Addressing Power-Creep & Redundancy of Mech Parts

[real jackal]

Weapon & gear balance comes up in this community often, but I think it's time to address the balance issues with Robot Parts (Torsos, Shoulders, and Chassis').

The crux of my argument is that "Rarity" should be more like "Specialization", not just an upgrade.
Some mech parts handle this well, while others are just an objective upgrade / downgrade.
Weapons also lean into Rarity = Specialization from what I can tell, so why not Mech Parts?

Throughout this I will talk about "Sister Parts". These are parts that share a weight, class, etc. I will go into more detail below, but as an example Ares and Varangian shoulders are Sister Parts because they share the same weapon slots, weight, and class.

Improving balance of Mech Parts is important for the long term health of the game for numerous reasons. If one Sister Part is clearly the better choice, then:

• It's a waste of Dev Time if parts never gets used. (As shown below 25% of the shoulders in the game are outclassed)

• Narrows the Meta, and limits build creativity.

• Creates feel-bad moments when a player who loves the design of X part effectively can't use it anymore because an objectively better part gets released.

• New players will feel like they have wasted their scrap and intel upgrading the "inferior" part they had to wait to unlock (looking at you Harpy -> Siren Legs).

• Effectively lowers the total pool of parts / build options in the game.

• Once in a battle, upgrade cost is not a balance factor, "it is harder to upgrade" should not be a factor in part balance. The longer the game goes on for, the less that will matter, as all high ranked players will just have the "optimal" parts.

Not sure what the team's design philosophy is, but hopefully it is the case that Mech parts are balanced around Sister Parts and the entire part ecosystem, and not just looking at the Stock Bot in a bubble.

Sister Parts

Here is the full list of Sister parts in the game at the time of writing, and their current balance state (looking at lvl 13 stats).

Shoulders

• Tyr = Typhon: A perfect example of Sister Part balance. Tyr focuses on armor, while Typhon focuses on shields.

• Phantom = Scorpion: An interesting balance approach, Scorpion is much sturdier, but also a much larger target.

• Ares <- Varangian: Ares is the clear winner, while wider (though a bit shorter on the side profile) it offers far more benefits. For a double set up Varangian gets 7,608 less shield, and takes 15.49 seconds to fully recharge from empty (Regen + CD Reduction) where Ares only takes 13.95. A sizable downside to only gain 1,650 armor over the Ares. Not the worst example of Sister Part balance though.
  IMO: Lean the Varangian more into the armor niche, give it 1,500 - 2,500 more armor, and bump the CD Reduction from 11% to 12%.

• Pursuer -> Loki: While not yet in the game, during the Playtest the Loki shoulder was clearly and egregiously a better Pursuer in every way, even with similar size profiles. Loki has (hopefully had) 1,540 more armor, 2,538 more shield, and even does a full shield recharge 0.21 seconds faster (2x shoulders). Better in every way, and are the main reason for starting this thread.

• Cyclops -> Fury -> Fenrir: Fenrir outshines Cyclops, and it's not even close. Cyclops has a whopping 14,300 less armor with a similar size profile, and 3,552 less shield (7,104 for a double set up). All Cyclops has going for it is that it takes 3.91 seconds less to fully recharge shields from empty (double set up). 21,404 less effective HP for Cyclops is absolutely not worth that at all. Fury is in a similar boat, not as good as Fenrir despite being larger. However, Fury is everything Cyclops wants to be.
  IMO: For these three, keep Fenrir as is (armor focused), and buff the other two by making Cyclops Shield focused, and Fury Regen focused.

• Raven <- Bulgasari: While a bit wider, Raven has the overall smaller profile by a bit. Despite this, Raven boasts 3,300 more armor, and 3,552 more shield. All Bulgisari gets is a 2.52 sec difference in regenerating shield from empty (2x shoulder). Not terrible, but I've only known top tier players to take Raven over Bulgasari in their builds.
  IMO: Just lean Bulgasari a bit more into the Regen Speed angle.

NOTE: So far all Defender shoulders are unique, and I'm happy to see that trend continue with Mesa.
This mainly has to do with Defenders having the widest weight range of 12, 13 & 14, where all other classes only use 2 weight brackets for their shoulders. Perhaps consider widening this bracket for the other classes in the future to help increase variety.

Alternatively, consider adding a "Refuel Speed Bonus" stat to shoulders as one more nob to turn, as it is the shoulders that the team seems to have the hardest time balancing.
I can see this being a small bonus ranging from 0% to 5%, with decimals (so a shoulder could have +2.2%, +4.9%, +3%, etc).

