+1 for slapping FOTP in the face. He really needs to be relooked, fixed, nerfed, adjusted.etc etc. Also another +1 for Pokémon-fueled Obsession.
Thanks for writing this Nae!
Agree on fixing - he was 3 hitting a lot today - both for me and for the AI that I saw. His bugged health stats at 7* are also out of line with his overall damage skill.
This topic and balance in general regarding speed and damage should get more attention...bumping
@EA_Jesse ... could we get a dev to discuss this balance topic? Is this current bias in PVP known by the devs? Are there counters coming or in game currently possibly that we have haven't thoroughly explored yet? If nothing is coming or in place in the 60-70 patch, is this going to naturally re-balance at higher levels (80+) - true end game?
I only read up to 'double all HP' as I have to go soon, but instead of the negative side effects involved in this (e.g. helaing) you could add an armour bar. It could be based on the same amount of HP, but in Armour. It would then take twice as much damage to kill them but wouldn't effect healing etc.
This would then also create a more strategic environment as 'ignore all armour' or '100% defense penetration' would actually matter.
You could use Phasma's 100% defense penetration buff and try to take down the enemy's HP as quick as possible hoping to kill them before the buff runs out.
My name is cosmicturtle333, aka CT-333, aka Threes.
This game was released incomplete. That isnt a problem in itself, and is common in games. The game was released with sufficient content for a release game. The struggles we see with balance right now is due to the game being balanced around level 90 or 100 heroes, with certain heroes having spikes at different points in route to level 100.
They just unlocked level 70, and as the player base reaches that max level, a change in meta will occur.
I dont think any heroes should be "nerfed" at this point in the game. I do think that CG needs to analize the power spikes and consider their effect on meta at the current level cap, and then take the edge off of that power spike by redistributing it to a higher level cap bracket.
Another alternative fix for DPS being entirely overscaled is to bring Armor/Resistance in as a useful stat, rather than a number that no one cares about.
Mitigation is more or less completely ignored as a "thing" in this game, which is made glaringly obvious by the fact that Advantage (which ought to penetrate Armor, and be therefore a frightening buff, as much as Offense Up) is mainly used to trigger other effects (Phasma damage, FOTP Double Tap)
And please, for the love of God, fix FOTP. He really is completely unmanageable right now.
I agree with a lot of what you have to say, BUT I personally think there is an underlying issue or theme you want to see that benefits you and your guild. A majority of the time I read your post I find certain trends you speak about and I find holes in your thought processes. I was an avid WOW player (was in top 3 guild worldwide for 15 months) so I use to do exactly what you are doing here. One example is a trend that I see that you "don't mention" a lot is how it would directly effect a FTP player. Yes, you do touch upon certain FTP abilities and characters in this post, but I think it is more of to make you feel better about what you are writing down and having very little merit. This games doesn't exist if FTP players don't play because only the "whales" would be playing. After a month of no new content with only whales fighting whales, you guys would get bored and quit or at least drastically cut down on how much you spend.
Like I said in the original sentence, I agree with majority of what you said and I am not trying to be negative in your thread. I do think that before another single character is released or new content comes out, the current characters need to be fixed. I honestly don't know if certain things are working as intended or just bad wording in the description. The more crap you add will only put other fixes further down the list in my opinion. I can talk about this all day with many different examples, but I would just be bogging down this thread. Great post and enjoyed a lot of your post, as well as, some of your guild/guild mates post.
I have FoTP don't you touch him, lol. I don't even use him for PVP because he's only 3* he's not a threat at this level. Now, if there were actual tanks that would be a different story. FOTP was really useful in the 30-40 level. When you get over level 50 he's a paper weight.
I total agree with adding new characters. If they had added new characters all the other issues would have been forgotten about.
I agree with a lot of what you have to say, BUT I personally think there is an underlying issue or theme you want to see that benefits you and your guild. A majority of the time I read your post I find certain trends you speak about and I find holes in your thought processes. I was an avid WOW player (was in top 3 guild worldwide for 15 months) so I use to do exactly what you are doing here. One example is a trend that I see that you "don't mention" a lot is how it would directly effect a FTP player. Yes, you do touch upon certain FTP abilities and characters in this post, but I think it is more of to make you feel better about what you are writing down and having very little merit. This games doesn't exist if FTP players don't play because only the "whales" would be playing. After a month of no new content with only whales fighting whales, you guys would get bored and quit or at least drastically cut down on how much you spend.
