SpittingTrashcan

Can you clarify what you mean by sub-50 recipes? Are we talking about recipes from brackets that don't go to 50, or are we talking about recipes in brackets that go to 50 that are not themselves level 50? Because I have a keen interest in level 41-44 Crushing Impacts (read: outstanding bids). And, for that matter, level 29 Basilisk Gazes.

As for things that lack both demand and supply, it's not possible for me to tell whether those things are truly unwanted or whether those who want them have just given up on obtaining them through the market. The devs, on the other hand, can look at what's doing a brisk trade at the Merit store regardless of exorbitant prices.

So what would the expected result be of a roll system where you can choose the max level of the recipes you receive, but not the level bracket you draw from? That is, one where you can choose to roll at "level 41", and then receive recipes from any bracket 41 or below? Would the merit cost of random rolls need to be adjusted? And as a side note, would adjusting the merit cost of random rolls be helpful regardless?

Off the cuff quick fix:
* Bloody Bay: One of the meteors can only be scanned by villains. One can only be scanned by heroes. To get a Shivan, you must knock at least one shard off someone from the opposing faction.
* Warburg: One of the launch codes can only be obtained by villains. One can only be obtained by heroes. To get a nuke, you must knock at least one launch code off someone from the opposing faction.

There, now they're PvP rewards.

The problem is that the intent of the design and the consequences of the design do not necessarily have anything to do with each other. Bloody Bay and Warburg may have been designed with the intent of inducing and rewarding PvP, but the actual design is a classic prisoner's dilemma.

PvPers have the stated intent of the devs on their side. PvEers have the actual reward structure on theirs. This is dumb.

To be less pithy:

This is the song that never ends.

Let me start with some facts not in dispute.
- PvP zones contain minigames that grant temporary powers with an enormous degree of usefulness in PvE content.
- PvP zones contain minigames that grant badges, some of which lead to accolades with PvE utility.
- These minigames are much easier to complete when nobody is actually PvPing.

So, on the one hand, the stated intent of the zones is for PvP. And on the other hand, the reward structure for the zones pays out much better when no PvP is happening. The winning strategy from a reward over time standpoint is to do everything possible to complete the minigames without ever PvPing. From the standpoint of in game reward over time, actually PvPing is the dumbest thing you can do in a PvP zone. Of course, if you enjoy PvP for its own sake then that all goes out the window, but the mixture of people intent on maximizing reward by avoiding PvP and people intent on maximizing PvP combat is toxic.

If the devs actually wanted to induce players to PvP, they would make the only rewards in PvP come from actually attacking other players (or teaming up to help others do so - I'm no great fan of the I13 everyone-is-a-blaster vision). And they would make those rewards comparable to PvE rewards, scaling from minimal for just participating to excellent for succeeding, so that nobody felt they were wasting their time. This is the only way I can think of to improve the current bile-soaked relationship between those who enjoy PvP and those who prefer rewards.

But what do I know. Carry on with your scuffle.

To be excessively pithy: the problem with the PvP zone reward structure is that they have the best reward rate when nobody PvPs.

I don't know if this is the place to offer serious suggestions for improvements, but at the very least it seems to be attracting the crowd most likely to skeletonize bad suggestions in under a minute. The following comes from a position of profound ignorance and is probably wrong on several counts, but that's never stopped me yet.

So, from my worm's eye view, the problem is supply. Specifically, recipe supply. More specifically, supply of recipes in a few classes:
1) PvP recipes.
2) Sub-50 recipes.
3) Pool C/D recipes with high merit costs and low general utility.

And some suggestions for each of these:
1) Rewards for success don't bring people into PvP. People lured into trying PvP by rewards quickly discover that they have a long way to go - probably involving an entirely new, completely different, and highly expensive build, plus many hours of practice - before they have any chance at all for being rewarded for their time. That's not terribly encouraging. Now, once you get a certain critical mass of newbs PvPing, they start plinking each other, and then things stop being quite so lopsided - but you have to give them a reason to start. So, give PvP recipes a chance to drop when you are killed in PvP. Farmable? Not more than it currently is. Unfair to skilled PvPers? They get more targets and more chances for kill drops; what's not to like?
2) When purchasing or rolling for recipes with tickets or merits, let the player specify what level they want to be rolling as. Recipes will be generated at that level, or at max level if the max level for the recipe is below that level.
3) Reevaluate merit prices and drop pools. These were created when recipes were new and the devs had precious little idea what would be desirable. This is clearly no longer the case. When task forces only offered random rolls, the sheer volume of "trash" drops obscured the issue; merits brought the problem to the fore. Certain recipes simply do not appear on the market, so people save up to get them with merits instead of spending them on random rolls, so they're not generated as a side effect of random rolls, so they don't appear on the market, and so on and so forth. Needs looked at, for serious.

Or, I could be wrong.

As a person who favors scrappers and tanks, I'm happiest playing my warshade as mostly dwarf. I use human form for traveling between spawns, throwing some control and buffs at the beginning of a fight, and summoning pets and recovering endurance at the end. Damage is not very high, but it's safe and effective enough for my tastes. I do have Nova in the build, though, with a basic level of slotting in the attacks; it's handy on teams where someone else is handling the aggro and I can focus on damage.

Well, if I've already made myself look disingenuous, then this thread is dead in the water as anything I say can simply be looked at as a stealth tactic to get a handful of players to agree that an ET buff might be nice, and then go "Aha!" That's really not what I'm interested in doing here, but there you are.

But to give it the old college try: yes, I'm aware of damage auras. Their damage can be considered minor, but given the fact that they deal that damage to everything near you while consuming zero animation time, it can add up to quite a lot. I know this from experience: I play a FA tank, a DA brute, and an Elec brute.

