Revolver_Law

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The perfect gimp storm


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AR/dev is gimp? When did this happen. Did I miss a memo?

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Yes you did.

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You guys need to address this on the micro not macro level, set by set.

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Agreed. You're not going to fix any of these problems by changing this global variable or that global variable - it'll just overpower the sets that are doing well already.

Take the time and test the builds in question. There's no need to try and change the entire system when there isn't a need to. Buff the sets and builds that need it, leave the rest as it already is.

Is it possible to grant a bonus to a primary when used with a specific secondary? If so then you could provide a bonus to those who play AR/Dev to make-up for the lack of BU, Aim and the enormous drawback of lethal damage. You could give those who play Dev an inherent damage buff to make up for not having BU.

The need to always change everything when it's not necessary boggles my mind.

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The first is a tremendous amount of work, which should probably be done at some point. I'd guess it would take me a full 5 weeks to do.

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The problem isn't exactly new. Ask Statesman why it hasn't been done yet - we've only been bringing it to his attention for a year now.

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The second requires new design, new code and would probably mean a direct nerf to all Negative Energy, Fire, and Cold attacks, since those resistance types are less common than Smashing, Lethal, Energy and Psionic. That means it would be unpopular with a large percentage of the playerbase. The third, and short term easiest version involves tweaking individual powers of effected sets -- which would almost certainly nerf some powers, buff others and cause a whole slew of new imbalances.

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So in other words, the game has been balanced around sets that players have been saying were broken since I3? I4? This is what happens when the word "soon" gets thrown around when it comes to actually getting things working the way they're supposed to be.

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A great example is the Assault Rifle Smashing/Lethal damage being overly resisted complaint. It is, however, a much more pandemic problem than just AR. Claws, Katana, Super Strength, Ice Blasters to a lesser extent, Mace, Axe and Broadsword all have the exact same complaint (I might have missed a couple, this was off the top of my head.) That means, it is something that needs to be addressed globally, and is not an AT specific issue.

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I have to disagree. Other ATs with the lethal/smash problems all have ways to mitigate incoming damage - Blasters do not. My Claws Scrapper has zero difficulty due to lethal damage because he's not in such a hurry to kill. He's able to stand toe-to-toe while my Blaster is forced to kill quickly because he can't manage incoming damage. This is why the lethal problem is so huge - it henders a Blaster's ability to kill quickly, thus increasing the chance of death.

I can't remember the last time I've had anybody I know who plays an SS Tank (or Brute for that matter) complain about lack of damage. In fact if you read most of the threads concerning SS, it's about the enormous amount of damage they are able to do - not a lack thereof.

The only melee AT that has problems with smash/lethal is Mace, I know this from personal experience.

Also let me add that I'm in total agreement with Concern about one specific thing: The snide question about us having a thread with our complaints. There have been more than enough of these threads posted since 2004 without a single Dev response. Players have spent hours testing and posting numbers that prove Blaster powersets are broken. Those types of threads are not uncommon in this forum and it's in very taste to even make a remark that suggests otherwise.

This was originally posted in October in this thread. It's had over 8000 views and over 200 responses - none of which came from a Dev.

After reading threads in the Training Room forum, as well as tons of threads in the Blaster forum over the past week or so, I've created this thread to address the bigger and more gamebreaking aspects of not only the individual Assault Rifle and Devices sets, but also the use as a cohesive build.

I'd like to make it known, this is not an opportunist attempt to get sets I like buffed. This is however an attempt to fix major problems with two sets and one build that have had problems for quite some time and are even worse with ED.

The only thing I ask is that Geko read this thread and seriously take into account what has been posted.

Assault Rifle
For the most part, the individual powers in this set are fine so I won't go into the whole power-to-power breakdown. The main disadvantage has always been that 6 out of 8 the damage dealing powers are highly composed of Lethal/Smashing damage which is the most commonly resisted damage type(s) in the game. Many mobs in PvE resist it and everybody in PvP has some type of armor that give substantial resists.

ED has magnified this problem by limiting how effective attack powers can be from a damage standpoint. While damage type was important before ED, it's huge after. With damage now limited via enhancements, someone doing Energy, Fire, or Cold damage has become substantially more dangerous than someone using Lethal/Smash damage.

Yes, every primary and secondary should have some type of weakness. Ice lacks AOE, Fire lacks single target, Energy lacks AOE on the scale that Fire and AR has, etc. However, AR's smash/lethal weakness is far too much.

