CP Caps and Build Variety (warrior)
I’m going to throw my idea out there about the CP. LED suggested to uncap categories beyond just Power and Attack Speed. I agree with him because you really need to give player more choices to promote diversity/customization. However I also understand other players' fear of unintended consequences etc. So I suggest we have soft caps instead of hard caps on categories.
Offense
Power soft cap 100
Critical Rating soft cap 50
Critical Damage soft cap 50
Attack Speed soft cap 50
Defense
Life % soft cap 50
Armor % soft cap 50
Life Regen soft cap 50
Life on Hit soft cap 50
Utility
Ability Rate soft cap 50
Movement soft cap 50
Extra gold soft cap 50
Experience soft cap 50
To exceed soft cap, you need to first meet soft cap in each tab. After 450 CPs, every CP earned is in a general pool where you can apply to any category desired. To go from 1x soft cap to 2x soft cap, for example to raise critical rating from 50 to 51 will need 2 CP. To go from 2x soft cap to 3x soft cap, i.e. Power from 201 to 202 will take 3 CP. To go from 3x soft cap to 4x soft cap will take 4 CP etc. The increasing cost in CP as one invest more into a particular category will act as a natural brake but still allow the player that option as long as he/she is willing to pay the cost.
Build variety.
I play mostly warrior so I will use that as my case study.
Cookie Cutter build (LED warrior) This is the dominant build in the game. Dual wielding warrior with cleave primary and frenzy secondary attack. Utility/Active skills are Battle Rage, Shockwave, 3rd skill of choice (charge/ITZ etc). The reason this build is the clear dominant build is because it is clearly the best in just about every situation a warrior might encounter. Damage output comes from two sources in the game. Normal attack and skill damage. This build is clearly the best in dealing out normal attack due to highest attack speed. In fact the normal attack damage is so high that often active skills or “blade fury” are ignored because they actually decrease the DPS when activated. This build also has the highest survivability due to hiyghest LoH courtesy of highest attack speed. So as long as you have enough HP to survive being one shotted, you can take a licking and keep on going. Finally this build also has the highest skill damage output due to shortest skill cool down. The reason is, again, the highest attack speed that triggers cool down reduction more frequently. As you can see, attack speed underpins all those positive feedback loop. Part of the reason why I suggested to reduce attack speed’s impact on those other non-damage aspects of the game so the cookie cutter build isn’t so leaps and bounds better than other builds.
Shield Warrior (balanced warrior) This is the build I would like to play. It become more interesting with the buff to the skill Deadly Throw. Normal attack, this build loses to dual wield due to slower attack speed (1x vs 1.4x). Its survivability gap is narrower because it’s likely to have higher armor. However not enough to overcome the 1.4x LoH advantage of dual wield build. So far it loses 2 out 2 use cases, normal damage and survivability. To make this build more competitive, it needs to shine more in the skill damage department. However that’s not possible currently due to longer skill cool down vs dual wield. Since this build relies more on skill damage rather than just normal attack, it needs the game mechanic to favor it in the skill cool down department. That is why I suggest to replace the Shield Slam effect to something like a skill cool down reduction. Shield Warrior needs to be able to cast utility/active skills just a tad more frequently than dual wielder to compensate for the lack of fire power in other departments. Utility skills: Battle Rage, Deadly Throw, Shockwave. I also suggested to replace the Defender set 6 piece bonus to Deadly Throw skill (something like 10% chance to trigger Deadly Throw when blocking an attack, capped at one trigger per 3-5 secs). This way makes the defender set the set to have for shield warriors.
Two Handed Warrior (Slow attacking but massive damage) This build is for those that doesn’t equip a shield in the off hand nor a weapon. A 1.5 bonus damage multiplier is standard. The attack speed can be set at 80% of Shield warrior to really set it apart. So this big brute will always lose out in normal attack vs dual wielder. That means this build is really geared for skill damage. Think Blade Fury that no one wants to use. This is perfect for this guy. Same goes for Devastate and other skills that don’t take attack speed into consideration. This build will be focusing on skill cool down so they can cast it more often. ITZ will be a perfect compliment (might have to change the mechanic a bit here so we don’t have this guy in permenant devastate mode thus overpowered).
The way to promote build variety is to ensure different builds are best in certain situations. Even better when certain game mechanics reinforce each other to create a positive feedback loop. For example shield warrior wants to have more blocks. Perhaps they want to purposely be low in dodge and parry so more blocks can be triggered. This allows shield warrior to have more available stats on eq since there is no need for parry/dodge stats. Whereas two handed would want more parry than dodge since parry can potentially reduce the skill cool down. Dualwielder should want dodge more than parry as they are more about normal attacks with skills mostly acting as buffs to their normal attacks and situational change of pace. This creates variety. Dual Wield build will be the only build people play as long as it wins in all the use cases: Normal damage, skill damage, and survivability. Build diversity can only be achieved when that is no longer the case.
