Oedipus_Tex
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Posts
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I'm not sure about the buffs.
As for the loot table, that system is such a disaster there is no telling what counts and what doesn't. A few players have been able to consistently get Rare and Very Rare drops but so far they've not shared how they did it. The best advice I can give at this point is click a lot of stuff and cross your fingers. -
Ice/Ice shouldn't be that much worse or better than my Ice/Fire, who I enjoy very much. You've basically just swapped out Power Boost with Fiery Embrace. Some people would say Ice has fewer powers to Power Boost, so its not as useful. But I think that argument works both ways. Because Ice has few powers to Power Boost, you really want Glacier to last when it hits.
Of all the various AoE holds, Glacier is my favorite. It has a 10ft larger radius than sets with ranged holds and animates fairly quickly. But my favorite thing about it is how obvious the graphic is. It's very, very easy for you and your teammates to see who you hit and who is still a threat -
What IS funny though is that a standard level 50 mission is currently 5 to 10 times easier than what teams face at level 10 in Praetoria. This happens in part because once you hit 50 any incentive to fight +level enemies goes away. But it's also because the developers worked hard to increase the difficulty level in the Praet zone, while simulataneously buffing level 50s to the point that pre-existing tasks went from "very easy" to "LOL."
So now the level 50 game, outside of a few TFs and raids, is pretty much a wash for me. This is why I posted a few days ago that I wish enemies above level 50 had something they would drop to make them more attractive targets. -
To me, different pop up boxes give different impressions about who "should" be talking.
A pop-up when clicking on a person:
The person I clicked on is talking. I expect first person written from the contact's perspective. Example: "I [the contact] have been having problems with Rikti spacecraft for a long time now; they seem to show up everywhere I go! Can you [the player] help me out?"
A pop-up that happens randomly (e.g. on entering a mission):
I expect second person. "You [the player] see and hear strange things all around you." But it can also be third person omniscient, like a "narrator": "The Cabal have had this coming for a long time."
A pop-up connected to a tip:
I have no real context for this. My initial expectation though would be third person omniscient perspective that doesn't identify the speaker: "Word on the street is the Carnival of Shadows are up to something big." However, I can see how second person could be used too: "You [the player] have been hearing a lot of rumors about some kind of meeting between the Fifth Column and the Family."
I do bristle when I see motivations, back story, feelings, or thoughts foisted on a player character though. For example: "The sound of metal on metal echoing down the hallway reminds you of a movie you once saw." Even worse is something like: "You feel yourself growing angry..." The game should not hijack characters thoughts or feelings. The exception is when something has happened to the player outside of his or her control--getting hit with a mind blank spell, for example.
IMO the safest way to put thoughts in a characters head is through narrative style text that implies what the character might be thinking, but doesn't specifically attribute it to anyone: "So the Longbow think they're in the clear? They'll never know what hit them." This adds some of the same flavor but allows more latitude for interpretation. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Comicsluvr
I have a DM/DA Tanks in the 40s and I'm considering a respec soon. I don't currently have Cloak of Fear because of the added End cost. As I was tuning the build on Mids it occurred to me that if I DO take CoF and it hits, then the Fear will be broken as soon as the Death Shroud ticks over.
Are CoF and DS working against each other in this sense? Is it worth it to have both or should I dual-build and have one on each?
Thanks in advance for the help.
In my experience, toggle powers and "rains" interupt cowering only once every proc tic (10 seconds). -
I posted this in the other thread, but I think it bears repeating here.
Is there a program that can tell the difference between a character that is doing nothing, and one that is standing around because he or she was instructed to do that by the team? If the answer is "no" you've just run into why this system is fundamentally flawed. You cannot reward "teamwork" by providing incentives to individuals. Individual incentives conflict with team directives by definition.
