Flux_Vector

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2. A lot of people are concerned that "normal play " gets ripped off because, for instance, doing Eden "normally" takes an hour and a half instead of 10 minutes. But the Devs have to look at the total picture. There are two relevant things that any solution has to handle:

1. Everything ends up on Wentworths.
2. One goal is for a normal-size TF to be a reasonable choice for ALL the people who would do a TF.


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1 is not necessarily true. Sometimes you get a drop... and just keep it because it's something you want.

1 will become much less true under merits as heavy TF players will, rather than producing surplus random recipes that they convert to influence via WWs to get what they want, will simply hoard merits until they can buy what they want directly.

And once they've got what they want, they'll hoard merits instead of turning to wentworths to convert merits into influence by buying recipes and selling them.

The key thing to remember is that the market and influence are a means to an end (desired recieps), not an end themselves.

I have no motivation to supply the market with recipes if every recipe I get is one I want, and as a rational actor who knows the low chance of getting a desirable Pool C drop, I have no motivation to convert merits into recipes I don't want via the random choice.

Further, once a given character's build is completed, instead of producing recipes I have no need for at all on that character I can store "recipe value" indefinitely in the form of merits (which are "infinitely compact" and don't take auction slots, salvage banking slots, or enhancement inventory slots to keep) and exchange them for recipes whenever I so choose, like if a later need arises (say if I want to respec) or to help a different character with a specific, needed recipe.

This is an important note because the developers have "telegraphed" a merits nerf - merits will almost certainly only become harder to get in the future, so converting them needlessly today can hurt me some months down the line. Further, for most characters influence is more easily generated in equal or greater quantities per unit time through other means (ie, demon, tv, roman farming... or just soloing, unless you're on an "all team" build), as opposed to doing taskforces and selling the random drop recipe at the end on WW's. I don't TF as my first choice for gaining influence today, merits wont' change that at all.

In short, I'll be able to use merits to get exactly what I want, and if I don't want anything I'd usually be foolish to exchange merits to sell for influence instead of just keeping them and doing non-TF activities for influence instead.

Also, doesn't "telegraphing" the fact that TF rewards will be nerfed in the future, act as incentive for people to abuse them as much as possible, as often as possible, right out of the gate to "beat the nerfbat" to them? Is this something you want to accomplish, or think is good for the game?

On a separate aspect... what makes you think people won't hoard merits indefinitely for use to equip other characters (by transferring recipes or enhancements), or to save them to adjust to future changes to powers, the rather than supplying the market with any "surplus" merits purchases?

And finally, if influence/infamy is supplanted by merits as the means for acquiring expensive pool C and D recipes, don't you think prices on everything else will increase since the same supply of inf will be "chasing" a smaller number of recipes (mainly purples and some pool As)?

Yeah, I'd echo the concern about a majority of 'fast TFs' being run by the same groups of players repeatedly and often, rather than by everyone and at the same intervals. This is especially true because average players who are likely to generate average times will play less, and do taskforces much less often, than 'powergamer' type players.

Ie, if average people do perhaps one regular-speed TF X per week, a farmer or power-gamer who does three 'fast' TF Xes per day, everyday (by alternating characters), will generate twenty fast "time samples" to the average person's one normal time sample. How will this be dealt with and accounted for, especially in a manner that will be fair to average players and in light of the fact that the optimal-reward oriented TF players will simply move on to the next piece of optimal content if their current content is made unoptimal?

At what point, basically, will 'adjustments' based on relatively small numbers of people running the content quickly, stop?

Additionally - villains need more SFs. Really, I expect it's going to be ridiculous how much easier getting merits will be for heroes as compared to villains.

1) How will the repricing of bases affect you personally?

I'll be able to make personal and small SG bases larger and more functional. However, I'll be spending alot of time redesigning, dismantling, and rebuilding/redecorating several bases.

2) Will you dismantle your base to gain the additional prestige from the repricing?

I plan on dismantling and rebuilding two bases at the moment.

