Captain_Aegis
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Posts
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Joined
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It's with great sadness that I write this.
With the announcement of the game being sunseted in the next couple of months, I've decided to bite the bullet and bow out early. It's just too painful to watch this game die; it's been my hobby for a good seven years now, and it's seriously cutting me up thinking about all the future content I was looking forward to, that I'm now never going to see.
I was always a Union man; it was the home of Captain Valiant, my main, and I've always had a soft spot for the community. For those of you sticking it out to the end, thanks for helping make my time here so much fun.
Thank you, Union. I was Captain Valiant. Have a good one.
-@Captain Valiant EU -
I never thought I'd be posting this.
CoH has been my hobby and principal way of killing time for over 6 years now, and I have no regrets about a single second of that time spent. City of Heroes has always been, for me, the best MMO out there, bar none.
I've grown exceedingly attached, to this game, to my characters, and to the fantastic CoH community, and I will miss them all dearly.
Given the circumstances that seem to be behind this move, it's evident from the lack of courtesy or thought for our community on NCSoft's part, that there's little point in waiting until the server shutdown. There will be no grand fanfare or sendoff, no thank you to the players for 7 years of loyalty and subscription payments. CoH will close on a whimper, its fans neglected and its talented developers unceremoniously shown the door.
Rather than prolong the issue, I'm making the break now. I want to say a big thank you to everyone I've teamed with over the past 6 years, and to the community in general, and lastly, even if the Dev's never get to read this, to Paragon Studios; you deserved better.
Goodbye, Paragon City. I'll remember you fondly.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
It really rather depends upon your definition of evil.
If you're talking about evil in the sense of absolute amounts of pain, death and suffering caused by any one character within the City of Heroes' canon, then there is a clear, unquestionable, winner: Rularuu.
Rularuu is both an Eldritch Abomination and an Omnicidal Maniac, a creature that we are told has "absorbed whole dimensions".
Let's think through the implications of that for a moment. We're talking here about a creature that has literally consumed entire universes, plural, presumably inhabited ones, and consumed the information/energy within.
Effectively, we're talking about a creature that has violated and eaten the souls/minds of countless trillions of sentient beings across multiple parallel universes, out of nothing more than simple avarice - he doesn't need the energy/information to live, he simply desires more information, more power, and will put this desire above the lives of literally uncountable innocents.
Across entire universes, an unknowable number of innocent creatures have looked up into a murdered sky to see the light drained from their suns, a cry of horror stillborn on their lips as they feel the very essence of themselves enslaved and consumed.
Recluse is responsible for the death, suffering and enslavement of many tens of thousands, Nemesis' bodycount possibly racks up into the billions, but they're both babies next to Rularuu.
However, if on the other hand you want to be less utilitarian in how you approach good vs evil, if you want to judge how evil a character in the CoH canon is by the "squick factor", the moral intuition, the feeling of wrongness, the urge of outrage, then others are better choices. Westen Phipps is the most often cited example, but there are other examples to choose from. There are the sadistic (Phipps), the insane (Mother Mayhem, Dr Aeon), the sociopathic and amoral (too many to mention), the souless (Mako, Ghost Widow or Johnny Sonata) and the misguided (Scirroco, and arguably Recluse); whichever causes you that moment of repugnance is a good enough choice.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:If you're still taking suggestions, I have "Deadman's Card" reserved on Freedom: the name is yours if you want it.Originally Posted by Doctor Roswell
Thanks to Organica, the brain-on-ice guy got a slight costume tweak and became Cryogentleman. He wears a steampunk vest and such. I now wish more than ever that I could put a dapper top hat and/or monocle on the Think Tank head.
