Samuel_Tow

[ QUOTE ]
This sounds good to me. Of course I never used Perma Dom...

[/ QUOTE ]

More than anything else, it seems like it's just a huge change. Like, say, if someone took Tankers and turned them into Scrappers, except there is precedent for what Dominators have become. In my admittedly limited experience, it has been very positive. I'm a bit biassed, I should say, because I've been asking for a Damage/Control AT for some time, and Dominators post-change are about as close as we're going to get unless we get more ATs in Going Rogue. Granted, damage is in their secondary, but their damage mods are through the roof, so all that affects is when powers come about.

Like I said, Dominators now have the second-highest melee damage mod in the game and a ranged damage mod up there with the big boys on top of the increased attack damage is SIGNIFICANT.

[ QUOTE ]
Mid's doesn't help us Mac users who don't have access to Windows...

[/ QUOTE ]

Wouldn't SuckerPunch's online planner work for that?

Hmm... You know what I just thought of? How about a SINGLE power that rotated between a few different effects? It should be technically possible, though it may be a pain to code in. Call it "Switch ammo" and have it rotate between Off, Incendiary rounds with more damage, Cryo rounds with secondary effects, maybe some kind of Energy rounds for... I don't know what...

Point is, it should be possible. Have the power coded something like that:

Switch ammo
Enable Fire mode for 9999.99s
Enable Cold mode for 9999.99s If Fire mode
Disable Fire mode if Fire mode
Enable Energy mode for 9999.99s If Cold mode
Disable Cold mode if Cold mode
Disable Energy mode If Energy mode

One power, four effects - Normal (Off), Fire, Cold and Energy. Sure, you have to cycle between them, but if the power is given 0s recharge and no animation and root time, it could be a fairly quick switch, though perhaps a fiddly one. More than anything else, it saves the set from being overrun by toggles. Cost would have to be considered, of course, but I would personally feel that situational awareness is enough of a cost to balance this out, provided all modes are balanced with none being better than the others. And, push comes to shove, we can just go back to the different damage types

P.S. I list "9999.99s" as a timer because it doesn't seem like the game supports "permanent" effects. For instance, Controller and Mastermind "permanent" pets actually last for 9999.99 seconds, which comes to around 27 and a bit straight hours.

[ QUOTE ]
Dominator 0.750 0.650

[/ QUOTE ]

Soon to be:
Dominator 1.05 0.95

To point, I've always HATED the notion of promoting teaming by castrating characters in some specific field. Yes, it's a valid tactic, but it works off a base I REALLY hate. It's based on the old MMO notion that players suck and player characters are wimps, and the only way to defeat the truly interesting foes is to band together and out-and-out bum-rush them to death. Carried over to our universe, our heroes are weak, and weaker still in specific ways, such that they need both allies and allies of a specific type.

I don't like that. Why is the belief that if people don't HAVE to team, they WILL not team so prevalent? Remember the old arcades that came with two joysticks per cabinet? All the characters in there were strong in their own right, yet people still played them together. Even the big machines that came with three or even four joysticks (say, Knights of the Round and Sunset Riders, respectively). Why is it such a no-no to let people be proficient in their own powers without having a crippling weakness by missing something they're really going to need?

For my money, the most fun teams I've ever been on have been the ones where everyone can take care of himself to a large degree. Teams where I can trust and rely on ALL of my team-mates to be strong and tough and not needing to be looked after all the time. Teams where we look at each other, smile and say "Let's do this!" No roles, no complicated plans, no character with great offence who needs to be guarded by a character with next to no offence.

Every time I can spot balance as the SOLE reason for a crippling weakness, it bugs me. There are plenty of ways to promote teaming and create an interesting team dynamic WITHOUT having to cut the legs from under all the people present. Even on a team of all Scrappers, for instance, damage types and powerset design can make things interesting just by themselves, and that's stuff that's already in the game.

I sincerely hope that MMOs will break out of this mould one of these days.

Far as I'm concerned, consolidated threads are good because they keep a single hot issue from infecting all of the boards like a plague to the point where you can't find anything else. When General Discussions looks like "Farming is good!" "Why nerf faming?" "MA Farming" "Why nerf diversity?" "I hate farmers" "Look what you farmers did!" and so on and so forth, going to the boards becomes pointless.

Reading 2000+ replies is hard? Not nearly as hard as reading 20+ threads, specifically when a few new ones pop up every time I reload. I like consolidated threads because they open up the forum to things OTHER than that one issue in the consolidated thread.

