Great_Scott

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In a sense, there is such a thing as too much logic for the game engine if the game is going to be fun. At a very fundamental level, players can only play the game if the game engine makes a fundamental mistake in villain AI: a villain should only attempt to fight what it thinks it has a reasonable chance to defeat, but they consistently fail to perform this basic judgement.

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I can't argue with that!

You're sidestepping my main point, thought.

CoV Villains are going to make value descisions about what they can and can not fight, so these "ranged vs melee" and "AI vs Player" questions aren't nearly as pie-in-the-sky as you seem to think.

I think we're getting seriously off topic about PvE Blaster balance, though, so I'm not going to worry about it here....

Thanks for the discussion!

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Target selection is based on what threat that target represents vs the effort required to kill it. To make tanks the primary target on these grounds they would need to be far and away the most dangerous AT on the field. I’m talking damage output an order of magnitude higher then blasters. If this were the case there would be no point in anyone every playing anything but a tank, nor would there be any point with anyone teaming with anything but a tank. You would have tanks and spectators, nothing else.

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Oh, I agree completely. I don't think that proper Tanks are possible. The issue is that improper Tanks can't be balanced in PvP.

Lith_Dynamo....join an active SG.

Finding a SuperGroup is about the most important thing that you can do to make the game more fun.

I'm sure that at level 32 you have a large friends list...ask for an invite from the people that you've teamed with in the past, or make your own SG and invite the people that you know.

I hope this helps!

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I should point out that, but for another exploit of villain AI, tanks and scrappers have no offense. If we are going to claim that pulling and other examples of taking advantage of villain AI are exploits that invalidate the blaster class, then essentially, tanks and (most) scrappers are also broken classes: but for the stupidity of villains, melee classes ought to, on average, be running around constantly while the minion, if he had any sense at all, ran away while his friends shot you in the back. Even a four year old can play a good game of keep-away.

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You'd have a point here, but for the fact that Scrappers are....
1. Faster than mobs
2. Can attack Mobs in the back (post I3 change)
3. Have some ranged attacks.

Smarter mobs won't make Scrappers useless, they will just add a (needed) penalty to Melee attacks.

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Taunt and villains charging into melee range are both examples of game engine side effects and exploiting enemy AI that give melee classes an advantage they otherwise ought not to have. And what the heck is punch-voke anyway? In terms of game mechanics, its a suicide pact: the more you beat up on my friends, the more I want you to be able to hit me also.

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Taunt exists becuase Tanks Aren't Scary. Every 4 year old in the Arena knows to kill the Tank last....Taunt in the arena is nothing more than taking control away from players.

If Tanks did enough damage to one-shot most minions and lieutenants, then they'd get attacked more by Players and the AI alike.

The Devs have an innate resistance to long recharge, high cost, high damage attacks, so we will never see a proper "Tank", even though the XP/hour for such a class could be easily "balanced".

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The only class that really would function well in a game engine "with no exploits" is the controller class. In a game engine modelled on the real world, controllers would rule. Blasters would get hit in the head with a thrown rock and die, scrappers would have to run faster than me or I'd run around in circles around the nearest tree, and tanks would be standing in the street yelling "you wanna piece of me!" to nobody at all.

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Given that Controllers do (should do, sorry) almost no damage and are Very Squishy, isn't this how it should be?

Nice arguments, though. I really should have detailed the other ATs originally, sorry about that.

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Right now, Blasters [correctly] judge that they can't get enough damage mitigation to be worth the colossal investment in powers, power pools, and slots it takes. You can try to build a "pool power Scrapper defense" but it really, really just doesn't work.

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I disagree. My Blaster had the free slots for Tough/Weave, Health/Stamina, Combat Jumping and Hasten, right when I really started to need them...in the high 20's.

Once you have a full attack chain by level 20, the slots are there to get 33% Defense or so. That plus a purple insp is GimpySR with SuperGimpyRegen.

Not awesome, but not bad at all. Of course, you get the most use from those powers in melee, but I imagine a Ranged blaster could get use out of them as well.

Interesting...very interesting! You're helping me better refine my points.

Thanks!

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But seriously, you almost seem to be coming from a position that states any tactic that doesn't involve pushing a power button and seeing what happens is by definition an exploit. Its a circular argument that says blasters are supposed to be completely defenseless, thus, anything that mitigates damage for a blaster is by definition an exploit, and when we remove the "exploits" that mitigate damage, blasters are helpless.


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This is true. As the game is currently, Blasters are helpless.

Once side effects of the game engine and AI is taken out of the equation, it's clear, even to you, that Blasters have no defenses at all.

