Vi-Poi
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Post by Vi-Poi on Aug 21, 2016 5:15:04 GMT
This is meant to be a discussion, not a vote. But it could lead to a vote, I suppose! So please reply with your in-depth thoughts on the matter, rather than just which binary position you support. Everyone agreed tonight in the Pit that Guards as an item are intrinsically broken. The majority of the thinking seemed to go that they were too expensive for the PL value that they offered. Most of the solutions provided seemed to be oriented towards lowering their cost. Guards are, in this theory, meant to be low-level fodder. Goons. We'll call this solution, in honor of our excellent theme music tonight, the Goonies Theory on Guard Updating. The minority opinion (maybe held only by me? ) was that Guards were originally designed to be used by low level dudes who want to be Pilaf-esque, and have really tough guys that their enemies have to duke it out with in their stead. This is evident in the extremely high cost (50,000 Zeni!) for the 100,000 PL guard. Back when this design was made, the top-site PL wasn't even half that. Most of the site was well below 25,000 PL. So 100,000 PL would have been an absolute beast, and in that sense 50,000 would have been a reasonable asking price. I believe that we should stick with their design intent and history, and extend their PL so they are once again giving utility to people who choose the nontraditional Zeni route, and so the very top guard is a frightful thing to even the top-site PL. In sticking with our theme music, and due to the word-killing top PL guard I think we should have, I will call this the Demogorgon Theory on Guard Updating. What are some good arguments for the Goonies Theory? I can think of a few. People want to have armies represented with real tokens, and they want to be able to do this cheaply. 5k guards are so frail that they'd be speed bumps to just about anyone. And the higher PL guards start to lose fast on the price-per-pl curve. Slashing prices would make guards more plentiful, and add to people's retinues. But I still prefer the Demogorgon Theory. It keeps with the original intent of the design, to give Zeni-onlys an actual competitive input into the site. If getting slapped around by a 10,000,000 PL NPC sounds too embarrassing, just think of it as an extension of the person you're fighting. It's still a representation of their experience and efforts on the site. It's just not connected RPly to them. Another advantage I like about having a really strong top PL guard is that we can have 'out of nowhere' villains occur, where an evil magician summons a world-eating demon or a mad scientist creates a technological nightmare in the proper mode of the Shonen stories. If we make them Goonies, it'll fill a role that's already being filled by the Minions. The Minions were originally intended to be the 'goons', but it's hard to notice now because PLs have increased so much.
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Bing Gan
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Post by Bing Gan on Aug 21, 2016 5:25:22 GMT
Looks like Stranger Things has taken over your brain Vi Nice choice of music. I think perhaps splitting the difference, so to speak, could be a good way to do things with Guards in this situation. For people who want to have cannon fodder (like myself for Breech and Vocado), we could keep the lower-tier minions as is, if not slightly cheaper. 5k, 10k, 25k. Maybe a fourth, slightly higher option could be useful as well, but keeping some low-end minions for a low-end price would be good. And of course, for the people who have money to burn, we could introduce some PL buffs to the high-end Guards. Something similar to either: 100k, 200k, 300k, etc. with transformations, or 500k, 1mil, 5mil, 10mil could possibly work? (Personally I suggest we use a different sprite for higher tier Guards. Dabura's face maybe?) Something like that could work, assuming the prices were properly paced (or if the numbers were tweaked slightly). The only worry I have with introducing massively powerful Guards is that there's a chance that someone could feasibly purchase a Tier 4 Shop, then slowly build up 10 mil Guards like crazy. Someone who writes as much as Reikiko used to could definitely pull it off in a shorter timeframe than you might think, and then they'd basically be unstoppable (nobody aside from Rei herself is coming close to above 10mil right now, so those guards will be able to pack a punch for at least a few months after implementation.)
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Vi-Poi
Administrator
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Post by Vi-Poi on Aug 21, 2016 5:32:54 GMT
It's revived my 80s movie binge-watching. To avoid the uh, enthusiastic sort breaking the game with tons of guards, we could limit their number, something like a descending staircase. For instance, you could buy 4 tier 1, 3 tier 2, 2 tier 3, and 1 tier 4 guards. Or 16 tier 1s, 8 tier 2s, 4 tier 3s, 1 tier 4. etc. Most games have equipment limits, and I see no reason not to have one here. Edit: Moved to General Discussion
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Post by Plato on Aug 21, 2016 5:57:30 GMT
I actually like this. i'm all good with having strong minions for people who put in the zeni but for 50k for let say a 10m minion. I'm not sure about that. Probley need to add up to a point where, if someone put just as much time into powerlevel they could be even (that how i see it at least). Futhermore, it might somewhat broken even if they focused on building an army of minions getting let say 100k and getting 2, 10m minions (By that point someone will suprass that landmark but regardless) But i really like this. All for this just got to figure out what the new powerlevels would be and the asking prices.
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Post by Letrune on Aug 21, 2016 6:38:42 GMT
Split them between Cannon Fodder, Guard and maybe "Sidecharacter"? Latter being a continuously developable NPC guard?
