Adjustment to Photon Blast Gauge Accumulation and Activation

[woeful chasm]

Topic
It would be nice to adjust the photon blast gauge to be able to be activated at a lower % than the maximum (for example, at 60% or 80%) while allowing further gauge accumulation past the activation threshold to slightly increase the potency of the photon blast when activated. In addition, a lower gauge activation (like within 5% of the minimum) could be balanced by increasing the cooldown.

Reason
Currently, Orgsys is the most impactful armor preset skill by a large margin as it's mandatory in order to have PB available during critical time periods in some quests. For example, in the quest 星蝕の狂流 at release, most players needed to have Orgsys3x5 in fast teams in order to be able to use the second PB in the first break. The current implementation of the PB gauge means that it's all or nothing, if the gauge is charged before a break occurs than any additional gauge generation is meaningless, while if it's uncharged than all of the existing gauge also has much less value as the PB won't be able to benefit from break and downed enemy damage boosts.

Why
This change would allow for more leniency in using other preset skills as the majority of the PB damage will still be accessible in these situations while still preserving Orgsys' identity as a PB-oriented fixa by potentially allowing for a higher-damage PB than if another fixa were selected. In addition, the techter subclass would become a more competitive damage option as it would be able to directly affect damage output rather than just a tool to adjust the timing of a photon blast to line up with a break or down.

Additional Reasons
This change would also open up design space for potentials or ex augments that interact with the new gauge mechanics. For example, a potential that allows pb to be activated twice consecutively at full charge, an ex that decreases gauge generation but increases overcharge potency, or an ex that reverts the gauge behavior in exchange for increased maximum PB potency.

This feedback was partially inspired by this message in a different post: #1415911245852442664 message
Thank you very much for the inspiration!

[glacial marten]

So basically

Build up PAs from Base

[tall wing]

So I like this idea conceptually but I feel like this unfortunately would make the Orgsys situation even more excessive

Depending on how much stronger an overcharged PB is (assuming if you can use it from 60% then you’d be able to overcharge to 140%, or 80% : 120%), overcharging PBs would probably just become the new norm everyone goes for thus somewhat putting us back at square 1 but now people require to charge up to the new max all the time

Nice in concept but tricky in execution I think

If there’s no overcharge / no damage increase charging past 100% then that would keep things more balanced I’d say but could still cause things to be messy since people would be building PBs even quicker
Only thing then ig would be the PB cooldown limiting how far you can push things which technically would help the suggestion as Orgsys is considered excessive when people end up overcharging / being stuck because of the cooldown

[woeful chasm]

it's hard to discuss numbers since things like that would be up to the balancing team if this were implemented but the difference between using a pb on break compared to off-break is much much more impactful than if a pb were to have 20% increased damage, of course for maximum damage then orgsys will still be important but the tradeoff for players who would like to use performa or enthusia or guard (or natura??) wouldn't be as grievous since they're still able to deal a significant amount of the total pb damage rather than just simply not being able to activate it at all like in the case of how the pb gauge works right now

[glacial marten]

My problem with the other armor fixas as well is how they're a bit insignificant, even with the number amps imo

PP management nowadays isn't a problem with how easy it is

And damage reduction stacks diminishingly so they're kinda redundant

[woeful chasm]

oh i couldn't specify it in the original feedback post because of the character limit and i hoped that it would be clear in implication but i had the idea in mind that the activation threshold would be something like 60% (or 80%, or whatever arbitrary number ends up being the best fit) of what the current 100% charge would be, it would be able to be continually charged up to the same 100% charge capacity as it is now with each specific % of charge increasing the damage by a certain amount and stopping when reaching the maximum overcharge (rather than stacking infinitely)

[tall wing]

Yea that’s where my worry would kinda be
If there’s any level of overcharge damage increase then the new overcharge could just become the norm (think of it like Gu now going for 150 chain instead of 100 chain because the boost from 150 is strong enough to outweigh using CTF at 100)

