We should be focusing on variety! (Full Version)

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Remorse -> We should be focusing on variety! (8/5/2014 11:06:11)

Variety has gotten extremely small in this game,

Viable and creative build options are very few.

And I think this is a result of "balancing" incorrectly.


We should NOT be making classes similar, arguments like, Class A can do this and it's unfair has lead to all classes having similar versions of the same skill set.
And as a result the game is incredibly repetitive, hard to balance, hard to be creative, causes luck to have a bigger impact and is just over all boring.


-I believe a merc should not be able to regain with static smash
-A BH should not be able to regain with static grenade
-A blood mage should not be able to regain to a large degree

The only two classes I think that should have this the right to regain energy in large amounts with their skills should be cyber hunter and tech mage since it fits their personalities.



Each class should have distinctive personalities and as a result have strengths and weaknesses.

Examples could be:

Mercs should have strong defensive capabilities but lack defense shredders and energy regains.

Tech mages should be strong at gaining energy but weak at taking it.

Bounty hunters should be good at draining and have good life steal but weak at gaining energy and lower in defense

Cyber hunters should be good at energy manipulation but lack at life-steal and defensive skills

TLMs should be good at defense and semi good at draining and regaining but lack damage enhancing skills.

And blood mages should be strong in life-steal and semi good and drain and regains but weak in damage enhancing and have lower defenses.


It's important to note that we should not be able to define better or worse classes because they should be un-compareable, they should have differences like tech mages stronger at regaining energy but that should also be followed up with a weakness stopping anyone from saying tech mages are better such as no energy drains.




How can we improve variety?
-Focus on toning down the power of STR builds
-Focus on toning down the power of focus builds
-Focus on improving the power of support (perhaps with penguins idea of making it improve field medic again but then make field medic a level 1 only skill)
-Replace the static skills with their older versions (EMP/Atom smash)
-Give mercs and TLMS high base defenses (in comparison to other classes to give back the tankyness feel the defensive passives once did)
-Remove tech mages draining skill (assimilation) and replace it with something else
-Give TLMS static smash instead of atom smash and replace battery with a different skill.
-Make energy parasite have a fixed small drain that is consistent
-Increase counter build options through cores

(Note: these changes are just suggestions and would require much more complementary changes to be properly balanced, focus on the point I am trying to get across which is inspire variety rather then what balance issues those suggestions may cause)

We need to focus on giving each class strengths and weaknesses!

It is unacceptable IMO that each class can do versions of the same things.


Cores should inspire greater variety!



We also need to resolve the energy cost issue and the spam-ability of "free costing" skills, such as by adding Stamina Points or a similar feature.




I personally think balancing is almost pointless when the game is not fun without any sort of variety.











lionblades -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/5/2014 12:41:55)

quote:

balancing is almost pointless when the game is not fun without any sort of variety

This is true. Gamma wasn't balanced, Delta sure wasn't balanced, but it was the sheer numbers of builds available that made these past phases so fun for me at least. I remember the Delta forums having a build compilation and players could submit builds--it was over 100s of builds for end level ranging from high win ratio to fast kill to lucky builds. Now we have maybe 5-6 builds per class that work--most of them relying on strike. No uber support mercs, no tech caster mages, no extreme tank TLM...I could go on and on.



Remorse -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/5/2014 12:52:48)

^ Exactly,


Though I still think delta lacked in variety (compared to previous phases not now)

I actually think beta had the biggest amount of variety in terms of different viable ways of using the skills. (That's also why it was the most balanced if you ignore the varium advantage of the phase)


Then came along focus which believe it or not restricted variety IMO because although it brought in a new style (robot builds) it took away all builds that lost viability due to the high power of the focus/robots. ( And pretty much only left 3 styles still standing, STR, Tanks, or focus.)


But focus is only one of many variety constricting changes over the years.
The STR builds sure aren't helping for one, neither was the bombardment of requirements and diminishing returns which acted more as band-aid fixes then anything else.



TBH, I think if they need to nerf a build with diminishing return or requirements the problem may not necessarily be because they are too powerful, they just might be too hard to counter.

