Another_Fan
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Quote:The AT's problems are hardly intractable. If you look at what has been happening recently the new Devs have been doing things with the new powersets that greatly improve the AT, all that can be applied to existing power sets without even violating the cottage rule.Originally Posted by Comicsluvr
Thanks for the wildest visual ever lol.
However you emphasized my point. Even with all the luv players seem to have for them do they need rebuilt? If it were a small tweak or something I'd say no. But the AT seems to have so many problems wouldn't it be better to start over? Or would the player backlash be so bad that there's no way to re-do the AT?
Take 1 Dual Pistols.
This is a primary blaster powerset that has an armor power !!! The armor power is on a non crashing nuke no less.
Take 2 Dark Blast.
AoE control
AoE guaranteed KB
-To hit (effectively armor)
Self heal
Look at that.
Its amazing what we can get when Castle isn't doing the work.
Some of what needs to happen is that blast sets for blasters need to be different than blast sets for defenders and corruptors. In the later cases you are balancing sets for ATs that have team buff and survival tools, in the former you don't have any.
Take AR for blasters
Buckshot, M30 Grenade, change the chance of KB to just KD or KB. Personally I'd prefer KD, seeing as it would be consistent with conservation of momentum.
Change Slug's 25% chance of KB to 60% chance of KD
Full Auto: Expand the arc to between 35 and 45 degrees, increase the target cap to 16, Either change the way the damage is applied so you aren't stuck rooted for 4 seconds while the enemies can beat on you, or take the dual pistols and grant ranged defense while firing.
Slug, burst: Cut the recharge in half. This is a no brainer the set doesn't have 3 single target attacks, it doesn't have aim, and it has redraw problems from going outside the set. There is no reason it's only 2 single target attacks should have 8 and 4 second recharge times.
Blasters are fixable but it's work and trying to take a cheap way out the way defiance 2.0 did isn't going to cut it. The sets need to be looked at, and blasters need either top end single target damage (they should be able to kill a boss faster than a brute or a scrapper(they have to, they can't survive a boss nearly as long)) Or secondary effects in the set that extend their lifespan.
The other thing that won't cut it was papering over a lack of understanding that Castle was so fond of. He would always say "he liked to err on the side of two little so he could add more later". The problem was of course he would err on the side of nerfing to little for melee and buffing to little for ranged. You have to think he wasn't comfortable with range because either he didn't understand it and or was just applying formulas that are invalid in this game. -
Quote:It's only power creep, if other ATs get increases in power to keep them ahead of blasters or if done improperly. The "Fixes" for /fire are a case where instead of addressing the problems, holes in the mez protection (confuse, terrorize, kb) with the set, they turned it into an overpowered farmer with nothing else coming close while still leaving it with glaring weaknesses.Originally Posted by Umbra
You make a good point; power creep can be adanger.
But....if Snipes are not doing enough damage in the first place, boosting the damage is a fix, not a power creep. -
Quote:Unfortunately the devs made a game where the only way most people can get their build's done is by going "ZOMGFASTFASTFAST!!!!"Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
I fail to see what is wrong with powers that do not fit the "ZOMGFASTFASTFAST!!!!" mentality that seems to permeate every facet of this game nowadays.
It really isn't about how fast you do things. It's about having fun. If you're having fun, speed is irrelevant.
Just look at what you need to do, to put 3 purple sets on a toon. Thats 15,000 personal kills or 120,000,000 kills while teamed, or 300 hero merits. The only way to get that kind of loot is taking it off people on the market or killing endless hordes of things in a race to get it done before you get sick of playing the character. -
Quote:Does nothing for the solo blaster.Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
I think the reason blasters spend more time mezzed and defeated in teams is because they spend more time attacking their foes without preventing a counter attack, simple as that.
controllers/dominators can spend their time mezzing foes
defenders can be buffing allies or healing
blasters just attack. Which means if they are doing anything useful in a fight they are running the risk of getting aggro back.