In the past there have been many solutions thrown around. The list below are a few that I've remembered:

[*]Armor Piercing Rounds - The most common solution, probably because it's the best one. The idea is to give the Assault Rifle primary an inherent ability that makes a percentage of it's damage unresisted. I'd say a fair number would be 20-25% unresisted for lethal/smash single target attacks and 15% unresisted with a chance to crit for 20% on random mobs for lethal/smash AOEs. With this system, Flamethrower does not get buffed nor does Ignite because they are Fire damage based attacks.
[*]Add a fire or energy component to some attacks. - An uncommon solution, but a feasible one. The idea to is to overcome the weakness by splitting a purely lethal or purely smash damage attack into an attack that is part lethal or smash and part energy (or fire).

So as an example, an attack that does purely lethal damage would become a lethal/energy attack. Say, 65% lethal and 35% energy. This could easily be RP'd as the gun firing bullets so fast they begin to generate energy or heat up rapidly en route to the target - or just say the gun adds the component.

For attacks that have both lethal and smash components, it could either be split into a 40%/40%/20% split - where the 20% is the energy (or fire) component. The other option is to completely drop the either the lethal or smash component and replace it with energy (or fire).

Admittedly, I'm not a math person so the numbers could be way too high or way too low. I'm sure somone will let me know soon enough.
[*]Criticals. - Here, the idea is to offset the lethal/smash with a chance to do critical damage. The difference would be instead of having a higher chance to crit on LTs and Bosses like Scrappers do, an AR Blaster would have a higher chance to crit on minions, which keeps it in theme with Blasters who have lots of AOE as the "minion killers".

I personally don't like this idea, simply because it treads on Scrapper territory too much for my liking.[/list]
Devices
The main beef most players have right now is with Targetting Drone - the issue being that TD allowed players to six-slot their attacks with damage, enabling them to do 33% more damage with each attack. The cost of this was no Build-Up, which players were able to accept. However with ED, six-slotting for damage is no longer a realistic practice, making any /Devices Blaster underpowered compared to their counterparts who have a secondary with Build-Up.

At first people like me said, "Well since we won't have to slot for ACC, we can use slots for recharge - problem solved." However this doesn't work out that well since we end up spending a lot more endurance just in a attempt to keep pace with other Blasters who have Build-Up. In this case the global end cost redux gets offset.

From Geko:
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Targeting Drone does offer a perception bonus. The short and long help, as well as the buff icon describes this. Perhaps you have not tested all of the changes very thoroughly.

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If perception has been added, I hope that it's not "token" perception. By that I mean a small perception bonus whose only purpose is to say, "Targetting Drone has a perception bonus now". Please let it be a bonus that's actually useful. Tactics, a pool power, can see through Superior Invisibility - so I'd hope Targetting Drone, a power in a secondary powerset is at least as powerful in the perception area as Tactics.

However, increased perception doesn't solve the damage problem for /Devices Blasters. Since the majority will only be adding three damage enhancements in their attack powers, /Dev Blasters are missing a +99% (if my math is correct) buff that the other enhancements would've given.

Possible Solutions: While Cloaking Device is active (toggled on and not suppressed) give the Blaster a damage buff. When CD becomes suppressed, lessen the damage buff by a third. This still makes /Dev Blasters feel the affects of ED without completely getting rid of one of the advantages the set provides. Also, it makes Cloaking Device substantially different from Stealth - another issue which Devices has had for an extended time is that besides a small movement penalty easily offset by Sprint (an inherent power) and CD keeping it's very minor defense while suppressed, there was no major difference between the two. This solves that.

RP for this could be you get a jump on your opponent or the actual device feeds the Blaster extra energy or something to that effect.

Another major issue is the Trip Mine power. In it's current form, it either an "alpha strike" power or a power used for traps. The problem is, the damage is so meager now that it really isn't that affective anymore in either role.

As a toggle dropper in PvP, it's greatly ineffective unless you take a pool power.

Possible Solution: Greatly reduce the interrupt time so that Trip Mine can be used in the heat of battle. It is substantially weaker now, thus it shouldn't take as long to set.

Possible Solution: Add a moderate DoT to any mob caught in the mine's blast AOE.

From Geko:

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I am taking a look at the Turret to see if it needs some love.

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Thank you - it's needs a lot of love. A lot.

From Geko:

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Smoke grenade does suppress your stealth, but it does not alert the mob of your presence. So if you throw it while you are cloaked, they will not see you if you are more than 45' away. I suggest throwing it and then turning on your cloaking device.

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Allowing us to slot range enhancements in Smoke Grenade would be great. As it is, we have to inch closer and closer to make sure we're on the "edge" of it's range - often times getting too close.

