Why ?
As it stands, Battlesquare needs some kind of change in order to be accessible to first characters, and in general to players who aren't willing to put 200+ USD and countless hours of grind into a game only to unlock one, flawed PvP feature, and to be more often than not bound to follow some hyper-geared player and be crushed by another one of such kind. Yet simply removing all benefits gained from gearing up will make more than one's hair stand on end, which is what this suggestion is trying to cope with.
This is more or less witnessed in Battlesquare levels lower than 81, so think about this suggestion as a way to make things better for players with characters lower than 81.
You may refer to
this topic for additional ideas and opinions.
How ?
Since people want to keep their gear, why not make optimization a thing, as in real optimization instead of throwing out the window any kind of chance for a new user ? As in : total stats = base stats + X% additional / bonus stats, with X being something around 10~20, for Atk / Matk / Def / Mdef / Hlt / Int / Agi / Str, a higher percentage on attack and movement speeds, maybe 70% and 50% respectively, as well as Critical damage with yet another percentage. Critical rate and element attack, as well as element resistance, would stay untouched, as their values already would decrease thanks to respectively lower Agi and critical rate bonuses from gear, Atk / Matk, and Def / Mdef.
Base stats include those from skills, such as Archer's passive movement speed, Gladiator's passive Atk skills (those calculated using total stats would then use base + X% bonus instead), base Atk / Matk / Def / Mdef of gear parts, and additional / bonus stats include set and gear part effects, enchantments (including increase in base attack), soulcrafts (same as enchantments), socket cards (skill levels being an exception), premium outfits (same as socket cards) etc. People would have their edge, yet it wouldn't be absurdly difficult to overcome for someone who actually has talent and skill but prefers leveling up rather than grinding in order to play open PvP.
What would it bring ?
It'd decrease requirements by a lot, yet it would let older and / or richer players feel like their time and / or money weren't spent for naught. Overall balance of classes would still be an issue although attack-speed-reliant classes would be significantly weaker (from 350% to 275% AS with a 70% multiplier), but this topic didn't aim at bringing a solution to this problem from the start. I believe 500+ movespeed runners wouldn't be crippled while still way faster than many (from 500 to 325 for a non-Archer class, with the average player from 300 to 225 and dashing for ~380, and from 500 to 390 for an Archer [ passive + class active skill ] ), and it would add more flexibility to their gameplay rather than this simple "you can't catch me" feeling. Less attack speed would have players more prone to think about ways to use their basic attacks as an additional source of damage rather than the only thing needed to win, and as a result it should have spell-reliant classes feel a bit more useful.
It would emphasize class specializations (i.e : why you, as a new player, choose a given class rather than another one ; Archers for swift movements, Gladiators for high Atk etc.) and actually let you feel like you indeed chose a class very distinct from the other ones, as well as allow balance changes on skills to have a direct and tangible effect on everyone. For example, a 20% decrease in the damage of let's say Shootdown would be seen by weaker players also, since they supposedly wouldn't be one-shot-killed however many buffs they have. An increase in the percentage of damage mitigated by a Spell shield by 30% of current amount would indeed let Warlocks feel like they can withstand more hits since their opponents wouldn't have tremendous amounts of element attack anymore.
I feel like it's a better idea than simply removing benefits gained from gearing up, because it's a compromise between what is desired by each of the two parties we get to talk about. Without giving too many details about how math works, the higher stats you have, the more difficult it is to increase them ; this solution would decrease the gap between those who put reasonable efforts into gearing up and those who put some more, while still giving the latter an advantage over the previous.
People with middle-to-low gear would have at least a chance to feel useful since everyone would have stats relatively close to theirs (not too close of course, but reasonably so : no hyper-geared dude would have 5 times as many hitpoints as a newbie), and players with middle-to-high gear would be able to compete easily with the supercharged ones, provided they are at least as good, in terms of skill and initiative, as said supercharged players. With equivalent levels of skill, the older / richer one wins, yet a semi-new player can best them in terms of gameplay, and win.
Let's look into stats balance more thoroughly. Note that everything here isn't absolute, but relative to other classes : stating that Archers move faster is saying that they generally will have higher movement speed than other classes.
Dragonkin : since they were made to be overpowered, I believe this topic won't be enough to discuss about ways to lower their potential
- Summoners keep their high Hlt / MATK / AS thanks to their passive skills (ugh). Lower Critical rate and Critical damage ;
- Twin Fighters keep their burst of very high movement speed (might be a problem, need to check in game) ;
Warriors : higher HP thanks to high base stats (too bad Strength isn't that useful, but it can always be changed)
- Knights have higher survivability since their HP and DEF passive skills are relatively stronger (1.000 HP mean more for lower max HP) ;
- Gladiators have relatively higher HP and ATK (for the same reason) ;
Archers : higher movement speed, thus more flexibility, and more Critical rate thanks to their high base Agility
- Sentinels have more CD thanks to their spells, and their movement speed allows them to be more efficient in dropping electric doom and various other things onto their opponents ;
- Destroyers have more Attack speed and high burst of damage thanks to Adrenalin and Crux shot ;
Magicians : higher Mdef, but that's about it as far as base class advantages go. Maybe it's useful against Summoners
- Sorcerers have less hitpoints since their base Health isn't that high, but they still have a heal and finally can make use of their high Mdef and Mana shield to effectively increase their survivability (element damage being lower) ;
- Invokers are more easily killed (at least they should) since their heals are based on their max hitpoints, and those are reduced along with their Def (they still have invincibility spells for critical situations) ;
Thieves : higher Critical rate and overall stats thanks to their party buffs (might need a change to work on final stats rather than base ones), powerful team Attack speed buff
- Savages keep their superarmor everywhere, and are given a number of powerful stats party buffs since total stats are lower. Sort of higher Defense and Attack thanks to passive skills ;
- Ninjas have way higher movement speed (shouldn't be a problem since they're kinda weak right now).
I believe that sounds good enough, except for Summoners and Twins who don't lose much of their power even though they're deemed overpowered by a number of players.
I'd like to hear your suggestions, remarks, ideas about this. If you're able to gather enough strength to read this, please do comment ! I believe that such changes would be for the better, but I may not have all the elements in hand to decide. Let's make things better for everyone.
Edited by OokamiNeko, 11 April 2016 - 03:19 AM.