User:EVA-251/rant1

Barriers
A short on barriers and balance. Now of course, the people with massive, massive pools of MP and nearing Level 99 will disagree with me, but meh, they like their thrones too much.

Lets just begin a breakdown of balancing in games where Attack and Defense is an issue. Most of these games follow an explicit formula- Defense < Attack. Ratios should always fold over that spending on Attack is more effective than spending on defense.

Take Red Alert II for an example. I play as France, and buy 5 Grand Cannons, the best defense in the game. That costs me 10k. Now, for that same price, I can buy 8 Prism Tanks, more than 10 Grizzly Tanks, or about 8 Harriers + Landing Pads. Each of these attacks can cripple the defense, with the 8 Prism Tanks/8 Harriers being able to smash it.

Now back to Scroll Wars. You have the two spells of concern (atleast for me)- Destroy Barrier and Barrier of Trust. The MP prices are 15 and 35 respectively. Destroy Barrier takes off 45 minutes, Barrier of Trust adds 1.5 hours. Right there, it seems balanced.

Now take into consideration the fact that almost every single player who can cast Barrier of Trust will have the skill that doubles protective spells and their longevity. Look at the stats now, in minutes/MP. (ignoring Practiced Casting) The results? Defense has a 42% edge over Offense in terms of barriers, just in terms of MP/minute. This means that a dedicated defense will always be able to hold off a slightly larger, equally leveled attack with little trouble. Taking into account that most high level players at piece with one another, and barrier attacking among them is uncommon- this leaves the new, incoming low level players (40 and below) isolated. They are far too weak to establish good barriers and lack the ability to bring down other barriers.
 * Destroy Barrier- 3MP/Minute
 * Barrier of Trust- 2.6MP/Minute without Focus Defense
 * Barrier of Trust- 5.1MP/Minute with Focus Defense

Scroll Wars is a game that panders to those who play the longest and hide behind barriers. The low-level players will probably never see the day that Motorhed or his programmer(s) realize these imbalances.

What can be done to fix it?
 * 1) Add a skill that improves barrier busting abilities. (+50%)
 * 2) Add a cap to the maximum barrier strength (if it does not already exist)
 * 3) Improve inate barrier destroying abilities. (Max of +25%)
 * 4) Lower MP cast of Destroy Barrier (-1 to -3)
 * 5) Add alternative spells that would end up equalling BoT with Focus Defense for barrier destruction. (Equivalent of Focus Defense)

This would make it harder for newbies!11 Newbies and Barriers dont mix MP-wise. Sorry.