A constructive response to the Design Fireside Chat

Here's my response to the Design Fireside Chat. Yes, it's a book.

TL;DR: Relic Delta has many of the same problems as other options, but it comes with enormous downsides. It's very much possible to scalably increase the value of higher relic investments without massively devaluing lower ones.

First, I want to say thank your for that Design Fireside Chat post. It was refreshing to see you explain your thinking and reasons openly. It was thoughtful and mostly well-reasoned. But I see things differently in some places, particularly the objections to why we can't adjust relic level increases either across the board or going forward. Those are scalable options that achieve your goals without devaluing lower ones into the ground. Generally speaking in game design, buffs > nerfs. 

My responses are in red. I've include only those sections/paragraphs that I had direct responses to.

"Why Relic Delta?"

Additionally, both Droid Brains and higher level Signal Data will be added as outputs from the Scavenger, giving players an alternate means of acquiring those materials. This won't really help. I'm a mid-level player (6.3m gp), and having Zinbiddles, Impulse Detectors, and Gyrda Keypads available from the Scavenger is already next to useless for me because the exchange is so bad. Yes, I could use it to push a single character to r7–9, but that's at the opportunity cost of getting many characters to r0. 

The Problem: Scalability

The core problem is that Relics don't have a scalable system component promoting and rewarding investment. True, but that's how you designed it. In theory, it could be more scalable if you design it that way.

There are two operational reasons to invest - the stats given on each individual level and content entry requirements - but at some point the stats have diminishing returns, and requirements can’t update as players’ rosters evolve. Players invest in unlock/entry requirements for content they want to engage, but the higher the relic level, the scarcer its materials and the less likely players are to invest those resources.

We've heard from the community that players don't think R9 is worth investing outside of requirements, GLs, and the occasional tank. R9 still loses to R5 just like R8 does. R9 doesn't make battles in early phases of TB meaningfully faster. R9 doesn't make Assault Battle challenge tiers or Proving Grounds or other events much easier. It comes up short in both PvE and PvP content, both solo and group content. Challenging PvE content is on you guys to make. As for PvP, relics already confer a significant stats advantage. At rough relic parity, many teams struggle against a strong defensive team. Picking a well-suited counter can occasionally let you punch up. But if you have the relic advantage, you have much more leeway and can brute force a win. R9 isn't supposed to guarantee you a win every time. But it means your opponents needs to work much harder to budget the right counter teams, and you can get by with less-optimal counters.

If players don't think R9 is worth investment, that means that you didn't hit the right spot of cost vs. benefit. And the costs of R9 are huge, and frankly too steep—which is on you. I'm not opposed to buffing R9 (and R10, etc.), but we can do that in a way that doesn't massively devalue investments players have made below R9.  

You could say "just make the stats on R9 bigger", and we'll address that possible approach in just a bit, but the short response to that is a series of questions: What does that mean for R10? What does the impact on R10 mean for R11? Higher relic levels in the future? How will this be sustainable for multiple future levels of progression? How does an increase in stats on R9 help players below R9? We have to look at the long-term future of Relics, not just the levels that players currently own. It means that each successive level could get stronger, making them increasingly harder to beat with lower levels, which I think is your aim with Relic Delta. But this way, we're not nerfing lower relics into the ground at the same time. 

In the end, the problem is far bigger than "protect higher relic investment", which is as much as we revealed to the testers initially. Yes, that is part of the problem, but it's not the whole problem. We need to facilitate all players having a systemic and scalable game-wide reason to pursue upward progression.

The Options: Possible Solutions

We've seen some suggestions from the community on other ways to solve this core problem (albeit without knowing what the problem was). Now that the problem is revealed, let's take a look at why these other options weren't chosen.

Do nothing

Example: The game stays at R9.

Result: Players eventually have enough resources to take the entire roster to R9. There is no new level of progression, no new challenging content that players can strive to overcome. As players don't have upward progression to pursue (in a primarily vertical progression game), there is no longer a reason to engage with the core gameplay loop of Play > Get Rewards > Invest > Get Stronger > Play. Rewards don't matter and there is nowhere to invest. The core of the game ceases to function and the player experience is ruined. I see the problem, but I also don't see how Relic Delta addresses this at all. If anything, by creating an arms race to make players rush up relic levels, you're only hastening this problem. The solution is making new challenging content that the very top players can strive to overcome, without crushing and devaluing the investments of the vast majority of players. 

Change relic stats on existing relic levels

Example: R9 is updated to add an additional 50 Mastery and 100 Speed.

Result: The value that players receive from their prior investment and upcoming investment goals changes. Relic Delta making high-relics suddenly hit like gods and low-relics hardly able to make a scratch is a change in value, yes. Some characters probably come out "winners", but many would certainly be "losers". Different characters are impacted to differing degrees, which results in a fractured solution rather than a solidified one. Yes, that's always how progression has worked. Do you not think that Relic Delta will impact some characters more than others? Punching up, % health effects are going to be hugely more useful than direct damage dealers—instant defeats even more so. Punching down, damage dealers are going to be insane and sometimes one-shot whole teams (QGJ-bomb with Anakin doing +200%?). Many R9s will solo entire lower teams. The meta still shifts, potentially drastically, especially if Mastery constituent stats are touched. You don't think the meta will shift drastically after -50%/+200% damage changes? I'd wager Relic Delta will shift the meta far, far more than slightly adjusted masteries. Relic levels beyond R9 aren't directly supported, and this doesn't address the core problem of scalability. It does. You could change relic stat and/or mastery increases to scale however you like instead of the relatively flat increases we see now. Whatever scaling you choose could continue into R10 and beyond. 