[woeful chasm]

also to tie in to the addition reason section, the current way that the pb gauge works doesn't leave a lot of room for it to be manipulated in an interesting way, most effects have just been increasing pb gauge accumulation or reducing the cooldown and it's a bit of a missed opportunity in my opinion

[tall wing]

Oh that I fully agree
They could definitely add EXs or other things (ig there might be something with rings / EX styles in relation to PBs) to make everything PB related more interesting

[woeful chasm]

150 chain was fine before the august update since it was a way to mitigate the damage loss of overbuilding while waiting for a good opening since additional chain from 100-150 used to have a lower potency increase compared chains between 0-100 but the august update reversed it to having the opposite relationship with 100-150 being a damage gain per individual chain which means that there's not really a reason to finish at 100 chain besides the first time in a fight to activate the full-strength chain boost, the pb overcharge would be more similar to the old implementation of 150 chain since the potency bonus from overcharging should be small enough to where it's more like a 'bonus' for going over or 'salvaging' excess gauge accumulation rather than being strong enough to the point where the minimum gauge activation is just formality or a contingency

[tall wing]

That’s exactly what I was looking for yea

[woeful chasm]

unfortunately i have been a gunner player before your condolences are greatly appreciated ✨

[tall wing]

It’s just all about the numbers

If they can get the numbers right then this could dampen Orgsys and help give more importance to other fixas but if it ends up like Gu’s situation then it’ll just make Orgsys even more important

As said the saving grace is PBs CD with this since like you mentioned in Vael

[woeful chasm]

i want to specify that the potency increase from overcharging should be small in the original feedback since it seems that only the original post is conveyed to the development team but the character limit is quite harsh... i did it ✨

[tall wing]

With Orgsys (if there’s no BO), I can usually get 1 PB off before break and have another ready for break because of how fast I can charge it
Now letting orgsys players use their PB at 60 ~ 80% could even further widen that divide but the cooldown is the saving grace that would stop that from happening

Yea the char limit is rough LOL

But yea either way
The numbers on something like this needs to be so carefully tuned just because of how high PB numbers are anyway at this point I wouldn’t even trust sega with that but if they could get it right and find the perfect middleground, this could / would be great

[woeful chasm]

on vael release that situation was pretty common for a lot of teams but for faster teams (or if there was a good bo and a hunter) it was somewhat common for it to be impossible to build 2 pbs before the first break unless you had 3x5 orgsys and a legendios user in the team (or you could play techter) so most people had to just sit on their first pb until the break which caused a huge discrepancy in damage in those situations, i think if an earlier pb activation was possible then more people would be able to use 2 pbs before the first break and the damage difference between people who can use 2 pbs and the people who have to hold onto their first pb would also be slightly narrowed due to the single-pb users having the small overcharge bonus instead of just a completely normal pb

[tall wing]

Oh yea getting double PB and such was extremely rough but as long as there’s no Bo it was possible (I was running 3x5 orgsys + Te sub and had to PB as soon as I got my first one for the cooldown to line up with the first break)

[tall wing]

And yea the problem there still is the fact that even in that scenario
The person with 2 PBs could now use their first at 60% (or 80%) and then fully overcharge their second 1 by that logic since they’d have started building earlier (if they have orgsys / any sort of faster building) so the divide could end up the same if not worse that’s why it’s so tricky / why PB CD is the gamechanger for this I think

[woeful chasm]

that's true, maybe something like having the minimum activations be somewhat lower potency than a standard activation (100% gauge with the current situations) and mainly be a tool for cycling and setting up a future pb timing in situations like that instead of immediately using it for more damage would be better but it really is just speculation

[fleet wagon]

Hot take but orgsys and increza were a mistake, all 3 unit fixas were nice qol but never impacted actual damage directly, more pp could mean more PAs and was impactful on say fighter cuz of BhS, but it was a niche case and never mandatory
Orgsys and increza increase damage directly by boosting your pb gen by a lot, they will always be way better than other fixas because of that, no matter how much you buff other fixas

