codeslinger

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Hard to dispute a red name choice.

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You must be new to the forums.

(Good to see a fellow Minnesotan out there! GO VIKES! No, seriously, just go.)


My Brute is EM / DA.

Energy Melee just seems to be the essence of Brutes. Several small fast attacks, and a couple of the hardest hits in the game. Fury + Buildup + Energy Transfer + Total Focus FTW!

Dark Armor has good (not great) blanket coverage, including the ever-elusive psi resist, plus a self heal and a few utility powers. I've found that my costume has hardly been obscured at all, especially with the Huge body type.

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All Psionic attacks are ranged. Therefore ranged defense = psionic defense. If there were a psionic melee attack, it would be different, but this is how it stands for now.

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If you ask me (<sigh> the devs never ask me, not sure why), here's how it should work:

All defense powers are based on ATTACK-TYPE:

Melee, Ranged, AoE, Psychic

Defense has to do with can you avoid being hit. It's related to the way an attack is delivered. Psychic should be an attack type, since you don't actually aim at the guys head. It's more of a mind-to-mind kinda thing. If a power WAS an aim-at-the-head, it would be Ranged. Psychic defense could be things like Magneto's helmet, or a highly focused mind, etc.


All resistance powers are based on DAMAGE-TYPE:

Smashing, Lethal, Toxic, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative, Psychic, Nictus, Typeless

Resistance has to do with what the attack is "made out of" and what happens when you do get hit. Different resistances make a toon tougher or weaker against different types of substances. Psychic would be an attack type and a damage type.


Each game mechanic (DEF and RES) would be tied to a different aspect of the attack (delivery and payload). All stacking, or lack thereof, would be straightforward and easily understood. All current powers and powerset concepts could EASILY be adjusted to accomodate this (with the possible exception of adding the Psychic DEF component). It would require MINIMAL OR NO changes in the game mechanics (again, with the possible exception of Psychic DEF).

C'mon, States. Tell me it's not the right thing to do. I dare ya!

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It's not that easy though, as everything would have to be rebalanced to take into account the new changes.

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Well, a quick glance through the Hero Planner yielded a total of 34 powers that give +DEF (not counting Def/Cont sets or Tank/Scrap sets twice). Only 8 of them had +DEF that was damage-typed (I may have missed some):

Tough Hide

Deflection Shield
Insulation Shield

Wet Ice
Glacial Armor

Rock Armor
Crystal Armor
Mineral Armor

They could all be switched to positional DEF with little balancing needed. The only problem, really, is how to differentiate Ice Armor and Stone Armor from Super Reflexes. So for those 5 powers, change them into a combination of different positional +DEF and damage-typed +RES, possibly a side-effect or two. Is that "everything needing rebalancing"? Doesn't seem too monumental to me.

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Let's fix this, devs. FIX it, not patch it. Change the power order to SR to make it more fair in the early levels. Dodge before Agile, Evasion before Lucky.

Give Ice Tanker dual positional defense AND typed damage resistance. Reduce Invul's dependance on Invincible and buff their dam-res.

Take another sweep an the blaster secondaries. There's still time to get rid of typed defense in CoV.....

There's still time to make this right.

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Can I git a AMEN!

<passes around the hat>

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Exactly what I proposed prior to Statesman saying that changes to the defense system would be too hard and break too many things.

Read his post as, no way, man, we're using typed defense in CoV as well, we're not going back now. Too many power changes.

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But a change like this would not be a change to the defense system. It would only be a change to powers. For example, a power that provided +DEF for smash/lethal would be changed to provide +DEF for melee, or maybe +RES for smash/lethal, or a combination of both. They've already shown they can make changes like this. It's what they did in the "Band-aid Fix".

The thing that wouldn't change (the unchangable part I think Statesman was referring to) was how the total DEF vs. a particular attack would be calculated. Damage-typed DEF would still be maintained, and still be looked at for each attack, but it would always be zero, and so discarded for the presumably higher positional DEF. The process of character maintenance (keeping track of what powers are affecting your DEF for various types) and the process for calculating to hit would be the same. It would be made inefficient (though no less efficient than things are now), as it would be designed for a more complicated set of data. But it could still work as is. The inefficiencies could be worked out over time, or even left in.


