KIU vanilla 100V weapons need to be standard

There are plenty of imbalances in Kid Icarus Uprising. And it seemed that it was particular mods, powers, and weapons that managed too many issues. But after reviewing things, it turns out that mods in general are a horrible overpowered mess for plenty of reasons. It gets to the point where simple 100V weapons are not viable even against bots.

Simply put, [b][i]mods need to go[/i][/b].

I will provide TWO links, both with raw data, that will be used to make my points:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ajxa2ILc_Q6ddEl6b3hDYzdRNUFzZlJNWHpNVllZTmc&usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ajxa2ILc_Q6ddHdmRDY1cTlpU3JsN3Nla0tROGhicHc&usp=sharing

If you want to deconstruct anything in either of them as false like the savages on GameFAQs would, then try whatever you have in mind out in the game yourself. See if it will be different. Trust me: it won't.

[b][i][u]Reasons why mods are OP[/u][/i][/b]

Now what are the problems with mods? Well, let's review, shall we?

[b][i]Too cost-effective[/i][/b]

Some of the mods I complained about before in the past actually stand out for being too OP in and of themselves, namely Evasion+ (infinite invincibility), Freezing+ (lol1hkville), Melee Combo+ (lolmindlessmelee) and Shot Range+ (lolplussixtypercentrange). Power Attack+ also got listed on vanilla TV Tropes' page for KIU Game Breakers with this gem:
[i]The Power Attack modifier is a Glass Cannon example. Having Power Attack +4 (the highest possible) on a weapon usually means you won't get much in the way of stats and other modifiers, but the trade off is that it ''doubles'' the strength of Powers like Mega Laser, Explosive Flame, Meteor Shower, Land Mine, and so on. What were once panic buttons become lethal surprise attacks, and the modifier on a weapon with decent damage and/or an innate Speed boost makes for a good one-two punch KO for whatever survives the Power spam. Granted you have to die to get your Powers refreshed after using them all up, but done right you should be gaining more than you're losing.[/i]
And that doesn't even get into attack powers [b][i]IGNORING DEFENSES[/i][/b]. That particular bit irks the bajeezus out of me: Mega Laser can be spammed and Health +6 won't save you from being killed too bloody quickly. Not when it gets used with Energy Charge.

In truth, though, these are just standouts for the balance issues involved. Here's the real problem: mods are too powerful, period. Remember how I mentioned that 100V weapons suck against bots? Well, I found this out from trying them out against them. I can tell you from that much that you are punished for being anything but a wuss, which is innately bad. I could go on an L9 bot LvD, end up dying 6-8 times, use a near-300V weapon with matching defenses in the next bot LvD, and do *MUCH* better, as in only die twice being generous TO THE BOTS. You can argue that I'm talking about LvDs. Well, guess what? Last I checked, the game's multiplayer was designed with LvDs in focus. It should have been obvious to the game developers that mob tactics would inevitably be abused. They did NOTHING to alleviate that problem, and it shows when AI opponents with mediocre attack power mods, not even abusing Energy Charge, kill me just by sneezing on me all because I'm using a meager 100V weapon.

The fact that Overall DEF itself manages stupidity at the end of it all is the biggest disgrace. I had originally thought that Overall DEF was the most expensive mod in the game (discounting Range Stars, but even then, you need 9 Range Half-Stars to surpass Overall DEF +7, and 11 to surpass Overall DEF +8) under the simple purpose of keeping defensive power from being mindless. But as I found out from the bot match experience I talked about just now, no, it's expensive because it allows you to survive mob abuse, which barring [b][i]BLATANT[/i][/b] outsmarting by opponents you bloody well should be able to in the first place or the game gets out of hand fast. This is the horror show that division defense without any useful checks brings about: too much emphasis on things that don't create counter play, and too little on things that do. If a dedicated tank is the only one who can hope to approach without taking ridiculous amounts of punishment for doing so, the whole metagame ultimately becomes some campfest anyway, and if anybody else can even approach, then expect the dedicated tank to laugh at anti-armor attacks, which is going to make the game beyond imbalanced. There's no happy medium with simple division defense by its lonesome. And before you repeat that attack powers ignore defense, why should every set be expected to have attack powers? They should be expected to have armor busting, but NOT the same thing every time.

