Grace Xisthrith -> RE: CHA's Style Bonus and Statuses (12/19/2024 20:54:34)
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I'm Ferocious strikes number one op. I hate ferocious strikes, and I think they're ready to be gamebreaking with any item support (pretending warwolf doesn't do that already for... many reasons :p ). I believe I was very public about that during the design process of the stat revamp. I believed at the time, and still believe, that a style bonus that grants bonus output to guest should be flat bonus output, and not be reliant on RNG with a higher ceiling than a flat boost. With that said, I don't think guests that have statuses and guests that don't should have arbitrarily different outputs. There's a few reasons. Currently, we've got booster pets and guests on one standard, dual stat scaling pets and guests (there's like a dozen of these now) on another standard, guests with and without CHA on another standard (IE, not divide by 2 anymore), all of these types of guests have different outputs that are annoying to calculate. Making status guests gain only half (assuming they pay exactly half their damage for a status, ignoring any guests which pay a different amount, which would add another layer of complication), would create another, more common standard that would further complicate the use of guests. Also, statuses are worth the same %melee as damage. Some guests shouldn't be arbitrarily lower output than the rest because they inflict statuses, guests (barring boosters specifically because that was decided by staff with the revamp) should not have arbitrarily different average outputs. All weapons are 100% melee (magic's 100% melee indirectly), all pets have the same %melee value, guests shouldn't randomly be different. Any current meta issues with statuses being strong shouldn't, in my opinion shouldn't shape base guest performance, those should be addressed by addressing what makes them strong (I'm not saying just multiple potency by .5 universally as part of the status but... like what could go wrong) Similarly, players shouldn't be punished for wanting to use statuses. Statuses are a part of the game, players with CHA who use statuses shouldn't be motivated towards doing more plain pure damage builds because they'll lose out on ~7.5% melee worth every turn (on average). Next, I'd like to argue against a few points made and supported in earlier posts. 1: The idea that STR, DEX, and INT style bonuses don't impact status use: I reject this because statuses pay damage for their effects. STR gives damage, so it reduces the cost of statuses. It boosts your output when you use statuses, therefore, the style bonus benefits status users. They're not gaining status output, but they're gaining proportional output. DEX gives accuracy and conditional damage. Accuracy makes status items more likely to hit to inflict their statuses. (yes, not all status items need to hit, I don't think those change the logic). Damage, as I covered with strength, removes some of the cost of inflicting statuses. INT, does not (realistically) affect status use, because the INT style bonus does not (realistically) affect anything, and it's supposed to be bad. Moving past INT. Yes, there is a difference between reducing a penalty for using an effect (paying less damage to have the same status power) and increasing the power of the effect (increasing the status power). Given that they equate to the same %melee, I don't see a meaningful difference. To provide a more extreme example, if the STR style bonus instead of dealing 10% melee more damage, refunded 10% melee of SP when a status was used, players would obviously say it empowers status users. I argue they are, from the game balance perspective, identical. It reduces the cost paid for statuses, just in a less immediately visible way. 2: My opinion is that CHA, compared to END and LUK, is not by far the most dominant support stat. Or, necessarily dominant at all. END doubles your HP bar, which is obviously massive. LUK makes you (with any basic elemental setup) immune to status reliant monsters, barring horrific RNG. Not to mention LUK's item support, which is massively powerful. In short, my opinion is CHA has incredible strengths, and it's a strong (and fun, given it has the most item support because it has two features you can use every single turn) support stat, but it's not like it's leagues ahead of, doubling your HP bar, or neutralizing a whole class of monster, or enabling LUK scaling items. This argument could go on forever, I don't intend to debate it forever, I simply wanted to put on the discussion forum the opinion that CHA isn't, at minimum, significantly stronger than other secondary stats. That being said, there are a few changes I'd love to see, if dev time is likely to be devoted to guests in the future. Best case scenario: I would remove the RNG of ferocious strikes, and simply increase the base output of guests. I truly believe this was the best and simplest solution to the various problems during the stat revamp for game balance, once the idea of adding x% melee to every stat was finalized (which I still disagree with teehee one day I'd love to see the style bonuses removed because player power is really high at a base level, no synergies just clicking attack in a basic armor, in my opinion) Second best case scenario: Make ferocious strikes push all guests damage the same, IE if a ferocious strike occurs, a status guest gets +50% melee in damage, and a damage guest gets +50% melee in damage. Status power is unchanged during a ferocious strike, but the damage boost on the status guest isn't just 2x its current damage, so half that of a full damage guest, its damage increases by the same %melee value as full damage guests. I think the first solution is ideal because it solves the problem of RNG output (if people wanted RNG output, they'd use 20 procs and Grenwog slayer, few people use 20 procs and Grenwog slayer from my time spent stalking character pages). I recognize that a lot of staff work went into ferocious strikes, so I feel a bit disrespectful suggesting this and essentially devaluing staff time and labor, I'm not sure what to say except my bad on that, and that it's just my opinion and I don't intend it as an insult. I think the second solution is alright if not ideal, and preferable not only to the suggestion in the first post, but to the current state of ferocious strikes, because the suggestion in the first post would have the result of further complicating guests and arbitrarily making some builds stronger than others (like my issue with DEX's 100 Proc bonus, arbitrarily making some builds more optimal than others), and it's preferable to the current state of affairs because guests weren't initially designed with 2x their output in mind, so some of their status effects get a little silly when they're 2x output (damage does too, but that's realistically only strong in the same way damage always has been, while statuses can be strong in other more mischievous ways). In case my opinions were a little difficult to follow, I think both that ferocious striking status effects can be too powerful, and that guests should all* have the same average output, and I weigh the average output of guests staying the same across the board as more important than ferocious striking statuses being too powerful. Hopefully that helps explain my two suggestions. I also have no idea how simple to implement either of those solutions would be. I wouldn't wish altering several hundred guest files a second time on my worst enemy, so should any of the ideas posted here require that, I'd be strongly against it.
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