ideas

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The changes in I5 had very little to do with PvP and a lot to do with boring PvE. It's that simple. No conspiracy there - I think I've stated this several times.


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If this was your goal, you should take a second look. CoH had very fun and exciting PvE for more than a year. People could try and do a wide variety of things to face enemies. They could invent fun new ways to play, rather than the predictable and boring formula of 1 hero = 3 minions. Things that were fun in CoH before are now not possible, or possible only with a precise mix of powers spanning multiple archetypes.

Let's face it: People gathered huge herds of mobs because it was FUN! It may not have been balanced vis-a-vis risk versus reward (though nobody posts the herding attempts that end in horrible defeat), but it was fun and entertaining, and CoH was the only game where it was possible. It made people feel like super heroes!

People attempted to solo Arch-Villains because it was fun! It was not easy, and for many not possible. The forums didn't receive many tales of how an arch-villain stomped a lone hero into the ground three times before the hero gave up. But for people who were bored with the standard 3-mob spawns, an Arch-Villain presented a fun and exciting challenge. For those who found a way to triumph, it provided immense pride and satisfaction, with a feeling of heroism: "I have done the impossible."

People mezzed huge spawns of mobs because it was fun! It was a ticking time-bomb of aggro, and they were racing against the clock to defuse it. Each time they succeeded, they would consider tackling a larger group the next time. It made them feel heroic: "I can put an army to sleep."

How many can we gather?
How much can we withstand?
How far can we push the limits?

These things were fun. But they were not balanced. They were not formulaic.

I5 was not targeting boring PvE. It was targeting imbalance. Balance is important for PvP, but it is rarely fun and even less rarely achievable.

You may even believe that fun was your goal. But look again: You've removed many kinds of fun, and bolstered a very narrow form. There is fun in challenge, and in balance, but these are not the only kinds of fun... Or rather, they weren't the only kinds until I5.

The fun has gone out for me. Perhaps that's why I've gone from 20 hours a week to 2 since I5 hit. I thank you for that: I have my life back. And I thank you for how fun it used to be: It was very entertaining. But the fun is gone and my friends have already left. I'm just hanging on for nostalgia, but even nostalgia isn't what it used to be...

Just wanted to start with: I actually enjoyed your post. It made me chuckle how you threw my jokes back at me. Awesome!

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But then there are a few other heroes who can reduce their defenses. These are generally the weaker heroes to begin with, but they can help to even the odds a bit.

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No, you have virtually every hero capable of reducing their defenses, not to mention villains. Every Broadsword or Katana scrapper, every Assault Rifle blaster, every Radiation/* or */Radiation defender, etc.


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Hyperbole much? In terms of powersets: 2 out of 6 scrappers, 1 out of 6 defenders, 1 out of 6 controllers, and 1 out of 5 blasters. We missing anything?

I guess I missed out on the "virtually every" chapter in "making a point" school.

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So now, those whose best contribution is to minimize the untouchableness of those who are already tougher and deadlier, are now incapable of doing that?

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Nope, but they're apparently incapable of reading.

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The U.S.S. Big Picture has just set sail for distant shores.

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It's moving along just fine, it's just that folks keep trying to drive the dinghy of Tunnel Vision in front of it, and complaining when it doesn't stop.

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(Love that!)

Well, I suppose I should mention that most scrappers and tankers have a single power that negates most or all Controller abilities... Without slotting!

Only Dark Armor appears to lack in the status resist powers (unless they were upgraded in I5), and Fiery Aura doesn't have a single power, but incorporates status resists into its normal defenses.

So 3/4 scrappers and all tankers negate Controllers pretty well. Am I saying they should lose this ability? Not really. I'm just saying that every rock has its paper. Debuffs are the paper to the defensive rocks out there.

