A Modest Proposal for Legendaries and the Upgrade System (with pretty pictures! :) )

I think the first item is the key, to make it so that upgrades have a nora cost, which would mean a cost reduction for level 1 runes. This will make level 1 champs usable again without the inefficiency of not having "free" abilities that they cannot access.

 

I really like everything in the original post. Very well thought out and very well presented. Pox is a constantly evolving game and sometimes the game has gone in the wrong direction. It will be a major undertaking to right the ship. If this post pick up speed I thnk Pox will have a very strong future.

 

Both this post and the one before it had some excellent ideas in them. I would love for this system here to become a reality or at least have some influence on the upcoming rebalance!

 

I generally like the idea and thought of something similar after the SOE revamp (removal of old CP system), but for a lot of champions the proposed idea would mean changing the whole champ as most champs already have a lot of abilities both on base and on upgrades, and I'm not only talking about Exotic/LEG runes here.
Just click through some of the rares and lowers from later expansions.

On the champions you have provided the idea sounds simply great, but on most champs this would actually mean changing the whole champ as a whole.
Just to give an example: Minotaur Insurgent, how would you make your idea work on him?

If it would indeed be possible to let C/UC/Rares/Exotics only have stat updates/more ranks of an ability updates I can see it work, but that will be a way bigger overhaul than you make it out to be in my opinion.


Sincerely,

Josh753

 

It absolutely requires a massive overhaul of almost all the champions (especially the newer ones), but I believe that this is what Gedden is currently working on anyway. I don't believe that this "renovation" is going to be a superficial one.

For Minotaur Insurgent, what stands out to me as thematic abilities are Crushing Charge and Liability, so I would keep those and remove all other abilities. Then replace the upgrades with stat upgrades.

It takes about 2 minutes to reduce one champ to its essentials like that, so overhauling all the champs in the game is not as big of a deal as some might think. What will take time is going to get the balance right again after such a massive shake up, but that's really not the end of the world. It will be fun to explore the new meta and as long as the worst balance issues are fixed in a timely manner, returning to a state of equilibrium should not take too long.

I think this is the right time for such a massive shake up, then work out the kinks and prepare for a huge relaunch on Steam.

 

It's not 2 minutes work.

So you would remove the other abilities, how much less nora should he now cost, it's an interesting question, and this is the thing that will take up most time.
Just removing some abilities isn't hard, but than sticking a right cost to the overhauled rune, and his upgrades, is way harder.
It takes a lot to find the sweet spot, and sticking a fixed nora cost to abilities, even stats, don't work in Pox (as 2 abilties on one champ can be a lot better than the abilities seperate on different champs, speed is always tricky too for the huge advantage it gives).

EDIT: Also I think it would piss of quite some players if there cool rune with some cool abilities now just lost 6 of his possible abilities, so I think you already overhauled to much on that one by just letting him keep 2 abilities, which I don't really find the most thematic ones.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, but it brings some questions and problems with it too.


Sincerely,

Josh753

 

While that is true, you could use the fixed ability costs as a starter, then use 1-2 nora adjustments on champs that need it due to balance issues. Given the powercreep that went on under SOE's rule, a lot of the older stuff wouldn't see play, and if it was imbalanced, no one would know.

 

The cost is of course the trickiest part, but you are never going to get it 100% right on the first try. Whether you think about it for another hour or two is not going to make you much more accurate, so you can just as well start with a basic formula and then tweak it a little with your gut instinct. The best way to figure out whether a rune is under- or overcosted is to release it to the wild and observe what players do with it. The game is not going to become unplayable if you get a few numbers a bit wrong.

In any case, we know that an overhaul is happening, do you really believe it will be skin-deep? Both Gedden and Senshu have been mentioning that they are unhappy with the large number of abilities on most champs, so do you really think they will now just make some minor changes to a handful of champs? Maybe so, but that's not what I expect to happen.

Absolutely, but so what? We almost lost the game, if anybody is still not able to acknowledge that some major changes will be necessary to turn this ship around, then what can you do. And the only runes which would get simplified that dramatically would be those of lesser rarity, so the expensive stuff is still going to remain rather fancy.

 

I suspect that there is already a cost assigned to all abilities, but it has probably been adjusted for a number of champs due to synergy with other abilities, or as previously mentioned synergy with stats such as attack range.I agree, there would be significant time involved in this, but it is a way for CP to become useful again. It also allows the continued sale of tokens with what I imagine would be a lot less complaints, since champs will be more efficient when unleveled. The question that I'm sure they're looking at is if the time invested to do this will cost more than the increased revenue from tokens.

 

Upgrade costs don't have to be fixed. But another way to tackle this is to set a basic value for an ability, and then simply not offer it as an upgrade if it would be considerably more or less valuable on that particular champ. Who said abilities have to be available on all kinds of champs?

O ye of little faith... I believe in Gedden! I think he may yet surprise you all. Also keep in mind that drastically reducing the number of abilities (and complexities) on common champs is going to free up a lot of design space and resources in the long run.

And frankly, I'd happily go through a few months of broken balance if it means that the game will have a brighter future. I think you underestimate how much energy such a shake up can release in a community, and I'm confident that we'd get through it quite smoothly.

 

I agree with this. Most champions do have a basic role, they just have several random abilities and side roles that complicate things. Once you remove these side abilities and focus on the main role, it becomes easier to create the main idea.

 

Thanks. Technically I'm a software developer, but I am more into game and UI design. I'm currently working on an indie game project, so I get to wear all those hats.

 

This might be a bit off topic, but my take on gauging how much each ability should cost would be to use some form of linear regression method on a pool of what the dev consider non-problem/balanced champion. We can represent each champion as an N*N + N dimensional vector, N = # of total distinct ability in the game + basic stats. Basic stats should follow some form of exponential growth as an extra point in each stat should be worth more than the last one, additionally, derived attributes which there should be N*N number of (covers the pairwise interaction of all ability on a champ). Putting the champion vector in an table, we have an L by (N*N+N) matrix, with each column denoting an amount of an stat or a pairwise interaction of stat to ability or ability to ability. Using this matrix and an column vector denoting the nora cost of each champ, we could do an regression analysis using parameter fitting technique, the resulting coeffcient would allow us to construct a model that predict the nora cost of future champs. However, the fact that the system will most likely be underdetermined, we can try to impose constrain on the solution space or use some form of regularized regression to estimate the coeffecients. If anyone could kindly point me to a source that have an spread sheet or xml record of every champ, I think this will be an very interesting analysis to carry out.