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Post by Zucceta on Feb 3, 2016 5:19:06 GMT
So after a previous chat with Henry discussing the ifs and buts of if Saiyans are OP (signs point to 'a little bit'), I decided to look through the other species' profiles to see if anything else needs a tweak - and, ironically, the one race to strike me as being pretty OP, at least in regards to its characteristics, are androids. It's transformations aren't half bad, matching or besting saiyans for the most part (outside of the two recent "optional" additions, plus what I think of as "inter-tiers" for saiyans) when using Overdrive. They also have one of the most arguably beneficial "inter-tiers" at 31/34x, at a PL when gains start to slow down due to lack of weights, sometimes the malus, etc. (although I'm not suggesting we get rid of this).
What I am suggesting is that we look at each UC and see if we can make them more palatable as a whole:
Android unique characteristics (from weakest to strongest, in my humble opinion):
Anti-ki sensing - this is fine.
Durability - while not very strong on its own, this seems like the icing on the cake, especially now with the android shop--a +x1 to defensive PL (which, tbh, doesn't have much canon basis imo?) plus the unsaid ability to survive in space like Arcosians. I say we cut this one (but androids still survive in space w/o technique).
Reconstruction - this is being fixed.
Android shop - the biggy. This adds a BUNCH of potential UC's. Overall suggestion is to increase the cost of the modules (5000z for High Energy (with my suggested revision) and 10,000z for absorber) and edit High Energy Module so it does not entirely remove Overdrive at later stages (I suggest it simply halving Overdrive fixes for all time (500z)).
Overdrive - Android's are balanced around this and I'm personally fine with it, but it needs to be 1000 [500z w/ upgrade] for every +x1 recovered, rather than all restored at once.
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Post by Bing Gan on Feb 3, 2016 5:26:44 GMT
Seeing as the Android shop is a thing, why don't we add Durability to it instead of cutting it completely? We could make it a third option for the 100k area. If we make it a bit better, say a x1/x2 increase defense permanently, it could easily fall in line with the other two especially if we make the Android Shop UC's expensive.
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Post by Otto on Feb 3, 2016 5:34:23 GMT
I believe that we *should* be able to have more UC's than other races- but we should start out worse off in the UC department than the rest. If the android devotes a lot of energy into buying upgrades they should have the capability to outmatch in the UC department.
We could literally chop off all the nice things they have minus anti ki sense and put them in the store. Put a nice price on modules to allow reconstruction and overdrive UCs. Maybe even make someone pick between overdrive and reconstruction. This might seem a little hardline, but just a thought.
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Post by Zucceta on Feb 3, 2016 5:37:31 GMT
I disagree, because even with "lower" transformation modifiers they're still capable of matching everyone at each tier - even humans at the end. While they'll be around 80%, sometimes, that is still pretty much mechanical equality for most purposes. In exchange for these middle-low-end-but-sometimes-great-but-balanced transes they get 5 extremely useful UCs, not even including the lesser shop items dedicated solely to this one race.
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Vi-Poi
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Post by Vi-Poi on Feb 3, 2016 5:52:24 GMT
I'd argue that Android durability for sure has canon precedence (Android 17 + 18 tanking stuff all the time + fists to the face with no expression change, Android 8 tanking stuff similarly, Cyborg Tao going toe to toe with Tank and King Piccolo and mentioning that his robotics make him tougher) and that we should keep it. It's not very strong to begin with, and it does something flavor wise that is in-step with Arcosians (they can survive without limbs, all busted up). I'm fine with it being added to the shop, but I think it should be cheap and early, because it's something fairly staple and it's not that great of a UC to be spending a lot / waiting on.
The Built-in Weapons represent only a small benefit over the experience it takes these days to earn 6,000 PL if you're below the LMB line, have weights, and a social bonus. I'm fine with limiting the Built-in Weapon slots to 3, as that's how I intended it originally. The Built-in Scouter was an Item Shop thing, and just got moved. Reconstruction was an original UC and just got moved as well.
Raising the price that high on the Absorb and the HE I think would be too much. No other species has to pay high prices for UCs that preform much better than the Android absorb does. The Android absorbs 5% upon a defeat, half of what a Majin does, and it's attack is practically nothing because it can't be charged and only works if you're within 80% of your opponent, so you could preform similarly with a normal MP3. If the High Energy module costed 5000 Zeni and it still costed you 500 Zeni to restore it, you would have to use Overdrive 11 times before you got any benefit from it whatsoever. As a longtime Souls player that's seen plenty of DEs, I have only used Overdrive 5 times and only 3 times in competitive DE situations. To use it 11 times before you get any sort of benefit whatsoever would turn it into a 'why bother' in my opinion.