[woeful chasm]

when i was originally thinking about the concept i was wondering if something like 'overcharging builds up gauge faster/slower than an activation charge' would be good but i ended up thinking it would make the feedback quite bloated and i didn't know a good way to make it make sense (on top of the character limit being an issue)

[fleet wagon]

I do like the idea of more freedom in pb usage, but it will be hard to balance

[tall wing]

Yea…

And knowing sega is my only other issue LOL

I’d argue instead of a damage tradeoff- if it had a CD tradeoff I think that could make a bigger difference in balancing orgsys

Like you can use your PB at 60 ~ 80% but at the expense of a higher slightly cooldown

That way it kinda allows people to charge at a rate that matches their cooldown

[fleet wagon]

I think to make it work, they would have to create completely new moves for other thresholds, but that’s one veryyyyyy big ask

[tall wing]

That would be one hell of an ask yea LOL would be lovely getting new moves but- massive ask

[woeful chasm]

i want to have good faith that it'll be fine since i have been mostly happy with the recent gameplay system changes (i hope this statement will not become aged very very quickly when ex styles and skill rings release) and the people who 'doompost' feedback by saying that it's unrealistic or that sega will absolutely screw it up or even that sega will go out of their way to make something that's only indirectly addressing the feedback now that it was brought up all leave a bad taste in my mouth, i think it's just nice to propose things that i think would be nice to have in the game and then talk to other people about it

[fleet wagon]

I don’t think it’s unrealistic at all, considering mars do let you use it before reaching 100%

[woeful chasm]

can i steal this and add it to the original feedback post 🥺

[tall wing]

Nono I agree there as much as doomposting and etc
We’re better off getting the good ideas as opposed to holding them back in fear of what sega would do
Hence the upvote

[woeful chasm]

i cannot really credit you because of the character limit but i do really like that idea!!

[tall wing]

Also ofcourse! I only comment in hopes to help feedback become better / more balanced / work for everyone

Idk how they’d do it but if they can find the value that makes people build rate match the PB CD- I think that’d be the perfect way to reduce orgsys importance while still having it be useful and not give it the chance to overwhelm everything else

That would be the perfect scenario

Since overcapping / overcharging is orgsys’ main weakness (hence why building it + endure PB while also playing Te for example is usually deemed as too excessive)
So if everyone could more comfortably have PB charged and ready on CD, that’d make orgsys an optimisation tool rather than a mandatory one

[woeful chasm]

the original post has been edited with the cooldown increase at low charge activation and also the explanation for the importance of orgsys in mvael has been streamlined a little bit ✨ (星蝕の狂流 is the name of the mvael mts in japanese i don't know what the name of it is in english and i'm sure it's much longer than 5 characters)

[tall wing]

It’s like “And the stars fell” or something but still still
-# Lemme just unvote and upvote again then haha or how do I double upvote

As Ondine said- Orgsys and Increza are kinda mistakes since they directly cause damage changes rather than being utility so that’ll always be difficult to fix or balance but hopefully with something like this- it can even the playing field in some way

[glacial marten]

My take overall is instead of percentage usage

If they'll do it, it'll be stock based instead

Build art PAs and compound techs for example

As its technically a "Super move"

[woeful chasm]

i didn't really like the stocks idea because it takes away a little bit from the fanciness of pb, in my mind it's meant to be a flashy attack that's meant to be used at the right moment or at the worst a really important cooldown that has to be managed carefully

aside from that, the main reason why i thought overcharge is better than a stock system is because with stocks it becomes a situation where super high pb generation builds can just use 2 pbs on a single break (like using baran+fomel) which would widen the gap between low-generation and high-generation a ridiculous amount which is the opposite of what the feedback is meant to address, on the other hand if pb still has a long cooldown and a stock system then the stock system seems to become somewhat redundant since it would still be ideal to build it as fast as possible and being able to overflow to another pb would have an outsized benefit for players who can already generate their pb fast enough to be limited by the cooldown, in other words, it would make orgsys even more important by removing the downside of it overcapping and wasting charge while waiting for break and it has no effect in situations where pb needs to be used the moment it's available

ah i feel like i wasn't clear since it almost does seem like an overcharge and a stock system is sort of similar but with an overcharge system no matter how quickly you can build gauge or overcharge using pb will reset the progress towards the next pb to 0 while a stock system would give you a headstart based on how much overflowed gauge is generated, i think being able to overflow to the next attack rather than giving a small damage bonus for overcharging is way more problematic because it just removes the upper limit for pb generation instead of turning it into a bonus mechanic

