Charge Item / Toy Evaluation

Irkeno wrote: ↑

Fri 16 Apr 2021 1:19 PM

This also gave nice options in 1vX situations, giving you a shred of hope. Currently most adds just = instant death and release. And with the insane red is dead mentality on the server it’s pretty much a given to get adds.

I don't really understand this type of argument for the introduction of overbearing mechanics that are accessible to all players with only a gold investment. At least with a comeback mechanic like IP the "red is dead" adding players might not have invested in it. Instead choosing to spend their points on more group-oriented abilities. There is a trade-off in investment that actually gives the solo visible player a chance at having a leg up.

In the case of the toy abilities everyone except for the newest/poorest players will have them and it is just a dice roll if one or more of the X in your 1vX have them up.

I'm not surprised to see some assassins in this thread arguing that this was a positive change. Easy to say when they shore up one of the classes' balance checks (lack of timered RAs that affect combat) and you can wait out timers safely in stealth while only picking fights with low RR characters/easier matchups in the meantime. I assume they'd much rather have these added than those boring assassin RR5s...

As a visible solo player the implementation of something like these toys is laughably clumsy from a gameplay perspective. Timered RAs are already problematic enough when considering balance due to their extreme power level, but by adding something like this on top of those abilities players are just pushed further into an environment where the outcome of a fight is highly dependent on which CDs are available.

Say I were to hop off a boat and get into a great 1v1 fight against an equally matched opponent. We both burn our respective RAs and toys. It's a fun fight. We get the most out of our extra health bars and I'm lucky enough to come out with the win (clearly a fiction at this point, but bear with me). Now I'm stuck without any of my timered abilities up. There is already a potential gap between me and future opponents without RAs up, but now every player, including classes that shouldn't, have additional extremely powerful timered abilities they can dump. This makes the difference between having timers up and not having timers up far more significant than it already is, and I'd argue that it puts the game past a tipping point where this is tolerable. The experience from that point on becomes a matter of either hiding and waiting for CDs or accepting that you are going to get attacked by someone that has a plethora of absurdly powerful CDs to the point where you have no chance of winning even if you can get them to do something dumb like purging numb.

Seeing the implementation of something like this, even though it was quickly withdrawn, is an extremely concerning sign. It feels more and more like those driving the Phoenix bus are invested largely in an 8v8 or assassin playstyle. We seem to frequently make stops that disproportionately benefit those playstyles.

There is a lot of existing design space to be filled if the goal is to add mechanics. RR5 abilities are a great place to start, and as each class gets a unique ability, there are a number of separate levers that can be manipulated to better control class balance. It is much harder to balance powerful CDs over an entire archetype as each class within the archetype has different strengths, weaknesses, playstyles, and needs. Some of the RR5s would obviously need rebalancing before implementation to avoid a disaster similar to what we've seen with these toys, but the power level on the whole for RR5s is much more manageable and situational even taken as is. Plus, they are largely thematically appropriate. How cool is that?

We also have a number of spec lines that are simply useless. Wouldn't it be nice to see Smite Clerics and Nature Druids able to solo/small man in a meaningful fashion? Why did Paladins receive abilities that only scale with additional members in their group when they were and continue to be useless at solo and small manning? The Friar's staff line is positively throbbing in anticipation of a rework of the higher level styles to introduce meaningful spec variety to the class. We have three classes waiting in the wings (valk, bainshee, heretic) that could easily be made to fit into Phoenix's ecosystem.

At this point I'm just post-vaccine-sickness rambling, but to sum it up: adding additional extremely powerful CDs that are broadly accessible creates an environment in which the outcome of a fight is even more contingent on who has or does not have their abilities up than it already is. I'd argue that this constitutes a step in the wrong direction from both a gameplay and balance perspective.