MasterGabriel
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Posts
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Joined
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Shield/ or /shield
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Quote:I think Cybernaut and others have made valid points. IF their is a problem with SR, it is the problem inherent in single focus sets versus layered mitigation sets. Single focus sets reach a point of diminishing returns very quickly (Ex. soft cap) and often take a larger investment of finite resources (slots and power choices). IO sets and incarnate abilities can do a lot to layer mitigation for these sets but some the same can be said for layered mitigation sets such as Invulnerability or Willpower. Their is also a concern by many, myself included, that changes be thematically appropriate for the power.Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
Very true, which is why SR needs some buffs.
This game has evolved over the years. It's a much better game because it's become more complex/involved/detailed. IO's were a great addition to the game because they allowed players to make their characters more detailed, allowed for more flexibility in builds, and provided improved layered defenses so their super heroes could actually feel 'super'.
SR suffers because of what you pointed out - the game has evolved to the point where defense sets need layered defenses, both from the set itself, as well as IO's, and now incarnate powers, to be competitive. And while IO's did improve defense ability of all sets, this did devalue the strength of SR, because again, that's pretty much all SR offers. Yes, I know it has scaling resistance as you get low on health, but from my experience it's not very valuable relative to what pretty much any other set has. And not only was SR's strength devalued by IO's, it was further eroded as the devs have introduced many defense busting mechanics in recent releases, especially in the incarnate content.
So what's the fix? It certainly shouldn't be nerfing IO's and thereby literally bringing every single set down to SR's level, especially now that the game has a plethora of defense busting enemies running around. And while I agree that IO's should have the resistance bonuses increased to make building resistance a viable alternative to building for defense, I don't think that would be enough to bridge the gap because it would also benefit competing sets. I think if the devs were to buff SR, they would first have to determine if they wanted the set to remain basically a survival set, or if they wanted to add some offensive utility. If they went the survivability route, I'd add some sort of heal or regen, which could be explained as speedy metabolism. If they wanted to add some offensive utility, maybe they could add a to hit buff or dmg buff as a super reflex hero would be able to get around defenses and hit soft spots with such a reflexive advantage.
I don't think SR needs a massive revamp, and I know there are some steadfast supporters of the set, but IMO, it is lagging behind just about every secondary, especially later in the game, and especially when you run into all the added enemies that go right through defense, regardles of DDR.
Super Reflexes itself needs to be defined as a defensive favored set, defensive favor set, or a true hybrid set. IF SR is to be a defensive set putting better consistent resist numbers in the passives would do a lot to bridge the performance gap. Think of it as using your superior reflexes to roll with impacts. These resist numbers would be appropriate against all types of damage save toxic and Psi
IF SR is to be balanced to an offensive roll perhaps adding additional accuracy, damage, and to-hit buffs should be layered into the passives.
If SR is to be a truly hybrid set all of the above suggestions could be used though buffing actives and passives to increase all previously mentioned abilities without overloading specific powers.
To me thematically SR should not have increased regeneration or plus hit point powers since the set relies on avoiding damage, not soaking damage, so using regeneration and hit point buffs seem thematically inappropriate. -
Defense sets: Shield & Invulnerability
AAO and Shield charge are too much fun to pass up. Invulnerability when slotted up with sets produces a powerful reliable layered mitigation without any real drawbacks, except that Psi hole. Then again what defense set doesn't have a psi hole?
Blast sets: Archery, Sonic Blast, and Fire Blast
To me ranged attacks are all about leaving everything in range twitching on the floor and then doing it again. That is why archery and fire blast are go to's for me to get everything defeated fast. Sonic is a different type of fun for me. When the team or league I am with has hard targets to take down my sonic characters shine.
Melee sets: Fire melee and Broadsword
Fire melee's strong mix of single target and AOE damage combines with so many sets that I just have to talk myself out of fire melee when creating new toons.
I know Broadsword is a bit long in the tooth and seemingly overshadowed by titan weapons but you still can't argue with catching a few foes in headsplitter, and thwak, watching bodies hit the floor.
buff / debuff sets: Radiation Emission and Sonic Resonance
OK' I have a problem when it comes to rad. I like dead team mates. Using fallout, vengeance, and mutation I can turn an encounter that is headed south around real quick. combine in the multi-level debuff toggles and a Rad can pull a mob's teeth before the fight starts.
