The Speed Meta
I'm sure by now everyone is well aware of the fact that speed is king when it comes to modding. The Darth Revan/Malak meta really shows this more than anything, it's become an endless struggle to get 1 more speed than the enemy teams Bastila Shan Fallen or make your BSF 1 speed faster than a GMY so you can get CBM on the enemy before the tenacity up.
I think most agree that speed is by far a stronger stat than the others. The issue I see that doesn't get much talk is the actual mod sets. I've noticed a consistent trend in my shard and GA of opponents that are ignoring the mod set bonuses in favor of 4 speed set plus any 2 random max secondary speed mods.
Could we not possibly have some penalty for not matching the sets? Perhaps a 25-50% stat decrease on the mods that aren't matched if the set bonus is not activated. Meaning a 24 speed mod becomes a 12 speed mod if it's set requirement is not met.
This doesn't make speed any less powerful, it just prevents people getting one mod and using it everywhere no matter the character. It just prevents the race for 1 more speed no matter the cost. The current loss of the set bonuses just doesn't off set the gain of 1 speed.
Perhaps we can gather some ideas for the devs here.
I think most agree that speed is by far a stronger stat than the others. The issue I see that doesn't get much talk is the actual mod sets. I've noticed a consistent trend in my shard and GA of opponents that are ignoring the mod set bonuses in favor of 4 speed set plus any 2 random max secondary speed mods.
Could we not possibly have some penalty for not matching the sets? Perhaps a 25-50% stat decrease on the mods that aren't matched if the set bonus is not activated. Meaning a 24 speed mod becomes a 12 speed mod if it's set requirement is not met.
This doesn't make speed any less powerful, it just prevents people getting one mod and using it everywhere no matter the character. It just prevents the race for 1 more speed no matter the cost. The current loss of the set bonuses just doesn't off set the gain of 1 speed.
Perhaps we can gather some ideas for the devs here.
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Replies
Just to spitball, though:
- Diminishing returns on speed, similar to how the benefits of defense decrease the more you add.
- A soft cap on speed - past a certain point it requires more points of speed from mods to equate to 1 actual speed added to the character. Very similar to diminishing returns, you'd just have a more obvious "optimal" amount to mod for.
- A tradeoff for massive speed stats. Past a certain point, adding more speed reduces the character's other stats, increasing in severity the more you exceed it. Call it "burnout" from the character being "pushed to their limits" or something. I like this one the most since it would add the strategy element of figuring out how much "burnout" is acceptable before the character becomes crippled, but it also seems the least likely to actually be implemented.
I don't think negatively affecting a stat for taking another stat would work well. Could end up in a system of "hey I got this great new mod but I can't use it".
Having speed subject to the same rules as other stats would work to some extent. A large part of my suggestion is attached to my feeling "Why have mod sets if people are just going to use whatever fast mod no matter what?"
I have good speed mods as well, it's not really a matter of haves and have nots so much as "Why have a set if a single secondary stat is better?"
There are people giving up 16% hp, 8%crit, 20% tenacity, 15% potency and 25% defense (6 dot bonuses) for 1 speed. That seems like a rough trade if you don't know that 1 speed is better than all of those combined. I even see some cases of people ignoring the 4 set bonuses with a random assortment of mods.
The real problem is it homogenizes all characters without a shtick like Droideka (hit harder the more enemies that go before it) into "really fast guy". The abilities start to fall away in favor of having a turn a little bit earlier.
And it will only get worse, there’s a guy on my shard running all 30 Arena mods at +20 or better.
This
The problem is there is no choice. 1 speed is just stronger than any other stat. Ironically the only set that really hurts to break is the speed set.
Offence is countered by Defence
Crit countered by Crit Avoidance
Potency countered by Tenacity
Crit Dmg. is countered by HP/Protection
Yet Speed is the only counter to Speed.
the goal they had was to try and make other sets more important (or equally so), whether they hit that is another topic.
if any non set bonus is decreased than the speed set becomes the only one that matters, because farming another set for high speed means nothing, other than making a pair,just to use a possible high speed secondary and not have it unpaired.
as suggested above, one of the more interesting ways to solve this problem is to have trade off stats, after a bonus or stat goes above a certain point it starts to reduce other stats. this could also be done on mode themselves where each mod is given counter stat reduction based on what secondaries seen. stack speed and lose offense kind of thing.
either way, speed is here to stay and it is unlikely they will take an idea like this to run with it. too much investment has been put into mods and to make such a drastic change would not be good.
I agree. I pass on this suggestion.
My solution, make it easier to get speed secondary mods. Make upgrading easier.
Good examples being - Droideka and Vandor Chewy as well
1 speed is only stronger in a tie.
This is very true, aside from offense, speed is the only stat that is a safe investment not likely to be nullified by kit creep.
Kit creep makes protection less useful since mechanics can bipass it. Health is situational at best these days since healers only really need it (plus a few extra hp isn't going to make a difference when toons hit as hard as they do).
The one and only problem lies in the disabling abilities. BSF or DR disables the the opponent completely on the first turn. As did Palp back in the day.
On the same page is the first-turn-one-shotters, from the old Wiggs days to Talzin, JKR, whatnot.
This is the problem. Not speed.
What needs to be done is to remove aoe-disablers and first-turn-one-shotters (especially if they can ignore pre-taunt). Remove irresistable/unavoidable and fix potency/tenacity to something that works, add diminishing returns.
Tweaking spead and other mod attributes can only mitigate the problems, not remove them.
Yea, not really. Speed has always been king from day 1 and especially after mods.
Funny you'd pick bastila lead as an example because if anything that lead makes speed less important.
It's becoming kind of boring to max out this one particular statistic and not carrying about the others.
Still happy for Padmé and the Sep to not requesting only speed but I have the feeling it's nonetheless where everything has to go...
Until Darth Revan's release and BSF's rework, you could win any arena match with less optimal speed mods but with Padme and Darth Revan, BSF there is big emphasis on speed because the implication is that whales have the best speed mods in every shard