3) How long would this process take you if you were to engage in this practice?

I expect the smaller base will take about a week to rebuild, at a couple hours per day.

The larger base will take a much longer time and I expect to be splitting the work with other people, even so, I bet it'll take over a month to fill out fully with decorations.

Getting bases functional will be much faster, it's decorating them and detailing them that will take lots of time.

4) What are the positive and negative concerns regarding repricing?

Bigger, more functional bases on less prestige are a good positive. The negative is that starting from zero in order to get that positive is going to be very time consuming.

5) How will this feature affect you long term and short term?

Longterm, more SG goodies should help recruiting, retention, and activity. Short term the group will be disrupted by the rebuilding process, losing a hangout spot while I'm working on it, and so on.

Base Salvage Exchange to Invention Salvage
1) What is the negative effect on your base for this feature implementation?

Minor, I consider the change of recipes not to matter much since base items are one-offs and rarely need rebuilding/replacing.

The reducing in storage salvage and the lack of detailed storage access controls make salvage storage effectively useless due to the risk of theft, and the reduction in storage capacity makes it even less attractive, thus taking a function away from bases.

2) What is the positive effect on your base for this feature implementation?

None. We have plenty of base salvage and know how to use it. There's no benefit to us to changing to invention salvage at all, so far as I can tell.

Maybe empowerment stations using invention salvage will encourage more people to use them... that could be done without removing base salvage though.

3) How long will it take you to adjust to learning this new system?

Already done thanks to PlasmaStream's guide. I just look up the recipe, buy the salvage, and go.

4) What side effects to this system do you currently see from transitioning the old to new system?

I think newer groups and groups without many established players may have a hard time getting all the inventions salvage they want. People can use that salvage to equip their own characters.

The brainstorm conversion process will probably result in a massive glut of rare salvage in the first weeks of I13 as people convert over, as they'll almost never convert into common or uncommon salvage.

5) What security concerns do you have regarding this change?

People are going to look to steal salvage from SGs in the coming weeks (some people already are doing so) and to raid salvage bins in force after I13 goes live.

Thanks for the explanation, Arcanaville.

However, I have to say, if they expect a mechanic like this to make pvp more accessible to casual players, I think someone needs to remind them that next to nobody is going to understand this equation. I don't really, I admit it, even with the explanation and examples it makes precious little sense to me in any way I can relate to. Of all the obtuse and arcane new rules for PvP zones, this one is by far the most cryptic. (Yes, bad pun intended).

It also sets up a situation in combination with passive resists for most ATs where sonic and thermal buffs are nearly useless, and will just generally cheese off everyone who's put in the effort to slot IOs into their builds. I honestly hope it gets reconsidered.

I doubt that most Vent or TS users will change to NCSoft's implementation. Especially in cross-game guilds, "serious internet gaming groups," or close-knit groups of friends - who are the people most likely to be using voice to start with. The game-neutrality and higher degree of server-level control they offer is going to keep them as the better option for these groups.

I doubt that people who don't already have Vent or TS will adopt NCSoft's implementation in great numbers for a variety of reasons. Frankly, for the most part more than basic coordination is not that important in this game, and further my past experience with 'casual use' of voice chat has been that it decreases coordination and focus in a group, as people talk out of turn and over one another when excited/in trouble and otherwise chat casually rather than paying attention to the game.

In other words, the conversation often goes like, "Yeah and then she..." - "HEAL HEAL!" - "said that..." - "Heal WHO?!" - "I was too much of a nerd..."

People are a lot more likely to "un adopt" voice chat than they are to make the effort of learning "radio discipline" for using it effectively in combat.

Having a level 50 all human peacebringer, played up that way from level 1... I'm glad I didn't see this post until now. Your build is subpar in several areas and you don't offer any useful tactical advice in your guide for employing the build or playing as a human peacebringer.

I could pick your build apart, but I don't feel it's appropriate to. I will point out that it doesn't consider IOs at all, overslots several powers, and underslots one critical one.

