Dr_Corvus

I'm dying to get the name Vespera for my night widow. The name fits perfectly with the character's theme. I don't want to have to misspell the name to be able to use it.

If you (or someone you know) has the name and might be willing to give it up, please contact me and we'll take it from there.

Thanks!

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1) You have the default To Hit value (ie no buffs), your target has no Defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?

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I take this to mean that neither combatant is any more or less skilled than the average person in attacking and defending.

In real life, a fight of this type usually comes down to trading blow after blow until someone falls down first. There are usually no dodges (dodging being the defender skillfully and intentionally avoiding the hit that would have otherwise hit a less skilled individual). There are usually no misses (missing being that even if the target didn't move an inch, the attacker still would not hit them at all). It would simply come down to who could take the most blows (who has the most hit points) or whomever gets in the first hit.

Looking at fights like a school yard fight, a bar fight, or pretty much any other kind of fight, it always tends to be that dodging is extremely uncommon and missing is pretty much non-existent. There are always outside influences, but I have an extreme distaste for "the chance of external influences" to be a guaranteed mathematical factor dictating how often I can hit something. If there is a big 300-pound guy standing in front of me and I want to punch him, I guarantee you that I'm not going to miss (unless he skillfully dodges, see below). As a human being of sound mind and body, I would not miss if I were to throw a baseball at the side of a barn from ten feet away. I disagree with the notion that a game should make me miss a guaranteed x% of the time. I find that very insulting. It's one thing to add challenge, it is another thing entirely to make my character (a superhero, no less) into some sort of dysfunctional dolt.

To sum up number 1, both targets having no particular skill granting accuracy or defense, I would say they should both hit each other 100% of the time.


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2) You have the maximum possible To Hit value, and your target has no defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?

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I take this to mean that I have an amazing ability/power that allows me an extreme amount of accuracy. Perhaps computer-assisted targetting, as an example. If the target has no defense, in other words, no particular skills at dodging, I would obviously expect to hit them every single time. (Again, I dislike the "external influences" excuse.) This would be like RoboCop firing his Auto-9 at a run-of-the-mill street thug. The thug is not going to dodge, period.

Another example might be a world-class martial artist. If said fighter was attacking an average Joe, he would not miss any blow that he intended to connect with.

Max accuracy versus the average Joe's (lack of) defense, 100% guaranteed hit rate.


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3) You have the default To Hit value, and your target has the maximum possible defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?

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Assuming that I had no particular skills for landing blows/aiming shots, I would never expect to hit someone with a highly-specialized skill at dodging. That would be like any able-bodied human being trying to land a punch on Quicksilver or The Flash. Or try hitting either of them with a gunshot. Simply never going to happen, except maybe with pure dumb luck. But I would put that possibility into such a small percentage that it's not even worth factoring into a game.

Going back to the martial artist versus the average Joe, if the martial artist did nothing but defend, Joe would never land a single blow on him, unless he found some way to surprise him (which should never be automatically factored into a mathematical to-hit rate).

An average person's accuracy versus extreme defense capabilities, I say an absolute 0% chance of hitting.


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4) You have the maximum possible To Hit value, and your target has the maximum possible defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?

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I would say that there would be a very high dodge rate, but ultimately I, the highly skilled attacker, would eventually land a hit once the opponent made a mistake and I found an opening. I would say that it is generally more difficult to successfully dodge than it is to land a hit, since attacks often have the advantage of unpredictable timing.

Let's take the example of a martial arts duel, where both fighters are equally skilled. It's typically dodge after parry after dodge after parry, until one of the defenders makes a mistake and leaves himself open very briefly, at which point the highly skilled attacker would home in on this opportunity and land his first hit. Such an opening would only come about due to an extended onslaught of a skilled attacker, thus an average Joe off the street would never land a blow, but a very skilled martial artist would eventually.

We see such martial arts battles in movies all the time, and they tend to be quite exciting. The blow-by-blow fight can be great too. Both have their place. Captain Kirk and many of his opponents generally fit into point 1, and Jet Li and his usual opponents easily fit into point 4. Points 2 and 3, IMO, are no-brainers.