What could possibly make this farce so necessary is how sadistically cost-effective the mods are. Let me list the mods that provide less benefit than their added Value: Range Half-Stars up to +1 (+1/7 ATK for 6.6+8.3L Value), Speed+ (+1/12 Speed for 1.3+7.9L Value), Overall DEF+ up to 5 (-7L% damage taken for 4.1+10.8L Value), and Health+ (+20 Health compared to the base 222 for 9.4L-0.4 Value). And note that ANY mod in question is assuming it's standalone, which would mean that the weapon would otherwise be a 100V weapon. With accommodating mods that would add up to 200V or more, all bets are off. Let's not even forget that Value only matters for a player if they themselves even die.

Well, speak of Hades.

[b][i]More Value REWARDS you[/i][/b]

Every time you die, the TLG is decreased by an amount equal to your weapon's Value. Basics, right? Well, did you know that every time you die, you also get recharge for each of your powers? And not only that, but the recharge for each of them is equal to your Value as well. Yes, that's right, and it's stupid as it sounds. The whole point of the Value system is to make sure any player is outright punished for trying to abuse powerful weapons. But if a player is getting something for dying with a higher Value weapon, then that starts undoing the very point.

Certain powers even require only 201 Value to recharge, so loopholing with a simple Value maximum doesn't even work, because even 1 point of Value can become an unwelcome advantage.

In theory, dying with a given Value multiple times will still provide the same benefit as dying with a lower Value enough times to match the first Value's influence after its own multiplier. Like if you died 4 times with 150 Value, or 6 times with 100 Value, you'd get 600 recharge. Well, that does happen, but here's the problem: with the higher Value weapon, the player is so much more powerful that they both easily deal a lot of damage, enough to cover for the power's own charge, and is the one at far less risk of dying and thus wasting the charge. This means that they can mass buff, deal a lot of damage with ridiculous safety, die once they do, repeat ad nauseum, win by mere attrition.

And what stupidity would be complete without bringing up more stupidity like with what I said just now.

[b][i]Punching bag angel[/i][/b]

Just in case the other two reasons didn't do it for you, here's one more reason to ban mods as a way to check power: they make the angel so incapable of doing anything but barking and being needlessly hostile, which is exactly what should be done to mods by the competitive committee for KIU.

Value is so pointless once the angel is out. Once he is, the angel's teammates' deaths deal so little damage to the angel's health even with 340 Value weapons, and it can't even KO the angel, just bring him down to minimal health, although that can get him finished by Mega Laser. What's worse? As soon as the angel is dead, the game is over anyway. This allows the 300V guys to team up against the angel with absolutely NO problem, and if any of them die, they'll just recharge powers and hurt the angel even worse.

This forces the angel to *ALWAYS* run away like a wuss. He hangs around, he's an easy, painted target. Nobody is going to prioritize the angel's two teammates over the angel himself unless the teammates provide particularly fierce defenses. BOTH of them. This is, of course, because there's way too much emphasis on damaging the angel over killing his teammates during the phase, but the mod weapons certainly do nothing to help matters.

With the 100V restriction, the angel's teammates would be NOWHERE NEAR as strong. They will stop dealing anywhere near as much damage, and if one of the opposing angel's teammates is killed, the momentum will shift in favor of the player's own team because they can start trapping the opposing angel. This promotes both the teammates to bother trying to survive, and the angel to actually attack. Much better than the angel having to run away because the opponents are too %&#*%&#$ strong.

Seriously, what is up with that?

Though there are some problems with just banning mods, but they're not terribly hard to address.

[b][i][u]"Drawbacks" and counterarguments[/u][/i][/b]

[b][i]Mods are part of the game[/i][/b]

You can argue that without mods, there is no weapon customization. And removing the weapon customization cuts a big part of the game, thus cutting on both the strategy and the soul. But let me explain why it's nowhere near as bad as you may think.