[ripe scarab]

The build up art for sword just became the sword PB

[polar harness]

as someone who plays fighting games...
having 3 bars of super to spend, does not take away from the spectacle of landing that super... and when u can pop out 3 in a row then... BOI

[woeful chasm]

as somebody who also plays fighting games (not so much recently but i would like to consider myself competent), i think i would relate pb more to a conditional super that uses all of your resources (like astral in blazblue or ryougi's counter in mbac) rather than just standard meter burn supers or special moves that can often be used multiple times if you have full resources (distortion drives in bb, c-input specials in french bread games, arc drives in mbtl although i think those take 2 bars (out of the maximum 3) so you can't use them consecutively), the latter can be used quite often and i think i agree with you in those cases because saving up your resources to use multiple powerful moves in succession can be a good strategy but in my opinion pb is more like the former and they're more special because they're usually only used once in a match (if at all) since they're more situational and it's always exciting to see something like that exactly because it's rare, i think having to watch an astral animation every round would be really annoying and in a similar way giving pb more stocks to dump whenever the opportunity arises instead of having it be a single powerful activation is less appealing to me since it takes away from the 'weight' of using it (not to mention the gameplay ramifications of giving pb 2 stocks)

[polar harness]

but we r already gonna PB multiple times during a quest anyways so the point is kinda mute

unless we get the 3 stocks thing and if we use it while mars is also at 100% we do that kick that kills vael in the story

[woeful chasm]

that's true but i would say it's only in some quests and the feeling is a bit different to using multiple supers in a single round in a fighting game, for example in mts like mvael it's pretty rare to be able to use multiple pbs per phase unless your team is a little slower or you have a lot of orgsys or pb gen through ex and each phase is somewhat distinct to feel like you're not using the pb just because it's up but rather using it to contribute to something, in shorter quests unless you're playing techter (or if the team is slower or if the quest has blastigne) usually there's only one opportunity to use pb and usually there's a lot of wasted charge since there's not really any reason to use it anytime other than when the boss at the end of the quest gets downed to benefit from fi sub or sl addon, that's why i think adding an overcharge is better than stocks because stocks don't make much of a difference in the first situation (besides making the strong even stronger) and in the second situation being able to overcharge is generally a positive thing regardless of the level of the players' equipment

[polar harness]

but it loops back to what Fearless said

and being able to just throw it out at 60% still takes away that spectacle of it being a "rare" ocurrence

"eh might aswell pop it now cuz by the time i do get a break, it'll be fully charged or at least back at 60%"

essentially just shortening the charge time

• with each vael phase lasting 2~5min, u'll always be popping it 1~2 times already and the break typically happens right b4 or after the laser barrage and popping it early then going for a hydra termination on the break will still end up with around the same DPS(?)-ish and without any charge being wasted

[woeful chasm]

well in practice that is already the mindset with high investment, the vael example already discussed is the most prominent occurrence recently but my main problem is that high-investment players are able to play like this while low-investment (in terms of orgsys and pb gen ex) are only able to use it once before the first break and waste the rest of their pb charge, the 'feeling' of using pb is secondary to the large imbalance in damage between the two groups in that situation which is why i say that overcharge is a better way of remedying it compared to stocks because stocks would benefit the first group way more in almost every situation while not being very useful to the second group and also just makes pb more common overall while an overcharge mechanic would bring the performance of the second group closer to the first while somewhat keeping pb usage at the same level as it is now (usually having more pb is not as important as lining it up well, which overcharge addresses much better than a stock system in my opinion)

[polar harness]

how r they wasting it? through the course of the fight it'll rebuild again, they r only wasting it by holding on for too long

and they'll get another break to line up with their PB while the full dmg build wont

'sides, differences in DPS doesnt matter, what matters is that y'all get the W

u also mention the reason for the change was to make other armor fixas more viable, wouldnt it be better to tweak those to be more significant as oposed to trying to change a mechanic that has worked fine as is for years now?

