NeverDark

We've discussed adding the villain ATs, but not until we've got the rest of the game sorted out first. Kheldians and Arachnos are in the same boat.

At the moment, my list is:

Ranged Sets
Archery
Assault Rifle
Dark Blast
Dual Pistols
Electrical Blast
Energy Blast
Fire Blast
Ice Blast
Psychic Blast
Radiation Blast
Sonic Attack

Manipulation Sets
Devices
Energy Manipulation
Electricity Manipulation
Fire Manipulation
Ice Manipulation
Mental Manipulation

Melee Sets
Battle Axe
Broadsword
Claws
Dark Melee
Electrical Melee
Fiery Melee
Ice Melee
Katana
Martial Arts
Spines
Stone Melee
Super Strength
Superspeed Melee
War Mace

Armor Sets
Dark Armor
Electric Armor
Fiery Aura
Ice Armor
Invulnerability
Regeneration
Shield Defense
Stone Armor
Super Reflexes
Willpower

Control Sets
Earth Control
Fire Control
Gravity Control
Ice Control
Mind Control
Plant Control

Buff/Debuff Sets
Cold Domination
Dark Miasma
Empathy
Force Field
Radiation Emission
Sonic Resonance
Storm Summoning
Thermal Radiation
Trick Arrow

Anything not on that list is still under construction. Some sets, like Dual Blades and Illusion Control, are being set aside, as they're the hardest for us to translate in a way we're happy with. Others, like Energy Aura and Darkness Control, we just haven't worked on yet.

Also, any set that is shared between archetypes, like Willpower or Radiation Emission, will not be the same between archetypes. Willpower on Scrappers, for instance, is getting a stealth power, while on Tankers it's getting a single-target Fear. There will be a video or a blog post on things like that later.

Upcoming blog/video topics:
Enemy Design - we tweaked some groups, like the Clockwork and the Banished Pantheon, to give them slightly more personality
Powerset Design - a discussion on how we came up with new powers and how we adapted existing ones
Debuffs and Mez - how we adapted debuffs and mezzes into a turn-based system
Skills and Demeanors - what these systems are and how they'll work
Our Failures - the system we have now is nothing close to what we originally started with
And more!

Nah, I think that's the other place. Goons can talk where they please and not lose their neckbeard cards.

It's a more abrasive place than here; coarse language is allowed, and the bitter rivalries here have nothing on the kind of grudge matches goons can hold. But they do love their games, and they're... not exactly welcoming, but certainly willing to yell loudly if you are.

That's fair, especially since Kinetics gets tools to let it burn End faster early with no relief until much later.

Skippable is just another way of saying bad. There shouldn't be any bad powers.

I'll admit, this would likely kill its use as a travel power. I'm not sure that there's any way to reconcile "travel power" and "useful in combat". If I have to pick one, I'd choose the later.

I'm actually more interested in getting the Knockback protection to last longer than anything else. Its duration is low enough that to keep it up requires constant babysitting, and Knockback protection is the only mez protection that can't be used reactively.

Having the resistance last longer would be nice too.

Yes. If I'm looking to achieve extremely precise balance, I look at all of that. I know what will spawn in missions based on team size or difficulty, I know what will spawn outdoors, I know what will spawn in any given part of the game, and I take that into effect.

I start by setting a baseline that I want all powersets to achieve, based on what content I want them to be able to accomplish. Then, I design powersets around that baseline, taking into account the variety in content, and, if I've done all my math correctly, I end up with balanced powers.

If I find that players are not adhering to my initial content decision, I reevaluate. If it's possible for our two choices to coincide, I find that happy medium and rework powers so that they fit into the new design constraints. If our goals are too different, I decide whether my design goals are more important than the playerbase's desires (usually, that answer is no), and I rework my design again.

Absolutely. The job of a designer is to make sure that all of those choices are equally weighted. No choice should be obviously better than the others.

Precisely. If every powerset is equally viable across the entire game, then you've achieved balance, or as close as is necessary. Powersets don't need to be exactly equal in every situation, but if Powerset A is better than Powerset B in more situations than vice versa, or B isn't better enough than A in those situations, then you have a problem.

Homogeny isn't necessary for balance, only for lazy design.

You can't design powersets without taking into account content design. They're inexorably linked.

If I create a powerset that functions identically to Archery - the exact same powers, damage numbers, endurance costs, everything - but make it do untyped damage, is it balanced?

Of course not. It will outperform Archery in nearly every situation, because it will never be resisted the way Archery's lethal damage is.

When balancing powersets, the environment in which they are going to be used is just as important as the internal variables that shape their creation.

Not necessarily. It does require incredibly amounts of work, but it's doable.

You have to build mathematical models that take into account an extremely wide variety of variables, but you could balance even something as complex as CoH.

For instance, when balancing powersets within a category, such as ranged damage, you'd need to consider:

1.) ST damage capability, as well as the value of ST damage
2.) AoE damage capability, as well as the value of AoE damage
3.) Animation times, and how they translate into DPS
4.) Endurance costs, and how easily they can be circumvented through slotting or additional powers
5.) Damage types, and how they relate to the prevalence of resistance among enemy groups
6.) Secondary effects, and their effect on mitigation and DPS

And that's just a start.

It's a whole lot of work, and it requires well-built models as well as designers capable of thinking of design tools that can be easily expressed mathematically. But it can be done.

I design games for a living, and you know something? I agree with you. There are a great deal of balance problems in CoH, and to fix most of them requires an overhaul the likes of which would make ED and GDN look like a minor balance patch. Gutting IO Defense bonuses, massively reworking Incarnate powers, completely changing most powersets... I'd be happy to make myself more hated than Emmert to rebalance the game.

But as a game designer, I also know that balance alone does not a good game make. It's only one of a number of factors that lead to a quality game, and sacrificing the rest of those to achieve balance is idiotic. And it would cost everything else that makes CoH good to get it in the shape I'd want.

That's not a balanced choice.

The other issue is that it would affect players and enemies equally: if the defense floor is now 0%, throwing defense debuffs onto enemies without defense does nothing. If the reason a player can't hit them is due to level scaling or toHit debuffs, the purpose of those defense debuffs (making something easier to hit) is negated.

Once the combat engine determines that a power hits, it then determines if that hit should be a crit.

(The following is assumption based on my programming of similar mechanics. The actual programming may be different, but it is unlikely.)

To determine if a hit should be a crit, the game generates a random number between 1 and 100. If the number is below the crit chance, in this instance 5, then the hit is a crit.

Basic probability theory.

If you flip a coin, the chance that it comes up heads is 50%. That never changes, no matter how many times you flip.

Let's say that if you flip n times and don't get at least one heads, you lose. What are the odds that you lose? With one flip, it's 50%. With two, it drops to 25%.

Why? Take a look at the possible outcomes for your flip:

1st flip heads, 2nd flip heads
1st flip heads, 2nd flip tails
1st flip tails, 2nd flip heads
1st flip tails, 2nd flip tails

Of those four outcomes, only one of them involves not getting heads.

No matter how many times you flip, there's only one outcome that doesn't involve getting heads: every flip has to be tails. Every time you flip, you add 2^(n-1) outcomes, but you still only have one "lose" outcome, so the odds of losing go down as you flip more times.

In this case, it's that the odds of continuing to lose go down each time you roll. In a casino, rolling costs something, and the reward for winning doesn't offset the cost of rolling enough to win.