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Wingman -> Balance issues around effects that carry over across battles (5/15/2022 0:04:21)
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While recently thinking about some overpowered items, I've come to the conclusion that it's difficult, even unreasonable, to balance the game around effects that can carry over across battles.
Take the Kindred Set's armor's infamous Kindred Strike, for example. The ability to charge unlimited Focus before entering a fight and unleash a series of massive attacks is so broken that every boss monster has to have a damage cap effect (which is quite unfair to other, unrelated skills). The entire armor set is even banned from The Void alongside other broken items like Essence Orb and Shadowfeeder Pendant.
Now, this isn't a new problem. Some of the real OGs here might remember the old Dragonslayer skill Call Forth the Fire Dragon, which required a ridiculous number of charges to pull off, but did Fire damage based on a % of monster HP, which made it the go-to skill for every boss. That skill was eventually modified to be less broken, then removed altogether w/ the class overhaul.
While Kindred Strike is not quite that overpowered, it's morally the same--tediously build up a resource over several battles, then spend it for a massive hit during a boss fight. Pretty soon players complain that challenges are too easy, so the bosses are made immune to the skill, which makes it lose its identity b/c it really has no other purpose.
The same issues apply to the Kindred Set's shield, which spend Focus to restore SP w/out using a turn, or Paladin's Defiance, which requires 50 charges to revive the player, and various other items. Even the whole mechanism of SP suffers from this, as unlike HP/MP it's not topped off before a fight, so players just cheese the fight before to refill their bar. I know the first thing I do after logging in or preparing to go on a quest is to visit the Combat Practice Trainer and use Essence Orb to quickly refill all my SP--a boring but useful routine.
It may not be necessary to eliminate resources carrying over across fights entirely, but only to change them so that the benefit is much less. For the Kindred set, for example, perhaps a Focus cap of 40 should be imposed so the player gets one free higher-damage attack or SP heal when entering the battle, but then has to regenerate the resource during it. That way items/skills don't have to be banned and players don't have to choose b/t either finding bosses a pushover or fleeing immediately upon realizing they forgot to charge their Uberskill.
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