The "Moon Knight"-like guy is now Moon Shrike -- I ended up using the bird-flying-across-the-moon chest detail variant I mentioned at the time instead of the dragon. Kinetic Melee, colored pale yellow, looks really cool on him, and all the ridiculous hand-waving kind of makes sense when it's applied to a mystically-powered hero. Almost like casting a spell before he strikes.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:Ok Jack, no problem. If you want to tell me how spending a fair number of posts discussing at what point Fury allows Brutes to out-damage Scrappers is not a digression from the original subject of how Tankers may or may not be improved and suggestions on how to do so, then please feel free to explain now to us, right here.Originally Posted by Jack_NoMind
Yes -- you did make your very first post in the thread a comparison between different melee Archetypes, and for good reason. As insane as it sounds unless you read the posts, this discussion has been about all the melee ATs almost the whole way through. Even Stalkers (although they're mostly hiding). We can't meaningfully discuss Tanker performance without discussing Scrapper and Brute (and Stalker) performance; there wouldn't be many or any relevant benchmarks to describe what we want them to be like. Consequently, comparing the behavior of the other melee ATs (and Stalkers) to each other is not only inevitable but necessary for a proper sense of scale.
Of course, we should also probably be talking about Masterminds. But eh.
Not only will that invalidate my gentle admonishment that we're getting off topic, but it will neatly give us something Tanker-related to talk about.
I'll be sat waiting in the corner for an answer, on the edge of my seat.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:Well, thanks for reposting one of my original points on this thread, Jack. Comparing the performance of the Tanker and Brute ATs is, I believe, worthy of discussion in a Tanker forum, for various reasons which I would hope people would be smart enough to comprehend, and which have been extensively discussed already. This is quite different to spending a couple of dozen posts arguing overall endurance mechanics or at what point Scrappers and Brutes out-compete each other in DPS.Originally Posted by Jack_NoMind
Yeah, it'd be totally lame if someone started talking about other ATs like, six posts into the thread or something, focusing entirely on how Brutes are more desirable and they need to be addressed and stuff.
Some amount of thread drift is usually inevitable, of course, but it would be nice to actually discuss the original point. Perhaps if you moved your discussion to the Scrapper, Brute or AT & Powers sections?
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Johnny, I take it you don't want to interrupt an esoteric discussion on comparing Brute and Scrapper damage as well?
In their defense, people do like to talk about the AT's they actually play, so it makes sense, statistically speaking, that over a long enough thread, people will stop talking about Tankers, even in an actual Tanker thread.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:Hey, you interrupted an esoteric discussion on endurance mechanics. Try not to do that.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
The cheque is in the mail.
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-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:Even in an parallel universe where Brutes didn't possess Fury? Interesting. There was me thinking that Fury made it trivial for a Brute to out-damage a Tanker, conditions being equal for the two of them. Guess I missed that one in the patch notes.Originally Posted by Jack_NoMind
Again, addressing the Brute damage issue : Brutes compensate for weaker damage ratios than any other melee class by having such a high cap. If they're being limited to a ceiling that caps them 'exactly between' Scrapper and Tanker caps, but they keep their existing ratios (offensively worse than any class except Controller, Defender, and Mastermind) they aren't 'balanced,' they're bad at everything.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:Isn't Rularuu an alternate version of the Dream Doctor, or is my memory playing tricks on me?Originally Posted by Arilou
I always assumed "The Mender Silos from Faathim's reality" would be Rularuu.
It makes a certain sort of sense that doesen't make any sense without the sense-breaking presences of alternate universes and time-travel.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:The "feel" issue is why I separately suggested the Vigilance-style damage-HP trade-off (gods that sounds clunky, what should I call it?). Give them upfront damage when solo in return for less HP. The immortality-line issue isn't going to be solved, but Tankers will feel less tedious when solo or on small teams. In teams and leagues they can do what they've always done.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
The only thing you might get me to agree to is meet you half way and lower the Brute damage cap a smidge and raise the Tanker damage cap (but not as high as 545%).
But that alone doesn't solve the problem of Tankers not feeling like comic book tanks, or give them more pizzazz. Nor does it address the issue of Brutes and Scrappers being allowed to become functionally immortal in most of the content in the game, yet continuing to have a huge damage advantage over Tankers even when none of the three are in any real danger.
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-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:Eeesh. This is the internet, I suppose. I would skip this one, Johnny.Originally Posted by planet_J
So, where's your argument now? You get to run around with all your defensive bonuses, AND do damage just like a brute at 10-15% fury...