Like I said in the original sentence, I agree with majority of what you said and I am not trying to be negative in your thread. I do think that before another single character is released or new content comes out, the current characters need to be fixed. I honestly don't know if certain things are working as intended or just bad wording in the description. The more crap you add will only put other fixes further down the list in my opinion. I can talk about this all day with many different examples, but I would just be bogging down this thread. Great post and enjoyed a lot of your post, as well as, some of your guild/guild mates post.
I'm confused at how you turn his post in to something that would be anti-FTP. He's making a general statement about the condition of the game. Just because he is a P2P that doesn't mean he's necessarily trying to impact the game in a way that would be negative to F2P. You say you did what he's doing...but what is he doing? I'm lost here. Please help.
I have FoTP don't you touch him, lol. I don't even use him for PVP because he's only 3* he's not a threat at this level. Now, if there were actual tanks that would be a different story. FOTP was really useful in the 30-40 level. When you get over level 50 he's a paper weight.
I total agree with adding new characters. If they had added new characters all the other issues would have been forgotten about.
Have you even encountered a 7* fotp? He one shots almost anyone.
I have FoTP don't you touch him, lol. I don't even use him for PVP because he's only 3* he's not a threat at this level. Now, if there were actual tanks that would be a different story. FOTP was really useful in the 30-40 level. When you get over level 50 he's a paper weight.
I total agree with adding new characters. If they had added new characters all the other issues would have been forgotten about.
Have you even encountered a 7* fotp? He one shots almost anyone.
FOTP has low tenacity - there's a good chance you can stun him with multiple toons before he moves - Eeth, Dooku, Daka...he's just a one tricky pony and people are looking at his damage - the guy brings nothing else to the table. If they nerf his damage he will drop in value significantly. Poe and other meter toons making him fast is the problem. He's balanced to be a slower round hitting, single damage toon - not a guy that goes before the enemy does.
I'm skeptical that if they listen to you they will deliver what you are asking. Game went from heals to dps. I think if they listen to the dps nerf it will just cause the game to become all control and heals. Just my guess.
I have FoTP don't you touch him, lol. I don't even use him for PVP because he's only 3* he's not a threat at this level. Now, if there were actual tanks that would be a different story. FOTP was really useful in the 30-40 level. When you get over level 50 he's a paper weight.
I total agree with adding new characters. If they had added new characters all the other issues would have been forgotten about.
Have you even encountered a 7* fotp? He one shots almost anyone.
FOTP has low tenacity - there's a good chance you can stun him with multiple toons before he moves - Eeth, Dooku, Daka...he's just a one tricky pony and people are looking at his damage - the guy brings nothing else to the table. If they nerf his damage he will drop in value significantly. Poe and other meter toons making him fast is the problem. He's balanced to be a slower round hitting, single damage toon - not a guy that goes before the enemy does.
Yes, this is why I'm so against nerfing tie pilot. You nerf him and that pretty much makes him useless. At least leia has her stealth. Without damage tie pilot is just a sitting duck.
I have FoTP don't you touch him, lol. I don't even use him for PVP because he's only 3* he's not a threat at this level. Now, if there were actual tanks that would be a different story. FOTP was really useful in the 30-40 level. When you get over level 50 he's a paper weight.
I total agree with adding new characters. If they had added new characters all the other issues would have been forgotten about.
Have you even encountered a 7* fotp? He one shots almost anyone.
FOTP has low tenacity - there's a good chance you can stun him with multiple toons before he moves - Eeth, Dooku, Daka...he's just a one tricky pony and people are looking at his damage - the guy brings nothing else to the table. If they nerf his damage he will drop in value significantly. Poe and other meter toons making him fast is the problem. He's balanced to be a slower round hitting, single damage toon - not a guy that goes before the enemy does.
Yes, this is why I'm so against nerfing tie pilot. You nerf him and that pretty much makes him useless. At least leia has her stealth. Without damage tie pilot is just a sitting duck.
With 3k more health than a similar character like Luke.
Great post, I agree with everything you say.
