Samuel_Tow

Personally, I'm largely satisfied with how AVs and EBs are balanced. If one wants to solo, then ignoring the existence of AVs is easy enough. If one wants to team, then that still either requires a big team or a highly-set difficulty level, so it's in the player's hands. As far as I'm concerned, though, when you team, all bets are off. Stuff has to be designed to take on the entire team regardless of what it was, so a mere flunky like Arbiter Sands ends up as an AV when he is required to provide difficulty to an entire team. Most of them are pretty much soloable, and outliers like Nosferatu are rare.

About the biggest problem I have with scaled-down AVs is the purple triangles nonsense. Control in general is very screwed-up in this game because it was designed from day 1 to be binary - stuff is either held or it isn't. We have some juggling around with lower-mag controls that need two applications, but those are exclusively (to the best of my knowledge) reserved for AoE control powers, usually toggles. Other than that, I deal mad 3 hold, the boss has mag 4 protection, my hold doesn't self-stuck by a meaningful amount, and even if it did, I'd still have to nearly double-overshoot his protection to affect him.

Control effects hit too hard and stack far too badly. That makes them next to impossible to balance, outside of a "can be held/cannot be held" situation. If they built up more gradually, or if their magnitude lingered after the actual effect had worn off, then maybe we could give AVs and scaled-down EBs a form of status protection that's inbetween immunity and crippling weakness weakness.

Without needless quoting, I don't actually like a reload mechanic, myself. The only reason I brought it up was as a first-serve example of something that would work sort of like Claws' Follow Up setup, because I really don't see anything else a pistol user can do to give himself a small damage buff every few second. Of course, hitting and then buffing your next attack's damage doesn't make too much sense in itself, so I'm probably not looking at this with a wide enough perspective. Either way, I am NOT a fan of either the mechanic or the implementation of it I mentioned, so I'm not going to argue for it.

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Combos don't have to be "dance of guns" either. They can just as easily be a combination of specific trick shots in a specific order that accomplish something special. It makes about as much logical sense as using an attack against the target's armor, a series of attacks that knock the target down, and then another wide attack causing a bleeding effect on the target (Attack Vitals) when no other combination of attacks does. The combos exist to provide a tangible benefit for using animations that mesh well, which I believe attacking with two pistols should do equally well, especially considering your own desire for constant fire from the pistols.

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I'm stumped when it comes to what a handguns user can do from range that cannot be described as "fire one gun," "fire both guns" or "fire both guns a lot of times," much in the same way as I can't imagine an assault rifle set consisting of anything other than "fire rifle," "fire rifle some more," "fire rifle lots and lots." Again, that is not to say it's not possible, but I cannot imagine what that would be without getting into the realm of melee guns, which the developers have already shot down repeatedly. You are very much restricted to an animation for aiming the gun and an animation for firing the gun, and the only non-standard animations I can think for it seem pretty silly to me. Look at Archery - the whole set is essentially firing the bow, though I suppose firing the bow UP can be considered reasonably interesting. It's what comes out of it that defines the powers more than anything else, especially considering that so many powers use the same animations.

Still, if you can give me a good example of an interesting set of animations that don't cross over into other functionality, I would be more than willing to consider it. I'm always open to new ideas. I do not, however, see how the set can work well with combos as I cannot see it being more than "point and shoot," which sells itself short on making combos.

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My Elec/Nrg blaster would like to have a word with you if you don't think that consistent damage is effective for Blasters. Both Short Circuit and Ball Lightning are largely DoTs and there isn't a tier 3 blast within the set, which means that she has to survive by doing consistent rather than burst damage.

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You're selling your Blaster short. Just because Electrical Blast doesn't have a strong attack chain doesn't mean the Blaster doesn't have good Burst damage. In fact, of all the set I've played, and I've played everything other than Mental Manipulation to at least mid-level, Energy Manipulation is by FAR the biggest single-target damage dealer. I used to tell stories of what a combo of Aim + Build Up + Bone Smasher + Energy Punch could do to a boss. I have an Electric/Electric Blaster, and for the longest time I was wondering why people were saying Electric Blast was bad for damage. It took me a while to realise just HOW much of my damage was coming from Electrical Manipulation, between Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch and Thunder Strike. I once put two Scrappers to shame with that Blaster by taking out a boss pretty much by myself while the rest of the team (about four people) sturggled with the other one.

What Electrical Blast lacks, pretty much every secondary other than Devices and, to a certain extent, Fire Manipulation, makes up for. And even then, when slotted for damage, a combo of Aim + Build Up + Ball Lightning + Short Circuit can be a pretty effective alpha strike. I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong. Obviously you're doing all right. Mine does pretty well, as well, but you still have Aim in the powerset, and you still have a Snipe. That DOES make up for lost damage in sets without a Power Burst clone.

There's also the fact that relying on control powers has a rather serious overhead - animation time and cost. This is a cancer I barely cured my AR/Dev/Munitions Blaster from. He ended up with as much control as a Controller. Beanbag, Taser, Cryo Freeze Ray, Web Grenade, Caltrops, Sleep Gas Grenade... I could, if I were so inclined, control a great many enemies a lot of the time. The downside to this is that just these controls in themselves formed a full "attack chain," leaving precious little time and energy for me to do what a Blaster is supposed to do - kill stuff. Trying to out-control enemies is a losing battle, that much I've been burned by again and again. Control helps mitigate incoming damage, but that only buys time, and at best only a little time. The point, in the end, is to still kill the enemies before they kill you, and that control doesn't come for free.

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The problem you've got is that you automatically assume that Blasters have no staying power. While it's nowhere near the level available to Scrappers or Tankers, it's still better than that available to most Defenders and Controllers, especially when considering IOs and soloing. When using the controls available in both primary and secondary as well as using intelligent tactics that actually capitalize on these powers, you can be quite effective and safe when soloing.

