Do special upgrades need a rebalance?

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Perfectio wrote on 2014-04-18 02:13

Right now, there are only two kinds of weapons that can go S-Upgrades viably:

Magic Weapons
Possibly Taunes for the purposes of HM grinding.

All other weapons benefit more from R-type upgrades.

In addition, S6 for magic weapons is considerably weaker than R6 is for melee weapons. R6 increases average damage by 18.6% (62% * 0.3).

S6 increases average damage by a flat amount which translates to considerably less of an average damage boost that suffers from the law of diminishing returns (yet R6 is even worse because while R6 does pass S6 in average damage above a certain MATK breakpoint, that breakpoint is rather difficult to reach, and sacrifices consistency for burst, and magic already has burst).

Possible solutions:

Nerf R-type critical damage
Change S-type damage into a %boost (roughly along the same lines of pre-Druid magic S upgrades)
Make 30% critical harder to get without sacrificing max damage
Increase MATK and base attack gains from S type
Add additional effects to the stone types to make the choices meaningful
Friggerton wrote on 2014-04-18 03:47

I agree that they're rather imbalanced.

Another way to balance them would be to make blue upgrades much more common, and therefore much cheaper (which could justify their current power imbalances) - one way would be to lower their ducat shop price to like 50k ducats (where they're 400k now and red stones are 200k.)
Chihaya wrote on 2014-04-18 04:10

Giving a buff in any way is making it even worse. If you want a "rebalance", it should be a nerf--not a buff in something.

But I agree wholeheartedly that special upgrades might be a little too powerful.
Tyskiyomy wrote on 2014-04-18 12:38

Quote from Chihaya;1215714:
Giving a buff in any way is making it even worse. If you want a "rebalance", it should be a nerf--not a buff in something.

But I agree wholeheartedly that special upgrades might be a little too powerful.

Well if you get what I am trying to say here, in attempt to nerf things that make us powerful I do not believe a free to play aspect is a good start...

However I do believe it is unbalanced in terms of whether a weapon 'should have' red or blue, I wish it could somehow just be based on play style than a necessity for some weapons/one stone is stronger for certain weapons.
Noel Vermillion wrote on 2014-04-18 14:13

Making S upgrades increase Damage by a percentage would definitely help. I would definitely love a percentage damage boost that always applies.
[S]Plus I would prefer blue upgraded weapons to go with my blue character.[/S]
Bunny wrote on 2014-04-18 17:36

[FONT="Arial"]Balance in a mmo? Good joke.[/FONT]

Quote from Friggerton;1215712:

Another way to balance them would be to make blue upgrades much more common, and therefore much cheaper (which could justify their current power imbalances)

[FONT="Arial"]Not sure about other servers, but on Alexina, blue upgrades are half the price of red upgrades and are very common.[/FONT]
Chihaya wrote on 2014-04-18 18:27

Quote from Tyskiyomy;1215751:
Well if you get what I am trying to say here, in attempt to nerf things that make us powerful I do not believe a free to play aspect is a good start...

However I do believe it is unbalanced in terms of whether a weapon 'should have' red or blue, I wish it could somehow just be based on play style than a necessity for some weapons/one stone is stronger for certain weapons.

The thing is, buffing something will create an endless cycle of
1) Something too weak compared to something else
2) Players Complain about it
3) Nexon Buffs it
4) Something else is weak compared to that

Remember how archery was lolOP back in the days? Nowadays Alchemy and Magic can easily allow you to do well in high-level missions and dungeons. I blame that very cycle for making the once-challenging Ciar Advanced to be a cakewalk, and I'm sure everyone knows by now: this is the pattern that's present in every MMO around.

But I do agree with your point that the upgrades should be based on playstyle... Although I'd like to hear your thoughts on the more specifics

Quote from Bunny;1215771:

[FONT="Arial"]Not sure about other servers, but on Alexina, blue upgrades are half the price of red upgrades and are very common.[/FONT]

Yep. Similar on Tarlach, Blues are hardly wanted and goes for 40k at max, while I still buy Reds for 70... I'm sure there will be players buying reds for a higher price than me.

Personally, I think special upgrading is a pretty good gold sink in general, considering how getting to r5 can take players many tries. In this sense, I would really like to see the special upgrades remaining constant (or nerfed slightly), except with red stones MUCH more readily available: this would definitely fix the horrible market.
ironwoman wrote on 2014-04-18 19:02

It's fine as it is.

R-upgrades were meant to do high damage based on your character damage. And it's doing a pretty good job with it right now.
That being said, even for magic weapons, comparing s6 weapon to a r6 weapon of other class isn't a good comparison, because r6 weapons are designed to out damage, meaning it's doing what it's supposed to be doing.

If anything needs to be rebalanced, it's the egos. Even an r5 weapon can surpass egos in the current meta.
Zekkii wrote on 2014-04-18 19:26

Quote from Chihaya;1215780:
The thing is, buffing something will create an endless cycle of
1) Something too weak compared to something else
2) Players Complain about it
3) Nexon Buffs it
4) Something else is weak compared to that

That's only really true if you overbuff skills, or in this case items. I can't say it hasn't happened over and over again though. It's funny that I can only ever remember TWO mob buffs though.