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Toffeuy -> RE: Stat Balance & Other Idea (4/6/2013 5:12:31)
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It sure looks nice when it is only suggested, but really it is a gamble, one which is much more risky than it currently seems, in fact, i'm certain the devs would hardly consider the suggestion because of this. I'll put out an analogy to make it simpler to understand what I mean when I say it is a gamble not worth taking. Say someone thinks of a number between 1 and 100. Three people try to guess the number, person who is the closest wins. The first person guesses 50, the second person guesses 49 and the third person decides to guess 51. The number the original person had thought of is metaphorical to the random nature of such a large change in the game system. Since the second person guessed 49, any number between 1-49 will cause them to be the winner. The same applies for the third person in the case the number is 51-100. Sadly, because 50 was right in the middle of the other two guesses, the only possible way for the first person to win is if the number was spot on 50. So effectively, the first person only has a 1/101 chance of winning, whereas the other two equally have a 50/101 chance. The number 50, is the number we may consider as the state at which EpicDuel is "balanced". Let's say 1-49 means certain builds will be underpowered, and that 51-100 means certain builds will be overpowered. Since these two scenarios are pretty much the converses of each other, either is a state of imbalance. Essentially, putting out a gamble like this has a minute chance of actually achieving the effect you intended it to. Imagine the devs spending a couple good months just to implement this idea, and it ends out only being slightly better than the game was before.
When omega was announced and cores were first introduced, everyone was keen on it; they believed it was an absolutely brilliant idea for bringing about balance and skill to the game. Months into omega now and look where we are. Not just the cores, pretty much the entire system was overhauled, the HP and EP systems were changed, and I don't recall many people against that, because it seemed like an interesting and creative idea, but what most need to realise is that interesting and creative is on a completely separate line to a balanced idea. People may think interesting and creative ideas may be a slight, extremely small clue that it is a good idea, and that thought multiplies quite quickly to the part where "it should be a good idea" or "i'm guessing that's gonna work", but a balanced idea does not have even that slightest relation with creativity. I still can't believe how many people thought that Omega would be the bringer of balance because it contained so many changes which were all so creative and sounded like such a good idea. But, really not to my surprise, all big changes were to be met with skepticism, and omega was a big disaster, even after those adjustments to make it a better game, I see more people complaining now about things than before omega.
And please don't get me wrong, i'm not saying this is a bad idea. It all sounds good, and it may in truth be good, but no-one can really know for sure, because the amount of testers are still limited, and you can't expect them to get very accurate results of 10 rounds+ battles when they can't even manage the ~5 round battles right now. So basically, the idea can't be tested in a great amount of detail, and uncertain thoughts probably means no implementation.
There's always going to be parts which are overlooked, and it is these small things we don't even realise, that end up destroying the game. You've mentioned that a battle shouldn't just be a few rounds, and that is something I completely agree with, but EpicDuel has been based on that notion pretty much since the beginning, which means more effort, much more effort than you think is going to be required to make it simply a game where battles last longer. If battles were to be made longer, maybe almost all skills will also need to be changed. Let's use the build you posted as an example, with those defences and such high hp, and noting that heal is available, how many attacks would it take to defeat an opponent like that? I think it's safe to assume that it would be in excess of 10 attacks right? Say your opponent was a merc with Hybrid armor, and lets say max hybrid armor gave +6 def and res instead of +6/+5, just for the sake of ease of calculation. In the ten attacks it took to defeat your opponent, their hybrid armor had absorbed 60 damage (6 def/res multiplied by 10 attacks). Now, say your opponent was a bounty hunter, and you had a chance to use your heal, so throughout the entire battle, you effectively had 200 hp. Take away the hp regained by your opponent during the finishing attack, since the hp regained from killing you has absolutely no effect at all. Prior to your death, ~180 dmg was inflicted on you. Since max bloodlust heals 25%, they'd gain about 45 health. So hybrid armor gives you 60 more hp, while bloodlust only gives 45, that is an advantage of 15 health, or 10% of the max health of the build you showed, simply by possessing a different skill. I've done similar calculations on the game as it is now, and really only an advantage of around 2 hp is obtained by the bloodlust or hybrid armor user, usually less than 2% of their max health. There's also problems such as smokescreen and malfunction only lasting 3 turns in a ~15 round battle.
On another note i'd like to just say you can never achieve actual balance. Builds are more or less likely to win depending on the distribution of other builds across the playing population, and these trends are always changing, so builds may often seem overpowered at one point and then underpowered a small time later. Balance is unachievable, you just got to wait for those small balance updates which provide players with just that little incentive to change builds or classes. And when these updates stimulate change in the demographics, builds will be performing with differently.
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