasing with each investment, how about increased effect without energy increases or energy reduction with same effect.
Also notice how every stat is viable for a build with this new skill tree, even energy and support.
About the Author(written incorrectly in 1st person):
The most notable threads I have created are probably “The Gap” and “Would we have more players if we Omit Losses” I’d like to think “The Gap” somewhat contributed to the removal of enhancements but I have no idea.
As a player, I have been in notable factions such as the hive, Legit, Ed War Tribunal, and others. I have never ran a successful faction daily on my own due to my inability to find enough hardcore players at any given time.
I have one of every class from level 35-36. Together with the wins from all my accounts, I would have about 55k wins. The closest I got to a daily was 6th place in 1v1 on my then non-varium BH
Ed Vulture in Gamma for a 1v1 faction championship for the hive.
Special Thanks to:
Everyone that was mentioned in this article, the developers for making this game, the AK’s for maintaining the forums, and comicalbiker for indirectly giving me the 3rd idea on my thesis.
Post your responses here, it could be about anything and everything even non-epicduel things such as my writing skills(if allowed...but prob not). Has to relate to my essay though. Make a discussion out of it(the purpose of a forum). That was a long 4 hours… ha...
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