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For the PvE folks reading this, no, Vengeance is not meant to stack in PvE, either and the change, when it happens, will apply in those encounters as well.

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Will this be true of NPCs (Nemesis Lieutenants), as well?

If so, I can accept this.

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Please make all relevant nerfs apply to NPC powers too. "NPC Cheating" where NPCs get to play by different rules than us is very annoying to players.

It certainly appears that Statesman's calculations don't take into consideration that higher-level enemies resist the effects of debuffs.

+0 resists 0%.
+1 resists 10%.
+2 resists 20%.
+3 resists 35%.
+4 resists 52%.

Higher cons get even worse of course.

Beyond +3 I won't get into because Statesman didn't, however.

Now I'll quote Statesman's math and then incorporate the resistance factor alongside it.

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Before

Radiation Infection has a base To Hit debuff of 2.5 * the Defender’s Archetype boost of 0.125 = 0.3125. With 2 SO’s under the Schedule “A“ (a 66% increase to the Debuff), the end result would be 0.5187.

Here’s a breakdown of how this would play out against various ranks and levels

Even Con
Minion .5 (Base to Hit) -0.5187 (Radiation Infection To Hit Debuff) = -0.0187 or 5% chance to hit (minimum before Accuracy modifications)
Lt. .58 - 0.5187 = 0.06125 or 6.125%.
Boss .65 - 0.5187 = 0.13125 or 13.125%.

+1 Level
Minion 55 -.05187 = 3.125% which becomes 5%.
Lt. 63 -.05187 = 11.125%
Boss 70 -.05187 = 18.125%

+2 Level
Minion .6 -.05187 = 13.125%
Lt. .68 -.05187 = 21.125%
Boss .75 -.05187 = 28.125%

+3 Level
Minion .65 -.05187 = 28.125%
Lt. .73 -.05187 = 36.125%
Boss .8 -.05187 = 43.125%

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Now with "purple patch" resistance, this is the current game performance as I understand it:

Even Con
Minion .5 (Base to Hit) -0.5187 (Radiation Infection To Hit Debuff) * 1.0 (debuff 100% effective against Even Con) = -0.0187 or 5% chance to hit (minimum before Accuracy modifications)
Lt. .58 - 0.5187 = 0.06125 or 6.125%.
Boss .65 - 0.5187 = 0.13125 or 13.125%.

+1 Level (debuffs 90% effective)
Minion .55 - (0.5187 * 0.9) = 8.317%
Lt. .63 - (0.5187 * 0.9) = 16.317%
Boss .70 -(0.5187 * 0.9) = 23.317%
(0.5187 * 0.9 = 0.46683)

+2 Level (debuffs 80% effective)
Minion .6 - (0.5187 * 0.8) = 18.504%
Lt. .68 - (0.5187 * 0.8) = 26.504%
Boss .75 - (0.5187 * 0.8) = 33.504%
(0.5187 * 0.8 = 0.41496)

+3 Level (debuffs 65% effective)
Minion .65 - (0.5187 * 0.65) = 31.285%
Lt. .73 - (0.5187 * 0.65) = 39.285%
Boss .8 - (0.5187 * 0.65) = 46.285%
(0.5187 * 0.65 = 0.337155)

Since Statesman didn't list the accuracy modifiers for higher cons in his "post-I7 calculations," I can't calculate out the effect of resistance on the post-I7 numbers without spending more time and effort on "backing into" the modifier than I feel like spending at this time.

But since his pre-I7 numbers appear wrong given my understanding of the "purple patch," I'm afraid I have to assume his post-I7 numbers were wrong also. It is still possible that there is a "net benefit" to the I7 change despite the schedule nerf. However, we still can't assume so from Statesman's original post because he got the "current game" numbers wrong that are being used as a measure for comparison.

(The purpose of this post is mainly to get a dev response about the "purple patch" issue with to-hit debuffs and how it affects the schedule change and I7, anyway, not to prove Statesman wrong).