Introduce R10

Example: Add R10 by itself.

Result: R10 exists with no new content to support it. With R9 being difficult to acquire, many wouldn't have any R10 characters. The top end would invest as much as necessary for any new requirements and also updating GL teams, and then R10 would be in the exact same state as R9. It plays into and exacerbates the existing problem rather than solving it. Make new content? Players have been asking for years for new content. And PvP is the ever-scaling push toward upgrading. Players will always want an edge in stats—you just need to find the sweet spot of cost vs. benefit to make it seem worth the investment. Right now, the costs of going up relic levels scales exponentially, but the benefits don't. As mentioned above, tweaking either of those isn't impossible. 

The Chosen Solution: Relic Delta

A level delta system is used so broadly because it is incredibly scalable. While players are leveling and working toward max progression, the delta "sticks with them" and applies equally to their experience regardless of where they're at in the progression curve. If progression levels are increased, the system accounts for that by automatically applying equally as players work toward the new cap, without requiring bandwidth from developers to balance and maintain bespoke bonuses. There's nothing wrong with easy. But in this case, the easy path carries so many negative side effects that it's coming across as lazy. I could be wrong, but it doesn't seem prohibitively difficult to put the relic level stat/mastery increases in a spreadsheet, decide on some linear or exponential % increase per level, and then expand that out to R levels in the future. What am I missing? 

For all players at all relic levels:

• It speeds up and/or simplifies older content. Or if you're low- to mid-level it makes older content much slower and more frustrating. Lower relics will get crushed. In ABs and Conquest, you can sometimes find the right strategy to punch-up. That feels good and rewards a combination of both gear and strategy. Now, the gear check will be far more decisive than strategy. 
• It protects newer content and investments made to engage with that content. It relic-gates it and devalues any lower investments.
• It supports a distinction in power level in PvP. It will incentivize tall, skinny rosters, which the game has tried to move away from. In GAC, a player with a handful of r9s is going to stomp all over a player with any number of r0–r5s. This will result in bad matchmaking, just a different kind. 
• It rewards those who have "made the climb". It punishes and discourages players who haven't yet.  
• It promises that “your investment of time and resources will be rewarded.” It hands them almost automatic wins and strips out the strategy and fun. 

We chose for Relic Delta to only apply to damage because we wanted the stats on the relic levels themselves to still matter. None of the other stats matter if you're already dead. Individual relic levels should still be able to express varied stats based on what the meta needs at the time that relic level is introduced.

We’ve heard the concern around Relic Delta eliminating strategy (mods, counters, theorycrafting), but we aren’t seeing a complete elimination of strategy during either internal testing or the current playtest. It doesn't have to be "a complete elimination" to severely harm the game. The game walks a careful balance between gear vs. strategy. Relic Delta will tip that balance overwhelmingly to gear and make strategy much less impactful. We fully intend for strategy to continue to be a central aspect of both PvP and PvE content. Not with those numbers you've released. Yes, Relic Delta eliminates some cases (e.g. G12 Malicos beating R8 Rey), but it also introduces some strategy around which characters to invest in and by how much based on your usage of them and their place in the larger meta. It creates cases of r9 Malicos destroying R5 GL teams. (Up above, you said that a drawback of changing relic stat levels would be that some characters are "winners" and some "losers." It's the same with Relic Delta.) 

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Look, we can achieve all of your goals without destroying the value of lower relics. I'll just give you my preferred solution: Adjust the scaling of stat and/or mastery increases per relic level. 

Option 1: Recalibrate the increases for all relic levels. (Credit to SharnJilraedan for the basic idea and some numbers.)

Right now, we have these mastery increases: 5/5/5/5/5/10/10/15/10. Which is weird. Of course R9 doesn't seem like it's worth it. We get a total of 5/10/15/20/25/35/45/60/70.

This could be something like 5/5/10/10/15/15/20/20/25, which bumps it up to 5/10/20/30/45/60/80/100/125.

Or maybe something like 5/5/6/6/8/10/13/17/22, which gives us 5/10/16/22/30/40/53/70/92. 

(Or pick what ever kind of scaling works best; I'm not great at math.)

• Everyone's investments' values are going up—so everybody's happy.
• The high investments become worth more relative to the lower ones, which I think is what you want.
• We're not nerfing low relics into the ground. It's a lot more moderate than -50%/+200%.
• This is scalable into R10 and beyond. Pick whatever linear or exponential function meets your need. Or just wing it but make sure the newer relic levels are bigger jumps (not smaller, like current R8 to R9). 

Option 2: Make R10 and beyond big jumps in mastery and/or stats

Leave current relic levels alone but make sure that R9 to R10 is a significant jump (maybe +20 mastery and/or a similar amount in stats). Do similarly for R11, etc. 

• We get to leave current investments and the current meta as they are.
• R9 becomes far more appealing as a gate to R10 and beyond. 
• We haven't nerfed low relics into the ground, but they will increasingly have a harder time against R10 and beyond. 
• This is scalable. Just ensure that successive R levels have big enough increases to seem worth it. 

Devs, other forum members, please let me know what I'm getting wrong here. What am I not seeing? What are the reasons these options wouldn't work?