Are Items Unbalanced?

[Kitai Yoru]

Hello once again people of the site! We of the staff team have decided to reach out to the community to see your general opinion on the state of balance. This time, we're asking about how you all feel about items as a whole. In addition to the poll, feel free to post your feelings about items, or particular interactions you've had with them in threads. Just remember to be respectful to others.

[Kaen Youji]

As a note, we're really encouraging discussion here, so please if you have complex thoughts about this please leave a comment.

[Ambrose Grail]

Items are not "too strong" across the board, the issue is more complex than that. I've prepared a suggestion on how items might be overhauled in general to fix multiple issues, though it is a work in progress. I would appreciate hearing what other people think of what I've been doing so far.



Concerning items that can be carried into a thread (item slots), the rule is "three":
3 up to top-grade items (items with up to 125+ IP/class and 3 distinct abilities)
3 up to mid-grade items (items with up to 100 IP/class and 2 distinct abilities)
3 up to low-grade items (items with up to 75 IP/class and 1 distinct ability)
3 stacks of consumable items, up to 3 consumables per stack, each
3 stacks of ammunition

Items should have a cap of 1100 IP, with a base of 125 at Class 8 and a per-Class cap of 125, with slots for up to 3 distinct abilities.†
Each ability slot used after the first needs to cost 25 IP per Class.‡
It should be ratified that a consumable item costs 20% of what an equivalent non-consumable item costs.
Ammunition should provide the IP-based OS of its related item, not the projectile it is fired from (and not the combination of the two). Expected ammo stacks with average IPs should be 12 in number and cost the same as a consumable.

† If an item gives up all of its ability slots, it should receive a one-time IP boost of 100 points (that way it's something but it's not really worth it to just have a stat stick instead of an item with a unique feature).
‡ This way, a "maxed" Class 1 item with an
IP of 1100 will have 0 abilities.*
IP of 1000 will have 1 ability.*
IP of 800 will have 2 abilities.*
IP of 600 will have 3 abilities.*

* Barring exceptional circumstances, which are more likely to stem from additional drawbacks than additional strengths, which can potentially include a lower IP to account for a stronger ability.
Unless they have more drawbacks to mitigate cost, top-grade non-consumable items (and consumable items) should cost the following at each class, as a rule:
Class 8: 4,000 Ryo (800 Ryo)
Class 7: 9,000 Ryo (1,800 Ryo)
Class 6: 15,000 Ryo (3,000 Ryo)
Class 5: 22,000 Ryo (4,400 Ryo)
Class 4: 30,000 Ryo (6,000 Ryo)
Class 3: 39,000 Ryo (7,800 Ryo)
Class 2: 49,000 Ryo (9,800 Ryo)
Class 1: 60,000 Ryo (12,000 Ryo)
Mid-grade costs should be 33% less, and low-grade costs should be 66% less (rounded up).

[Colt]

I don't feel that Items are over or underpowered. I simply think that the way they exist can be a bit problematic.
A number of items are useful, but the way things are now, if they are broken in thread they have to be bought again when reasonably speaking, there should be a repair cost, especially for unique or special items.

As it currently stands, an individual needs to buy items, any ammo/charges that are needed need to be individually purchased, stockpiled, and then rebought when you run out. In this way, items, regardless of what they do, are a constant and unending drain on resources. This makes it so that they are very hard to justify toward individuals of low income. But for indivuals with HIGH income, they can be an incredible source of power.

There is no limit to how many items can be brought into a thread, and if you have enough money and a big enough income, you could simply have an insane number of items and overwhelm a target if you have a number of items which can feasibly used simultaniously. Presenting a sizeable advantage without even having to spend any reiatsu.

I feel that a reasonable way to both make items more worthwile AND keep them in check is slots.
Any item that one buys that is not intended to be single-use should repair itself at the end of the thread (Or in the event of a DP or DE thread, should have a repair cost). Ammunition for weapons should have base limitations of how much can be used per post and/or per thread, but should also refill at the end of the thread.

On top of this, a limited number of slots should be established for bringing into any particular thread. This would allow A, low income individuals to use items without having them be a constant drain on resources. And B, this would also put a limit and keep items from being too powerful by giving them limitations of use so that high income individuals don't become oppressive. This also gives another avenue of balance (Adjusting maximum ammo per thread, shots per post)

[Nuala Byrne]

When I talk about the usefulness of items, one of the things I keep hearing from people is the idea that items should be "less useful" or "less powerful" than techniques, which generally means that a person wants a given item to be less capable per investment unit than a technique of an equivalent class. I'd like to take a moment to explain through comparative analysis that this is already the case. So without mincing words...