Well like I said earlier... PvP pros tend to adapt and deal (even if only by rebuilding into the power themselves), people who start nerf threads tend to do it because they aren't willing to adapt, or aren't willing to put the time and effort into learning how to adapt.

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Out of curiosity, I'm wondering if folks here in this thread think Hurricane would be "fixed" for PvP if it had:

A) Suppression similar to however KB is timered
B) Lower magnitude Repel for Controllers than Defenders

Honestly though, the power I think needs nerfed most in PvP is Vengance. The ability to stack this is ridiculous, and teams built with it in mind are even worse.

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It probably doesn't attract as much attention because the other guys get to kill someone before it's triggered

Anyone zealously advocating nerfs to powers, powersets, and ATs they themselves don't play is not discussing in good faith. They may not intentionally be posting flamebait, but they are posting for reasons other than wanting the game to be a more enjoyable experience for everyone.

They are best ignored.

Something I have noticed in general - the people who cry nerf over powers (or entire ATs) because of PvP, tend to be PvE players (or just newbies to the game as a whole) who are now trying to PvP or make a transition to being PvP players. Hardcore PvPers "play in the now" and adapt to the game as it is rather than try to get the developers (or other players) to adapt the game to them.

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I actually prefer it when the FF Generators get dropped...they make great anchors.

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Aren't you supposed to kill those first?

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I don't know if they got nerfed along with players in the great defense buff reduction, but I have really not had a hard time at all hitting through one FF generator for quite a while.

Now if there are three or four of them, it's time to OD on insights and take out at least two.

But the forcefield generators are nowhere near as high a priority when fighting the sky raiders as the emanators can be for the DE.

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Uh yeah Goofy...nevermind AM, Mutation, and <can't remember the name of the Slow debuff atm> aren't avaialble "every fight."

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Just as an aside... when trick arrow's powers were released and "rebalanced" (circa the I4 to I5 gap), AM was available on a permanent basis, lingering radiation could be stacked by the same defender with sufficient +recharge, and even today, if you are doing your job right then your teammates would have to be a bunch of hopeless crackmonkeys to need mutation every fight.

If you need mutation every fight, find a new team.

But that is an aside... yes some of rad's previously perma and/or stackable powers non-perma and unstackable. The problem is, IIRC from that time period correctly, Trick Arrow's recharges were changed while it was on test to be too long to stack or be perma in the pre-ED with perma-hasten environment; post-ED the "coverage gaps" in power reapplication have simply been increased and extended from the set's early levels to its entire career.

Ie - the base recharges on TA powers were set up so that TA defenders with perma-hasten and multiple slots of recharge enhs couldn't stack them. I do not recall the recharges being lowered now that it's not possible to get as much +recharge as the powers were balanced for.

That's not to say that it isn't capable of defending a team - the truth is I haven't so much as teamed with a trick archery defender who was over level 10, and that one was in a team that didn't need a defender at all. So I don't know if TA can defend a team or not.

I do however seem to recall that its power recharge times were balanced against a macro-reality in the game (perma-hasten, 6-slotting the same enh type) that is no longer extant.

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What I steadfastly object to, is shameful selective reasoning put forth by people like Goofy. Reasoning that completely ignores the context of the game and creates a false impression of the set and its problelms in the scope of the comparative defender experience. Argueing that EF and RI are always available is "intellectually dishonest" as Centerfire would put it. While technically they can last the entire fight...they by and large don't. While technically they can affect every spawn in a group...they rarely do. But Goofy won't admit that because it reveals some ever so slight crack in his argument that TA is by far the worst set. TA isn't perfect....but players who refuse to be completely honest about the relative value of sets and powers make the game worse...not better.

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Not getting too involved in this debate because I don't and never have played a TA character, but I have to agree with the observation that many people tend to argue from the assumption of "perfect effectiveness" of powers that are usually not quite so perfect in practice (anchored debuffs for example). It's not generally representative of what happens in game, but at the same time, the potential of such powers when they do hit their maximum effectiveness can't be completely dismissed, either.

