Sarrate
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Quote:Objection!Originally Posted by Heraclea
It is a pretty absolute barrier to actually completing the mission; if that hold hits, and it always has a chance to, there's essentially nothing you can do, as the OP found out. I'd call that a bug.
I've soloed that mission as a Tanker before, so it cannot be an "absolute barrier." Hard? Yes. Might require inspirations? Sure. Unbeatable? Hardly.
It's working as intended, even if you don't like what the intended design was. -
Don't forget that the range floor is 25% normal range.
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QR
There are two reasons why Defenders are so hard to balance:
- Not only are their buffs/debuffs extremely large, but they also all stack with one another. Due to this, Defenders (and pretty much all buff/debuff ATs) over perform on teams. The mitigation and damage boosts they provide can completely outstrip what others can do. It doesn't take a team of 8 Defenders to trivialize content - that can be done with less. For example, with just two Cold Defenders, you get:
1) Soft capped defense for 6/8 memebers of the team.
2) +MaxHP buffs for 4/8 memebers of the team without slotting
3) Res to F/C/E and recharge debuffs
4) Significant recharge, damage, regen, and resistance debuffs along with knockdowns
5) Endurance recovery
6) -Special debuff
That's with just two Defenders. You could push it further by adding a Kin or Rad to the team. (There is also the possibility of making them Sonic Blast..)
A bit of an extreme example, yes, but illustration that you don't need 8 Defenders for things to get absurd really, really quick. - The second problem is the variability of their performance. The Defender primaries vary wildly compared to all other ATs. While the performance between Spines and Dark Melee is pretty wide, it doesn't hold a candle to trying to compare FF and Kin. Suppose the devs want Defenders to perform at X plus or minus 10; so between X-10 and X+10. If ther difference between the top performing and bottom performing Defender is 18, then there isn't a lot of wiggle room. (The ideal in that case would be X-9 and X+9.)
What does this have to do with damage?
If Defenders already overperform on teams due to their primary, then adding more damage would only do one thing: make them perfrom even better on teams, the exact place where Defenders don't need help because they're already overperforming. (Remember, not only are the Defenders increasing the damage of the team, they are increasing their own damage, as well.)
With the large difference in performance as it is, universally increasing their damage is far more likely to push some combination into "too high" territory.
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Having said all that, I do understand where the desire to have stronger attacks - when I first started playing, I thought Defenders would have attacks stronger than they had. However, given the current potency of Defender primaries, I don't think it would be a good idea. I think Corruptors have a better balance between offense and defense. They tend to solo better, don't multiply quite as much, but are still very useful on teams. Outside of diminishing returns on buffs/debuffs (which I don't want to see added) or reducing their strength, I don't see any universal increase to base damage to be wise. - Not only are their buffs/debuffs extremely large, but they also all stack with one another. Due to this, Defenders (and pretty much all buff/debuff ATs) over perform on teams. The mitigation and damage boosts they provide can completely outstrip what others can do. It doesn't take a team of 8 Defenders to trivialize content - that can be done with less. For example, with just two Cold Defenders, you get:
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Quote:Yet, I can't hate the power. In fact, it's one of the reasons I even made a /Rad Defender. I just love the aesthetics of that power - effectiveness be damned.Originally Posted by Fulmens
Neutron Bomb on a Defender. So impressive looking. So slow-to-arrive. So minimal-damage. . . for this you waited 34 levels?
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Quote:Sonic Resonance + Epic Shield is roughly 66% res to s/l, if you added Tough, it would cap them at 75%.Originally Posted by Ice_Ember
A sonic bubbler might benefit from it with an epic armor, but even then I think it would be a waste of endurance.
I've taken Tough on one squishy so far - my Kin/Sonic Defender. I was in melee and taking splash damage enough that is very useful when combined with an epic shield (also 66% res to s/l). The end cost isn't much of a concern either, since I have transference.
So I can conceive some squishies taking Tough. -
Quote:The difference in perspective may be with/without IOs. In some ways, I think the typed defense change (grouping up like typed def like s/l, e/ne, and making positional/typed def bonuses give half of the other, melee->s/l, etc) had a bigger impact on the perspective of Invuln than Castle's changes did.Originally Posted by Tenzhi
They've never seemed powerful enough to me.