This system isn't just not working, it's arrogant. I don't mean that as insult to the developers, because I think it was developed with the best of intentions. But it needs to be understood that when you tell a player that he or she only got such and so reward because of his or her "average" performance, there needs to be a way to back that up. What is that I am doing with my Dominator that pegs me as worthy of Uncommons and Rares but not Very Rares? Is it luck? Am I getting screwed by other teammates gaming the system? Is the leader in on it or is it accidental? What can I do to be more likely to get a Very Rare? Not only do I know know the answer to these questions, IMO it is harmful to the game that I should ever even have to consider them. My teams succeeded at that the trials. That is what I should be worried about.
In short, this system discourages actual teamwork and encourages a strategy of trying to game the mechanics by identifying the technical checkmarks. Specifically, it encourages people to blow spawns away before teammates can get to them out of fear they'll do the same and rob you of your rewards. When your teammates are your "frenemies" teamwork naturally suffers. The results are exactly the same as if the Statesman Task Force only gave merits to people who helped kill the towers. It's arbitrary and cannot possibly work. Ever.
In the end this system can only go two ways: screwing people it shouldn't, or being so inconsequential that it may as well not exist. As for being able to "balance" it for every single powerset combination and archetype, I don't just doubt that is possible, I think it's worthless to try. All of the effort spent doing that could be spent making the powersets and archetypes themselves equally powerful across the board, which we all know will probably never happen--in this game or in any game--not because it's an unworthy goal but because it is unrealistic. -
Just thought of one other way to "rate" a power: the AE version that gives point values to certain powers. I'm not sure if all sets even show up there, but it would be one way to know guess about how much value each power is doing.
I also wouldn't be surprised to learn using the same buff power twice back to back doesn't increase your total, but that's merely a guess. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Technically speaking, your holds "affect" the AV whether they are actually mezzed by you or not as far as the game engine is concerned, because you have incremented their mez attribute. My guess is that the devs probably haven't added a monitor to check to see if you actually mezzed the target, because that would be complicated (if I hit a boss with a hold and then you do, do you get credit for the mez and I get none - that sort of question is the kind of question I would not want to delve into if I were the devs).
On the other hand, I will say that sometimes the devs take an expedient path that they feel is "good enough" even if it has significant problematic corner cases, that I wouldn't take. So I cannot really say what is the most likely algorithm for the participation algorithm if it exists (I assume it does, but I cannot prove with 100% certainty that it does).
This is why I propose the aggro mechanics may be partially involved, although possibly indirectly. We know that mobs keep an "aggro list" of things that they might consider attacking if their current target dies. We also know that many powers have a "bonus" to threat that essentially converts the "value" of the non-damage component of a power into a chance for the enemy to come after you. If we look at how those mechanics work against the pattern we're seeing:
- Controllers and Dominators are ending up with high values on lots of enemy's lists because they 1) tend to hit enemies who are going to die anyway 2) hit a lot of them, 3) hit even the enemies the rest of the team is likely to ignore trying to kill 4) have an increased threat rating on their powers in general (or so we guess, since no player to my knowledge has seen the values).
- Masterminds are ending up on very few lists, because if your pet hits an enemy, you generate only a very modest threat rating (enough to pull the enemy if the pet dies and no one else engaged them)
So here is the possibility: there is a variable on the character that increases by the amount of threat you generate outside of Taunts. I don't think that's all that's being looked at, but it's one of the very few measurements of relative power we have.
The other significant possibility is total endurance spent prior to endurance reduction and modifications. Maybe specifically total base endurance spent on powers that do not only affect self and also took effect (e.g. no stacking on your own existing Force Field). The reason I look toward this number again is that endurance is one of the very few ways I can think of to convert a power back to a standard gauge of usefulness. And again, as I understand it typical Masterminds tend not to expend as much base endurance. The reason I rate threat as more likely than endurance use, though, is my suspicion that the Praetorian event code is being partially reused.
I think in the end the developers are going to have to come out and tell us what is being weighted. In all likelihood, we have less of a formula than we do a "method." So it could be you get a certain reward for contributions unless a b or c happens, and maybe d mitigates part of a low score. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
I get some people may not have played the competition but Jaysus you people are spoiled.
