Paper zombie... [MERGE]
With the developers saying they want to incentivize people to gear up zombie and also keep her ability with endless horde, I don’t see how that could be done with Assaj’s and Talzin’s Zeta as they st...
Forum Discussion
Since we all know a change is coming to Nightsister Zombie.
I don’t usually start discussions like this, but I haven’t seen this before, and it just came to me today. I thought it was a good enough idea I would throw it out into the wild and see what kind of feedback it garnered in regards to overall utility, design balance, and the good old fashioned Law of Unintended Consequences for interactions I might have missed. (And hopefully get the attention of some designer types if it is worthy!)
Now, I am not a coding guy, so I don’t know what kind of challenge it presents that way, but the idea presents a new mechanic in character skill leveling - though not wildly out of line with existing in-game mechanics as some skills are locked until a certain gear level is achieved, and this idea actually mirrors the mechanic on ships where certain skill upgrades are gated behind the crew member gear level. Anyways...
New Nightsister Zombie Unique ability, “Thinning The Horde” (pardon the pun, sometimes I just can’t help myself...)
Lvl 1 - (unlocked at Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 1) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain -20% Offense (stacking)
Lvl 2 - (Requires Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 6) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain -17% Offense (stacking)
Lvl 3 - (Requires Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 7) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain -14% Offense (stacking)
Lvl 4 - (Requires Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 8) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain -11% Offense (stacking)
Lvl 5 - (Requires Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 9) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain -8% Offense (stacking)
Lvl 6 - (Requires Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 10) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain -5% Offense (stacking)
Lvl 7 - (Requires Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 11) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain -2% Offense (stacking)
Lvl 8 (Requires Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 12 - which, as always, also requires 7 stars) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain +2% Offense (stacking) (Omega ability. This could be increased to +5% Offense (stacking) as a Zeta ability instead)
Design notes:
I wanted to respect the game designers stated intentions of reducing the utility of Nightsister Zombie at low gear levels without too much detrimental impact on player investments in other Nightsister abilities - both of Assajj Ventress’ and Old Daka’s Zeta abilities in particular. (As they both retain the health gain from Character defeats, and Assajj continues to gain the Critical Chance increase even at low levels of this ability).
The initial very high negative percentage to Offense is there to offset Assajj’s Rampage Zeta out of the gate and encourage the player base to gear the character up quickly and avoid having her defeated a multitude of times, but still allowing her the endless revives. But as I also wanted to respect the Zeta investment in Rampage, I have it beginning to see a net return with Nightsister Zombie at Gear Level 7 (albeit only a 1% gain at that point, while all other allies are still heavily negative). Which, from my experience, most players could achieve with only a day or two of dedicated ability material farming (although if they chose to implement a version of this, hopefully we would get some notice to start gearing Zombie in advance).
The loss of Offense continues to quickly drop as Nightsister Zombie is Geared up, and the Offense gain for Rampage likewise continues to increase quickly to near it’s pre-adjusted levels until it ultimately culminates in a positive gain for all allies for taking out the much more robust Nightsister Zombie with a max level Ability. This should help offset the decreased number of times a tougher high Gear Level Zombie would be defeated and hopefully leave the Nightsister faction as a whole at similar levels of utility that they are now in regards to PVE/raid damage output, and should actually slightly improve the faction in a PVP environment. All this while requiring us as players to invest additional resources into another character - which while we may not enjoy it overmuch, is also ultimately a goal the game designers also have to meet to appease the ‘bean counters’.
Final thoughts:
I am sure the percentages could be adjusted for balance with playtesting if required, I tried a couple different scales on paper before settling on this batch. While I think I have avoided any gamebreaking interactions, I would greatly appreciate any thoughts or feedback on possible issues I may have missed, and if you think that this is a workable solution please feel free to comment and keep this thread visible where it might get some attention from the designers.
Thanks for reading!
I don’t usually start discussions like this, but I haven’t seen this before, and it just came to me today. I thought it was a good enough idea I would throw it out into the wild and see what kind of feedback it garnered in regards to overall utility, design balance, and the good old fashioned Law of Unintended Consequences for interactions I might have missed. (And hopefully get the attention of some designer types if it is worthy!)
Now, I am not a coding guy, so I don’t know what kind of challenge it presents that way, but the idea presents a new mechanic in character skill leveling - though not wildly out of line with existing in-game mechanics as some skills are locked until a certain gear level is achieved, and this idea actually mirrors the mechanic on ships where certain skill upgrades are gated behind the crew member gear level. Anyways...
New Nightsister Zombie Unique ability, “Thinning The Horde” (pardon the pun, sometimes I just can’t help myself...)
Lvl 1 - (unlocked at Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 1) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain -20% Offense (stacking)
Lvl 2 - (Requires Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 6) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain -17% Offense (stacking)
Lvl 3 - (Requires Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 7) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain -14% Offense (stacking)
Lvl 4 - (Requires Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 8) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain -11% Offense (stacking)
Lvl 5 - (Requires Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 9) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain -8% Offense (stacking)
Lvl 6 - (Requires Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 10) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain -5% Offense (stacking)
Lvl 7 - (Requires Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 11) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain -2% Offense (stacking)
Lvl 8 (Requires Nightsister Zombie Gear Level 12 - which, as always, also requires 7 stars) Each time Nightsister Zombie is defeated, all allies gain +2% Offense (stacking) (Omega ability. This could be increased to +5% Offense (stacking) as a Zeta ability instead)
Design notes:
I wanted to respect the game designers stated intentions of reducing the utility of Nightsister Zombie at low gear levels without too much detrimental impact on player investments in other Nightsister abilities - both of Assajj Ventress’ and Old Daka’s Zeta abilities in particular. (As they both retain the health gain from Character defeats, and Assajj continues to gain the Critical Chance increase even at low levels of this ability).
The initial very high negative percentage to Offense is there to offset Assajj’s Rampage Zeta out of the gate and encourage the player base to gear the character up quickly and avoid having her defeated a multitude of times, but still allowing her the endless revives. But as I also wanted to respect the Zeta investment in Rampage, I have it beginning to see a net return with Nightsister Zombie at Gear Level 7 (albeit only a 1% gain at that point, while all other allies are still heavily negative). Which, from my experience, most players could achieve with only a day or two of dedicated ability material farming (although if they chose to implement a version of this, hopefully we would get some notice to start gearing Zombie in advance).
The loss of Offense continues to quickly drop as Nightsister Zombie is Geared up, and the Offense gain for Rampage likewise continues to increase quickly to near it’s pre-adjusted levels until it ultimately culminates in a positive gain for all allies for taking out the much more robust Nightsister Zombie with a max level Ability. This should help offset the decreased number of times a tougher high Gear Level Zombie would be defeated and hopefully leave the Nightsister faction as a whole at similar levels of utility that they are now in regards to PVE/raid damage output, and should actually slightly improve the faction in a PVP environment. All this while requiring us as players to invest additional resources into another character - which while we may not enjoy it overmuch, is also ultimately a goal the game designers also have to meet to appease the ‘bean counters’.
Final thoughts:
I am sure the percentages could be adjusted for balance with playtesting if required, I tried a couple different scales on paper before settling on this batch. While I think I have avoided any gamebreaking interactions, I would greatly appreciate any thoughts or feedback on possible issues I may have missed, and if you think that this is a workable solution please feel free to comment and keep this thread visible where it might get some attention from the designers.
Thanks for reading!