Right now, you can make Invulns that have 90% s/l res, 30% res to exotics (sans Psi), and 45% def to all/most with one target in range. Between Invin's scaling def and their 50% def resistance, they can be hard to drop below. the softcap. With a build like that, I'd say Invuln is in the top 3 for survivability.
Of course, it's obviously not like that out of the box, which may be why your perspective differs.
I'd say this depends. Are you on a character with a typed def base (like Invuln)? Typed is better. Are you a squishy trying to build range/aoe def and Hover? Positional is better. Are you trying to make a farming character that has the most coverage for the least investment? Typed (s/l) def is probably the way to go.Quote:Originally Posted by SilverBullet_NA
Also as it stands positional is better than type defense
Typed def also seems to have lower slot investment (4 for s/l def in Kinetic Combat vs 6 in Touch of Death for melee) than positional.
I think they're decently balanced.
It'd be easy for me to say "defense is easy" considering how much I've dealt with it, but I think it can be pretty complicated. The unit of defense, for example, doesn't make much sense. Why is 45% def equal to 90% mitigation? Why is 45% defense twice as strong as 40% defense? Why is it even minor fluctuations in tohit / def debuffs can have such a wild impact on survivability? Why are tohit buffs better than accuracy (which isn't always true)? Etc.Quote:Originally Posted by Lohenien
Defense is pretty easy to understand (tohit - def) * (accuracy + accuracy buffs) = chance tohit. That is not needlessly complicated, infact it's not that different than most games that have tohit rolls : you roll and if you are better than the required amount , you land a hit.
If it was "easy," Arcanaville wouldn't have written a novel titled "Guide to Defense."
Hrmm, I don't agree. If you say that "Tanks are supposed to be so tough that the Fighting pool is unnecessary," then that will prompt other classes to do the same. Blasters are meant to deal damage, so they should deal enough that Hasten should be a waste for them.Quote:Originally Posted by Tenzhi
It shouldn't be common. It should largely be a waste to take them as a tank.
I don't like thinking about where that spiral leads. -
Quote:Minor nitpick - Mitos and Hamidon do "Special" damage. It's a damage type just like smash, lethal, etc, except that players don't have access to resistance for it - except via EoEs.Originally Posted by The_Masque
The yellow mitos do toxic damage with no position to them so there is no real 'defense' to their attacks You can bring EoEs but that seems kind of silly. I think what Voodoo and Des are describing is running into the goo then out into a group of rikti around a plyon. You will often see a huge blast that KBs(and sometimes kills) the rikti coming from the goo. I have always assumed it was hami shooting at you with a AoE type of attack, but I guess its the yellows. The great thing about doing this is that those rikti that survive will aggro on the mitos. This helps by reducing the aggro on the team (the rikti act as cannonfodder) and sometime they actually take down a mito or two with their attacks.
Green Mitos, however, seem to deal toxic damage. -
Quote:Wait a minute... it's okay for those problems suffered by Controllers/Blasters to be solved via Taunt, a power usable by Tankers, yet...Originally Posted by Heraclea
I'm not entirely unaware of the problems that the Romans pose to a controller, or the problem that a loose War Wolf poses for a blaster. Then again, that's what Taunt is for.
...it's unacceptable for a melee AT to use inspirations (solving the problem for themselves) or being buffed by other ATs? You don't find that a bit hypocritical?Quote:Originally Posted by Heraclea
I think it follows logically from this that just about any other damage dealing character would be preferable to have on a team than a scrapper for that fight. Claiming that the scrapper could use a bunch of inspirations or use a temp power ranged attack instead of his or her primary .... well, I think that makes my point for me, although it's apparently now established fact that I don't know what I am talking about.
I don't think people will argue with you here. The big issue I see with your argument(s) is that you're trying to convince us that it's not fair when it's demonstrable that these corner cases exist for all ATs.Quote:Originally Posted by Heraclea
The challenge I like is to shepherd more delicate characters through the content and bring them out of the cave and into the sunlight safe and sound. The challenge I don't like is anything that does not allow me to take that role.
