Teeto_K

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there's no real incentive not to just make the critters as easy as you possibly can

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There is a strong incentive for me, and on some level, I think it's the same incentive that drives the developers themselves when designing critters: The satisfaction of creating a well tuned encounter.

I've fought villain groups that come off as "blah", hum drum, and weak, and I've fought villain groups that pasted me with no chance for reprisal, scarcely the chance to pop an insp.

But then, I've also fought villain groups that, without killing me outright and unfairly, kept me on my toes, off balance, scrambling to neutralize threats and respond to emerging situations.

I suppose I don't speak for the player base at large when I say this, but I know which I'd rather play against, and I know which I'd be proud of having made.

QR:

Speed boost is GENERALLY the in the top tier of valuable things a Kinetic can do to their team, and this effect escalates as team size escalates.

Situationally, other priorities arise: Healing, Holding, Spot-debuffing, Killing specific targets, firing a particularly juicy Fulcrum shift, and should be addressed as they arise.

But a kinetic on a team isn't the ONLY one addressing threats. By speedboosting a defender, you increase the amount of buffs, debuffs, and damage they can provide. By speedboosting a controller, more enemies are held/stunned a greater percentage of the time. A well played tanker can and will use speedboost to increase the aggro they hold. A speedboosted blaster or scrapper can end the fight that much faster.

The more capable your teamates are, the less likely YOU are going to be the one who "needs" to take action to address some emergency. Speedboost is an incredible tool, considering that battle-field domninating effects are usually counterbalanced by their long recharges. Speedboost means more of the best things, more of the time.

Never mind the Endurance, I'm talking about RECHARGE. A Kinetic buffing an 8 man team is putting out in excess of 4.8 billion influence worth of recharge bonuses.

For your browsing convenience:

Minion damage with the "special" ranged powers added to melee sets.

Shurikens:
(1.07s activation, 8.00s Recharge)
Level 10: 46
Level 20: 92
Level 30: 149
Level 40: 198
Level 50: 219

Gloom:
(1.10s activation, 8.00s recharge)
Level 10: 39
Level 20: 79
Level 30: 128
Level 40: 171
Level 50: 188

Lightning Bolt, Power Blast, Ice Blast, Hurl*, Hurl Boulder*, Impale**:
(1.67s activation, 8.00s recharge)
(*2.50s activation for Hurl, Hurl Boulder)
(**2.43s activation for Impale)
Level 10: 36
Level 20: 73
Level 30: 119
Level 40: 159
Level 50: 175

Focus:
(1.17s activation, 6.40s recharge)
Level 10: 31
Level 20: 62
Level 30: 101
Level 40: 135
Level 50: 148

Fire Blast: (1.67s activation, 4.00s recharge)
Level 10: 30
Level 20: 60
Level 30: 98
Level 40: 131
Level 50: 145

Throwing Knives: (1.00s activation, 8.00s Recharge)
Level 10: 27
Level 20: 55
Level 30: 89
Level 40: 119
Level 50: 131

To start the fight, worst case scenario is you're facing 3 shuriken users, and they all hit. With the DOT, this is 657 damage, with 477 more coming in 9.07 seconds, and 180 points of DOT over the next 5 seconds after the second hit, if you keep them at range. This is a total of 1314 damage in 15.14 seconds from engagement to the finish of the DOT.

However, this is with all the attacks hitting.

On average, with the 50% minion hitrate, you will suffer half that much, clocking in at 657. You have a 1/64 chance of being hit with ALL of the damage. However, since a player fights many spawns of 3 minions when soloing, this is an eventuality they will have to cope with in actual play.

It looks to me like they hit the mark you guys seem to be talking about with throwing knives, which never eclipse any similar 8.00 second recharge attack.

Fire Blast is a bit of a fluke, being the only 4 second recharge attack, but showing a lot of power relative to it's peers despite the shorter recharge.

The ranged powers in the Lightning Bolt etc. tier all match the damage of a typical 8 second recharge melee attack: Chop, Pulverize. Oddly, Heavy Stone Fist clocks in with higher damage, and a faster animation. Gloom is merely seeing it's "I'm all DOT" bonus above and beyond the other "8 second" ranged attacks.

