Johnny_Butane

[ QUOTE ]

Can we all agree that:

1: Encounters intended to be challenges for OCD minmaxers should be labelled as such.

2: Such encounters should exist.

3: It's okay for at least Statesman and Recluse, if not their sidekicks and pals, to be above the level that PCs can reach, and on the same level as P.L.O.T device characters like Superman or Thanos.

4: Casual players should be able to solo 80%+ of content their Contacts give them on heroic without faceplanting 5 times per mission if they at least stay awake at the keyboard.

5: The game should have more time invested in making challenging content more chjallenging in variety of ways other than the 'bag of hit points' method.

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No, "we" can't agree. Not on all points.


1: and 2: Again, why should the developers cater to (referring back to my anecdote) the guy who chooses to leverage an advantage the developers didn't intend to give him to gain a reward higher than everyone else just because he made that choice?

I strongly doubt the developers sat down at a meeting table and said: "Ok, we're rolling out this ED thing soon because player characters are over powered. We're going to knock all them down a couple pegs in the interest of game balance. BUT these combos here, they get to solo AVs just because.

Your ill/rad Controller that you put hundreds of hours into and spent 3 billion inf on for rare IOs, doesn't deserve to be able to tackle an AV that my WP/SS Tanker, who I've put hundreds of hours into and spent 3 billion inf on rare IOs for can't defeat, just becuase developers like to crap on S/L damage and because debuffs are way more potent than they really should be.

If min/maxers are just seeking a challenge, why don't they challenge themselves with running arcs with the added difficulty settings like being debuffed and having the enemies buffed? Or having their enhancers deactivated? I'm sure with those settings, EBs would become as challenging as AVs.

The reason is because it's not about challenge. It's about e-peen. And at this point it's not even about saying your the first to solo an AV with X build.

So I would not hesitate to "diminish" the accomplishment(pressing buttons iz hard) of defeating an AV by allowing the majorty of players to be able to, or by changing what an AV is so more players could defeat them.

You can't hide behind "lack of challenge" to oppose that because I'm willing to bet if the extreme min/maxers used those challenge settings pointed out above, or *GASP* used a less than optimal build, AT or combo, they would have more than enough challenge.

3: No, it's not. That's exactly what this thread is about. A good number of people here feel the signature characters, especially the flagship characters, are over shadowing. Recluse and States have no reason to dwarf players in power levels.

I'm likely a better boxer than the president. There are smarter people than him. But he's the president and we're not. There's no reason for Recluse and Statesman to need to be on a power tier above everyone else in order for States to be the premier hero of the city or for Recluse to have established his web of power as ruler of the Isles.

If anything, the game should be about the next generation of upstart heroes and villains who come in and upset the status quo of States' and Recluse's little 75 year old family feud because they're no longer the towers of power they once were.

4: I'm under the impression we're at this point. I don't object to the dev's bare minimum level, but the spread of low end to high end has always been very large. Larger than it really should be. I'm about empowering players, but rewarding the outliers isn't part of that philosophy. Either every AT and combo gets a fair shot at soloing an AV, or no one should. Capping your damage and recharge and surviving the damage being dealt against you and still not being able to succeed isn't a fair shot, IMO.

5: That, I will agree with 100%




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If that is true, then it begs the obvious question: why is it possible to spawn them solo? If the developers were not only certain it was impossible to defeat them solo, but specifically WANTED to ensure that no one ever defeated thems solo, thenit seems to me that the unbelievably simply solution would have been to have them spawn as Elite Bosses for any solo player, even on invincible.


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EBs were introduced before ED at the same time as the Notoriety system. They were intended for characters like Frostfire and Atta. It's likely at the point they hadn't anticipated ED and GDN and scaling down player abilities so that not that many players would actually be able to solo AVs anymore.

Let me ask you this: If players were intended to solo AVs, why are only such a small handfull of combos and builds capable of this, and even then, largely due to IOs which came along fairly recently?

