- Joined
- Jun 12, 2016
- Messages
- 25,122
- Reaction score
- 40,005
Another SotG should be streaming now-ish and I'm looking forward to hearing from the horse's mouth on things currently.
For those reading who haven't played but want to or have played little, the baseline reception since launch has been praise for early- to end-game – in gamespeak, that's character creation to Tiers 4/5. I, personally, couldn't agree more and thought it immense fun. End-game as it stands has however revealed some fractures in the foundation of play that aren't readily apparent until late-game when one has more a bird's-eye view of things A-Z. Deepest amongst them relates not to missing-the-mark Skills/CD but gear score (GS) rather and the, frankly, healthy disconnect between it and the game's RNG.
Build optimisation and diversity (which for many can be a cynosure of the genre) are as a result being one-laned into uninspired DPS, DPM, and DTE contingencies – depending on in-mind enemy (AI, PvP) or mission. DTE refers to one's cumulative score (%) in the Stats submenu per the buffs available for punishing bosses (i.e., Elites, or cats with gold HP), for those unfamiliar. These safe 'boss builds' appear to be musts for running the latest Dark Hours operation, for example.
In fixes per the last patch (TU3?), some bad was made good while elsewhere, even that not previously a problem, got worse. The code for these games is obviously complex but it no less sucks to watch your baby keep falling out of the crib and for every pick-up breaking an opposing limb.
I'm not sure how scope-breaking this would be from a backend/TU point of view but I'd like to see GS rethought. I'd personally fancy a simplification with lvl 30 rolling into Scores (or bands) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. That's it. GS right now is by and large an illusion and indicative (for respective agent as well as clanmate and opponent) of frankly nothing. Development has in the past explained the RNG tie-in to GS and even referring at one point to a pie (graphically) but it's too muddied and unnecessarily graded a system, IMO, or to keep to their terms – the pie tastes like s***. Slicing and dicing an apple wedge up into a million pieces doesn't make for a better apple turnover.
The gameplay's risk-reward tug of war is unserviceable, full stop. Have gear banded where tier-4 gear is better than t-3 et cetera and demonstrably tiered drops for a given agent proportionately piggybacking event difficulty. Done. The by-colour quality scale per piece and tier can stay with offering fewer (attributes) the lower the drop – while still serving up a singular chance roll of some attribute spectaculaire to recalibrate elsewhere later on.
Sorry for length. There's far too much to cram into one post with examples and related objects of explanation being left out as is. Thoughts and disagreement welcome.
For those reading who haven't played but want to or have played little, the baseline reception since launch has been praise for early- to end-game – in gamespeak, that's character creation to Tiers 4/5. I, personally, couldn't agree more and thought it immense fun. End-game as it stands has however revealed some fractures in the foundation of play that aren't readily apparent until late-game when one has more a bird's-eye view of things A-Z. Deepest amongst them relates not to missing-the-mark Skills/CD but gear score (GS) rather and the, frankly, healthy disconnect between it and the game's RNG.
Build optimisation and diversity (which for many can be a cynosure of the genre) are as a result being one-laned into uninspired DPS, DPM, and DTE contingencies – depending on in-mind enemy (AI, PvP) or mission. DTE refers to one's cumulative score (%) in the Stats submenu per the buffs available for punishing bosses (i.e., Elites, or cats with gold HP), for those unfamiliar. These safe 'boss builds' appear to be musts for running the latest Dark Hours operation, for example.
In fixes per the last patch (TU3?), some bad was made good while elsewhere, even that not previously a problem, got worse. The code for these games is obviously complex but it no less sucks to watch your baby keep falling out of the crib and for every pick-up breaking an opposing limb.
I'm not sure how scope-breaking this would be from a backend/TU point of view but I'd like to see GS rethought. I'd personally fancy a simplification with lvl 30 rolling into Scores (or bands) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. That's it. GS right now is by and large an illusion and indicative (for respective agent as well as clanmate and opponent) of frankly nothing. Development has in the past explained the RNG tie-in to GS and even referring at one point to a pie (graphically) but it's too muddied and unnecessarily graded a system, IMO, or to keep to their terms – the pie tastes like s***. Slicing and dicing an apple wedge up into a million pieces doesn't make for a better apple turnover.
The gameplay's risk-reward tug of war is unserviceable, full stop. Have gear banded where tier-4 gear is better than t-3 et cetera and demonstrably tiered drops for a given agent proportionately piggybacking event difficulty. Done. The by-colour quality scale per piece and tier can stay with offering fewer (attributes) the lower the drop – while still serving up a singular chance roll of some attribute spectaculaire to recalibrate elsewhere later on.
Sorry for length. There's far too much to cram into one post with examples and related objects of explanation being left out as is. Thoughts and disagreement welcome.
