gbaji

And just to bring this back on topic a bit. I've also noticed the kinda "meh" feel to nukes in the game. Pre-ED nukes could be used solo to simply wipe any single spawn (or group of spawns) off the map. With the exception of misses, everything not at boss level or above was defeated with a nuke. They could be used in teams in either the same manner (wipe any single group of bad guys), or as a clean up. You basically cleared virtually all the minions and Lts with a nuke in a team, leaving the bosses and a few stragglers left for the team to finish.

In either use, you tended to fire it off whenever it was up (waiting for a decent point to use it of course). It was pretty much *always* worth using.

Now. I find I only ever use it on teams. And even then, it's marginal because on most teams where it's "safe" to use nuke, they're wiping through the spawns so quickly that I've actually had my nuke do very little because there's only a couple bad guys left by the time the animation finishes. You're forced to wait until there's a "large" group (or multiple accidentally agroed spawns) in order to use it. While herding whole maps was abusive and needed to be stopped, not allowing herding means that groups don't agro multiple spawns at once (if not herding, you tend to avoid that if you can, right?). Thus, it's much rarer to run into a situation where the full nuke AEs are that great. Smaller AE attacks, which are available repeatedly end up being much more significant.

For example. On my elec/elec blaster, I use my ball lightning power constantly on groups. It does good damage, recharges fast enough to be used over and over, and most importantly it's never wasted when it's used (or if it is, I don't care that much). But TB? I *might* use it once in a mission. Maybe.

The problem is that the conditions required for a nuke to be worth using are much rarer then they used to be. When soloing, it's pretty much *never* worth using. I also find that it seems like there's always a target or two that gets missed or doesn't get defeated. The problem here is that in a solo mission, you're just not running into large enough spawns to make it worthwhile. Worse, it seems to not work unless it's a spawn of yellows. If the spawn is +2 or higher, it seems like there's always a couple survivors. I'll occasionally use it for fun on a spawn and am horrified to find that even dropped on spawns of 3 or 4 NPCs, it's not uncommon for one or two of them to survive.

When you calculate in the recovery time for using TB, even if you hit and defeat every single NPC in a typical solo spawn, it's not worth using. And the bigger/badder the spawns, the more likely that more NPCs will not be defeated, making it a killer to use.

I'm not asking for the world either. However, I agree that a power that has as many limitations as nukes have should basically defeat anything less then boss level that it hits. Either that or dramatically reduce the crash effects. I'd use it much more with either case. We're still talking about a power that has a 6 minute recharge time. Given the 16 target limit, the real question is: "Is it really unbalancing to allow a blaster to defeat 16 targets every 6 minutes with a single power?". I think it's pretty obvious to everyone that I'm going to defeat far more then 16 targets in the 6 minutes I'm waiting for TB to recharge, using other powers that *don't* crash my endurance/recovery in the middle of the combat I use them in.

And that's ultimately going to affect the use of nukes. They're neato, but not terribly effective at actually defeating opponents.

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However the most noobish thing i see nowadays is stalkers who insist on opening up encounters with AS. Im like dude dont do that... their like [censored] i can do it. Then if im on my ruptor... im like listen dude... my res dont recharge that fast. How do these people level? i mean the debt. 4 deaths in one mission and still same tactics? Geezus.

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Well. To be fair though, that's how they'd do it solo. And it *is* how they level. A stalker who doesn't open with AS when soloing is pretty much tossing away his main advantage.

And this highlights what is really the number one problem with pugs. Many players simply don't understand that when playing in a group, you want to use different tactics then those that you use (and which work) when soloing. A stalker is going to always use AS to open a fight when soloing. But in a group, he's going to want any one other then him to open up the fight, stay hidden and non-agro, then use AS during the fight to great advantage. A scrapper when soloing will typically hop into a spawn and go to town. When in a group, he'll likely splatter doing that, needing to either rely on buffs to manage, or play a clean up roll and let the tanker tank. Blasters will usually want to start a fight with a snipe and then close in with either AEs and/or melee attacks when soloing, but when in a group are much more effective holding off on the damage for a second or three until the NPCs are better arranged for maximum effectiveness.

All ATs require a reasonable degree of strategy change when grouping instead of soloing. Bad players and/or new players often just don't realize that. They continue using the same tactics that they use when soloing. Usually to disasterous effect for the group...

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With this level of QA, Cryptic is really squandering the first-mover advantage in the superhero MMORPG genre. If they don't get their act together, and Marvel or DC come out with something better, they're going to eat Cryptic's lunch but good.

