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Stabilis -> (Arguably) The Heart and Brain of All Balance Problems (2/14/2013 21:50:11)
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This is an argument worth an essay pages long but I will try to minimize this as much as possible.
Problem: Extreme balance conflicts, of players exploiting 1 stat with a limited number of skills. Skills get nerfed, skills get stat requirements, skills get higher energy costs, skills get higher cooldowns, skills get (higher) warmups, and synergy between once good skills become alien. Skills become too feeble if not exploiting that 1 stat. Why can I not use an effective Fireball if I have Technology instead of Strength? If I allot 10 skill points into Fireball, why does someone of the Strength origin get to use it better than me at level 1? The problem is a self-recurring problem in balance, the stat-skill principle brings skills down constantly while stats (and players as a whole) remain unchanged. No matter how many times you nerf all 72 skills in EpicDuel, there will always be at least 1 prominent underpowered or overpowered balance issue.
Cause: Skills are being improved by stats. Stats are rarely nerfed, yet if they are, they are not changed forever and will revert back to an overpowered state or they become futile. The fact that my 1 layout called stats deeply relates with my second layout called skills is an extremely rooted problem that cannot be fully solved unless you can separate the 2 which allows you to individually assess a single unit. For as long as a skill improves by a stat, you can nerf the skill, but you cannot nerf it more past a certain point because that is when the role of the stat takes over. If you nerf the skill on both ends (skill nerf and stat-skill nerf), you kill the skill and it becomes void. Even Field Medic; you have probably thought and probably are still contemplating about it being improved by Support again, because it would theoretically "make Field Medic useful" or "allow Support to be competitive". I myself have even supported a Support-improving Field Medic, but did you or I think fully about the potential balance issues? Maybe, maybe not, because what if an empowered heal allows a player to theoretically live forever? What if the heal negates the best attacks of another player? But is all of this true? If it is then will the momentarily out-of-spotlight Field Medic be nerfed after we had just "buffed" it? Maybe it will! So what can you do in this tricky tango?
Solution (1 of many): Stats should have no influence towards skills. No stat improvements, no stat requirements, no stat anythings! Strip skills down to the bones and build them back up as according to their skill level and the player level: because for the fun of it we only have 34 dispensable skill points! That is up to only 3 skills at maximum "strength", passive skills included. The other question is why should a skill only be useful at level 10 or with a giant stat? It should not! Depending on the type of effect it was supposed to procure, it should be noticeable at least. But what is noticeable? Balanced. Thanks for your time, much appreciated. This was a part-rant-part-suggestion-part-epiphany kind of post. When I think problem solving I never think instant relief, I think justice with long-term cures, so I understand I am asking for a massive change... but I mean well and I trust in what I have discovered from my analysis of EpicDuel battles over the years.
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