[ QUOTE ]
If my Dom has the END issues of heavy-duty melee-types, then I will be expecting the DAMAGE she does to be equivalent. But we're not gonna get that and..... *reaches for top shelf of the storage-closet*...

[/ QUOTE ]

Bad, what you're missing is that Dominator damage got buffed twice. Once their base damage mods were increased by around 50%, for which they paid with the damage buff in Domination. Thing is, though, the increase makes their attacks deal as much damage as before, only ALL the time. They got buffed a second time when their attacks were almost all increased in scale damage INDEPENDENT of their base damage. For this, they paid with a recharge and endurance increase. However, DPE is a constant defined by power type which remained the same, and DPS is defined on a sliding scale ever so slightly favouring faster attacks, which also remained true.

The net result is that you do more damage with fewer attacks and pay about as much per enemy. What changed, however, was that now they have "gaps" in their attack chains. People are trying to fill in those gaps, which costs more endurance, and they use silly stuff to fill in, costing themselves more endurance still. I don't know how Dominators played before, but I can clearly see how they're supposed to play now. Rather than needing a full attack chain to loop over and over again, they play like Blasters, applying heavy damage quickly, then pausing to control. These "gaps" are, in my eyes, to be used to apply your actual control powers for the sake of controlling the enemy.

The damage buff is significant. Dominators now have enough damage to rival a Blaster outside of Aim and Build Up, and some Assault sets seem to have those, to boot. Dominator Snipes, for instance, do more damage than Blaster Snipes even at a ranged damage mod .1 lower. With a melee damage mod the second-highest after Scrappers and overpowered melee attacks added to that, the damage output is SIGNIFICANT.

This is a buff all around, there is no question about that. It's a CHANGE, of course, and a change people will have to adapt to, but it is nothing short of a significant buff, Psychic Shockwave notwithstanding.

[ QUOTE ]
For one ZCT you should not need any Inspritions (assuming you have a decent attack chain).

[/ QUOTE ]

What build are you assuming? Because I'm assuming one as "expensive" as that of my Scrappers, which is essentially SOs or Common Inventions. With that, not needing inspirations for a Zeus is a rarity, though if I'm VERY lucky, I could manage it. Missile Swarms that take 3/4 of my health away, Quad Plasma Barrages that take at least half my health away and at least 30% damage resistance to everything, more to Smashing and Lethal doesn't exactly lend itself easy killing.

More than one at a time is, for my Blasters at least, flatly impossible. A Scrapper with a build the same cost, on the other hand, wouldn't have much trouble besides needing to use an extra power or two that usually go unused because they aren't needed.

[ QUOTE ]
When I play a Blaster I am filled with confidence. To each his own, I guess.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would that I could, but when one slip-up, one little mistake, one errant boss shot or one awkward side step into a neighbouring spawn means certain death, how could I? When I play a Scrapper, I need to take on something SERIOUSLY bad to even be in meaningful danger, and that's if I'm so much as awake. On my Blaster, I have to dig pretty deep to find something I'm NOT in severe danger against, and that usually means taking on stuff below my level.

Thematically speaking, can it really be called "sneaking around" when you're actually invisible? Sure, it may be called "Hide," but several powersets use literal invisibility, such as Energy Aura and Dark Armour.

[ QUOTE ]
I report trolls.

[/ QUOTE ]

Me have body by Superadine!

[ QUOTE ]
Now that's total bunk. Blasters can and do solo AVs.

[/ QUOTE ]

AVs I can't speak about, but EBs are actually EASIER to solo than regular content by virtue of their rarity. I can always carry four purples and two or four reds and obliterate pretty much any EB, and have done so with the greatest of ease. All the Praetorians, the Kronos Titan, the Clockwork King, Babbage, Vanessa DeVore, Nemesis a few times, Nosferatu, the list goes on. Elite bosses are easy because for them you can prepare. I'm not sure about you, but I at least can't bring the same preparation down to bear on every bloody Zeus Titan when a Malta mission decides to spawn a dozen of 'em, lest I leave to buy inspirations at least half a dozen times.

[ QUOTE ]
Take every legal advantage you need and win: That's how I play in every game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bill Z Bubba said it best a long time ago. Yes, it's true that Blasters can become a lot better with all the benefits of Inventions and inspirations. But then so can Scrappers, and they can get a LOT better for it, into the territory of outright broken.