Then we have Shurikens. Clocking in at 25% more damage than the "normal" 8 second recharge attacks, but sharing Throwing Knives' fast animation. I see this power being a real deal breaker, and as demonstrated above, is statistically eventually going to kill undefended squishies in 2 volleys, with the first volley having a not insignifigant 1/8 chance of lopping off as much or more than 1/2 their health. Bear in mind that that analysis ignored the possibility of the NPC's in question closing to melee and using other attacks, or using other ranged attacks from a secondary powerset, both of which would result in a much faster kill time than the 15 seconds quoted above.

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Balance: Liquefy has a very long recharge in exchange for too many effects. The -ToHit/-Defense debuffs aren’t that much stronger than lower tier debuffs in other sets, so it seems the addition of low damage, a weak hold, a tiny chance of knockdown, and an undocumented –Recharge debuff are all supposed to justify this long timer, but it is not seen that way by many players. This is all on top of the fact that none of these effects are synonymous with liquefaction.

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This has been brought up a number of times and from what I can tell the sonic defender community is far from agreed on this. Some of the points stated are vague. e.g. "The -ToHit/-Defense debuffs aren’t that much stronger than lower tier debuffs in other sets." How much is "not that much"? According to the in game stats the base for these two are -44.63%. With my current slotting (hamidon enhancements) Thats a -69.61% to-hit and -87.02% defense. In addition to the weak hold/knockdown/damage with a 2 min 32 sec recharge time. I've always felt thats pretty good. Its certainly useful on cutting down incoming damage. How many other powers debuff both those stats that much and how much faster then 2.5 minutes would it have to recharge to be considered worthwhile?

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Regarding the "slightly higher" part, Liquefy's base values for -Defense/-ToHit are 35.7%. Radiation Infection's base values for -ToHit/-Defense are 31.25%. The issue is, is a 5 minute base recharge balanced for that 4.5% difference, even with the low damage/hold/knockdown. I'm not making a judgement, this was a suggested additional note, so I added it.

Edit: The base value isn't 44.625%, the display is showing the hard-coded Defender version of the pet's value, and multiplying it by 1.25 again.

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In Radiation emission, that debuff is the core of your team protection. Everything else hinges on or relies on it. It covers a smaller area, is subject to anchor kills, and anchor positioning.

Enervating field dulls alpha strikes, but does not provide the same magnitude of protection. It serves best as an offensive, not defensive tool.
Lingering radiation slows the waves of incoming damage, but does not reduce the damage, making it a poor opener.
Choking cloud takes 5 to 10 seconds to establish it's hold, and is less likely to hold leutennants.
Radiant Aura will not protect a team sufficiently alone.
EM Pulse isn't up often enough to be considered core to rad's protection strategy.
Mutate and Fallout are emergency powers, not core tools. They prevent MORE people from dying. RI prevents the first casualty.
AM is an offensive buff, primarily.

For Rad, RI is better compared to Sonic Haven and Sonic Barrier, not Liquefy, in terms of the role it fulfills.

In Sonic Resonance, Liquefy is your "The team will no longer take any damage" button. They are already buffed with +Resist shields, Mez protection, you have a large-area -Resist field in play and spot application of single-target -Resist. Giving a single powerset "every spawn" capability to grant Scrapper level damage/mez protection in combination with Elude level avoidance power would be a questionable move.

Liquefy's paralell in Rad is much more likely to be EM pulse: A power that goes "outside the set" in it's abilities, providing a "solution button" to problem situations. Casting it every fight would be like having both an FF user and a Sonic at the same time.

Am I against a recharge reduction? Maybe, maybe not. I like my sonic/sonic a lot, and wouldn't mind if he was stronger. But the set is very solid as is, and I question the call for an "every fight" power of that potency. Further, I reject trading potency for availability. I took the power to stop spawns cold, and that it does. A weaker tohit debuff would become inconsequential in the +3/+4 range: Even as is, it doesn't floor enemies of that power level.

As for this:

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Balance: Sonic resonance users are extremely weak as far as self defense. Every other defender primary has powers in their primary to help with self-defense of some kind, even if that's just a heal or a slow. Sonic Cage seems inadequate for this.

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With Sonic dispersion, Liquefy, and Sonic Cage, I would suspect that Sonic Resonance is actually better off than this quote shows it to be. A personal anti-mez toggle with nearly global +Resist is potent.

While not as inpenetrable as the debuff sets, my suspiscion is that Sonic fares at least reasonably in comparison to the more buff oriented sets.

I will admit that it probably doesn't compete with Forcefield or Kinetics, but I'd be surprised if someone tried to paint it as worse off than solo-empathy. After all, "heals are the worst form of mitigation", right?

