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Quote:Yeah, that was part of the plan. I had no domination built up, so I figured I'd try to hold him and retreat... Stick and move. However, as his minions did a few points of damage to me when I attacked, his ranged attack one-shotted me (I still don't know how the devs can consider that kind fo thing fun...).Even with the new Domination, if you are not taking on a Boss, EB or AV with Domination running, you should probably think about retreating once you wear him down a bit, and build some back up by wailing on minions. Of course, depending on the AV, taking that much time will likely let him regenerate back to full, wasting your effort. But meh...
PToD cancel out the boost to status effects benefit, but the main thing is you're immune to his status effects. I made the mistake of trying to take on an EB the other day with no Domination, my logic was that I had the damage now, I should at least be able to hold out until I can bring it up. His knockback was so bad I was on the floor in seconds. I came back with Domination, expecting a tough fight, and he was a pushover. You wouldn't think it would make that much difference, just being able to hold my ground and keep moving, but it did.
I guess I'll have to go in with a buttload of blues and purples, as usual. -
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Never having played a Dominator before, I've come upon an issue I'm not sure I like.
I'll explain...
I created an arc for the AE (the WW2 arc below). In the first mission, the enemies include fairly generic minions, typically one Lt. and an Elite Boss (admittedly, a fairly tough one).
The arc has been played repeatedly by all my characters, of all ATs and all levels, everything from L3 to L43. None have had any real trouble (my Defender was a bit hampered at lower level, but got better as he went up in levels), except the Dominator.
Granted, he's only L6 right now, but as I say, at that level, my Scrapper was sailing through the mission, and all the others were going along pretty well.
My question, as you may have guessed, is whether Dominators ever get the ability to fight the likes of EBs and AVs? I mean, bosses are immune to being held (for the most part), and the Dominator has no other defenses, including low health. Does it get better as he levels up?
If the character is never going to be able to defend himself, I'm pretty sure I'll be making him as something else.
(Oh, he's Fire/Elec, in case that matters.) -
Quote:This also touches on something I've often thought - that there needs to be another distiction of foes, one closer to ourselves.Well, I may not be the average representation of players, but I have soloed EBs with my Blasters and my Scrappers, but failed with Defenders, Controllers and Tanks.
Could be I just have not figured out how to balance the powers, slotting and tactics yet, but from the 'feel of it' on many different toons now, I would be willing to say that not all AT/combinations can beat EBs.
I am, of course, making a generalization based on my own experiences, but thats how I feel at this point in time about the game.
As far as commenting on whether thats working as intended, I would say that its not.
I agree, in a reverse way, with what some have said. Instead of saying;
"If One AT/Combination can do it, then everyone should"
I believe that if One AT/combination is 'Incapable' of doing it, then perhaps they all should be incapable."
From the begining, I have always felt that "special' Villains like AVs and EBs should require a team. This is, for me, 'part and parcel' of playing any MMO. If you make the entire spectrum of the game able to be soloed (by anyone) you have less incentive to form groups. There should be "solo content" and "team content" within the game.
"Solo" content SHOULD be solo-able by any player. Perhaps some combinations would require more effort and trial-and-error, but eventually possible.
"Team" content SHOULD NEVER be solo-able by any player. It should involve greater rewards to counter the extra difficulty.
This game actually "blurs" the line between "Solo" and "Team" more so than any other MMO that I have played (which is a fairly long list).
I've always thought, to put it in comic book terms, the AVs are like Dr. Doom or Ultron. EBs, being the next step down, would be like Electro or Sandman (or most of Spiderman's foes). However, that's just not how they play.
EBs are often just slightly toned down AVs (and practically every villain in the game seems to be an AV...), and as such are still WAY beyond our own abilities. I mean, Black Scorpion was doing 1600 damage with his blows (averaging around 800) and he had almost 3000 health. I, at the same level, was doing at most around 70 (averaging around 35-40) damage and had 900 health. That's QUITE a discrepancy, and he was an EB.
This brings me to something new I've discovered. Apparently, the streakbreaker affects our foes' attacks as well as ours. That suprises me, considering they've given them each several attacks capable of one-shotting us.
Blah. I'm rambling now. Sleep apparently does have its uses... -
Quote:Lord Recluse in my example was an EB. L45, no less. Even so, I could not hurt him. I was on Invincible mode, so he couldn't hurt me, but his chain gun reduced my endurance to 0 in 2 shots. Since it stacks, my endurance was thus at 0 forever. Not that it mattered since he regenerated faster than I could hurt him.EBs are soloable by any character. I do it just fine with my energy blast defender.