Happy yet? I can imagine you're bitter that brutes don't do near the damage you had thought in your head actually...
In the interests of trying to keep this thread coherent, the general point some of us are making is not that Brutes and Tankers are unbalanced out of the box. If you're talking about SO-only builds, low-buff teams, the early game or playing solo, then the trade-off between the two ATs is, I believe, balanced (the only other issue I see there is that Tankers don't exactly feel too "comic-booky", but there's only a limited amount you can do with a MMO tanking AT to remedy that).
We're talking predominantly here about the fact that the two ATs become more unbalanced, the more buffs come into play. With the withdrawal of the blue/red barrier, we have two essentially thematically identical ATs, but in high-buff situations, one outperforms the other, as one benefits more from buffs due to higher caps.
While this issue might be largely restricted to high level content, I still believe it's an issue that needs to be looked at. There have been some good suggestions here though (on this and the issue of "comic book feel"), and I hope they get noticed by the devs, should they ever decide to look at Tankers (which I'm sceptical they ever will).
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Okay rather than rehash all my previous points in their entirety, I'm just going to summarise and reiterate:
There are two issues that I can see with Tankers specifically.
1. They don't "feel" like comic book bricks in general play. This is an old complaint; plodding through maps solo, in complete safety, while doing mediocre damage certainly doesn't help in this regard, neither, at the other end of the teaming scale, does being outperformed by Brutes in leagues.
2. They don't really contribute anything in the new endgame and high level game that Brutes aren't perceived to do better. Outside of that endgame, they still have their uses, but the preponderance of defensive buffs from various sources means those uses are very specific, as other melee ATs can adequately fill in for them.
To fix 1: I propose that a Vigilance-style damage and hitpoint trade-off power be added to the Tanker's inherent powers.
The smaller the team the larger the damage buff the Tanker gets, and the smaller the hitpoints it has, and vice versa. For each team member, the tanker loses damage and gains HP. While solo, Tanker and Brute damage and survivability should be broadly similar; on a team of eight the Tanker should be unchanged from now.
This, I believe, is thematically appropriate, balanced, and most importantly, a change that will make Tankers more fun to play.
To fix 2: Either have Tankers bring -something- to leagues and high level content that will make them more popular other than damage, or simply raise the their damage caps so that Tanker's can achieve 90% of Brute damage, in the same way Brutes can achieve 90% of Tanker survivability. Nerfing Brutes may make more numerical sense in this than buffing Tanks, but I can't imagine it will make the game in general any more fun to play.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:Is there anything in the canon that states the circumstances in which this happened, however? It's never been fleshed out, to my knowledge. Richter's death in the Goatee Universe could easily be written to not be a cold blooded act.Originally Posted by Venture
Nooooooo, he started by murdering his best friend to gain power. He was rotten to the core from Step One. He was as much a "hero" as, say, Byrne-era Lex Luthor.
The POD for the Primal and Praetorian worlds might have been Richter attempting to kill Cole for the power prior to drinking from the Well (or perhaps just after), and Cole killing him in self defence. That would neatly explain his later, more suspicious outlook on the world, for instance.
- Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:I'll believe a fix is in the works when a developer says its happening. I would encourage others to do the same.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
Actually, people are just taking for granted that they are.
The only thing the devs said was that Tankers would be the next AT "looked at".
That doesn't necessarily mean they're looking at them to buff or improve them.
Considering the AT's track record, I wouldn't be surprised if some mechanic they cook up doesn't find it's way to Scrappers or a brand new AT instead, a la Fury.
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-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:It's a simple thing: some of people who play Tankers a lot, such as myself, don't want to feel like we're being idiots for not re-rolling our character concept as a Brute.Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
I never understood qubbles over tankers and brutes at the caps. If you're capped out, then pretty much so is the rest of the team, and at that point individual performance is just another body left behind in your team's wake.
Well, OK, I kinda understand, but I doubt those thoughts would be taken kindly.