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Blasters have SOME staying power against MOST things. The problem is that the things you need the most staying power against are the things kill you before you can blink. An able Blaster can dodge death at the hands of the Nemesis army and an observant one can play the Rikti for fools, but a Gunslinger, or a Bane Spider Executioner at the wrong time is often a very, very serious problem. And that's before we get into Zeus Class Titans, Chief Mesmerists or the Soldiers of Rularuu.

And I would argue about whether Blasters have more staying power than a Defender or a Controller. Unlike them, Blasters have nothing to protect themselves with but only temporary control, whereas a controller can incapacitate entire spawns and the (right) Defender can cripple his opponents beyond the ability to retaliate. I still remember a duo of Rad/Rad Defenders back a while ago who may as well have had God Mode turned on. I cannot, however, speak with any certainty on the matter, as I've not played either Controllers or Defenders... Pretty much at all. Only ever seen them play and spoken with friends who played them.

I want to bring up Dominators, but I probably shouldn't, as my experience with them is only from I15's Beta and only low level. From my experience, however, a low-level I15 Dominator is MORE survivable than a low-level Blaster against comparable odds despite a significantly lower amount of hit points. The Dominator has comparable, at times even superior damage, yet one which comes at less redundancy of powers AND with an entire primary designed to keep you safe by preventing enemies from attacking you AND Domination's increase in that control on top of it all. If anything, Dominators now feel how I always wished Blasters felt, or at least thereabout - HARD punch backed up by the ability to protect yourself.

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The other problem is that the sets are balanced around being able to solo heroic missions. Trying to drag a Blaster solo through an unyielding or invincible Rikti mission is horrible (and, trust me, I've done this), but that's not what the sets are designed around.

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Oh, I completely understand. I've never felt there was any point to pushing the difficulty beyond perhaps Tenacious. Interestingly, it's not the added enemies there that pose the biggest problems, but specific enemies themselves, a well as the often occurrences of extra aggro (not always from carelessness - ambushes do that a lot) which pretty much all other damage-centric ATs can absorb, but Blasters simply lack the staying power to do so. And that's not something burst damage can solve, either, as it's aggro after the fact.

The simple fact is that the few things that HAVE to die RIGHT NOW are also the things that CANNOT be killed right now, which makes playing a Blaster effectively an exercise in conundrum.

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Sure there are people who don't want(or care about) graphics updates. A lot of them have sub-par gaming systems already and can't turn the graphics up anyway. That's not a reason for the developers to NOT upgrade the game's graphics. Sooner or later it would have to happen. Especially if the devs want to add additional FX and other graphical features that the current engine can't handle.

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You assume, and you are wrong. Plenty of people don't WANT better graphics, because there is a point past which graphics become meaningless. Sure, COMPLETELY life-like graphics like, say, Matrix quality might change my mind, but I'm not terribly upset if we don't have the Unreal 3 engine and our characters don't look like everything they wear has creases and shines in the sun. There is such a thing as "good enough" and I believe games reached that level a few years ago. More than that is nice, but not something that would sell a game to me.

And then there's the other side of the coin. Better graphics do not automatically look better. I HATE bloom effects and graphics designers' compulsion to make everything, be it concrete, fabric, dirt or even bloody TREE BARK shiny bugs me. Fabrics are never straight, stretched and form-fitting, they are always frumpy and creased and loose with lots of folds and other crap. Clothes are always baggy and hanging, everything has a zillion tiny details that just end up distracting.

And to top it all off, the "better" the graphics, the harder a game is to make and maintain. There's a reason newer games are shorter and more repetitive than old games, and why so many locations, animations and generally so much "stuff" is reused over and over again. Fallout reused the same damn metro station like two dozen times, Mass Effect reused the same base interiors and weapon models and even recently-released Prototype had one model for a military base inside and outside, one model for a hive and pretty much one model per soldier and monster type. One rifle, one rocket launcher, one tank, one gunship, etc.

Do we really NEED these levels of graphics? Oh, sure, I'd love to see old, low-res costume pieces updated to newer graphics and a little more detail here and there would be sell. The engine has a lot of functionality that doesn't appear to be used already, and I'd love to see more done with it. I don't need my game to look like Far Cry, however, and from what I've seen of the competition, their level of needless detail turns me off. I like my stylised heroes.

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Moo, what you're asking for is a brand new powerset, not just customization. Changing Necromancy from controlling the undead to controlling puppets is very much akin to changing Assault Rifle to use a bow, instead. I mean, I don't dislike your idea, but I would put it squarely outside the realm of customization.

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Do you think it would still be a new powerset even if they still had the same AI and attacks? I can certainly see where you're coming from, but it seems like the logical upgrade path would be:

- Necromancy summons zombies a with powers b
- Change Necromancy so that it can summon models in pool c with powers b
- Change Necromancy so that it can summon custom models and models in pool c with powers b

Certainly still a metric butte-load of work, but it seems like you could keep the same basic powers and just provide different henchies to do it. The biggest area I see trouble with along the upgrade patch are the summon animations. You might have to provide a generic appearance animation if you were going to allow players to sub in custom models for their default henchies.

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Well, Broadsword and Katana use the exact same powers with minor stat tweaks and they are still two powersets. What you are asking is for the powerset to be customized into something it is not. This is very much akin to asking that Broadsword get a club option, or that Fire "burn" people with ice attacks, or that the plants in Plant Control be replaced with, say, robots. Even if you keep the powers mechanically, you are still altering a powerset into something it is not.

Even if you moved Necromancy into puppets, you still have powers like Soul Extratction, Enchant Undead, to say nothing of Dark Blast and Gloom. I don't mind customizing powersets into things that make sense to be of the same powerset, but there ARE boundaries beyond which you either re-theme the powerset altogether, or make a new one. Most of the stuff you mentioned I completely agree with, but I cannot see Necromancy with anything other than undead. You can ask for different kinds of undead, like skeletons or ghosts or fat zombies or even death knights, but stepping out of the realm of the undead is stepping out of the realm of Necrmancy, and thus out of the realm of what the powerset entails.

