Analyzing Efficiency Points: A Hegelian Dialectical Analysis

Game Discussion PvP
, , , ,
1

Welcome back to another banger

image
image242×288 57.4 KB

Join me in analyzing EP (Efficiency Points), the contradictions within it, and how we can actually understand how it’s being applied in the AO pvp scene

I’m going to assume you already know what EP is since you’re on the Arcane Odyssey forum and are probably into Arcane Odysseyian things. But EP is a system for measuring how much “bang for your buck” you’re getting out of armor pieces and stat allocation.

At its core, that’s all EP is: a budgeting system for stats. But here’s where the contradiction appears.

If we scale build efficiency purely by EP, we end up assuming something like: stat value = budgeting efficiency

But this does not necessarily hold up

100 EP invested into Power is not equivalent in practice to 100 EP invested into Size, Haste, or other substats, because different stats scale differently and matter in different situations.

So EP ends up flattening a system that is already not-so-uniform into a single number. It turns build efficiency into something purely arithmetic, when in reality build efficiency is moreso behavioral and situational

This creates the main contradiction: EP assumes stats are fully interchangeable, but stat value in gameplay is not interchangeable.

So lets get onto the synthesis

A synthesis here is not about chudding out Bteam style and redefining the most optimal EP weights or finding a “BETTER BIGGER STRONGER FORMULA.” it would be about redefining what EP truly represents.

EP doesn’t measure how good a stat is in practice. It measures how much of a stat you are allowed to allocate within a build.

Actual stat value only emerges from how those stats behave in combat, how they scale, and how they interact with your playstyle and situation. So think to yourself, is this stat really gonna be valuable, will I use it in a fight, is it practical?

From my personal experience with others, most players already understand this intuitively. If you’ve ever been on one of the gearmakers and thought, “100 Dexterity sounds strong, but now that I’m checking the efficiency ngl I don’t actually need that precise amount,” or if you realized a small amount of Haste feels surprisingly impactful, you’ve already run into this contradiction in practice.

So EP is best understood as budgeting power, not defining value.

What a stat does with that budget is something entirely separate. To truly make the most out of gearbuilding, stop treating stats like currency and recognize they’re more like forces

Stay tuned for my next post on how we can evolve our Hegelian Dialectic here into a Marxist analysis, where I will explore the class conflict between the Balance Team, PvPers, and PvErs, and how EP scaling in balancing is actually a tool of the arcane-bourgeois state.

2

also because of the way stats get less efficient the more you stack the same stat gain at 600 size is different than the stat gain at 10 size (most notably seen on intensity), so ‘ep’ isnt really ep since you get less and less the more you invest

3

To be honest, I also wanted to mention the diminishing returns but that would of ruined the synthesis and I would be juggling several contradictions at once (too much for a forums post)

4

Actually this note does fall in line with marx’s theory on the falling rate of profit.

Players gearbuild with the idea of achieving somewhat linear gains, the actual value diminishes, builds become increasingly homogenized as everyone chases the same breakpoints for the meta, and eventually the balance team has to intervene with a patch, which is like a virtual game stat-recession

Holy shit. Arcane Odyssey is operating under a capitalist framework. Im noting this for the next post… Marx was the og gearbuilder

5

which is why i go for a ‘balanced’ build that spends equal points in everything so i get more ep for my ep
at least, in theory anyways

defense and power never scales down so in theory you can just stack those and be fine
intensity gives you a LOT, but falls of really sharply after ~100 invested (lvl 140)
attack speed has an entirely different efficiency scaling
i can go on and on but you get the point

6

So here’s the funniest part. Vetex doesn’t really know what ep is and doesn’t make stuff around it.

IMG_8931
IMG_89311170×399 79.1 KB

7

Is that really why most of the armor sucks? the game is being balanced around a system the developer is currently uninformed of

8

Vetex hired a team knowing full-well he’d be worse at balancing then proceeds to veto many good changes.

I don’t think your game’s balancing can be good unless you have a good idea on how to balance it yourself instead of only depending on a varied team of PvP losers.

9

It’s more so the system isn’t real. It’s made up