Weapon Attack potion/buff Discussion [onyx apple]

If you're saying PB should be balanced around 20 man PB that purposely run with less people and require full apple time to clear the whole 90 minute. Then is there still hope for 30 man PB that barely clear with full apple time?

I don't see the argument why a 20 man PB run that require full apple time, clear with a tight timer and, not to mention, billions of upfront meso investment per runner is testament that apples are broken. What is an acceptable runner count? Whats the minimum required funding needed to clear PB? Who sets the standard?

The only content out there gatekept from weapon attack pots is PB. Everything else can be compensated with extra manpower and increase in player skills.

 

Probably not, but if 30 man PB are barely clearing with full apple time, maybe they shouldn't be running the boss that should supposedly be the hardest in the whole game, just like underleveled/high int people running 6 man HT isn't supposed to be the norm.

 

Thats an interesting point of view. It's pretty hard to believe that you as a player had always run bosses that were well within your level. If PB as a content cannot be cleared with people around it's level (180), then why is HT, what used to be the hardest boss in the game, allowed to be cleared with people around its level (160).

I'm not even talking underleveled/high int people. Not taking bring in the minimum amount of people for a boss clear for maximum profit. I'm just talking about a group of 30 people (maximum entry count) who all are at the appropriate level (180+) with no int and relative decent gear that comes together to defeat PB. So what if they barely clear? I remember the first runs had problem clearing, too. And that was when PB was in easy mode.

 

at what point do 30 people run start failing?
apple at 5m? 6m?

 

I actually did because of damage % reduction and... well, not getting exp if very underleveled lol

In the end this is just an opinion about where we think things should be balanced around.
I think that's ok for HT to be cleared around its level for 10/12 man and to be optimized for stronger squads.
I don't think that's great that high int/under leveled people can run optimized squads (6 man etc) thanks to apple
What I think that differs PB is that it is supposed to be the hardest boss in the game, and (for me) it doesn't make sense to think about it as being very accessible, and that's basically what apples are doing.

PS: I don't even know if current PB can be cleared without apples even with the top 30 players (probably possible I guess), but my main point is just that apples feels too overpower for enabling this kind of stuff. By making everything so accessible it probably helps aging the server faster as well. I hope for more PB balance updates so it doesn't make non-meta classes even less desirable if some change is made for apples though.

 

Althought it is a concern, I feel that no matter how many squads clear PB, it will never make things too accessible. It's already shown with HT where after 5 years of ML, MW20 and Gen30 books are still sought after from HT, which are ran multiple times a day. I would find it hard to believe that perfect timeless weapons, MW30, FS would fill the server.

 

If apples are perceived to be unbalanced, then it's possible to make an argument that content that necessitates apples, such as Pink Bean, to also be unbalanced.

Rather than throwing out any potential apple changes, is it not better to come up with a solution to PB's balance in tandem with apples?

 

Great suggestion, I' prefer any of the first three options over the current situation but if I had to choose I'd go with option #1 with some changes.

Lower the attack on gelts, apples and stoppers a bit more and make sure rage cannot override energizers.

If you only used your ability points on int on an attacker you SHOULD struggle at the job advancements. Onyx apples take away alot from the few challenging moments in this game.

I'll never understand why we couldn't have that strong beginner weapon people asked for (was it maroon mop?), but apples are totally fine..

 

I'm pretty sure PB can be cleared even without the "top 30" players without apples. What apples do currently is allow for squads to cut down on size in exchange for apples. The reason we haven't seen apple-less PB is because it doesn't make sense from a cost-analysis perspective for runners.

 

Apples imo are simply a highlight to the actual issue affecting balance: variable class scaling. Many of us can already notice (and some have even said it), but it's always the better scaling classes which benefit from power creep. Each weapon type comes with different attack, and each weapon has different multipliers, and each class has different skill multipliers. This is what creates the curves we see in "class dpm comparison" charts. Some classes start stronger early and scaling lets the others catch up at endgame. Or with different numbers it lets some classes compete at lower levels/funding and become obsolete by endgame. Either way you have to pick a location on the gear curve (read: att) where things can be considered "balanced", and more or less funding will tip the scale.

This is where apples come in: when their use becomes normalized, it provides a second data point of "total w.att". If classes are designed around a scenario ~80 att lower, it's little wonder that the classes already perceived as "good" due to better scaling win out even more when everyone gets a flat att boost. We could readjust and rebalance around this new point, but then that may throw away the "normal" curve, as 80 att is tremendous. It's simply too large of a gap to balance two scenarios.

That said, we still see this effect happen on a smaller scale with gear and natural power creep of the server. If the effect is caused by a flat att boost to a class, then the heightened creation of perfect weapons, perfect gloves, higher chased capes and shoes will also put scaling imbalance on display. What would we say is the "average" gear point of the server? Is that where classes were balanced for?

I don't mention gear necessarily out of a call to "haves and have nots", but just like apples widing the balance gap due to massive attack differentials, gear places very similar burdens on class balance. The average, fresh 200 will still have wildly different gear than the player who has admittedly "beaten the game" years ago. Just as we cannot balance classes around both non-apple content and apple content, where do we place gear balance?

We can't even solve class scaling discrepancies within gear anymore, as every class is homogenized in their gear. With only minor differences, every class shares (and can usually exchange) most of their gear with any class. Every class wears the same hat, shoes, glove, cape, face accessory, eye accessory, earring, ring, pendant (tho there's 2 options). The item slots that are at least job specific are fewer: weapon, top/bot (or oa), shield(?). Gear is extremely homogenized among the classes, with little to no way to provide variable scaling per item slot per class, as we have deleted practically all class specific items from the game.

While attack pots have some benefits, Apples highlight and intensify the class balance issue of power creep generated by giving everyone flat w.att boosts.

 

Usually replying to agree is not productive but this is too based of a take and exactly how i feel about the issue so i felt the need. At the end of the day even if attack pots were removed all together there would still be absurd gaps since common gear is simply best in slot. I feel like this would be a step in the right direction but not the only change needed.

 

starving out weaker pb squads disguised as a discussion about nerfing apples?
apples nerfed = weak squads unable to clear, exisitng stronger squads increase their control over the bean.

 

Presumably changes like this would be accompanied with PB adjustments as well, given prudent balancing

 

2 hour timer :^)

 

Onyx Apples are Pay2Win

 

This discussion would be easier with some numbers, what is the average value of a PB run?

 

Quoting Akash from earlier this year in his PB recruitment thread:

Edit: to illustrate what I was saying earlier, that means that if the average value of a PB run was 2B, then each runner in an apple-less 30 man PB run would walk away with roughly 60-65m after accounting for pot costs/etc costs, whereas if the same runner decided to run on an 18 man run and appled 6 times instead, they would walk away with closer to 90m in profit.

 

Damn why am I still running Horntail.

The average Horntail clear is ~100m (data I found from ~80 runs) if a 10-man clears thats ~10m each. If you 6-man it's ~16.7m each, so if the runners are using more than 2 apples each or more than 13 apples per run they are making less than a 10-man.

 

That number seems a bit low; are you accounting for the value of a pouch too? I've recorded 153 runs and my average Horntail clear was valued at 110m with a roughly 45% pouch 4 rate (which would be an additional 35-40m in value). As a result, my EV for a 6 man was about 18m in mesos and around 1.875 coins per run which is another 6-7m.

 

No, the dataset doesn't account for coins.