I had an ice/emp controller. In a team he dropped ice slick, turned on arctic air, and then did block of ice or heal other. He contributed massively but every foe he attacked was held. He could draw aggro but it was rare.
A possible fix for this would be reduced aggro for blaster damage. Say they only get half aggro for the damage they do. They can still draw aggro, but it would be easier to unleash their attacks without getting attacked. -
There is a much simpler way of understanding how blasters are underpowered.
Imagine that CoH is a tabletop miniatures game and you are playing the part of the adventurers the devs are running the monsters. You get to pick 8 units for your party and all the picks cost the same, but you are scored by the number of deaths you take and how quickly you finish.
Do you rush to load your team up with blasters or are they more at the bottom of the barrel ?
Personally even for things that have gimicky mechanics meant to emphasize range, blasters come out very near last.
Another way to look at it that also illustrates the point, is rate blaster survivability on a scale of 1-10, rate their damage output, multiply the two numbers.
Do the same thing with scrappers, brutes, tanks, khelds and any AT that isn't oriented towards force multiplication. See how the numbers hold up.
If you work really hard to skew things blasters come out 25% below anything else. That's doing things like saying "figuring a value for mezz resistance is hard so I will set it to 0", "Blasters can achieve defense against x and can select for x when fighting so I can give them full value for that". In other words making every assumption favorable to blasters.
Using observed performance data for anything but the peak achievable performance isn't a very sound idea. For all we know there may be a large segment of masochists in the CoH population that gravitate to blasters or any number of other things going on that influence people's choices.
What is telling is that people who start to play blasters stop playing more than any other -
Quote:I actually don't support those laws. Their net effect is to make certain nobody motivated by profit makes an extra effort to get supplies into disaster areas.Originally Posted by UberGuy
Indeed. All of which refer explicitly to essential goods, or to goods of unqualified essentialness immediately after an emergency or disaster.
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Its as close as this "game" gets to actually being a game. Probably the only part I still enjoy and it allows me to supply my better half's endless need for the best possible builds.
So
Enjoyable + Domestic Harmony = win-win -
Quote:Enjoy the screams of the wicked, they are music to my ears.Originally Posted by graystar_blaster
Is just taking candy from babies. Its profiting of the uninformed.
Its mean
At least i think so.
is a comment, a warning, and a judgement.
Clearly I have not hidden that.
It is at this point to someone who does not know taking candy from a baby,
I think its mean- yes i do think its mean to do that at this point in the game with whats coming tommorow.
Machiavelli said "Better to kill a man than deprive him of his patrimony". The market forum always demonstrates who the people are that have the greatest sense of entitlement in the game and who truly scream the loudest when you expose their nature.
The truly sad thing is that they are petty and small in their endeavors.They have no confidence in themselves or their ability to adjust to any changed circumstances. So they vigorously defend their right to do wrong.
If the people selling off market truly felt that they weren't taking advantage, or screwing over the buyer they would tell the people they were selling to that enhancement convertors were going to hit and the value of the goods being bought will change significantly in a short time.
Oh fwiw most states have laws against price gouging
http://apps.americanbar.org/antitrus...g-statutes.pdf -
Quote:This, it was also my point about the level 15s. It boils down to how much is an unslotter worth ? Especially when they are dropping like rain from super packs.Originally Posted by Plasma
You have to ask this question: how high does the price difference have to be before people who have L10s slotted will just pop out the L10 with an unslotter or respec and sell it off?
I am skeptical that this is particularly high. Even when these things cost billions, the biggest difference I saw between L10 and L50 was ~500M. When L50s cost 200M, how big of a differential can there be? -
Quote:The phrase you are looking for is "Never give a sucker an even break"Originally Posted by Hopeling
Yes. "Caveat Emptor" means "Let the buyer beware". If you're buying something from someone you don't know, and you fail at even the most basic diligence (checking how much the item you're buying is worth), you have no one to blame but yourself if you overpay.
