05-05-2021, 09:29 PM
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.
"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.
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