[Perdition]

This is starting a topic off of a tangent from the recent player transformation thread in the Suggestions section. Dev asked why people feel that characters in generally feel very samey. Walrus had a great answer, but I'd like to expand on that discussion since it's an issue that resonates strongly with me personally.

"It's a multi-factor problem. It doesn't have anything to do with transformations, or the lackthereof, it's an issue with the ease of access people have to the same builds, and how easily people can hot-swap around to the best 'Meta-builds'. New item drops? Ten people are rolling it at the arena. New class drops? Double that number. People tend to steer towards what's strong, because after what, four years of the stat system, most veterans are exhausted on options left to explore despite the vast toybox before them.

To give an example: Before the volcanic nerf, the majority of the casual PvP-scene was dominated by anchor edges, because it was grossly good, leading to many matches that were effectively mirrored. Before the Tarnada stopped being the most oppressive weapon in the game, you couldn't go an hour without seeing a tornado somewhere, and the same issue was present in Sogensora when it was released.

From my perspective, it's less that we don't have cool things to do, and more that players tend to conform to what's strong at any given time, because all it takes is 5 bucks, or a day of suffering through the leveling process."

Is what Walrus wrote to give credit where credit is due.

While "solving" this would require upheaval of multiple systems currently in place, I think that steps can easily be taken to mitigate this issue. Nothing is going to stop people from trying the shiny new class or new race, that's just in the nature of players to want to try what's new. However, when it comes to items that's an entirely different story. Items follow true... to an extent. The thing is, the new items have to actually be good. All of the new 10 stars from the Swamp have been underwhelming. I've seen them being sold in vendors for anywhere from 1-5k murai, which is largely chump change.

Compare this to things such as Elytra and Hundred Reflection Spear which to this day retain high value. Hundred Reflection Spear may not be the fairest comparison since it's not only a boss drop, but one locked behind a boss that isn't even guaranteed to show up at the end of its BDP. But in the case of Elytra, those are still very popular and sought after. Even when it comes to other "newer" 10 stars like Aquaphobia and Deadclaw, I see people actively seeking them out or experimenting with them--Aquaphobia in particular.

I'm not suggesting every new 10 star be on the level of Elytra or Hundred Reflection Spear, but from that same patch, even Buzzing Chakram made some ways as a new good fist option while not being overbearing. Let's take Hexfang for example from the most recent Swamp patch--this dagger has absolutely nothing go for it. Str scaling is a point of contention on daggers to begin with, but people saw, in real time, this dagger be taken from something worth experimenting with its originally thought scaling of 50% str 50% res 50% gui to absolute dumpster trash with 50% str, 60% ski, 10% gui.

My point is that the more good items we have the more things people will actually try and use. All of the new Swamp 10 stars drop off of mobs that are easily farmable, yet I haven't seen anyone jumping at the opportunity to use them and bandwagon them... because they're terrible. If new, good items are released, sure there's going to be a period of everyone playing with them--but that's unavoidable. Eventually, their status as a fad will fade, but those that actually like the items will still be using them. This, in my opinion, is preferable to the items being trash from the start and never seeing the light of day in anyone's battles. 

On that note, I think a patch dedicated to item rebalancing is long overdue, as these issues plague existing items. There's a huge gap in power between what's considered good in an item category and to its alternatives. Look at axes in particular: Anchor Edge was literally the only thing putting them on the map. No one, even now, gives a second thought to any other axe. One suggestion I have is normalizing weapon stats a bit more. To bring up Anchor Edge again, it has 95 base accuracy and 10 base crit on top of the usual 125 axe crit modifier. That's basically the perfect basic attacking weapon statline. Now look at another axe that also wants to basic attack: Vampire Bat. It has 75 base accuracy and a whopping NEGATIVE 5 base crit. This is aggressively terrible for no reason. 

In general, I think if a weapon is clearly designed to basic attack, it should have at least 90 base accuracy. Weapons already have more going on to differentiate themselves by category in the form of talents, in which swords get 7 more hit, axes get 7 more crit AND 5% crit modifier, etc. From there, I think things such as giving items... negative... base crit are entirely unnecessary. Nothing should have a base crit of below 0.

Obviously, going through and touching up some of the weapon's actual effects to buff those in need of buffing, and maybe even nerfing some things is what's going to bring weapon power levels closer together, but this is something easy that could be done in the mean time. 

One last thing, I think buffing existing things that are underperforming is a much better route than nerfing things if it can be avoided. Sometimes things genuinely do need to be nerfed, but in practice all this does is just remove something as an option for many players.

[sadbot]

I'm all for this. There's such a great variety of equipment you can use in this game, and despite all of the options it also doesn't feel like there's a lot of things that just feel like something else but worse. There's some degree of uniqueness to almost every item that gives it some kind of niche, be it through scaling, base stats or weapon effects. But despite all of this, I'd say that at least two thirds of all equipment in the game never really sees the light of day because it's just so far from that power bar that most people are aiming for. Not necessarily to make some sweaty meta build, but just to have a build that can put up a good fight against most people and have fun.

Bar the occasional outlier, the 'across the board' axe buff for example, balance changes only really seem to be aimed at things that are too powerful. Items that push beyond this power bar, warp everything around them and leave you asking how you can justify not using it. But I honestly think some time needs to be taken to look over the current catalogue of equipment and bring many of the options at least closer to the bar set by the likes of anchor edge, mirror spear, etc. Boss 10 stars come to mind as the perfect example. Some of them are a good option or even the go to for their respective weapon types, while others are just a weird meme that leaves you scratching your head as to how to even utilize it.

