William_Valence

First:

If I've got the numbers right, the 33% proc's chance to fire will be about 18%, and a 5PPM ATO proc would be 16% with 134.81% slotted recharge in flares (That's three lvl50IOs and T4 Spiritual Core) with the chance to proc increasing as the recharge rate goes down.

Neutrino bolt would have about a 26% chance instead of the 33% and 22% with the 5PPM Proc. Considering the same ammount of recharge.

Second:

You must not be big on PvP if you'll freak over a change this small. I've played PvP games were I had a literally, mathematically impossible to kill character builds ruined because the key power was actually underpowered and the attempt to improve it ended up removing the mechanic I leveraged.

If you're at all serious about wanting Dev support of PvP, you cannot freak out when balance adjustments are made. Especially when the "Balance adjustment" is in most places a buff.

It's one of my biggest pet peeves, but the devs did not kill PvP, the players did. If it didn't fit what they thought it should be it wasn't "Skilled" and "Completely ruined". The devs could do nothing right, because whatever they did was catering to "Nubs" who just happened to be whoever got their way at that specific time, with the people who didn't get their way acting like petulant children.

Half the players think you're a nub if you move, and the other half say nub to people who stand and duke it out while the poor devs are stuck in the middle. I couldn't blame them if they didn't care about PvP, but I don't think that's true. I think they -do- care, but the PvP playerbase is so split and venomous they don't know how to go about addressing it. I've abused their goodwill myself, and this thread shows itself, the devs are people pleasers who -do- attempt to cater to their playerbase. A design philosophy that does not actually sit well with good PvP mechanic design.

Of course I'd be a terrible PvP designer for this game, as the level of "Suck it up" I'd unleash upon the poor players would cause a Tsunami crisis.

I'm not saying they're the same thing. I'm saying "Proc" doesn't necessitate random, the design of the type of proc does. Saying "It's a proc, and procs are random" is a falacy. Proc is simply a way of determining if an effect should take place, that could be random or some other qualifying characteristic.

This is important, because with the two types of designs we're looking at, we have a chance for occurance and a chance for occurance normalized for averaging a number of effects per minute.

If procs don't have to be random by virtue of being procs then it's just a conflict between the two design intents, needs to be random vs. targeted number of effects per minute, and we may be able to remove the cap.

Programmed Random Occurance is a backronym. Proc is short for Procedure, and a good way to see this in action, in game, is Proc120s. They are 100% chance procs, that happen and persist for 120s.

The Procedure is figuring out if the effect should take place, and the design intent is actually conflicting. PPMs are a procedure that attempt to ensure different cycle times get a comprable number of effects per minute. The original procedure's intent, however, is less concerned with being comprable and more focused on static random.

100% rates are not against the nature of procs, but instead against the original design intent which conflicts with the new proc mechanic intent.

Right! So with that established I'd like to make my argument for not implementing a cap to the percentage chance to fire.

Right now we have two different and clashing design intents for procs.

The first is the general design intent for procs, which is a chance for something to happen. Having a 100% chance to fire violates this intent, as it's not a chance so much as simply an added thing to happen.

The second is the PPM design intent, which is to adjust the percentage chance to fire and added effect, depending on a power's cycle time, so that any power choice with give a comprable number of 'effects' per minute. A 100% proc chance is neccessary for this, because even with a 100% chance to fire some powers cycle too slow to get the full number of intended procs per minute. The only advantage they get is knowing they will always fire, when other powers may still get more procs in a minute.

Of the two clashing design intents, the PPM design intent is the most fair to long cycle time powers. Much like the competeing designs of PPM vs. the flat percentage chance to proc, the PPM design is more fair to a greater number of slotting options, so it was in.

The same situation is found here. Two competeing design intents, with the PPM design being more fair to more powers. The original design intent should be dropped in favor for the PPM, and 100% chances to fire should still be allowed.

I don't really have a strong opinion on this; I'll abuse whatever they put into the game. However, how is this a balance issue? That's what my last three questions have been on this thread.

If it's that the balance between regular IOs and Attuned IOs are different, you could make players able to attune regular IOs, make them a new tier of item, and make Catalysts useful. All in one fell swoop.

If it's because of abused mechanics, unless theres some way to use the ToLG proc to kill hami I didn't notice, this doesn't really change anything.

After PPMs take slotted recharge into consideration, it just feels like time invested in change for the sake of change and power creep.

Well, lets see. In a high recharge Huntsman SoA, a Burst power could easily see a 2.26s recharge (I actually got this number from a build I've planned for myself). With the 1.188s activation you get a 3.448s cycle time. That's a maximum of 17 cycles per minute. Assume there's an Apoc proc and a Lady grey proc in there, that's 5.61 and 3.4 procs in the minute, on average. 33% and 20% chance to fire.