FOTP is ridiculous the way it is now, and the lack of new characters is disappointing.
I'd also like if they added useful heroes to shipments such as arena and GW even if they were existing heroes.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one with over 10k tokens from arena due to lack of good options.
+1. Gets very old scrolling through Squad Arena ranks and seeing Sid, Sid, Sid, Sid maybe the odd Phasma, Sid, Sid.
First, accusing @Naecabon of ulterior motives is without basis and irrational. These are the big whales of the game -- no matter what the new meta is, they will be on it like white on rice. They have no need to try to manipulate CG, even if that could work with an essay, which I doubt.
As for FOTP, first of all, as the article says, he's busted in numerous ways:
1. He can attack 3 times on his primary. The ability is called "Double Tap", not "Triple Tap".
2. His chance of double-attacking is 90% if he has advantage, but unlike most characters, he nearly ALWAYS has advantage, because he gets it every time an enemy falls below 50% health. This means even without that bug he's going to attack twice 90% of the time. Which is ridiculous, given how strong that attack is. No other character has anything remotely comparable.
3. His passive ability is overpowered all by itself, even without the double-chance of attacking. There are characters that have to blow a special to get advantage and he gets it multiple times per fight for free.
4. As the article also points out, there's no point even using his special because his basic damage is so ridiculous.
5. There's a bug that causes him at 7* to have excessive amounts of health. He's a glass cannon with a health bar that looks like that of a tank. That is broken.
This character is unbalanced. It is so unbalanced that even my junky little FOTP, sitting at just 3* and not even fully leveled up yet (he's level 53) hits so hard I'm considering putting him on my squad. He already can do 5-6k damage a round or more.
There are about 5 or 6 really busted characters in the game right now and FOTP is at the top of the list.
I'm confused at how you turn his post in to something that would be anti-FTP. He's making a general statement about the condition of the game. Just because he is a P2P that doesn't mean he's necessarily trying to impact the game in a way that would be negative to F2P. You say you did what he's doing...but what is he doing? I'm lost here. Please help. [/quote]
The wording I used was poor. When I said theme, a better word would be tone of his post. It is not obvious, but if you read carefully and put yourself in an opposite players (FTP) perspective you can see certain things that just don't add up to me. Their is a sense of egotism and elitism in some of the comments that are made. He/she puts what they believes to be absolute (whether it is or not) and it comes across in his thought process. An examples from this post would be:
1. "As it stands right now, Darth Sidious reigns supreme"
2. "solely because there is not a single leader ability in the game on it's level or even"
3. "sans maybe the fact he makes healers almost obsolete"
1. What makes him supreme and if he was "supreme" why isn't everyone using him. Also a little ironic that you say this and yet like a week or so ago Phasma was better than Sidious according to a well done article done by one of his/her guild mates. "was titled SWGOH LEADERSHIP SKILLS: SIDIOUS VS PHASMA — WE’VE DONE THE MATH!" I can't seem to find it in my history files.
2. Once again purely his/her perspective
3. doesn't make healers obsolete. Just makes it you have to pick between dealing with his debuff, kill him off early, or bring in someone who can remove the debuff.
Those 3 came just from one paragraph. It's not a bad thing, but in my opinion it's how the information is presented is purely written for some other reason not presented in this post.
@Qeltar If you were referring to my comments when stating' "First, accusing @Naecabon of ulterior motives is without basis and irrational. These are the big whales of the game -- no matter what the new meta is, they will be on it like white on rice. They have no need to try to manipulate CG, even if that could work with an essay, which I doubt."
I'm not directly accusing naecabon of ulterior motives, but that the writing comes across that way. Also, manipulate CG is very strong wording and it did get their attn (see post from CG_JohnSalera)
CG_JohnSalera
36 POSTS MOD January 16, 2016 3:59PM @Naecabon - Thanks for the well articulated and thoughtful post. I forwarded it to one of our designers for review. Stay tuned.
Flag Quote
I'm skeptical that if they listen to you they will deliver what you are asking. Game went from heals to dps. I think if they listen to the dps nerf it will just cause the game to become all control and heals. Just my guess.
If I may add, looking at the patch that introduced the "Force Awaken" characters, nearly all of the new toons had skills on turn meter manipulation.