This isn't a question of absolute performance. It's a question of relative performance. And the fact of the matter is that a Scrapper, a Brute or a Mastermind can take a horrible build, play like an idiot and STILL achieve performance that rivals that of a Blaster with a very careful, expensive build and played absolutely expertly. This is the AT disparity that ruins my fun with Blasters - the knowledge that I could be playing another AT and demolishing the enemies that make my Blaster quake in his boots, and do so with the greatest of ease.

When I play a Scrapper, I am filled with confidence. When I play a Blaster, I am filled with caution. That right there shouldn't be.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
We do, but it's not on these forums and only I have access to it.
So far, I'm not getting a lot of quality suggestions.

[/ QUOTE ]
Small wonder, as you're the only one contributing. At least you've avoided the farce that is Jay's Costume Request thread.
I always find your snarky disdain for player suggestions a comfort. If you guys have grander plans, is there any chance you'll actually be making them?
Attache

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, at least we get a good idea why BABs doesn't post more often.

Why is it that every time I see one of these embittered posts, I almost always recognise the poster's name?

I'm seriously stumped here. I've seen a few good ideas for things to be added to the loading screen, like access to the chat interface so you don't get locked out of a conversation when you zone, but... A cursor isn't among them. I don't even know what that is...

[ QUOTE ]
well its between you guys now. I don't like my idea anymore. too many changes on my part that keeps making it worse (as umbral and samual_tow point out) which isnt bad, just they showed me my flaws. Well, good luck guys

[/ QUOTE ]

It wasn't a bad idea. Very few ideas posted here ever are, despite what you might think from reading the forums. It's just that final step between having an idea and implementing a game feature that's the real doozy. Trust me, I've discarded a lot of my own because they simply weren't workable.

For what it's worth, I liked parts of yours, but all of us here just disagreed on too many points.

That looks like the end of Time After Time. Is this on Live or from a particular instance?

I really don't think DPA or DPS applies to Snipes very well. I mean, you can calculate it, yes, but for actual practice to reflect statistical average, one would have to cycle a Snipe as soon as it recharges. Given that it's interruptible and cannot be used just haphazardly whenever a Blaster fancies and that, given its long activation time, many opt for faster, slightly less damaging powers instead, it has been my experience that Snipes spend a LOT of time recharged and waiting to be used. From my own experience, that's AT LEAST twice as long as they actually take to recharge, and that's without speeding them up in any way. Add that to the fact that their DPA really IS lower than one would expect, I don't believe an increase is that far out of order.

There's actually another interesting phenomenon. The longer a power takes to recharge, the more likely it is that its actual use will reflect predicted DPA numbers, because it will spend less time waiting, relative to its cycle length. What's more, people tend to be more likely to use these powers, as they are relatively cheap in animation time vs. recharge time, bringing them closer to their predicted numbers.

In light of the above, I actually think that a change to make Sniper Blast have BETTER DPA than is expected of it will give the power some needed "oomph," but because it's not very likely to reach this predicted better DPA, still keep it balanced. I would not, however, mind seeing a recharge increase to preserve DPA. As Blasts are hard to pull off and tend to be situational, concentrating more of the attack into fewer shots is going to help it both get better ACTUAL DPA, as well as make it more exciting to play with, at least from where I'm looking.

I'd like to keep PvP out of the Shard, because enabling PvP in a zone alters the rules of the game pretty much fundamentally, and I'm not interested in learning how the PvP rules work if I'm not interested in engaging in PvP. And I'm not. The Shard is a whole dimension. It ought to be big enough for everybody.

Get a what?

[ QUOTE ]
The vast majority of ISPs do not assign static IPs. You ban their IP and in 4-12 hours they'll automatically have a new IP, if they don't manually renew sooner. Eventually you've banned entire IP blocks, locking out legitimate players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, IP blocks are typically a very bad idea. I can just hit "Repair" on my network connection right now and I'll be issued a new IP. IPs are not unique to the person, so blocking them, even blocking just one, could not only block legitimate users, but actually deny service to current users who happen to have that one assigned for a time.

As for the rest... Why is e-mail such a big deal? Simply "spam" all the stuff that's in there if you don't have anything important, or spam mail-by-mail so as not to report friends of yours. The only way to gather a lot of spam mail is to leave a character inactive for long periods of time, so at worst it's a once in a long while activity.