[woeful chasm]

i don't really pay attention to scripting anymore because the timings aren't important now that it's super easy to clear with a large surplus of time but at release if your team was fast (8-12 minute clear time) unless you had a few situations applying (usually extremely high gear investment and legendios) there was only 1 opportunity to use pb in p1 which was the break, pb charges way faster than that but using it the moment it's available without those things mentioned means that the cooldown is too long to be able to use the 2nd pb in break so it's better to hold it (pb usually does more damage than hydra for most classes, of course you can just crit hydra but it's more risky), the 2nd pb is sometimes able to be used on cooldown (definitely with fast charge) but sometimes it also needed to be held for the p2 break, afterwards it can just be used on cooldown since the boss doesn't break anymore, those 2 times in p1 and p2 where slow-charging setups need to hold onto their pb to have it line up with break is what i mean by 'wasting' charge since fast-charge setups are able to use that time building towards their next pb instead of waiting with a fully charged pb and not contributing towards anything (it's a similar logic to holding onto max resources in a fighting game, getting hit or hitting the enemy can't give you resources past the max so that generation is effectively 'wasted' compared to if you had used that meter earlier and started building up again)

[woeful chasm]

it works fine but i think it could be better which is why i made the feedback ☺️

well of course it is more like 'i would prefer it to be this' rather than 'it will definitely be a change for the better' but i also do think that having an overcharge like the suggestion will be an improvement!

[polar harness]

just the cooldown on a PB is about 2:30 on a 8min quest u'll let at least 3 out, assuming ur build up is slow enough to not have a full charge once its off cooldown and if u r getting clears that quickly, then... what even is the point of trying to change the fundamentals of the game to go faster?

and i dont think i saw anyone pulling 8min clears on malignant vael outside of the urgent quest, which is even less of a reason to rush it

oh yeah, theres a handful already

[woeful chasm]

8min clears is more of a recent thing since 8 minutes with akro might not even be possible, i think i saw high-8 minutes or low 9 minutes at release with ranger-hunter-bouncer team comps but it's highly possible that there was someone with an early cres in those clears, it isn't really an important point so i'm willing to just say fast clears at release were 10-12 minutes, anyways my main argument is that the current pb system is fine but it's heavily skewed towards favoring players with super high level orgsys to the point of almost completely shutting out other armor fixas if the combined pb gauge generation isn't high enough to have it available at critical junctions which is the main thing i want to address, buffing the other armor fixas will make them more 'competitive' but it doesn't address that critical point which is why my suggestion is to change how pb works inherently to make it so low gauge generation is still viable while high gauge generation is more like a bonus instead of a necessity

[polar harness]

i think orgsys being the only viable fixa for DPS is a more critical point than PB overbuild but ok

and hey, i run Guard already and that one isnt part of the talk when it comes to dmg and 21% total dmg resistance is already pretty dumb, so i think im fine o -o

[woeful chasm]

you're definitely right that ogsys is the best fixa for dps but i think the core cause is because there are breakpoints where orgsys allows for more pbs than without or it makes it so a pb can line up with a certain down or break where it would still be charging otherwise, it's not like orgsys just increases damage on its own so i think lowering the activation threshold and adding an overcharge mechanic makes so it's not the only viable fixa since it's possible to use pb in those same downs or breaks while orgsys still retains its 'effective dps increase' by making it so the damage bonus from overcharging is higher when pb does end up getting used

i'm losing my mind a little bit i think i'm saying the same thing over and over without realizing it ✨

[polar harness]

no rly, since each PB is a good 200k DPS spike (or was around m vael's release), it ends up being straight up extra damage, there's very few places where there'd be much of a point for holding on to it for too long

i remember malignant solus being a butt to solo cuz without PB smashing the arms was... not an easy task, but everywhere else in the game, just letting it off whenever u knew the target wouldnt just move away or go invencible did the job

but eh, its late i should go

it's good ppl questioning ur proposal so u can better elaborate on it though, so the devs get a better view of ur reasoning behind it

g night

[woeful chasm]

i don't think the message threads are translated and sent to the devs but it is fun to talk about the idea anyways, thank you for giving your thoughts on the feedback!!