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You go on to saythat its not fair that you can solo on invincible but not solo th archvillains that spawn on invincible, and that this is an oversight on the developers part, but once again I am forced to consider that this would be an easy problem to fix.


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Not really. Two sets that are balanced on their own yet become an outlier when combined are a tough cookie. Nerf either and they can become an underperformer when paired with another set. Not to mention IOs. What if IOs are what push the combo over the edge? Do we then nerf two sets based on what they can do on IOs?

If balance was as easy as you say, and sniping outliers wasn't problem creating, Castle wouldn't be pulling his hair out half the time and rockin' the spreadsheets. Arcanna would be powerless.

And again, I remind you of the golden rule: Just because the devs haven't done something yet, doesn't mean they wont. That includes changes to the Notoriety system, outlier combos or AVs.



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You seem to have tremendous knowledge of what the developers do and do not intend.


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I don't have to dig up a quote. Likely one has been said long ago and lost to the dozens of board purges since.

It's safe to assume that AVs were, and still are, intended for teams, which is why they spawn for them. Their high regeneration/ressitance to injury seems designed to act as a gate for ATs with lower damage and high defenses from defeating them. Conversely, their high damage output and purple triangles seem intended as a gate for ATs with high damage/holds and lower defenses.

Then there's the fact that AVs are much more removed from an EB than they would be if they were simply the next level of challenge. For example, I have several characters who solo EBs very well and don't come close not being able to exceed an EB's regeneration rate. They can also solo well on Invincible. Yet none of these are capable of even coming close to exceeding regeneration on the AV version of that enemy. That's not something that suggests the curve was intended to be what you say it is. if it was, more people would be able to solo AVs than do, especially those who are very well capable of otherwise soloing on Invincible.

If you want a dev to come in here and explicitly say this isn't true, there is just as much chance of one coming in here to say it is.

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Building a really high end character requires more than selecting the right powersets. Finessing every last microscopic ounce of performance out of a build is quite a time consuming endeavor


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And I have several characters who can cap their damage and recharge, survive the damage being thrown at them, and are still unable to defeat any of the AVs they've faced.

Your argument that one just needs to try harder means little to me when faced with these facts.

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At the end of the day, this is an old dichotomy in any RPG. Obviously, all builds are not equal, and if they were the game would be boring in a hurry.


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Equal can mean different. Difference can exist without some set combos being able to tackle content designed for teams as an accident.

The fact is, the majority... the vast, vast, vast, majority, of characters rolled will never solo an AV no matter the effort expended. Rolling the very few specific combo just to reach a goal they're not really supposed to reach is just as stagnating in my opinion.

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But what constitutes an acceptable margin between the least powerful and the most powerful of characters?


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Here's the litmus test:

"Dear devs, please buff [insert AT/power set here] so it can solo AVs"

If you're laughed at by them and the other forumites, it's likely that players are NOT intended to solo AVs.

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Personally I have very little sympathy for people who choose to play sub-optimal characters and then complain that there are some things in the game that they can't do

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And as I've said before, there are a lot of characters that are well built enough to solo on Invincible very well... UNTIL they hit a brickwall with an AV. Anything that gets by on Invincible should not be considered "gimp" by any means and the idea of an "optimal" character is just as wrong as saying there's only one "right" character or AT and playing anything else is "wrong".

In my opinion, the number and variety of builds and combos this excludes is far too great for something as arbitrary as saying "You're allowed to solo on Invincible...until you hit a mission with a bad guy at the end that you wont beat no matter how hard you try. So retreat defeated like a wuss, and try again on the 'kiddy' setting or get the "right" AT and combo and play with the "real" heroes."

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I do know that it has been possible to solo archvillains since the day the game hit retail and that no change made in all the years since has altered that. The fact that nothing has been done about it in all that time leads me to suspect that the developers dont have quite such a problem with people recieving that particular reward as you seem to want to believe.


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Actually, the developers have always tried to keep a reign on how powerful we are. ED, GDN? Hello McFly?

The developers had done nothing about Energy Transfer for years and then...bam! Nerfage!

