Biospark

You got that right. Some of the worst programs (as in annoying as heck) that I have written have all been "parsing" scripts.
Why can't everything just be IF...THEN ?

Ditto for me on my Kin/Elec defender. Was awesome to play and helped a team alot, but was WAYYY! too much Kin-ing and not enough blasting for me. After 2-3 hours teaming, I was burned out.

Not knowing how the Devs actually achieve their data-mining results I may be going out on a limb with my comments, but here goes anyway.

How much effect on the data does the fact that players who are playing a "poor" soloer actually attempt to do such things on a more than infrequent basis ? Are the good soloers teaming less and solo-ing more, while the poor soloers teaming more and soloing less ?
Wierdos like myself that attempt to solo on EVERY character, in EVERY game just to challenge themselves are probably not within a certain standard deviation tolerance.

Secondly, how much of the data results pre-date the change in difficulty sliders. Back then, the developers may not have been able to differentiate a person playing on Invincible while solo at X1 or padded all the way to x8. With the new sliders, I would be VERY curious what their data shows. The reason that I think the "older" results would represent a skewed result is that my Empath (now that he is IOed out) could easily do missions at the old "Invincible" setting, with Bosses even, but would not then (just as now) be able to "pad" a mission to x8 and succeed. Yet data gathered before would have shown (possibly) my performance as "balanced" against a tanker doing a x8 padded mission.

Any guesses ?

You have touched on the single most glaring example of "parity" in this game; that being the Defender primaries. Since these sets are shared by Corruptors, Controllers and Masterminds, you can see why any issues with these powersets get "amplified" or "extended" to other ATs besides Defenders. Its my personal belief that this issue has been "over-looked" for a long time because;

A) Players of Defenders (being the worst case scenario for this idea of self-buffing) are, for the most part, satisfied with the situation. The ones that are not, represent a small sub-set of a small sub-set of the overall population. If such an example in "dis-parity" existed with say Scrappers, they would solve it much faster. Dark Armor ? Anyone ?

B) Looking at the "balance" concerns of Buff versus Debuff and how it interplays with each effected AT as well as solo versus team performance is no simple task. Should they spend a year on this little "NUT" or develope new content for the population as a whole. I think we all know what choice they have consistently made here.

Sorry about that. I simply chose to elaborate on the second part of your response.
But I do agree that there is more to consider than power balance when it comes to the "self-buffing" changes being suggested. Some of them have been brought out in this discussion too; like powerset "theme".

Absolutely. This is the core strength (to me) of an Archetype system. Having limits to characters overall power can preserve the most important aspect of any RPG, which is "enjoyment". Is it truely fun to have a "walking diety" of a character that stomps everything in their path and earns every reward with little effort ? Some would say that is fun, but the vast majority of players would play that game for a very short time and move on to other games with greater personal challenge.

I understand your point here, but no matter what arbitrary AT restrictions are in place, someone is going to have their concept character (not meant to be overpowered, just playable) removed from the "choice" list. For example, in this game I want a Melee Defender. My choice(currently) would be to take an assortment of pool/vet attacks and "cobble" together an attack chain which will have completely "sub-par" performance. So from a min-max perspective, I don't really have the ability to create that concept with even a "minimum" level of performance. From a "stylistic" standpoint, I cannot create the concept at all if my vision were a "Healing Monk".

Very good Illustration of your point.

I agree with you on this point. However, I will again submit that the attempt to do this has yet to be done "well". When you make the decision to "toss away" archetypes, you must consider how this effects "team role" and solve this issue from the begining. You must also solve every balance concern down to the lowest fraction of choices. That amount of testing has not been done on any game(that I know of). Every "skills" system that has ever worked depends very heavily on the GM to manage the game and ensure that whatever "un-balanced" choices that players come up with (and they will !) is dealt with, perhaps even "ruled out" on future campaigns.

Skills versus ATs is like talking about Communism and Democracy where you imagine a line between the two and place each at the opposite endpoints. No system would truely be considered at the actual endpoint. They would all lie somewhere on the line between the two endpoints.
If you "evolved" AT systems to allow more "flexibility" of concept, you would keep adding more ATs until there were no major distinction between some ATs (only minor ones) and on a "Skill-based" system you would keep adding "skill trees" and "cascades" to eventually "morph" the whole system into one "giant" AT with different paths down the skill trees. Each "pathway" could be considered an AT at that point.

I completely agree. AT balance is so much better today than it was at launch.
And within each AT they have made very good "targeted" changes to improve playability of each powerset. For the most part, nothing has been done to completely make me "seek greener pastures", so as long as we don't see another ED or GDN, this game is a very balanced example of SOLO-to-TEAM parity.

If anything that I state on the forums appears to contradict this statement, it is only because I feel that no game is ever "perfect" or "finished". There are always ways to improve without "de-constructing", and I personally enjoy that type of discussion.

Well, at least until the "trolls" crawl out from under the bridge.

Hmmm, very interesting take on the "Skills-versus-AT" debate Arcana.