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Yea... fark a bunch of logic. Fix things for now with a bandaid. It's just a flesh wound after all.


(But your arm's off! No it isn't.)

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Have at you!

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No, I believe Statesman is saying that all power pool defenses, in parallel with providing melee/ranged defense, will also be providing smash/lethal defense.

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Yep. That's what it meant.

As for changing the way defense works...eek. That's not really an option. There's simply too many things that would break...It's just not do-able.

As for why only S/L? Because in these powers, that simply made sense - and because of the prevalence of S/L damage throughout the game.

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Here's a suggestion:

Make all +DEF powers linked to ATTACK TYPE only

Make all +RES powers linked to DAMAGE TYPE only


It seems to make sense. Defense is related to the method of delivery. Resistance is related to what happens IF you get hit.

This could be implemented with little or no change to the current DEF and RES systems. All that would be needed are some power tweaks. Actually, the DEF and RES systems would be greatly simplified. At worst, the system could be used as is, with some superfluous code in place (i.e. calculations for damage-type-related DEF, etc.). The system would run as it is now, and the extra code could be slowly peeled off at leisure (which would only increase the system's efficiency).

If there was an odd power that, for example, gave +DEF vs. psi attacks, it would need to be changed either to a +RES vs. psi, or to be tied to ranged attacks, whichever makes more sense.

The question would be, of course, would these tweaks be worth a better, more efficient, more common-sense system?


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Statesman,
Although I greatly appreciate the step in the right direction, it's time to dump typed defense. It makes perfect sense for damage resistance to be typed, and it makes good sense for defense to be positional.

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I see that BillZBubba had a similar comment earlier.

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If I have to be on line all the time, am forced to bail missions because I have to go defend my base, or find someone trashed our base at 11 AM just because my SG has to deal with real-life things like jobs and work, well that is not fun.

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So your real life consists of jobs and work?!

Dude, you need a vacation!

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In fact, the power capable of doing the highest single target damage is recall. Fly to the top of the world, and then recall a level 50 tank. That beats even head splitter at the damage cap.

This works in the under level 32 game as well, and has wicked range.

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Hmmm. TP Foe, 6-slotted with range enhancers, with a spotter for you on the ground. Pop a handful of yellows and grab the biggest bad guy you can find. (does any mob have TP resist?)


Ahem. Sorry. Back to the bickering!

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The max damage of a Blaster is 400%...a Scrapper is 500%. We did this because the Scrapper is involved in melee and thus in a riskier situation far more often. Blasters, on the other hand, can pick and choose their targets from a distance.

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A scrapper in melee is in a riskier situation than a blaster at range?!?!!

This is just flat-out wrong. It might have been the case if the scrapper AT had not been given a fine selection of defenses as a secondary set.

A blaster in melee is in a riskier situation than a blaster at range. But a scrapper? Come on.

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The new bosses aren't being removed the game. They're just being removed from the lowest difficulty setting. They're being replaced by Lt's that look like bosses. Only these guys are easy, and hopefully even you will be able to defeat them.

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The new bosses are being removed from the game (see "short term goals" in Statesman's post that starts this thread). In addition to that, missions will be changed to not include unnamed bosses for solo missions at the lowest difficulty setting (see "middle term goals"). Boss changes will be looked again down the line once these other changes have been implemented and debugged ("long term goals").

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Your assertion that solo missions are hard and require no strategy is a subjective truth at best and is outright false at worst. Also, your response did not answer the question of how a series of solo missions is more trivial than the current trial.

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Solo missions have to be trivial because they need to cater to the lowest common denominator. Unless you plan on having "solo spines/regen missions" and "solo empathy/psy missions". Team-based content can be ramped up quite a bit because teams can be assumed to cover for each others weaknesses, and are often much more effective than all of the team members working separately.

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Once again, you completely failed to seperate the ability to respec from the content to which it is currently married.

