Quote Originally Posted by Passarelli View Post
I chose that as an example. Also, I thought 3 was decent balance in a 6 slot system. You can do decently without a lace if you learn how to counter things without it. It would also mean you had to make a hard choice and mean that ultimates are still somewhat useful after the first 4 rounds (where almost everyone has a lace).

Keep in mind that I only thought of this after cyber made the comment about weighting helm to take up 2 slots rather then 1. I agree that it would be much simpler to simply restrict the item on some races. This method, however, would also add another layer of asymmetric balance.

Helm and Health should definitely take 3 slots. Personally, I think lace should also be 3, but 2 would be fine. This would make it so you would actually see people buying orb or mask much more, and less people grabbing helm, health, or lace.

I understand some of those items are cheaper, but when 90% of people buy helm, health, and lace, with the 9% of the remaining buy 2 out of the 3, it tends to show that they are much more desired and thus forcing the player to make a hard choice out of 2 or the 3, or buying 1 a weak item and a midrange, or all midrange/weak items. Ideal balance would be making each of the items as desirable as each of the others.

I also like this design better then the one I have heard floated of making an item that makes you immune to the effects of other's laces for 10-15 seconds, like an antiward. However, even this could fit if you make it take 6 slots and thus clear all other items in your inventory.

By the way, it isn't specifically helm and health that are overpowered. It's that if you have both of those plus a lace, you greatly limit the ways someone can actually kill you to the point of absurdness. This only means that even more people will use that combo and it becomes a vicious cycle and hardly any of the other items get any love at all.
I'd have to disagree here with most people only buying those 3 specific items. Most higher tier players (more experienced) tend to buy claw quite often and I'd say if it does lag behind the other 3 items, it's not very significant. At the same time, ring and cloak (to a lesser extent even socks/orb) are not that uncommon as they are all very powerful items. While health/helm combination is indeed too strong and should be restricted in some way, this is not necessarily the fact that specific other items are much weaker. The main reason why health/lace/helm is the most common combination because it is a very defencive combination that tends to lead to higher survival odds, but at the same time the offencive combinations in the right hands can be equally if not more disastrous (think Masskid as Human with lace (or ring), claw and orb / Spasm as Jack with lace, claw, cloak / etc. ).

In all honesty, I think that it's not really that specific combinations break the game - it's more so the fact that some restrictions that should possible be in the mod are not actually there. However, at the same time, we all know the concept of perfect imbalance and roughly understand Zero's position on most changes, so... Yeah. Good luck.