Chassis

Sister Chassis' are in the same class, with a 1 weight difference, or a 1-2 energy difference.

• Harpy -> Siren: Perhaps the most egregious of all the Sister Chassis, Siren is nearly a 100% upgrade. Siren has 4 more acceleration, 2 more fuel, 3,300 more pelvic armor, and 1 more Energy to work with! Harpy is 1 km/h faster (effectively the same), and gets a measly 858 more leg armor.
  IMO: Just flip Harpy and Siren's fuel around. (It is named after a bird, so having the ability to fly higher fits.

• Phantom -> Scorpion: The only thing the Phantom shines in is Acceleration. The Scorpion is effectively the same speed (1km / h difference), only 1 less fuel, has 3,300 more pelvic and leg armor, but has 1 more weight, a pretty important bonus.
  IMO: Lower the Scorpion acceleration by 2, to keep the Phantom in the acceleration niche.

• Pursuer = Phantom: A pretty good and fair pair here, acceleration and armor VS speed and fuel. Perhaps 1 extra fuel to the Pursuer, as it has 1 less energy budget, but pretty fair.

NOTE: Both Assault and Defender have a wide variety of Chassis, nothing comes close enough to be a "Sister Chassis".

(Sister Torsos are a whole other topic, but for the most part, are pretty balanced. Often best to address on a case by case.)

[obsidian lintel]

I do get that sister parts should be of equivalent spec or with specificities like said here at lvl 1 but given that rarity impact heavily the upgrading costs I don't tend to agree about have each part equivalent at lvl 12/13 as in terms of resources it just can not compare (and I speak about in game earn ressources in order not to get accused of pushing P2W mechanisms). I base that especially on the harpy/siren comparison as you could have (I say that from the top of my head) 2 lvl 12 harpy for the cost of a lvl 12 siren.
Then it is like in many game where as a new player you are confronted to a choice to upgrade easily available items or save your ressources for when you find better stuff.
That being said the difference should still be kept reasonable so players that chose the common way are not just straight out obliterated.

And by the way the rarity makes the varangian shoulders even worse as I think they are uncommon and get outclassed by common shoulders

[real jackal]

IMO, at best a Rare part should be better at certain specialized things over their Common sister part, not completely invalidate the part.

[quasi fern]

I dont know if torsos also count, but there are some that are just better than other torsos, like raven being infinitelly better than ares' torso, since it has more range and more damage per hit

[ornate sky]

I do agree they shouldn't slowly release parts that are better than current parts while not allowing us to atleast a un-level a part and get a good chunk of used resource and intel back when they do this.

While I understand the intention of trying to balance "sister parts", There will always be a better shoulder/leg/torso no matter how you try to balance them, unless you literally just match the stats and hitbox, one of them will be meta. An example of this is tyr/typhon and phantom/scorpion shoulders, even though they are statistically quite balanced, due to the hitbox there is a clear better option. Rearranging stats may end up with what you don't want which is suddenly you feel you have to start levelling an old level 1 part you've always ignored because its suddenly statistically more useful and the intel used on your entire build is now wasted.

All boils down to how much intel and salvage we are currently earning compared to how frequent new parts are released and things are buffed/nerfed realistically.

[sour galleon]

There should never have been a rarity system. It makes players assume higher rarity is better (perfectly valid assumption), which should not be the case. If rare items make common items obsolete, players will be fine with it because “it’s supposed to be like that”. No, that ruins build diversity. That kills the game. Rarity doesn’t belong in this kind of game.

[real jackal]

For better or worse I feel we are stuck with the rarity system. I'm gonna cross post this here from another conversation, as it gives more context to my position:

In my opinion, rare parts should be a bit better than Uncommon and Common, but not the obvious 100% upgrade.

As an example, Pursuer and Loki Shoulders (sister parts):
Loki is described as being a well armored Flanker, but in the playtest it has only slightly more armor than Pursuier, and then it is better in every other stat as well.

The way I feel Rare parts should be handled is, using Loki as an example, have it focus into a speciality.
So for Loki Shoulders they would be the very well armored 11-weight-1-light-slot-flanker-shoulder option, but not outshine its sister part (Pursuer shoulder) in every other as it did during the test (it also had better shield and regeneration).

As for the "Rarity Bonus" so to speak, let's say if Loki was Common it would have 58,000 armor, but since it's a Rare part it would have 60,000 armor (just example numbers).