Moreover though, you have yet to demonstrate that any significant number of people have the billions to spend, but are not aware that prices are about to drop precipitously. -
Quote:This seems too much. The toggle should be a toggle that grants mez protection when toggled. This way the blaster is actively dealing with their circumstances rather than having the game automatically handle it for them.Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
I still think my solution from the closed beta of D2.0 is the way to go. It fixes the issue for every one.
Make defiance a 0 recharge offensive toggle. When it's toggled on it gives the blaster 25% more damage and 25% more recovery. When it's toggled off it gives the blaster mag 4 mez protection and 25% more regeneration instead.
Boom fixed. Part time (and VERY low value) mez protection OR a damage increase and the player chooses the one they want. If you never get mezzed you'll always have it on and you'll have all the extra damage you want. Those blasters that have a hard time with mez give up the damage bonus. The mechanics of the toggle solve the problem for the new or inexperienced blaster player because its coded as an offensive toggle and when they get mezzed it drops and the mag 4 mez protection kicks in.
The obvious reply is domination. Players never liked it, not because it was a mode, but that it was a situation where they got nothing when it wasn't active and it was significant effort to get to where you could keep it permanently active.Quote:Originally Posted by Arcanaville
As you may recall, the problem with all ideas related to that in general was not that they couldn't work, but that they fell into the category of "stances" and the devs felt that players would not accept stances by any name. I suggested something similar but with a different way of handling mez protection, and it was shot down on the exact same basis.
Its an irrational limitation, but its unclear where the irrationality is more concentrated: with the devs who think the players would not accept such a solution, or with the players who would not accept such a solution. -
Quote:I am sorry I don't understand how you can say that.Originally Posted by Auroxis
No one's forcing them to do anything. Blasters have the option to go all out while putting themselves at risk, or go at range and still do good damage, something scrappers don't have.
Without the third ranged hard hitting attack blaster ranged single target damage is kind of meh and you need good recharge to even get that. You get around 125-130 dps tops with the full range attacks and that is for fire, it goes down for other sets.
If the blaster wants to do their job they have to put themselves at much more risk than the scrapper. -
Quote:This !!!!Originally Posted by Teeto_K
Blasters need the damage they have to not be terrible.
Remember when Ice Bolt, Ice Blast, and Fire Blast were fast animating powers that allowed blasters to build high DPS chains? Remember when those powers were reduced in DPA so that blasters wouldn't be unfair to one-another, yet no such concession was made in the other AT's, because it's not important if Dominators, Defenders, or Corruptors are unfair to blasters?
Yeah, that still leaves a sour taste in my mouth. The only AT who's ever had their damage performance curtailed to avoid stepping on blaster toes is BLASTERS.
Defiance 2.0 normalized blasters ranged st dps to garbage. While Castle was worried about the damage output while mezzed he left the sets without hard hitting third attacks out to dry.
This. If Range is a blasters defense why the heck are they forced to abandon it ? Other ATs defense is their defense and they aren't forced to sacrifice it to attack.Quote:Blaster Ranged attacks should not have Ranges less than 80 feet. Power Burst is a Ranged attack. Every other "Ranged" attack follows the same Damage/Endurance/Recharge formula as Power Burst, so why is Power Burst short ranged? Scrapper "Heavy Hitters" don't suffer inherent penalties compared to other attacks in their sets. Tanker "Heavy Hitters" tend to come with Free Mez. So why not 80 foot range? 80 feet: Pretty Neat. It's my new motto. -
Quote:That's one heck of a build. Really well done, unfortunately it says more about the sheer power of a fire/ment than it does about the typical blaster. As incredible as your build is it still falls short of what the highest end scrapper/brute builds can do in similar situations.Originally Posted by Feather_Of_Sun
Here you go. As you can see, in combat with +4x8 Carnies, Barrier is at it's minimum (Which I assumed was 2.5, but it's actually 5%! Nice surprise there.), no inspirations or temporary buffs active.
47.78% Smashing
47.78% Lethal
50.60% Ranged
45.28% Energy
45.28% Negative Energy
And to answer the "post ur build nao!!!", I left my set bonus page open. I do not use Mids, nor do I ever intend to use a build planner.