The strategy part has already been deconstructed by talking about the cheap, backwards slippery slope involved. The soul part is the much bigger issue to deconstruct: in fact, I actually dislike the idea of cutting on the weapon customization. I would for example miss on mod-reading, like determining that this 300V guy with Cancer Claws foregoes offensive power in lieu of defensive. Or considering what mods should go on what. But the customization has managed to allow for things like the overabundance of Energy Charge usage. That in and of itself has turned randoms into a soulless breeding ground for overthinking.

Removing mods wouldn't kill the game's variety either. There's still over 100 weapon types to choose between. There's still over 50 power types to choose between as well, and you can fit several onto your power grid as well. Heck, the power grid itself brings about the idea of grid reading, which is actually more reasonable to do than mod reading and encourages psychological warfare. And the weapon type itself provides an idea of the opponent's key power, such as the Atlas Club requiring Slip Shot to get anything past walls.

There would still be plenty of strategy, plenty of soul, and plenty of viable play. In fact, there would actually be more of all 3.

[b][i]100V weapons are too hard to get[/i][/b]

Because of the random nature of the game, 100V weapons can only be obtained randomly or bought very randomly. Apparently, nobody would keep them either because of how awful they are. But if anything, it's the mods being powerful, players being greedy for power and generally abusive, and the game rewarding power lusts and cruelty with excessive momentum that cause problems by being a plague on the game.

If we can even get past how "awful" 100V weapons are because Project Sora thought that off-balance weaknesses could feasibly check on-balance strengths without being more significant, this argument is still a double standard. Min-maxed weapons require dealing with that horribly counterintuitive fusion system. Even worse, you need SPECIFIC weapons to even hope to get what you want. 100V drops/sells are still random, but they're exactly what you're looking for when you are doing so with no need to deal with any Fake Difficulty (other than dealing with Luck Based Missions), which makes them easier to obtain even as drops, and they additionally sell for only 200 Hearts, not exactly hard to get.

I don't have all 108 types of 100V weapons, but I do have 67 of them. Just always buy any you see in the store and never sell a single one. Sure you still have to jump through hoops, but it's not the horror show that is trying to fuse the zomgprfctwepin.

[b][i]The rule would be impossible to enforce[/i][/b]

You realize that you can check the players at the start of the match and see what Value they have, right? If a player cheats, the opponent can gather proof and provide it. And if the weapon has a negative mod, it can be found out at the end of the match too.

[b][i]I would just benefit[/i][/b]

Now if I want something, apparently I would just benefit, because I'm the one wanting it.

You're right I would benefit. Because I've been playing within the developers' vision of game balance when I wasn't being junked on by things as excessive as Shot Range+, Evasion+, or Power ATK+. And you can tell when I can handle things like the Death Predator. This despite the fact that I would rely on things that were already store-bought to begin with. And I don't even die frequently.

You can argue that it's because I use defensive power mods, but everybody else abuses capped attack power AND Energy Charge to begin with. With OR without me. Let me showcase the math involved:
*Overall DEF +7 cuts damage by 49%. Overall DEF +8 by 56%.
*Health +6 adds 120 Health to the innate 222.
*With those two in mind, we have our formulas for determining effective Health, then dividing it by base Health:
**Overall DEF +7, Health +6: (222 + 120) * 100/(100 - 49) = 342 * 100/51 = [b]670 30/51[/b]; 34200/11332 = [b]3 204/11332[/b]
**Overall DEF +8, Health +6: (222 + 120) * 100/(100 - 56) = 342 * 100/44 = [b]777 12/44[/b]; 34200/9768 = [b]3 4896/9768[/b]
*Then consider what you see on this:
http://i.imgur.com/YHhHaqk.png

I can tell you that (Move) +4, 5.5 Stars is enough to make the ATK multiplier exceed 3.5, which means it exceeds Overall DEF +8, Health +6's value of effective Health divided by 222. Given that the multiplier is so big, everything gets wrecked as if they were cannon fodder even before Energy Charge comes into play. Energy Charge, you don't even need 6 stars at all. You only need, what? Only 4 stars? But this isn't overkill enough, oh no. The other included mods are Shot Cancel+, which is failing to be expensive enough when it's being included in this setup, SHOT RANGE+, and why didn't Project Sora check it again?; and Overall DEF-, which does less than it should regardless, but bothering with the math at this point is just a straw on the camel's already broken back.