[ QUOTE ]
You've got similar problems with most of the other powers you mention. You can increase mag on a target reasonably easily, but increasing the duration is a bit tougher. You'd need to either completely negate the previous effect and have a different effect with the longer duration override it or have a second effect with a similar mag but longer duration added to it, which doubles the duration for the standard period and keeps up the remaining mag for the extended.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, that might be possible via staggering the effects, like how self-drain effects are staggered on "god mode" powers. Say a stun for 10 seconds that always plays, then another stun for 5 seconds applied after 10 seconds. Of course, we loop back into the problem of enhancements, because if you enhance the original stun's duration, you will end up stacking it with the second stun. You can increase a power effect's duration, but you CANNOT alter another power effect's delay pretty much at all. So the only way this would work is if the original stun ignored enhancements and buffs.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My first complain about the legs in game is that they are too long, which tends to make characters look very 1992. I always set leg length sliders to minimum, regardless of which physique settings and size I use

[/ QUOTE ]

Same here. Even minimum length looks a bit odd to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree. I tend to use very long legs, because my legs are fairly long, and I tend to proportion characters similar to myself. That said, I'm very tired of using baggy pants and some form of tight boots.

[/ QUOTE ]

Same here. I like the aesthetic of longer legs, and short legs make characters look chunky and square and, above all, short. One of the first things I do, especially for tall characters, is to pull the legs slider almost all the way to the right so they LOOK tall even before proportions come to play. I'm not sure what happened in 1992, but I like the look.

[ QUOTE ]
When you solo, of course you have to rely more on tactics than firepower when dealing with challenging content. I missed the part where that was a bad thing. Where would be the fun in blowing up everything in your path with minimal risk of eating dirt? Beats me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Solo. And I never said I had anything against using tactics. The thing is that I have to use so many "evasive manoeuvres" that you rarely get the kind of time you need to... Well, be a Blaster. Sure, trampling through stuff in sleep mode is boring, but I'd still like to have the opportunity to let rip and be EFFECTIVE from time to time, rather than be dead. It's like having a super-fast sports car and living on a small tropical island without roads. Fat load of good that does you.

I pick Blasters because they're so powerful - easily the most powerful in the game in terms of raw output. Yet I have to either NOT be powerful, or bring other people along, thus defeating the point of being powerful in the first place. If I'll have other people do my content for my, why bother? Sure, I'll take teams when I can, but not being able to look after myself REALLY bugs me.

And the other thing is, as I mentioned before, that while my Scrappers have a lot of emergency response powers that can allow them to survive those extra ambushes or that double spawn, a Blaster has barely enough to handle what he's looking at, and more enemies - specifically when they're scripted to come - make things either bad bad BAD, or outright impossible. It's the disparity between ATs that bugs me more than anything else.

[ QUOTE ]
Oh I hope not. I think all the ATs should have a Blaze-like power. It hits hard, it executes quickly, and the animation is fluid and very appropriate. Every set should have at least one power that executes that nicely. I hope they don't go back to Statesman-type thinking and nerf it. Even when they extended the range, it's still significantly shorter than the other blasts and requires you to move into a much closer range than the rest of the set requires.

[/ QUOTE ]

Skirting the quote - here's the beef I have with Blasters and the reason I want Snipes improved. People are ecstatic over Blaster "hard-hitters" in their primaries, yet these supposed hard-hitters hit at a VERY low scale damage when compared to just about any other damage dealer's "big stuff." Blaze and Power Burst hit at 2.2 scale damage and Bitter Ice Blast hits at a little above that. Yet at the same time, Head Splitter hits at 2.6, Greater Fire Sword at 3.44, Knockout Blow at 3.56 and Energy Transfer at 4.5. OK, so some of these aren't available to high-mod ATs, but Scrappers have the same damage mod on their primary as Blasters have on theirs - 1.125. Yet consistently, Scrappers get bigger attacks for less cost and less situational unavailability than Blasters - the supposed damage kings.

Snipes are the only thing that Blasters have that can match Scrapper damage, nukes notwithstanding, and snipes are either too weak or too fickle to use. A Scrapper can pump out a Head Splitter after Head Splotter for marginally less damage and marginally more recharge, but do so as soon as the power recharges at no danger of wasted endurance and no need to find "the right moment." Oh, sure, one can argue that you still have to position to catch more than one person, but the power's cost and recharge are balanced around it being single-target, so even if a single target is all you hit, you're STILL better off than a Blaster, whose only free Sniper shot is at the beginning of the fight. A Scrapper has free shots at Head Splitter pretty much as long as he is alive, because a Head Splitter cannot be stopped.