Right? *crickets*

+Health has the unique property of analogueing to Heal Resistance, in addition to Damage Resistance, a property that damage resistance doesn't posess. This is probably a part of why it "feels" different.

Any amount of "Simulated Damage resistance" that a given amount of +Health represents results in an identical amount of "Simulated Heal Resistance". If it takes twice as much damage to kill you due to +health, it also takes twice as many fixed-amount-heal points to fully heal you from that damage.

A character with 50% resistance does not suffer this penalty: He can be fixed-amount-healed as rapidly as ever, but still requires twice the damage to be killed.

And of course, +Regen, which is scaled to MaxHealth (unlike heals), continues to benefit both players identically.

In your hypothetical "redesign" to eliminate +health, the secondary resistance type that replaced it could easily just come packaged with an identical amount of heal resistance, maintaining the "COH status quo".

Another part of the reason it feels so much different than the other mitigation mechanisms is the fact that +Health adds to your survival time linearly as you add more of it, rather than in an accelerating fashion (Like resist, regen, defense, fixed-amount-heals). One of the things that surprises me is that +Health probably has the most restrictive caps of all the mitigation methods, while it probably needs it the least. 45% defense or 90% resist is roughly equivalent to a health buff that puts you at 1000% of your base MaxHealth. But instead, the cap of +83% for tankers puts you somewhere in the range of being at 45.4 resistance, or 22.52 defense. Curious, regrettable, but here we are.

<QR> : My thoughts are directed at the ideas presented, not so much the players posting.

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Unfortunately I have to ask a question about the psychological makeup of an individual who plays solo on a console. Would they adapt to playing with others or would the Co* Soloists (read antisocial) increase.

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I own a Nintendo DS, a Playstation 2, a Gamecube, a Nintendo 64, and an NES. I play many games on these, mostly alone.

As a solo console player who has PUG'd 2 characters to 50, and "SG teamed" another, I suspect that pigeonholing console purchasers of the game as soloists might be a bit of an overkill.

After all, the PC is home to a vertable bevy of Solo-play software, often with "online multiplayer" tagged on not as a core feature, but as a bonus.

After all, what kind of player buys an MMO to solo? I imagine that on a console this answer is probably about the same as on a PC.

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I really hope that CoH isn't transitioned to a console friendly format, or if it is, that the PC side of it isn't changed to compensate.

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I agree with the second half of this quote. COHs current UI should remain an option for ALL players.

However, I wouldn't mind seeing a more streamlined UI made optionally available, again, to all players.

Honestly, the UI work on this game is, in my estimate, above par. There are elements I would do differently, but all in all, it gets an excellent grade from me.

As far as the core game mechanics are concerned, I don't think you even need to worry. For them to "gut" the gameplay of this game for the sake of "new console players" would throw away literally YEARS of balance work, powers work, and design work on the ancilliary game systems. I'm almost sure that the introduction of a console version would NEVER mean PC users "losing" anything.

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If any resources are diverted from the real CoH to power this abomination, it would be a tragedy.

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Consider this:

If it was a full on console port enabling PS3 players to join in on current servers, the following "resources" are already in place:

Art
Story
Missions
The servers themselves
Powers
Enemies
Zones

The "only" thing that would need to be done is to make it "work on the PS3" (which I know is not trivial), and design a UI that works with a console.

The kinds of resources that would be diverted aren't likely to be the kinds that we benefit from, in a "give us more cool stuff" sense. You don't need to rebalance AT's on a new platform. You don't need to rebuild atlas park. You don't need to redraw all the textures. you don't need to add any new missions, powers, AT's, or mobs.

You just need to lay the (very signifigant) groundwork and get the users logged in.

At that point, it prints money. Money that gets you more...

Art
Story
Missions
Powers
Enemies
Zones

Also, I wonder why you adamantly use the term abomination? What is "bad" in and of itself about a PS3 port of COH, besides it's possible impact on the development of regular COH? Would you feel the same way about a Mac port? Or a Linux Port?

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I have no clue what you mean by no cottages.

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Try actually READING the full original post. Then you'll know why there are no cottages.

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Adding "Affecting others" ability to PFF isn't asking for a cottage. It doesn't change the "Core function of the power".

Which is to provide high personal defense at a trade-off.

A -To-hit, or -Dam, or -Acc, or other effects, would still be a trade off.