In which case better then making these builds un-viable they should of just made them counter-able, or given them more weaknesses making them easier to counter.


They shouldn't have to make any changes that lower variety because certain things are too strong, they just need to give us the tool to defeat these strong things and ensure they have enough weaknesses to do so.



lionblades -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/5/2014 13:02:44)

I never played beta so idk how it was. Only Gamma, Delta, and Omega >.<

But yeah back on point. A big reason why current build variety is bad is the current skill system.
quote:

-I believe a merc should not be able to regain with static smash
-A BH should not be able to regain with static grenade
-A blood mage should not be able to regain to a large degree


Yep. There is a million ways to steal mana--how can we expect to use high damage skills and everything without investing uber high energy? Incredibly boring. Right now only TM can use energy decently, but even TM is obliterated in Jugg mode in a battle of energy. Opponents can steal over 500 mana in a single turn...that's crazy! Constant energy battles and 0 costing energy drains...ugh. This energy problem is one reason why striking builds are so popular and effective right now. Easy to steal mana and easy to dish out dmg without energy. ED's skill system needs a overhaul imo.



Mother1 -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/5/2014 13:07:21)

@ remorse

While Delta may have been horrid to you, that still doesn't change the fact that there was a lot and I mean a lot more builds that were usable back then. Plus delta and the other phases has someone omega now lacks.

The classes as you said being different and had strength's and weaknesses!"

Not anything that makes a class different a lot of people here are making suggestions to either remove those things, or make it so everything works the same regardless of what advantages they may have the other class doesn't.

At the rate we are going the only builds that will be usable will be those strike builds and if you try to be unique you are punished for it.

Sad but true.



Remorse -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/5/2014 13:09:28)

@Lionblades
I definitely agree,

And I think a big help to that would be firstly perhaps to remove some of the regain effects for certain classes and compensate them in other areas.



Another way to tackle this would be to give free costing skills a disadvantage, such as a cost which may be a HP cost,
Or they could consider implementing a new cost source such as Stamina Points, which I linked in my original post above.


@Mother
I find it very hard to like delta because of annoying things such as enhancements and effortless effective strategies that were too hard to counter and usually required favorable luck to beat,

Their was something about the times pre robots and enhancements that was just really smooth, if you wanted to beat a particular build with your class you just made adjustments to your build so it could counter it and it was easy to do this.

Making a build consisted of trying to counter other people, not trying to win as fast as possible with set strategies...

But of coarse delta had better variety then now, but then again every phase had more variety then now.



The berserker killer -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/6/2014 8:10:35)

We cant have fun if everything in this game is so darn expensive. What should be done is that during cooldown time when there should be a discount on everything. Buying weapons, changing classes, retraining, making a faction, etc. We make on average 25k credits per level up at 7500 xp level up. That's only enough for 1 full weapon...



Remorse -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/6/2014 8:52:43)

^ While I do agree with that, that is not the point of this thread.

Plus I think they are making good steps into making the game cheaper through higher mission rewards.



Silver Sky Magician -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/6/2014 8:56:44)

Are there ways of improving variety without necessitating a complete revamp of all six classes? That would literally take years, and as Keynes said, we're all dead in the long run. Is it possible to work with what we have and come up with acceptable short-term solutions?



Mother1 -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/6/2014 9:17:48)

@ SSM

Like all the small changes they have been making which has only made things worse? At the rate things are going I personally feel that maybe the only solution. Otherwise with all the suggestions I have seen anything that makes a class diverse or different will be removed due to some people not liking how one class can do something another can't and want their class to be able to do the same.



Silver Sky Magician -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/6/2014 9:41:13)

^

That's why I was asking if it was possible. As it is, IMO simply replacing legendary ranks with non-battle benefits would solve most, if not all, balance issues. It is also a key short-term solution to the problems with variety. I do agree with you that systematic changes are ultimately needed - the issues with build variety stem from the passive-to-active change, and fundamental problems can only be solved with fundamental changes. Nevertheless we do need something to tide us over the lengthy waiting time, particularly since the devs seem to be only capable of focusing on one project at a time.