There are multiple thread types for acquiring TTP and Ryo, and not all thread types provide rewards equally. Assuming no Social thread is being used to boost either outcome, I'll be comparing a 2-person Joint Training Thread for TTP acquisition to a solo Job Thread for Ryo acquisition. The reason for this is the individual investment to payout ratio, which is at a minimum to maximum differential in both cases.

Let's say that you want to maximize your potential power on average from a given technique or item, meaning that what you're after is Class 1 in either case. According to the site guides, you will pay either 750 TTP to Master a technique that costs 800 reiatsu to use, or 50,000 Ryo to purchase a nonconsumable melee weapon item with 1,000 Item Power and 2,000 Durability.

At a rate of 10 TTP per 2 joint paragraphs written and assuming an even division of writing labor, each participant in a Joint Training Thread will need to write 75 paragraphs of text to be rewarded with the desired Master-level Class 1 technique. The acquisition of the technique is permanent unless the player specifically chooses to redeem the technique with a site-provided Amnesia Pill item that costs 500 Ryo and refunds 500 TTP to the character. A character with 300 Spiritual Pressure can use this technique 3.75 times per thread, with a minimum threshold of 1 required for functional use.

At rate of 300 Ryo per paragraph of writing labor, the writer of a solo Job Thread will need to write 167 paragraphs of text to be rewarded with the desired Class 1 item. The acquisition of the item is permanent unless the item is destroyed during a thread. If this happens, the player receives no recompense or redemption for their investment. Any Class 1, Rank 3 HWD Brave with 1,000 Strength and 200 Spiritual Pressure can use the Class 2 technique, Output, to destroy this item with 2 landed blows, for a total cost of 400 out of their 2000 reiatsu.

Based on this information, it is demonstrated that for every 1 Mastered technique a player acquires, they could have acquired 0.449 items, of which a minimum threshold of 1 must be achieved for functional usage on either side. (Furthermore, if a technique must only be Learned to be fully functional, the ratio increases to 1 : 0.149.) This shows us that techniques are currently 2.22x more "useful" or "powerful" than items (or 6.71x in the case of Learned techniques) on a basis of pure numbers.

Just some drink for thought. Please consume responsibly.

[Kaen Youji]

With respect to my personal stance regarding items, I'm a similar mind to TV, at least in respect to the main concern I have with them. With regards to what Dram says, while it's true that (relatively speaking) items may be less "efficient" than TTP gain, the difference is that characters have a maximum limit to how many techniques they can have; the same is not the true for items. Longstanding characters will naturally accumulate Ryo, and by extension, a means to accumulate items. This goes double for Class 0 characters like Shizuka, who functionally have no use for TP anymore.

You can max out SP. You can max out your Technique slots. Your release abilities are maxed at creation by default (with exception to weird edge cases like Col). But you will never hit a cap on items. They're a resource that can be endlessly accumulated, so my position is that such a resource should inherently be less valuable (ie. Powerful) than resources that do have a maximum. If it's possible for a character to have 20 Non-Release techniques, but only 6 release techniques, I would argue that it stands to reason, Release techniques should be stronger (or at least be permitted to be stronger) than non-release techniques. If you can have infinite items, but only 20 non-release techniques, I would argue it stands to reason that the 20 techniques you have should be more powerful than the infinite amount of items.


Limiting the amount of items you could bring into a thread could certainly help with this! But if items keep escalating in power, or are of comparable power to Non-Release techniques, a character could have such a massive plethora that it allows them to freely draw the X most suited items to the opponent they happen to be fighting.

[Ambrose Grail]

I agree that not having a cap on items should limit the amount of potential items can have. This is why I suggest capping the number of items per the above suggestion. To elaborate a little on that, the reason I chose the 3-rule with those specific strata is because it will limit the total number of competitive (top-grade) items in a thread to 7.8; 3 top-grade items that function at 100% of the limit, 3 mid-grade items that function at 2/3rds of it, and 3 low-grade items that function at 1/3 of it, plus 9/5ths of an item via consumables (but not more than 3 types of consumables, to prevent characters from cherry-picking), and the ammunition necessary to potentially use the non-consumable items. In practice, it's unlikely that most people will be using mid- and low-grade items unless their uses are more creative and niche than powerful, since those items are of limited effectiveness in the first place, and consumable items are a permanent resource drain, as TV mentioned; to benefit from them, you must infinitely drain your pocket book. Since 7.8 items is equivalent to 3.5 techniques, this also means that items would have less than 1/5th the power of 20 techniques, fulfilling that need as well.