I am not suggesting that soloers be able to solo team content. I am not suggesting that anything be made easier. I am not asking to be able to experience "team-oriented content". If Hammidon had a crucial game mechanic as a "reward" then I would be equally for a solo-capable alternative.

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First, respec is not a crucial game mechanic.

Second, respec is not married to team-only content. You can respec having never teamed, ever.

Third, a solo "respec trial" would, necessarily, have to be either trivial for some ATs or impossibly difficult for others.

Fourth, the current respec trial has no AVs or do-multiple-things-at-once in it, and is theoretically winnable by a solo player who made a team to start the TF and then booted the other 3 players.

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If the Dev's current position on solo v. team play revolves around the thought that Team play should not be required for access to CONTENT...it logically follows that Team play should not be required for access to GAME MECHANICS. The thought is that a solo player can just move on and access other CONTENT. However, the solo player cannot move on and access any other form of GAME MECHANIC that relates to respec.

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The way I read Statesman's post is that a player who is soloing should not get to a point where he can't continue playing solo. It does not logically follow that players who solo only should have access to all game mechanics, but should have access to enough to be able to continue playing. But that point is moot in this case because, as I mentioned before, respec does not require team play.

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However, what I think you missed in Statesman's quote is "If a player gets a mission with an AV, he'll be able to drop it and get another." Meaning, the player chooses to not kill the AV, not complete the mission, not receive the rewards, and....wait for it..... not experience the content created by fighting an Arch-Villain . To further clarify - the player makes the choice to forego game content because he/she is solo.

...

I really dont think Statesman meant to say a solo player should be able to do anything he/she wants. I think what he meant was a solo player should be able to do what he/she wants until they encounter something that requires a team. At that point, the solo player can choose to skip that content and move on to something else.

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Very nicely put.

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I think solo and team players should have equal access to all game mechanics. One game mechanic that I would like to see solo accessible is the ability to respec.

A series of soloable missions with a respec as the reward would do the trick.

What do you think?

Bushpig

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First of all, there is no such thing as a "solo player", unless you mean a player who chooses to solo. In that case, the player chooses to restrict his own access to some content in exchange for the experience of playing solo. All players have equal access to all of the content. When I say equal access I mean that they can access the content by satisfying the same requirements, and have equal opportunity to fulfill those requirements.

Having said that, I've always thought that the artificial restrictions to some content seemed arbitrary. If they want to encourage teams for TFs, then they should build it into the content rather than require some kind of random criteria be met.

For example, the Positron TF requires a team of 4. And all of the missions are based off of the group size. So if a team of 4 starts, and 3 leave, then the missions will be sized for 1 player. That player can easily solo through each mission. If they wanted the TFs to be team-oriented content, then it should be content-driven. Instead of having the missions based on the team size, have it base on team size with an assumed minimum team size of 4. Also, instead of Positron requiring 4 players to start, have him tell all prospective teams "I strongly encourage you to use a team of 4 or more heroes for this." That way players will know it's intended for teams of 4+, but that uppity scrapper or clever (and patient) defender could solo it. Of course, AVs and elite bosses are a different story. But as long as the player knows it's coming, they won't be shocked when they hit a wall.


Secondly, roast bushpig is delicious! (yes, I have eaten bushpig)

sayeth Statesman (emphasis added):[ QUOTE ]
Let’s not start pointing fingers – “the whiners had their way” or “the game’s too easy, make it harder” – because I think the Boss changes violated a basic principle. Namely: never let a person make an uninformed decision. And right now, people aren’t clear when a mission requires a team up and when it doesn’t. Plus, they have no ability to drop a mission if they don’t feel like doing it. Besides, we’ve introduced our Mission Difficulty Slider to satisfy the demands of those who want something more challenging in the future.

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Does this mean you will be giving us hard numbers on power effects? As things stand now, power descriptions are vague and "cap" information is virtually non-existent. Players can only find out after the fact what their powers do, and whether their enhancements will have been wasted.

