LogFAQs > #908678241

B) The subject of paydowns is one I feel more strongly on. I see two issues here: The first is that it makes it so 'stat stick' 6s are even more valuable (Revan is a very good example - his abilities were so shit you didn't care if he couldn't use them, he would still ginsu mid tier mercs anyway, and the new system exacerbates it since he doesn't care about fatigue), and we already have some issues with 6s and up having mostly really boring abilities to 'compensate' for their battle power. The other is one that Alany brought up, which is that high tier mercs are already 'punished' by having generally higher GP costs and noticeably higher upkeeps while being less usable, and they don't need to be hurt more. The example was that it costs 21 GP a dec cycle to keep Dante around, then 14 GP to employ him in a mid match, and another 28 if you're crazy and wanna use him in Low...and meanwhile Big the Cat costs you 3 GP a cycle to use in all tiers and probably wins you as many matches per cycle as Dante does, and his min bid is a third of the big boy's. Even if we discount using him in low tier, employing Dante in two tiers costs you 35 GP per cycle, or 21 GP if you use him in one tier, which makes him something of a show piece even if he's very threatening in his own tier or when paid down. His level of usefulness can be argued to not match the investment needed for him. I don't see it as extremely as Alany does, but I do agree that dinging paydowns much further in terms of costs makes them increasingly unappealing. What do you think about the bounty system I mentioned earlier where a leader can put a bounty on a certain character's head and they get to bring in one or more mercs from the unbought pool who are on-tier to deal with them if that merc is paid down and fights the bounty-payer that week? Possibly with the bonus mercs getting AP to spend on their own abilities only, as well. This punishes paydowns, but it does so without hitting a leader's finances even harder than it already does.

C) Hm. With regards to AP costs, generally my thinking is that earlygame, you should be using about 3 abilities as a default, and lategame teams should be using around 5. This is why I'm pondering 1AP costs as a default, because if the max AP you can have by default is 5, that makes abilities decently scalable, while not necessarily requiring that there be a method of gaining more AP to ensure ability overkills are possible from time to time (at cost). What would you classify as a top end 1 AP ability using the idea of most standard abilities costing 2? What about a top end 2 AP ability?
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.