Yes, I'm being a little unfair there, and no, I don't often feel that way (just sometimes running Incarnate content on my main Tanker or his Brute evil twin) but if you want the gut, irrational, emotive reason, then that's it.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:I'd give a very provisional "maybe" to Arcana's idea about Tankers buffing the defences of nearby allies; my main problem is purely that the game isn't exactly short of such buffs these days, and while it might make a -very- small difference to the perceptions of people towards inviting a Tanker to the team, it wouldn't really add much to the play experience of those playing the Tanker themselves. It just doesn't sound like much fun. It would be worth testing to see if I'm wrong on this, however.Originally Posted by PrincessDarkstar
I quite like Arcana's idea about protecting the team the closer they are to the tank, but I agree with Johnny that an endurance discount won't really have an effect in practice, because you can't then spend that extra endurance on attacking to any real degree. And not many people were raving about how awesome the Defenders old inherant was.
I'm really just sceptical that the developers would want to make teaming a sturdier experience for us all on average; this game already allows us a lot more leeway on that metric than most games.
This is actually identical in principle to my idea to buff damage/debuff HP dependent upon team size; I would say that I chose team size instead of proximity as I believe that to be a less "gameable" mechanic: I would want Tankers to have more damage/less durability solo - I don't think Tankers should be able to pick and choose which they have, at will, within a team.Quote:I am starting to get behind the idea of tankers doing more damage, though possibly mitigated by something like 'the more people close to the tanker the more of that damage bonus the tanker sacrifices to keep them alive, and the more taunt bonus they get'. So a solo tank can do good damage, but then in a team situation will have all the tools to keep people out of danger. It has occured to me that this will not reduce redundancy when you have 2 tanks, so would need to add some of that damage back for every toon in range that was also a tanker.
One solution to the problem of Tanker "scaling", ie having more than one on the team, that's just occured to me - having the buff damage/debuff HP triggered only when a non-Tanker joins a team - we see a similar effect with Kheldians where having different ATs on the team triggers different effects.
So: for each team-member that is not also a Tanker on the team, the Tanker gains HP but loses damage. Might be nice to try an all-Tanker team in that case.
This screams "difficult to code and implement". I'd like to be proved wrong there, though.Quote:So I would add onto this that Tankers should have some kind of ability to mitigate the effects of the special trial mechanics where people die instantly. Something where they have to be active but where they can save someone who gets 'marked for death' if they are paying attention. Something like 'intercept' where the tanker gets the damage instead and resists most of it but still gets hurt (Maybe the inherant gives them resistance to unresistable damage equal to the average of all the other resists or something). Then the tanker can save the team, but in turn will now be relying on the team helping them out to get back up to full health.
This is another solution to the unfair capping issue: speaking as someone who plays all the melee ATs regularly, I'm not terribly keen on it, for purely emotional reasons. It's as fair as raising the Tanker offensive caps, it's just I just enjoy my Brutes where they are. It may well be that the Dev's decide that it's Brutes that are the outlier, as Arcanaville put it, and alter them instead.Quote:I would personally accompany this with a lowering of brute caps (No need to really touch the base numbers) which allows for a tank to have a proper survivability advantage on teams. If the resist caps are (Tank>Brute>Scrapper) 90/85/80 then I think the damage modifiers should work in a similar ratio (A few % out to account for HP), but in reverse order.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:I agree that all the AT's should bring something unique to the table in terms of game mechanics. However, I consider this a different argument: saying that there should be a fair and enjoyable tradeoff in offense versus defence for ATs is not the same as saying that they should simply be tweaked versions of one another.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I don't mention that to say that's exactly what I think Tankers need. Rather, what I think they need is something unique, and something that provides players with a unique playstyle reason to play them, and that provides a unique contribution to teams. That might work, that might not be palatable to other players. But the core concept is to add unique gameplay, not necessarily higher numbers, although of course in some cases certain numbers can be higher to implement the unique gameplay.
