Adeon Hawkwood

Applying real world analogs to game balance issues is pretty pointless. In the real world does doing a jumping-spin attack with a sword require more or less effort than slamming it down on someone's head? Because I'm willing to bet the forming is quite a bit harder int he real world but in game they have the same endurance costs.

That depends how you look at it. From what I can see the shield sets are balanced around the idea of the shields being applied to the entire team (except for yourself) the entire time. The sets are using 2 of their 9 powers to apply a continuous defensive buff to the entire team. Compare that to powers like Fortitude which are balanced around providing a stronger buff to a portion of the team for a single power choice.

Think about it this way. Force Field's small shields and Fortitude provide the same defense bonus. However Fortitude also provides a damage and to hit buff and only requires a single power choice compared to two power choices in Force Field (yes, FF does also provide some resistances but those are situational while Damage/To Hit is always useful). The balancing mechanism for this is that Fortitude is limited to about 4 allies at once (more if you have a very high recharge build) whereas Force Field can be used on the entire team.

Even if you consider the non-defense portions of the powers to be about equal (which I would disagree with) the power choices clearly balance it. FF has 2 power choices and can buff the 7 team members while Fortitude has 1 power choice and can buff 4.

That's a neat idea although I'm not sure how practical it would be to actually implement

Yeah, balance by frustration is a good way to put it.

Good point, I was trying to think of the correct term but could not figure out what is should be. My first thought was Tele-babble (from telepathy) but that sounds like a disparaging term for daytime talk shows.

You know, I've heard this argument when I bought it up before and I still do not buy it. Yes, when the MM buffs were made AoE the endurance cost was increased but I do not believe the two situations are synonymous.

MM Pet Upgrades last until the pet is killed. Increasing the endurance cost of the upgrades adds a strategic element to them. If a single pet dies and you resummon them you have to decide whether to upgrade them immediately, wait until more pets need upgrading or even hold off until the end of the mission. It also serves to decrease the effectiveness of mid-combat summons slightly nerfing MMs.

The same is not true of the shield buffs. They are on a 4 minute timer so even if someone dies you were planning to re-bubble them in less than 4 minutes anyway. This eliminates the strategic element of buffing replacing it with spend X seconds and Y endurance every 4 minutes.

I don't like saying "other games do this so we should to" but this is one case where I think it is valid. If you look at a certain other MMO the duration and ease of casting of buff powers have been steadily improving. In the current incarnation a single cast buffs everyone in your team for 1 hour and have a relatively small mana cost.

Now I can see strong arguments in this game against increasing the duration of such buffs, they are very powerful and should not persist for long after the buffer has left the team. However I do not feel that making them easier to use would break the game.

The way I see it repeatedly casting single target buffs on fellow players is not good gameplay, it's make-work. As for balance, the buffs are designed to be cast continuously on an entire team, making that easier to do is not going to break the balance. The powers are not (or at least should not be) balanced around being hard to use.

Of the 100% uptime ST buffs powers there are basically 3 categories:
1. Shields on 4 minute durations
2. Mez protection buffs on 60 or 90 second durations
3. Speed Boost

The shields I think should be changed to buff the team with a single cast, no question about it. The sets they are in are pretty much designed around having that buff up 100% of the time so make it easier to do.

Mez protection buffs I think are fine as is. I wouldn't object to them being easier to use but I also don't think it is necessary. Doing an occasional cast either preemptively or in response to mezzing seems reasonable for them.

Speed Boost I think needs nerfing. I would like to see it made easier to use as well but I think it needs nerfing even in it's current form.

I went with the seers and claimed that they are "projecting" themselves to explain the aura. No, I have no clue how that is supposed to work, it's techno-babble.

Or possibly they simply don't care to get involved in large arguments about it. I mean really, what do you expect them to say? I'm pretty sure that the trials as the primary method of advancement is WAI, after all a progression system is going to be based around a particular set of content. Now having more than 2 trials would be nice but development resources are limited, adding more trials would have meant cutting back on non-incarnate content (such as the two new TFs).

As for the solo route, I do think they screwed up there but I think the screw-up was in adding it at all (or at least adding it in the current state). The following is pure conjecture on my part but here goes. I think that the original plan for the Incarnate system was to have no solo path at all beyond the T2 Alpha (or possibly, up to T2 for all the slots but no T3s/T4s). When the WST was released the huge uproar about it changed the plans to include the need for a solo option. However developing an actual solo option would require a lot of developer resources which were not available in the time frame for inclusion in I20 (and indeed adding it in the future would require cutting back on other content). The solution was to add a "buy it" path for soloers but do so in a way that made it unattractive to people doing the trials. Hence we end up with the lol-costs for rare and very-rare components/boosts.

I think that was a poor choice on the part of the devs. Adding the current method is (IMHO) rather insulting to solo players. It basically implies that the devs don't care about giving them a solo path but at the same time want them to shut up about it. IMHO not having a solo path at all would have been... nicer. It would essentially say that the incarnate system is not for solo players rather than the current "sure you can solo the incarnate path" followed by maniacal laughter.