Perfect balance, especially with this many options, is impossible unless dev has an infinity gauntlet lying around. But I think the best improvement that can be made going forwards is to improve on the existing variety by making some of it more usable. With the amount of equipment there is, and all of the varying opinions going around about what is and isn't good or usable, I think the best way to go about this is for dev to make a new player survey to collect opinions on player's personal top choices for items they would like to see buffed or changed. Maybe it's what they think needs it most, maybe it's their favorite equipment pieces from a style/theme standpoint that they just wish were more usable pls I just wanna make a cool shuriken build. I may be wrong but I imagine with plenty of submissions, and I have no doubt that most people have their own opinion on this, some sort of loose pattern might arise to give some direction on such an undertaking.

[Snake]

As I wrote there, I believe we'd make a better use of all weapons scaling similar or at the very least close to each other, with a baseline of:

- Tome (120% SWA max)
- Axe (110% SWA max)
- Sword, Fist. (105% SWA max)
- Spear, Bow, Dagger. (100% SWA max)
- Gun (90% SWA max, due to armor ignoring)

This way the SWA budget would be more forgiving when comparing one weapon to another. I also believe STR and WIL should scale higher than other stats, while GUI serves as a way to not increase Critical Damage, but provide some armor penetration + damage reduction penetration.

That's where the term 'balance' comes from anyway. If everything is usable, there will be no reason for people to prefer X, Y, Z over others solely because it's stronger or weaker. People would pick weapons to enhance a specific, niche gameplay, not to be better than others. Stock weapons are way too reliable.

At the very least when the term is anything under 10*.


TL;DR

Yes, it sounds funny when tied to the thread's title, but I think people will be different if the power or general SWA of all weapons is the same for each weapon class, since what will rule someone's weapon choice is their effects (or drawbacks) over it having more or less SWA one another.

[Perdition]

Equalizing stats among weapons does sound funny with the post title yeah, but I get what you're saying. I think there's a good reason that weapon classes have baseline stats that they all follow to begin with, like all daggers having a 130% crit damage modifier, all spears being 85% base accuracy, etc. It gives more of an identity to individual weapon classes while making weapons easier to balance in comparison to one another.

Which is the reason that if there are weapons across these classes that are clearly meant to be basic attacking, like Tarnada, Anchor Edge, Hundred Reflection Spear, Buzzing Chakram, etc. etc. then you end up with a another sort of class all together. The aforementioned are all 10 stars, but you could easily include things such as Raijin, Tessens, and generally speaking other weapons with On Hit effects.

In my opinion, weapons of the same 'class' should be balanced by their unique effects rather than their stats. Not only is this one less thing to consider when balancing the weapons, but it also makes them, in general, more viable because their stats will be the same given their class. If you can pick any weapon that's clearly meant to basic attack because it has an effect depending on landing a hit or crit and know that the weapon will have at least 90 base accuracy, that's one less thing I, as a player, have to worry about when it comes to a viable build.

And viability is what this all boils down to. Sure, there are people that want to use broken shit and be OP, but I think 90% of the time players want to have a build that's just... viable while also fitting their theme. I was unaware there was another topic about these sentiments in the General Discussion section, but Fern hits the nail on the head. For the sake of viability, players end up sacrificing what they actually want to use a lot of the time. There are times when you can make more "out there" builds that can compete with what's regarded as meta, but those times are few and far between, and they end up falling into a place where multiple people and up using those same loadouts because it's as "out there" as people can manage without being full blown meta, but also having a fighting chance.

[Raigen.Convict]

My two cents, as everyone said, I don't wanna be busted, I just want something that -feels- good to use. And doesn't get made into an absolute joke by other builds feeling like they have stats I can't get to no matter what I do. I used to have a dream of making a uniquely fun build using basic attacks and Shapeshifter to take advantage of bloody shift. I'm still trying that but, I've had to fall back on a meta option to even have a fighting chance. That being the Spine Leash. Out of how many options I'd tried, i've fallen back onto one of the 'everyone and their mother' weapons because nothing felt... good...

ALSO, i'd like to say I hate how varied weapon scaling stats are accross the board and would like a bit more conformity in some places. You have no idea the COUNTLESS PLAYERS I see ask 'what stats do I build?' and we have to tell them it varies depending on the scaling of your weapon. And how confused they get and then wind up just asking "well what do i build for now going forward so if I find something I can use it?" this right here... Not newcomer friendly. It makes the game REQUIRE you to look up every items scaling and find one that works for you then redo all your stats based around it, which is so time consuming unless you have money to burn in real life for a donation fruit of fluidity it's not even worth it in the eyes of people who don't have days to spend on this game nonstop. I'm not saying there can't be features to increase longevity of gameplay. I'm saying the game should look more -appealing- to let newcomers dip time into so they can go through their leveling experience and adventures without REQUIRING to have detailed info about every item that exists so that the surprise can come from seeing new fancy items they never knew existed that they can marvel at and then start working their way towards achieving them. That's an experience that will keep the newer players from being overwhelmed while allowing older players to be a little bit less worried about 'now what item goes with this stat total? But that's not a weapon type that goes with my class..."