Oh yeah, well one time I played this other game, and its interface was really bad. You should be glad you never played it. I like to bring it up every time someone talks about a bad interface so I can, you know, put them in their place. -
Quote:Originally Posted by TrueMetal
Good thing the Incarnate system is not complex then.
You're right, it isn't. It has a veneer of complexity that doesn't pan out.
It's the gaming equivalent of a webform where you get to page 6 and find out you clicked the wrong radio button on page 2, and the only way to fix it is to start over. Nevermind that the choices on page 2 are all exactly equivalent. -
On my Ice/Fire Dominator, over about 15 runs I have yet to see anything but Uncommon and Rare. I actually have so many Rares that I am able to build a Very Rare despite never having had one drop. This pattern was so consistent that in my first 7 or so runs I thought that table was what you always got for completing a trial.
What I am wondering is whether "participation" is measured by how many enemies aggro lists your character makes it onto. I don't mean that you actually have to pull aggro. I just wonder whether that is a part of the measurement.
No matter what it's examining though, I have to put it out there that if this system is supposed to measure contributions, there is no way it could ever work. Other than very obvious situations, like a person who just door sits the whole time, there is no way you could tell whether the Ice/Force Field Controller is contributing more or less than the Fire/Fire Brute and the Ninja/Trick Arrow Mastermind. I also sincerely hope drops aren't a competition. If that turns out to be the case and players find out about it, any hopes of friendly, casual league play will be dashed. Even the suspicion that might be the case is probably harmful to the game. -
The BAF makes my Ice/Fire Dominator really jealous of... every other set. It's gotten a lot better with some level shifts, but this is one part I just can't handle alone, mainly because all boss spawn = immunity to Arctic Air's confusion. He still rocks the prisoner part though. It seems that -Jump isn't resisted by the lieuts, so if you block their path while standing on an Ice Slick, they'll go nuts trying to pathfind and buy you a little extra time.
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Quote:Originally Posted by EvilRyu
Definately say go with Earth anything but trick arrow. Simply because it takes too long to setup all those arrows to do what another powerset can do in only 1 power. As for as mind control goes I would not bother with it on a controller. Maybe on a dom since you get a damaging secondary that way. The real problem in the set is how sleeps are handled in this game and mass confuse being on way too long on a timer compared to say Seeds of Confusion. I know the whole because it causes no aggro bit but thats kind of pointless if the mobs are confused anyways. There is no reason why mass confuse couldnt be an every spawn power like the way seeds of confusion is.
For some reason I've never been able to get into Plant Control. It has two great powers, and pretty good AoE damage. But something about it makes me feel naked compared to other sets. Granted, I spend a lot of time with Ice, Earth, Mind, and Electric.
Anyway, if Mass Confusion were an every spawn power Mind Control would be insanely overpowered instead of just "good" like it is now. I'm of the mind that at this point in the game's development, every set but Gravity is an "A" lister, with Gravity hovering in maybe the "B-"'s. That is to say, the worst Control sets fare a lot better than the worst blasts, buffs, and armors. -
Quote:I think they need to be cautious about how they do it, but I agree something should be done.Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
I agree with this. Earlier in this thread I mentioned a certain other MMO increasing Buff durations to an hour. I would very much oppose such a change in this game.
The way I see it the small shields are (or should be) essentially balanced as if they were a toggle power with an extreme radius. They are a bonus you always get for having the character on your team and remaining reasonably close to them but if you spend to much time away you lose the benefit until you rejoin them. Using that logic extending the duration would break this balance but making them easier to use would not. 4 minutes seems a very sensible duration to me, it's long enough that the caster doesn't become a buff-bot but short enough that you can't have them door-sit.