My RL brothers and I have been playing PNP RPGs since 1980 and MMOs since 2000, and this whole debate has been one of our primary topics of interest for quite some time.

My assertions (within my circle of friends) have been that although this type of system would lend itself to "very gimped" arrangements because someone would attempt an "all-defensive" or "all-offensive" framework of skills and be "absurdly convinced" that such "builds" should be allowed to function, the core balance issues come down to two things;

1) No two powers are exactly equal, so there is a tremendous "weight" of responsibility for game balance on "point-buy" or "cascading-unlocks", and unless you literally spend years testing, there will somehow be "min-max" nightmares just waiting to be exploited. This has been the core reason for failure to me. No one has spent the proper amount of time and testing to make a "good" one yet. The Archetype-based system is "tried-and-true" and can get on the ground running much quicker.

2) No power should be completely useless in over 90% of the game. This means that the game focus being typically about combat should focus it's main system on those kinds of skills. Other skills, like crafting, gathering, or what not can be used/improved under a seperate system that does not reduce the available skills in the "Combat" categories.

There should always be "Standardized" frameworks available for people to use as newbies accompanied with warnings to those that try to create truely custom frameworks. I feel no sympathy for a person that has the opportunity to use a standard set-up which is a known quantity, but chooses to ignore warnings and make a "custom" character anyway.

Having said all that, the current "common-ground" amongst my gaming friends is that there is the opportunity for a "Hybrid" system in which you choose an AT affinity (Such as Tank, Support, Control, or Assault) and then within this affinity you could create a cascading set up of skills/powers/talents etc... which allows for a much greater flexibility WITHIN each AT/Affinity, but would feel less restricted like the current standards of approach to Classes/Archetypes. Oddly enough, City of Heroes (to my knowledge) has come the closest to being this type of system. They would not have to move very far in order to achieve the kind of Hybrid set-up that I envision.

Did that make any sense ?

P.S.: Another MMO out there (which I played for 3 years) had tremendous potential to explore this idea of AT-Hybrid-ization with its Talent trees for each Class. In the begining, it seemed that this was an affirmation of what I had been seeking in these games. But over time, as the end-game matured and took on it's own life, my "hybrid-centered" voice was drowned out by all the "Role-focused" voices to the point that the game became just like every other AT-centered realm. You COULD make 3 different flavored Paladins, but other aspects of the game "forced" you into following the "status-quo" of what your "role" was meant to be. This is what I call "inflexibility", and not what I was hoping for from the system. They even removed "gear" options from the game with the "reasons" that these options are not generally utilized and are "cluttering" up the market. This a great example of a catch 22. The Status Quo says that these are not "typical" so we shall remove them as choices. So, in essence, you no longer HAVE a choice.

Not sure if you are including my last post with your reference Dr.Mike, but you did know that I was referring to the idea of making a completely NEW COH game, not what I feel they should (or should not) do in this game. I really feel that its too late to make any sweeping changes in how buffs and debuffs work in this game.

As far as wanting to play team-centric characters, I have nothing against that personally. For me the question has always been how fun that character is during all aspects of the game, because although I PREFER to team, there are times when you end up solo, so I enjoy the challenge of soloing as well.

In Spirit, I completely agree with you. The methods used for the initial AT balancing were "Odd" to me then, and still are to this day, but its way too late for them to "re-do" this. So CoH2 would be my hope for the future of this issue.

Here are a couple ideas that (hopefully) make it to the table when they start looking at this again;

Self-Buffing should be a given. There are plently of ways to balance support characters against other ATs without this limitation (Hit Points, Damage Scales, Vulnerabilities, Stacking Limitations, etc...). What this would mean is that the overall strength of buffs would be less, which has a by product of encouraging inclusion of all AT types rather than multiple buffer super-teams.

Debuffers should have their effects be "sticky" like Lingering Radiation and all the secondary effects of the game. Anchor Toggles are a horrible way to establish debuffs. Just like buffs, these debuffs should have lower levels of effects. Their current values are too strong for normal content, such that they had to implement the "purple patch". Not to mention the huge "disparity" in solo performance of the Defender powersets.

For both Buffs AND debuffs, if you begin the game launch with these effects set at the low-end of performance, the developers can always "tweak" upwards and the players will be happy as clams. If they start too high on the values and then have to "nerf" the effects, then of course lots of people will cry.

The reason that its not that big of a deal in other games is the relative SIZE of buffs in other games, as well as the overall difficulty of individual enemy critters. I dont have numbers lying around for the last game I played, but the differences are in orders of magnitude like 10:1 what this game's buffs contribute by comparison.

This had occured to me as well, since I have spent alot of time looking at defender numbers lately. But I simply ignore it because I know getting all powers available for self-buffing is not going to happen. Its been 7 years, and if no one has come up with valid reasons why by now, its likely because it is overpowered.

Something should be done, just not to EACH and EVERY team-only buff in the game. There are just too many ways that the game will get broken by it.

Wow ! Damn good point. Wouldn't Blasters be jealous of that !!

So I retract my comment about AB being thematic for empathy but too powerful.
Its simply too powerful to allow a solo Empath to use.