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As someone who does bug testing, it's actually very easy to miss bugs that seem blindingly obvious once they are discovered. Especially in software that is being constantly tweaked by multiple people. As much as people like to rant about this sort of thing, it really does fall under 'these things happen sometimes'. And they happen to everyone.

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Yup. It's unfair to toss a ton of blame in cases like this. Hindsight is always 20/20. Also, customers tend to only remember the handful of bugs they found and reported and ended up being verified and fixed. They tend to ignore (or not ever see) the hundreds of false reports of bugs that devs will spend thousands of hours testing and checking for and end up finding nothing.

Or in this case, Arcana was looking for one type of bug ("inconsistent behavior"), and found something completely different. It happens. Anyone who thinks that debugging software is easy has never done it.

Wow. People are still arguing about this.

Look. You can't compare the difficulty to overcome a defensive power to the difficulty to defend against an offensive power.

Hurricane is a defensive power. The fact that my stormie is running it does not allow me to defeat anyone. It does not earn my any kills. I *can't* defeat you with it. I can only make it harder for you to defeat me. The defensive power, in order to be overpowering must protect me from *everything* in the zone that might want to defeat me. And guess what? Hurricane falls far short.

AS is an offensive power. It does not have to be effective against everyone in the zone. It only needs to be effective against the one target you've chosen to attack. Period. If it allows you to walk up and defeat one opponent without being spotted, then it has benefited you greatly.

I think it's absolutely ridiculous to try to compare a defensive power to an offensive one. I also think that a lot of stalkers who are whining about this simply don't understand the death rate that storm defenders and controller recieve when in a PvP zone. A hurricane makes you the *first* target of every attacking group. Sure. We've protected outselves from a stalker, but every single other enemy will make sure to take us out first. Our life expectancy is pretty darn short. In contrast, the typical stalker *only* dies if he gets really unlucky. He has to flub an attack and flub his escape, or stumble across someone with the exact right set of powers to spot him, track him without him spotting them, and take him out. That's not going to happen that often...

Bah. Late response, I know. But let me point something out here:

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In terms of actual math, unless they have changed the formula, minion to hit = 50%. FF is 12% base. With two trainers it's +10% or 13.2 base. This drops a minion's to hit from 50/100 to 36.8/100. Admittedly since I was doing "out of 10", I rounded up to 4/10. Pop a Luck on top of that, now you're at 38.8% base, or you have almost floored the minion (he's at 12.2% to hit). I didn't even say what the with-luck numbers were. I just said, "Now you have some actual defense."

I stand by my statement. At low levels when you have few slots and only trainers, Luck is a much better defense than our entire powerset. That's all I was talking about.

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No. You said that "Our defenses are a slight bonus to luck", this was in specific response to the argument that SR made luck inspirations more valuable then they were to those without SR.

While I agree that the relative value of SR as a whole is questionable at that level, and can be overshadowed by a Luck, that's a one time issue. You get the benefits of SR all the time, and when you do pop a luck, you'll get *more* benefit from it. How much more? Lets do some math:

Take your numbers. A normal hero will be hit by a minion 50% of the time. An SR hero running just his first toggle with two trainers in it will get hit 36.8% of the time (your numbers).

A normal hero using a 25% luck inspiration will get hit 25% of the time by that same minion. That's a halving of the relative hit rate (50/25=2). So his def can be said to be twice as good after using the luck (taking def as a very broad "chance not to get hit" value, and not just things that add to that).

The aformentioned SR guy upon dropping the same 25% luck inspiration will get hit 36.8-25=11.8% chance to get hit. The relative def "value" increase is figured the same way (36.8/11.8=3.12).

An SR scrapper's "defense" is improved by 3.12 times by dropping that luck, as opposed to the normal hero's defense improving by 2 times.

I'd say increasing the relative value of the luck inspiration by over 50% is a bit more then a "slight bonus".

You have to remember that the relative value of defense increases the closer you get to either end of the percentage scale. So the same factor that says that +def buffs aren't as valuable against opponents with a high base to-hit works in reverse when we reduce that chance to hit (whether via to-hit debuffs *or* adds to +def like luck inspirations).

That 12% bonus to +def seems *really* small by itself. But it stacks very very well. While I agree that at the lower levels, it's not as significant, I think it's very misleading to say that it's worthless, or even a minor effect.

When I was working my SR scrapper through the low levels, what I typically did was balance the use of my toggles to the damage I was taking (or was likely to take). When I knew I'd be in a tougher fight, I turned them on. If I knew I'd be in a really tough fight, I'd turn them on and drop a luck inspiration. The point being that those stack, and really are a big deal.