In terms of examples to balance against, I think the more relevant powers would be Tornado, Bonfire, Caltrops, Thorntrops, and Telekinesis. The first four are the only powers I can think of that deal damage without a tohit check. The last is an enemy-targeting control toggle. Of the auto-damaging powers, Tornado and Bonfire have significant knockback, making them difficult to use as damage powers without some form of knockback prevention. Against enemies that can't be flung away, however, they can rack up some fairly impressive damage over time - and they can hit multiple enemies. Caltrops and Thorntrops deal minor damage, but their chief utility is as a Slow/Afraid power.

As for Telekinesis, its endurance cost is extremely high for a toggle, but it is also a guaranteed autohit mag 3 hold and repel that can affect up to 5 enemies at a time. The numbers I've given for, oh, since ET is a bad word, let's call it Damage Toggle or DT for short, put the endurance cost even higher than Telekinesis and throw continual self-damage on top of that. Being able to continuously deal high damage automatically to a single target is very powerful and no mistake: it slices right through any level of defense and -tohit, for one, making certain fights a great deal easier. On the other hand, I'd be hard pressed to come up with a build that can sustain burning 2 endurance (after slotting) and a significant chunk of health indefinitely while continuing to attack and be attacked.

The reason why this concept interests me is, once more, not because I think ET needs replacing, although if you were looking for a power to replace with this power, ET would be a reasonable candidate. What started me thinking about this was A) the fact that ET is the only power I can think of that deals significant self-damage as part of its cost (no, Oppresive Gloom does not count!), and B) the fact that there is no such thing as a damage-dealing enemy-targeted toggle, and having one opens up a lot of interesting tactical decisions. But, y'know, I've already lost all credibility, so whatever.

To be clear: this thread is not about whether ET needs to be changed, and I am not one of the people claiming that ET needs to be changed. ET was mentioned because this idea came to me in the context of potential redesigns for ET. Perhaps it would have been wiser of me to remove all mention of ET, because the point is not whether ET needs to be this but whether a power like this would be interesting. As far as I know there are no enemy-targeted damaging toggles in the game, and I would like to know what it'd take to balance one.

I mentioned this in another thread and nobody murdered me there, so I thought I'd lower it into the wolf pit...

The major issues I have seen people state with Energy Transfer as it is now are:
1. It's a second long-animating heavy ST hit in a set that already has a long-animating heavy ST hit.
2. Because the damage lands at the end of the animation, it takes too long to deliver on fast-moving teams.

I have a wacky idea for a way to resolve the above problems and make ET a truly unique attack power: make it a toggle.

Activation animation: as the old palm-thrust ET, forming a continuous beam of energy between you and the target for as long as the toggle remains active.
Activation time: 1 second.
Activation period: 0.25 seconds.
Endurance cost: 1 end per activation period (4 end per second, about 10 end over the current ET's animation time).
Recharge time: 20 seconds
Range: 10 feet
Effect:
Scale 0.456 energy damage to target (per tick: damage over 2.5 seconds equal to current ET)
Scale 0.375 special damage to self (per tick: damage over 2.5 seconds equal to current ET)
9% chance for mag 3 stun for 9.5 seconds (per tick: cumulative chance to stun over 2.5 seconds is approximately 60%)

The obvious benefit here would be the ability to immediately begin damaging an enemy, and effectively continuously hit him with Energy Transfer for as long as you sustain the toggle, while still being able to use other attacks on the same or other targets. The obvious drawback would be to continuously pay ET's health and endurance costs! If activated in 2.5 second bursts, it would have approximately the same effect as current ET; if the target is killed within 2.5 seconds then naturally the cost is less. To avoid abuse, the toggle should probably suppress itself after a certain time limit, as an indefinite-duration auto-hit damage and control power, even with a steep HP and end cost, seems open to exploitation to put it mildly. But even with that limitation, something like this would put EM back on top of the heap in its specialty: horrendous levels of ST damage at a steep cost to the user.

Of course this violates the hell out of the cottage rule, the numbers would need a lot of tweaking to be anywhere near balanced, and it'd never have a chance of being implemented in any case - but wouldn't it be neato?

Hm. Well, if one person is using Hurricane and the other is using pool Provoke from far enough away...

It's a bit elaborate, isn't it. Still, it has a theoretical marginal level of utility.

I find it interesting that MA is characterized as "putting the burden of content creation on the players", when many players had been asking for the opportunity to create content. Even if 90% of the posted arcs are farms, that's still a lot of player interest in creating content. Not a majority, but a dedicated minority.

There are two ways you can go with an activity that in and of itself holds marginal appeal: you can try to make it more rewarding to lure in more players, but then have to balance it so that it can't be exploited, or you can give those who enjoy it maximum leeway to enjoy it as they like, and remove rewards so that you don't need to worry about exploits or balance issues. The developers have shown a preference for the first option in their decisions regarding MA and PvP. I'm not sure that the results have validated that decision.

A third way would be to give universal access to maximum leeway for zero reward, and then on a case-by-case basis (assisted by automated tools) select specific items as conforming to risk/reward goals and upgrade them to full reward status - in fact, that's how I expected MA to work from the start. But that would require developers with a deep understanding of the system in question and the time and energy to make it work. It could be argued that was lacking when it came to PvP: we never had a "PvP dev". We do have a "MA dev", and he seems to have some idea what he's doing, so maybe that's the way to go.

I didn't say that the same person would be using Hurricane and Taunt. It's a team strategy.

Edit: Also, it doesn't rely on the range debuff in Taunt, although that does help.