Dark_Epiphany

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People should be able to make informed decisions.

...but...

Knowing the numbers can ruin a game.

I have played and run many games of Champions, an excellent point-based superhero game. My Champions campaigns alway works fine until the number cuncher of the group comes up with a way to have better offense and better defense than anyone else.

Then suddenly everyone wants to reroll or respec, regardless of how fun their character is as things are...I exaggerate...slightly...

One thing I think is that there should be a secret NDA-protected Test Server where players who know the numbers can point out when things are borked.

...maybe there IS one...

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The main issue with players wanting to know the numbers is because the descriptions for powers are not accurate. And being forced to adapt to a game with increasing dificulty makes more players number crunchers. If descriptions were adequate there would be less needs for respecs.

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Remember, not all blasters have (effective) AoE attacks. They can't be treated equally. My one Elec AoE one serves to get the attention of a crowd--it doesn't hurt them much at all.

That's the problem with comparing ATs--you can't simply compare A to B: Powersets make all the difference.

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Well, let's take Ice... In general, with my scrappers, I simply can't keep up with ice's killing speed. It has fast animations and does a lot of damage to single targets. Frost Breath does a decent amount of damage as well. I've seen Ice drop a boss in the time it would take me to get that boss to half health...after criticals were added.

It's not just AoE, it's also that some blaster sets have fast-cycling, fast-animating attacks. Mind you, I don't think there's anything wrong with blaster damage in that regard, and wouldn't argue with a moderate increase (as I pointed out). The problem blasters seem to have more than damage is survivability.

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Its not just blasters though. Its also controllers and defenders. Generally speaking. The lack of mez protection with ALOT of ranged damage in the late game hurts these ATs. However blasters are at the low end of this because of any ability to compensate other than attacking of fleeing
for thier lives. A controler can spam a hold, a defender can self heal and debuff. But any mez/knockback etc is detrimental.

The one thing I find shocking is that blasters have such low health, yet have melee attacks. And some with very long activation times. And Pbaoe attacks. Electric field? Blazing aura?

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I play a scrapper and a couple of blasters, and I don't really see much of a damage issue.... but the aggro and defence issue is huge. Especially when you figure in large AoE attacks like Fireball. Everyone lives longer than my blaster in missions, even the other squishies. I feel like I need to ignore my secondary in favour of a bunch of pool powers that don't fit my character concept, just so I can have some marginal defense.

My regen scrapper doesn't fair nearly as well as previously (died three times last time I used him.... it's taking forever to grind through missions now), so the nerf was definitely effective, but I'm still complaining more about the state of my blasters.... that in and of itself should say something.....

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Agreed. Blasters should some sort of defense boost. At the very least they should have scrapper health. Regen did not need to be nerfed at all. But obviously the devs feel the need to constantly nerf anyways. The late game with my regen scrapper has died. I refuse to play my Dark armor scrapper because the end useage is cripling. I have zero love for the devs..

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Boost their damage some? Sure. Boost it enough so they can one- or two-shot anything up to bosses? Please, god, no. I'd never team with a blaster again.


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Just to counterpoint this: my best attack is my Zapp, with a 3 second activation time. You you know how may times this attack hit's nothing per day because the scapper/tank has taken down the whole mob before I can lock a clean target and fire the shot? Don't blasters deserve some of the fun, too?

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Not nearly as often as the blaster's taken out multiple targets right as I execute an attack on the now-corpse.

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Second this. Every 3 minutes or so my bud wipes out an entire pack of mobs. On an avg mission he does this 4-5 times. Team with more than one blaster and im luki if I get to use my fists a bit.

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Question, do you enjoy spending money on something that has little or no use to you?

While I know influence and power slots and enhancement slots aren't money, they're comparable things- currency you work to earn and can be "spent" to your benefit.

So the parallel is similar- people don't want to spend their hard-earned currency on something that gives them marginal (or nonexistant) benefit, especially when there's alternatives that are far superior.

Also, we're heros- We want to feel powerful. Its part of the game's theme.

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Now, don't get me wrong. I fully agree with the fact that people shouldn't end up wasting influence on enhancements that will not affect their hero's powers thanks to caps. The Dev's SHOULD have some sort of way of indicating to the player that yes, adding another Flight Speed SO (for example) won't increase your flight speed anymore thanks to the cap.

What I don't understand, for lack of a better term, is peoples desire to Min/Max. To wring every last ounce of power out of their characters that they can. I'm not saying it's a wrong playstyle, and if thats what you enjoy, that fine. But I just don't understand HOW people find that fun.

I guess what it boils down to is that while everyone else seems to want to be the Supermans or Galactus's of the world, I'm content with being the Spider-Mans or Ambush Bug's of the world.