Now what if I were in charge of it? I think I would take a middle road. First add in a few repeatable story arcs or missions (of Mender Ramiel style difficulty) which either provide Incarnate XP or even unlock the slots outright (I don't mind the IXP thing but I also don't think it really adds anything to the system). Next change the shard to thread conversion rate a bit (say 10 shards for 20 threads once a day). Finally I'd remove the ability to craft rare/very rare components from shards/threads.

The idea would be to make it so that people who solo primarily or exclusively can get their slots opened much more easily (raiders get thier's unlocked essentially for free, I don't see why soloers should not). They can them get them slotted with T2 boosts in a moderately reasonable time frame (you'd need 320 shards which means it'll take some time but isn't completely unreasonable). Getting the T3 and T4 boosts however would require doing team content (either the WST for the Alpha or the Trials for the other slots).

Would that be unfair to soloers? Somewhat, after all it's capping their advancement below what non-soloers get. On the other hand the advancement they can get becomes a lot easier.

I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't know that. I think I'll be changing how I do assignments on future BAFs.

They shouldn't. That box only adds people to a league after it has started (and I think only if the league is below minimum strength). It might be a bug in the queue system, I've definitely seen it add extras when I run with a non-full league.

Your teammates were incorrect. If you queue with a less than full league it will automatically add anyone in the queue to your league. This generally (but not always) results in a full league.

I've done this a few times on leagues where I didn't feel like filling the last few spots so I have no problem with it as an option, I just think forcing players to do it is a bad idea.

This I think is a bad idea. It is something that builds an "us versus them" mentality and, potentially, ends up causing friction between the original league members and the people in the "welfare spots".

A better solution (IMHO) would have been to make it so that leagues cannot queue at all, only individual teams but that is something that needs to have been done from the start. Setting it that way now would cause major complaints from the playerbase.

True, but that's where the aggro cap comes in, as you pick up aggro from new groups the old groups will get bored and wonder off. This is also why it's important to try and keep people together. When a mob gets bored trying to catch the tank and decides to head back to spawn you really do not want to be standing next to him.

A good rule here (which I wish more melee characters would use) is to pause for a few seconds in font of each crate spawn for the rest of the team to close up a bit. You don't need to go crazy but waiting a couple of extra seconds allows the slower team members to catch up.

A couple of general comments. First off yes, not all ATs are equal in each phase of each trial. Yes, the Lambda Weapons Phase favors melee characters but the BAF Prisoner Phase favors ranged characters. Overall I'd say it's pretty balanced between the two.

Now on the specific instance of the Lambda Weapons Phase as a squishy. I don't consider it badly designed, it does however require a skill set that players haven't necessarily developed (because this is the first piece of content to require it). Specifically you need to know how to speed run. Speed running on a tough character is easy, you turn on your toggles and go for it. Speed running on a squishy is trickier. You need to manage inspiration usage (purples, oranges and greens are all very useful). You need to watch your teammates and the NPCs to avoid aggro, keeping your distance from enemies by jumping over them decreases the chance of them aggroing you, also as Dechs said try to use the melee characters to draw aggro off you. It's worth investing in a bit of stealth, you don't need full stealth but adding a stealth IO to sprint and running that makes it much easier to skirt large groups. Finally, you need to keep moving, standing still gets you killed.

That's because people aren't using it. When forming a league I have, on average, found 1 person with their "looking for trial" flag up.

I was joking. I tried to make it so over the top that it was clear that I was joking but I guess Poe's Law still applies.

It's hard to tell sarcasm in text, someone could conceivably not know about MS raids.

The other possibility is that it's a mix of activity and random. Higher activity decreases your chance of getting the 10 threads or common component table but doesn't guarantee you a rare/very rare.

Ah, fair enough .

The League frame when displaying the entire league is made to benefit two types of players: the league leader (who can use it to identify ATs, switch people around and tell who is in trouble) and people with single target heals (who can use it to easily spot a dropping life bar).

For people with single target shield type powers the best option is to ditch the large screen and set up a focus tab where you can monitor buff status on those characters that really need it.

Just my $0.02.

The other thing to keep in mind is that players who form leagues through turnstile (rather than joining pre-formed leagues) are, on average, more likely to be solo-oriented players. Solo-oriented players are more likely to play characters that are good at soloing.

The pre-formed leagues I've done have generally had a nice mix of support characters even given my "strategy" of inviting people on a first come, first served basis.

Just as a general point you can open the outer door and enter the courtyard without clearing the 60 mobs, you just can't enter the inner door. I figure if you run the circuit CCW from the spawn point to the door and then clear the courtyard that should give you the best efficiency.

This raises an important question though. If a Mastermind has a doppleganger Lore pet can he control the pet's pets?