The Only Good Way to Introduce Relic Delta
Gear took us to a certain power level, then relics took over.
Levelling does some things for us, promoting does other work.
I hate the RD idea, but here's a variant that I would not hate:
Implement two new improvement paths: Force Defense and Force Attack (I do not love these names, but we'll use them for now)
Just as relics are not available to toons under g13, FD/FA are not available to toons under r9. There are 4 levels of each, and you gain modifiers based on the Attacker's FA - Defender's FD. Since toons below r9 cannot access FA/FD, their relevant stat will always be 0.
FD/FA levels are acquired using a totally new resource. If CG wants Relic Delta to be ubiquitous, they make the resource freely available, no bottleneck. This would closely simulate their proposal for Relic Delta, but would only benefit toons that are r9.
r9 PvE enemies can be given FD/FA levels as necessary for balancing a particular challenge, but they can also be left off so as to face an "ordinary" r9 challenge.
This causes r9 to matter more, and to be a more attractive target for spending. Toons like C-3PO which traditionally do not benefit from high relics are suddenly at risk from r9s with AoE attacks and FA. It's also possible to make certain teams resistant to certain counters, but only if you take that team to r9.
The arms race that CG wishes to instigate is preserved while battles between toons below r9 are untouched. Meanwhile, the player still matters, because the change rolls out - however quickly or slowly - first on toons that the PLAYER chooses.
Again, I'm still against this change, but there are easy ways to reward the ppl who chase high relics without killing the value of players' choices, which is what the current proposal for RD does. FA/FD is simply one way forward that serves as a proof-of-concept that whatever CG is trying to "fix" or "accomplish," it is possible to do while respecting the players and the game. This one uses the actual Relic Delta framework, but shifts it to FA/FD-Delta instead. But other paths might not use the RD framework at all and still manage to rebalance the costs spent acquiring relics with the rewards manifested after achieving them.
If they choose to implement the RD system as proposed when it has been proven that respectful choices exist, then we can feel certain that CG is disrespecting us not because it must, but because it wants to.