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If I could have changed out the zombie and ghost models for some kind of very simple wooden figurines, I would have. I'd have preferred something along the lines of puppets or dolls, even with the same shambling animation and intentionally stupid AI of zombies.

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Moo, what you're asking for is a brand new powerset, not just customization. Changing Necromancy from controlling the undead to controlling puppets is very much akin to changing Assault Rifle to use a bow, instead. I mean, I don't dislike your idea, but I would put it squarely outside the realm of customization.

But you do make a good point - henchman customization is something that MIGHT be possible, and something I would very much like to see.

Then you have pretty short memory.

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Players aren't the only things in the game that use guns. Virtually all NPC guns cause -def, and they've got many more pistol users than players do. The prolific nature of NPC guns and how much -def they do is one of the reasons why def debuff resistance is so necessary for defense based sets.

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NPC guns do the same things. NPC Buckshot does knockback but not defence debuff, NPC Full Auto just does damage, NPC Sniper Rifle just does knockback, etc. Frankly, I haven't looked, but I'd be surprised of NPC revolvers did defence debuff, though I wouldn't put it past Gunslinger burst fire. About the only reason I'd say this feels common is that many enemy groups simply have a minion type with a submachine gun or an assault rifle, and thus access to Burst. That, and a LOT of other things do defence debuff, such as swords and fireman's axes and hatchets, specifically the Banished Pantheon ones. That, and certain enemies come with more regular debuffs, such as Anti-Matter's defence-killer bots or the Soldiers of Rularuu watchers.

All that is to say that while I can see how it might seem instinctive to expect handguns to deal defence debuff, there doesn't seem to be much evidence to suggest it. Unless, of course, I'm missing a lot of stuff, which is well possible.

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I will cede that it wasn't exactly a new mechanic, but the entire design and balance structure was rather new. You can see how convoluted designing the powers and effects got if you check the CoD entries, especially when you consider that it's the first time the mode mechanic (which isn't used outside of Dual Blades; Sniper Rifle simply checks to see if a single power is turned on) was used.

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I'm pretty sure, that is to say almost positive, that Stalkers use the exact same mechanic, or a system underlying what Dual Blades use. Kheldians even before them use a more low-level mechanic of setting the entire player in a specific mode and keying certain powers to have that as "Modes disallowed." I can't say if the particular implementation behind Dual Blades combos is new, but swapping modes around and keying effects and powers off that isn't new. It's been with us since I3 as a special mechanic, and has, in fact, been with us since the game went live, as all powers are disallowed when Disable All mode is on. That is, I'm almost positive, how being dead is treated, as well.

The specific implementation used in Dual Blades IS new, in that it affects the set in a unique and interesting way. I can't say the whole basic concept, however, is being wasted by it being restricted to Dual Blades. What's restricted is that particular implementation, and I don't believe it would fit another set anyway. Not without significant changes to the point where it may as well be something completely different. I would certainly not be impressed with another powerset doing combos the same way.

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Keep in mind that "combos" doesn't mean "firing like crazy". Personally, I think that most of the attacks would only include firing a couple times at most. The cohesiveness and grace of the set would be more involved in the movements of the body itself, getting the pistol in line. Rather than just staying still and firing like crazy (re: assault rifle), the arms would actually be in motion.

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Combos means firing multiple times to achieve a result. That is not something I find I like as a playstyle for Blasters. That's a throwback to Tomb Raider and how she used her handguns - lots of firing, maybe not like crazy, against a tough target. I'm not a fan of that as a thematic. I much prefer a big gun that fires big bullets, even if that doesn't leave that much room in the clip for continuous fire.

You also seem to be thinking of this set as akin to the much-repeated "gun kata," which really isn't representative of how a ranged AT would play. I've thought about how such a set might look and play, and I've come to the conclusion that unless you're designing the set to be used in melee while surrounded by enemies, a martial-arts-influenced "dance of the guns" isn't really appropriate, and such a setup is itself not appropriate to something like a Blaster. Yes, they do fight in melee occasionally, but their design is fighting from range and shooting forward (for the most part), which really does entail standing and shooting ahead. Look at all the current gun users - they are all exclusively point and shoot. It's just sometimes pointing with one gun, sometimes with both and sometimes firing a little and sometimes firing a lot.

If you were to put this on a Melee powerset, like Blasters or Stalkers or what have you, or even on an AT that's only partly melee, like a Dominator, then I could POSSIBLE see it. But Blasters shoot forward, with little room for fancy armwork. The most I could see is a Max Paybe Style spin-and-shoot, but beyond that is the realm of melee.

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Something else to remember is that in 99% of video games, the pistol is also a bad weapon. It deals less damage than pretty much anything else, has worse range, and a smaller clip size than anything except for the crowd clearing guns. Considering this is talking about using a pair of pistols to the exclusion of any other firearm, it's not going to need to be crippled with similar comparisons. I'm also pretty sure that most players wouldn't want to stop to reload after every attack. People don't really want to stop attacking.