This is my entire point. This is a problem, actually.

Blasters need "defenses" that are not side-effects of the game engine.

Even something as simple as Range being an accuracy modifier creates a whole new world of viablilty to the "All Offense" Blaster concept.

Right now, as the game is written, even ducking behind a corner isn't always useful...the "to-hit" dice roll is made the very instant a mob "sees" a Hero, and shots will go around corners to hit that Hero.

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In fact, I will do you one better. I'm going to log my blaster this evening, execute all of those tactics, and then petition myself

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This won't prove useful. The Developers are leaving the game as-is for a reason; even though the game is "broken" for Blasters, it "works", after a fashion.

I don't think that the Devs are willing to rework the entire game to fix thier Beta mistakes. They are (thankfully) more pragmatic than that.

I'm taking another stab at a Dark Armor hero, and I'm trying to create a biography/backstory that is both funny and pointed, while being readable.

Oh, and I'm also going to try and win those oh-so-common Biography contests.

This is pretty much what I'm thinking of using, does anyone have any advice?

I don't like the whole degeneration into a "conversational" tone, but I really don't know how to fix it...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FH3AR ME.... I am the Dark Lord of the Seth, DARTH GIMP(age).

In a solar system 20 years ago and pretty far away, I was a fairly ordinary Cryptic Knight, but I was convinced by the Dark Powerset Side, and fell to be who I am today...a Farce to be Reckoned With!

Yea, though my toggles take more endurance to run than any 3 Invulnerability Tanks, I shall not fear the Blue Bar, for all my Powers are Triple-Slotted with Reduce Endurance Cost enhancements!

I may only do base damage, and have *bleep!* for Accuracy, but I've got the Stamina of a (weak, yet strangely runty) Energizor Bunny. I won't stop until I'm dead!

Which is rare, due to my overwhelming resistance to, er, Psi damage. Smashing/Lethal? Well, not so good. Oh, and I get one-shotted a lot, too. No, I *can't* take Dull Pain...that's Regeneration, you're getting confused.

Yeah, well I could have picked up Tough or Weave, but I didn't have room after taking all the darkity dark powers...yes, I know they are more powerful than my armors, and cheaper to run, too...

Well, fun talking to you, but I gotta go and get out of debt now, so I can level up and get Soul Transfer...man, that Combat Rez is gonna be GREAT! Ciao and stuff!

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I wouldn't mind at all if blasters required the most skill to be effective - I just want ways to use skill to level the playing field enough to make the difference not worth bothering about. Personally, I don't think we are really all that far away from that, in the grand scheme of things.

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Interesting. So you're stating that less skilled players should be denied the ability to play one AT, but not others?

Or am I misreading you?

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Whats missing is that some people make blasters work in spite of this. How they do that should offer a clue to how to make blasters work in general.

I spent the 20s perfecting the art of the pull.

I spent the 20s and the 30s mastering knockback.

I spent the 40s jousting.

I would have been in deep trouble in the 40s in my solo missions, with Rikti Magi, Nemesis bosses, and the like (heck, just a pair of Mentalists would be death) without total focus.

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Thanks for proving my point!

So, You spent your 20's using an AI exploit...
You spent your 20's and 30's using a specific ability that only 1 set has (I'm not sure if KB is an exploit, but players sure hate it!)
You spent your 40's using a Travel Power exploit.

How do I know that this isn't the dev intent? Because of the Arena.

Travel powers now have suppression.
Stealth powers can be seen through.
Good luck "pulling" or otherwise messing with the AI of another player!
I have no doubt that Knockback will be "adjusted" in a further issue, as Players don't want to be denied the possibility to react.

The Arena shows us that if AI isn't involved and exploits are removed, Blasters are a binary AT, just like Regen is a binary set.

Enough Damage? You win.
Not Enough Damage? You lose.
Defense? None.
Holds? Against one opponent, sure! Against 2 or more....dead-ski.

But at least you know the outcome of a match in 45 seconds..that's a good thing, I suppose...

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Something to think about: the risk associated with confronting something like a mezzing boss (as a blaster) is very close to infinite; blasters typically take these things on by using tactics that essentially drop the risk associated with the boss itself to zero - the risk the blaster faces is that the tactic, whatever it is, fails to work at that time. If it does work, risk-free. If it doesn't, extreme, mostly fatal, risk exposure.

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Then, as I suspected, Blaster can't work as an AT.

Too much damage = 0 risk.
Too little damage = Infinite risk.

How can that ever be properly balanced? Am I missing something?