If the debuffs are really a problem for the game, just get rid of them! It's just confusing and pointless to have debuffs that don't actually debuff in an intuitive fasion. It was kind of like when they re-tooled Wet Ice to have a 1% defense or something silly, and briefly allowed enhancing it. I pointed out that with numbers that small they shouldn't bother mentioning it because players who don't do the math will think they're getting something that they're really not.

What I'd rather see, what it really should have been, is a multiplicative debuff rather than additive. In other words, if your defense is 50% and my debuff is 50%, the net should be 25% defense for you -- I debuff half of whatever you've got. That becomes fairly intuitive, and means the devs don't have to worry about caps as much. If your defense can never reach 100% and my debuff can never reach 100%, it will all work out.

For every offense, there should be a defense. And for every defense, there should be a counter.

So.....

You have a few heroes whose big thing is "I cannot be hit". That's fine, that's cool. These heroes also happen to be really tough even without their defenses -- more hitpoints and damage than most, anyway.

In PvP, these guys are untouchable. Pop 3 yellows, it doesn't matter. Still can't hit them. Okay, quite a challenge.

But then there are a few other heroes who can reduce their defenses. These are generally the weaker heroes to begin with, but they can help to even the odds a bit.

So now, those whose best contribution is to minimize the untouchableness of those who are already tougher and deadlier, are now incapable of doing that?

Nice!


The U.S.S. Big Picture has just set sail for distant shores.

Manticore,

Part of the feeling of immersion in a character comes from a sense that one has a unique place in the world. Our characters are very unique, but after level 5 or so, our stories are all pretty much the same -- anyone who follows missions ends up doing all the same missions that everyone else does. Is there any thought being given for ways to make each hero's story a little more unique? Origin- or archetype- specific plotlines might be a start, for example.

Currently the game only has two kinds of failure. Being defeated is one, and failing the timed/protect item mission is another. As far as I can tell, there is no bonus for flawless success or penalty for failure. Even failing a timed mission seems to have no noticable effect on a story arc. Is there any chance of getting story arcs that diverge significantly due to success or failure?

Thanks.

I agree with this change, Statesman. Back when my Fire Tanker was little and didn't have it, I was torn between taking this anti-Immobilize power or not. Then I read that it had good damage so I took it and discovered that, as you say, it was the trump power.

In builds where the mobs just stand in it on their own, I didn't even need to Taunt them. They would die quickly. It was just silly.

I can accept that I need a Controller on my team to get the most out of Burn. It is still handy to keep me mobile, and if I can lock them down with my own knockdown powers, it's still pretty good.

...Now, if only it would also protect me from knockdown....

I'm fine with the 10-second stealth suppression on attacks. It makes sense from a balance perspective and the general concept that when you take aggressive action that the enemy can spot you by your actions (flashy powers).

Do anchored debuff toggles cause perma-suppression of stealth? If so, this is a real bummer for the group-support defender who lays down toggles and then hides while his team cleans up. If he can't benefit from stealth, then he may as well just stand there and blast away like everyone else. It just removes tactical options.


The defense half-suppression seems off somehow... I guess I'd always assumed that being unseen is effectively 100% defense (not seen, not attacked), and that the defense bonus was there to represent that even when the bad guys get an idea of your location, it's still hard for them to aim (not seen, but located and attacked with difficulty).

With this notion, it seems like there is no reason to have a full defense and half defense. What attacks does the full defense stop? AoEs targeted at a buddy beside you? Well, the mob isn't aiming at you anyway, so I'm not sure why defense matters here. Snipers who can see you despite stealth? Well, they can actually see you, so why do they have a harder time aiming?

I guess I just don't know of a meanigful case where the mobs cannot see you, yet can attack you and use your full defense bonus.

It seems like a lot of trouble for very little effect...

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Here's the real numbers (that's what I get for doing stuff from memory).

Wet Ice
0.5% base
1.265% Defence from Wet Ice with +++ SO's.

17.71% Max Defence from Energy Absorbtion (not what I had earlier).

