CoyoteShaman

Sorry, Malibu, but I'd argue that while that's a good character background it is far from epic. Some guy works out and trains hard and gets a pat on the head. Not epic. I agree completely that your story is a good background for a character. That doesn't make the VEAT epic. It makes the VEAT a little more specific than other ATs, but having a little background doesn't make it epic.

And again I say, this is NOT about the powers or how fun they are to play. The way the powers work together or how the characters work together certainly makes them different, but different is not "epic".

Epic, by definition, is majestic, of great scope and vast range. "A guy joined the military and worked his way up" is not of great scope, no matter how beautifully embellished it is.

And please don't get the impression I'm dissing your character background. Far from it. I'm only talking about the background of the VEATs in general. I'm comparing them to the HEAT background. Both are written by the devs, not the players. It just seems to me that they could have come up with something equally epic in scope for the villains as they did with the heroes. "Hey, now that you've gotten your 'Destined Lackey of Arachnos' up to level 50, come make a character that's even more obviously a peon in the same guy's stable!" Sorry, not seeing it.

Robin

I'm a one-game-man so I wasn't aware the feature was so widespread. I'm glad to hear it is, though, because it really seems to me to be a no-brainer. That's just me, though, I guess.

And I agree with both the point you're explicitly making (about the "ruin the game" argument) and the point I'm inferring (that the market shows that it's past time to discuss "if" and now time to discuss "how").

As to the how, I really don't think the email system is the way to go. As was said, by you IIRC, the cross-over spam thing would be a real pain. I suppose friends could be set for it, but that would require advance notice and would disallow general gifting.

I think a non-text, email-like system would work: pick a character, send a gift. A global tell would explain it fine and that way it wouldn't give spammers an email work-around.

I haven't given it nearly enough thought, however, so I'm going to let it simmer before voicing further.

Robin

It sounds to me like you're suggesting that every possible power set combination for every AT should be able to solo even the most powerful AVs in the game. That seems a bit... unreasonable to me. If my interpretation of your statement is correct, would you mind explaining the reasoning behind that assertion?

Robin

Evil DM or not, I love this idea!

The "out" part would be an instanced mish so the mobs could scale and once you got outside the hospital it would be normal striga...

Oh man... That would so Rock!

Maybe it's the way this was said or maybe my mind is just working differently this morning, but this made me think about when I started switching over to controllers from defenders. It was about the time of containment. As you say, it didn't change their role but it did change how they were perceived sufficiently to make them acceptable alternatives to other ATs. Unfortunately the main AT for which they became an acceptable alternative was Defender.

I still don't know that I believe a change to the defender inherent will make the AT more desirable, but I will now be much more open minded to options people voice. Thanks for keeping at this, Spark. I always appreciate calm, mature reasoning.

Robin

While I certainly wouldn't have said this myself (I play a lot of controllers), I'm very glad someone did. Don't tell anyone I said so, but I agree. Defenders' powers are right-on in every way (except for the inherent which sucks no matter how you look at it because it doesn't benefit builds remotely equally). It's the ease with which they are replaced that makes them less desirable. For the most part I prefer to "manage from the bottom", meaning pick the least played AT and change it to make it more desirable, but I think your suggestion certainly has merit.

Robin

I disagree on a factual basis. No matter which AT does damage, it gets the attention of the target. Gauntlet serves only to amplify and extend that fact for tankers and spread that effect around to the immediately surrounding foes. It does not create that effect and therefore can't be said to be why the secondary benefits them in their primary.

I fully agree with you in that Vigilance doesn't do squat for defenders to make their secondary set benefit their primary role. That's because the only way the secondary set can possibly benefit their primary role is by the secondary effects of the secondary powers. Those effects, like -def, -res, etc., are the exact same ones held by blasters. The exception there is -acc of dark which blasters don't yet have. Any inherent which would benefit the secondary set would benefit only the secondary role. Any inherent which would benefit the primary set would benefit only the primary role. Because they suffer from this role-split all of their benefits are split. All other ATs (except arguably the corruptor but I'm here to talk about heroes) have a direct synergy between primary and secondary power sets which focus them towards their primary role. The primary and secondary sets of the defender have only a very weak and indirect synergy for their primary role and this is made even less significant by making them try to fill two roles in order to make full use of their powers.

