Adron

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For those who complain that the Archetypes who have the fewest sets were overlooked... the next planned powersets are melee based.

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Hooray for Pistol/Reflex Scrappers!!

Does this mean we'll be getting Fire/*, Electrical/*, Ice/*, and Energy/* primaries? Perhaps a handstrike-centric form of Martial Arts? Ooh, I know some beatstick-lovers that'd love to see a Superstrength/Invulnerability Scrapper.

More secondaries? */Stone and */Ice?

More Ancillary Pools?

I am apparently easily thrilled simply by porting existing powersets between the ATs; no new art assets needed. Dangit, now I wanna hijack the thread.

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Is there any thought being given for ways to make each hero's story a little more unique?

Is there any chance of getting story arcs that diverge significantly due to success or failure?

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"Ideas" has somehow been peeking into my brain, as these were the exact same questions I was going to ask. So I'll ask them in different ways.

Origins: A hero's Origin is the most important story-based element to the character. It determines where the hero came from (hence the word) and to a degree where the hero is going.

Unfortunately, in CoH a character's Origin means nothing more than where they do their shopping and which contacts they'd prefer to try to get missions from. Are there plans to make a hero's Origin mean more (perhaps tied into the pending skill system) or otherwise affect their career significantly?

For instance, I try to have my Tech heroes generally take Tech-based missions (which is difficult due to how the contact tree branches) for sake of theme and enhancement drop probabilities. I'd very much like it if that would somehow immerse my Tech heroes deeper into the "Tech culture" of the game, perhaps opening special access to Tech-related content.

Branching Storylines: While a pain for content developers (given the mission engine as I understand it), this would go a long way towards adding immersion and versimilitude. Have the programmers given the story team the tools they need to allow branching storylines within the mission framework? If not, are there plans for that sort of thing?

As an example, let's say that I fail to disarm all of the bombs in a building before the time runs out. Rather than the story arc coming to a dead stop right there, it would be much more desirable to continue the arc with my character dealing with the consequences of failure. Perhaps I'll chase after the bad guys who planted the bombs to stop them from doing it again and find myself raiding their munitions cache before resuming the normal arc (or continuing down the path of a completely different one).

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Now make destructible objects highly vulnerable to smashing please

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I'm greatly looking forward to more destructible objects/terrain inside of instanced areas. Likely won't happen until after CoV, if I remember my internet detective work.

Not just destructible, but "affectable." How neat would it be to have the capacity to snuff out light sources and thereby decrease the visual range of nearby mobs? Or how about being able to bust down keyed doors as well as jam them shut? Heck, how about just the ability to close opened doors?

Not that any of these things can be coded up in one afternoon, of course.

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Unless an Invulnerability Tanker fires off Invincibility when 12 or more mobs are within range, according to Circeus' chart, Ice Armor will be superior to Invulnerability against Cold, Psionic, Toxic, Energy and Negative.

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To me, this implies that Ice usually does very well against some of the more exotic damage types.

Invulnerability, on the other hand, does very well against the most common damage types AND it autoscales upward as the threat increases to the point of exceeding the performance of Ice in all respects.

Have I interpreted that correctly?

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And when may all of this very welcome attention to the DEF Tankers bleed over into the DEF Scrapper world? Reflexes is hurting too (except against AoEs after L35, in which case they're friggin' nuts now) for the same reasons Ice is gimpified.

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Oh - one other change coming soon to the Training Room...

This was an idea taken right from this forum. Since Ice Armor has no Resistance, it's a zero sum sort of power set. In other words, you're hit or your not. Well, someone (I've forgotten who) suggested adding a Damage Debuff to one of the powers - and we did! Chilling Embrace gains the ability to debuff mob damage (though it's Recharge debuff is slightly slower now).

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A very welcome change.

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Here's what we'll do: Wet Ice will no longer accept Def Enhancements. We'll increase the base def somewhat. Def Enhancements that are currently slotted will continue to have an effect, but players won't be able to slot new Def Enhancements into it.

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So... people with current ice tanks have a chance to be (slightly) ahead of the game on defense, but only 'til they respec (and have to re-slot their enhancements)? That feels vaguely weird.

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Agreed, that solution is rather clunky.

Since the entire set needs sprucing up anyway, I don't see the problem with giving it a valid amount of +Def and negating the need for slot voodoo.