I should add that the single power that stands out to me the most as an example of balance by frustration has to be Speed Boost. I think the design intent of that power was to keep the duration low enough that people would only cast Speed Boost on a few party members as needed. However, the boost it gives is so beneficial that the design intent backfires and turns the power into a rusty nail for the player to stick themselves over and over. What is going on with speed boost is exactly what would happen if there were a power that gave teammates capped resistance but only lasted 60 seconds; the buff would be too good to pass up, and the entire "strategy" would revolve around that team member hitting it on a macro. -
Quote:Clearly the game would fall apart if Force Field players started blasting more often.Originally Posted by StabBot
They would be stronger because the 5 players who are normally buffing would be controlling/blasting instead.
This is a semantic argument. They are balanced only in the strict sense that that the "challenge" is your own physical endurance for handing out the buff cycle. Time isn't the major annoyance. It's the fact that it's such a PITA, and a dictation on your approach. It imposes on you a form of gameplay that would more properly be suited to a stopwatch than an actual player.Quote:I think this is a distortion or a dysphemism. They are currently balanced against time, not inconvenience. The fact that spending time on them isn't enjoyable is another point entirely (and one on which I agree with you).
Often when people defend the way these powers currently work, they say that they were "balanced" in some way in which any changes to them risks a massive nerf. This implies that the shield buffs--and, specifically, the way they are applied--have been carefully balanced in such a way that a kind of "spagetti situation" exists, in which any change to them means invalidating some a sacred (and secret) coda of game balance.
Having played these powersets for a few years now, I get a rather different impression. My theory is that however many years ago these powers were created by someone who had no intention of actually playing them. Due to time constraints and/or engine limitations, he or she implemented a system that matched what he or she thought a player interested in buffing might want, and that system has basically carried through since then.
I will give them credit for getting two things right: the powers are useful enough to be worth casting (a serious flaw in some other games), and their durations are short enough that the players can't just leave the buffer at the mission door. IMO it is a pretty good foundation for a buff system. What was missed is that this set up essentially created an optimal strategy that is the buffing equivalent of having a confirmation pop up show up on the characters screen once a minute. This is essentially related to the fact than building a blast set with 8 good powers and a 9th one that recharges in half a second and does three times as much damage as anything else; you can choose to "not use the T9" to make the game more fun, but then you are just hurting yourself. Hence, balance through frustration.
Force Field and Sonic Resonance are underpowered. I sometimes defend Force Field as a mid-game set, and still think it is good for that. However at this point I would probably say Force Field is the lowest performing set in end game content by an enormous margin. The set is not just performing poorly, its on life support.Quote:To say that it should take less time to buff more players is to advocate for a buff to the archetypes. Do you feel they are underpowered or just annoying?
You have no way of knowing that a change to cast style would mean a "nerf." It depends entirely on the nature of the buff.Quote:I disagree with this on several levels. The first is that DPS classes don't scale upwards the way buffers do. To balance these buffs with 100% uptime on a league would mean a serious rebalancing in 8 player play, aka a significant nerf.
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It feels like the changes proposed here would result in a loss of player choice when it comes to playstyle or a general watering down of the abilities so they are less potent in leagues. -
Quote:What do you mean by "entitled"? Was there a civil rights violation discussed somewhere in this thread I am unaware of? When a damage power gets buffed, do we "ask why that powerset is entitled to do five times as much damage from the same click versus before?" There is no objective relationship between button clicks and power effect.Originally Posted by StabBot
Again, I have to ask why exactly a buffer is entitled to have the effectiveness of their abilities tripled when joining a league?
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Quote:Originally Posted by SpacePope
Now, CoH was my first MMO way back when, so this is just what I've read, and not firsthand experience. But I was told that in the pre-CoH (and thus, pre-WoW) days of MMOs, there were buffs with durations that might be an hour or more, and were very strong. A CoH example would be something like a version of Painbringer that was just as strong but lasted two hours. So buffing classes would stand around at transit points and offer to sell these buffs to players. Not give them away, sell them. So eventually, MMO devs started toning down buffs in one way or another so this couldn't happen. CoH took the "duration is short" method. WoW took the "buffs aren't that critical in most situations" method, etc. Whether this has any bearing on today's game is debatable, I'm just answering your question of why as best I know.