If I closed to melee, I could have used Air Superiority, Jab and Sands of Mu, but then he'd be doing 1200-1500 damage with every attack (as opposed to "only" 600-800).
Now, Recluse may be considered an exception. As the most powerful AV in the game (theoretically), maybe he's supposed to be unbeatable, even as an EB. If so, then at least let me feel like a superhero by allowing me to do a little damage or survive longer than 1.3 seconds (or both).
However, the same sort of thing happens against MANY such foes (in my arc, which includes only one custom foe, it included Recluse, Scorpion, Nocturne and Ice Mistral, most of which could only be defeated if I used my veteran powers).
It's partly because the EBs are so overpowered, but also because of the disparity between damage output of the ATs. That is, a foe tough enough to challenge a Scrapper is going to be too tough for a Defender because the defender's damage is so much lower.
I'm sure some Defenders might be able to pull it off, but I stand by my assertion that everyone should have a chance, regardless of AT/power set if anyone has a chance. -
Quote:First of all, it's not necessary to call me ignorant. I said nothing to warrant a personal attack.You're assuming that everyone should be able to overcome a given threat that is designed around having 6 players present. That's... just bad.
It was never intended for anyone to be able to solo the entire game. It has happened, but only for a specific few that are specifically built for it. AVs were never intended to be solo content. Trying to claim that, because your Defender can't solo AVs, you're too weak is simply ignorant.
Second, I wouldnt say an AV is solo content. This is an EB, though. Yes, it was Lord Recluse and Black Scorpion (etc.), but they're spawned as EBs. Why? so they CAN be defeated by less than a full team, including (theoretically) solo characters.
My Tanker (granted, higher level) has defeated Lord Recluse before. My Scrapper came fairly close. My Blaster didn't have a hope, but at least made a good show of it. Neither my Controller nor my Defender has a chance of doing anything to an EB or AV. My point is that they should at least be able to make a decent show of it. -
Quote:I wouldn't suggest that every threat should be soloable, but if it's soloable by one character, it should be (in theory) soloable by ALL characters, though with varying difficulty. The thing that got me wasn't that I couldn't beat him, it's that I couldn't even HURT him (while he was doing enough damage to defeat me in one shot, with many of his attacks). To me, it's not fun fighting a foe you can't even hurt. I might have no chance of beating him, but at least let me feel like I'm accomplishing something.It sounds to me like you're suggesting that every possible power set combination for every AT should be able to solo even the most powerful AVs in the game. That seems a bit... unreasonable to me. If my interpretation of your statement is correct, would you mind explaining the reasoning behind that assertion?
Robin -
Quote:Well, first of all, I was responding to this:I didn't know Tankers needed endurance discounts, or help soloing, or in teams...given it is among the very best performing ATs in the game.
1. Endurance: Tankers have access to endurance management tools in, on top of my head, 3 primaries, 1 secondary and 1 epic Pool. They have significantly better damage, and generally run cheaper toggles than Defenders...which indicates their endurance difficulties are less than that of Defenders.
2. Solo: Did I mention Tankers have better damage than Defenders? They have much better survivability too (too much tbh). That makes them better soloists.
3. Team: Tankers are pretty much required in teams (esp. on hard missions which we all love to do) where as Defenders are better replaced with Controllers.
Doesn't sound like Tankers are in need of buffing the same way Defenders are does it?
Quote:Wait, what do tankers get solo?
I agree that Defenders have too little damage, revealed during an experience last night.
I was constructing an arc on the AE that included Lord Recluse and his Lieutenants (not all at once). While testing the mission with invincible on, I came to the astonishing realization that my Defender could NEVER defeat Lord Recluse or his minions with his own powers (in the case of Recluse, even with veteran powers I would never defeat him, though for different reasons). The issue was that my Energy Blasts simply couldn't keep up with their regeneration. If I missed at all, they recovered to full health before long, and that's without their self healing. Even using the Veteran powers it took so long to defeat them that I would have been defeated myself dozens of times over (I'll run an experiment and see how much damage I take in defeating one of them - though, because of the endurance drain of the chain gun, I'll never be able to defeat Recluse, who reduces my endurance to 0, never to rise again).
Now, this may not be the case for all Defender power sets. However, it can't be permitted for any set to be incapable of overcoming a given threat. -
Hm. I guess you're right. Plus, it doesn't consider the buffing sets...
As for Tankers, I've often suggested adding an endurance discount to Gauntlet that increases with the number of foes (like Invincible) - that is, the more foes affected by Gauntlet, the greater the endurance discount.