Even if it's converted into +Def (Slow, Immobilize, Hold) it would still mean something more along the lines of its original intention.

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Adron's comments brings me to a solution I came up with to make DEf equal to RES.

The problem lies in that DEF is *subtracted* from accuracy, while RES is *multipled* against damage.

ie: Accuracy = Base - DEF, while Damage = Base * (1-RES)

I propose we change the calculation for how DEF is applied, making it:

Accuracy = Base * (1-DEF).


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I proposed exactly that in a thread that was purged, but a continuation of the discussion of it is here.

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Dammit, Arc, I'm tired of you being my hero. Screw up once in a while or something, wouldya?

Jack, please read his stuff or send it to one of your internal number-crunchers. It's quality.

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Wet Ice
0.5% base
1.265% Defence from Wet Ice with ++ SO's.


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Awesome. I'm gonna six-slot Superjump for Endurance Reduction next.

In all seriousness, I too am fine with removing the ability to slot Defense in Wet Ice. As a safety measure, if anything.

Gawd, now I need to go home and check to see if I've wasted slots like that. I should have consulted the various player-run power databases better.

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Why do you seem to be obsessed with whacking the entire game across the board when one set is out of line?

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I have the same question, but framed in perhaps less drama.

Seriously, guys, there's too much "baby with the bathwater" stuff going on here. Too much amputation when only minor surgery is needed.

If individual powersets are out of balance, then adjust them. We will wait happily during that tedious process, and even happier if you show us some justifying numbers that we can chew on while we wait.

If the game is globally too easy, then adjust your "purple patch" and XP chart accordingly. Do that only after individual powersets are balanced amongst themselves because only then have you established (and implemented!) a baseline.

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X% DEF <> X% RES. They're supposed to be two (circumstantially) equal-yet-different paths to achieve the same goal, and we're all cool with that. However, the core problem is that right now X% DEF < X% RES < X% (DEF + RES).

The I5 changes have globally reduced "X," which doesn't actually fix the inequality. In some cases it actually amplifies the problem. That adjustment is more of a "But it was the BEST butter!" kind of solution.

I see two choices:

1) Change the combat formula to allow X% DEF = X% RES across the board. This is the sort of global change that would bring balance in an obvious manner.

2) Weight the numbers in the damage mitigation sets differently, proportionate to their effectiveness. This is the sort of targeted fix that would help exactly those who needed help without creating a slew of side effects.

The cool thing is that you have hundreds of thousands of players out there, and some of them happily run return-on-investment spreadsheets without even being asked. Save development manhours and ask them for their numbers!

Jack, you remain a class act in my eyes.

I disagree with some of your (staff's) design decisions from time to time, but I'm continually impressed by your social skills.

And to think, I was one of those who openly wondered about the "crying" semantics. I'm glad to have worried about that for nothing.

Virtual hugs complete, I now go back to my nailbiting over I5 and the potential hero-neutering horrors that await within.

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For each level, the tanker receives a .35% bonus to defense and resistance. So at level 10, all tankers would have a native 3.5% defense/resistance all. At level 30, 10.5% defense/resistance all. At level 50, 17.5% defense/resistance all.

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We sort of already have that. Tankers have more HPs than anyone else, and we gain more HPs each time we level.

So that's a form of "resist all" that's already in there.

As I haven't tested it yet, I can't speak to the effectiveness/usefulness of this particular change.

I do, however, wish to express my deep appreciation for these "surgical power fixes" as opposed to sweeping, global nerfs that adversely affect those who were already struggling.

Pathing and placement problems aside, thank you very very much for the inclusion of these spiffy new spices.

Defiance itself is not a significant factor in my gameplay, so I have no overt objections to it unto itself. If anything, it is in fact a buff to my blasters with no directly negative effects, so there is a net gain so I'll be hard-pressed to scoff at it.

What does concern me is if Defiance is intended as "the Blaster Fix." It does not adequately address the problem of blasters surviving counter-alphastrikes.

Increasing blaster HPs does in fact help that, and it makes Defiance more likely to come into play. That, I wholly support. I can state from playtesting that the increased HPs feel like a godsend without Defiance factored in at all.

What disappoints me most, however, is the post that Statesman offered in which he directly encouraged defenders and tankers to not assist blasters and keep them "redlining" as much as possible. He suggested that blasters actively seek punishment from counter-alphastrikes and revel in their new beatdown powers.