It's one thing to say you don't like this type of content, it's entirely another to say it's broken. -
Quote:Keep in mind caging a tower isn't completely shutting it down, it's simply dropping its uptime to ~50%. A single Tower pulse lasts 15s, and the cage (if it's like Sonic's) lasts 30s. The Tower is pretty much guaranteed to get a single tick off when it first becomes uncaged since you can't recage something until cage drops.Originally Posted by Panzerwaffen
Don't forget that if a bubbler is along for the ride, they can use Detention Field (provided they were smart enough to take it) to keep one of the towers neutralized while the team works on the others.
Don't get me wrong, it's very useful and I love doing it on my Sonic - but it's not a 100% lockdown. -
Quote:Indeed! Was just making sure you weren't relying solely on Tactics, is all.Originally Posted by New Dawn
GJ Khelds get an insp tray too then aye.
Your heals again Recluse would be ineffective until the Orange Tower is down, since he'd have capped defense, leaving your tohit floored. On the plus side, you can drag Recluse over to a Tower and use it to heal from.Quote:Originally Posted by Sir_Foxbat
Has anyone tanked LR with a dark tank? I have a 50 dark/dark that's not completely IO'd out yet, and he got beat on pretty bad on the one ITF I did with him. Damn Romans have too much status protection, methinks. My OG was useless.
Anyway, judging from the above, he wouldn't need too many greens (DR and Siphon Life) and a bubbler or cold for DEF might be best.
Thoughts?
Having +def buffers would definitely be nice to have - to tank and spank him you need 75% defense to keep his tohit floored. I'd probably bring some oranges as well to keep your resistance up until the Red Tower goes down. (After that, you should probably be able keep yourself upright via heals and defense.)
Disclaimer: I don't have a DA Tank, but I have seen one tank Recluse. -
Quote:Not to burst your bubble, but Tactics alone will not budge you off the tohit floor while the Orange Tower is still active. You'd need about 98% worth of tohit buffs before it would even start increasing your tohit chance.Originally Posted by New Dawn
Well I did view the problems as other peoples threat levels and LRs perception range. I am going to need someone with tactics within 60ft of me. I don't like the glowing touch route, me on LR, one tohit buffing me from under 60ft and 6 taking down towers.
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Quote:Actually, Nihilli's best is 9 AVs at once - he has the fight recorded on his WeGame account (among others, such as his Shield/DM, Vhu, in action).Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
Full up AV's are what we're talking about, and there are indeed some melee builds that can take one down. I even know of someone who took down EIGHT AV's at once solo with a scrapper... admittedly they were handpicked AV's for the character. Do a search on the scrapper boards and you should find the thread about it.
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Quote:I don't think there is any issue with the STF. It's designed to be hard, but I've seen a plethora of different group makeups pull it off. My first ever STF, back before IOs or we even knew how it worked, comprised 3 Tankers, 1 Scrapper, 2 Blasters, 1 Controller (FF), and 1 Defender (FF). No debuffs, no toggle debuffs for Recluse. I've also been on an all Scrapper STF. It was messy, but doable.Originally Posted by Heraclea
Yes, that is fairly close to what I meant. (I doubt that a team full of controllers would "roll through" much of anything unless one was Kinetics. But they ought to be able to succeed at any task.)
I have always understood this to be a basic premise of this game's design philosophy and market strategy. No team should hit a brick wall because of the lack of a specific AT, much less a specific power set. Any mission where specific inspirations are part of the design of an encounter ought to be made available by the mission itself, the way the Eden trial works.
If these design decisions are in fact fundamental to the game, I think it follows that the STF is indeed broken.
Also, the STF isn't designed with specific inspirations in mind. Inspirations should be used to fill in the gap of what you and your team don't have. If you have FF or Colds on the team, purples may not be necessary. If you have therms or sonics, then oranges may not be necessary. There is no need to provide them inside the mission since they're so easily available elsewhere (Ouroboros). Heck, if you have the right team, inspirations may not be necessary at all. (I've almost gone through the entire TF without using a single insp. It was a stacked team, but just illustrating that they're not an absolute necessity.)