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That depends on what you're playing and what you view to be "the gun." Half-Life's handgun, for instance, is weak, but if fired in primary mode is one of the game's most accurate weapon and probably one of the most deadly at long range, especially in single player (where the Magnum doesn't have a scope and the crossbow has travel time). Then, of course, you have the Magnum, which is actually one of the game's strongest, most accurate weapons, limited only by insufficient ammo and a small drum. Unreal Tournament's Enforcer was a powerful weapon at long range AND short range in the same way as Half-Life's handgun, but it was DEADLY when dual-wielded. Unreal Tournament 3's handgun/submachine gun was even more deadly when dual-wielded. Damnation has one crappy revolver, but also has one of the strongest guns in the game in the face of the double-barrelled pistol which does HUGE damage per burst, but only packs two bursts before it has to reload. Pistols are also the only guns usable when climbing. Advent Rising has a multitude of pistols that, like all weapons in the game (including missile launchers) can be dual-wielded. The "basic" handgun that fires .90 calibre armour-piercing, concussion rounds is reasonably deadly in normal fire, but can also be burst-fired to empty entire clips in under two seconds for silly damage. The FUSION pistol is deadly in normal fire mode because it hits like a shotgun, but can also fire fusion GRENADES. The Seeker pistol is almost as strong in normal mode, yet offers an alt fire which consumes five rounds (giving you 4-5 shots per clip) but does STUPID amounts of damage AND bounces between up to four targets, meaning a dual-wield, full-clip burst can put down 20 people. And that's all on top of the fact that handgun draw time in this game is next to instant (VERY obvious in slow motion) whereas all other weapons are exceedingly slow to draw and fire. And that's without even thinking about it too much.

Of course, games that focus on rocket launchers and chainguns will give you an unlimited-ammo, wimpy gun for when you run out, but those aren't really handgun-centric. Pick any game that features handguns as a prominent feature and you'll find they're superior to everything else. Devil May Cry's Dante has a pair of overpowered pistols to his name, and whatever-his-name-is in DMC4 has his double-barrelled revolver the name of which I forgot. True Crime: Streets of LA features the detective with his trusty handguns which start out wimpy, but being his signature weapons can be upgraded to be stronger than M16s.

Maybe my perception is coloured, I don't know. Ever since I played Tomb Raider 2 and discovered that the M16, strong as it may have been, wasn't usable when actually moving (it took time to aim before Lara could start firing) and then later on in Tomb Raider 3 found out about the beauty that is the Desert Eagle, I've been a fan of handguns over rifles and bazookas without a second thought. Their use as weapons on the move, while jumping, hanging off ledges, dive-rolling or somersaulting has always thrilled me as the perfect compliment to an able fighter. In fact, my namesake Scrapper has it in his concept that he has a pair of oversized handguns. I'm a fan, and I've never seen handguns as the weak stuff that you need to either shoot a lot out of, or trickshoot with. The contexts within which guns have always been cool, at least in my experience, have almost always had them overpowered.

In fact, given the fickle nature of plot armour, a bad guy is more likely to die from a single bullet shot to the head than he is to go down from a whole machinegun belt to the chest. That's pretty much why I'd love Handguns to have the PUNCH I expect them to, not be a slow and methodical set like all those games that discount them as the sidearms they actually arc tend to treat them.

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Personally, I think it would work just fine. Blasters don't have to be alpha strike monsters. They operate just fine dishing out consistent damage over a long period of time rather than having discrete spikes of high damage. There's a reason why devices still works even though it lacks Build Up, and it's not that the bombs are supposed to make up for that (they don't in 90% of the situations). Blasters can work perfectly fine with sustained rather than burst damage, especially if they play intelligently.

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I strongly disagree, and happen to feel there is a reason why Devices does NOT work even in the slightest, not counting toe-bombing, or "the bombs" as you put it. The set provides nothing to help the Blaster by little hits at utility and control, gives you plenty of garbage powers that could be combined together and still won't be actually good, and robs you of the kind of up-front punch that keeps a Blaster alive when there isn't a team to back him up. I got the set to 50 and I STILL hate with a passion for all the ways it has made my AR/Dev Blaster suck.

The truth, at least as far as I have seen it, is that Blasters don't GET to dish out consistent damage, because they simply don't have the TIME to do so. Every time I've tried that, I've gotten killed as I'm busying myself dishing out consistent damage and the stuff I should have killed before the battle even started either holds me or outright kills me. By comparison, all of the spike-damage Blasters, even Electrical Melee, have been able to seriously blunt the enemy with a good alpha strike. Sure, they can then afford to deal consistent damage when the biggest dangers are dead and gone, but by that point, it's already a whole different animal.

It's going to take a LOT to convince me that an AT with precisely ZERO staying power can work with slow, consistent damage anywhere near as well as it can work with up-front, spike damage. I'm not immune to reason, let me say that, but I've just been killed by "consistent" damage so, so many more times than it has actually helped me. Pretty much the only reason my AR/Dev Blaster works at anything more than snail's pace are LRM, Time Bomb and Full Auto, with the occasional helping of Surveillance. Anything else is a battle of attrition I just don't have the toughness to endure.

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While those things would be cool for like 10 minutes... For me, I must have missed this whole boat. I just don't see how adding hue shifting would be all that epic.

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Yeah...that's just about right for me as well. But like in all things...people tend to want to prioritize what immediately appeals and not think of longterm benefits.


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Yeah I'm with this.
~MM

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It always amazes me how quick people are to insult people's intelligence around here. "I don't like these things, so the people who are obviously unreasonable." Heaven forbid different people want different things out of the game.

To me, this game stopped being fun on the basis of gameplay alone four years ago. I enjoy playing it only when it accomplishes a furthering of a character concept or, at the very least, demos that character concept for me to enjoy all the cool stuff I did to the character. This game is a collision of several of my childhood dreams, all in one fused mass. When I was a kid, I used to make up fictional stories to amuse myself, draw (ugly) pictures to illustrate them and play with action figures because I thought they were cool.

That was decades ago. Today, I don't need to do any of that. I write my stories down in pictures directly, and then in actions besides. My pictures aren't needed, because the game looks better than anything I could draw. And I have no use for action figures, because in here, my action figures move on their own, more fluid and animated than anything I could manage just with my hands on an articulated plastic figurine. Pretty much the only thing that could beat this game is one that allows me to script my own movies and then play them back for myself, and the few games that have tried that have ended up very limited indeed.