3.75 and 5.625 PPMs if the previous poster's math is to be trusted. (If not please correct me)

If -my- math's to be trusted, that makes the new chance:

3.75 * 3.448/60= .21 (Rate goes up not down in a very fast cycle time)

5.625 * 3.448/60 = .323 (Rate goes down by .007 or .7%)

Medium to long cycle time powers would see a buff from the PPM vs a flat percentage, but the only thing I'm seeing take a hit is powers that should have a 100% chance, due to the number of times the proc should fire and the power's cycle time, getting cut off and powers that were using extreme recharge to take advantage of the fact -base- recharge was being considered.

This is the primary nerf (Slotted recharge time being used for proc chance). The secondary nerf is the cap. AoEs are taking a bit of a hit, but it seems some mitigating measures are being taken.

The rest is all a buff, and a level of power creep that has me wonder where the priorities are focused, and the specific whys that prompted the change.

"See VV profile for details"

*Cackles madly at evil RPness* I have soloed the gate!

It's an alternate future in a unknown time. Who knows what's happened in the interim. It's not like we're ever going to actually get to that point, so it's not an issue. Isn't Sister Psyche still in the alternate future in the LRSF?

If I was an evil overlord bent on world domination, and the last 6 years of time travel told me those two heroes were supposed to be around when I eventually succeeded, and now they're dead, I'd be spending my time trying to bring them back myself.

It's incredibly do-able from a story perspective, and from a gameplay perspective, NO I did not defeat Ms. Liberty to get the Oppressor badge stop saying it it's a lie. I took a heavy, spawned some heroes, dropped manticore, dropped BaBs, then dropped Statesman. I don't even need a heavy to drop Ms. Liberty. I needed like 7 team inspirations to get Statesman. He's a tough *******; I felt good when I beat him. She managed to drop a Grave Knight every other Eagles Claw.

This isn't a nice change.

Brawndo?

I think you and me are talking about final resist showing the proper value, including Resist debuff Resistance and the purple patch. What Uber Guy is refering to is the breakdown display of the debuff value. That does not take any modification into consideration.

Example: I hit scrapyard with tar patch and a Grave Knight's Achilles' Heel fires.

(So long as he isn't running ) He would have -12.5 S/L and -50% everything else displayed as his final resists. In the breakdown, just below final resists, it would show -30% from the tar patch and -20% from the proc. It doesn't adjust for purple patch or resistance in -that- display.

I very much agree with the purple patch issue.

But I can't agree with a MMs ability to control their pets until:

Melee pets go melee without taking ranged pets with them and ranged stay ranged without making melee pets stand next to them (Quite likely to address issues with non-controllable pets as well)

Damage patches don't override player commands

Pets don't chain aggro and run off on their own trying to attack something

Pets don't decide to run off after certain enemies in iTrials, instead of following orders

Pets don't cycle their "Too far" animation preventing actions, when on certain maps.

With the way damage it delivered in this game, plus the way endurance and recharge work, that's most likely true. My thought would be that it isn't the damage that separates the ATs, it's the second thing that sets them apart. Damage is required. All ATs not only have it, but need to have it. The design of each AT adds flavor; Blasters just happen to have floor flavor.

I'd have disagreed with this argument if I were around back then. I'd say both are intended to be control ATs. Controlers control the critters ability to attack, while tankers controlled positioning and attention. One can't do the others job. Even Illusion couldn't do what tankers could. Too much chaos; not enough control.

Except in the case of AoE hard control powers, but didn't they get their recharge times nuked because of this?

Oh, I don't doubt that the balance issues are caused by Brutes. I just see three options to address the problem. They could do nothing, adjust Brutes, or adjust the other ATs. Adjusting Brutes is, in my opinion, an impossible needle to thread. Doing nothing leave my tanker taunting a Maliase nightmare while it's trying to attack that brute, and your blaster no less dead. That leaves looking for the symptoms of the problem, and eliminating as many as possible.

But they should really look at MM issues first

Which is why your goal, from what I can tell, is to get the devs to review the design and intent of Blasters.

The thing is, with Blasters it's a design issue. Everything is designed with the ability to deal damage and something else. Blaster's something else just happens to be vulnerability.

With Tankers, its an implementation issue. The design was fine when Brutes and Tanks were segregated, but the crossover didn't properly consider the Brute's abilities compared to Tankers when they are both available in all content. Aggro is a yes or no, that damage isn't. A character has the attention of a critter or not. If something deals comprable damage to a Blaster; then there's a balance issue. However the Blaster still does damage. If the Brute holds aggro, then the tank doesn't. If a brute is demonstrably capable of tanking for a team, filling the exact role, and doing more damage? That's not overlap that's replacement.

That being said. Tanks have issues, but they are not a real priority. I'd put them at #4 in order of ATs needing attention.

Unless mids and City of Data are wrong, every brute has Taunt auras.

Also, how many targets can gauntlet actually effect? Looking at City of data it looks like 5 targets in a 3' radius. The radius of a player capsule is 1.5', which takes up space in PBAoEs, is there a similar issue for critters? What determines a hit? (asking, does the radius of the power need to just touch the capsule, or does it require covering a certain percentage of the capsule?)

When looking at large creature rigs, cataphract/ravager/Warwalker, does the apparently increased size of the collision capsule limit the number of targets that can be hit?