The one thing I've learned about this game, and what I should keep reminding myself, is that just because they ain't done nothin' yet about somethin', don't mean they ain't gonna do nothin' about it ever.


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No it isnt, but its the investment of time that matters. My point is that in any hobby if you do not put in the necessary time and effort, then you will not be at the highest tier of play.

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And there are some ATs and power set combos that will never solo the majority of AVs in the game, or any, no matter how much time is put into them. Investment of time matters, but sometimes it doesn't matter at all because of unfair limitations beyond your control. So why should those people get less for their time invested because they picked the 'wrong' AT or power set combo?

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Making sure that anyone at all can do anything not only cheapens the efforts of those who work harder; it also ensures that the game holds no challenge for anyone above the minimum standard. That is a recipee for failure.

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It's not a question of a few, unskilled players being unable to do something because they lack the knowledge or skill. It's a question of a number of combos and ATs simply being better, likely not intentionally so. And that's not something we should embrace.

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And yes, selecting powers and powersets that work well together is a strategic excercise...


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That requires very little skill or talent because all the work as been done by someone else long before you.

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If you chose to play that Earth/FF controller, you cannot reasonably cry foul when your ability to solo things is eclipsed by an ill/rad controller.

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Something like soloability is something the developers had in mind when balancing the sets. Ability to tackle an AV wasn't. No one is really supposed to be taking down AVs solo. They were designed with specific gates to prevent that. It's an oversight that some combos and builds can exceed that, and I'm wiling to bet if Castle could magically snipe those outliers to bring them back in line, he would.

So if nobody is supposed to solo AVs, nobody really should. And if a tiny percentage of combos can, that's not a reward for your "skill" at "finding" them.

***

This reminds me of a conversation I once had when I used to administrate FPS servers.

The game was Battlefield 1942. On one of the maps there was a glitch that one could exploit to get inside the geometry of the aircraft hangar with a few seconds of wiggling around the bounding box. Once inside, it was possible to see and shoot out without anyone being able to see or shoot you back. As well there was access to infinite ammo and the "entrance" to this glitch was easy to defend since the person inside could gun down anyone who approached it.

The hangar was the natural place the pilots waited for planes to spawn. On this map the planes were critical to win, so naturally, people who exploited this glitch racked up HUGE scores.

This wasn't a well publicized glitch, it was mostly passed knowledge from friends. Once a week or so I'd catch a person or a pair of people doing it when in the first minute of game play their score was ten times that of everyone else.

So one time I was running in admin mode and I caught someone exploiting this glitch.

I auto warned him with the default text message and he kept at it. I was bored so I engaged him direct chat.

I told him he wasn't supposed to be where he was and he should stop because it was unfair to the other players. He said it was fair because if they wanted big scores too they could just do the same thing on another server. I explained that it wasn't intentional that this glitch existed, that the developers would fix it at some point and most players want their score to reflect their skill. He said using the glitch took skill to know where it was. I asked how he found out about it and he replied his friend told him. I replied that I wasn't a very good player and didn't have a lot of skill at the game, but even I could get inside the glitch if I wanted to. I asked why a player with little skill should be rewarded with a large score just for making a decision like that and how was that fair to anyone who didn't want to hang out inside a wall shooting people in the back.

He replied that I sucked so I banned him from the server.

The point is, the attitude that guy had that doing something specific that the developers didn't intend to have that result it did and being rewarded with "the best" score and thinking that's OK and all part of competition is all too similar to the attitude you seem to be expressing.

Is using specific power set combos and builds an exploit? No, but the fact they can solo an AV is something the developers didn't intend and likely aren't fans of.

Should that loophole justify the fact it exists? No, it does not.

Does the the fact that it exists mean those those people are being "rewarded" for using those combos by being allowed to solo an AV and that enabling other people to solo AV is taking that reward away? No it does not because that was never a reward the developers intended to bestow.



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But wait you say, not everyone plays an illusion/radiation controller with a 3 billion influence build. Not everyone can solo archvillains.