People who play this game for the numbers and statistics, for the sake of seeing huge orange numbers and maximizing DPS and drops are, naturally, not going to enjoy power customization. It's not what they care about and what they want out of the game. Which is fine - to each his own. But myself, and I dare say plenty of others, play this game for its very basic premise - to make really cool super heroes (or villains) and then watching them in action. To this effect, the more customization the better. I've found that, much as I may have a high opinion of myself, my imagination isn't always better than what the game provides, but nor is the game always better. A meeting point somewhere between those points is required, and that means... Well, customization.

A few of the things I want to do:

I have a Fire/Fire Brute who's story is that he is an alien wielding a corrupted form of the energy of creation. Fire is good thematically, because it is easy to interpret as the energy of destruction, but it would be a lot cooler if I could make it the same rancid green as the colour of his eyes. "Evil fire," if you will. And if I could pick an emanation point, I'd move his Fire Breath down to his hands, because he has no mouth.

I have an Energy/Energy/Force Blaster whose powers span half the colours of the rainbow. If I had a choice, I'd change Energy Manipulation to blue, change Temporary Invulnerability to a glow of darker and lighter blues, change Personal Forcefield to resemble the Kheldian shields and change Foce of Nature to resemble the new Temporary Invulnerability. I would also pick a MUCH more impressive, much bigger and more flashy animation for Sniper Blast if I could.

For my Kheldian, I would switch out Glinting Eye with a more conventional, less eye-dependent "fist-based" blast.

For my Dark/Necro Mastermind, I'd change Ghost Widow's "pastel darkness" into more conventional, more fitting darkness that would match Dark Miasma closer.

For my AR/Dev Blaster, I'd move all of his secondaries, as well as Surveillance, to be projected/fired out of his assault rifle.

For my Ninja/Storm Mastermind, I would change the colour of all of his storm powers to dark grey and black, so that he matches what they call him - the black wind.

For my Dark/Dark Scrapper, I would change Hover to have a "dark" effect, rather than the "air" effect it has now and alter Teleport into less of a sprakly, glowy, flashy explosion and more into something more fitting the Dark theme. Ideally something resembling an ink explosion in water if I had my way. (Thank you, Galactik Football!)

See, I keep thinking of other stuff I'd like to change, except... I already changed it. A sword here, a pistol there, an axe on this guy, a mace on that guy... Without those customization options, probably a good third of my characters wouldn't even EXIST. With those power customization options, whatever they may be... Who knows how many more will be made? Who knows how many that now exist will get BETTER? I would like to find out.

It's the little things that make a game good. I've seen so many games start out with a REALLY cool central idea, and then everything in the game BESIDES that one idea serves to make me hate it completely, and hate it worse for wasting such potential. City of Heroes is sorely lacking in the little things. Yes, our costume creator is one of the best out there, but it ends at costumes. The moment we set foot into the world, all those other limitations play out from the very fist second.

I remember a day my English teacher said something I'll always remember. She was reading papers we'd handed in, when she said: "You know, when I read your works, I start to feel like I don't speak a word of English."

I'm reminded of how she must have felt, only this happens to be stupid as well as incomprehensible.

This message brought to you by: Quick Reply! The way of the future!

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The thing is, all this complaint about Energy and Psi using more Endurance is because they are doing more damage.

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They're doing enough damage to warrant a 30-40% increase in END usage?!!! We're doing the damage of Stone Melee?! I missed that during my experiment on test, I guess...! This is the problem, and I call it unacceptable!

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How do you figure that 30-40% increase in endurance usage? For Energy, damage per endurance remains the same for most powers (Whirling Hands got a range increase, rather than a damage boost) and I'm not seeing an increase of 30-40% to begin with. The increase, as I pointed out before, is a little under 15% total, while the damage increase is a little over 30% total if you compare to Live Permadom, or up to 85% if you compare to Live standard. So yes, enough damage to merit the change in endurance. Very much so.

Of course, if you're talking about Psychic Assault, that set may not have been as improved (or improved at all, I haven't looked) as the others, but it's pretty clear that it's very much a special case. As mentioned, not all sets were altered, but aside from Psi, those touched were improved even before we consider the base damage increase.

What you're seeing in Fire the most is Blaze, and Castle has already admitted he doesn't like the activation time of the power being as low as it is, though he specifically dismissed the rumours that it's getting slowed down.

You also have to remember that it's not just raw DPS that matters, but also DPE, because the faster you cycle, the more endurance you burn.

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How many people don't like this power, obviously the ones that only have a narrow focus on other powers in the game. Like really, a custom set can be made. You could make a mud slinging blaster power, no problem at all. A lot of responses are I don't like it because.........but really, the because is simply that they don't like it, but are explaining it a different way.
I like it, nothing wrong with optic blasts. Just because 3 or 4 have it in comics, doesn't mean that it shouldn't be included...........hmmm, shield is a power.

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You can feel free to discard people's reasons, but the fact remains that this game's capital aim is to include as many possible concepts as possible. Shoehorning a set so specifically into Cyclops Blast/Cyclops Manipulation is going to veto any good or bad changes that come attached to it.

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Honestly, I don't think the "dual" has anything to do with it, aside from the animations. Dual Blades has no reason outside of uniqueness to actually have combos. Logic would dictate that it would share the same secondary effect with the other blade powers, namely defense debuffing which it only gets in a single attack, because it's still using swords. Swords reduce defense. That's how the game sees it (at least from a thematic standpoint).
For the same reason, Dual Pistols, if it were assigned a secondary effect based exclusively off of basic theme, would do -def like all of the other guns in the game. However, I doubt that it will be given such a basic secondary effect so the problem comes into what will the set be given.