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All that aside, do you really think kiting is a good or fun thing to have in this game? Do you really want to see blaster play devolve into running away from something for 5 min while you fir an occasional shot and eventually bring t down? Would this really be fun to you?

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What is the alternative to kiting? One-shotting mobs? Is the entire concept of a "Blaster" broken?

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All the different LoS-breaking tricks used by blasters for pulling, or just plain shooting, are a form of damage mitigation. If its considered cheating to use them, and blasters aren't supposed to have actual defenses or resistances, then we are really left with saying the game is designed for blasters to get killed, and if blasters aren't getting killed, something is wrong, which to my mind is insane.


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My impression was that Blasters are intended to kill all of the Mobs in a spawn before they can return fire.

So, yes, if offense = defense, then ducking around a corner is an exploit.

There isn't ever intended to be any survivors from a high-level single target blast, or lower level attack chain.

That's how I imagine that this game was originally balanced. Now that mobs have gotten tougher, and more levels exist than when the game was released, this is no longer the case.

Basically, what I'm saying is that the exploits aren't being fixed because they are acting as a band-aid to the solo Blaster game.

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That is to say, 2.7778 on the first shot and three .2778's. So about 3.6 total

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I get it now! I was using 5-damage slotting, you weren't. I didn't understand that you were talking about base damage. Sorry.

Sure, 3.6 times 3 is in the 10-11 brawl range...it's two ways of looking at the same number.

Wow, that's a great story about how things can just go wrong.

Why didn't you quit?

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Why do people constantly try to change things because in thier ideal it is wrong despite that a large number of people enjoy things as they are.

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I know why. I'll explain it here, again.

See, there is this quasi-relevant argument that PL'ing is Bad, because it causes people to "finish" the game, and quit. Of course, this causes the game to lose revenue, go under, and then noone can play it.

This seems reasonable if you don't think about it too hard, and a lot of otherwise smart people start to believe it and then you have the situation that we are in now.

I thought about it for a time, and I realized that this is wrong for a number of reasons. Not only is it wrong, stopping PLing hurts the game in the here and now, as opposed to the "maybe future".

But let's start at the beginning. There are two kinds of PLers, I'll creatively label them "type 1" and "type 2".

Type 1 PL'ers play the game to 50 in half as many days, get bored, and quit before thier first month is fully up. These people are cheating themselves, sure. They are not cheating the rest of us, since they don't count as continuing revenue in the first place.

Type 2 PL'ers have played since Beta and have a neat new hero they want to try. The power they want to try/test is a level 32 one. They PL to 32 and then go on thier merry way, playing the game like everyone else. They don't hurt anything, in fact they help a lot of people in a lot of ways, we'll come back to them later.

So we've determined that PL'ing doesn't ruin revenue. The game will go on whether or not PL'ing happens (and it will happen).

People then say "But I Got On a Sucky Team, PL'er's Suck!". OK, I'll shoot that argument down, too.

Type 1 PL'ers aren't playing long enough to affect a lot of teams. They get bored and quit.

Type 2 PL'ers know all about how the game works, and are typically an asset to a team.

"Regular" players are free to solo way too much and not learn team play, just like PL'ers. Really, if you get on a bad team, Quit, or Kick the offending player. Life's too short to project the failing of that 3 hours a week Fire/Fire blaster onto the entire PL'ing community. People fail to learn how to play at many different leveling speeds.

Ok, Scott, how does it hurt the game? I'm glad you asked! Well, I could go on and on, but I won't. I'll be blunt about it. There are two main reasons why attempts at stopping PL'ing is bad.

First, if PL'ing is harmed signifigantly, Type 2 people will quit. None of this nonsense about running out of content, (which I still haven't done even though I've been playing since, oh, last May with 6 heroes above 30, and 15 above 20) applies at all. Maybe some people will get bored in the future, assuming no new content is added. But that's neither here nor there. Type 2 PL'ers who need to start yet another level 1 toon to try something quit right now. No predictions about it!

Second, even if you don't PL at all, the feeble attempts to stop PL'ing are annoying everyone else, and not doing much about the problem. You have no idea how happy I am that the attempts are feeble! Imagine if the Devs really cracked down! They could simply cap XP/hour for all players, wouldn't that be fun?

No, we just have to deal with anyone running to the store, or leveling up, or getting a mission, not getting XP on a hunting team. For the "slow" people, I'll point out that hunting teams aren't good XP, and not powergaming. But the Devs think this will help, somehow, so we all need to deal with it.