Much of the rhetoric over the Tanker vs Brute question comes simply from the fact that they are thematically similar ATs(identical, really - they are two sides to the comic book "Brick"), but one is noticeably more useful, well regarded and popular, not just in high-level play. The rather arbitrarily high level of defensive buffing available at that level plus high damage caps, as has been pointed out ad nauseum, makes a mockery of Tankers by comparison. This is a separate, but not mutually exclusive, issue to how "unique" they are.
I'm also just not convinced that there is any sort of gameplay "gimmick" (forgive the term) that would narrow the gap in estimation between the two in the (admittedly narrow) parameters of iTrial and high level play. There's no shortage of survivability buffs already offered by the other AT's - having Tankers provide them in some form would have little effect, I believe, in making Tankers more popular or the game in general in any way more enjoyable to play (and that is, ultimately what we should be concerned over).
It -might- have an effect on lower level or generic team content, but I'm far from convinced this is the case; this isn't a game where defensive buffs are usually in short supply, even on a standard PuG. This is also where Tanker's actually need the least help - there's little wrong with Tankers in standard play, other than the fact you'll be hard pressed to get an invite to a team if there's one already there, as players usually favour more damage or offensive buffs.
Other gimmicks, such as AI-manipulation mechanics for Tankers would probably be impractical (you doubtless have a better idea on this than I do). Endurance buffs would be completely unnoticeable post level 25. Also, the fact that the solo experience for Tankers is slower and for many players, tedious, would be unaffected.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:What are your thoughts on Tanker balancing, if you don't mind my asking, Arcana? At this point we've heard from people saying that they need more defensive or offensive capability, better threat/aggro control etc. I'm just curious as to where you stand.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The fact that Brutes have lower *actual* defensive numbers for Tankers separate from their maximum caps is something you seem to think is irrelevant, but I can assure you the devs do not. The moment you start talking about the point at which tankers and brutes are living consistently at their defensive caps, you've just cut your own legs out from under you, because the devs interpret that situation as outside the normal range of game balance.
I would strongly advise you to come up with arguments that don't involve that position, while the devs are responsive to actually hearing them. Kicking Tankers down the road to address Blasters first is actually one of the best things that could have happened to Tankers, because it implies the devs want to do things that required more time and/or more tought than they had available and decided to spend more time on it. As I was telling blasters for months that would be the best time to sharpen your arguments and tune them for the devs, who are the only people that matter when it comes to scoring points with arguments.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Okay, just speculating and trying to think this through properly, lets assume for a moment implementing a Vigilance-style trade-off plus a damage cap hike as described earlier; call it Gauntlet 2.0 for now. I would assume/hope it would have some of the following features:
-1. As with Vigilance, we're talking a damage boost while solo, with the boost decreasing with team size, this inherent however being offset with increasing hit-points
- 2. A simple trade-off between damage modifier and hit-points only: messing with Resistance or Defence values would over-complicate things, both in terms of coding and balancing
- 3. The trade-off at solo would have to be similar to Brutes in terms of average damage output and durability; if res/def values are still at Tanker levels, then HP might need to be slightly lower than Brutes
- 4. The trade-off should probably be front-loaded: the first person added to the team should increase HP/decrease damage by the greatest amount
Back of the envelope suggestion:
- Damage cap raised (I'll go with JB's 445% for now unless someone wants to dispute it)
- While solo: damage modifier equivalent to Brutes at 50% fury; HP at 85% of Brutes; Res and Def unchanged
- 2 team members: damage modifier equivalent to Brutes at 20% fury; HP at 100% of Brutes; Res/Def unchanged
- A small increase in HP and decrease in damage for each team member after that until the team is at 8 members, where the Tanker is at current levels.
Alternatively, just the damage cap raise alongside a more conservative damage boost/HP debuff when solo, perhaps.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:They wouldn't, necessarily. This is a separate argument - how they should behave on large teams.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
No, it doesn't because Brutes.
It's as simple as that.
Brutes have the same resistance caps as Tankers and just 10% shy the same Max HP caps. Fury doesn't suddenly shut off and their damage buff cap suddenly shrink when a Brute gets his survivability above a certain point. Brutes don't have to sacrifice or trade off so why should Tankers?