Just because other TFs can be brain-dead easy like Citadel doesn't mean that harder ones are broken. It just means you need to plan a bit, which I don't think is a bad thing.
Eat purples and deal damage would be my guess. Her hold [edit: and Dark Regen have] a 45s recharge, so she can't spam it. Depending on how fast you can kill her, it's not hard to imagine her hold never hitting.Quote:Originally Posted by Heraclea
What do they do?
(Please don't say "offtank the other AV(s) that got pulled along with GW.") -
Quote:Really?Originally Posted by PennyPA
The whole SF just doesn't seem right, almost like "Oops! We can't just add this to blue side only so better throw something together ASAP!!"
I always felt it was the other way around. The villain version has a badass cutscene, more unique missions, special powers only seen in this SF, and a unique encounter with Reichsman.
Hero side it's "do a bunch of missions then kill 5 AVs. (yawn)"
Don't get me wrong, the villain on can be far more annoying / buggy, but I feel they put a lot more time into that than the hero one. If you're on a team that can handle the encounter (and not wipe / spend 30 minutes clearing ambushes) it's a fun fight. -
Quote:Just to be clear, you think any combination of any ATs/powersets should be able to roll through any content without any preparation at all (such as buying/using inspirations)?Originally Posted by Heraclea
Within the context of this game I'd say that "preparation" and "team makeup" are the polar opposite to the qualities that make it unique and enjoyable among competing MMOs. All characters are supposed to be able to run all the content, and the lack of a debuffer, a buffer, a healer, a ranged or a melee attacker, or for that matter a tank aren't supposed to leave any team dead in the water.
The STF is not like that, and as such is a problem in the context of this game.
Am I misinterpreting what you said, or is that really what you meant? -
Quote:This hits most of the key info you need to know about the Recluse encounter. My tactics differ a little bit from CMA, but not significantly.Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
It's not that hard if you're prepared... given my choice I'd run my Invuln over my Granite tanker.
Here's the basics of what you'll need.
- While the blue tower's up you need 75% defense to floor his tohit chance... if you're built to the 45% soft cap that's slightly more than one large purple inspiration per minute.
- While the red tower's up he hits like a truck, so if you aren't at the 90% resistance cap to S/L/E then a couple of large orange inspirations per minute help lots.
- For those times when he gets lucky it's helpful to carry a few large green inspirations; particularly before the red tower dies.
Here's my basic strategy for LR, which if I'm solo tanking depends on my inspiration tray until the red & blue towers fall. First, my basic loadout:
10 large purple inspirations, 5 large orange inspirations and 5 large green inspirations. On a typical run I'll use 4-5 purples and a couple of oranges; usually one or two greens.
Ok, you've loaded up your tray and the team's ready. The towers should fall in this order - Red, Blue, Orange & Green. I pop a large purple and one large orange and jump into melee with LR; taunt goes on auto. One of the debuffers tosses a toggle debuff on LR to prevent him summoning Banes and I pull him into the back corner behind the green tower. I keep one purple and one orange active until the red tower falls, then I allow the orange to expire while keeping one purple up as the blue tower goes down. Once red & blue are down I'm home free and allow all insps to expire... if LR gets lucky I hit Dull Pain or pop a green.
As you're willpower you'll need to modify things somewhat; assuming you haven't built your defenses to the 45% soft cap you'll need enough purples to make up the difference and you may have more need of oranges. As hard as LR hits you won't be able to depend on your regen to keep up... two lucky shots in a row can easily drop you.
Another option of course is team buffs... if you have a sonic and a force fielder then life is easy... and you won't need the purple/orange insps. That's a rare occurrence though so don't base your strategy around it.
*) When I pull Recluse, I pull him around one of four the pillars around his plaza. I do this for two reasons. First, it breaks line of sight after I taunt him, forcing him to come to melee range without getting off many ranged shots. Second, if you start running low on inspirations, teammates can drop them onto you without the risk of being hit by his AoEs. When the team is down to the last tower, then I move him to where CMA mentioned. (The reason to move him into the corner is so that the team can drop aoe knockbacks (like Bonfire) to push his summons into the corner.)