[glacial marten]

Dont worry, not the thread, but the starter post will

Few of my feedbacks have been applied ingame so I do know they're listening

Tho make sure the topic is very clear so its easy to TL on JP imo

[woeful chasm]

i would not be opposed to just translating it myself if i was allowed to but i have tried my best to make it as clear as possible anyways although i'm sure some things will just be mistranslated if machine translation is used regardless...

[glacial marten]

Make topic part being as short on text as possible and summarized

The "Why" part is where you put the long text at

[woeful chasm]

i don't know how to make the topic section any shorter while keeping it clear to the original intent i guess i will just have to hope for the best ✨

[serene relic]

on one hand yes please let me do more damage with my pb i'm already waiting on its cd most of the time on the classes i play the most so that would just be free damage
on the other hand, this doesn't fix the reliance on orgsys, possibly even makes it worse, and might actually catapult te sub from being good to mandatory

imagine your pb does up to 50% more damage on full overcharge. well that's an insane damage increase, especially on force and techter which naturally build full pb a good while before the cd is over.
ok so imagine it does 25% more damage, still big but more reasonable, but even then, how does that increase scale across the overcharge? the two reasonable options are linear and backloaded, linear being (taking the 25% value) something like 0.25 * overcharge%), backloaded being something like overcharge%^2*0.25

now then what about undercharge? you increase the cooldown for the next use, but how much? up to doubling it? up to 50% more? i'd say doubling is the reasonable option, assuming you use pb from 0% charge, would be doubling cooldown, assuming 50% damage bonus for maximum overcharge and that you're able to build 200% pb in twice its cd, that would result in 250% pb potency in 300% of the time which is... fine until you consider additional factors (i'm sure you know what those additional factors might be)
now then, how is that cooldown determined? reasonable options here are linear increase, or frontloaded increase. frontloaded in this case being something like... 🤔 cd = 1 + min(1, (1-charge%)/(ln(1-charge%)^2)) although that curve is not really great... but it doubles cd at 50% charge it doesn't start big enough but i can't math properly rn

but then comes the issue of throwing a pb immediately at the start of the quest to then have it fully overcharged for break or down or whatever... could still limit it to having 50% charge at least to throw pb in the example i used, but it all feels strange

i went to eat breakfast in the middle of typing this message that's why it took so long

[glacial marten]

I kinda want PBs to be similar to Nightreign's character ults honestly

[woeful chasm]

oh! about using pb without a full charge i think i specified in the original post that it would require at least a certain amount in order to be used with the arbitrary number being 60% or 80% and the increased cooldown would be a flat increase if it's used within a small margin above that, if it's not clear then it's really a problem that i have to fix somehow!!

about the damage increase from overcharging, i didn't really give it too much thought since it is mostly something for the balancing team to fine-tune, maybe they have better data and can determine what the best overcharge potency is but i had the idea that it would be something that is fairly small and more like a small additional prize for overbuilding (or a consolation prize for underbuilding and having to hold onto it to line up with a break) instead of something significant, orgsys and other pb gauge generation sources would still be useful for helping line up pb but since the base amount of pb generation needed isn't as high they wouldn't be as mandatory for the breakpoints

[serene relic]

oh yeah i forgot about that in your message since there was the cooldown thing already when i saw it

tbh as a force/techter/gunner player i do like the idea of being able to overcharge my pb for more damage since those classes build it pretty fast (force and techter excessively so)