Really, I would benefit because I would simply be [b][i][u]UNAFFECTED[/u][/i][/b]. The only losses I would incur are that I would no longer have a defensive power mod going on (which is not a big loss at this point when the game wants to make mods as a whole OP) and that I could no longer recharge powers whenever I die, which AGAIN occurred infrequently enough as is that it wouldn't make a difference. Sure my competition would be watered down, but it's so riddled with nonsense to begin with.

[b][i][u]Benefits of a no above-100V allowed metagame[/u][/i][/b]

[b][i]Reduced needs for weapon/power bans[/i][/b]

Banning mods would cut down on a LOT of involved problems with things that would otherwise deserve bannage. This is more handy than banning things that have workable balancing factors.

Let's look at some things that were considered, and were banned over most likely Shot Range+, and see how they fare without mods:
Weapons:
*Atlas Club - loops only every 40m of surplus with Homing Boost active, needs Slip Shot (see below)
*Capricorn Club - shot dies before it can complete a loop
*Eyetrack Orbitars - shots are slow, loops only every 20m of surplus with HB active (about 148 max damage)
*Gemini Orbitars - shots are weak even at max range, has only 1 Pierce to begin with
*Ninja Palm - has power and range issues
*Predator Cannon - backshot dies off just as it gets near the ground with Shot Range + unavailable, so it can't try its hounding shenanigans
*Viridi Palm - lacks the range to do anything truly horrible; was only broken because of SR+

Powers:
*Aries Armor - Super Speed says hi. 11 space minimum, full row + column, I'm sure you'd also have Super Speed yourself.
*Bumblebee - yeah, expect to be unable to escape to your right without getting hit, or expect to be Black Hole'd to your left. Full line regardless of level.
*Libra Sponge - Super Speed, broham. 12 space minimum, doesn't even reduce damage taken.
*Slip Shot - either one charge AND full line, or full row + column. Without mods' h4x attack power, you're not even going to kill anything within 16 seconds without a dedicated setup.
*Trade-Off - Aries Armor V0.8, have fun with a Mega Laser when your duration is gone.

Brawler Claws would still have to be banned, simply because of the neutral rapid's 3 Shot Cancel. A few weapons can't even manage 4 SC on ANY attack to get through, but the real issue is that the neutral rapid does not gimp the Brawler Claws' already good maneuverability, when most weapons have only one attack with 4+ SC, generally the backshot. It manages all the stupidity that people decry Meta Knight as broken for, and NONE of the redeeming balance factors.

Raptor Claws and Taurus Arm can stand to be reviewed, but shouldn't be nearly as bad. Most of their abuse were with mods that were painfully cost-efficient even by the loose mod standards. Compact Arm is also worth reviewing, since it's capable of a LOT of mid-range abuse regardless, but it can't attack more than 40m away without SR+ and its melee power is junk. Pudgy Palm for similar reasons because it shows signs of doing the same things Compact Arm can and more.

Warp and Jump Glide would STILL have to be banned, though. They still cost too little for shutting down Black Hole, Super Speed, things like that, without bringing about any counter play. Super Speed itself, as the substitute for Warp, does have a usable flaw: requiring a full line, which means that its mere usage exposes a lack of leveled Slip Shot, allowing for terrain walling. Angelic Missile actually costs space unlike Jump Glide and is harder to use because of the forced falldown at the end, and it immediately stops Playing Dead's duration for good measure.

Speaking of, Playing Dead would still have to be reviewed, but its stalling potential should be nerfed considerably in the 100V environment. It costs a lot of space too. Not only that, but it still requires more than 200V to recharge, and if you're dying 3 or more times, you're probably losing to begin with. Still, I can see the chance of it managing excessive stalling, but even then, an easy fix would be to increase the time standard by a minute, because 4 PD3 charges is only 64 seconds of stalling, tops, and that requires dying *FIVE* times. Yeah.