In summary, max to-hit versus max defense, the attacker would hit a small percentage of the time (5% at most), but never within the first one or two attacks (unless the first attack is a surprise attack). I have a great idea on how to implement this, but I will refrain from posting it here, as this thread is not for ideas on mechanics.

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A few places where the Head seems to clip with the hair/hat on Huge and Male heads can be seen here: Assorted Head Clipping

Specifically, Huge->Head->Hats->Do-Rag and Stocking Cap, Male->Head->Standard->Spikey, and Male->Head->Hats->Swabby. These screenshots were all taken with no changes made to the Shape Sliders.

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Regarding the male Spikey hair, there is also clipping above the ear on the other (right) side of the head (not shown in the screenshot).

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Dr. Corvus, I like the way you crunched the numbers to show the usefulness of Bodyguard.

Personally, my problem with Bodyguard is the fact that it bypasses my entire secondary line. I am a FF secondary.

In PvP, why should any hero target my pets?

Yes, bodyguard will extend my life expectancy, but it does so at the cost of my entire secondary.

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True, in PvP some secondaries won't be completely useful. But this is no different than without BG. BG or not, it would be silly to not use powers like Dispersion Bubble or Personal Force Field or Force Bolt in PvP. Yes, bubbling the pets isn't a priority in PvP now, but /FF isn't a complete write-off, not by a long shot.

Besides, you should be happy about not having to bubble the pets, that's less down-time in the hospitals before getting back into the fight.

AoE damage versus a MM in Bodyguard status won't be as bad as some people are making it out to be.

Let's break it down. For these examples, we will throw away resistance and defence and all those other helpful things that would normally increase your survivability. We're going to use assume that the MM is level 38. It is also being assumed that for the tier 1 (T1) pets, they take 20% more base damage due to their level (36). The tier 2 (T2) pets will take 10% more base damage, and the tier 3 (T3) will take the same damage as the MM. I am using the HP of the Robotics minions for these examples (not sure if they are different from the other primaries):
<ul type="square">MM 699 HP
T1 480 HP
T2 655 HP
T3 840 HP[/list]Color coding will be as follows:
<ul type="square">50-100% HP
30-49% HP
10-29% HP
1-9% HP
DEAD[/list]Let's say that the MM is standing next to the six pets, all of which are in defensive/follow mode. The MM is then targetted by a level 38 player or enemy with an AoE attack and it lands, hitting all seven targets. The attack does exactly 100 points of damage to each target of equal level. The remaining HP after the attack would be:
<ul type="square">Without Bodyguard (BG):
MM 599 HP
T1 360 HP
T2 545 HP
T3 740 HP[/list]<ul type="square">With Bodyguard (BG):
MM 674 HP
T1 347 HP
T2 532 HP
T3 727 HP[/list]Hardly any difference, except that the MM him/herself would barely notice the damage at all with BG active. Everyone is still well within the green either way. Nothing to worry about here.


Let's up the AoE's damage to do exactly 300 damage to each even-level target.
<ul type="square">Without BG:
MM 399 HP
T1 120 HP
T2 325 HP
T3 540 HP[/list]<ul type="square">With BG:
MM 624 HP
T1 82 HP
T2 287 HP
T3 502 HP[/list]Again, not a lot of difference except that the MM is left with 65% more health after the attack with BG active. The pets are still in their same respective danger zones and aren't that much more likely to die at this point than without BG.


Now let's up the AoE's damage to do exactly 600 damage to each even-level target.
<ul type="square">Without BG:
MM 99 HP
T1 0 HP DEAD
T2 0 HP DEAD
T3 240 HP[/list]<ul type="square">With BG:
MM 549 HP
T1 0 HP DEAD
T2 0 HP DEAD
T3 165 HP[/list]This is where BG really starts to make a difference. BG saved the MM a big chunk of HP (left with 554% more health than without BG), and the third tier pet is still in roughly the same shape it would have been without BG. Essentially, you are sacrificing only 75 HP from the remaining pet to put an extra 450 HP back onto the MM. Nice trade-off if you ask me!