Sonic Resonance didn't really do much for me till Apex TF came out. I pulled my sonic / sonic defender out for Apex to give her one last chance before deleting her. I threw together a cardiac T1 out of spare shards and components to join. This team got MoATF first time through because my sonic buffs took the edge off and the sonic debuffs made short work of Battle Maiden. When I bring this toon out in leagues, if I wait long enough, someone will be convinced to roll a sonic resonance or someone will exclaim about the speed by which the AV was defeated. -
Since about 6pm Central time I have tried three times to move charcters via the copy tool to the Beta server and once to the test server. So far attempts to move characters to either server have not been successful.
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Quote:Let me apologize in advance for the difficulty you may have reading this post. I have never been very good at placing quotes on these forumsOriginally Posted by Johnny_Butane
Yes. Isn't that what a good Tanker does? Hang on for the long haul and keep going?
I haven't had much reward in doing so, also like a Tanker.
You mean Brutes and Scrappers fighting alongside me got a damage increase.
Then Incarnates came out and Scrappers and Brutes gained Barrier and Rebirth while my Tanker hits the brick wall of the damage cap without even needing Assault and now has little potential to improve or grow the way I want.
That's 'winning', Charlie Sheen style.
Tankers can only hit so many targets with AoE attacks regardless of how many are mad at them or not. There's two different caps in play there.
Furthermore, that gets into farming territory IMO, and I have an extremely negative view of that. Especially since, again IMO, Tankers are in the situation/balance point they are currently because over the years, some people have pushed them into a niche as a farming tool: Safe, reliable, slowly moving back and forth across a farm. No longer Tankers, but 'Tractors'. All at the expense of Tankers better reflecting their comic counterparts instead. I have have seen too many 'looking to make a farm tank' threads to be persuaded otherwise, so let's not bother debating it.
Not so. I believe that one Tanker being enough for a team's typical aggro needs is half of the reason they have redundancy issues. The other half is overspecialization in aggro control in the first place.
That is not typical operating procedure for the vast majority of teams. It works for you, obviously, but doing so without everyone on board is just going to cause group friction and it's not a play style you can hope people to adopt widespread.
'With proper tactics' is the key phrase. You can't balance an AT around said tactics when most people really haven't been using them since the game began.
It's quite relevant if a proposed change to Tankers has the side effect of buffing two other ATs that I don't think should be buffed. Why should I sign to that if I feel that way?
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I will attempt to answer each point in turn but I leave it up to the reader to match them with the quoted portion above.
Point one
Bruising allows a 20% non stackable resistible debuff to damage resistance. this means that everyone on the team gains those benefits not just you. Therefore this power is useful solo but is even more powerful on a team.
Point two
Tanks were the overall winners out of Incarnates. yes, Incarnates came out and now Scrappers, Brutes, or any other AT can slot a Barrier or Rebirth Tier 4 and get some serious short term mitigation. Bully for them since in the case of barrier, no other archetype can go over 75% resist cap while Brutes and Tanks can hit 90% therefore Tanks are leveraging the highest increase in total mitigation due to having the highest caps and the highest hit points. Now with rebirth regeneration rate is increased and you either get a heal or plus hit points. Again this leverages highest with tankers since regeneration is based by rate times current hit point maximum. So overall Tankers win in this comparison as well
However we have 3 other incarnate slots Alpha, Interface, Judgment (Yes I am spelling it correctly here) Tanks gain more than brutes or scrappers in this area as well. Since you stated in a different post #137 in this thread:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jagged View Post
I don't think it would break anything if a tanks damage cap was raised to by an extra 100%.
What about that in addition providing options and tools (by way of Tanker Epic/Ancillary pool powers and Incarnate abilities) for Tankers to improve their damage should they choose?
Scrappers and Brutes get the Fighting pool, Barrier and Rebirth, Wedding Band, numerous other temp powers, Accolades, three kinds of Inspirations (more now?).
Just in incarnate slots alone Tanks got access to interface which slotting reactive deals a dot of 13.95 regardless of AT damage base. Tanks gained more than scrappers and brutes in terms of percent age damage increase.
Tanks gained access to Lore whose Pet DPS is the same regardless of AT as well as Judgment which increases AOE burst damage by the same amount regardless of AT. Therefore the overall DPS gap between Tankers, Brutes, and Scrappers on the percentages closed thanks to Incarnates.
