Bowghost

I'd like to agree that the overall quality on these is really amazing.

My votes are Projectionist and Turkey Lurkey

[ QUOTE ]
Wow! They actually got someone I know to write a novel for them.

Robin Laws was an occasional visitor to a P&P-game-industry chatserver where I hang out; I've even played in a Feng Shui session he GM'd. His Feng Shui RPG is absolutely terrific. I think I'm going to make an effort to snag this book.

I'll even make sure not to judge it by its cover!

[/ QUOTE ]

Robin Laws is a really good game designer-I love Feng Shui, and if you ever get the chance check out his "Robin's Laws of Gaming". Interesting stuff!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What would help the devs cause in making these changes would to be a little HONEST about why they are being made. We're talking powers that have been around for 2 years and NOW they're like they're too overpowered for PvE???? It's because of PvP and I've grown bored and tired of outright lies.

[/ QUOTE ]

I totally agree with this. I am sick of the lies about why powers are getting nerfed.

The devs made a promise that PvE changes would not be made solely for PvP.

They are breaking that promise with this hurricane nerf.

They are lying about it.

That really, really, really, pisses me off.

I guess all their promise meant was that they would never *admit* that they were making a change solely for PvP.

This is such a blatant lie that it is insulting to our intelligence. Do they actually expect us to swallow the lie that Storm has suddenly become overpowered for PvE?

Devs -- it's the *lies* that piss people off so bad. Think about it.

FivefifteenA

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, the quote everyone is referring to when they say "no PvE nerfs for PvP" is Here , unless I'm mistaken. States didn't say they never would nerf PvE for PvP, he said they'd TRY not to.

Big difference.

What I'm saying, though, is that I really think in cases like this one where the PvE nerf is significant they SHOULDN'T touch PvE to protect PvP.

If I concede for a moment that this power is theoretically unbalanced for PvP, can someone explain to me why that warrants a nerf that affects PvE?

I'm not trying to be snarky (at least not overly so), but PvP isn't the major thrust or the major draw for this game anyway. The majority of players are still primarily PvE players. The majority of Stormies are still primarily PvE players. And for a lot of people who picked the Storm set, at least from the Defender side, positioning-especially with Hurricane- was THE reason to take the set.

So their fun gets nerfed in the name of PvP balance? One of the primary reasons people reacted so strongly when PvP first entered the game was fear of PvE nerfs for PvP balance. And here we are, and it's not just a nerf of a power-it's a nerf of the reason people took the set.

I honestly think that the game over all is more healthy letting the PvP side game go somewhat unbalanced, rather than hurting the primary PvE game in an attempt to balance PvP. Just my opinion.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A SR Scrapper has 1165 HP in Warburg. He has 28% defense, so it takes 1165 + 28%, or 1491 damage to kill him.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your analysis here is actually a little off... here is why

That 28% defense is subtracted from the base to-hit of 50%

Therefore you are going from 50% to 22% which is equivalant to a factor of 2.27 increase in survivability over an AT with zero defense.

Your stalker who has 23.5% defense will end up increasing his survivability by a factor of 1.89.

Therefore if we take scrappers to be the baseline HP we get survival figures something like this :

Scrapper = 1
Stalker = .62
Blaster = .40

This also ignores ACC enhancements and to-hit buffs but shows pretty clearly that with the numbers given the stalker has roughly 2 thirds the survivability of the scrapper.

But the stalker is also 55% more survivable than a blaster.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, in all fairness it should be pointed out that your numbers are only good for one situation, same as Quason's. If the person trying to hit you were under the effect of Darkest Night or some other to-hit debuff that lowered their accuracy to 30% or so, then both Scrapper and Stalker Defense floors their accuracy. That lowers the importance of the hit point differential , and magnifies the importance of the Defense advantage they both have over a Blaster. On the other hand, at 130% accuracy-which should be easily reachable in short bursts for Aim/BU using Blasters-Stalker/Scrapper Defense is meaningless, and the importance of that HP difference is magnified. Heck, at that point the Blaster is more survivable than the Stalker, disregarding any active defense that either might have.Defense as a means of avoiding damage is much more complicated than Resistance, and much more dependant on your opponents capabilities.

What you can say is that Stalkers probably seem a little more squishy to themselves than they actually are, because a lot of the powers that allow people to see and attack them-Tactics, Targetting Drone, Aim, and yellow skittles-also (effectively) lower their defenses by raising their attackers ability to hit them. On the other hand, Stalkers probably seem less fragile than they are in reality to people who can't see them, because having the initiative and placate combine for fantastic effective defense. Stalker Defenses on top of that is icing-though it's pretty darn tasty icing.

[ QUOTE ]
Here's some additional numbers for concideration regarding AT survivability:

A SR Scrapper has 1165 HP in Warburg. He has 28% defense, so it takes 1165 + 28%, or 1491 damage to kill him.

A blaster has 1050 HP in Warburg. He has 0% defense, so it takes 1050 damage to kill him.

My Stalker has 885 HP in Warbug. He has 23.5% defense (vs S/L), so it takes 885 + 23.5%, or 1092 damage to kill him.

My Stalker is 104% as survivable as the Blaster and 73% as survivable as the Scrapper.

That's ignoring a LOT of important factors like ACC enhancements, To-Hit buffs, etc but it's an interesting comparison I think.



[/ QUOTE ]

Meaningless, as it ignores the active defenses that both Blasters and (especially) Stalkers have-such as Holds and Placate. Not to mention the "defensive" value of the one shot kill.

Thanks for the Hitpoint numbers, though-that is useful.

I don't think this is a balance issue, at it's core-at least, I don't think that Stalkers as-is are grossly unbalanced, and I'm not willing to say they're unbalanced at all 'til I've seen how things play out a bit more. I think this is an issue of style, and access.

The quick, brutal, one-shot style game naturally appeals to the kind of people who enjoy PvP the most. It's completely unforgiving-basically a series of manuevers to "get the drop" on your opponents and keep them from getting the drop on you. Stalkers are by far the best AT in this game for that playstyle, so naturally the people who enjoy that are playing Stalkers. They don't understand why people complain about being one-shotted. They don't object to it when it happens to them, so obviously anyone who does object is just whining.

People who have a more "casual" attitude towards PvP (at least in my experience) prefer fights with a little bit longer duration. They'd like to have a chance to use a wider variety of their powers, and would prefer to see more acts and counters in the actual fight, rather than in the buildup. They don't understand how anyone can get enjoyment from a 3 second fight-so obviously anyone who fights like that is an evil ganker who's only pleasure is to ruin everyone's day.

In truth, it's going to be awfully hard to satisfy both sides completely, but the PvP game as it plays right now is way to twitchy for me, whether I win or lose. I think that's true for the majority of players. Of course, we could just leave it to the people who enjoy it as it is. But in the long run if you want PvP to bve more than an awkward and little used appendage you're going to have to find some way to come to terms with the casual players who-face it-are the majority of this playerbase.

Actually, the issue (per Castle's post in the training room section) is that the +perception on Tactics is modified by the same percentage as the accuracy. In other words, Defenders with Tactics are going to be far better at seeing Stalkers than Scrappers with Tactics will be at seeing Stalkers.