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From how I understood it, people were expecting a fast, fluid set in Dual Blades, which is why it got combos. People were actually posting videos of other people swinging two swords around and almost exclusively they were always doing so in a fluid, almost dance-like fashion. Because of the limitations of our engine, that couldn't really be the case for the actual powerset, but it still came out more a flurry of extravagant blows than the "strike, stop, strike, stop" that were Broadsword and Katana. I feel combos apply to Dual Blades specifically not because they are dual or because they are blades, but rather because of the fighting style they assume.

Also, the notion that guns do defence debuff isn't exactly accurate. Burst does defence debuff, but it's pretty much alone in that among rifle attacks. What's more, the only precedent we have for dual handgun attacks - Thugs Masterminds - don't actually have defence debuff effects on their attacks. Empty Clips and Dual Wield do have a chance for knockbakc, but Pistols pretty much has a single effect - damage.

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Considering how much game play interest the Dual Blades combos have elicited, I would hope that the devs would at least consider having a ranged power set that shares a similar design. It would seem self defeating to create such an interesting game mechanic and put forth all of the effort to make it such a good system to simply abandon it to never be used again. Of course, designing a ranged set that uses combos would definitely have a greater design demand, which may be an obstacle, but one would assume that it's not outside the realm of possibility.

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I'm not sure it's accurate to say that combos are a specifically new game mechanic that had to be designed for Dual Blades specifically, so much so as just a new implementation of existing functionality, such as when they set up certain toggles (primarily Phase Shift powers), auto-turn-off after a certain period of time. One has to wonder, then, why God Mode powers aren't coded the same way so that you can turn them off when they're about to drop without having to wait them out, but there you go.

I don't view this as a lot of work going to waste, as most of the work on combos seems to have gone into setting Dual Blades up, rather than devising a new mechanic. About the only thing I see as an interesting and seemingly new functionality is effects activating on condition, and that seems to have been true for Stalkers since I6 in how their Hide mechanic operates.

Now, I wouldn't specifically be AGAINST combos being given to Dual Pistols, IF they are balanced around how Blasters operate, rather than around the leeway Scrappers have to fidget about in combat. The thing, though, is that I don't specifically see this as a thematically appropriate thing for using dual pistols. Combos assume a barrage of hits, one after the other after the other. Now, with something like a belt-fed machinegun I can sort of see that, but handguns in general lack big enough clips to do this, and don't really lend themselves to being fired continuously. More than anything, and more based on how I've found handguns to work best in video games, to be honest, they work best in short burst and few shots at a time, dealing a lot of damage, then pulling back to reload. If anything, I'd give it a Claws-like Follow-Up mechanic via a Reload power, but I don't believe that kind of small, frequent damage buff really works for a Blaster.

Bad's compulsion to flame-bait aside, I have to agree with this. People act like going to the hospital is some kind of unthinkable act that should never even be considered. I had to run a Silver Mantis SF with only three people against Archus because an impatient jackass died and refused to go to the hospital even though no-one could resurrect him. He spent the entire fight dead.

My rule of thumb is to ask if I should go to the hospital once (because I've had people yell at me for not letting them resurrect me) and if I don't get an awaken, a resurrect or an answer within the next 30-60 seconds, hit the hospital. Provided there's no-one SKed to me, of course. There really is no justifiable reason for people to stay dead when they have been told repeatedly to go to the hospital.

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By itself, swapping damage types is the sort of thing that will likely to appeal to only a tiny fraction of the players, and most of those probably won't even be correct in evaluating its relative utility. On its own, I think in the general case its not a strong enough idea to be worth coding the effects into a powerset.

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Well, that's not exactly what I was hoping to hear, but I guess I can see how that would work. That was my fear going into suggesting this - that using it (let alone coding it) would be too much of a hassle for what it's actually worth. And you would probably be correct that most people (myself included) wouldn't know what's good against what. Trial and error doesn't really cut it when the database of resistances and weaknesses is THAT big, and there really isn't a good reference point to check those things. One could kind of kludge City of Data into displaying critter statistics, but both guessing faction names and actually reading the data presented... Kind of sucks.

So I guess that's out of the question, and I really can't see altering the practical effects of powers as a viable alternative. It makes slotting hell, one way or the other, and I happen to think slotting is complicated enough as it is. Which pretty much kicks me out of the discussion because I'm left without a reasonable suggestion and with not much like for the big things suggested. I'm still a fan of the mechanic of switching between multiple states, but I guess Dual Pistols (if indeed that's what we're getting) isn't the right place for it.

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To my eyes, what counts the most is that Dominators are now awesome without Domination. I can't say what effect the changes will have on permadom Dominators, but then the stated aim of the changes was to improve regular-play Dominatiors without affecting permadom Dominators too much. Which kind is yours?

[/ QUOTE ] I would think perma dom would have an easier time adjusting - with the end fill it gives you every X seconds.. (90?)

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Right! That I forgot to account for. Practically speaking, one domination per 90 seconds (ideally) means a net recovery increase of around of over a unit of endurance per second, which is significant. However, between PermaDoms now and PermaDoms later, that should remain constant and would present a decrease only if people decide to abandon PermaDom and shuffle their power and slotting choices around. I can't say whether people will or will not do that, but Castle did say he aimed to have as small an impact on PermaDoms as he could manage, and that appears to fit the bill.

Like always, it seems it's not "the changes" bothering people but one specific change to one specific power that gets applied to "the changes" as though it were the only thing that mattered.

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Just from the first sentence it is obvious you weren't reading my posts, so I didn't bother reading yours. I never said energy assault anywhere. Also Energy Assault was one of the lightest hit.

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I wasn't reading your "posts." I read your post - singular. It did not mention a powerset. And if you're going to talk about "lightest hit," then I'm going to run a guess and ask "Psychic Shockwave?"

I picked Energy Assault because every power in it was changed, save for Power Boost.