If that makes any sense. What I mean is I feel rarity can give a small bonus when factoring balance, but not enough to completely make it THE obvious choice when looking at sister parts.

[real jackal]

Tyr / Typhon and Phantom/ Scorpion shoulders are not as cut and dry as other sister parts though. Each still has their uses / niche.

And that's how all sister parts should be, something that, at worst, people take one sister part 65% of the time over the other, not like how some others are (Cyclops shoulders will never be taken over Fenrir shoulders with the stats they have now for example).

[coarse cradle]

I appreciate all the time you spent on this. These are great points.

It looks like you are comparing fully upgraded parts. Some parts start out different at level 1, but when upgraded they lose their identity or are overtaken by others.

The biggest example are shoulder parts. Some parts have much better cooldown reduction. Since reduction never changes with upgrades the shorter cooldown shoulders quickly become overshadowed by the high shield modules as the quality that makes them good doesn't improve. Meanwhile the high shield modules extend the gap in shield between them and the fast recovery shoulders.

Another one is the Harpy/Siren Chassis. I use the Harpy legs over the Siren legs, because at level 1, the speed difference is 10km/h which is more significant. The Siren only overtakes the Harpy, when upgraded, because the harpy doesn't get anymore speed when upgraded for some reason. If they made Harpy gain speed as well, and Siren gains a bit more fuel, they would stay different enough like they are at level 1.

I also agree with your take on rarity. Rare parts should be more unique or more situational to build around, where they CAN be significantly better in certain builds. Not just more expensive to craft, more to upgrade, and all around better in almost every way compared to non-rare parts.

[real jackal]

That's a good point, upgrade paths need some smoothing out for sure.

In your Harpy-Siren chassis example having the Harpy be better than Siren at level 1 but the Siren being better at level 13 is a very odd design choice (If it was an intentional choice at all).

At the end of the day, the goal is to get all parts to level 13, so when it comes to balance discussions LVL 13 is what the devs need to be focused on when comparing stats.

[coarse cradle]

If I had to guess, I'd say it is probably because Siren is rare and Harpy is common. Which feeds into your other point.

Yeah I agree on the balance being about level 13. But I feel like it should somewhat be reflected at lvl 1 too.

[lilac gull]

So, Zukata and Jen have stated abt Rarities and Philosophy around them from a Q&A hosted back in 2024 : "Various Parts rarity was changed in the Summer Update, will we see additional rarities added over time, like special additions of Parts or Weapons, beyond what's already in the game?

Let us explain the principle behind what makes a Part rare or common, as this is important to discuss. We noticed questions in the community chat about our guidelines for determining rarity. Currently, it's more intuitive because we have a manageable amount of content. However, as we add more content, we'll need a stricter system.

The idea is as follows: the rarer the Part, the more specialized and useful it is in specific situations. For example, a teleport Ability might not be powerful by itself, but in the right moment, it can be extremely effective. Higher rarity Parts offer significant advantages when used correctly in niche scenarios.

On the other hand, common Parts are more universal—they can be used in almost any combat situation but won't provide special benefits in rare cases. They are the jack of all trades, master of none. This balance ensures that higher rarity Parts offer unique advantages, while common Parts remain versatile and reliable."

[finite cloak]

I really hope mygames steers away from their tried and true habit of introducing large power creep into their games.
Would also be nice imo if rarities were just done-away with because as you pointed out it makes no sense that some "rare" parts are outclassed by "common" parts.

All that needs to happen imo is to have two sister parts as you put it. One be armor focused, one be shield focus.

[real jackal]

Interesting. I remember a Dev saying this during a voice call long ago, but I didn't know there was a post about it, thanks for posting that.

So it seems that Weapons and Torsos follow their "Rarity = Specialization" design philosophy, but for Sister Shoulders and Legs they struggle to do so. They really should get them in line with their "Specialization" design philosophy.

Shoulders seem the hardest for them to get right, so I wonder if they should introduce a "Bonus Stat" to shoulders as another balance nob to turn.
Something that gives one small stat boost to a certain stat, like +2% reload speed, or +3 Top Speed, or +4% acceleration, and so on.

[coarse cradle]

They may have stated that philosophy but they aren't doing great at implementing it.

I think the main obstacle is that they release entire mech body at once and they make all the parts the same rarity. It is really difficult to make every part in a mech specificalized. In most cases the core is specialized and the other parts are just generically useful but really expensive to craft and upgrade.