Originally Posted by
Fusionstrike
I think the point you're getting at is a specific case of a larger trend. That is, as elixir use has grown, the game has more and more been designed with the elixir user in mind. The bosses in BSM prove the point: there's very little chance of beating Koal or red dragon without performance boosts from elixirs. (Before all you braggers jump in and regale us with tales of how you soloed these bosses with no elixir, naked with your eyes closed, don't bother. You're uber-leet! I'm talking about mere mortal players here.)
Starting with Humania, the instance of getting one-shot increased enormously. I regularly see pure birds and mages get one-shot by yeti AOE, koal, etc. when not on elixir. These monsters were developed to create a challenge for elixir users. Since they have to threaten players with 3x armor boosts, they naturally destroy "normal" players like they're made out of paper. 3x is the new normal, which only serves to widen the gap between normal and elixir users. This to me is where things become broken. When elixirs are just a faster or easier way, that's one thing. When they're the only way, that means the content is inaccessible, practically speaking, without spending money. There is no free game left. And that breaks what has otherwise been a workable (if not perfect) balance.
So what I think needs to happen is that the devs take a hard look at the baseline they design to. They must tune the difficulty to a normal, unbuffed team with normal gear and stats so that the content remains accessible to the "normal" player. This by necessity means it will be easy to overwhelm the PvE game with thrasher elixirs, making the game trivially easy for those spending on elixirs. However, it's the only solution that keeps the non-elixir game relevant. The alternative is to tune to the "thrasher" baseline, which arguably both Humania and BSM are (to a greater or lesser degree), and shut out the normal players. If you tilt things that way too far or leave them that way too long, you'll lose the "normal" player base irreparably as they move on to other pastimes.
Right now, STS has a model where they can incentivize plat spending for specific events (e.g. the 4-day cap), which some will still dislike but at least is temporary. If they continue designing areas/bosses/main content that can only be enjoyed by buying in, either directly or indirectly, then they've lost the "free main spine" design that has worked well thus far. And that to me is the real issue they need to do some hard thinking on.
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