I believe that we should work with the numbers compared to other species in this debate, including how many people play what, because everyone's perceptions of how one species or another performs are divergent.
At their base level, every tier save for 2 they are at the very lowest tier compared to other species. At no point are they at the highest multiplier in tier. They have the lowest 'On Top' multiplier score of all Species, a 1 shot span from 220k PL - 230k PL before they're matched by Demons then overshot by others.
The Durability trait as a one-time use defensive x1 is increasingly useless as the game progresses. At the end game it would represent a +2.5% buff to defense for 1 round.
Overdrive is not an ace in the hole. It's a stack with proportionally diminishing returns that has a big Zeni cost tied to it. At no point does it guarantee victory. It is often required for Androids to remain competitive and match peer Tiers (like when I had to burn mine to match Natto's SSJ2) throughout most of the game due to their poor base Tiers. At no point in the game does an Overdrive stack push Androids beyond a +x4 transformation advantage against the lowest Species of each Tier save for the x31 > x34, where some Species that enjoy excellent endgames like Humans, Hybrids, Alien A, and Saiyans, experience a purposeful gulf in the 30ish multiplier.
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Post by Zucceta on Feb 3, 2016 6:07:04 GMT
The thing with the Modules, Vi, is that they're extra UC's on top of three great ones. I can already think of scenarios in which Durability could be useful. Overdrive is great-if-necessary, rebuilds are great-if-being-slightly-nerfed.
The "durability" canon you're giving, I'd explain as that being their PL. Every character has had "fist-to-the-face-with-no-change" moments, and tanked blasts with no damage. I think it'd be better for the site if this aspect was removed/added as a purchasable UC simply BECAUSE it makes arcosians more unique.
I'm not actually sure how relevant the transformation multipliers are to this discussion (though I did bring them up)--my main point was the amount of useful UCs.
No other species can buy an additional (and POWERFUL) UC(s) - I think the prices I suggested were economic.
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Post by Bing Gan on Feb 3, 2016 6:10:14 GMT
Both purchasable UC's are really powerful, I must say. If we upped the price, I wouldn't complain (even as an Android player, who plans on buying the POSSIBLY BANKRUPTING Absorber Model upon hitting 100k)
I really like the idea of making Durability a purchasable item. I'd like it to be permanent x1 defensively though. It feels like that might be a bit too strong, but a once-per-thread defensive boost would have to be pitifully cheap to be a worthwhile purchase.
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Post by Vi-Poi on Feb 3, 2016 6:26:44 GMT
I would definitely argue that Durability is not a great UC by any measure, given how it collapses as PL grows.
I brought up the Tiers because looking at UCs is only one side of the balance equation. That's the reason why Saiyans don't have a lot of UCs -- they have great Tiers, and that's why Demons have that very strong +x4 UC, because they have poor Tiers. If we turn all of the UCs on Androids down we should look at their Tiers to compensate. The whole rationale given by Bao for Androids weirdly-inverted tiering and their poor bases was that they had Rebuild.
Look at Absorber Module costs proposed. 10,000 Zeni, the price of a Shop or several other large ticket items, gets you access to the weakest absorb in the game.
I think High Energy is just fine. How would making it cost 5,000 Zeni be fair if most Androids don't burn anywhere near 11 ODs in their career let alone after 100,000 PL? No one is taking High Energy due to the allure of catching 5% of a large PL. But if we instituted a 5,000 PL cap on the 5% (5% of 100k, when you get the unlock) it could dial down Absorber a bit while increasing viability for the High Energy module without having to put a 10,000 Zeni pricetag on the Absorber. Because for that price I'm not sure it'd be worth it. After paying 10,000 Zeni you still have to enter a DE and kill someone, after putting what could have been ~20,000 worth of PL experience in the hole. The absorbed person would have to be at 400,000 PL just to break even (or 4 100,000 PL people, etc).
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Post by Zucceta on Feb 3, 2016 6:32:49 GMT
I'm aware of the tier/uc conundrum as I bought it up when we were talking about saiyans earlier (but I do appreciate you putting it for the rest of the staff).
With Overdrive AND Rebuilds, I think the Tier/UC balancing is fine. Rebuilds for sure was Bao's justification for the lower tiers in of itself, and on top of Rebuilds they have two-to-three extra characteristics plus an entire shop.
Absorb Module: The weakest absorb in the game, yes, but it is another UC - and it also comes with an additional Special(?) technique.
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Post by Bing Gan on Feb 3, 2016 6:44:07 GMT
Essentially yes. The Absorb Pads come with a flavored Barrier that allows them to suck up and then reflect attacks at... I can't recall the numbers, but it's a high percentage. Reflective Barriers are a variant, so the Absorption Pads would basically be a UC + Special.