Hey, Arcana, you would probably be the right person to ask - do you think variable damage types are a strong enough mechanic to bother with coding into a set? If an attack powerset potentially had the ability to turn half of its damage into another type, to put in some rough numbers, do you think it would actually be more useful than it is a bother?

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I'm popping less attacks, have more end drain, and killing less efficient as I was before. Popping less attacks but I have just as much to more end drain and it is keeping my blue bar empty, which keeps me popping less attacks, which from there holds me back on killing effectively.

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Let's do a comparison. Let's look at a set that was changed a lot. Let's say... Energy Assault. Before you had:

Power Bolt: 5.2 cost, 1.0 damage scale
Bone Smasher: 8.528 cost, 1.64 damage scale
Power Push: 8.528 cost, 0.4 damage scale
Power Blast: 6.864 cost, 1.32 damage scale
Whirling Hands: 13 cost, 1.0 damage scale
Total Focus: 18.511999 cost, 3.56 damage scale
Sniper Blast: 14.352 cost, 2.76 damage scale
Power Burst: 10.4 cost, 2.12 damage scale

Total: 92.855999 cost, 13.8 scale damage

Now you have:

Power Bolt: 6.86 cost, 1.32 scale damage
Bone Smasher: 10.2 cost, 1.96 scale damage
Power Push: 8.528 cost, 1.64 scale damage
Power Blast: 10.2 cost, 1.96 scale damage
Whirling Hands: 18.51 cost, 1.1 scale damage
Total Focus: 20.18 cost, 3.88 scale damage
Sniper Blast: 18.51 cost, 3.56 scale damage
Power Burst: 13.5 cost, 2.6 scale damage

Total: 106.488 cost, 18.02 scale damage

~92.86 endurance to ~106.49 endurance is an increase of a little under 15%. 13.80 scale damage to 18.02 scale damage is an increase of a little over 30%. That's based JUST on the damage scale changes to the powersets themselves and IGNORES the changes to Dominator scale damage, which were in the neighbourhood of a 50% increase. For a more in-depth study, let's look at the numbers separately.

Old Energy Assault has:

Ranged: 37.856 cost, 7.6 scale damage
Melee: 40.039999 cost, 6.2 scale damage

At level 50, the current Dominator ranged damage mod is -36.147, so that's a sum total of -274.7172 ranged damage for 37.856 endurance. At level 50, the current Dominator melee damage mod is -41.708, so that's a sum total of -258,5896 ranged damage for ~40.039 endurance, or a sum total of -533.3068 damage for ~92.86 endurance. With enhancements - call it 94.993%, or 3 even level SOs for good measure - that's ~-1039,91.

New Energy Assault has:

Ranged: 57.598 cost, 11.08 scale damage
Melee: 48,89 cost, 6,94 scale damage

Damage mods aren't as straightforward. Based off AT mods, damage mods are calculated as BaseDmg - [ BaseDmg * LvlMod * ( 1 - AT_Mod ) ]. At level 50, LvlMod is 1.0 and BaseDmg is -55.6102. So at a ranged damage mod of 0.95, Dominator new ranged damage at 50 would be:

-55.6102 - (-55.6102(1-0.95)) = -55.6102 - (-55.6102*0.05) = -55.6102 + 2.78051 = -52.82969

Dominator new melee damage at 50 would be -55.6102 - (-55.6102*(1-1.05)) = -55.6102 -(-55.6102*(-0.05)) = -55.6102 - 2.78051 = -58.39071

With these mods, new Dominator total ranged damage at 50 is -585.3529652 and new Dominator total melee damage at 50 is -405.2315274, or a total of -990.5844926 unenhanced. Enhanced at the same level as above - 94.993% - that's a total of ~-1931,57.

Let me lay down the numbers for you:

Old Dominators:
92.86 cost to -1039,91 damage

New Dominators:
106.49 cost to -1931,57 damage

A cursory examination of this shows that for a less than 15% increase in cost, damage has increased by 85%. Even allowing for endurance wasted to overkill, there is still no way old Dominatiors were more efficient.

BUT WAIT! I left out Domination! Surely old permadom Dominators were more efficient than new Dominators whose Domination doesn't give a damage buff at all. Well, let's have a look see.

New Dominator damage remains unchanged at -1931,57. For old Dominator damage under the effects of Domination (a 75% damage buff for 90 seconds), we'll have to go back to unenhanced damage, which was -533.3068. We need to improve that by the sum of enhancements, which is 94.993%, added together with the damage buff from Domination, which is 75%, for a total of 169.993%. Total damage then becomes ~-1439,90. Hmm... Is it me, or is that somewhat less than (as an absolute value) than -1931,57? Granted, not by as much, but still by a little over 34%. So that's a 15% endurance cost increase for a 34% damage increase over PERMADOM, and an 85% damage increase over plain old Dominators. That is NOT less efficient.

I did not take recharge time into consideration for the simple fact that, outside of simple burst damage, it doesn't really play a factor in efficiency. It DOES play a role in determining how FAST you go through your endurance, but does not affect how WELL you use it. Yes, new Dominators expend endurance faster. Kind of, if you let rip with all of your powers. However, they also kill faster. But on a pure comparison of damage dealt to endurance expended doing so, new Dominators are actually significantly more efficient than old PermaDoms, and SIGNIFICANTLY more efficient than NonPermaDoms at zero cost of investment.

I fail to see how that's worse.

It's not licensed. NCsoft bought it.

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This is no illusion, my Dom is a level 50 Plant/Fire, he is slotted with Genric level 50 IOs and has even worse end issues on test than on live. His recharge isn't as good and he seems to be killing just as effectively except with end issue while some of the fire powers not up as much.

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It's not an illusion, but it is also not a direct result of the changes. To a great extent, it's the effect of player perception causing players to do MORE than they used to, and thus use up more endurance. That, and the increased overkill from bigger attacks are the greatest contributing factors.