You have 2 modes of cascade defense failure vs one mode for a scrapper. If you get mezzed in anyway you lose roughly 15 points of defense to everything and your incoming damage triples to quadruples. It also makes you really vulnerable to having your defense bonuses from sets ripped away through regular debuffs. The armored toons don't have that.
You also have less HP and resistances than equivalent melee AT builds will have (Exception being stalkers). -
Quote:I stayed from there because its such an unfair comparison, I was certain people would accuse me of cooking the books.Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
Blasters have a secondary that is meant to be used. A secondary that does an extremely good job at filling out an attack chain with hard hitting attacks. You can't really compare maximized attack chains without factoring in blaster's secondary.
If you go over to the scrapper forums and look at the pylon results thread the top end results for DPS without lore pets etc are all in the mid 200s. For the sake of argument lets call the scrapper top dps 200, and the top blaster dps in melee 300.
The question then is a blaster fighting in melee 2/3rds as survivable as a scrapper fighting in melee ? -
Take a comparison to the melee T9s
The melee T9/God modes are long duration, usually more than enough to last entirely through an AV fight and are strong enough to make sure the character survives the fight.
Blaster nukes compared to melee god modes, allow blasters to barely den't the top end enemies, almost certainly leave blaster dead after casting. -
If you do an all things being equal comparison to the other damage ATs
Where is the blaster's benefit for giving up Mez protection and hit points ?
This after all is the meaning of AT balance, if an AT is giving things up relative to the other ATs it gets something back. If it doesn't get anything in return it is just inferior. -
Blasters don't need a higher ranged damage modifier.
What they do need is a reduced range penalty in the formulas used to balance the powers. And more importantly a serious look to make sure the primary sets actually can do some decent dps at range.
Take a look at Assault rifle, elec blast and Fire @ 300% recharge in their powers
pwr Rech cast DPA
AR:
Burst: 1.0 1.18 56
Slug : 2.0 1.88 55
Elect
CB: 1.0 1.18 52
LB: 2.0 1.88 55
Fire
Flares: .54 1.18 53
Fire Blast: 1.0 1.88 50
Blaze: 2.5 1.18 159
Now you compare these to Scrapper Claws
Strike: 0.8 1.32 56
Slash: 1.2 1.58 57
Follow:3.0 1.05 52
Focus: 1.6 1.32 72.
At this level of recharge claws can run a continuous 100%+ damage buff on a chain of (follow up, slash, focus) for damage that blows away electric and assault rifle and fire can only exceed by using aim and build up.
This is on the same damage mod. The problem isn't the modifier its the other parts of the formula that assign such a high value to range that most blasters can't hope to have a gapless ranged chain when mezzed or even hope to come close to melee damage output because their ranged damage is being gutshot by a formula that is saying range is a defense and blasters have to pay for it. -
You must be really in love with the idea because how badly you are hurting yourself isn't penetrating. Oh well most people come up with ideas then defend them to the death.
So lets put your scheme in really simple terms. What do you need to happen to win your bet.
First you need low level IOs to hold their high value.
Well lets look at the last five Glad Level 10s recipe
Recipe
2-18 2,000,000,000
2-19 1,888,888,888
2-20 1,500,000,000
2-24 1,900,000,000
2-28 1,611,111,111
6 listed on the market. At a guess these things aren't doing to well even without the converters.
At level 50 the price is holding steady at around 1.7 billion. with 7 for sale.
It doesn't look like you are getting your premium, unless you expect level 15s to sell for a higher premium ?
Ok you aren't coming out ahead on that part but lets see how you do on the conversion.
You are a smart guy, so you're going to convert stuff in the same set as the procs you want to sell. After all the level 15 items are all worthless.
So you have this process
1. Craft IO from set.
2. Average 5 conversions to get the proc and 15 converters or 1.5 hero merits
3. Sell the IO.
so you have burnt 150,000,000 worth of merits to get your proc
But wait, those sets panacea, shield wall gladiators armor are pretty pricey to begin with, and even the cheapest crafted PVP IOs at level 50 go for an easy 30 million.