I'm sure someone will think I'm wrong, but I can't imagine how telling people how to play in exchange for, er, not really solving the "phantom menace" of powerleveling could possibly be a good thing.

I'll leave other possible problems, like wasted Dev time, and why altering XP gains "tell people how to play", for the inevitable follow-up posts.

Thanks for reading!

Good point, I might have screwed up....

(2.777+(.9256*5)) + (3*(.277+(.09256*5))) = (2.777+4.628) + (3*(.277+.4628)) = 7.405 + (3*.7398) = 7.405 + 2.2194 = 9.2644

I did, sorry about that. Whirling Sword only does ~9.2 brawls.
I must have screwed something up there.

My point, however, still stands: Scrapper damage is not on par with Blaster survivability...

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It's when you bring in someone in the teens and use a bridge to PL them a few zillion levels
that I think we need to stop- and to a lesser extent, further down the line. Want to SK someone
and wow them with a hunt in RCS, or PI,or Founder's Falls, or Bricks? Cool. Want to bridge them
so they're sitting there eating cheesy puffs and reading dirty magazines as you teach them the
joys of exp gain from the deepest of purples? Non-cool.


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Great! I respect your opinion, you're entitled to it.

You, however, have utterly failed to explain how Powerleveling is bad?

Great Post, Frostybot! As usual, high quality argument. I'd like to correct a few things that I think you got wrong here, though...

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Given the choice between nursemaiding a PL exp leech or having someone who can contribute fully to a mission, I'll take the person that actually plays at the level of the mission every time. The latter gets my mission done better, faster, and with less debt AND pads the mission spawn exactly as much as the leech, but does much more towards whacking the mobs.

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If the mission can already be done at maximum speed by the Heroes already present, there is nothing a capable person can add.

It's irrelevant, for example, whether the Claws/Regen Scrapper in my Team last night was level 2 or level 40, the 3 Fire Tanks had things well in hand, regardless.

The SK in question, far from being a leech, tried to help out, but couldn't target anything before it was dead already. Try another argument?

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I loved the idea of each player being able to sidekick one person- but the SK being leveled up to the SK level of the highest member on the team. Bye-bye, bridging. SK player gets to contribute at the level of the team, but can no longer be bridged into mega-super exp.

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Given the typical "3 or more" level spread in a high-level mission, this is a horrible balance problem. After all, the SK'd Heroes will be too powerful relative to the mission.

In fact, I can see this being expoited! Get 4 Heroes, a three 40's and a 46. Add 4 "level 46" Sidekicks, and finish all of the lower level missions.

Congrats, now we're PL'ing the Side-kickers. And the XP for the Sidekicks won't be bad, either, as they need less XP to level, anyway...

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The "tell me how to play" argument is not valid and always pops up when someone doesn't like a change.

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Wrong and wrong.

Lots of balance changes happen without any player angst. Those changes don't "tell a player how to play" any more than unpopular changes.

Making Elude non perma-able doesn't tell anyone how to play. Yes, it's a bad change to a set that needs help, and noone was calling for that nerf but 8-year-old Jimmy in the Arena.

It breaks builds, sure. But that's not telling anyone how to play...it's a power change.

Altering outdoor map XP? That is not a power change. It's not an AT adjustment.

That will affect how people group. That will affect where people group. Affecting where and how people group is, in effect, "telling them how to play."

'Kay!

Weird, I have this sense of Deja-vu....oh well, ignoring it...

Let's check out 2 different Smashing/Lethal sets from the respective classes...

Assault Rifle:

Burst: 3*B
Slug: 4.5556*B
Buckshot: 2.5333*B (Cone)
M30 Grenade: 0.8333*B + 1.6667*B = 2.5 (AoE)
Sniper Rifle: 7.6667*B
Flamethrower: 5.3336 (Cone)
Ignite: 6.666 (AoE)
Full Auto: 10.8778*B (Cone)

Broadsword:

Hack: 4.5556*B
Slash: 2.7778*B
Slice: 3.4444*B (Cone)
Parry: 2.3333*B
Whirling Sword: 11.1112 (AoE)
Disembowel: 5.4444
Head Splitter: 7.2222

Hmm, Blasters get more cones and AoE's, check. However, if we're assuming that only 4 or so attacks will be fully slotted (very common), we're going to match up powers...

Full Auto vs. Whirling Sword = a wash.

Sniper vs. Head Splitter = a wash, assuming that a snipe power is part of an attack chain. That's not always the case..

Slug vs. Hack = a wash.

Blasters end up having 2 fairly damaging cone attacks the Scrapper doesn't.
The Scrapper can take care of his own Defense, and do close to Blaster damage.