Unless you'd like to say that the "core function" of PFF is to prevent you from affecting others, and that the +Def is a side effect that we could remove or change entirely.

I think the problem with empowerment buffs is that many of them are too weak to justify the investment of effort in activating them, much LESS the investment of resources.

The proposed "make them storable" does NOT address this, no.

But it IS doable using current tech, and has a place of discussion in a "consolidated empowerment thread", even if it is a tangential issue.

Basically, I think I'm in agreement with you, in that I'd rather see the effort in "fixing" empowerment buffs put into fixing what's broke about them, rather than making the broken buffs more convenient.

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However, I know of no powers in the game that generate other powers, so this is probably something they'd need to code.

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As mentioned above, "Holiday Cheer" grants temp powers, as does "Mystery Gift".

Also, Chain Induction works by granting a temp power to the enemy that attacks a nearby enemy. Hamidon's blue mitos have a similar attack.

I'm gonna look at the buffs:

> Miscelaneous Buffs [[AKA: THE GOOD ONES]]
* Grant Invisibility (Empowerment)
Great buff, equivalent to pool stealth, which time and again has been proven to be more than adequate for most sneaky needs, if the user is careful.

* Increase Attack Speed (Empowerment)
+20% attack rate enhancement? That's AWESOME. Again, great buff, few would complain.

* Increase Perception (Empowerment)
20% increase is 1/3 of tanker/scrapper +per powers, 1/4 of defender tactics, 2/5 of Blaster tactics, 1/5 of defender clear mind. Not a cure all, but it will likely let you see nearby stuff in the presence of PVE magnitude -per or +stealth. A good "patch it up" solution if a mission/foe group is giving you problems.

* Increase Recovery (Empowerment)
17% is more than 2/3 of unslotted stamina, or roughly .28 endurance per second. Enough to offset entirely the cost of a typical armor toggle, this is fairly hot, especially considering that it stacks with others.

* Knockback Increase (Empowerment)
About a single KB SO worth of enhancement, I guess if you're going for distance, this will get you +60% of base, meaning it's effective at what it does. Of course, the extent to which this is valued will vary a lot.

* Knockback Protection (Empowerment)
-10 mag protection for a blaster? This is 2.5 KB IOs. Now, since a KB IO seems to run about 3 million, and will last you about 300 hours (10 - 50 at a "moderate" pace), which clocks it in at about 10,000 per hour, this buff is then worth about 25k. Seriously though: Probably the best buff on the empowerment station.

* Slow Resistance (Empowerment)
This buff is actually AS good as the slow resistance in a Ice Tanker's "Perma Frost" power, clocking in at 20%. Not shabby at all.


> Travel Buffs
* Increase Flight Speed (Empowerment) 20% is 1.5x unslotted swift
* Increase Run Speed (Empowerment) 20% is 0.57x unslotted swift
* Increase Jump Speed (Empowerment)
20% is 0.125x unslotted hurdle's speed increase, 0.165x unslotted hurdle's jump height increase.

Buff jump speed, and maybe runspeed. A 20% flyspeed boost is actually not bad at all, apparently.

> Mez Resist Powers

* Sleep Resistance (Empowerment)
* Confusion Resistance (Empowerment)
* Disorient Resistance (Empowerment)
* Fear Resistance (Empowerment)
* Hold Resistance (Empowerment)
* Immobilize Resistance (Empowerment)

18% means mez times are divided by (1 + .18 + (your other mez resists))

Since they only apply to one mez type, and yield something less than a 1/6 decrease in mez times on their own, I feel they are a bit weak. Buff Plox. 33% would reduce mez times by 1/4 on it's own, and since mez resists cap at 100% for all AT's (reduce mez time by 1/2) it is already tightly reigned in.


> Damage Resist Powers

* Smashing Resistance (Empowerment)
* Toxic Resistance (Empowerment)
* Cold Resistance (Empowerment)
* Lethal Resistance (Empowerment)
* Negative Energy Resistance (Empowerment)
* Psionic Resistance (Empowerment)
* Fire Resistance (Empowerment)
* Endurance Drain Resistance (Empowerment)
* Energy Resistance (Empowerment)

5%? Gugh. That doesn't impact your survivability signifigantly until you are at/above 75% resist already. Make them good, and make them costly if need be. Rare base salvage doesn't grow on trees, so let the would be "exploiters" burn it up, just let me actually make a difference in a tough mission by taking one of these.

There, now how do YOU feel about these powers?