You're right. ANd nor should they be able to. The Freedom Phalanx, and the leaders of Arachnos, and their assorted playmates are the most skilled, most powerful, msot dangerous heroes on Earth. They're the best. If you want to take them on, then you SHOULD have to be the best as well. Not every villain in the DC universe can go one on one with superman. Similarly, not every villain can go toe to toe with Statesmen. The best of the best can; the rest bring their friends.


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So being "the best" involves choosing the "correct" AT with the "correct" power set combos and building the "correct" build with the correct IOs?

Forget you.
That kind of attitude stinks and I shouldn't have to explain to you why.

Following a build you saw posted on the forum or one a friend planned out for you in Mid's that allows you to solo AVs doesn't make you "the best". You're not "the best" for picking an outlier combo on the right AT. Farming and grinding for rare IOs isn't a test of "skill" any more than mowing the lawn with a pair of scissors is.


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Future choices sure. Changing existing content, NO, not for this reason. There are numerous other things that exist as existing content that should come waaaay ahead of this concern.

Just off the top of my head revamping the existing tfs, adding more villain sfs and revamping existing zones would rank as more important than whether some feel that AVs overshadow their character.

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That's a fair stance to take, but there's a couple things to be said:

1. New and better content doesn't erase old and broken content. As fun as the ITF is, it doesn't make the Positron TF any more fun and it doesn't ease the fact I feel like I'm being crapped on by the signatue charatcers in the STF and LRSF. It's what I've always said: nailing new stuff on to a rotting foundation is hardly an ideal solution.

2. Right now the developers are almost certainly working on brand new 0-50 content for Going Rogue. Chances are good it'll involve the existing signature characters and new ones. What better "future" than that to begin making reparations to this issue? How better than threads like this to get the point across how people feel and the reasons they feel it?

3. This isn't a new topic. "Not feeling super enough" and feeling overshadowed by the signature charatcers has been brought up again and for as long as I've been here. Being the Patrons' lap dogs red side and being treated like idiots and thugs is a consistant complaint I've always heard. If this is something we want fixed, it's something we're going to have to keep pushing for since all that's been said so far hasn't spurred the devs into completely addressing the problem. Not that they haven't done anything to address it, but as long as they keep making the same mistakes they need to be pushed in the right direction.

4. This issue mainly affects high level content. I'm going to infer that with recent changes to the leveling curve, a reduction of debt, the addition of patrol XP and making it easier to get to the high levels in general, that the developers want to put a greater focus on level 50/endgame content. More than ever that means level 40+ content is important, that players should want to play the high end content and that it should be compelling and empowering. Treating them as second class heroes/villains to be kicked around by the "real" super villains and heroes isn't going to do that, IMO.


The bottom line:

We've got a good discussion going here that at this point is mostly free of noise.
If the developers aren't paying attention to it, I think they should be.



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If you up the damage on a tank and "adjust" the mitigation level accordingly you MIGHT interest folks who normally play brutes and scrappers but you WILL alienate folks like myself who play tanks for their aggro control and mitigation levels.


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One of the specific goals in my search for a solution to the Tanker offense issue is that anything added to Tankers shouldn't take anything away from players who like Tankers as they are. With my Tank-omination proposal, Tankers would have played exactly as they do now if you chose to never activate the power. When I suggested battle stances, you could run in your defensive stance all the time and see no difference.

Regardless, I think there is more than enough room to adjust Tanker offense with a mechanic without the need to touch their mitigation levels.

Why is there room?

For one thing the actual survivability between a Tanker and a Brute for example is much closer than just their Resistance and Defense values in their defensive power sets would have you believe. A Tanker and a Brute both take the same damage when they knock all the enemies on their butt with Foot Stomp. A Scrapper using Invoke Panic isn't squishy by any means. Scrappers and Brutes take less damage just due to the fact they can defeat enemies faster before they can deal damage. Defensive power sets just don't tell the whole story.


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Pointing towards a brute forum


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No one said anything about the Brute forum. Read more carefully.