Point 3
Tankers generally have equal or in the aberrational case of Fire Melee slightly more AOE attacks than other melee AT's powersets of the same name. This is one reason why they make such good farmers. They have greater survivability and are better able to leverage AOE. Scrappers, Brutes and Tanks are limited to 10 targets with each PBAOE, 5 targets on melee cones 16 targets on ranged AOE like fireball. This in the one area where your argument seems to mostly hold weight as the other melee AT's do better damage per attack per target with a generally sufficient, though not equivalent, amount of total mitigation to withstand the assault. Now if target caps were increased for Tankers their would be an infinitely stackable reason to invite more than one Tanker per team. While a general damage increase might have similar effect it would serve to blur the three melee archetype's being compared together even more.
Point 4
I have no desire to debate farming with you as I do not generally farm but I do herd pull and position in other content which uses similar tactics. Therefore a person could argue that I am always farming or never farming depending on the definition. The position is too ambiguous to debate without a thread jack about the definition of farming.
Point 5
Your belief that Tankers suffer redundancy issues on teams and dismissal of the use of tactics past everyone run together and steam roll is irrelevant to this discussion is flawed. Were we on the Blaster forums and I was complaining that my Assault Rifle blaster was weak because I only used single target attacks I would and should be laughed at for failing to leverage the advantages of the power set I have chosen. Tankers have advantages in aggro control to not use them and demand that since you want to play like a Scrapper the AT must be broken is equally unsupported. An increase in target cap (and if necessary aggro cap) per power for Tankers would:
1. Diversify the role of the archetype in comparison to the other similar melee AT's.
2. Increase the overall damage of Tankers in a team environment by allowing more targets to be kept in AOE range or more targets to be hit by AOE's
3. Allow a stackable role and ability for Tankers on each team without forcing redundant aggro mitigation into team make up.
4. leverage the superior mitigation available to Tankers in a useful manner against a wide variety of game content.
Point 6
Tankers are a team archetype and therefore increasing the overall ability of others on their team is one of their primary roles. Hence their status in the "holy trinity" of game design. You may not like that Tankers abilities run that direction but frankly you can always roll a Brute and be the kind of single target beatstick you seem to desire. Now that you can roll whatever AT you want hero or villain side you can have the invulnerability / super strength man in tights on whichever side of the game strikes your fancy. Further more you can create three characters one of each of the archetypes we have discussed and run them concurrently to approximate your offense to defense ratio toggling concept.
My own musings
Now you have brought up on many occasions that Tankers seem to suffer an unfair disadvantage soloing. While that point is arguable what would anyone think of applying a 36% damage buff when operating solo for Tankers that drops by 12% per team member and disappears at 4 members, similar to Defenders. This would approximate the "cutting loose" quality that some feel is missing from the AT without being an overall increase in damage. Perhaps the aggro management boon discussed previously could be applied in an inverse fashion so that Tankers would have abilities solo and teamed just like Defenders without in theory forcing the tanker into a farming role. -
Quote:This is a good idea. Let's work with the strength of the AT's instead of redesigning them to some whimsical ideal.Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
I like this. I could see reducing the damage that tanker AoE's do by a slight amount, but greatly increasing their number of targets. So a tanker can hit 10 targets instead of 5, but has to hit a lot in order to make up for the reduced damage. That gives them a reason to take on large groups even solo.
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Quote:First off are you really still fighting this battle? I have good news for you, you won, tanks got a bruising to and a hit point increase. Secondly, I am not even trying to dissuade a review of tankers because I think many legacies of this game system need be reviewed for relevance to keep the intellectual property viable in a competitive MMO market.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
There is absolutely NO reason to want to increase Tanker aggro caps.
-ONE Tanker can already successfully tank for a team of 8 in the vast, vast majority of situations.
-Increasing the aggro cap of one Tanker just makes additional tankers even more superfluous than they are now.
-It's bad enough that when teamed with a Tanker, Scrappers and Brutes feel no heat for their 'lesser defenses' yet continue to flout their damage. Making them even safer is something I will never sign off on.
If anything is to be done with aggro, Scrappers and Brutes should generate more aggro than Tankers with a mega Gauntlet-like effect that Tankers can only strip off with the use of Taunt. Tankers can still keep aggro of the squishy ATs just fine, but Brutes and Scrappers get to feel the heat and face a downside for once.