Also reducing the base recharge of CD would make your suggestion more feasible. As it now, it would save time to just wait out the suppression.

The Assault Rifle/Devices Build
Taking a look at the problems these individual sets have, imagine how bad they are when used together after ED. This is one of the more popular builds in the game, simply off concept alone and it's horrible.

I have my original AR/Dev post saved in Notepad at home, I'll paste it when I get back.

I'll celebrate when things get fixed. Been down this road before.

EDIT: Nothing personal Castle.

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Has anyone thought of pm'ing Castle and seeing if he would look into some of our concerns?

Things like:
archery
/devices
electric end drain
defiance
and others I haven't listed?

Maybe we could trick ..er... coerce ...er... persuade him to look into a few things for us.

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I PM'd him about AR/Dev and he's been keeping me updated when QA may be able to start testing. They're swamped with I7 right now.

I've found the only Dev that you can depend on for an answer is Castle. Anything posted by other Devs I usually label "[censored]" until it actually happens.

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I want to thank those few people who have posted data like States wanted however I think all the fighting has drowned it out. I barely noticed the data since I just started skimming through everything since most of the posts were useless.

It's been over 100 posts and 24 hours since States posted without another word from him. I think our chance to get something done is over.

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He wasn't going to post in here again - that's the point.

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Is that working as intended??

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Do you really want that answered?

I have very little faith anything will ever get fixed. They've played the same [censored] game with this ATs community over and over again. If they had any type of commitment to fixing Blasters they'd be posting more actively to at least let us know they give a damn. They post here no more than five times a year. To even get them to speak on Blasters before I5 launched there were 200+ threads of people posting about their Blasters (some good, most bad).

The Devs have never given this community any reason to have hope that they're going to fix anything.

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You've seen no such evidence because we're ignored

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First off, what does being ignored have to do with someone posting or not posting this problem exists with a post date of pre-I6.

Second off, I think that people feel they are ignored because you can't give everyone personal attention. Or if you do, it won't be worth while personal attention. Think about how many people there are. There is no way to address everyones concerns on an individual basis. And the fact remains that issues have been addressed and changed because of player feedback.

Look, I am not trying to defend anyone here. I am not a friggin fan boy or whatever you guys call any oposing view. In fact I don't even concider myself an oposing view. I don't even think you understand my main point here (in all fairness, I guess I have a few.) When valid bugs come up, we should not drown them out with complaints about the power itself and we should put a stop to this Us against Them mentality. Again, that last statement was not a defence against "Them", it was a simple statement that perpetuating that kind of mentality is counter productive at best.

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Whose asking for person attention? I've been asking them fix a broken build for months. I've been asking them to fix lethal damage for around a year. Thing is, they don't say "No there's nothing wrong", they say things like "We're looking into it" or "We've received various complaints and we will investigate" - leading those concerned to the conclusion that they actually give a damn, which they don't.

When valid bugs they should be fixed and gurantee you this bug will not be fixed because it's anything that hasn't been reported and ignored before.

Maybe you just need to see it first hand. You'll have plenty of opportunity to do so.

You've seen no such evidence because we're ignored. Statesman does the same thing he did in this thread. He pops in, gives a little [censored] lip service and doesn't come back.

I've been PMing him since October about how ED completely screwed over AR/Dev. It's not mid-January and he sends me a PM saying they'll look into it "eventually" - that's the exact word he used. I asked him specifically about it both times he came to Philly and he told me face to face he was going to test it himself. Yet it hasn't happened.

Only recently have my posts become angry, because frankly I'm tired of being strung along when something needs to get fixed, yet the second something has a chance of being slightly overpowered it gets the hammer ASAP.

So yea I'm pissed and this whole knockback fix didn't help the situation either.

It's up to me to do nothing. You are not someone that I need to prove anything to. How many people have to tell you that you're wrong before you accept it? The Devs are not the angels you clearly want to make them out to be. They've treated the Blaster community like [censored] since launch and it hasn't changed.

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You should really do some homework before posting.

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See post right after yours...

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And my point still stands.

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Defiance was before I6.

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yes, but I assert that this bug did not exist before I6.

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You should really do some homework before posting.

Defiance was before I6.

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Instead of wasting time and energy arguing about how bad defiance is, someone please go test it and post your results (maybe some screen shots).

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It's been done.



Many times.



They don't care.

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Doublechecked Defiance - and its working for us (internally and on live). Can anyone give more details about this issue?