Magnus Club has been decried as OP, but I haven't seen anything that warrants it a ban on its own merits. If it's the Lightweight + Transparency combo that makes it a problem, I'd be for Lightweight being reviewed. That power has proven in the past to be a considerable nuisance, even making it harder to bust Energy Charge + Bumblebee. Lightweight doesn't even require a full line either, so that doesn't help matters.

Finally, Quick Charge is worth reviewing, though I'd be surprised if it genuinely needs a ban. The big issue, though, is all the benefit it provides for only 4 spaces, so I can see it get out of hand fast by being overcentralizing regardless. But who knows, maybe it will prove to be so God awful at a momentum oomph that it would desperately need Slip Shot/Invisible Shot support. Still, the Pudgy Palm/Quick Charge combo could cause more shenanigans than welcome.

[b][i]No more overly free power[/i][/b]

The issue with mods is that there's not even any drawback that kicks in until the person dies. With weapon types, there's a variety of weaknesses to counterbalance things. Powers use up space on the grid in manners that can be too inconvenient unless you can tell me with a straight face that you can fit both Slip Shot 2 and Bumblebee 3 on the grid for example. What are the drawbacks of mods? ALWAYS more Value. See how well that worked. Even in LvD, where it was *ANY* problem worth caring about.

Without mods, things like Slip Shot are no longer capable of anything ridiculous. And that's a big deal. You don't see other FPSs involve 1HKs/1RKs via attacks that easily hit the opponent AND ignore terrain. If you do, I'm missing something, but I expect it involves a game with VERY garbage balance. Without 1HKing ability, Slip Shot will have a much more difficult time killing anything within 16 seconds. And therein lies the big weakness: leveled Slip Shot for multiple charges can NOT fit with ANY line powers, most notably Bumblebee, which would be used to protect Energy Charge. Bumblebee with Slip Shot will immediately expose Slip Shot's level to be only 1, allowing for walling focus to thwart the singleton Slip Shot charge.

Things like this is what should be rewarded, not some random luck with the fusion system.

[b][i]The angel doesn't suck[/i][/b]

Another mechanic that suffers because of mods' OPness is how severely gimped the angel is. The angel is supposed to be more powerful than regular fighters. This wasn't a problem with low Value people, but the angel has only 700 Health to work with. A 300V guy with a STOREBOUGHT weapon is equal, which is a problem when there's THREE of them--or quite possibly even more sickening--running around EASILY capable of doing too much damage to the angel before he can cause the opposing angel to come out. Even 2 is too much, which for the fact that the Health lost from a teammate death is a pathetic 1/3 of the dead teammate's Value (THAT'S PATHETIC) means that the angel has no choice but to play as a wuss. Apparently, there's an attack power boost too, but if there is, it gets ruined by the angel getting a COMPLETELY RANDOM weapon type.

With the 100V guys, these problems shouldn't be nearly as horrible. Even though teammate deaths do even less damage, the flow is different. The angel can now fight players because they don't get killed fighting multiple players at once, fixing the problem that they inherently attract ALL of the opposing team's attacks. It would become more useful for the non-angel players to survive as well, simply because when they die, they're still forced to respawn most likely away from their lynchpin ally, additionally encouraging the angel to protect them to keep momentum, since these teammates can still snipe the angel.

It still wouldn't be perfect, but it would be better than nothing.

[b][i][u]In closing[/u][/i][/b]

Though the vanilla 100V environment has its share of flaws, the pros outweigh the cons. And it's all because the cons of the vanilla 100V environment has as much relevance as the high Value's penalty of the min-maxed weapons in active randoms. Fancy that.

With that, I'll close off with the recommended ruleset:
*400 TLG on LvD, time limit 8 minutes
*3 minutes in 1v1 (4 minutes if Playing Dead can still stall but not do anything else stupid powerful in general)
*100V weapons, no negative mods
*Large Arena and Small Arena banned
*Power bans: Warp, Jump Glide, Playing Dead?, Lightweight?, Quick Charge?
*Weapon bans: Brawler Claws, Taurus Arm?, Compact Arm?, Pudgy Palm?, Raptor Claws?

(Note that the question mark power/weapon bans are actually simply needing review more than anything, but not necessarily deserving to be banned. We'll see.)