*) I don't even bother with orange inspirations. For the first two minutes of the fight, I pop SoW - combined with Tough that's 90% s/l res and around 30% energy res (he almost never uses his ranged abilities in melee range, so this isn't a big concern). When SoW is about to drop, I'll use Magus for another minute of 90% s/l res. By the time it's dropping, the Red Tower is usually dead. (I have survived the Red Tower at 66% s/l res, but it's not preferable.) If the group takes longer than 3 minutes to kill the Red Tower, then I'd suggest bringing some oranges.
*) Monitor your defense. Recluse does have a few attacks with def debuffs (the ones where he uses his mechanical legs). If you're hit by those, it's possible for them to drop you below 75% def. If this happens, eat another purple.
The most important thing to do is hit 75% def to s/l/e, though.
The STF is probably my favorite TF in the game.Quote:Originally Posted by Heraclea
This, exactly --- which more or less raises the question as to whether the STF is broken and not much fun. (Ghost Widow is probably even more broken than Recluse is, and the entire design is even more unfair to scrappers than it is to tankers.) -
Quote:iSeeWhatYouDidThereOriginally Posted by Xaphan
I'm gonna start calling them iLevels. Who's with me?
(For those who don't, ilevel is a term used in wow to describe relative item strength - "Item Level.")
(It's also entirely possible that this is a coincidence, but it doesn't amuse me any less if so.) -
Quote:It's entirely possible, but the builds required to do so will be a lot tighter than they would be for Scrappers, imo. Aside from damage constraints, Tankers also have a much lower DPE than Scrappers, so end reduc / recovery will be critical.Originally Posted by je_saist
Right off hand, somebody was pulling your leg when they told you a tank can big/game hunt.. Numerically, I'm not sure it's possible without temporary powers such as Shivan's or the Bio-Nukes.
Also, the Tanker sets that can do it will be more limited than Scrappers, not to mention with AVs will be killable.
One of the reasons Controllers / Corruptors / Defenders / Masterminds can "big game hunt" is that they have powers that can lower a targets regeneration rate. Tanks, Brutes, Scrappers, and Stalkers don't get such debuff's.
1) While I don't know for sure, I highly doubt that AV regen was designed to stop *melee* ATs. It's far more believable that it was set high to make them harder to kill for everyone, teams included. Remember, their regen was originally set higher - it was near impossible to kill them without 500% irresistible regen debuffs.The problem with balancing based on regen is AV life expectancy can fluctuate rapidly depending on the dps they take and regen debuffs. Place a low dps team with no buffs/debuffs vs an AV and it will take forever. Now take a high dps team with regen debuffs and the AV will be a speed bump.Quote:Originally Posted by je_saist
The regeneration rate on AV/GM's is supposed to be set intentionally high as to be out of range of the melee damage types... and for the most part against SO's, it is. As far as I'm "aware" Fire / Shield scrappers and Brutes are among the only melee classes that can generate the DPA/DPS required to overcome AV/GM regeneration on a consistent basis.
I suspect (but don't know for sure) this is why some of the newer enemies (like Reichsman) we've fought have had so much hp - it can set a higher minimum time to kill.
2) If you're counting IOs, there are far more Scrapper combinations that can solo AVs than Fire/Shield. Off the top of my head, I've seen the following combinations work: Fire/Shield, DM/Shield, DM/SR, DM/Invuln, Kat/SR, Kat/Regen, Claws/Regen, DB/Invuln, DB/WP... hmmm, there are probably others, too. Some combos may not be able to take down some AVs (Diabolique / Nemesis are two of the tougher ones, iirc), of course.
Bingo. Building an AV soloer (assuming no temp powers / inspirations) is a very precise thing. It's generally not "get X% recharge, Y end/sec recovery, and Z% regen and you're good to go." It's a careful balancing act that will vary from build to build. It's also pretty common for AV soloers to give up other things to do it (such as AoEs, since they don't really help vs AVs).Quote:Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
Three things you'll need to solo an AV.
- The ability to output a sustained attack chain dealing over 95dps just to equal an AV's regeneration... realistically 120dps or better unless you want to be at it all night.