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Disclaimers aside I really take issue with the statement "There is absolutely NO reason to want to increase Tanker aggro caps." yet you complain about the uselessness of upgrades to the mitigation of tankers as unnecessary when brutes and scrappers do more damage 100% of the time, yet these other AT's are defensively insufficient much smaller percentage of the time. So essentially your complaint is that tankers are unable to leverage their increased survivability into a quantifiable advantage. You also state that the best solution to this is increase their damage. Let us suppose you are right. Tankers by increasing the aggro cap will allow them to gather more enemies to them. By being able to gather more enemies to themselves they will be able to maximize AOE effectiveness their by increasing overall damage to more enemies faster. Furthermore a tanker due to its superior mitigation ability will be able to survive a lot longer and therefore keep the AOE maximization in effect longer for themselves and their team. So therefore overall damage is increased due to efficiency of AOE attacks.
As far as your other points
Yes, one tanker can tank for a team of eight. This is a good thing. We agree.
Increasing the aggro cap for one tanker does not make additional tankers superfluous with proper tactics. I like to leapfrog with another tank. I grab a spawn's aggro and the other tank moves ahead to get the aggro of the next spawn and lead them back to group. Again maximizing AOE and reducing downtime between spawns.
You will never sign off on scrappers or brutes not feeling the heat of their own damage. K, good for you. That is an opinion. Since the purpose here is to improve tankers not nerf other AT's this statement is irrelevant. -
Quote:This, since this is the age of CoH Freedom, let's give options and let the players choose which one they want for the individual character.Originally Posted by Lucky666
best option make 2 options, one crashes the other doesn't. Once you pick one the other is greyed out like how some SOA powers currently works tech is already there why not.
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1. Scrappers, love flipping out and killing ****
2. Tanks, There is just something super about the tide of the enemy assault smashing against you and faltering.
3. Brutes, wading through an endless sea of opponents
4. Corruptors, Tried these guys for the first time during GR, I was really surprised by how fun these guys are.
5. Defenders, I love pulling the enemies teeth
6 Blasters, they only do one thing but they do it all over the place.
7. Dominators Just like Corruptors but higher highs and lower lows.
8. Controllers, still fun but everyone else just does what they do better.
9. Arachnos Widow
10. Arachnos Spider
11. Mastermind. How to be a buffbot 101
12. Stalker, I am sure they have a purpose on some team.......
13. Warshade.
14. Peace bringer. -
I created a new Inv / Fire tanker because I couldn't stand anymore how useless my Inv/ Em was feeling. When doing the build I did consider using the Nerve enhancement in my alpha slot. Since I was going to be using Kinetic combats as the base set for my single target attacks Nerve seemed like a good way to save myself some slots and boost kinetic combat's weak accuracy enhancement. Though I ultimately decided to go a different route it seemed to me that players using typed defense based sets could build around using Nerve with minimal redundancy.
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Well the plain strongest aoe damage for blasters would probably be fire/ followed closely by archery/ and rad/. For secondaries / fire is probably the strongest supporting AOE set followed by / Mental Manipulation.
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Salvage transfers
Bases are still superior to glee mail for transferring salvage between alts Each piece of salvage tales 1 email where one rack in a base allows me to leave 30 salvage for my crafter toons.
Enhancement tables allow me to outfit my entire SG in common IO enhancements without eating up my entire play time creating emails to send common IO's to alts.
While I use teleporters less with the merger of trains there are a great deal of zones, hero side, that do not have a train connections.
Empowerment buffs are a cost effective way to buff for specific encounters in some task forces. I don't use them a lot but they are there.
Are there things for bases that could use improvement? Yes, but though they are not the only option for zone transport they once were they are still useful for a great many players. -
If your not against using temp powers, I suggest crafting a recovery serum. They are relatively cheap and can really take the sharp edges off the levels before you can get a miracle Proc. Sure they are only temporary but you don't need to use it every fight.
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Quote:Well that is a big pile of suck, I want to get 4 or 5 booster packs on my account alone. That doesn't even count what my wife who loves the costume creator would want to get. There should at least be a disclaimer stating that due to the purchase interface only 3 items will be available for this price.Originally Posted by Cende
There's a limit of 3 items per day per household, regardless of which credit card you use.