To my eyes, what counts the most is that Dominators are now awesome without Domination. I can't say what effect the changes will have on permadom Dominators, but then the stated aim of the changes was to improve regular-play Dominatiors without affecting permadom Dominators too much. Which kind is yours?

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Being able to choose what ammo to use at anytime is kinda the whole point, so having one botton that clicks thru the different types randomly wouldn't work IMO.

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Good thing that's not what Sam is suggesting. It's cycling through the various ammo types in a distinct pattern. None>Fire>Cold>Other. It's not random at all.

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Systematic cycling through the options in order is what I meant, yes. At no recharge and no activation time, the power's only delay would be whatever your ping time is, and at the very least whatever the server's fail-safe against botting happens to be. I'd call that at 50ms. Arcanaville did some research on animation time vagaries due to network traffic, though I don't remember what the findings were like, which will likely put the upper limit on what the delay has to be.

If I had to make a guess, though, I'd say you can cycle between states in around 50-100ms, which is below most people's average ping anyway. It's like toggling Sprint on and off, to put it in precise perspective. The only reason it would be fiddly is that it would require one to stop at the required ammo type.

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Just because there is currently no toggle that adds damage/effects to your attacks, doesn't mean it would work. It's not like power customization or something where the way the game is built just won't allow it.

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Actually it is. We went over all of the reasons why it would have to be done this way, unless there is some pretty significant code screwery done to tweak it. Please, actually read the relevant portions earlier on in the thread. Sam and I actually got pretty in depth as to the reasons why it would have to be done the way we describe.

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There are plenty of technical limitations, yes, and we did go over them. Off the top of my head, by far the biggest one would be a slot sink similar to how Kheldian Form attacks need to be slotted separately from forms, causing the now-infamous Kheldian slotting conundrum. But they're an Epic AT, and as such are allowed their oddities and unique mechanics, even if that one I see as a huge disadvantage. Blasters, or in general any AT this is given to, has to exist within the context of how the AT is set up. Three powers fro the price of one leads to a generic AT primary with 11 powers, and that's a pretty big thing.

There's also the fact that not everything can be slotted for. You can slot for damage, for instance, but that only affects the power it is slotted into. You CANNOT, however, slot for damage BUFF. Enhancements for this simply do not exist, and the system, from what I understand, is actually self-looping. Damage buff enhancements would increase the damage buff, which would then buff the enhancements, which then increase the damage buff and so on until the damage cap. Kind of like how resistance buffs also act as resistance debuff resistance, in effect applying twice. Power Boost does prove that control effects can be increased, but it also proves that control effect buffs aren't slottable. You can't slot Power Boost for hold and have your holds increased more still. In fact, most offensive effects powers have can be buffed, but these buffs cannot be slotted for, defence and to-hit notwithstanding. Damage, control, debuff... We're not talking about applying debuffs to enemies, we're talking about applying a buff that increases debuff effects, which... I don't believe currently exists.

The only real way for this to be implemented would be to shove all possible effects into each power, which then means people are forced to either slot for everything in six slots and fail, or slot for only one thing and abandon the rest of the toggles. And then that leaves you with three toggles which cannot be slotted for anything, which isn't really better. In fact, I made the mistake of suggesting extra status effects, myself, even though I should have known better.

I'm going to go back to my original idea of changing damage types, but with one caveat: make "Off" useful in its own right. We already discussed that it's silly for Fire bullets to not act like bullets and deal Lethal damage, too, so let's compromise: have this power provide a static buff to Lethal damage when no mode is selected. I could deal with the powerset having slightly under-performing damage without this power, and being granted a bigger constant damage buff when the power is picked up. This damage buff to Lethal damage would then disappear and be replaced with a Cold or Fire or Energy or whatever damage component of equal value, trading some Lethal damage for damage of another type.

In fact, have all powers come in two components - one Lethal that's always active, then another one that starts out Lethal at character creation, but is REPLACED by different damage types as the person switches. That way we get to keep bullets acting like bullets yet still play with a sufficiently large damage component changing type for it to be meaningful.

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The way I see it, the DPE stayed roughly the same, maybe even went up.
What changed is the ability of Doms to put out MORE damage per second, leading to higher End usage.

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Precisely. Long-recharge, high-cost, high-damage attacks make for exceptionally good spike damage, but also cost a lot if you spam them. And with more attacks taking longer to recharge, this leaves the room for more powers per attack chain, leading to still more cost. The baseline consumption doesn't appear to have changed. In fact, it should be better. But now that there are gaps here and there, people are going to want to push it, speed their attacks up and plug up those gaps. THAT is where the EXTRA cost comes from.

If anything, high-damage, high-cost, high-recharge attacks cost LESS than low-damage, low-cost, low-recharge attacks over time because their high up-front damage is balanced by lower overall DPS, and hence a lower overall EPS. A certain playstyle can go some way to favour small, fast attacks, but in my experience, that's a playstyle most people don't like, and even then it doesn't make up the difference.

Far as I'm concerned, waiting around a bit when everything else is held and harmless is actually in keeping with the spirit of the AT.

I find it good practice to avoid using terms which either have no meaning, or have a different meaning in the real world. In this case, "mob" used to refer to a single person when the actual word in the language is used to refer to multiple people. Or the Mafia. The old phase "a mob of Mob mobs" is a good, albeit manufactured example of why this can be problematic.

"Toon," on the other hand, is just irritating.

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For me it isn't about doing anything like CO in a an attempt to copy it. Although it would be equally silly to NOT do something worthwhile just because CO does it by the same token.

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I look at it this way - it's not about which game does what how well. It's about what works, what doesn't and what's good for THIS game. If that means copying other games, I'm fine with that. If that means re-inventing the wheel, then whatever it takes. For what it's worth, I think what we're getting will be uniquely our own if for no reason other than because it has to work with our wonky engine