This time we'll increase the AoE's damage to do a massive 1000 damage to each even-level target.
<ul type="square">Without BG:
MM 0 HP DEAD
T1 0 HP DEAD
T2 0 HP DEAD
T3 0 HP DEAD[/list]<ul type="square">With BG:
MM 449 HP
T1 0 HP DEAD
T2 0 HP DEAD
T3 0 HP DEAD[/list]BG flat-out saved the MM's life where it would normally be a total wipe. Not only that, but the MM still has more than 64% of his/her HP left thanks to BG. No reason to not want BG in this situation!


Now let's bring up the AoE's damage to do an incredible 2500 damage (!) to each even-level target:
<ul type="square">Without BG:
MM 0 HP DEAD
T1 0 HP DEAD
T2 0 HP DEAD
T3 0 HP DEAD[/list]<ul type="square">With BG:
MM 74 HP
T1 0 HP DEAD
T2 0 HP DEAD
T3 0 HP DEAD[/list]Wow. Even after such a massive attack, the MM still survived thanks to BG, and he/she still has more than 10% of their health remaining!


I can't speak for anyone else, but even when faced with some brutal AoE's, I'll still take BG any day!

What it all comes down to is this -- with Bodyguard on, your MM is generally safer than with it off. If your pets die, you can resummon them. If you die, you get debt, you're out of the action, you have to be rezzed or take a trip to the hospital or your SG base, and your pets still die. Personally, I'd rather watch my pets eat floor protecting me, rather than me taking the dirtnap first, only to have them all follow suit anyway.

BG will help. It will not solve all of the MM's problems, but no AT is perfect. There may be ways to circumvent BG in PvP, but those strategies were already in use against MM's anyhow. BG is too powerful to not have weaknesses. I say let people use TP Foe or kite the pets or whatever. If those strategies were unavailable, MM's with BG would require numerous players ganging up on them just to take them out. From what we know of BG so far, it sounds fairly balanced to me. We'll just have to wait to see how it fairs in the Training Room next week.

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Thats a goo idea Dr., but in the case of melee Masterminds, youll need to get right next to the person or send your pets into melee range for that alpha before you switch stances. Who in their right mind stands still while a MM and 6 pets runs right up next tot hem besides tanks/brutes? No one in PvP. The run and kite like hell...

Lets say even if you do get off a melee alpha strike with all of your minions, run in beside them, then switch to defensive mode real quick- you do get your bodyguard ability turned on, but if that player does not retaliate, your pets are now on defensive follow, and chances are they are not going to attack that player if they do not attack you or another one of your pets. A player would just need to use common sense and not attack back, and just super leap/fly/super speed out of melee range, heal up or not, and just start the kiting process. once the kiting starts, our pets are now in ranged mode and firing their puny darts and shurikens chasing the player to hell and back going in and out of our supremacy range....thats no way for a power to work....its a big cluster----.

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There will certainly still be many ways to circumvent Bodyguard in PvP, but that is the way it should be IMO. It is too powerful to have on all the time. In fact, with all six pets on Bodyguard, wouldn't the MM then have more collective HP than a Tanker? It has to have some big weaknesses if it is to be that powerful.

As Bodyguard stands, it will still provide some benefit that we didn't have before in PvP, even if that benefit is easily taken away by a smart player. It's better than nothing, better than what we have right now on Live.

Besides, I probably should have specified, but my post was mostly in regards to PvE. Once I get to level 50, then I will start worrying about PvP.

The first thing I'm going to test when I7 hits the Training Room is to see how picky Bodyguard is in regards to the timing of your pets' current mode.

Say, for example, I issue the 'attack my target' command to all pets, then immediately switch them to defensive/follow. They will still throw out their alpha strike and complete the attacking animations, however, the icons next to them in the pet window immediately change back to defensive/follow the very moment the order is given.

Will Bodyguard be programmed to wait until the pets are finished attacking from the initial order and then kick in, or will it simply activate the moment the pets are given the defensive/follow commands? I would guess that it would kick in immediately, unless it was specifically programmed to wait. I imagine that would be a bit difficult to program, given the varying lengths of all of the attack animations and whatnot. It's something to test, anyway.

I will certainly be giving Provoke a spin as well.

Luminesce - Pinnacle

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