If you're not certain I'm correct in that, please ask yourself how many times you've heard it suggested that any active defenders (i.e. not FF or Son) just defend by using only buffs or heals or whatever? Contrast that with how many times you've ever heard a tank be told to not attack and only taunt, or a controller to only control and not buff. I've heard controllers be told to only buff (and practically screamed at the team to get a defender if they want a buffer) but I've never once heard them told to not buff. There are no other ATs that are commonly told to forgo the use of half their powers in order to be more useful to the team.

I agree with this part, too. I'm not suggesting defenders should get such a damage boost, only that it would never interfere with blasters. It would be the height of foolishness to give defs anywhere near a big enough boost to make them compete with blasters. In order to make their damage side significant enough to compensate for having half of their powers be inapplicable to their primary role, however, it would have to boosted high enough to compete with blasters. One must remember that there are two, mutually exclusive, actions going on: dps and buffs/debuffs. No character can activate two powers at the same time. While they're using a buff power they're not firing off a blast, and vice versa. Toggles detract from the ability to use those blasts by draining endurance, so either defenders are fighting against time (do I use this activation time to blast or to buff?) or they're fighting against endurance (do I blast or keep this toggle going?).

It's my contention that as long as this fact continues, there is no possible change to the inherent that will make the AT any more popular.

And that's really my point. It's a popularity contest. Defenders are horribly (IMO) underrepresented in the hero population because the people who like to play support would rather play controllers and people who like to blast would rather play blasters. The only people who would prefer defenders are those who specifically want to do both (very, very few) or who care more about concept than ease of soloing or getting on teams.

Again, I'm not saying defenders are weak or wimpy. I think defs rock. If I didn't I wouldn't be here trying to help figure out how to improve them. I'm just saying that they are underrepresented and therefore are obviously less popular than other ATs. I don't think they'll ever be called "defenders" and get a full 20% share of the blue-side, but I'd sure be happy to see them at least around 15-18%.

Robin

Please don't take this the wrong way. It could very well sound worse written out than I intend it to.

The "I'll live. You will too." reason for not implementing a new idea in a game is completely irrelevant. The same argument could be made for shutting off the game altogether. We all (who played back then) lived without the market. They added it. We've all lived without power customization. They're adding it. We all (who played back then) lived without CoV. They added it. Just because we can do without something doesn't mean it's not worth putting in. It's just a game. We'd all live without it. That doesn't mean it's not worth paying our $15/mo. or however much. Being able to live without a respec test tool is not remotely a reason to not add it and thereby make that $15/mo. an even better value. Adding value is always advantageous.

I very much like this idea. I really only use the test server for testing. I wouldn't enter a closed beta if they asked me (probably), which they haven't, but I'm happy to add my one user to the load for the open beta load-testing. For trying out a respec it's too much of a hassle without enough benefit. If we had a respec testing mechanism on live I'd be sure to use it and be grateful for it.

Robin

There is a huge difference between role bleed and having your powers split between two completely different roles. Tanker/Scrapper secondary power sets all help them fill their primary roles. Same with controllers and blasters. Not so with defenders.

In any field, the only way multiple roles helps is by allowing less competent people to act as "jacks-of-all-trades". Even then they wind up sending people to specialists when greater depth of ability or knowledge is called for. Filling more roles will never make the AT feel more needed, it will only make it feel more desperate.

I haven't said this before, but I think it might explain better what I'm talking about. Keep in mind that I'm not suggesting this. I don't know if it would be a good idea or not and I'm pretty certain it would be unreasonably difficult for the devs.

Tankers and Scrappers have the same primary/secondary sets, just reversed. They do have, as you said, role-bleed. Unless you are desperate, however, you don't call for a scrapper to do the tankers work or vice versa. A tank is just better at tanking and a scrap is just better at scrapping. Controllers have the defender primary as their secondaries. If the defender had the controller primary as their secondary, the two ATs would then fall into the same category. As it stands, the defender can't compete with the controller for mitigation/multiplication or with the blaster for damage. If the defender had controls as their secondary then they'd be back on an even playing field with the controller and wouldn't have half their powers made moot by a blaster. People wouldn't call in a controller to do a defender's work unless they were desperate, just like they don't call in a scrapper to do a tanker's work unless they're desperate.