However to be fair and balanced... many people are also very quick to attribute someone's problems with a set to their playstyle, skill, or lack of skilled teammates. This is often not the case either and usually doesn't accurately represent what happens in game. Sure, some teams are just full of crackmonkeys who don't know what your powers do, but especially once you're past the Hollows, most teams aren't. (Edit - to be fair, we primarily remember and post horror stories about the ones that aren't, which create and reinforce a stereotype of idiot pickupgroup teammates who have crazy builds and can't form coherent sentences).

(Also an edit: I would hope most of us forum monkeys would be experienced and prudent enough to leave said teams as soon as we caught warning signs, like teammates who are unable to speak coherently or who do nothing but jump around and charge spawns thoughtlessly.)

Related to that misjudgement is the idea that setting up "perfect situations" for your powers (such as by corner pulling) is attractive in the first place. Many teams are able to charge in and overwhelm a spawn of enemies, especially if any sort of defender is able to either heal them of, or mitigate the damage from, the spawn's alpha strike.

I'd go so far as to say that if most spawns don't get a serious advantage during their alpha strike, most competent teams will win unless there are adds at some point during the fight. My observation is that when things are going to go south they either go south right away, almost as soon as the battle starts, or else go south because there are adds.

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Okaaaaaaaay, so how bout them trick arrow defenders?

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They are how you play the game on 'super duper hard mode.' This is "By Design."

*ducks*

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Similarly, the secondary effect of most defender blasts does not synergize well with defender primaries

[/ QUOTE ] I don't think this is as clear cut as you make it out to be...but we'll get back to this...

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Even with 75% blaster damage i don't think that an Empathy/Electrical defender would outdamage an Electrical/Devices blaster, or a Radiation/Energy defender outdamage a Fire/Energy blaster.

[/ QUOTE ] So let's test some of this with a simple excercise...

Let's look at a Rad/En Def and and an En/En blaster against an even level minion...

fictional

Blaster damage 100
Defender damage 65 * 1.37 (Enervating Field) = 89

Blaster Acc = 75
Def Acc = 90 (Radiation infection debuffing defense, unslotted)

Blaster = 100 .75 = 75 points
Def = 89 * .9 = 80 points

So at least with Rad, you have a defender that can out damage a blaster. On paper it seems some defender primaries work very well with the role of fire support. And this is just a direct approach. Buffs, like Speed Boost and Fortitude, while technically they don't synergize with a def secondary, they do indirectly increase the the overall DPS increase of adding a defender as compared with a blaster.


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The problem is this Mieux, with this analysis.

The radiation defender is going through much more activation time than the blaster.

They might end up with a bigger orange number, but at literally 1/2 to 1/3 the damage per second.

RI has a 3 second animation. EF has a 1.5 second animation. That's 4.5 seconds of animations that you aren't doing damage during. Do they just not count vs your DPS? I can't buy that.

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Not many people remember that Blaster damage was buffed in Beta because their Offense/Offense builds were debt machines and range wasn't the defense that the developers thought it was.

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It still isn't, and even better, defenders don't even get to be ranged really, since so many defender primary powers are PBAOE.

If you're standing next to your melees to cover them with dispersion bubble or a PBAOE heal (which is all that some sets have) or use choking cloud or fulcrum shift/siphon power or keep your melees inside shadowfall or steamy mist... you're in melee range.

Even if range was a defense, defenders by and large wouldn't have it most of the time if they were doing their job right.

Arcana - the reason it amuses me is because regardless of what happens to -recharge/-speed powers between the two ATs, the fundamental fact that according to Castle's post, defenders being a vastly inferior AT to controllers is, de facto, by design.

It's intended for controllers to use a large number of defender powers equally as, or more effectively than, defenders.

I've said before that I wished I had rolled a controller instead of a defender at release. The effect of Castle's post - while I appreciate him posting it and don't hold anything against him personally (quite the opposite I value the honesty) - is to make me wish that even harder.