- Enough recovery/end reduction to sustain that attack chain indefinitely... if you're pushing 120dps you'll be dealing 25 damage per second to the AV after his regen is accounted for... and AV's have 40k + hit points. You'll need to pound on them for long periods of time. Unless you can go full out without your end bar moving you'll probably fall short.
- The ability to survive an AV's attacks unassisted indefinitely... several tankers can handle this easily.
Note: I've never made an AV soloing build, however. They're too precise and mechanical for me.
Minor Nitpick: A lvl50 AV has around 28k hp, not 40k+.
GMs are essentially unsoloable ATs without regen debuffs. AVs can be pulled off because their regen (hp/sec) is low enough to allow it. Last time I checked, lvl50 GMs regen around 300 hp/sec. Even the best possible Scrappers can't reach that, let alone beat it by a large enough margin to defeat them.Quote:Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
Some GM's might be doable by scrappers but it'd take a really optimal build; those suckers have double the HP of an AV and consequently higher regen. I'm not sure any tanker builds could hack it due to lower DPS. -
Quote:Aww.Originally Posted by Mental_Giant
I spoke with Posi at the Meet and Greet about 1 to 50 content in Praetoria, and it sounds like it won't happen sooner than I20, and probably not then, either. For now, the four zones we have are the 1-20 content. Except for the first level of Incarnate content in GR, I don't expect there to be any 20-50 content in Praetoria.
While I'm still looking forward to the Incarnate system, I was hoping it would be a bit more complete for Going Rogue. I had a sneaking suspicion it might not be due to the timing of when we heard Posi had moved on from Lead Designer, but I was still crossing my fingers.
Now I can't wait for more information about Incarnates, from GR or I19. -
Quote:You learned how to play Impy Three effectively?Originally Posted by Satanic_Hamster
The unthinkable has happened!
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Quote:I've thought about it some more, and I think I was only partially correct when I said "saturate the market."Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Sarrate,
I can't seem to agree that allowing the removal of all enhancements from a build to either store or sell would be anything but a good thing.
I'm not groking the whole "saturating the market" thing. As you state, I can do it now, but it costs me three respecs and the horrific waste of time that this is.
Instead, it would cost me one respec and waste far less time.
If this is possible now, why isn't the market saturated?
Granted, as always, I'm looking at it through my admittedly narrow field of vision. I have TWO characters with lots of setIOs. At best, my change would let be dump out all the basic IOs I have on character C and give them to character D.
What this would do would be to lower the demand on the market. Demand goes down, prices go down, newer, poorer players can start affording some of the better stuff.
Seem like a win/win to me.
Disclaimer: I'm not a marketeer at all. I don't find economics fun and spend as little time thinking about it as possible, so anything I say about the market is to be taken with a grain of salt (and hopefully corrected).
So, a character with leveling IOs respeccing would go from saving 10 IOs (they probably won't want to burn respecs to save cheap leveling IOs) to saving ~60ish. That's 50 more per character. I can think of two effects.
First, it would increase the rate of power creep. With IOs becoming more common, characters would have access to more of them, and thus be more powerful than they would normally be. Yes, you can do that now, but it takes more effort (time/money). To be honest, I usually don't franken slot characters. It would make them more effective, but I'm just not big on it. On the other hand, if I knew I could save all those to use on my next alt, I'd have a much bigger incentive. In this case, flood the market, it would flood the market.
Second, with them being more common, people would be burning less inf on the cheap IOs. This would be a reduced money sink / destroyer. Players would likely be wealthier due to the change. Side effect: the "high cost" recipes would likely still be expensive. Why? People will burn multiple respecs to save them now, so I don't think the supply would change that much. However, with players having more money, guess what would happen to the price? It would go up.
Remember when "expensive" purple recipes were 100 mil? What has changed? People have more money now. We now have at least one IO (PvP +3% def) that will sell for over 2 billion. I bet this would increase the price of the highly desirable recipes. (ie: not saturate the market)
End result? Lower bar to entry, higher bar to the "good stuff."
(I know I'm missing something else and/or not being clear. I'm a bit distracted atm.)