Just my 0.02
Offense
Power soft cap 100
Critical Rating soft cap 50
Critical Damage soft cap 50
Attack Speed soft cap 50
Defense
Life % soft cap 50
Armor % soft cap 50
Life Regen soft cap 50
Life on Hit soft cap 50
Utility
Ability Rate soft cap 50
Movement soft cap 50
Extra gold soft cap 50
Experience soft cap 50
To exceed soft cap, you need to first meet soft cap in each tab. After 450 CPs, every CP earned is in a general pool where you can apply to any category desired. To go from 1x soft cap to 2x soft cap, for example to raise critical rating from 50 to 51 will need 2 CP. To go from 2x soft cap to 3x soft cap, i.e. Power from 201 to 202 will take 3 CP. To go from 3x soft cap to 4x soft cap will take 4 CP etc. The increasing cost in CP as one invest more into a particular category will act as a natural brake but still allow the player that option as long as he/she is willing to pay the cost.
Build variety.
I play mostly warrior so I will use that as my case study.
Cookie Cutter build (LED warrior) This is the dominant build in the game. Dual wielding warrior with cleave primary and frenzy secondary attack. Utility/Active skills are Battle Rage, Shockwave, 3rd skill of choice (charge/ITZ etc). The reason this build is the clear dominant build is because it is clearly the best in just about every situation a warrior might encounter. Damage output comes from two sources in the game. Normal attack and skill damage. This build is clearly the best in dealing out normal attack due to highest attack speed. In fact the normal attack damage is so high that often active skills or “blade fury” are ignored because they actually decrease the DPS when activated. This build also has the highest survivability due to hiyghest LoH courtesy of highest attack speed. So as long as you have enough HP to survive being one shotted, you can take a licking and keep on going. Finally this build also has the highest skill damage output due to shortest skill cool down. The reason is, again, the highest attack speed that triggers cool down reduction more frequently. As you can see, attack speed underpins all those positive feedback loop. Part of the reason why I suggested to reduce attack speed’s impact on those other non-damage aspects of the game so the cookie cutter build isn’t so leaps and bounds better than other builds.
Shield Warrior (balanced warrior) This is the build I would like to play. It become more interesting with the buff to the skill Deadly Throw. Normal attack, this build loses to dual wield due to slower attack speed (1x vs 1.4x). Its survivability gap is narrower because it’s likely to have higher armor. However not enough to overcome the 1.4x LoH advantage of dual wield build. So far it loses 2 out 2 use cases, normal damage and survivability. To make this build more competitive, it needs to shine more in the skill damage department. However that’s not possible currently due to longer skill cool down vs dual wield. Since this build relies more on skill damage rather than just normal attack, it needs the game mechanic to favor it in the skill cool down department. That is why I suggest to replace the Shield Slam effect to something like a skill cool down reduction. Shield Warrior needs to be able to cast utility/active skills just a tad more frequently than dual wielder to compensate for the lack of fire power in other departments. Utility skills: Battle Rage, Deadly Throw, Shockwave. I also suggested to replace the Defender set 6 piece bonus to Deadly Throw skill (something like 10% chance to trigger Deadly Throw when blocking an attack, capped at one trigger per 3-5 secs). This way makes the defender set the set to have for shield warriors.
Two Handed Warrior (Slow attacking but massive damage) This build is for those that doesn’t equip a shield in the off hand nor a weapon. A 1.5 bonus damage multiplier is standard. The attack speed can be set at 80% of Shield warrior to really set it apart. So this big brute will always lose out in normal attack vs dual wielder. That means this build is really geared for skill damage. Think Blade Fury that no one wants to use. This is perfect for this guy. Same goes for Devastate and other skills that don’t take attack speed into consideration. This build will be focusing on skill cool down so they can cast it more often. ITZ will be a perfect compliment (might have to change the mechanic a bit here so we don’t have this guy in permenant devastate mode thus overpowered).
The way to promote build variety is to ensure different builds are best in certain situations. Even better when certain game mechanics reinforce each other to create a positive feedback loop. For example shield warrior wants to have more blocks. Perhaps they want to purposely be low in dodge and parry so more blocks can be triggered. This allows shield warrior to have more available stats on eq since there is no need for parry/dodge stats. Whereas two handed would want more parry than dodge since parry can potentially reduce the skill cool down. Dualwielder should want dodge more than parry as they are more about normal attacks with skills mostly acting as buffs to their normal attacks and situational change of pace. This creates variety. Dual Wield build will be the only build people play as long as it wins in all the use cases: Normal damage, skill damage, and survivability. Build diversity can only be achieved when that is no longer the case.
Just my 0.02
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