I ran into this a week or so ago trying to buy 4 items for 2 accounts using 2 credit cards. :P -
There are advantages to putting the steadfast in either tough or true grit. In true grit the effect would be available at low levels. In tough the resistance portion of the IO would have greater effect.
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Hi Cyb
Since I have nothing better to do I will take this one. I decided to throw something together that included all different AT combination
1 SS / Shield tanker
2 rad / rad deathfender defender (me)
3 Bots / FF MM
4 fire / Shield Scrapper
5 Kin / sonic Corruptor
6 fire / MM Blaster (or Me)
7 Elec Melee / Shield brute
8 fire / kin Controller
You will notice all of the melee are shield defense. This is because even post correction Shield Defense is the melee set for destroying everything in your bloody path. Fire / Shield for the scrapper makes it effective as both ST and AOE damage. Foot Stomp + Shield charge equals more dead mobs and respectable ST damage with AAO and Knockout Blow. I chose the Brute to have electric melee as a way too complement the AOE damage of the group as well as act as a way to separate the Nicti from Romulus should it become necessary.
for multi-purpose damage I have to choose the Fire / MM Blaster combo. All the AOE clears mobs fast with more than enough fire power for hard targets. The MM acts as a buffer and with the use of bots a second buffering wall for the hordes. The Controller and Corrupter help endurance and damage through Speed boost and fulcrum shift. I finally chose my Rad / Rad defender because in a team like this you will have combat deaths and my rad / rad defender with leadership, fallout, and mutate turns setbacks into advantages again someone can die momentarily and the group keeps right on going. -
I often take ghost slaying axe, especially on squishy toons, because the animation time is much shorter so I spend a lot less time rooted in place. I also take the ghost slaying axe because I hate ghosts they can actually be hard to deal with at low levels for some melee types. I generally only get sands of mu if I feel a new character is weak on melee AOE damage.
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I think this thread is addressing an symptom of an overall issue with the game. Stalkers like any other Single Target damage specialist will be overshadowed by an AOE specialist or even generalist, simpply because the game favors AOE damage so much. I mean how many ice/ blasters or corruptors do you see? Martial arts Scrappers? Energy melee tanks? Single target damage has lost a lot of value in this game. Stalkers specialty is simply just not that special in the modern game environment.
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Quote:This.Originally Posted by ChaosExMachina
1. Lower population leads to less efficiency & teaming
2. The merits are incredibly far from balance, requiring much harder tasks from villains to get them. This is because the merits are, absurdly, length only, with no adjustments according to difficulty, TFs quit (especially important to RSF), or player skill (which is much higher in most villain teams for many reasons).
3. There are MUCH more farmable arcs for heroes, especially Praetorian arcs.
Merit wise , redside content is a lousy source the only thing that brought the corpse of the red market to life for even a while was AE with the exploit tactics and the boss farms. WI look forward to providing the merged market with my usual wares. I am hoping that the Dev team will look at the merit rewards for redside again and include failed and quit teams into the equation. Even if the Dev team doesn't chage the merit rewards with the other changes it will be a lot easier to kit out a red side toon. -
I find the temp powers most useful at the very beginning of the game and the very end. In the beginning of the game having the extra attacks as filler is nice while very late game once I have accuracy and recharge bonuses from IO sets the attacks again become useful especially when facing enemies with significant slow effects.
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Quote:Quite true. My main is a fully Io'd out BS/Inv and is a beast. You will never be "Inept" with BS as a powerset since it does have some serious crunch power. Broadwsword as a set is very flexible and symergizes well with a lot of secondaries. Parry adds additional protection to SR and shields for increased defense and in the case of DA , Electric, Fiery aura or Regen offers a form of mitigation otherwise lacking in the secondaries. The knockdown in attacks like headsplitter and disembowel are useful mitigation tools. The one shot burst damage of BS is some of the highest in the game. The AOE potential of BS is respectable if not spectacular. The set also works very well with shield melee for even more dizzying levels of damage. The "problem" with BS is that is not really the best at anything other than knocking out soft targets quickly. Fire and katana have higher single target DPS against bosses and larger, Spines and Electric melee are much better at AOE, Dual blades has better DPS aoe and ST but does not seem to synergize as well with some secondaries.Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
It's not inept. There are just better choices. For a character that resembles a knight or armored warrior with a shield, broadsword is the only choice since katana can't be paired with shield.