I know who I would rather have on MY team...the Blaster. Because they need help and I'm nice.

A Min/Maxxer? Scrappers every time...

Good point! Sure...what's the best solution to making the Blaster more viable...so far, there is 3 main ideas.

Status protection: The Devs have claimed that this is not happening.
More Defense: Would probably require power changes. Also, the Devs claim that Range is a defense, so it's not likely for more defenses to be added.
More Damage: Arrested Mobs don't attack. This is most likely, however, I'm of the opinion that the chances of a "110%" Brawl index is close to Nil.

The reason that people are mentioning the damage cap as a solution is that...

1. It's an easy change to code - caps have be fiddled with in the past.
2. The Devs are likely to do it if we ask for it.

Is there an improvement option that I'm missing? I imagine that increased range would actually be helpful, but there's a 100 yard targeting limit in the game, AFAIK, so that might not work out...

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I'm still failing to see how this is such a common situation, please provide some exampels so I can better understand.

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Well, if "Common Situation" means a team with a Defender OR Controller and a Blaster with build up....er, I'd say....a LOT. Why, you don't see Denfenders or Controllers team with Blasters very much?

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Maybe I'm playing with the wrong people, but I've come across few that use Assault fully slotted anyhow.

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Apparently So! You're unaware that Assault can't be slotted....if only it could be

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Fortitude usually goes to the tank in a group.

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Playstyle thing. I always Fort the Blasters, they need both Damage, Accuracy and Defense way more then melee characters do.

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Accelerate Metabolism and Siphon Power are minor buffs.

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As best as I can tell, exectly the same as Fortitude, 25% damage buff.

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Honestly, you'd have to have a complete 8-man team made specifically to hit every single damage buff there is specifically focused on you to make it that great of a concern for 500% to be a significant figure.


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Cool. I've found the source of the evil! Ok, let's look at this another way. You're looking at the 500% number, I'm looking at the 400%.

Even 410% is a large amount of damage that would go undone. So even a small amount above the cap is signifigant.

500% may be too high, heck I'd be quite happy with 433%. We aren't getting that, though.

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I'm still convinced that a cap change wouldn't affect even three quarters of the blaster builds out there.

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I could be convinced that the number is that low....maybe. So you consider 25% of the Blaster population not enough people to be concerned about? Hmm...

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First shot, theoretically at 400% damage cap, 1432.13

Second shot, theoretically at 400%, plus a 25% Rage inspiration, 1508.23.


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Strange. a 5% boost. So, either the "400%" calculation is wrong....or Rage only boosts base damage. Actually, if Rage only boosts base damage you're still seeing some kind of cap, since that 5% boost divided by 4 comes out to a 20% buff, not a 25%....weird.

I'll log in and experiment now...

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But, every villain and ther children outranging me has nothing to do with my slotting. I have (2) ranges in my Ice Blast. (2) Ranges in my Freeze Ray, etc.

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Unless you find range insanely useful, try slotting damage or endurance reduction instead. The range boost isn't helping you anyway, from what you've posted...

Just a thought.

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My point is that the vast majority of blasters will never reach that damage cap, let alone have any real reason to need to exceed it, so why make such a huge deal about it?

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You are honestly attempting to convince me that neither new or experienced players won't slot all damage in thier attacks? While on the surface this seems reasonable, player behaviour does not validate your conceptions.

New players will slot it and not know about the cap.
Experienced players will know all about slotting and slot 1 ACC / 5 Damage.

Under no conditions will the vast majority of players slot thier attacks any other way.

Range is inefficient. Testing will show players not to bother.

Endurance Reduction is ingored by new players. Experienced ones take Stamina.

So, yes, I do think that every player with a Blaster is hovering near 300% from enhancements alone.

Yes, I do believe that players will take Build-Up once it's available.

It's perfectly possible that 30+ percent of all Blasters can reach the cap all by themselves. Sorry, this is a real issue.

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The biggest problem here is that while blasters are supposed to have the damage top title, every AT's base attack is about the same. This makes it so that at higher levels, every AT can acheive the same damage potential.

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False. Base damage for Tanks is 80%, Base damage for Controllers and Defenders scales weirdly but is in the neighborhood of 66%.

Scrappers and Blasters are the only ATs that share 100% brawl damage, and only thier damage scales linearly.

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Who's for Blaster Build-up getting 200%!

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Are you joking? This would be utterly useless. My Blaster's damage is self capped at level 22, and I don't see how buffing myself for an extra 4% is getting anywhere....it sounds like a really big buff, though!