Faction bonus? A solution for arena diversity

AnUnusedName
56 posts Member
edited July 2017
Faction purists are not common in arena. And it's easy to see why. Teams that simply stack the flavor of the month are very difficult to overcome if you're working within the confines of a single faction. And yes, faction loyalty is a little silly in arena for this very reason. However, because many of the largest factions now have so much depth, it IS possible to change comps and mods to adapt to the enemy.

Still, it takes a lot of work to gear up the majority of a faction (as opposed to simply gearing the 5-8 best characters in the game). So why not make it a little rewarding?

Idea:
Full-faction teams (five of the same faction) are awarded a small buff:

Bounty Hunters – Cold Hearted (+10% potency)
Clone Troopers – Brotherly Bond (+10% defense)
Droid – Machine Efficiency (+10% offense)
Empire – Strength in Order (+10% defense)
Ewok – Forest Tribe (+20% health)
First Order – Overzealous (+5% crit damage)
Galactic Republic – None
Genosian – For the Queen (+20% health)
Imperial Trooper – Under Orders (+10% offense)
Jawa – Shifting Sands (+10% evasion)
Jedi – Guiding Principles (+10% tenacity)
Nightsisters – Covenant (+20% health)
Phoenix – Reckless (+5% crit chance)
Rebels – Committed (+5% crit chance)
Resistance – Draw the Line (+10% tenacity)
Scoundrels – Grit (+10% tenacity)
Separatists – Warmongers (+10% offense)
Sith – Sadists (+5% crit damage)
Tusken (obviously need more!) – Brother Suns (+10% defense / 10% offense)

You probably note how some of these factions overlap while others get more flat buff. I did this in an attempt to balance things. "Why run full troopers when you can simply run stronger Empire?" Well, here's a reason. Will the stacking buffs make troopers stronger or even comparable to a top-tier empire team? No. But it will make it stand a better chance. Others –like in the case of Rebels – you'll barely notice. The buff simply serves as a nice little bump in reliability for an already strong faction. Lastly, in some cases, the overlap is necessary. Who in their right mind would EVER run full Genosians? Well, now they're not only tankier, but they also have a nice bump in damage, thanks to the fact that they're also separatists.

If you have alternative suggestions for buffs, I'm open to hear them. This is obviously one of those over-thought "what if" ideas. It was born from frustration with seeing the same mix-matched teams in my Shard's top 10, but I wound up having a lot of fun thinking about it.
I hope you do too.

Thanks for reading.

Replies

  • Riffinator
    2585 posts Member
    You mean like a leadership ability?
    "ARE WE BLIND? DEPLOY THE GARRISON."
  • AnUnusedName
    56 posts Member
    edited July 2017
    Riffinator wrote: »
    You mean like a leadership ability?

    Nope. Some leadership abilities don't require any one faction. Others are "soft," applying a weaker version of the buff to non-faction as well. NONE require commitment to a team of five of the same faction.
  • Riffinator
    2585 posts Member
    But what about Imperial troopers vs Empire.
    Which one trumps the other?
    If I have all troopers do I get Empire or troopers?
    Does my Empire bonus get ruined if I have a trooper?
    "ARE WE BLIND? DEPLOY THE GARRISON."
  • leef
    13458 posts Member
    i like the idea of a full synergy bonus, but i don't think it will change much. Take empire for example, that 10% defence isn't going to make me want to bench nihilus and/or kenobi in favour of empire characters.
    Save water, drink champagne!
  • Nebulous
    1476 posts Member
    edited July 2017
    I think faction bonuses would be okay if factions were balanced against each other and if the bonus actually meant something.

    Since some factions only have 5 or fewer members, they can't possibly have access to all the tools necessary to make a good arena team. There is a faction imbalance since this game is designed to use whoever.

    If the bonuses for using a full faction don't outway the loss of the hero who could slot in, then there is no real game-play incentive to use a full Empire squad. 10% extra defense for empire (just an example), is not worth pushing dn out of the team. So I'd totally skip the bonus in favor of a much stronger hero.

    Without faction balance within the game and without bonuses that can overcome plug-and-play heroes, I don't think this will change anything.