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I'm not an Ice Tanker but I can tell that 0.5% defense is worthless. Even fully slotted as you suggest, this number is small enough that nobody call tell whether its on or off without some serious tracking program.

I would request that any feature of any power, worth less than 5%, simply be taken out of the power -- or at least left out of its description. I don't want to take the power for the wrong reasons, and benefits under 5% are insignificant to anyone except the number-crunchers.

I do thank you, though, for providing some hard numbers!

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I did say one other thing - that dropped Enhancements are useful only for what you can sell them for - because everyone purchases their Enhancements at the store (or at least most of them).

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I guess the flip-side of this was that before Icon, Influence was only good for purchasing Enhancements.

If you want people to use their contacts for this purpose, then contacts should have the best prices, and be able to purchase Enhancements. The 10-Enhancement limit pretty much forces people to go to stores to sell them, and while they are there they often end up purchasing what they need. Add to this that many stores are more convenient, travel-wise, than most contacts, and you have pretty well engineered a system that encourages players to go to stores instead of contacts, for their Enhancement needs.

Thanks for the clarification Statesman.

In the future, it might be worthwhile for you or someone on your staff to write up the "official summary" of things you say at formal settings outside of the forum, especially when there is no transcript to read.

This would help to avoid misunderstandings such as these in the future.... in theory.

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Blasters are listed as the damage kings yet their damage is capped BELOW that of scrappers. Why?

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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I went away from the computer to check on some CoV stuff and *wham* I received 5 or so PM's asking "what is the Blaster's role?"

Answer - Ranged damage. Now, the issue is more specifically - what does a Blaster do that a Scrapper can't already do? Or, even worse, is a Scrapper inherently "stronger" than a Blaster. We want each Archetype to have a well defined role, and part of our Scrapper testing is aimed directly at this.

Secondly, I have no intention of removing melee attacks - it's just a "perception" by some Blasters that some of the Secondary Sets aren't as useful as Devices or Energy Manipulation. This is a rather frequent refrain in PM's (and the occasional forum post). This is something that we should also explore...we want all the Secondary sets to be fun.

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It appears to me that you are solving a single Scrapper "problem" with three solutions.

The Problem: Melee is a riskier situation than ranged combat.

Blasters have the luxury of avoiding melee, theoretically. Though you admit that you still want them to have (and presumably USE) melee powers.

Scrappers have:

A. Stronger defenses than blasters... By a long shot.

B. Critical strikes that produce +10% increased damage output over time. (I can't find the actual chance of criticals, but if a critical happens on 10% of strikes, then it acts as +10% damage.)

C. 500% damage cap allows 20% more damage over time (compared to blasters' 400% cap). If you combine B and C, realize that a Critical strike benefits from this increased damage cap as well, meaning that on a critical blow the scrapper delivers up to 1000% of his base damage, while a blaster never does more than 400%.


I think everyone agrees that (A) is necessary for Scrappers to be at all playable. (B) is a cool edge that helps Scrapper melee win out over any other melee archetype.

But (C) seems to me to be a redundant solution. It accomplishes the same basic notion as (B), except that it is a clearly crueller smack in the face to blasters.

If your reasons for increased damage cap is the risk of melee, then I think you should give the bonus to blaster melee: If a blaster does get into melee, his risk is significantly higher than a scrapper's risk.

If you just want scrappers to have more melee damage, just increase the chance of criticals. If you need a damage cap at all, then cap it the same for everyone. Most won't even be able to come close to Scrapper/Blaster in total damage, and particularly in per-power damage.

After all: Defender attacks are (iirc) 75% damage compared to the equivalent Blaster attack. This means that a Defender who can slot up to the cap will still be 75% of a Blaster who does the same. An equal % cap across the board should do the trick.

In summary: Give everyone the same PERCENT damage cap, let the archetype powers and damage ratios handle the difference, and adjust the Scrapper critical hit chance to tune the "melee risk/reward factor" for Scrappers.