Also, broadsword has been around for a while. The people who have made broadsword characters, and are still playing, probably rolled theirs years ago.
Another factor with broadsword is the age of the set. A lot of people who want a BS toon already have one. My aformentioned main is over 4 years old as an example. The set goes through renaissance periods occasionally when a new secondary is released such as Willpower or Shield Defense or when a set is improved such as Inv. BS became popular for a short time after the release of shields until other sets stole its thunder for thier specific performance in specific areas such as Electric melee and Fire Melee.
I am sure if you look hard enough thier are plenty of broadsword builds out there that can solo a lot of crazy stuff. -
My one wish for tankers (and scrapper secondaries) in general and by armor type is as follows.
All tanks: raise Aggro cap to 20-24 for tanks only.
Stone armor
Take some of the speed reduction out of Rooted SO I don't need a kin to cross the Street.
Invunerability
Let it stay exactly the same
Shield defense
Don't nerf it before I get my Shield scrapper to 50.
Willpower
Like invulnerability just more so.
Dark armor
Change the Rez power to a rez or Self heal and increase recharge by 25%
Electric armor
I really have no clue.
Ice Armor
a little resist would be nice
Fiery aura
Wow
Where to start? Close the knockback gap, frontload damage on Burn, remove the fear on Burn, finally change the rez to a self heal or rez that triggers the explosion increase recharge by 25% -
I really can't find an official thread to discuss MA and the seeming nerf to XP & other rewards in AE arcs so I will address my thoughts here. MA was and is a novel concept. When the system hit Beta I was there and created an Arc. I found that creating arcs was a bit more like work than I liked so work proceeds on new arcs slowly. When MA hit live I ran a few arcs and used to regularly participate in MA Monday on Champion server. Frankly some arcs were very good others less so. However since I usually taskforce or do Ouro story arcs when I want to solo blueside MA was a novelty or a way to team with friends on toons that could not solo well. For me the most positive impact of MA was the revitalization of the markets with Uncommon, Pool A & B recipes, as well as rare salvage. The tickets system which restored the hero side WW market and breathed a little life into the under-supplied Black Market really brought a lot more parity to the market mini-game. Then came the anti- farmer measures. Ticket caps and reductions to awards were brought in as well as the removal of critters to prevent exploits. The sum result of these many changes to hurt the farmer crowd frankly has reduced my interest in one of the more novel and innovative features of the game. The supply of recipes hitting the market is drying up again to Pre-MA levels and Villain players are again left with tortuous, repetitive, and undervalued merit content in order to tr to IO out their toons. I want to list my feelings and solutions to a few of these problems.
MA and the Dark Side.
MA offered Villain players a new way to level their characters as well as seek "loot". One of the complaints about Villain content has been that it was seemingly too heroic or felt more like a painful grind. MA arcs and the RWZ MA building gave Villains a way to team and seek their own "loot" outside a seemingly paralyzed and dysfunctional Black Market. This change allowed players to explore the Villainous AT and red side play became a lot more common and open. Without access to the Dev teams data mining I can not of course prove this, but it seems that as the MA nerfs have progressed villain activity has decreased. The seeming lack of teams has of course caused players to simply give up on their villain toons and are holding off the painful attempts to level red side AT till after GR so that they might have access to a non-paralyzed market and fluid teaming opportunities. Whether this belief will be vindicated is unknown. what is known is that Villain side teams and leveling is becoming more and more difficult and grinding which in m opinion cannot be good for the customer base. In conclusion between the loss of functionality of MA and the obsolete nature of red-side content along with the introduction of new GR content. the Villain zones will continue to be an underutilized and underdeveloped portion of the game which will reduce the amount of enjoyable content that players have available.
MA and blue side
To be perfectly honest Blue-side has a relative ton of content available to begin with. Some of that`content is dated and a bit contrived but it is there. MA did offer a way for everyone to seek rewards regardless of mentor / SK parity. Really except as discussed under their own sections MA did little to affect blue side play other than move the farmers from PI to Atlas Park.
MA and the teaming barrier
The teaming barrier is anything that discourages players from teaming such as an imbalance of rewards between members. This game has for the most part had a strong opposition to the teaming barrier with features like sidekicking / mentoring and super-sidekicking as well as auto exemping for certain content. In normal mission team play radio / paper missions have virtually no teaming barrier. Every member of the team has an equal chance at salvage, recipe drops, etc and no preparation is required. Before the introduction of the inventions system this was the default baseline of the game. There was only the most insignificant barriers to teaming. Once merits were added the game random mission generators such as paper missions lost a lot of popularity as a new teaming barrier had occurred, reduced rewards.