I had recently switched over to "consumed virtual seconds" in my own recharge calculations. It's good to see this in guide form. Definitely worth a /favorite, and I'll remember to link people to this if they start getting questiony.

Top grade work, as always.

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I will never understand why you and people like you want to have a badge for an activity that you either despise or in which you have no interest in participating.

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Possibly for the Gladiator associated with it.

You know, normally I'd be all over a thread like this like a hot bag of chips.

But 2 weeks ago, I dropped Burn for the last time to make room for Tough.

Suffice to say: For tankers, especially the tankers able to REALLY leverage it, this makes burn much more viable. With my previous slotting, burn would have been up every 12 seconds, and every 9 seconds under Hasten. It would have become part and parcel of my AOE attack chain.

I might eventually toy with dropping Fire Blast for it, but right now my single target damage is already suffering.

I feel bad for Brutes, and yet, thank them for demonstrating that even with an in-built AOE immob, a 40 second timer on burn is unnecessary. Good luck with the change, hope it doesn't hash your play up too badly. ; . ;

Arcanaville, you keep posting threads that I keep adding to my favorites. I'd like to say, thank you, mucho. You are a boon to us all.

That defiance equation is nice to know, as are the handy datapoints.

I may have to pay attention to see if the dreaded "Defiance delay" ever happens. As a player of blasters with Holds, Stuns, and Aid-self, I don't get into the heavy buff range often though.

Again, thanks.

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(there may be a few exceptions, but I cant recall any at this moment)

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I think Envenom falls under this category.

Also, you are really really late to the party.

On Thorn Casters:

It doesn't take a Tar Patch to inspire "feeling" in them. They naturally have a high level of Cowardice, and will flee to the fringes and attack from range when possible. I have experienced this behaviour on countless missions with all of my characters who are high enough level to face T. Casters. Often, in founders, the first thing Earth thorns who spot me do is turn tail and run 30 yards. 30 seconds later, it's all boulders and stompyness.

On "Feeling":

Fearsome Stare, and other "Cower Fear" powers cannot override "Feeling", be it naturally occuring or power induced.

Many enemies get "feeling" when a large number of their spawn mates are defeated. This can be observed when AOEing packs in hazard zones, notable in my experience are sky raiders.

Other, odd power that causes "Feeling": Howling Twilight. Enemies under this effect attempt to leave the caster's vicinity. Often overlooked due to slow/stun effect minimizing the "feeling" impact.

90 seconds of +40% unenhanceable regen will get you a total of 37.5% of your health, at a rate of 0.625% per second.

I think that if you want to add a meaningful feature to the power, adding "Nerfed Health" is not the route to take.

EDIT: I sounded like a snide jerk. My point is: The buff could be higher, and enhancable, and likely wouldn't be broken.

In a way, Dull Pain and its ilk are already equivalent to a 40% regen buff at base for their duration, due to the way +HP and base Regen interact.

I am going to join in the chorus of people who are likely saying:

A blaster, if he finds himself below 40% HP, is likely losing HP at such a rate that he will not be able to attack more than 1 or 2 times before defeat, and that time would have been better spent escaping, resting, and returning to battle.

Defenders should NOT be encouraged not to heal a blaster: The fact that many Leutenant and Boss attacks deal more that 40% of a blaster's HP value mean that being at full HP before a hit lands is one of a blaster's biggest defenses.

That said, I don't have "a problem" with defiance, and it's existance in the game, at worst, will go unnoticed by blasters who are mysteriously always at full HP.

I submit for all people's approval, the assertion that this does NOTHING to stop PL-ing.

Keep your lowbie within 300 feet. Easily done if you set them as a waypoint. If the lowbie does not attack, he gets no aggro, doesn't die, and you can continue to rake in XP with impunity.

Further, you can revel in the knowledge that the change targetted at you is instead hurting the play opportunities of players who are trying to play the game legitimately, while you have dodged the bullet with common sense, and know-how.

A real fix? Increase mob-perception of lower level heroes.

An example of this fix:
An even level hero will initiate aggression from the enemies through presence alone at a range of X feet.

Lower level heroes would be aggressed at a range greater than X, based on how MUCH lower they were, and further, have a % of their stealth abilities nullified by a perception buff also relative to level of the foes in question.

Every Freak in Brickstown would LOVE the opportunity to jump some greenhorn who's gotten in over his head. When you've been in the business as long as a level 33 Freak Tank has, you can spot 'em from a mile away.