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Post by Vi-Poi on Feb 3, 2016 17:45:50 GMT
My suggestions:
Durability: Keep this as is. This isn't that great of a UC, and making Arcosians unique isn't that sound of an argument because there are already other species with Durability besides Androids and Arcosians, Arcosians already have way better tiering (now with the Ultimate Form), the reasons given for Arcosians being durable are the same reasons Androids should be durable (missing limbs, breathing in space, etc), and most importantly Arcosians get great gain progression %s with their forms UCs, and access to a lot of dynamism throughout their game.
Rebuild: The vote looks like it's taking care of this.
Android Shop: I'm highly against downing High Energy or raising the costs. The module point is supposed to be an Android's 'super saiyan' moment, when they get to pick from two fairly helpful items at a decent price. Making it a progression sink while lowering the benefits will turn the Android Shop and the Modules into non-useful UCs. With the potential downing of every other UC available to the Android, this can hobble the species entirely.
Absorber Module: I think adding a 5,000 PL cap to it is fair and good. I'd like to see caps imposed on all absorb species.
Overdrive: I'm fine with it being downed to 1000z being a +1x.
During all this I think we should keep in mind that Androids are facing an across-the-board downing attempt on every single UC besides Anti-sensing (which is basically a non-UC given scouters), and we're really wielding the gamut maul on the species without any hard reasoning or in-game causes being shown. Saying they have the most UCs is not a good argument to make, because some species must have the most UCs. It's the effectiveness of those UCs balanced with the tiering of all Species that matter.
So I think there is some room for downing there in the areas I pointed out above, but I'd like us to take the same downward lens to all of the species (to see where they're out of place) while we do this, so it's less of an on-opinion thing and more of a holistic and fair thing.
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Post by Zucceta on Feb 3, 2016 20:41:10 GMT
Calling none of my points "hard arguments" is slightly irritating, as I feel like I've gone into explicit detail as to how and why I feel like (at the very least) the addition of the android shop is unbalancing in the race's favour.
Its not that androids have the most UCs, its that they have the most powerful UCs (and especially with the introduction with android shop that, in reality, did not need to be added at all. It did not make the race more balanced--w/ Rebuild and Durability and pretty good transes they were already pretty well-balanced).
One of the points I'd like to make is that we were talking about nerfing the saiyan's optional tiers--which I'm all for. I agreed to this because they have all-round good transformations and very little low points, but I'd ALSO like to point out they have a very context specific UC which does not often give huge actual boosts %wise (in additional to a weakness UC). If we were able to give saiyans a look, we can at least give androids a look--and any other races that may be too weak or strong (looking at you, Homunculi).
Tl;dr: The android shop was added AFTER I considered androids to be pretty perfectly balanced. I don't mind its implementation, I think the two modules need to be scrutinised.
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Post by Zucceta on Feb 3, 2016 23:52:22 GMT
Decided to do a new post: Going off of your transformation argument, I decided to test androids (overdrive) against the other races (using what I believe as the prime variant of each race, transformation-wise): Androids are NOT hard-done-by, transformation wise, especially given the nature of OD currently. They are never low and usually high. Just Androids: Clearly, this graph does not allow for android's other characteristics (rebuild, durability, module choice)--Overdrive alone makes them consistently great. I could have included the demon's makyo transes in the graph but they don't have a power ball variant (which is a different matter) and, looking at their sheet, it strikes me that the +4x ability for one technique could be comparable to Overdrive. We could balance Overdrive more like this; alternatively, we can drop android's "base" transformations before OD. Bonus: Messier chart with Arcosians and Majin's (max absorbs assumed):
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Post by Zerori on Feb 3, 2016 23:57:40 GMT
I can't weigh in much on the other points but I can put my two cents in about Overdrive - fighting an Android at my near current PL. Bigby at a little less than 100k is fighting on part with at 33% of my Super Demon transformation. Now, that's not a lot seeing as I could deck him with an MP3 and be done with it however that's a pretty strong advantage being less than 75% of my base PL.
I personally second the suggestion to for OD to be recovered at 1000z [500z w/ upgrade] for every +x1 recovered.
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Post by Bing Gan on Feb 4, 2016 0:03:08 GMT
I think either option is fine.
If we nerf OD somehow, it could become more of an interesting and tactical trump card. (My gut idea: make OD a boost to your modifiers for a set amount of turns, while also increasing the repair price slightly.)
If we nerf their transes, I think depending on severity, we can perhaps BUFF Overdrive somehow to make it a more constant force.
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