Snipes come with a whole cartload of niggling, grating limitations in tow, yet what they do doesn't measure up to the stunts you have to pull to use it. Not at its current damage mod. I HATE fickle powers, lemme tell ya, but if my Snipe did 3.56 scale damage, I would shut the hell up, grin and bear it, because THAT kind of damage coming out of a Blaster's primary damage mod would be WORTH IT, and then some. Maybe it would make me feel truly powerful and truly awesome in a whole new way. And at the end of the day, isn't that what it's all about?

There is a potential problem with the whole dual nature, come to think of it: enhancements. The more things a power does, the harder it becomes to slot for everything... Or indeed much of anything. If you want to truly have a dual purpose to every power, then you are more or less asking people to slot for both, or pick just one, slot for that and use only it. Think about all the rhetoric behind Granite Tankers, as an example.

That's sort of why I wanted to stick to just either more damage or different kinds of damage - easier to slot for and get a serious effect out of. We've already given up on it, of course, but I'm just worried about how something with too many effects would be slotted.

[ QUOTE ]


Pretty much everyone, yup. There may be the odd AT that has a specific powerset combination that doesn't give them access to either status protection or a single-target mez of some kind by the time they're in the 40's, but almost every AT and powerset combination I can think of has at least access to either status prot or a single-target hold by the time they get to that point in the game. The poitn is that you almost have to deliberately opt out of taking it to not have some way to defend yourself.

[/ QUOTE ]

For the most part that works, but for two complications. One, my game loves spawning spawns of two Tac Ops, BOTH of whom open with Flashbang, or spawning a Tac Ops and a Sapper. In the former case, I have a choice - get stunned or get stunned. In the latter, I have another - get stunned or get sapped and held. That's one.

The other is enemies have INSTANT reaction time. I remember the old days when I'd snipe a Gunslinger and knock him back, yet in the processor cycle between the attack registering and the knockback rooting him, he managed to start casting Cryo Round, freezing me - hiding around the corner - as he's flopping like a fish out of water. It's even worse with two people with itchy trigger fingers on the stuns. If I had a second or two after I acted to either hide or at least fire off another power, it might work, but all too often enemies react the INSTANT anyone catches aggro. Nothing short of KILLING them after that fact will keep them from stunning me, not even being stunned, themselves. Sometimes I really wish status effects interrupted attacks the same way death does.

[ QUOTE ]
I agree with Sam that the Malta is a bit much sometimes, but I have a harder time in my twenties and thirties with mezzing enemies than I do with the Malta. They might be a little harder than they should be, or feel harder than is fair (and I think so too sometimes, don't get me wrong), but they're hardly game-breaking by any means, nor are they truly unreasonable.

[/ QUOTE ]

Harder than they should be and harder than is fair, yes. Which wouldn't be as bad if they gave more rewards than they should and more rewards than they fair. But they don't, which makes fighting them a gigantic bust. Took me a couple of years, but I finally understand why people are fighting Freakshow and Nemesis. There isn't an AT that Malta isn't harder than average for, even if not as hard for some as for others, yet they give the bare minimum rewards, and even have those crappy Auto Turrets that follow you arround yet give NO reward whatsoever.

I don't know, maybe if I were receiving massive rewards, I wouldn't feel like as much of a fool for fighting them.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I really like Blasters and the power they wield, but I REALLY hate it when I don't get the most out of them.

[/ QUOTE ]
Fixed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fix it all you will. Any half-competent Blaster will tell you that opening with guns blazing against a Malta Titan or a Chief Mesmerist will send you to an early grave. It takes tactics to approach them and control to incapacitate them and KEEP them down, all of which takes both time and endurance away from doing what you SHOULD be doing - blasting. Which would be fine, if it weren't for the fact that other damage dealers don't have to go through that.

Where a Scrapper can charge in like an idiot, dive into the middle of a spawn and let rip with his bigger attacks, a Blaster who does that with Full Auto is likely to be dead before his ammo belt runs out. Pretty much all the Blaster horror stories start with "The Blaster pulled with Fireball." Blasters have a LOT of power, but actually USING that power gets them killed. The only way to succeed is to NOT use it all, and that really, really sucks.