Dev Blog - Affinity Adjustments

We will be making some improvements to our affinity system in terms of the advantages and disadvantages that matching and mismatching affinities can provide.
We want to share some insights and some of our thoughts on the matter so players can understand where this change is coming from and how it will improve gameplay.

TLDR: These are adjustments in the player's favor.
It's a buff, Commander!
(There is also a short summary at the bottom of the article)

To start off, a little throwback.

Many months ago, any and all negative effects a unit could apply to their enemies required hacking to take effect.
For some unit types, this did not make sense, and we decided to make some changes to differentiate Debuffers from other classes properly and give each their own sets of class-specific strengths and gameplay niches.
Some effects that were more typically used by Defenders and Attackers were changed to not require hacking, the keyword explanations were updated to reflect this, and we developed specific wording to differentiate the different cases.
When an effect is applied it does not require hacking, and when an effect is inflicted it does require hacking to succeed.
This has led to situations where players choosing strong affinity defenders still suffered from consistently applied effects.
Now effects that are "applied" and thus need no hacking, will no longer be applied to units that have the affinity advantage.

The hacking bonus for affinity advantage and malus for affinity disadvantage are being changed from additive +50%/- 25% to multiplicative +/-25% to make them more impactful.
An example of a before and after would be as follows:

Advantage
Before: 250(%) Hacking +50% bonus = 300(%) Hacking
After: 250(%) Hacking increased by 25% = 312.5(%) Hacking

Disadvantage
Before: 250(%) Hacking -25% penalty = 225(%) Hacking
After: 250(%) Hacking decreased by 25% = 187.5(%) Hacking

To further encourage the proper affinity matching we have decided that an affinity disadvantage will impact critical hit chance when attacking.
Critical attacks have been able to overpower the affinity disadvantage too much, at times bypassing the affinity mechanic for all intents and purposes.
An affinity disadvantage will lead to a 25% reduction in critical hit chance, and the chance to critically hit a target with a disadvantage will not exceed a 75% chance.

Furthermore, we will decrease the Damage a bonus from an affinity advantage slightly, from 50% down to 25%, to decrease the swing from advantage to disadvantage somewhat, as it is currently too drastic.

Summary:

• Effects that are "applied" will not affect units with an affinity advantage.
  This emphasizes the importance of matching affinities correctly.
  
• Affinity affects hacking in a multiplicative manner, making it more impactful.
  
• An affinity disadvantage will now reduce critical hit chances by 25%, and the maximum critical hit chance against a disadvantaged target will not exceed 75%.
  This is to prevent critical hits from overpowering the affinity system.
  
• The Damage bonus from an affinity advantage has been lowered to 25% to make the damage swing between advantage and disadvantage more reasonable.

These changes aim to encourage a more thoughtful selection of affinities, rewarding strategic decisions and allowing players to better handle challenging scenarios.