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Ward_Point -> RE: On End And Resource Dumping (3/16/2024 3:01:06)
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quote:
"That’s not how it plays. I’m not trying to be a mage. I’m trying to be a warrior who doesn’t use just one button in the most boring way, dynamic warrior play. But standards are such, that without sp based items being a warrior feels lackluster. The answer is not, just be a mage. The fundamental balance and assumptions made toward sp give mages a significant boost in resource ability. They can enter a battle with full sp, nuke for 2/3 turns, use a sp regenerator, cast 4 spells, then another 2 SPells. And while casting those be regenerating mp to keep the assault going. Also wasn’t the whole point of SPells to give warriors burst damage because just clicking attack isn’t dynamic. I remember that being the case. Being too punishing on warriors to solidify a mage identity when mages are already the most powerful players could be. Which brings up another point, why not train INT over END?" What you've just pointed out here highlights one of the distinctive features of a Mage, being the MP bar. Over the years, Mage have received plentiful item support, which comes in the form of Utility such as Summons and being able to mobilize this MP into HP and SP. The versatility of MP Bar is one of the reasons why it was important that the INT Style Bonus could not be something that resulted in outright vertical power gain, resulting in WallBreaker.
quote:
The main use I want for my skill points is to enhance to weapons, pets, guests, and misc that shouldn’t be a mage thing. It should definitely be a warrior thing. And you know, what everyonce in a while I do want to use a skill. Because I’m level 150 annd I should be skillful. Not fighting to have enough sp to have my full arsenal active for a few turns. And sp costs are so high that it’s not really feasible to save up for an SPell. Which were created for warriors. No one, wants to get celerity in a skilled armor and have their abilities turn off mid way through the 2 turns. That’s not a mage problem. It just makes playing as a warrior not fun. It’s not that it isn’t for me. It’s that the design choices have been so focused on creating an “identity” that warriors either pay a mountain of sp (and I’ve been turning up Reddit and YouTube and it’s not just my warrior build, it seems to be how warriors function practically in game regardless of the assumption. That’s something to take note of) in every other gam, warriors can use skills and aren’t heavily punished for it. In this game Mages get the best utility out Spells and SPells. Which is not a good thing. In most games skill points would be tied to strength as warriors will obviously need it more than mages as weapons, armors, shields, pets, and guests and misc items all rely on sp. and granting a mage access to all of that and telling a warrior to be a mage if he wants that is bad. It’s frustrating. Further from an RP perspective I don’t want to be a mage, or a paladin, or a necromancer, but kinda get pushed into those things because lack of good options.
SP in AQ is intended to be a global resource that all builds have access to. I don't think it's fair to compare AQ to the majority of mainstream RPGs. Warriors have a very clear identity in Final Fantasy (Generally non-Elemental attack damage, they are typically tankier than Mages within the context of their game and by default, generally have more HP as well). The Warrior of AQ has no such innate advantage over the Mage. The Stat Revamp created one by finally enabling Warrior Lean to deal with this. Cecil's Attack under normal circumstances will never hit as hard as Rydia's Meteor. If you're referring to Warriors not having enough Item Support, that is something that has been consistently addressed over the past year or so. Status Imbue spells are just one of the things that are being designed. The problem is that they will always fall short compared to Guests due to their sheer efficiency.
Giving Rangers skillcaster priority was absolutely considered at one point. But it was decided that it would have been ludricious. SP is fully intended to be build agnostic.
Due to the insane efficiency of Guests (30% melee in SP for 60% damage output) Beastmasters feel 'forced' to use Guests. A Pure Warrior, on the other hand, shouldn't feel that pressure (Currently, Dunamis pays 30% in SP for 20.8% melee). One should keep in mind that Guests are pure bonus damage that exist outside the Assumptions. The fact that Guests can be wildly efficient with CHA is precisely the reason why CHA is so desirable. However, there needs to be opportunity cost. If you use your SP for a Guest, there is no reason that a player should be able to use Imbues or Self-Buffs as often.
quote:
It’s unfair to claim to be trying to create tactical choice but I can’t make full use of my cha without paying sp This statement highlights the problem with Guests in its entirety. You feel that CHA users are 'forced into Guests'.
Here are the numbers
LUK: 10% to do 150% damage in Lucky Strikes. Averages around 15% melee damage. It also contributes to Initiative as part of base behaviour
CHA: Increase accuracy and damage of Pet (Which is tied to the Balance Model). Worth around 20% melee. CHA does not assume a Gues, but the entirety of it's Style Bonus is added to Guest power.
END: 2x HP. Why? Because any HP above 0 after 20 turns is 'Wasted'. So END was purposefully given additional power via defence because Players typically want big numbers and prefer not to play defensively.
Players who choose CHA must recognize there needs to be a choice in using a Guest or using a Misc. A Warrior mashing the attack button with a Misc active will never feel an SP shortage. It doesn't 'feel' as good, because you're not killing stuff faster, but there needs to be a cost to killing stuff faster. There is a point to having the Player's SP bar filled to 100% between full heals, maybe (Having a Stat roll before a Boss fight pisses me off, but that is mostly a legacy from bad LB quest design) but outright saying that you want unlimited SP conversion on demand is ridiculous when the player already has so many tools to subvert the balance model.
It is one of the reasons why Backlash is somewhat ridiculous. I can literally mobilize the entirety of my HP bar to kill a FruitcakeZard within a single turn via Backlash. It's funny, but it's in no way balanced. I am not against weaponizing HP. I am against weaponizing HP without limits. I think 2 Melee worth of SP is a little high. Taking Bloodmages as an example, it pays HP for 1 melee worth of extra damage, using it with a Bloodblade has an additional 15% melee in HP.
1.15 melee in HP seems to be the highest Blood cost in the game for bonus damage. Extrapolating from this, I would propose that a reasonable amount of SP to be exchanged per turn would be 1.15 melee worth, which is around 451 SP.
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