Call the average price of the items in the sets 100 mil, and you are out 250 mil and the time and cost to craft those IOs before you even start.
So your bet is that demand for the level 15s will be high enough that they will be worth greater than 300 million more than level 50 IOs. And that there will be demand enough to make this profitable.
Oh and the cost for converting IOs not in sets is going to be approximately 400 mill so for those its going to be a 500 million premium.
Just how much do you expect your level 15s to sell for ? And just how many do you think you can move ?
Who is the market for these ? People that can't figure out how to buy a level 50 at wentworths, and an unslotter from the paragon market ? -
Quote:New to the forums ?Originally Posted by Orynn
#2. The idea that Super Packs are "play to win" is an apt description. The only room for nit-picking is in the word win. We all know there is no real winning in a perpetual game like an MMO so what we are all talking about, of course, is rewards. Super Packs are "pay for rewards" then, if mincing words is how you like to "win" an argument. Before the market existed, folks actually had to spend time and effort PLAYING the game for these same rewards. With Super Packs, that's no longer the case. Hence the "play to win" argument and why it is exactly what they are.
Edit: At least you haven't gotten the indignant insults from pointing out S/He is out of their depth. -
Quote:Level 50 Gladiators armor resistance or shield wall defense are both now worth half a billion give or take.Originally Posted by The_Masque
The 3 procs topdoc is talking about converting to have no base enhancement vaule, so the lowest level works just as well as the highest but you may slot them sooner.
How much do you think they will be worth when there aren't any new ones, except those bought with merits and the ones dropped by whatever the fix for farming decides is legit ?
How much do you think a level 15 Glad armor resist going to go for ?
So as far as brilliant plans go, making lots of low low level IOs nobody wants to convert them into lots of IOs that few people are willing to pay high price for was initially questionable.
It gets really bad if you buy the idea that there will be PvP farm patch, because he could have been making endless IOs that people want and saved two steps.
If you are planning on selling hundreds or thousands of these things that alone is going to tank their value. Over what time period is that trillion going to be realized ? a year ? 50/month ? 2 years 25/month ?Quote:Lvl 15 vs lvl 10 may affect its value but not by much.
That is already 5-10 times the amount that comes to market, and at the off level as well. So he is out of the ultra premium and becomes the bulk low cost supplier. -
Quote:Oh sure, here it is in bite size chunks.Originally Posted by TopDoc
Every reference to IO above means PvP IO. I have a large supply of level 15 PvP IOs, and will use Enhancement Converters to convert them into the big 3 PvP IO procs, and I may have the lion's share of the market.
Obviously I'm a market n00b who thinks that all of the outstanding bids are for the Last 5 price. Thank you for enlightening me oh glorious and wise marketeer. Do you have any other pearls of wisdom to pass on to this pitiful beggar, whose hundreds of billions is likely a drop in the ocean compared to your vast fortune?
There are three groups that want them, people who want to use them while leveling up, people that want to keep set bonuses, and people who view the lowest level as having the most value.
The number of people willing to pay a premium for minimum level IO is a very small percentage of the total market.Level 15 is not the lowest level, so you have put yourself into the same situation that people who produce other off level procs are. You will be selling to bargain hunters, our equivalent of people willing to buy "Scratch and Dent" merchandise, not the people buying Bentleys.
The people who are building exemplar builds all want the max level of these because their base enhancement values are better for sets. Seeing as they keep their bonuses there is no reason to shell out for min level anything and many reasons to buy high level items.
The people who want to use IOs throughout a toons lifetime once again can pick up the level 10s instead of 15s and what is more they can now recover them with unslotters which are plentiful due to the superpacks.
Now lets get to the funniest part of this.
If the devs do fix AFK farming what is going to happen to the supply of all the other PVP IOs ? its going to be nearly zero. So if you had of been producing more level 50 IOs and saving them you would have had a stock of items that will be more valuable than your conversion plans, you wouldn't have had to craft them into IOs and you wouldn't have to use alignment merits to convert them.