Again: I am not suggesting that. I'm not saying I would be opposed to it, just that I haven't given it any thought except as a method of elaboration for my point.

Robin

That's your "dangit"??? That you were joking?

How about the "Dangit, WHEN THIS WEEK?" Or "Dangit, then when with the I16 open beta forums start up?" or any of the other "dangit" things suggested?

My vote is on the "when this week" one.

Robin

Forever until something funnier comes along...

Humility is our friend.

Which, to my mind, is a VERY reasonable response (both on the part of the devs and on the part of the players).

At the very least it doesn't cache that information on the client except for granular updates. That's obvious from the fact that when you select a subcategory it will automatically refresh in an unsorted form and resort as it downloads the new data. Given the available evidence I feel reasonably safe in saying it's an immediate and unwarranted download that is then not further used. It needs to be changed both for the benefit of the clients and for the benefit of the servers.

Robin

Wow. Okay. That's sig-bate.

Please take a look at some basic economic theory, then get back to us. Specifically look at the concept of monetary policy in an inflationary environment, and the effect it has on price inflation (which is completely different from actual inflation).

This x2! You go Aura.

I've been gone from this thread for stress relief reasons so please forgive my overdue response. And I don't think your paraphrases altered my meanings at all so there's no reason at all to be sorry.

As to the controllers, actually I would argue that the change to/addition of containment had absolutely no affect on their perceived role. I most certainly agree with you that it had a huge impact on their perceived value, but their role--being mitigation/multiplication--did not change in anyone's eyes that I know of. They fill only one role. When people look at their team makeup and think they need damage, they never look for a controller. When they need aggro control they never look for a controller. The role of the controller has been static since it's inception. This is true, to the best of my knowledge, for all the ATs and for the most part I feel that's as it should be.

Similarly with defiance, the value of the blaster changed but not their role. I submit that no change to any inherent could possibly change the role of an AT. The AT's role is determined by four things: Primary powers, secondary powers, hit points and damage scale. Those are in descending order of relevance to the role, mind you. Even if the blaster damage scale was tiny little bitty, they'd still fill the same role. They'd do a crappy job of it, but it would still be the same role.

Right now the problem is not who is best at what role. It's hands down obvious who is best at what role when each specific role is looked at on its own. The problem is that the capabilities of the defender are split between two roles, each of which is also filled by another AT, and therefore they are not capable of successfully competing with those other ATs. Changing the ability of the defender to fulfill either of those two roles or even both of those roles will not change that they are the schizophrenics of the game. Defenders have MPD: Multiple Powertype Disorder. Until they are devoted to filling a single role or roles that are not in competition with other AT roles, they will continue to suffer from the same problems regardless of how good they are at their roles.

Obviously those are just my thoughts and my predictions, but it's good to get them down so later on people can either tell me why I was wrong or more thoroughly understand how to prevent the problem in the future.

Robin

Keeping in mind that I agree with your last sentence, I have to argue the logic based on the extrapolation you're making.

You're saying that the prices will drop because the supply will increase. The supply will increase because more farming will be done. So far so good. The problem is that same increase in farming will also increase the supply of new influence into the equation at the same relative rate as the increased supply of purples/etc. Therefore there will be no change in the relative supply/demand equation. The supply/demand of the purples is only half of the equation; the other half is the supply/demand of the influence. Since both sides of the equation are going to be increased by the same amount, the relationship between the two will not change due to farming increases.

If there are other changes which will cause an increase in the supply of purples without increasing the supply of inf (or decreasing the supply of inf without decreasing the supply of purples), then yes it would lower the price of the purples.

Up to now, however, I have heard of nothing which would cause such a relative change.

I'd recommend "Human Action" by Ludwig von Mises for an excellent primer on economies, except I haven't read all of it yet so it would likely make me look really stupid later on when someone asked me more about it and I couldn't answer. I've only read selected articles/sections but even in those there has been some excellent information.

Robin

BIG RED BALL!!! (Just make it cost some inf to spawn it)

I don't have a link to the thread right now, but we need it in game anyway. Just search on "big red ball".