Even though I'm guilty of it myself... I'm kinda amused that we've spent so much time and effort splitting hairs over whether or not -speed and -recharge count as control or debuff.

The basic gist of the original post seems to boil down to, "defenders will get a few bug fixes but really, you'll be better off if you just give up and roll controllers instead." It's the devs basically saying the same thing some of us were calling as far back as I3 - controllers are better at doing defenders' jobs and always have been.

And I can't believe that the devs will nerf other ATs to defender levels. The game would become so frustrating from mezzes alone that almost nobody would want to play.

So maybe we need some other way to get our point across. A mass deletion of level 50 defenders from us forum dwellers maybe? Pampleteering new defenders at Back Alley Brawler and Ms Liberty to tell them the truth about their AT? A forum strike? - nobody post here for a week? (Probably wouldn't even be noticed by the devs). I'm kinda kidding around with this all, because at this point I've given up. Might as well milk some dark humor from the situation.

But thanks to this thread I'll be adding this to my sig (linked to the first post): I wasted my time levelling a Defender to 50. Learn from my mistake and roll a Controller instead.

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You are preventing someone from attacking. How would you define "soft control"?

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You aren't preventing them from attacking with -acc, you are preventing them from hitting as often. That's not any sort of control at all - you aren't hindering either their attack rate or their mobility.

Reducing the frequency of their attacks (fear, sleep, -recharge) could be called soft control with some rationality, because "hard control" is basically reducing the frequency of attacks to 0 (held/stunned mobs don't attack even when taking damage; recharge debuffed mobs attack much less often).

However, -recharge is more reasonably defined as an attack rate debuff, not as a form of soft control because it lacks any impact, in itself, on the victim's mobility. Many but not all -recharge powers are also -speed, which is a soft control... but -speed doesn't impair enemy attacks, just movement.

Fear and sleep, on the other hand, can more reasonably be called forms of soft control because feared enemies don't attack or move except under a specific condition (when they take damage). But since sleep/fear prevent all attacks - like a hold - except when the target takes damage it may be more reasonable to call them "semi-rigid" controls or something.

Soft control is most reasonably defined, broadly, as things that hinder enemy movement without impairing their ability to attack (immobilize, -jump, -fly, and -speed thus rightly belong in this category).

So to sum up... my opinion:

Hard control: hold and disorient. Hinders or negates the victim's mobility, and negates (not just hinders) their ability to attack.
Semi-Hard Control: sleep and fear. They negate mobility and attacks, like holds, until you damage the target.
Soft Control: Immobilize, -speed, -jump, -fly. Hinders mobility without hindering attacks.

What blurs the line is where powers have two or more aspects, such as -speed and -recharge. -speed can reasonably be called soft control. -recharge is a debuff.

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Recharge slows reduce damage output; they function within the same class of debuffs as damage debuffs, or accuracy debuffs. That places them in completely different classes of net overall effect.

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Then -recharge powers, as debuffs, should be better for defenders, correct?

In which case what the discussion needs is clarification about whether or not -recharge powers are better for defenders, if they are the same, or if (as Castle's original post implied), they are in fact better for controllers.

That's all.

Oh and one more thing...

If it's okay for scrappers to have two primaries... if it's okay for controllers to have two primaries... if it's okay for kheldians to have two primaries and tankers to have two primaries... even blasters arguably have two primaries in the numerical sense (but with few effective synergies and almost no self defense)... why don't defenders get two primaries?

So... the fact that Controllers are better than defenders at using numerous defender powers is by design. So the only point in playing a defender is to have dramatically substandard blasts instead of holds?

It's looking like it's going to be easier to list what powers aren't better in the hands of controllers, than what powers are.

Can Defenders have some differentiation from Controllers like, say, more than one primary set that's not shared?

The defender version always was a hold but had the same graphic effect as a disorient. Hopefully it hasn't been changed.