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In a poll of tankers...

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There's your mistake right there.

You don't poll just Tankers. Any poll would have to sample everyone who plays the game. Most players who think Tanker damage is too low, or their offense too boring, aren't going to be playing them. If you have trouble with getting customers into your restaurant, you don't ask your regulars what the problem is, you ask the people who aren't coming.

There have been several recent Brutes vs Scrappers vs Tankers threads, and the main complaint about Tankers by people who don't like playing them, and from the playing public in general is that they're boring to play and lack any punch in the offense department.

Any thread posted in the Tanker forum is only going to be read by people who are already die hard Tankers, and chances are most of them are going to be a little biased.

If you take this same exact conversation outside of this forum and either to the AT and Powers forum or to some place neutral like an in game chat channel, you get a much more measured and moderate response from the vast majority of responders. That response has been, in my experience:

"Yeah, Tankers could stand to have a little more damage. Just as long as they don't get OP."

or

"Yeah, Tankers could use something to make them a little more fun to play."


This is telling me the majority of players don't reject a damage increase for Tankers, or even other additions.

The simple fact is the majority of players don't involve themsevles in conversations and debates on the forums, and the majority of people in this forum likely have a bias.

So yeah, if the devs want to post a poll in the City Life forum asking "Do you think Tankers could stand to have a little more damage?" or "Do you think Tankers could be more fun offensively?" and put a link to it on the front page of the game launcher, I'd be down with that.

And, FWIW, the majority of players don't look at the numbers. The majority of players play on "feel".



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Considering it is essentially a sonic attack I think adding some -res to it would be a good idea

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That would be just about the only thing that would make the power attractive enough for me to take.

File it under 'N' for "Not Gonna Happen", though.



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The point is, subjective and qualitative rationale were the stated reasons for Dom changes.

You saying "no, ignore that, don't even bring that up" doesn't dismiss that.

If subjective qualities such as "feel" are good enough motivation to make changes to one AT, they should be good enough motivation to re-examine another.

And for Rao's sake, try to use some capital letters. Make an effort at least to demonstrate you earned a pass from elementary school.


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You are not being objective at all. The burden of proof is on the people who want change to prove that it's necessary, using hard data like in-game numbers recorded in controlled conditions, not subjective arguments such as personal interpretations of comic books, how tankers 'feel' to play, etc.

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Stated goals for the recent Dominator changes, Castle's words:

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Eliminate Jeckyll and Hyde feeling.
Improve "feel" of low level play.
Have minimal impact on "perma-dom" players.
Increase Dominator vs. Controller viability.


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The first two of the stated reasons for the Dominator changes are very subjective.
The last, is arguably so at least in part.

Castle uses words like "feel," which is a qualitative term, not a quantitative term.

Changing Dominators so they feel better in low level play or so there's less of a Jeckyll and Hyde feeling is no different than changing Tankers so they feel more like their comic counterparts and there's more of a feeling of them being heavy hitters.


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If the nifty non-leveling/post-50 character expansion Castle hinted

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Woah woah. Where did he hint that?

I've seen this:

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At the high levels, rewards for these moral choices will be found in new PVP, PVE and Co-op zones. Accomplishments will lead to rewards that will significantly distinguish level 50 characters from one another.One such reward is the Universal Enhancement Slots. Ten Universal Enhancement Slots are available to be earned in the expansion, and each one has the potential of adding significant power to the character, essentially bringing them to a hypothetical "Level 60" once they have earned all ten slots.


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Which could easily fit that description, but as I unterstand it, more power picks are off the table.


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There's something immersion breaking about it... you go, rescue Statesman, and he starts clearing the map with friggin' Hand-Clap. If he's so powerful, why the hell did he need my little character (who is clearly, evidently and obviously a weak-sauce puss-pants by comparison thereby denting, and not just a little, my pride in what I've accomplished with him) to rescue him?