    This doesn't mean I wouldn't want it (I also think there should be bonuses for playing all ds or all ls heroes) the game just wasn't designed that way.
  • I like it, it would spice up the game a bit
  • Riffinator
    2585 posts Member
    Also would R2 mess up the factions because he belongs to so many of them?
    "ARE WE BLIND? DEPLOY THE GARRISON."
  • leef wrote: »
    i like the idea of a full synergy bonus, but i don't think it will change much. Take empire for example, that 10% defence isn't going to make me want to bench nihilus and/or kenobi in favour of empire characters.

    You're right. The proposed bonuses right now would simply reward purists and probably unlikely to sway people away from a meta comp (unless you REALLY wanted ANY excuse to become a purist). Still, I was super hesitant to propose more drastic buffs (IE: for bounty hunters, thermal detonators can't be cleansed), lest the community lose their collective minds at an idea that would disrupt their meta lol.
  • Riffinator wrote: »
    But what about Imperial troopers vs Empire.
    Which one trumps the other?
    If I have all troopers do I get Empire or troopers?
    Does my Empire bonus get ruined if I have a trooper?

    So if you read the first post, I explain this. They would stack. The rational being that it's silly to run full trooper when there are better empire, but now at least full trooper get SOME kind of reward (2 buffs).
  • Riffinator wrote: »
    Also would R2 mess up the factions because he belongs to so many of them?

    Oh nice point. But since he's just one character, I don't think so. He'd simply plug into a purist team of 4. What an adaptable droid!
  • leef
    13458 posts Member
    leef wrote: »
    i like the idea of a full synergy bonus, but i don't think it will change much. Take empire for example, that 10% defence isn't going to make me want to bench nihilus and/or kenobi in favour of empire characters.

    You're right. The proposed bonuses right now would simply reward purists and probably unlikely to sway people away from a meta comp (unless you REALLY wanted ANY excuse to become a purist). Still, I was super hesitant to propose more drastic buffs (IE: for bounty hunters, thermal detonators can't be cleansed), lest the community lose their collective minds at an idea that would disrupt their meta lol.

    I tried a pure empire team once, i haven't dropped that far in arena in over 9 months. I'll stick to my cheese teams in arena and use full faction in gw ;)
    Save water, drink champagne!
  • Any bonsues that would require shifting mods would necessitate a QoL mod management update. I spend so much time moving mods now as it is with a stagnant arena structure. Faction shifting would also help high spenders get an advantage since they are more likely to have a broader number of geared factions.
  • Bt_7274
    357 posts Member
    These bonuses are so weak,if i was a reiple cleanse player i wouldnt even look at this
    discord:Darth Woodman#6467,looking for shardmates:Warrior ìN,skirge2000,GlideX,erykgx,harunalp,TDB,Kiwida,dyloot,pm me on discord plz
  • Kyno
    32087 posts Moderator
    The idea is interesting, but ideas about faction bonuses don't really mean it will add diversity.

    The AI control will favor one composition over another, leading to a better defence, which is really what drives the meta.

    This would probably require a rework around this idea for each faction to gear them towards their full team bonus too. Otherwise some of the teams are just not effective enough.
  • A central concept of this game though is to fight with characters that you normally wouldn't pair together. Kind of like playing in a toy box as a kid. I don't know if this is the direction they would want to go.

    My suggestion to mix arena up a little bit has long been to have X days a week where there are random bonuses and penalties applied. On these days, a random class gets a random bonus and another random class gets a random penalty. By class I mean anything from light side to Sith to attacker and so forth. So for example, it could look like this: Jedi get +25% offense, tanks get -50% defense. Not knowing what will come on any given day will reward those with a deep roster who can adapt to the change in environment. It also keeps Arena from getting so stale.
  • I would like this idea because I use a full rebel squad..except for the fact that I only would get +5% crit chance. Also this game is made to encourage the use of characters that normally would not fight together.

    Why does the Galactic Republic not get any bonuses?
  • As a purist.... +100000
  • Jonsolo32 wrote: »
    As a purist.... +100000

    As a fellow purist (sort of)

    -1
  • Huatimus
    3669 posts Member
    Giving different bonus to different factions is not going to be fair or balanced. Put in a simple universal bonus of say 5% to all stats for using 5 of the same faction would be easier to code, implement and players don't have to look up some additional table to see what faction buffs what.
    That said, it's still not going to be fair since Z2Z2 is going to be even more powerful than his current iteration due to additional stats stacking.
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