One last pearl of wisdom, wealth does not equal wisdom. If you want to make the case I can be fairly confidant I trump you in RL and the game.Quote:Thank you for enlightening me oh glorious and wise marketeer. Do you have any other pearls of wisdom to pass on to this pitiful beggar, whose hundreds of billions is likely a drop in the ocean compared to your vast fortune?
Edit: Nearly forgot this the level 10 +def IO is currently selling for less than 2 bill. Apparently there are enough people willing to make them and few enough people to buy them that the market is already soft. -
Quote:LOL, good luck with that. It's usually smart to do the market research first, before you build the factory, and advertise the product.Originally Posted by TopDoc
Time for me to come clean. When I said nothing will sell for a billion after Enhancement Converters, that was a lie. Anyone remember in my Confession of a Power Gamer thread where I mentioned weeks ago it may all be a distraction from my next BIG money maker which involves a level 15 CEBR? it wasn't a distraction, but my next BIG money maker really does involve a level 15 CEBR. As I said in yet another thread, my next ebil plan is to acquire items that aren't available in the market at all, or for a reasonable price. And then use them myself, or sell them for an unreasonable price. I converted my AFK PvP farm to get level 15 IOs. I've already built up a stockpile of them. When Enhancement Converters go live, I'll be able to convert those (given lots of converters) to the big 3 procs. And while prices on level 50 versions of the big 3 PvP IOs will drop below a billion, prices on the lower ones probably will not. There won't be all that many people with low level recipes or IOs to to convert, since they aren't mass produced like the 50s are by AFK farms.
Once Enhancement Converters go live, the Devs will be able to fix AFK PvP IO farms without a massive outcry from the masses, because people will be able to produce the big 3 using Enhancement Converters. As such, I wouldn't be surprised if a fix is in the works. After that, no one will be able to muscle into my market with mass produced low level IOs.
I'm glad there are lots of people running iTrials for Emps or SSAs & tips for AMs to turn into low level PvP IOs, because they set the price VERY high for their work. And it really is a lot of work to earn that many Emps or AMs to buy PvP IOs, MANY hours over weeks or even months. Meanwhile, I'll earn 2 Hero Merits in 20 minutes, convert them to 20 Converters, and turn a junk level 15 IO into one of the 3 rare procs in a total of 25 minutes. Then sell it for the same price. All because I have a stock of the low level PvP IOs.
This is my real plan to become a trillionaire.
I have no other ebil plans to earn silly amounts of Inf. Really. You can trust me this time.
Oh btw of the 2k bids on gladiators +res/def @ lvl 10, 1200 or so are mine and they aren't for 2 billion a piece. -
Quote:I can buy entire games for less than they want to charge for the tokens. If it took that much effort to implement a function that just sets a few values in a small number of records they need to get new developersOriginally Posted by Hopeling
It probably would be more work, yes; Standard Code Rant and all that. It's still a desirable feature, though.
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Quote:ThisOriginally Posted by GPBunny
Wow missed the boat again. If the side swapping tokens were around 80 points instead of 800 I would of bought them like M&M's.
Why? Simple to play with people. The ablity to go to any TF/SF then go back to my homeside would be so nice on the low pop servers. But to do that right now would be $20. I wouldn't think twice about spending $2 to join a couple of redside SF then come back. Or to see if Patron Power would help out that questionable toon were Epic Power isn't so Epic. But never at $20. Besides my luck as soon as I bought on of these Paragon would offer Patron unlock tokens at 400 points.
And to those that are saying its that price to encourage people not to use them at will? What other business creates a product then intentionally makes it so its customers won't want to use it?
Sure I could sell you a shirt but we already sell yarn and thread. You could just spend some time making your own shirt or we'll make you one for say $2000. See some people don't mind spending $2000 for a shirt but we find the little people won't bother us and will keep using the thread and yarn when they need a new shirt.
And at the people who think these are reasonable tradeoffs instead of complete ripoffs you can spend the 10 bucks to pick up entire games.