Hmmm, I probably wouldn't. I don't mind having to use a respec to get IOs out, I think it's an acceptable cost (and very useful). I just wish I didn't have to burn X respecs all at once in order to adapt.Quote:Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
Would you trade the ability to pull IOs out of a build at minimal cost for making set-IOs bind on equip ?
I don't think story has a large role in making things "bound," it would more be a "balance" reason.Quote:Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
So, story-wise, the whole respec process is, for lack of a better word, fooey. -
Quote:Just to make sure, when you say "removal and storage", do you mean remove from the character and stored in base bins, etc? If so, I think that'd be problematic as mentioned above - it would saturate the game with them.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Allow removal and storage of all enhancements during respec. Note: Available enhancements slots = number of slots in build.
It does give me an idea, though...
Character Enhancement Storage
Every character would have enhancement storage separate from the normal 10 slots. This storage would be equal to the number of slots your character currently has. When you place enhancers into the storage they cannot be removed without cost. (More on that in a second.) You can use enahncers stored here to slot at any time.
During a respec, you man opt to place enhancers from your build into storage. For example, if you want to change 30 enhancers during a respec, you could pull 10 off during a respec, then place 20 into storage.
If you wanted to remove enhancers from storage, you'd have to pay to do so - such as burning a respec.
How is that different from now? If I want to save 30 enhancers, I'd have to use 3 respecs with the new system just as I do now!
This is true, but the current system is binary. You either have (and use) 3 respecs back to back in order to respec into your new build, or you don't and you're stuck in limbo. (You lose the enhancers, or you can't get the build to the state you want it.)
With this system, however, you'd still need to use just as many respecs as before, but you could do so over time. You could immediately respec and bank the unwanted enhancers, then pull them out when you get a lucky respec recipe drop, or a freespec, etc. (This is my biggest gripe with respeccing now, actually: it's all or nothing.)
Since it has a maximum size, you can't just stuff things into it indefinitely, etiher.
The more I think about it, the more I like that idea. Can you guys see any flaws in such a system that would need to be worked out?
After I typed all the above I realized it would basically be this, except it wouldn't require you have a second build just for storage with the right powers to hold all the IOs you're [edit: storing]. :PQuote:Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Allow transfer of enhancements between builds. (Move not copy)
Right, I should've labeled it as an example of a bad idea. It sounds reasonable at first pass, but when you think of the details and how to exploit it, it becomes clear why it shouldn't be considered.Quote:Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
This would also REALLY screw with the market. Basically you could run some AE, spend the tickets on Bronze rolls (already a good deal) craft the non-valuable uncommons pretty cheaply (since few of them need rare salvage). Slot those in your second build and then when it's full respec for the merits. Since uncommons are 50-75 merits each that is several thousand merits. You'd have to make it reward a fraction of the merit cost of each recipe for it to be even somewhat balanced. -
I'm sure this is something that is on a lot of people's minds right now with the announcement of the BotZ change. While related and worth discussing, I'm not sure starting a conversation on it was appropriate for Castle's thread.
When respecs were introduced, builds weren't that complicated; it was pretty much just SOs and HOs. How you slotted one power generally didn't ripple through your entire build, even in full HO builds. For example, when GDN hit, players in a full HO build would still be using Nuccleouses in their attacks. The fact that their defenses were downgraded didn't change their slotting. They may have decided to opt out of some attacks to stack more mitigation, but they still slotted defensive powers the same. (Note: I said GDN, not ED.)
Now, when a power, IO, set bonus, etc, is changed, it can ripple through the entirety of the build. In the case of BotZ, players lost defense, and in order to get that back they may need to change slotting in other completely unrelated powers - for example swapping from Hecatomb to Mako's Bite for more ranged defense. This change would effect their global recharge and enhancement value in the power. It can very quickly cascade into a half new build.
The current respec system doesn't handle this very well. The interface is very clunky, slow, and hard to correct a mistake. (Oh, I accidently took the wrong power at lvl6, now I have to back out of all of my changes.) There is the QoL aspect of it filling your trays with temp powers.
The point I'd like to talk about, however, is saving enhancements. As I said above, when builds were simpler, adapting to changes took shuffling less enhancements than now. As a player, it's easy to say "we should be able to unslot more enhancements at once, say 20, 30, or all of them!" That'd definitely take the sting away, no question, but it would have the side effect of saturating the game with them.