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This is the reasoning we're given in game:

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You remember how the Praetorians weren't able to use their own tech to scan States? Well, our best theory on that is that Statesman is physically so similar to Tyrant that his presence in the Praetorian dimension is never quite complete. It's as if there just isn't room for him there. The upshot is that Statesman is impervious to Praetorian technology. And it's impervious to him! He can't break out of those bonds, not on his own. You have to help him!

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Excuse or not, it doesn't make the player feel any better that once free Statesman starts running around popping off bad guys with KO Blows with points of damage in the thousands.

Which is similar to the reasoning behind the STF and why Statesman isn't fighting Recluse:

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Our analysis has given us a glimmer of hope. First, in order to preserve his own troops and protect himself from the device, Recluse has set a safe area around Grandville Island. Secondly, while he's tuned the device to always affect certain heroes, including myself and every member of the Freedom Phalanx and the Vindicators, none of you were on that target list. This means that while none of us can approach Grandville without giving Recluse even more power,

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Oh, isn't that lovely. Our heroes don't even rate enough to be above Recluse's notice. It's sad they need a contrived excuse to put players in the heart of the action and story.

And it's nice to know Statesman needed eight of us to gang up on the individual sidekicks and super villains that any lone member of the Vindicators and Phalanx would easily be peers with.


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As an AoE survivability power, it holds no appeal to me. Enemies either get knocked back, out of range of feeding my taunt aura power, or they get stunned, also wandering out of range.

Even if it had damage and was made into something like a cone attack, I have a full attack chain already on all of my SSers.

The only reason I'd take the power would be if it had something like a large resistance debuff and no knockback.

It's a shame the power is what it is. HC screams "super strong!" but most people simply don't want or need it mechanically.


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The AV/EB code was written for player and dev convenience. Now players who want to solo Sister Psyche but can't handle her as a AV can take her as an EB (if she scales down, I'm not sure).

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That's what bothers more the most about the situation. It speaks to the crore problem of the devs treating player heroes like the Legion of Substitute Heroes and villains as the Inner Circle's pets.

As I understand it, before the AV/EB mechanic existed, every signatue character was an AV. That tells me that AV is and always was their "true" level. Now, this may have been different before ED and more characters were capable of taking AVs, but it troubles me from the get go that they stuck their avatars on a tier above player heroes.

Eight heroes fighting singular B and C Grade bit-villains feels way more like the Mystery Men or Great Lakes Avengers than any team most players would want to emulate.

It rings more of the Teen Titans fighting post-lobotomy brain damaged Dr. Light than the JLA teaming up to take on Darkseid.

It's a design symptom of the greater disorder that the developers treat player characters like they're scrubs compared to the signature characters even at level 50, through writing, design, and gameplay mechanics. While there's been some progress made in the writing department, that's only one tiny part, a very transparent part in some cases, of the greater problem.

It's nice they included missions like the Silos TF and the EB/AV mechanic, but it just throws inconsistancy into the mix and working from the knowledge the signature characters are actually all "really" AVs , that renders solo EBs and the Silos adventure little more than "imaginary stories" like all those issues in the 60's and 70's where Superman "died" or married Lois. That was the darkest age of comics in my opinion not an aspect we should seek to emulate.


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Monstrous
Does this character *look* like it should take a team to fight? If so AV or Monster class is fine. Dr. Vaz in his flesh-mecha, the clockwork king and pretty much all the current monsters fall under this.


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This is the part is comes off the wheels for me. Vahz is an EB by virtue of the fact that he'd intended for low level heroes. I don't think he spawns in the game now as an AV ever, does he?

Even if he does in the low levels, if he ever appears again later I don't think he should be more than an EB. The same goes for the leaders of the other lower tier gangs like Frostfire, Atta, etc.

Also, what about the Devouring Earth? They're already pretty large. When I first started playing I mistook them for something to be avoided solo by virtue of size alone.

Conversely, I think there should be giant/large enemies roaming around that players are intended to solo. Iron Man, Superman and Thor for example make a steady diet of them. Even they draw the line somewhere. Supes (in any incarnation) vs a 50' robot? No problem. Millennium Giants? Call the JLA (and then some).