That would help them solo OR in teams. -
Quote:What about (and it may have been suggested previously)...Completely Agree !
Although it seems more thematic for ALL Inherents to be based off the AT's primary, consider Tankers and how the Developers approached their Inherent ability.
I think any attempt to base Vigilance off the primary powersets is doomed from the start because of how different each performs during battle. Which only leaves two options, as I see it; base it off a generic element like Health bars, Endurance Bars, etc... OR... tie it to the defender's secondaries and have the effect improve their primary role in some way.
How this can be done, well... here we are... still...
Reduce the effect of the bubbles and make them usable by the Defender.
Then change the Defender inherent so it increases the effect of his powers relative to the number of people on the team...?
Just a thought off the cuff... -
Quote:There's no need to get in a bunch, here. I realize I could go play an alt. The thing is, what if I don't want to play an alt? What if I've got all these characters I've played so long, that I'm bored with them (to a degree).Except it doesn't mean leaving the game. It just means grabbing another alt to play that, as we were trying to tell you earlier in this thread. See? No leaving to be done at all. If you're actively trying not to play at all for the badges, words fail me, they really do.
Second: If I wanted to do a day job, I'd seek employment in the real world. Oh, wait. I already have a job, but still. This isn't City of Sims. As much as I'm an RPer, I'd prefer to keep my chars' boring mundane lives in the background.
Ok, I could make a whole new character just to kill time with, because I can't play the character I want to play.
To me, it's just backward.
Just off the top of my head, here's an idea.
You do Day Job "missions". They would be simple tasks related to your day job. Your reward would be cash. You wouldn't use your powers for these tasks.
Cash would be used for in-game things like, say, apartments, or could be converted to prestige for SG bases.
For Villains, they would have an actual reason to rob those banks now.
Randomly, your Day Job tasks might open up a storyline for actual superoism.
eg. Clark is a Reporter. He goes around reporting on various topics. One day he's sent to the museum to do a report on a frozen dinosaur when an accident thaws the creature. It goes on the requisite rampage - this looks like a job for...
You get the idea. I would have like something more like this. It would add at least the semblance of depth. -
Quote:Wow, I actually understood all that! Guess that stats class actually sunk in a little.In order to do this you need to make the decay a function of age, the problem is that this then requires you to solve an integral to find total experience.
Basically the XP a Vampire gains each year is 1-Decay (with decay being 0 for the freebie years). Assuming that Decay is a constant over a period of time this is a very simple integration which yields the equation that McNum provided.
If we assume an extremely simple equation that has Decay = Age/1000 for age > 100
This means that past the age of 100 decay will vary linearly from 10% at age 100 to 100% at age 1000.
The formula for XP at a particular age is therefore
100 + integral from 100 to Age of (1-x/1000)dx
This resolves to:
5 + Age - (Age^2 / 2000)
Obviously this is only valid to age 1000 and and you reach a point before then where it becomes minuscule anyway.
The problem is that unlike McNum's original formula this one is a lot more difficult to mess with since each time you basically have to go back and redo the integration. This particular integration is pretty simple but it's still a manual process. That being said there are pieces of software that you can use to estimate the integration for you.
Yeah, I see what you're saying, and I would rather not reach a point where the xp gained reaches zero.
I went with a decay of 50%, and that yielded adequate numbers. Something consistent, at least.
Again, I really appreciate the assistance! -
I'm not in a hurry, exactly (though, one of my characters wears the Official belt, and the baton will be a welcome addition to his powers since he's wearing one).
I'm just lamenting that I can't play the day job, if you know what I mean.
I would have preferred some tasks you could do in the game based on day jobs rather than what we got, which means leaving the game. -
XP = [Freebie Years] + [1 - [Decay] * ([Years] - [Freebie Years])
Outstanding, this... However, I wonder if there's a way to wrinkle it so the rate of decay increases as they age? -
Well, I don't play 24 hours a day, but I haven't been playing today at all because all my regular characters are standing around gathering "Day Job" experience.
I would have thought it would be better to inspire your players to play the game.
Besides, I would have been much happier if the Day Job system involved some actual gameplay. You know, Superman does things as Clark Kent. It would have been nice to have something else to do except endlessly beat up bad guys (to no real effect, though that's a whole other thread). -
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This may seem obvious, but I really hadn't noticed it much, I've been doing other things.
More recently, I have begun working on the accolades and badges for the Day Jobs, and it seems to me they're rewarding me for NOT playing. Isn't that kind of backward?