Yeah, yeah, I know that players can find out what they need through extensive testing (even using the test server to avoid having to use respecs during the testing process), or can wade through the forums in search of (often conflicting and/or outdated) reports from others' research. But is that what this game is about? (the same arguments could be made for the "players need to know when missions require teams, etc", and it's clear where you stand on that issue)

I don't mean to hijack this thread, so here's a link to more that I have to say on the subject:

Re: Ask Statesman Questions Thread

Thanks for your time.



EDIT: If this post (or the linked one) sound overly critical or negative, that's unintentional. Just meant to be constructive criticism to improve a really good game.

First of all, I like the decision to roll back and try a different solution to the easy-boss issue.

I do have a couple of questions, though. (sorry if I am repeating someone. I tried to read the whole thread. Really, I did! )

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• Task Forces and Trials will continue to contain Elite Bosses, ArchVillains and Giant Monsters. There will be no changes here.

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Does that mean there will be no changes once the boss changes are rolled back? Will TFs and trials be as they were before, with the addition of Elite bosses?

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• Only until players can drop missions will we look at the Boss difficulty again.

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TFs and respecs (btw, are respecs considered TFs or trials or what?) don't have any missions that are optional, for obvious reasons. I know that the option to drop missions is for solo players, but bumping up the boss stats again will make these missions nigh impossible (other than the occasional anecdotal evidence "proving" otherwise) for all but a narrow selection of team make-ups, player abilities, and level ranges. Take the Sky Raider respec for example. It used to lean to the easy side for a good group, but was still doable by other interesting mixes of ATs, player experience and ability (particularily important for the first respec), and level ranges, many of which were a result of the difficulty in finding teammates.

I know I'm getting way ahead of the wagon here, but please keep that in mind if/when you look at Boss difficulty again.


Also, will badge and story-arc missions, or any missions for that matter, that are dropped (for whatever reason) become available to the character again, or will they be gone for good?


Thanks in advance for any reply. And keep up the good work!

Not sure if I'm off topic here, and I'm sorry if this has been suggested already (got through about 1/2 the thread before giving up) ...

Just an idea for a Boss fix.

1) Put the bosses back the way they were.

2) Give bosses, and to a lesser extent lts, an invincibility-like innate power that buffs them based on the number of lower ranked mobs within their area of effect. Basically, the bosses are tougher when they have more guys around to support them.

3) Give bosses, and to a lesser extent lts, a mild leadership-like innate power that buffs lower ranked mobs within their area of effect. Different types of bosses might give different types of buffs. So minions are tougher when supported by a boss.

Call it a "Leader Aura" or something.

Teams would have it tougher because the large spawns would have supported bosses in them. Soloers who want more challenge could do so just by using the mission difficulty slider already in place (which increases, in theory, spawn numbers). Players could compensate for the added difficulty by using strategy (e.g., pulling or TPing minions away first exposing the boss, using knockback powers to spread out the field and "disrupt their coordination", etc.) or tactics (e.g., take out the minions first, etc.).

This would essentially make bosses tougher, last longer, and be more than just tougher bad guys. Also, since bosses wouldn't buff or get buffed by other bosses, then boss-heavy missions like the TV respec TF would come back down to a more doable level, while still getting a slight boost in difficulty (there are some non-boss mobs in there).

Plus, it would be an easily tweakable system. You would just need to adjust the amount and types of buffs until you get the balance you want.

I agree with the OP, for the most part. On the one hand, it IS a hazard zone and should be dangerous, require strategic approaches, etc. But on the other hand, um, how did he say it ...

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ummmm.... WISKEY TANGO FOXTROT???? (sic)

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There's got to be some kind of middle ground here.

Very nice guide, curveball. Kudos to you!

2 questions:

Say I'm messing around with keybinds and I get things screwed up. Can I reset? Does the Reset on the Options menu reset all defined binds to default, or only those listed on that page? (I know I could try it, but I wanted to know before I start messing with this)

Second, from what I understand, when you bind a key for a particular character, that binding stays with that character (i.e. stored on the server, to be refreshed on each restart of that same character), and if I want to bind keys (or do a bind_load) for a new character, I need to do it seperately for each character (which is then stored separately for each character on the server). Is that correct?

Thanks!