Sounds reasonable, especially if /bind commands allow re-mapping all of the old and new features.

What might make this change go over easily is the ability to highlight (visually) one of the three trays... For example:

/bind lalt "highlight_alttray"
/bind lctrl "highlight_tray3"

This means that when someone is getting used to the 3-tray scheme there is some visual feedback for which powers they can activate if they press a number key.

So, with my bindings, I press the left control key and tray 3 glows more brightly until I release it.

* The ability to demote off-line members.

* The ability to invite off-line characters (via e-mail?) -- for instance, so the SG leader can add his own alts to the SG.

* Use of the SG name as an e-mail or /tell name. So you could "/tell Desired Supergroup, Hey guys this is Billy's new character. Is anyone out there who can invite me?"

* A roster of SG "applicants" which might include those who have not been online in a long time and possibly those who request membership in a full SG. In essence, this is a list of characters who cannot currently participate in Supergroup events, but who are available to be swapped into the SG easily and maybe even receive Supergroup tells and e-mails. In other words, this acts as an expanded roster for the SG but maintains the hard limit of 75 active members.

* It's been said before, but I'll cast my vote for the ability to change SG colors/symbol after creation, and to have the SG costume be an extra slot. If this requires some sort of mission like respec that would be an acceptable way to limit frequent changes.

* Ability to assign SG colors differently for each costume. For example, in my hooded costume I want to change the hood color, but in my "street clothes" I don't want my hair color to change.

* The option to use personal chest detail symbol vs. SG symbol when in SG colors. For example, some costumes just look bad with a chest emblem, and would prefer to have none in both regular and SG modes.

* A "public information" field in the SG info that others can view from any member's Info tabs. This allows SGs to advertise their policies and others to decide which SG to request membership in while avoiding the need for random solicitations and lengthy discussions of the SG policies and plans.

* SG-based missions. Maybe this will make sense after CoV and bases, but some task that SG members of varying levels can tackle that somehow benefits the SG (even if just in a cosmetic way, like giving a badge or a 3rd color option).

* SG repository for Enhancements and/or Influence. It would be nice to store enhancement drops that you personally can't use but that others in your SG need. If that's too much database info to be feasible, then an Influence bank should be good enough.

Thank you Statesman for presenting the issue for discussion before presenting a solution. I think this approach to balance & tweaking will help to reduce the friction with some the player base. Quite possibly, it will also help you to settle on the best solution faster.

Keep up the good!

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Statesman, please understand that a lot of us aren't asking for everything to be soloable. What we want is to be able to solo interesting story-based missions when we choose.

This means having soloable instanced missions separated from the group-encouraged/required ones.

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Well-put!

It is very easy for players to decide that when they form a Task Force and go to a special Task Force contact, that they are in for a long series of group-based missions.

What bothers some of us is that when we deal with our private contacts, we may not be able to solo the missions they offer -- indeed, may not be *allowed* to solo them in a few cases (simul-click bombs).

It is wonderful to emphasize and reward group play, but it is also important to make solo content available to players in an unambiguous way.

If the standard story arcs really require groups to complete, then there should be a new venue for solo-players to choose missions that are absolutely soloable by even the weak archetypes.

One easy solution is to allow the difficulty slider to slide in the "easy" direction instead of just making things harder.

Even marking the mission one-liner summary at the bottom of the window with (Solo) or (Group) would be reasonable as long as there were some story arcs that were (Solo)-rated all the way through.

But I would then ask: If Task Force missions require groups, and respec missions require groups, and arch-villain missions require groups, and contact missions require groups what TYPE of missions are intended for soloing?


Also, changing enemy Hit Points can never really balance difficulty issues with a game like this. All it does is skew the overall difficulty of the game whether solo or in a group. The difficulty is now skewed harder, with the option to make it "even extra-more harder" with the slider. That is, those who struggled before now have no chance of success, and those who breeze through it are fewer in number and thus resented by the rest even more than before.