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I'll try to find more time to go over this later, but you're essentially making an argument there about "arbitrary amount of buffs" teams - that in those situations, Brutes have both high survivability and damage. This is correct. A trade-off inherent wouldn't impact this, however.
I agree with you that the Tanker damage cap should be raised to a fairer trade-off between Tankers and Brutes (450%, correct?), however, the only way that Tanker damage could be raised would be by introducing a balancing penalty.
Remember, you yourself said that some Tanker survivability is "superfluous". Take that superfluous survivability on small teams or solo play and trade it for some damage to make that gameplay experience a little more enjoyable, is my suggestion.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:I largely agree with this.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
This I mostly agree with, but even positioning mobs becomes trivial in the typical steamroll that happens nowadays.
As other ATs become safer, it becomes more and more illogical to punish Tankers with having low damage when many of those other ATs can became safe and not have to give up their superior damage. If a Scrapper and a Brute can walk into the same mission solo as a Tanker and not die, why is the Tanker penalize to do it slower? Being tougher than a Scrapper or a Brute really isn't an advantage if Scrappers and Brutes aren't dropping dead to begin with and get to dish out much better damage.
And giving Tankers more control doesn't solve anything because much in the same way tanking has become less important, so has control. You don't need a tanker to help lock down a crowd with control if they're not a huge threat to anyone else to begin with and are being steamrolled over. And control does nothing for the Tanker when he's not on a team.
If people want a control/defense AT or a melee damage/buff-debuff AT then they should tell the devs they want one, but Tankers are not that. Like all melee ATs, Tankers were given a defense power set and a melee damage power set. Tankers hit things and Tankers get hit. If "getting hit" isn't doing it nowadays, it's time to re-examine how they hit things. People like Brutes more than Tankers because despite the fact share a lot of similarities, Brutes are tough but they don't hit like girls. People like damage. People like feeling powerful. That's exciting. 'Slow and steady' isn't widely regarded as fun and exciting. So if they can't make Tanker combat interesting and unique from Scrappers, Stalker or Brutes without Tankers being 'Fury-less Brutes', they need to put some more serious thought into it because I'm sure there's room for four flavors of melee fighter ATs without one being stuck with the "slow-and-weak-hitting-with-superfluous-survivability" flavor.
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One thing I will say, though, is that any increase in damage would have to be balanced by a reduction in survivability.
Quite honestly, the only solution I can see that might resolve things is a Vigilance-style trade-off for Tankers between damage and hit-points: Tankers starting with higher damage modifiers and less hit-points than currently while solo, but losing damage and gaining HP with each team-mate.
It has the advantage of being both thematic and balanced, but I'd hate to be the developer deciding on the trade-off.
-Captain_Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
I bet Jocas was from a previous "age of heroes" and his dagger is similar in origin to the mythical "god-killer" sword the Tsoo sought to use in Dark Astoria.
My suspicion is that the cycle we're seeing here has repeated itself over the centuries:
- the "potential" awakens, bringing with it a new age of heroes
- these heroes do great things, inspire legends and battle among themselves.
- the greatest powers become incarnate, and the greatest of these ascend.
- the ascended ones become so powerful that their wars threaten all mortals.
- as humanity becomes too dependent on the ascended (relying on the gods) their own "collective potential" diminishes and the well goes into a more dormant state.
- some seek to destroy those ascended (perhaps that era's equivalent of malta). The dagger of Jocas is an artifact from one of these, as is the god-killer sword.
- some seek to banish the ascended gods to the spirit world,
- some benevolent ascended may even voluntarily go so humanity can again develop its own potential.
- a few lesser powers stay behind, but don't directly intervene with humanity (the furies, as portrayed in the novel?)
- eventually, a new heroic age emerges and the cycle repeats.
Excellent synopsis: it's certainly the impression I was given. I do wonder if any future storylines will make this explicit, perhaps with you confronting a past or future incarnation of yourself (doesn't Darrin Wade obliquely allude to this possibility in SSA1?).