As far as the debate goes, I would personally like to see a more league-friendly method of buffing. Just my two cents, though, and I understand there are downsides.
The hurdle that has to be overcome with buffs is that a duration that is too long actually encourages teams to get their buffs and leave the buffer at the door, while the "real" characters go fight. That is why I suggested having the duration reset via being hit by a Dispersion Bubble, Warmth, Transfusion, and so on, so that maintaining the buff requires keeping the team member around.
To make it more palatable to the raid situation, have it apply to team members only. If the bubbler wants to keep more than just his or her team perma buffed, that's extra work they'd need to do. Although to be honest, in the wake of PBAoE shields that buff entire leagues, at this point I would be completely okay with Sonic Resonance and Force Field just getting a straight up "buff everyone at once" power. Those two sets have more than paid for that level of utility. I've long defended Force Field as a set pre-50, but in the end game it's in need of some serious buffs. -
Quote:Originally Posted by rsclark
Change is change. There is nothing superior about content requiring 16 people compared to content that you can do with 3-4. The idea that the numbers have to go higher to provide something new is short sighted and will very likely drive people away.
In my opinion you are making too much of it.
The way you need to be looking at these raids is like instanced versions of Hamidon or the Rikti ship raids. It is not a Task Force. In fact, if the "friend" who was mentioned by the OP paused to think about it, he'd realize that Lambda is a significantly paired down raid compared to what has come before. -
Well there are a variety of opinions on this issue. I'm not going to mince words on my opinion on it though. City of Heroes' individual buffs suck. They are a combination of "too useful not to cast" and "very short duration," resulting in what could be called the "kitchen timer strategy." That is to say, there is no strategy. You just reapply them every 3 minutes. What "balance" exists around it is essentially based on burn out.
Now I'll just sit around and wait for the inevitable "well I have to hit buttons to use my attacks, that's the same thing!" comment. I think this time I'll propose putting all toggle powers on 4 minute timers with root time just like Force Fields work. That would be lots of fun.
BTW, of the characters over 40 I have, 2 are Force Field, 2 are Thermal, 2 are Sonic Res, 1 is Cold Dom, 1 is Kinetics. Someone is going to ask "why do you play sets you don't like" but the answer is liking buffs is not the same as liking buff mechanics. Having an opinion about sets you actually have experience with should hold some weight, but that's not the way the boards work. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
You know, I've heard this argument when I bought it up before and I still do not buy it. Yes, when the MM buffs were made AoE the endurance cost was increased but I do not believe the two situations are synonymous.
MM Pet Upgrades last until the pet is killed. Increasing the endurance cost of the upgrades adds a strategic element to them. If a single pet dies and you resummon them you have to decide whether to upgrade them immediately, wait until more pets need upgrading or even hold off until the end of the mission. It also serves to decrease the effectiveness of mid-combat summons slightly nerfing MMs.
The same is not true of the shield buffs. They are on a 4 minute timer so even if someone dies you were planning to re-bubble them in less than 4 minutes anyway. This eliminates the strategic element of buffing replacing it with spend X seconds and Y endurance every 4 minutes.
I don't like saying "other games do this so we should to" but this is one case where I think it is valid. If you look at a certain other MMO the duration and ease of casting of buff powers have been steadily improving. In the current incarnation a single cast buffs everyone in your team for 1 hour and have a relatively small mana cost.
Now I can see strong arguments in this game against increasing the duration of such buffs, they are very powerful and should not persist for long after the buffer has left the team. However I do not feel that making them easier to use would break the game.
The way I see it repeatedly casting single target buffs on fellow players is not good gameplay, it's make-work. As for balance, the buffs are designed to be cast continuously on an entire team, making that easier to do is not going to break the balance. The powers are not (or at least should not be) balanced around being hard to use.