I joked elsewhere that I'm going to whip up a Fire/Fire/Fire blaster with Vengeance and consider Rise of the Phoenix as a routine attack power. If I'm meant to "live on the redline" I may as well embrace the pain and earn XP twice as fast to offset permadebt's half-XP gain rate.

To summarize: Defiance is fine, and with the increased HPs it may actually get some use. I don't think it's an adequate fix for blasters; I think AI behavior and powerset adjustments are required for that.

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I'll take that bet.

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*eyebrow*

Okay, but if I win, you have to take your armour off and run a lap around Steel Canyon while the Benny Hill theme plays in the background.

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You.....DO realize that if he takes off that suit, antimatter will mix with matter, and there'll be a huge explosion. Right?

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I'd rather be dead from the walking nuke than see the nekkidness of someone who's been sealed up in armor for years.

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I hear voices in my head when I squeeze my eyes real tight. I write what those voices tell me on parchment with a raven quill using specially prepared ink from Tasmania. Then I let the parchment bathe in moonlight for two days, after which I transcribe the words to my computer. The result is pure creativity.

When the above process fails me, I inflict head wounds upon myself... this never fails.

-Gil

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Well. Someone likes attention.

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they just need to add Sharks to the water :]

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"Captain" Mako would probably like something to swim around in.

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This is the problem with defenders. Period. I asked states about this in a PM. Basically raising defender damage was out of the question, because they feel it will make blasters less needed....but the problem is this is exactly what is happening to Defenders from a Controller point of view.

My solution. 1) Either give defender self-defense powers...Or 2) give blasters self-defense powers and raise defender damage.

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Here's something that States can relate to, as he plays D&D:

Clerics are (primarily) for party support. They're the best healers, really good buffers, and pretty good debuffers. They don't have to suck when it comes to damage-dealing, and they have really good defensive capabilities on their own. Clerics need solid self-defense for the sake of the party.

Defenders are (primarily) for party support. They're the best healers, really good buffers, and pretty good debuffers. They don't have to suck when it comes to damage-dealing, but they have no significant defenses. Defenders need solid self-defense for the sake of the team.

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I recommend adding mez protection and damage mitigation of some kind to pre-40 Defenders. The anti-mez can be an inherent class ability using the same mechanic enjoyed by Bosses (-3 rating on status effects rather than the normal -1, IIRC). The defensive abilities would have to be powerset-based.

Unfortunately, that recommendation doesn't directly make Defenders more appealing to teams in the late game.

Indirectly, it definitely does, as people would classify only Blasters and Controllers as "squishies." Defenders would be viewed more as assets than potential liabilities.

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You've stated my point exactly, though not the point I think you intended to make. Controllers aren't as good as defenders at defending. They're better.

There is absolutely, positively no better defense than completely incapacitating your enemies. Once I get the bad guys locked down and not attacking at all, what other defensive action can possibly improve on that?

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Wholly agreed, and even previously stated by me in this thread.

I'm all for some AT cross-training of roles, but Defenders are too hybridized to possess a truly distinctive role.

The ATs were divided up for very wise reasons. However, it seems that the divisions of duties themselves were not adequate.

Note the repeated requests for the two melee ATs to be made into one AT. I'm pleasantly surprised that there hasn't been an equally big push to have Defenders & Controllers become one gestalt AT. Diversity is required!

In summation: Defender + Defender < Blaster + Controller, therefore sadness.

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BUT....I'm extremely concerned about the perception that Defenders "aren't needed" and thus "can't find a team" at high levels. Defenders should fill a valuable role at ALL levels and help Archetypes achieve levels that they can't reach by themselves. After all, Defenders are all about buffs (and debuffs). Every Archetype should be extremely happy when the Defender provides a resistance or defense buff...

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I haven't checked if this has already been stated or not (no pun intended), but:

Defenders are hybrid classes, and as such have a diluted role.

Do you need to debuff the bad guys? A Controller can do that, and more. Do you need buffs? A Controller can do that too. Do you need to shoot things? A Blaster can do that very well.

It's true that Defenders' primaries are more effective than the secondaries of Controllers, but the difference in potency is not as dramatic as the simple presence or absence of an ability.

"Can you heal?" is more pressing than "Can you heal more than that other guy?"

"Can you rez?" is more frequent of a question than "Did you earn the ability to rez early in your build?"

People cheer for receiving "bubbles" just as often, no matter if they're coming from a Controller or Defender.