-Phasma
-FOO
-Poe
-FOST (speed down on basic attack, pseudo turn meter manipulation)
Appreciate if future patches could introduce characters that offer different skill sets and not just one. Gives people more solid options to build their squad around. Also prevents this trend of one particular meta surfacing after each update.
i have to disagree with those arena related arguments
so many changes would need to happen that thats possible, i dont know your arena rank but if youre high in the standings its already frustrating when all players are "in fight", if you cut the damage or increase the health - would you give players a 10-15 minute timelimit? so people just wait 15 mins in a fight? is that your definition of more enjoyable pvAI? its still a MOBILE game its fast paced and fun, if you could trade shards with your friends, that would be a great thing but unecessary extended fights, no tx...
then that DPS thing... they made one mistake: only 1 character with 100% healimmunity and heals which are so strong and also easy farmable that u actually need heal reduction, hes just way 2 easy to farm and there are no good options in the arena, but i guess if they just release some VIABLE(!!!!) General Akbars/Lobots sid wont be a thing anymore....
fotp is 2 strong but at least slow, while poe is fast,tanky and resists all negative status effects + all current dispel-toons are either extremly slow (ventress) or completly useless (mace, plo koon[no potency at all ****]..)
Replies
Thanks for writing this Nae!
Agree on fixing - he was 3 hitting a lot today - both for me and for the AI that I saw. His bugged health stats at 7* are also out of line with his overall damage skill.
@EA_Jesse ... could we get a dev to discuss this balance topic? Is this current bias in PVP known by the devs? Are there counters coming or in game currently possibly that we have haven't thoroughly explored yet? If nothing is coming or in place in the 60-70 patch, is this going to naturally re-balance at higher levels (80+) - true end game?
This would then also create a more strategic environment as 'ignore all armour' or '100% defense penetration' would actually matter.
You could use Phasma's 100% defense penetration buff and try to take down the enemy's HP as quick as possible hoping to kill them before the buff runs out.
They just unlocked level 70, and as the player base reaches that max level, a change in meta will occur.
I dont think any heroes should be "nerfed" at this point in the game. I do think that CG needs to analize the power spikes and consider their effect on meta at the current level cap, and then take the edge off of that power spike by redistributing it to a higher level cap bracket.
Another alternative fix for DPS being entirely overscaled is to bring Armor/Resistance in as a useful stat, rather than a number that no one cares about.
Mitigation is more or less completely ignored as a "thing" in this game, which is made glaringly obvious by the fact that Advantage (which ought to penetrate Armor, and be therefore a frightening buff, as much as Offense Up) is mainly used to trigger other effects (Phasma damage, FOTP Double Tap)
And please, for the love of God, fix FOTP. He really is completely unmanageable right now.
Like I said in the original sentence, I agree with majority of what you said and I am not trying to be negative in your thread. I do think that before another single character is released or new content comes out, the current characters need to be fixed. I honestly don't know if certain things are working as intended or just bad wording in the description. The more crap you add will only put other fixes further down the list in my opinion. I can talk about this all day with many different examples, but I would just be bogging down this thread. Great post and enjoyed a lot of your post, as well as, some of your guild/guild mates post.
I total agree with adding new characters. If they had added new characters all the other issues would have been forgotten about.
I'm confused at how you turn his post in to something that would be anti-FTP. He's making a general statement about the condition of the game. Just because he is a P2P that doesn't mean he's necessarily trying to impact the game in a way that would be negative to F2P. You say you did what he's doing...but what is he doing? I'm lost here. Please help.
Have you even encountered a 7* fotp? He one shots almost anyone.
FOTP has low tenacity - there's a good chance you can stun him with multiple toons before he moves - Eeth, Dooku, Daka...he's just a one tricky pony and people are looking at his damage - the guy brings nothing else to the table. If they nerf his damage he will drop in value significantly. Poe and other meter toons making him fast is the problem. He's balanced to be a slower round hitting, single damage toon - not a guy that goes before the enemy does.
Do you understand what I mean @Qeltar
Yes, this is why I'm so against nerfing tie pilot. You nerf him and that pretty much makes him useless. At least leia has her stealth. Without damage tie pilot is just a sitting duck.
With 3k more health than a similar character like Luke.