I mean, I love anything that allows me to play my character with more depth, and so I've pushed for Secret IDs since I began playing. When they announced Day Jobs, my initial delight turned to bile as I realized I wouldn't be playing anything.
Wouldn't it be nice to see Day Jobs fleshed out into something more? -
Yeah, console commands ftw. I just didn't want to give an arbitrary amount of xp, and 1xp/yr is too much, when the character is hundreds of years old.
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Old World of Darkness. Bloodlines, the video game, actually.
Thanks guys, I appreciate the help! -
Well, the decline should be slow enough at first that during the typical life of a human being you would still round up to 1xp per year (ie .5 or better rounds up). However, the rate should increase as the age of the vampire increases.
I'm not sure that helps, but I'm not used to wrapping my brain around this kind of calculation.
As an example (and this isn't definitive, just descriptive), during the first 100 years, 1xp/yr. Thereafter, it would start to take more and more time to get that 1xp.
I guess what I'm looking for is a formula into which I can plug the numbers (if I can figure out what numbers I would need to plug in).
Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way around?
Maybe what I need to do is find a formula to calculate increasing cost (ie you need more years to get 1xp, the more years you have)? -
This is a non-COH question, and if it's in the wrong place, I apologize.
I'm creating a character for a Vampire game. He's an old character, being many hundreds of years old, so he should have a good deal of experience to spend prior to play.
In general, people get around 1xp per year from day to day life, but as the Vampire gets older, the amount of xp he gets should diminish.
What I need is a formula that I can use to calculate starting xp for older characters, where I can input the character's age, and get an xp amount as a result.
As I say, the amount gained per year should diminish as the age increases. I just don't know how to caculate diminishing returns like this.
Any help is appreciated. -
Quote:1) Nothing. That's the point. What a Scrapper does for a team is also useful solo. What a Defender (well, FF in this case) does for the team isn't useful solo.Just so I can be clear:
1) What does a scrapper do to help a team, that they don't do solo
2) What disadvantage is a FF under solo compared to a on a team
2) The disadvantage is that they have less health, less defense, less damage and less effective endurance. These disadvantages aren't negated on a team, it's just that they're unnoticed because the team does everything for me. I don't have to have high defense, there's a Tanker for that. I don't have to do damage, there's a Blaster for that. I don't have to worry about endurance, because I don't have to do much of anything until it's time to bubble them again. -
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Umbral:
I didn't miss the point, and I didn't ignore your post. I simply didn't comment on it, because we were saying essentially the same thing. Both the Defender and the Scrapper can soft cap their Defense if they use pools. That's why I didn't mention them.
If you go back and look, you'll see that I agreed that there may be an issue with the endurance/toggle issue.
I have no idea what numbers you want. I quoted the numbers directly from Mids. There's not a lot of room for interpretation.
I don't see how Defenders at the Defense soft cap will be harder to kill than Scrappers at the soft cap. If they have comparable defense, they're going to take comparable damage. If the Scrapper has more health, he'll survive longer. This isn't a random assumption, it's just logical. Of course, because he has more damage, the Scrapper is going to take LESS damage.
Lower damage means a great deal. If it takes me longer to defeat a foe, that foe is going to be doing more damage to me before he falls. That's why Tankers have higher defenses and Blasters have lower defenses. Because they defeat foes quickly, Blasters take less damage. Because they defeat foes more slowly, Tankers take more damage.
Moreover, lower damage presently means less return for expended endurance. Thus, becaus they do less damage, Defenders are taking more time, suffering more damage, and using more endurance than other classes.
To say that it doesn't matter because they help teams is, to me, irrelevant.
Tankers bring a significant amount to teams, but still solo well. Blasters bring a significant amount to teams, but still solo well. Controllers arguably bring MORE to teams than Defenders, but still solo well. Scrappers don't bring as much as others, but they solo well, and what they bring to teams isn't irrelevant (damage/boss defeats). Defenders bring significant benefits to the team, but they're not to be able to solo comparably? It makes no sense.
Say what you like, Defenders DO solo. No one has said they should solo AS WELL as Scrappers, only that they should solo better than they do.
Arondell:
Evidently, if I have an opinion that differs from yours, I'm a troll.
/rolleyes
Some people just can't have a civil discussion, it seems. -
Quote:The point is the same. I was describing the relationship, whatever the actual numbers were. X does not equal Y. It makes no difference if X is 30 or 39 if Y is either 75 or 90. They're still not equal.If you weren't suggesting hard numbers don't use "ballpark" numbers to counter specific points. The difference between 30% and 40% defense is substantial in this game. Using incorrect numbers to illustrate your point does not help.
Either way, this is off topic.