Mother1 -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/6/2014 10:02:52)

@ SSM

For a change to legendary ranks I made that suggestion already

I also made a suggestion for NPC to come into battles if wait times become too long so player can play as well as other problems could be solved though I don't have a link to that thread.

But to be honest most small balance changes I have been seeing are just as I mentioned before. Idea based off of "If X does Y to class Z than class Z is screwed. Y should not be able to happen or we need W so Y doesn't happen" In other words was to remove the weaknesses or prevent another class from exploiting their weaknesses so they can win. Which in irony is what is one of the many thing destroying the game outside of new promos. Classes are suppose to have strengths and weaknesses and be different not be made to work the same and have the same things.

The sooner flaw free balance updates come and the classes go back to being different the sooner we will have our diversity back.



Remorse -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/6/2014 11:39:00)

It is still possible to make the most of what we have,

But the amount of changes it takes to fix all the previous bad decisions will all add up to the size of a full revamp.


Think of everything that should be done:

-Legendary rank fix
-Energy constraint fix
-free cost skill fix
-Remove some energy skills from some classes
-Improve power of support
-Reduce power of STR
-Create variety improving cores
-many more!


That is a big list to fix the games balance and variety but I still think if they tackle them one at a time it would be manageable and not necessarily requiring a full revamp though to bring the game to a good standard it may be quicker with a revamp.



shadow.bane -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/7/2014 9:23:18)

i support this but not 100 % the part when u said bring down focus is not good ! cause focus build are already not good ... what more do u want like 10 damage each focus ? 50 damage on focus 5 ? :P they already nerved us when they brought it down from 50 damage to 40 damage and adding 30 damage to all robots that means - 20 damage to focus ... think clearly .



Remorse -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/7/2014 10:18:36)

^

Focus is not good compared to what?

Think for a second,

the only builds focus is not good against are the broken builds
Take away those builds and focus becomes very strong,

You need to realize that focus haa an unfair advanatge! Why is their a specific feature to give a bonus to builds with rounded stats?

Why does rounded stats deserve more power?

It doesn't is the answer, bias builds is the source of broken game structure.

Maybe if they made robots improve without rounded stats I would accept this but it doesn't,

Focus is essentially diminishing returns in the sense it rewards being rounded and punishes not being rounded.


I am against both focus and diminishing returns because I disagree with what it is trying to do which is a essentially be a band-aid fix for dealing with spam builds,
They should of just balanced spam builds by making them more easily countered, not crush variety by giving a build style an unfair advantage over others.



You need to switch your way of thinking, don't look at focus as a build option that is struggling in the meta because I do agree it is weak now but that does NOT mean it doesn't need to be fixed, look at it as a band aid fix that was involved in crushing variety.



The berserker killer -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/8/2014 12:51:38)

I just realized that buying Varium for 50 dollars is useless. In any other game 50 bucks, even 30 bucks will give you a one year membership and exclusive access. In this? 10k Varium might only last for a week. If we want variety this game has to improve the way it treats it's paid players because Variety comes from difference and difference in this game is Varium and Non Varium.

quote:

It is because of dedicated players like YOU who make Artix Entertainment games bigger and better each week
however we definitely are not being treated like it.

No offense to the game but I think i'm done with it. You cant have variety in a game where everyone is equal so my suggestion is that devs should give varium players memberships rather than a temporary 10k varium.

Things that should be included in a 10k varium membership package purchase:

50 free class changes

100 credit retrain

1 free name change

These are just some of the things that won't give varium players an edge, this'll give them their moneys worth and actually make them feel good for supporting the game.




Stonehawk -> RE: We should be focusing on variety! (8/9/2014 7:45:41)

@berserker

I kinda agree with you, but 50 free class changes are just too much, lol
Varium users really should get a bit more rewarded, just like all other Artix Entertainment games.

There are some examples:


- We should get a "Varium card" or something to give a small % discount on some stuff for each varium purchase.
- Access to a "Varium only" part of the map, just like Adventure Quest, but not giving so much advantage, maybe just a shop with a few cool-looking varium only equipments :)
- 10 free class changes would be enough so that varium users could try out all classes before choosing one.


This won't make varium users stronger, they'll just have some reasons to put varium, not only buying a couple stuff faster.



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