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Because we are being forced to adapt constantly to a game with increasing dificulty.

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CuppaJo said:
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The "roles" question is best addressed by Statesman - AFAIK scrappers dmg > Tanks. Tanks def/res > Scraps. Blasters = dmg via range. These are gross generalities.

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I started by PM'ing Statesman and his response was less than optimal. I know he's a busy guy, wife, job, company, comicbooks, the list goes on and on... I just wanted clairification. I know severl of my Tanker and Blaster friends do too.

Statesman said:
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Scrapper - takes out the boss while the Tanker holds him down...

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While I love ya Jack (in that paltonic, you're very cool kinda way) this just didn't answer my question. I don't know any scrapper over 12 that needs a Tanker to help him/her with a boss. Over 22-ish 2-3 bosses can be handels via kiting (sometimes without). And, Blaster + Tanker will always take bosses down far faster than Scrappers.

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This is actually a very sad way to balance. It reeks of EQ if he responds with that. When I form teams I see heros not ATs. Id like to think that I can grab whoever is available to play and just do a mission or TF. My SG is typically a late nite crew.

Blaster AOE nukes need a hard cap on the quantity of mobs they can affect. However they should have a 500 percent damage cap.

Thats stupid. So whats the chance of a AV bypasing that defense then? Ice only has defense. Theres nothing wrong with excess if it lets ice tankers do thier job.

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I think people misunderstand why developers interfere and make changes. I could care less how fast someone earns influence. But I am concerned when someone is doing somethingg "unfun" in order to gain levels quickly and thereby bypassing other, more interesting content. Admittedly, "fun" and "unfun" are completely subjective, so people can disagree.

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Speaking as someone who hasn't really partaken of the whole "wolf herding" phenomenon, I'm troubled by the change here - several wolf-filled missions have archvillains in them, and one is the end of a story arc. What bothers me is that timed missions have an in-game reason for being timed...except these. Now, we have a random assortment of timed missions that are timed solely to prevent people from using them a certain way. That, in combination with the decision to give the wolves stun attacks strikes me as making the game less fun for the people who play it legitimately.

There seems to be a tendency in this game to stack drawbacks - tanker and Kheldian design come immediately to mind. Now it's extended to wolf missions. "You get this beneft, so you'll get this penalty, and this penalty, and this penalty." Eventually, the idea of risk vs. reward gets skewed and people feel punished for trying to play the game.

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Well said Kali. Well said.
Im rather disgusted by changes made that affect all of us when it comes to only a few who actually abuse the game
this way. The funny thing is it really hasnt stoped tanks from herding wolves... What worries me now is that before the wolf farming/herding was kept indoors in a mission. When they are no longer any missions left. Will we see these fools power leveling low level folks by herding outside on the streets?? The fact of the matter is that people who want to power level and herd said mobs will always find a way to do so. And while I find it utterly stupid to power level in such a way wolf missions keeps these fools out of the damn streets!

Devs I know youre planing to roll back boss changes. But can you leave the AVs like they are now? They are tough as nails and require good well organized teams. They make fights feel epic.

The only issue I ever had with the boss changes was the added damage. I have no problems with not being able to solo a mission that has a boss in it. However my feeling on that changes if I recieve a timed mission with alot of bosses or just one big one at the end. My playtime is usually late in the evenings when most heroes have hung up thier spandex for more comfortable pajamas. I will miss the XP and the nice influence I got from these nifty hard foes.

As a side note: I have noticed that since I3 enhancement drops have been way way rare! It takes me 4 hours of hardcore gaming and street sweeping to even get about 8 enhancements. Most of which are not even SOs. If I and my teammates take on more than 50 bosses, 100 lts, countless minions and 3 AVs then the least Id expect is to
have a decent rate of enhancement drops. I dont care about oh yea im getting soo much influence from this. I cant buy level 47 SOs from a shop. Devs please look into this matter as well.

My main at the moment is a scrapper. I normally team up with my sg which is small but mostly scrappers. When we meet bosses they usually die rather quickly. Even post issue #3. I do love the xp/inf boost. Ill be sad to see them go. However I can totally understand why the boss changes shold be rolled back fully or partially. The changes were rather tough on blasters and defenders. Even if they were teamed. I will say this though. If you roll back changes on bosses please increase the dificuty of missions through the difficulty slider. Invincible at the moment is still kinda easy. Fighting two +2 minions in a solo missioni s still easy. Even for a blaster.

Thanks Alot for the time and effort. Hope you enjoyed the holidays.

I was hoping that a release in europe would bridge the gap across the ocean and let everyone play together. After playing Anarchy online for a bit Ive grown fond of playing side by side with folks from germany, finland, the UK and a whole skew of other euro nations.