+1. Gets very old scrolling through Squad Arena ranks and seeing Sid, Sid, Sid, Sid maybe the odd Phasma, Sid, Sid.
As for FOTP, first of all, as the article says, he's busted in numerous ways:
1. He can attack 3 times on his primary. The ability is called "Double Tap", not "Triple Tap".
2. His chance of double-attacking is 90% if he has advantage, but unlike most characters, he nearly ALWAYS has advantage, because he gets it every time an enemy falls below 50% health. This means even without that bug he's going to attack twice 90% of the time. Which is ridiculous, given how strong that attack is. No other character has anything remotely comparable.
3. His passive ability is overpowered all by itself, even without the double-chance of attacking. There are characters that have to blow a special to get advantage and he gets it multiple times per fight for free.
4. As the article also points out, there's no point even using his special because his basic damage is so ridiculous.
5. There's a bug that causes him at 7* to have excessive amounts of health. He's a glass cannon with a health bar that looks like that of a tank. That is broken.
This character is unbalanced. It is so unbalanced that even my junky little FOTP, sitting at just 3* and not even fully leveled up yet (he's level 53) hits so hard I'm considering putting him on my squad. He already can do 5-6k damage a round or more.
There are about 5 or 6 really busted characters in the game right now and FOTP is at the top of the list.
The wording I used was poor. When I said theme, a better word would be tone of his post. It is not obvious, but if you read carefully and put yourself in an opposite players (FTP) perspective you can see certain things that just don't add up to me. Their is a sense of egotism and elitism in some of the comments that are made. He/she puts what they believes to be absolute (whether it is or not) and it comes across in his thought process. An examples from this post would be:
1. "As it stands right now, Darth Sidious reigns supreme"
2. "solely because there is not a single leader ability in the game on it's level or even"
3. "sans maybe the fact he makes healers almost obsolete"
1. What makes him supreme and if he was "supreme" why isn't everyone using him. Also a little ironic that you say this and yet like a week or so ago Phasma was better than Sidious according to a well done article done by one of his/her guild mates. "was titled SWGOH LEADERSHIP SKILLS: SIDIOUS VS PHASMA — WE’VE DONE THE MATH!" I can't seem to find it in my history files.
2. Once again purely his/her perspective
3. doesn't make healers obsolete. Just makes it you have to pick between dealing with his debuff, kill him off early, or bring in someone who can remove the debuff.
Those 3 came just from one paragraph. It's not a bad thing, but in my opinion it's how the information is presented is purely written for some other reason not presented in this post.
I'm not directly accusing naecabon of ulterior motives, but that the writing comes across that way. Also, manipulate CG is very strong wording and it did get their attn (see post from CG_JohnSalera)
CG_JohnSalera
36 POSTS MOD January 16, 2016 3:59PM
@Naecabon - Thanks for the well articulated and thoughtful post. I forwarded it to one of our designers for review. Stay tuned.
Flag Quote
I really hope we don't get that heal heavy meta again.
If I may add, looking at the patch that introduced the "Force Awaken" characters, nearly all of the new toons had skills on turn meter manipulation.
-Phasma
-FOO
-Poe
-FOST (speed down on basic attack, pseudo turn meter manipulation)
Appreciate if future patches could introduce characters that offer different skill sets and not just one. Gives people more solid options to build their squad around. Also prevents this trend of one particular meta surfacing after each update.
so many changes would need to happen that thats possible, i dont know your arena rank but if youre high in the standings its already frustrating when all players are "in fight", if you cut the damage or increase the health - would you give players a 10-15 minute timelimit? so people just wait 15 mins in a fight? is that your definition of more enjoyable pvAI? its still a MOBILE game its fast paced and fun, if you could trade shards with your friends, that would be a great thing but unecessary extended fights, no tx...
then that DPS thing... they made one mistake: only 1 character with 100% healimmunity and heals which are so strong and also easy farmable that u actually need heal reduction, hes just way 2 easy to farm and there are no good options in the arena, but i guess if they just release some VIABLE(!!!!) General Akbars/Lobots sid wont be a thing anymore....
fotp is 2 strong but at least slow, while poe is fast,tanky and resists all negative status effects + all current dispel-toons are either extremly slow (ventress) or completly useless (mace, plo koon[no potency at all ****]..)