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Post by Defrosch on Aug 21, 2016 7:50:29 GMT
Currently 50k nets you a 100k guard, which.. In the grand scheme of things is super weak and actually kinda not even worth it to be honest, if almost anyone with a little bit of effort can trump them quite easily...
Buuut 50k zeni for a 10m PL guard? I see that as kinda wonky, almost even busted as well IMO, just the other way around. Primarily due to 'Minions'/Sidekicks also being a thing.
With the same amount of zeni, someone could get 2 75% minions- which is as far as i can tell the maximum you can have with you, as the percentage limit is 150%, 75+75 being exactly that- who cannot reach above 10 million PL via their specific xMults unless the player they're attached to reaches above approx 530k base. As you can probably tell it takes far longer to reach the same level of effectiveness with minions/sidekicks.
Just consider the difference in mechanical gain for zeni VS PL, zeni being harder to gain than PL.
The usefulness of guards shouldn't outshine the usefulness of sidekicks, just as much as sidekicks shouldn't outshine the usefulness of guards.
That being said, there are those that wish to get guards to do their fighting instead and want minimal PL gains OOCly. Perhaps make guards require a cap/limit on main character PL so that those sorts of players can keep their tiny PL and still be viable otherwise?
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Post by Kaula on Aug 21, 2016 8:01:34 GMT
I would like to see a buff to guards possibly. Maybe not an increase in PL (as they currently stand) but maybe a decrease in price with an addition of more expensive much stronger guards? So people like Martin P. Moneybags can stand more of a chance. Like they could be a funny threat that's a loser. Just not a laughable complete loser.
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Vi-Poi
Administrator
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Post by Vi-Poi on Aug 21, 2016 14:38:51 GMT
I'm going to crunch the numbers on what is a fair PL for 50,000 while with the Demogorgon Theory, but I don't think 10,000,000 is out of the park. A few people on the site are already around that level.
The PL guard should be a little higher than what the person would earn in raw PL for themselves, because their guard could die, and because it's not as robustly-linked.
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#921
Archived
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Post by #921 on Aug 21, 2016 15:30:02 GMT
I feel like increasing PL is the best option. People like Martin P Moneybags, myself with BoB, and whoever else wants to be relevant without gaining too much PL. Honestly I'm not sure of how much to improve it, as I am obviously very new and don't know of how strong would be fair for the price.
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Sorrel
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Post by Sorrel on Aug 21, 2016 15:34:55 GMT
Tbh, I viewed guards as a benefit to those on the lower side of the spectrum, where having a minion at x% of their PL wasn't as cost efficient as just straight up getting a guard. I even looked at 100K guards like, "Damn, ain't that roughly the middle range of the site?" but have since realized that doesn't factor in transformations. Maybe one way to fix this is to give them access to transformations? Tbh, at a higher tier, I'd appreciate transformations over more techniques, so maybe have a tradeoff between the two?
I'unno.
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Zucceta
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Post by Zucceta on Aug 21, 2016 16:25:04 GMT
I'm all for buffing Guards. I'm not sure about making high-end ones 10mil, but then we are closing in on that number. I suggest that the top guard should roughly equal a 75% Minion whose owner is 400-500k.
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Post by Kaula on Aug 21, 2016 16:41:58 GMT
Okay to elaborate. My idea is to lower the prices of some of the existing "high end" guards.
YOu have the 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, 75,000, 100,000.
And then you continue on from there adding more. Maybe make the 100k guard 25k? 10k? I dunno. Just an idea I have had in my mind for a couple months now.
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Nicolas Mclendon
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Post by Nicolas Mclendon on Aug 21, 2016 18:26:55 GMT
I'm all for buffing Guards. I'm not sure about making high-end ones 10mil, but then we are closing in on that number. I suggest that the top guard should roughly equal a 75% Minion whose owner is 400-500k. I second this. If they are gonna be 50k then they oughta be heavy hitters. That isnt chump change
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Bing Gan
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Post by Bing Gan on Aug 21, 2016 21:12:30 GMT
The PL guard should be a little higher than what the person would earn in raw PL for themselves, because their guard could die, and because it's not as robustly-linked. Whoaaaaaa hold on a second. Are you saying Guards perma-die or am I reading what you said wrong? I've been under the assumption that they just kinda respawn after a thread ends if they die in a DE or something. I thought that was the original intent of guards actually; minions were tough cookies but cost a bit to revive when they croak, while guards are chumps but take nothing to just replace cuz they're nameless mooks. If that wasn't the original intent, maybe that sort of "immortality" could be the upside to buying the weaker tier Guards. They won't do much but they ain't gonna simply die and be gone forever cuz they get replaced.
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Zucceta
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Post by Zucceta on Aug 21, 2016 22:35:16 GMT
Guards, at the moment, do not have death debuffs--due to being weak and balanced as mooks. With a buff, we should give them something similar to the minion system when it comes to death/destruction, imo.
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