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if range = defense as you've stated, then why are we getting buffs when we're getting the crap kicked out of us? the point is to stay at range to increase our survival, yet we get a "bonus" for taking a beating. that's the problem with defiance. that, and by the time it's reached a meaningful level, we're dead anyway. i mean, it kinda makes sense for a defender's inherent to be based on team health, since they are to protect the team, but why do blasters have to get the daylights beaten out of them to see a meaningless bonus?

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LOL

Not that I think the situation is funny, but the way your worded that was great.

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What you don't get is "working as intended" and "not working as intended" have always been the phrases used as an excuse to leave something alone or to nerf it.

The community would have more respect for the Devs if they just came out and said,

"When we added this, X power had to be adjusted because of this, this and that"
or

"Due to player ability to exploit/PL/whatever, we've had to adjust X power"

instead of saying

"It was never working as intended"

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This is where your argument falls apart. I get what the quoted statement here says. However, that's rarely the implication of the players complaining.

"Working as intended," nominally, means that the ability is, strangely, working as it's intended. I think what bothers players most is that they don't want to hear that it's working how they meant it to. What they want to hear is how, exactly, that is, because they can't seem to justify some of their anecdotal evidence.

I've often found that this is at the core of player complaints about that phrase...the core issue being that they don't know what was "intended" in the first place... It's quite common in the internet community to completely fabricate numbers and "evidence" in the absense of knowing what that "intended" was...

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So now you're saying when proof is given it's fabricated? - Wow, you're reaching there aren't you?

Why should players not now a power is supposed to work? We only get to choose X amount of them, why shouldn't someone be informed on exactly how it's supposed to work?

I hate to throw this word around, but due to your total lack of reasoning and common sense you're sounding more and more like a fanboy with every post.

AR/Dev was far from overpowered pre-ED. Smoke Grenade was still useless, Cloaking Device was still no better than Stealth, Trip Mine was still buggy, Auto Turret still sucked.

ED compounded all these problems when we were no longer able to 6-slot damage enhances in our attacks to make up for the lack of Build-Up.

Please don't even try to get into with me on AR/Dev - it's not an argument you're going win.

As for the other secondaries, /Energy is far and away more useful than other secondary Blasters have available to them. That's fact.

Also, not everybody plays a FOTM. You really think I've been giving the Devs hell about AR/Dev for the past 3-4 months (and about Lethal damage in general way before then) because my FOTM got nerfed? If I or anybody else played a FOTM that got nerfed we'd move on to the next build - that's what people who play FOTMs do. They don't make post after post proving the set or build is broken, they just role up the new uber build.

A mass amount of people stopped playing AR/Dev when the Smoke Grenade bug was fixed. Same when Burn was nerfed.

If/when Hurricane get nerfed, I gurantee you'll see less stormies. Same thing with a few other builds I'm not going to mention cause I don't like to nerf herd.

All secondaries aren't meant to the be same, but they're supposed to be equally affective - and the current state is far from that.

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It's not that /dev can't do fun things with tripmine (if the /dev in question took it), it's that it takes a long time to set up and most teams won't wait for you. You also can't 100% predict where mobs will run to and in what #'s and how closely they'll be together when they go towards mines.

But with aim+buildup (or just buildup) you get an instant damage buff that allows you to put out a lot of burst damage very fast with a significant accuracy buff, and because you're using your regular attacks, you can aim those attacks wherever you want to.

It's just easier/faster/more convenient to use buildup rather than mines, and on teams that are moving fast particularly.

And then there's the lack of significant self buffs and melee attacks in /dev.

If you think /dev is uber, try Fire/Eng on any team. I mean sheesh!

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I see what you're saying, but fun - at least in my eyes - is being on par with other Blasters. I have a whole thread about this so I'm not going to get into here.

I'll just say, AR/Dev's days of being equal with other Blaster builds are over and have been for quite some time.

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Simply put "Working as Intended" usually isn't synonymous with "working the way the players think"...

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Yet whenever something is working fine, it's wasn't "working as intended" and gets nerfed.

Funny how that works.

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"Working fine" to a player, as has been evidenced here and in other games, is rarely the same as "working correctly".

I mean...players thought that burn tankers powering through a field of +15 purples to PL people was "working fine". Sure...but it still wasn't right.

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What you don't get is "working as intended" and "not working as intended" have always been the phrases used as an excuse to leave something alone or to nerf it.

The community would have more respect for the Devs if they just came out and said,

"When we added this, X power had to be adjusted because of this, this and that"
or

"Due to player ability to exploit/PL/whatever, we've had to adjust X power"

instead of saying

"It was never working as intended"