Of the 100% uptime ST buffs powers there are basically 3 categories:
1. Shields on 4 minute durations
2. Mez protection buffs on 60 or 90 second durations
3. Speed Boost
The shields I think should be changed to buff the team with a single cast, no question about it. The sets they are in are pretty much designed around having that buff up 100% of the time so make it easier to do.
Mez protection buffs I think are fine as is. I wouldn't object to them being easier to use but I also don't think it is necessary. Doing an occasional cast either preemptively or in response to mezzing seems reasonable for them.
Speed Boost I think needs nerfing. I would like to see it made easier to use as well but I think it needs nerfing even in it's current form.
In the past I've suggested that powers in the "always up" category (defined as FF, Sonic, Thermal, and Cold shields, and Speed Boost) auto-reset their duration if a person they are on touches the caster's big bubble, cold aura, or PBAoE heal. So, if you cast Speed Boost on someone, it would reset its duration each time they got healed by your Transfusion. If they run off, well, that's their perogative, and your choice whether to rebuff.
In any case, I agree something really ought to be done about FF, Sonic, and Kinetics. The first two are searching for a reason to exist, the latter is just a case of "balance by frustration." -
Never actually had a Very Rare drop, but have had enough Rares drop that I can build 1 Very Rare anyway. Lately I've been getting more and more Uncommons. I'm trying to remember if the times I got the Rares weren't BAF runs where I was assigned to deal with adds instead of the main bosses. Lately, when I've gotten Uncommons, I've been mostly on the "AV teams," but this could be coincidence.
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Quote:Originally Posted by BrandX
More fun isn't an incentive? Ran the first mission of the ITF at +4 last night, and I only lowered it to +1, so a few lower level teammates could hit things, but everyone on the PuG team was having fun.
I don't really thinkwe're disagreeing. I am fine with running +4 TFs. In fact, I think I've run with some of yours.
I just wish running them had a chance of dropping threads, so that running them at +0 wasn't "ideal" and as we acquire more and more new powers these TFs don't become the equivalent of farming Atlas Park. -
Quote:Originally Posted by BrandX
Could just raise the difficulty and run the TF, that's what I do.
I understand that. I just wish the game gave the incentive to do it that way. -
Just wanted to put this out there, even though it probably belongs in the "suggestion" forum. One thing I was pretty sure we'd be seeing in this issue before I actually saw what was in beta was the ability to earn Threads by running Task Forces at +4. That seems like a great way for us to have some expanded stomping grounds to try our new abilities, so I was a little surprised we're still encouraged to run at +0, and basically blow the TF away.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Local_Man
It is not the same . . . because ALL Tanks are in the exact same position as scrappers and brutes . . . since the escaping patients ignore aggro, you have to spend your time chasing down runners to do damage. But your secondary is Damage, and that is fully effective and, in fact, essential to a Tank's role in that part of the Trial.
Where this Trial is unique is that all other Controllers other than Illusion have powers beyond the single target and AoE holds that can control the minions. Only Illusion is unable to apply other control powers because Illusion's other control powers have been made invalid by the systems of the mission.
Are there any other places in the game where one particular powerset, but not an entire AT, has been made invalid?
And again the question is: so what? So what if one time Illusion isn't the best? Plenty of sets have this issue in various pieces of content. And Illusion is probably the last set in the entire game anyone need feel sorry for, as I'm sure you know. It is just kind of weird to me that you are focusing on Illusion's weakness in this one short part of a raid and hand waving the life time of shortcomings other sets face frequently, including this same raid.
EDIT: I think that came across harsher than intended. You and I have coexisted for a long time on the boards without significant turmoil, so I don't want to start any now. I just feel like what you are saying is basically what could be said about any number of sets, and also that any concern you have about the difficulty of this phase will largely go away once you have more experience with it.