I am only speaking for myself regarding game balance, but it doesn't seem likely that soloing AVs and GMs is where balance concerns fall. If anything, the ability to solo these types of in-game beasties represents an example of powersets that are TOO powerful to begin with. So even though I would like to see something done to help "buffing" powersets, I would not use AV/GM soloing as any kind of benchmark.

The only other thing that I can take from your comments is the thought that perhaps some kind of debuff(s) could be incorporated into the lower-performance sets to assist with their solo-ing needs. The problem here is that you risk changing the "tenor" of the set into something other than its intended design.

In regards to Empathy, this would definitely negate Fortitude because of it being too "Offensive". Adrenaline Boost is Ok, but would be silly to allow this to self-buff considering all that it does and how well it combines with both RAs. Which leaves only Clear Mind. Granting Empathy Clear Mind while solo would not suddenly challenge sets like Radiation or Dark for solo prowess, but it would (possibly) allow a fully IOed Empath to hit +0/x8 difficulty because of the reduction in Mezz danger. And it makes more sense for Empathy to get a "Defensive" improvement rather than an "Offensive" one.

Absolutely agree Bill

And on my main, he has two builds IOed (or nearly IOed). His solo build uses the Fighting pool, while his team build uses the Leadership pool. Here is the rub though; no amount of pool powers are going to grant debuffs or powers to improve my soloing to the level of a Rad, Dark or Storm. No pools are going to give me the Status protection of a FF, Sonic or Traps. There is only so much that pools can do for an Empath (for example).

My secondary powers are where 90% of my survival comes from. Being Emp/Elec, that means Tesla Cage and Short Circuit are my cornerstone powers. I start a fight (usually) by hitting a Lt/Boss with Tesla, then Short Circuit/Powersink, followed by re-applications of Tesla/Short Circuit. Without these two powers, I probably would be unable to solo at all, and certainly not above +0/x1 difficulty.

The ability to bring more of your powers to bear while solo is what makes sets like Radiation, Dark and Storm able to solo at higher levels of performance. That and their ability to increase their damage output through debuffs. In a way, I almost wish that they had decided that Corruptors would get all the Debuff Sets for thematic reasons and that Defenders would get all the Buffing sets for the same reason. Imagine the way these ATs would play under those circumstances.

The Defender improvement to Vigilence was pretty nice. I actually gave the developers credit for improving the AT without effecting their team strength in the process. But because this change went across all powersets equally (well sorta, -res powers are not universal to all defenders, nor are -res procs universally available), this did not change anything from a "Parity" point of view.

What I think this change was mainly designed to do was to close the gap between Corruptors and Defenders while solo, so that new players (especially) would not buy into the belief that Corruptors were better. In this respect the developers hit a "Home Run". Both Defenders and Corruptors seem very well balanced between team and solo benefits to the point that neither AT is "preferred" by players over the other.

Having said that though, more than 50% of my new alts have all been Corruptors They are just that fun to play!

I guess this is how the devs must see it as well. Many players will tell you to play another combination or AT when this conversation comes up, but to me that is not the right way to look at it. What if you really like Empathy AND you want to solo halfway decent ?

No one with any sense of "parity" would expect Empathy (or any other Buffing set) to be improved to solo as well as Rad (or especially Dark), but some kind of adjustment could be made without improving their team strength so that they (team-buffers) could solo better.

Not really. If my Empath could target himself, with just how he is slotted and IOed right now (meaning that I could improve on this if I could self buff), I would have;

46% defense S/L
50% defense E/N
35% defense F/C/Psi,
1365% endurance recovery (22.8 endurance per second)
1600% regeneration (6.72% health per second)
+80% Damage (while solo from Fort + Vigilence +Assault)
220% Global Recharge (making AB perma and RAs have a 30sec downtime, Hasten perma)
+38% ToHit (Fort plus Tactics)

And lets not forget Mag 13 protection to Stun, Hold, Sleep, Immob, Fear, Confuse due to Perma Clear Mind.

I would be like the combination of a Shield Tanker who regens faster than a Regen Scrapper but with fewer hitpoints and able to provide nearly the same benefits to my entire team.

Don't get me wrong, Empathy sucks for Soloing and I think that it needs a little help in that department, but being able to put Fortitude or Adrenaline boost on myself would be too powerful.

My proposed changes to empathy would make it solo better while still retaining its current team strength ;

Reduce both RA auras to 240-300 sec recharge, while cutting their effect by 40%-50%. Then add some status protection to one or the other RA. You could have protection to Hold, Immob, Confuse in Recovery Aura and protection to Stun, Fear and Sleep in Regen Aura.

This change alone would allow a heavily slotted Empathy to have perma RAs (at a lower strength) while giving them the status protection that would make all the difference in their solo prowess without "breaking" their Pacifist design (which would be the case with self-usable Fort or AB).

But what about the rewards ? Is it something that promotes people to "queue-up" over and over again ? Since I don't PvP in this game, I honestly do not know.

IMHO, if there was ever a power that was screaming for Hami-Os, this is one of them.