And I can show you mathmatically that you're better off stacking two values of +def then a value of +def and +res. Obviously, the fact that by dropping two lucks you can make SR pointless is a problem. No one is arguing that. Like I said. I agree with you on that issue. My only disagreement was your assessment of the relative value of SR in conjunction with lucks. Even at the lowest levels, it's still very very significant. Implying otherwise is misleading to any valid discussion of the issue.

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If you're starting at a 50% chance to get his (even con minnion), then the non-def guy popping a 25% luck will reduce his chance to get hit from 1 in 2, to 1 in 4 (cuts it in half). The SR scrapper, who already has say 25% +def from various powers drops his chance to get hit from 1 in 4 to 1 in 20 (he's floored the mnion at 5%).

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Except that we were talking about newbs with no slots and trainers at best, NOT fully slotted-with-green SO people with 28% (effectively capped) defenses.

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Eh? Let's be consistent here though. Arcana just talked about how res inspirations weren't as useful because we couldn't possibly get the 60-80% resistance values that resistance sets would have. They're not going to have them if we're assuming low levels and training enhancements either though...

It's kinda irrelevant for the really low levels anyway. How many scrappers slot their defences early in the game (or even take them?). Most are going to get their first three attacks ASAP. Then they're worrying about travel powers. Then they're working on the health line. Somewhere in there, they'll add some slots to their defenses in their secondaries.

A +res guy is no more or less effective then a +def guy if neither of them has their toggles turned on because the benefit in comparison to the end cost isn't worth it. And you find that happening a heck of a lot during the first 12-15 levels regardless of which one you're using.

It's an irrelevant point.

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And the reality is that Arc is right -- it's not symmetric. Anyone can equal my best defense by popping a couple of pills. No other set works like that.

F

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I agree completely on that issue. I never said it was "fair" the way they were set up. I was simply responding to the false statement that SR didn't stack significantly with purple inspirations.

I agree with your point. What I don't agree with is the use of hyperbole and false statements to try to convince people you're right. There is a valid enough case for the discrepancies between +res and +def already. When you toss in bogus facts, you only weaken your argument.


I also absolutely don't understand why in game mechanics +def is considered numerically to be worth double +res for balance purposes, yet the bonuses from the relevant inspirations are totally wrong. Each level of +res inspiration should be worth twice as much +res as the same level +def inspiration. Why on earth they did it backwards is beyond me.

I even agree with your assessment. They should reduce the amount of +def granted by use of a purple, and then adjust the amount given by an orange to met the equivalents used in the rest of the game (every point of +def should equal 2 points in +res).

I was *only* responding to the falsehood of your statement. You don't need to misrepresent the facts to successfully argue your case. You're already right...

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But, at the same time, we gain the most benefit from Lucks, though at the low levels, it's probably difficult to notice.

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At low levels, you could say instead, "Our defenses add a slight bonus to Luck, which is our mainstay." Because think about it... 12% defense with no real slots and only trainers = 12% defense. That's nothing... we get hit 4 out of 10 instead of 5 out of 10. Pop a luck... and now you have some actual defense.

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Except that that's a misrepresentation of the facts and the math involved. Since +def is a additive property (ok, subtractive) to a function that's then treated as a percentage, it becomes successively more valuable the more total points you have. I'll give some examples.

If you're starting at a 50% chance to get his (even con minnion), then the non-def guy popping a 25% luck will reduce his chance to get hit from 1 in 2, to 1 in 4 (cuts it in half). The SR scrapper, who already has say 25% +def from various powers drops his chance to get hit from 1 in 4 to 1 in 20 (he's floored the mnion at 5%).

The 25% luck inspiration was 4.5 times as valuable to the SR scrapper then it was to the non-def using character. That's quite a bit more then SR adding a small benefit to a luck inspiration.

Of course, the non-def guy could just swallow two lucks and be at the same level, but the point is that the SR guy doesn't have to.

If you're going to use that sort of logic, then powers with increased accuracy are pointless because you can just pop an accuracy inspiration. And powers like practiced brawler are useless because you could just pop breakfrees. And slotting for damage in powers is irrelevant becuase you could just use red inspirations instead. And hey! Why on earth does anyone take stamina as a power? Just pop blues...

In a game like CoH, game balance has a lot to do with how powers combine together as a whole. SR means that you don't need to use purples as often. Just because you *can* use an inspiration to duplicate the power does not make the power useless.


However, SR certainly does need work. But it's not because it can be duplicated with purple pills. It's because of the lack of scaling to increased base to hit of opponents that causes it to have problems. Everything else is really just a band-aid IMO.