I won't even bother offering examples of how Defender secondaries pale in comparison to Blaster primaries. It's pretty evident.

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So what makes a Defender special? Well, hybrid characters are desirable to some people. They can usually solo pretty well, for instance. You can have a team of nothing but Defenders and get along fine.

Defenders' secondary effects ("procs") on their attack powers are more potent.... but that's really not that big of a deal. "Oooh, you knocked that guy back pretty far" or "That electrical endurance drain depleted a few more pixels" just isn't impressive.

In PvP, Defender debuffs can't be resisted. Neat if you're not Empathy or Forcefield and are into PvP, I would suppose.

Team buffs from pool powers are more potent from a Defender; that's neat, but again nothing earth-shattering. Controllers are almost as effective in this venue too.

Defenders get psionics as a secondary, and no one else does. Same with radiation and dark blasts. The diversity is good, but not really important to a team. Tho debuffs from those attacks can be replicated by Controller powers in AoE form very readily.

.... So there are some good points to playing Defenders, it's just that none of them really define the role enough to generate mass appeal.

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On a personal note, I realized about seven months ago that out of all 24 slots taken up on my three servers of interest, I had made only three Defenders. Two of them have since been deleted to free up slots for more appealing alts.

It's just that when I get the hankering to play a support character, a Controller does everything I need. If I want an aggressive character, Blasters fit that bill just fine.

Mind you, my wife has three very active Defenders because she happens to prefer the hybrid primary-support/secondary-assault style of gameplay.

I'd say it's a chick thing, too. Most women seem to prefer the Controller playstyle (support + pets = nurturing) and consider Defenders as their "down and dirty" heroes because they actually possess the ability to hurt things.... as well as help friendlies.

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My suggestion? Make Defenders dramatically unique amongst the archetypes.

How? No idea yet. Sorry. But I wholeheartedly agree that something should be done.

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Yes, you must use a fresh dead horse... or is that a freshly dead horse? Damned if I can remember which horse this was.

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I apologize if I come off as a forum fascist, but surely there is a way to succintly condense this sprawled-out thread into a Pilcrow-esque new OP that advances the central topic better?

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Excellent idea. Make it so.

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Any bets on which primaries shine and which ones shudder? My vote for underdogs are electricity and ice.

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Ice, the underdog? Ice has the best single-target damage of any of the Blaster primaries..

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Irrelevant to the point at hand, which is overall performance.

I quote Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter: "But it was the BEST butter!"

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If boggling leads to thread necromancy, boggle not.

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Well, the issue was never actually resolved, so I don't feel bad about beating a still-living horse.

I'd be interested to see the results of an internal "Blaster primaries" test, much like the devs performed on the Scrapper secondaries.

Any bets on which primaries shine and which ones shudder? My vote for underdogs are electricity and ice.

I boggle that this thread still exists.

I'm not upset by it, mind you.

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Not right away. A lot of the art has to be redone to take advantage of the new features, and we only have so many monkeys here. I mean artists!


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So is that a yes or a no. lol

Gar all this cloak and dagger crap.

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It's not cloak and dagger. It's just like explained above: they will when they have time.

Programming speed is a function of manhours. Either they need more (wo)men or they need more hours in order to do more things quicker.

Since there are only so many business hours in the day, you can't really speed things up much even when turning an 8-hour workday into a 10-hour, as that's only a 25% increase. Then you start having to worry even more about employee burnout, too, which will just slow you down again.

Hiring more people means more training is needed, which takes away time from existing personnel and actually slows you down before it starts speeding you up. Also, hiring more people costs more money and corporate bean-counters are loathe to do that unless they can be convinced that paying more wages will earn them more money in the long run.

THEN there's the time spent chasing after bugs and higher-priority issues. Game-breaking problems usually have to be resolved before new bells & whistles can be added.

Then the Quality Assurance department needs to run their tests on any new things. The more changes that are made, the more work they have, and likewise the more manhours they need to get things done correctly.

Lastly, the bigger and more complex that a system gets, the harder and harder it is to modify it without creating new problems. Look at the U.S. Constitution (the charter, not the battleship).

So, with all that in mind, you probably can realize that when a developer says "We'll do it as soon as we get the chance," it's not because they're sitting around drinking beer and playing frisbee in their cubicles.

Live in the now. Eat what's on your plate, or don't. The next course is being cooked as fast as it can.