Story arcs became the way to earn maximum rewards without joining a task-force, strike force, however an imbalance occurred that erected a new teaming barrier. Now only the mission holder earned maximum rewards for story arc mission teams unless the players could sync their characters progression furthermore a large chunk of the reward was held of until all of the arc had been completed. Now suddenly it was harder to find teams for longer story arcs or to utilize Ouro missions which suffered the same teaming barriers as task-forces without the rewards. So now you could remove one but not both teaming barriers.
MA allowed everyone on the team to achieve equal rewards which removed the teaming barrier completely tickets were earned b everyone on the team at a roughly equal rate, experience was proportionate and awards were not back-loaded nor was casual play discouraged. All of the nerfs to prevent farming and`exploitation has now erected new false teaming barriers. Essentially many though not all of the changes meant to curb farming and exploitation are killing MA as a viable and fun alternative to Dev published content. If I take a mid 20's toon into an MA arc and it takes me 3 missions to earn a bubble of experience with a full bar of patrol experience something is wrong. Not to mention the fact that for the whole arc I earned a grand total of about 1500 tickets. If people want to team for rewards like loot, xp, or content, enable them. Do not build up new barriers to prevent teaming. Do not undo the core attractions of the game.
MA and the market.
MA is an integral part of the market. To pretend otherwise is sheer fallacy. MA supplies the market and acts as a price control for rare salvage as well as mid-level to high-level uncommon, Pool A, and Pool B recipes for IO sets. As was evidenced by the market behavior between the time merits were introduced and the MA ticket rewards system was added. The supplies of the above mentioned recipes dried up completely. With the latest changes to XP we seem to be approaching that again as the supply of above mentioned recipes hitting the market has dwindled to the barest trickle. While there may be other factors involved the latest XP changes seemed to have finally killed the patient. I understand the need to stop exploitative behavior but do not stop those players who wish to earn greater rewards by taking on extra challenges.
How I would fix MA
MA should give at least story arc level awards but certainly lower than task force. XP should be raised to the previous levels and you should not have to run a farm to hit the ticket cap per mission. furthermore the penalties for running missions that contain fewer than 3 types of of critters should have the penalties halved. Penalties for adding helpful pets should remain. Open up the freedom to team to all. Farmers will always exist tolerate them so those of us that play can enjoy ourselves. -
The two sets are very similar with relatively minor differences. Without trying to pull up the numbers from somewhere the main differences are:
Fighting stance
Broadsword is wielded as a 1 handed weapon
Katana is wielded in both hands
Animations
Broadsword has longer clunkier animations that portray a sense of power.
Katana has smooth, fluid, animations that display that portray a sense of grace.
Recharge times
Broadsword has longer recharge times generally.
Katana has shorter recharge times.
Endurance costs
Broadsword has a higher endurance cost per attack.
Katana has a lower endurance cost per attack.
Damage
Broadsword has higher burst damage than Katana but lower Damage Per Second. When recharge is added into the equation broadsword pulls ahead in middling recharge levels but katana takes the lead once again in higher recharge levels for DPS.
Both have average AOE damage capability and good single target damage. Both posses a low level damage mitigation tool in the form of Parry for Broadsword or Divine Avalanche for Katana. (I personally prefer Parry but that is because I hate the animation on Divine Avalanche) Both of these mitigation tools can with enough recharge be stacked to soft-cap lethal and melee defense.
Weapon Skins
Broadsword has a lot of really cool looking weapon skins available at all levels of the game including the tech sword, Talsorian broadsword, Rulaaru broadsword, Sword of Romulas and Nictus sword.
Katana has a few really aesthetically pleasing weapon skins such as the impervium katana, Rulaaru katana, and Talsorian Katana
Both sets have a plethora of low tech options available as costume parts but I really don't think they look that good.
WMG -
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Quote:
I am sure this has been suggested before, but I cannot find a post where it is suggested in detail.
Here.
And still no.
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Yes, the OP off-handly mentions the subject but does not deal with drop rate or cooldown timer. I was aware of the post you linked before I wrote this one but because the proposal is more detailed and specific I thought it should be separate.