Consider this scenario: A player is leveling up a character and frankenslots them with IOs. Upon hitting lvl50 they respec and use a build utilizing set bonuses. Now they have 20, 30, or X of their old IOs. Next time they start an alt, they have that many more IOs to use to frankenslot. Or consider someone respeccing from an old IO build to a new, stronger one. Previously they'd have to decide which handful of IOs they wanted to keep or whether it'd be worth it to use multiple respecs. The more enhancements you can save between respecs, the more will be saved. Eventually, the game would become saturated with IOs. (This is the reason that mechanisms like "Bind on ___" were created. It's an attempt to: *prevent rampant power inflation and *preserve item value. We have a soft "Bind on ___" with only being able to save 10 enhancements per respec.)
So we're in a bit of a pickle. Right now builds can be very sensitive to even minor changes, but it wouldn't be wise to just allow players to swap IOs casually. Since locking powers/sets/etc from being changed isn't an option, what do you think a good idea to make respeccing easier would be? Try to list possible problems if you can.
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Example: Convert unsaved IOs into Merits
(Stolen from Castle's BotZ thread, forgot who suggested it, sorry)
Good: This allows players to adapt to new changes without keeping everything. (They'd still need to pay for salvage / crafting.)
Bad: Heavily exploitable. Slot a character with a lot of cheap, crappy sets, respec to get merits, use merits to buy more expensive/powerful recipes.
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So, what do you guys think would be both a palatable and appropriate compensation for respeccing in the world of IOs?
(Pardon the wall of text.) -
Quote:All I could think of when I read this was the final scene of Pulp Fiction (which is probably intentional).Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
Yeah, it's cool, Penny. Be cool.
I think the set was too strong from the moment I saw it, so the readjustment doesn't surprise me. I do understand the frustration of redoing builds due to the change, however. (I'm personally only using it as a 2 piece in one build, and even then I was using it for some low hanging energy / neg energy def, not even positional, so it doesn't impact me much at all.) -
Quote:Okay, that's what I thought you meant after reading your original post 2/3 times (my first pass I was still operating under the popular = best mindset), just wanted to make sure I wasn't misinterpretting your intent.Originally Posted by BeyondReach
When I say best, I mean a certain quality of superiority that is difficult to define without in-depth analysis. That is, almost everything can contribute to an MMORPG being the best, excluding perhaps the community. You may argue against that, but in the end the community is something the makers of the game can't control, and the game is what defines an MMORPG, in my opinion. But no, not the most popular. Out of the MMORPGs I have played, there is one that stands out for me today that is the best, and that has one of the lowest populations of any MMORPG out there. Heck, few people will have even heard of it.
I don't think that skill is easy to overlook, rather, the bar to competence is lower. When someone is playing horribly wrong, you can't really overlook it. However, it doesn't take too much to not raise eyebrows. You may think that's similar, but I don't think so.Quote:Originally Posted by BeyondReach
Skill as a factor is shockingly insignificant in games with click-it powers in comparison to games that are pure skill. It's still there, I agree with you. It's just something that's easy to overlook.
It's also interesting because games with "push-it powers" can incorporate other game aspects to make them more skill based. For example, a common mechanic in WoW is "don't stand in fire." Bosses put hazards on the ground and you have to move out of it. It has absolutely nothing to do with pressing power buttons and more with reaction speed and situational awareness - things you'd see in a skill based game. (There are more examples, but I won't bore anyone with the details.)
I won't argue that "real" skill based games require more skill to play well, but I think you're underplaying the signifigance of skill in standard MMOs.
The main thing that I think lowers the bar for skill is gear. In a game like Counter Strike, everyone has access to the same weapons, so it comes down to who can use a weapon better. In an MMO with gear, people with better equipment have a much larger advantage over those who don't. They deal more damage, can take more abuse, etc. (There can be an equalizing factor in PvE when there are subsequently more difficult encounters to devalue the gear. On the other hand, it acts as a limiter for people who really know how to play but aren't gear well enough to handle the harder content.)