-Captain Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:I'd agree with this playing solo or on small teams; it's certainly nice not to crawl through solo content to the same extent on my Inv/SS. I think the issue is more on larger teams and Trials.Originally Posted by Tsuji
The funny thing about incarnate content is that while it definitely made the problems with tankers bigger, the incarnate powers themselves also made me more satisfied with my tankers thanks to the damage options.
Trial content and the removal of the blue/red barrier has blurred the lines for the melee AT's; the introduction of iTrial content has also produced a game environment that the Tanker AT was never really designed for.
We're now in a situation where, on a large team with an arbitrary number of defensive and offensive buffs, you have two thematically similar AT's where one is obviously more desirable, one being capable of dealing far, far more damage with only a slight to moderate reduction in survivability due to differences in damage and hitpoint caps. That, I believe, is bad design.
We also have a situation, conversely, where in non-trial content, IO'd out Tankers can and do solo +3/x8 maps in comparative safety (in fairness, all melee toons can to some degree approach this now). Also factor in that we don't really want to mess a great deal with the SO-only and early-game crowd.
What I personally would like to see tested, at the least (ymmv):
1. Apologies for the Cognitive Dissonance, but I agree with Johnny Butane that the Tanker damage cap should be raised. That's all I agree with, if it makes you feel any better.
On a team with an arbitrary amount of defensive and offensive buffs, Tankers and Brutes should offer a fair tradeoff between survivability and damage: Brutes a little more damage, Tankers a little more survivability, instead of the frankly easy choice between them currently. I'd like to see some play-testing to see if this is doable without imbalancing Trial gameplay.
2. A Vigilance-style tradeoff between damage and hitpoints. Yes, you heard me (apologies again for the dissonance). It makes thematic sense and theoretically might address soloing and balance issues. I'd like to see the idea toyed with and experimented with, at the very least.
I'm agnostic on the whole issue of increased aggro caps and threat generation; again, test it and see what happens.
What I wouldn't like to see is some some of gameplay gimmick added as a crutch for the problem. Which immediately makes me think that's exactly what will happen.
-Captain Aegis aka @Captain Valiant EU -
Quote:Bluntly, Sam, I would have expected the quality of SSA2 to be noticeably improved over that of SSA1. SSA1 suffered from a handful of structural flaws that hampered the ability of the writers to tell a decent story; although I'm not entirely letting them off the hook for certain things (killing off a major character by effectively having a villain wave a magic wand irritates me just thinking about it), I'm willing to grant them a -small- degree of latitude, due to them being impeded by certain factors of out their control. These, in my opinion were principally:
I post this partly because I want to take every opportunity I can to praise this game's storytelling, but more so because I hope that what I'm seeing in recent content is a trend of putting more care into storytelling than just an excuse to go places and kill things. For as jaded as I am about storytelling in City of Heroes of late, if this is where it's going... Well, let's just say that it's improving, and greatly. And that's saying something, considering I've been bashing the game's wiring as getting worse and worse for pretty much the last two years.
1. A lack of time and space to flesh out the major plot points. If SSA1, or at least many of its events had been stretched over 2 arcs, perhaps with foreshadowing of events in SSA1 and more space to hang some lampshades over certain decisions, things would have seemed less idiotic.
2. A "tick the check-box" approach: the writers needed to have certain things in place for SSA2, when the "real" story was due to start, so most of SSA was making characters jump through hoops despite if not necessarily it making sense for them to do so. Again, stretching these tickboxes out would have helped immensely here.
3. The plot revolved around a body count and the character constantly failing, which made the tone of the story jarring to some. We're constantly told in SSA1 that it's an achievement simply to survive against the villain. It really doesn't feel that way. Again, extending the story, perhaps with a mid story victory for the PC, would have helped with this.
4. Many players coming to the SSA's were obviously assumed to be seeing the major characters in action for the first time, so exposition was required; largely due to 1. and 2. it was done in a ham-fisted way.
All the tickboxes have been checked. Emmert's characters have been removed. We've been introduced to the characters... somewhat. With all that now out of the way, the writers can now begin properly.
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-Captain Aegis, aka @Captain Valiant EU