There are some current Giant Monsters in the game I think should be intended to be soloable by high level players by virtue of concept. Kraken and Babbage/Paladin for instance. And as I've said before, I wouldn't mind an EB class of Malta Titans half way between Kronos and Zeus Class popping up as a mini zone event or something.


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yes but what I'd like to see is that States/Recluse remains the same but everyone else moves down a notch.

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And I'm saying there's already too many "everyone else's" that can go toe to toe with either in the cannon to set States and Recluse apart and above just because of their particular origin.



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QR
Leave AVs/Ebs as is. I like the challenge.

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And what if that challenge changes form and presentation, but remains the same difficulty?

Because that is what's being proposed here.


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Lord Recluse and Statesman are AV/Hero worthy if only because they're Incarnates.


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And what of the members of the Phalanx that have gone toe to toe with Recluse or Statesman in the past? They're not Incrarnates.

What of Hero 1 doing the same? He's not an Incarnate.

What if they make Incarnate an epic origin available to players at some point? Should they then increase player abilities up that much further than regualar players?

States and Recluse have no more claim to be that much more powerful than everyone else based on their backstory than a player character does.




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And:

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I don't think I came up with a good, measured response back then. I'm far more likely to be analytical now.

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Translation:

"I should have known a blanket damage increase wouldn't fly. Perhaps if I had pushed for some kind of special mechanic."

A measured response in this case isn't blindly calling for a massive increase in damage. Nor is it ignoring the problem and pretending no one is complaining or that their complaints have no weight, as the present devs have.

A measured response would be looking for a solution to the problem that doesn't include blowing balance out of the water. Ignoring the issue isn't a response. It's the lack of a response.


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That same developer also admitted that increasing tanker damage to compensate was a mistake as well.


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Did he now?

And what quote would that be?

I'm remembering the interview where he sought a modifier increase for Tankers but was told that couldn't happen. We don't know if any thought was put into special mechanics or temporary damage increases. Circiumstances are different now anyways, and what was unacceptable before might be possible now.

Once upon a time, infinite respecs, cross factional teaming and flashbacks weren't possible or were things that were argued shouldn't be done. Things change. I don't think it's out of the question to re-examine Tankers.


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Please, show me where the mistake is and why. Don't use comics to justify it.

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The lead designer of the game used comics to justify it.

To paraphrase:

"Our Tankers don't play like comics Tankers. This is a valid problem".

"Players rolled them(Tankers) expecting characters like the Hulk, but they weren't. This was a mistake."

The mistake being Tankers not playing as the heavy hitters they are in other media.

Despite the changes to made to them, a number of people in this thread and other can have made a decent case they still don't play like their comic counterparts. If it was justified by that reason then, it's good enough to be justified now.


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it would have to have drawbacks for the extra damage - if you want to hit close to th elevel of a brute or scrapper, then you get scrapper/brute level defense to balance it out. so it would need -20% defense to all and -30% all resists to compensate.

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First, there's where the double standard comes in that I'm always talking about.

Brutes and Scrappers can click their defensive Tier 9 and not worry about faceplanting, just like a Tanker, but they don't see an offensive penalty for temporarily increasing their survivability. So why should a Tanker see a survivability penalty for temporarily increasing their offense?

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sure you can have that. it can be a long recharge clicky like dom, but can never be made perma.

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Second, that's more or less what my inherent proposal for Tankers was.


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Superman "stepping it up" as you say when the fight gets tougher could easily be signaled by a fury bar. Whether that bar equals anger or not is completely up to the individual behind the keyboard.

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Except the concept in question isn't a bar filling up with the character's damage slowly ramping up and increasing due to outside stimuli. Like for example, Stong Guy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Guy ) absorbing more and more kinetic energy.

The concept is a character who's no longer holding back. There is no ramping up period and it's a deliberate decision to cut loose. That is quite different than Fury in both how it would be executed mechanically and the core concept.


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