Well I personally think that death is really good crowd control.
Thats besides the point, controllers and tankers were made with flawed ideals.
Blasters were made on the idea that the gameplay would be fast paced and based on making the hero feel super though not invincible.
Scrappers are the middle.
Tankers are based on the idea that blasters, who doing lots of damage, would need their help in absorbing enemy fire because the enemies would not be easy to defeat. The obvious problem is now appearing clear, they are based on two different games.
Then we had the controller, the red headed stepsister of the tanker. Thats based on the idea that tankers, while good at aggro control, would not be able to take *all* the aggro (then they gave them provoke of course) and therefore would need a controller to AOE lockdown mobs so the blasters in figure one, would not get killed. Of course thats all based on the idea that the enemies would be dangerous enough to risk definite death by facing a couple at a time which of course crosses over the idea that were heros thus leaving us with 2 classes that can take care of themselves fairly well and 3 classes (tankers, defenders and controllers) who are stuck in some alternate dimension where the MOB's are *supposed* to be hard so that blasters and scrappers need help.
How can this be solved?
1: We can nerf blaster damage preventing them from using the "Ultimate debuff" before the enemies would probably kill them.
2: We can change controlllers and tankers to serve more specialized roles while broadening their combat related skills. (defenders are not bad at this now)
3: We can take away blasters ability to apply the "ultimate debuff" to many mobs at once in a short amount of time thus forcing them to have a group without making them too easily killed.
Of course 1 and 3 will end up with blasters and scrappers who have been playing game A (which I think is MUCH more intersting) and drag them into game B (which the tankers, controllers, and defenders play.)
Now personally i'd like to move tankers, defenders, and controllers into game A by just increasing the efficacy of their powers.
Controllers would gain mass immobilize's as well as mass sleeps and holds early, as in 12 rather than 18.
Tankers would lose provoke and be changed to taunters with AOE taunts on their attacks, some possibly with mild taunt auras. Tankers attacks would change to become minion slayers. They can hit hard enough to trash minions but they can't hurt bosses very well (letting scrappers do their job) However, to keep it in balance (as tankers can be near invulnerable though some of their armors just plain bite) tankers would be big first hitters but too slow to efficiently mow down wave after wave of minons with AOEs.
Defenders would stay essentially the same except they would gain more buff powers for ALL the sets that include increases in HP. They would lose many of the nasty side effects of their powers like stunning from adrenaline.
And now finally, and most importantly:
NO PLAYER WOULD BE PENALIZED FOR JOINING A GROUP.
Sure the manual says you kill faster, but when you calculate it, is it true? Count in AFK breaks, choosing a mob group to attack, finding a MOB group, talking, death, buffing, planning, preparing. That all cuts into XP time. There would be 0 penalty for grouping and for every AT you have in your group you would get 5% MORE xp per person. That means with a blaster, controller, scrapper, tanker, and defender you would have 125% exp coming in to counter the fact that your suffering far more downtime than when your soloing (for those classes that can solo now)
Why should any blaster or now, scrapper, even bother grouping when it punishes them? All this design does is punish support AT's for just being support and that just isn't fair. The number 1 way to get rid of non-solo classes asking in large numbers for a way to solo is to give them a better way to bloody group.
This brings ALL the AT's into the A style game where everyones powers can be appreciated and everyone can feel like a hero rather than feeling like a level 30 PSI kinetics defender whose general grouping experience goes like this:
"Are you an emp defender?"
"No"
"You have been kicked from the group"
That would never have happened if the group would not be punished for adding a new member.
With everyone in the A game I can see several things happening.
1: Relatively fast leveling for ALL AT's. Lets face it, most people play to level (and I know some persons gonna say Nuh Uh, not me "insert long explanation") but in general people want to level, thats what prods them along their path. There are relatively few tankers, and defenders because theya re slow at leveling. Bizarrely enough there seems to be lots of controllers but very very few at high level so I think we can toss them in there with the other non-solo AT's.
2: Very few will be suffering "pariah syndrome" where you get tossed out of a group because your very presence with a non-FoTM build is a drain on the groups leveling ability.
3: Everyone will feel the power. Tankers will be wailing on minions crushing them to a paste while AOE blasters nail the weakened minions for the final blow. Controllers would lock down the aggro the tanker couldn't catch and the scrappers would move in to tear them apart. All this time the defenders would be buffing, healing, and when they got the chance, attacking point targets to help cripple the enemy.
Instead of this: Blasters find a group, the tank moves in an uses provoke, the blasters AOE the provoked group in 2 seconds. Next mob. (notice there are no controllers, defenders or scrappers, they aren't needed.)
4: More people would be experiencing the four games of CoH.
1-10: Low levels, massing hellions and rampaging around perez park. No one is *THAT* powerful yet, but everyone has a specified task they complete and none of them are punished for using a specialist instead of glossing it over with near specialists.
10-20: Mid-level gangs of enemies witht he first super powers begin appearing. Group tactics are evolving, players are powerful and they depend on one another to fight well. Everyone still has their role to play in the game.
20-30: MId-high level game, your fighting enemies who regularly use organized tactics and better fire power as well as resistant mobs. Crey will lock you up, early rikti will stun you to hell, 5th column will throw werewolves and vampyr's at you and freakshow will be massing the tanks. Luckily for all these situations you have a team you can AFFORD to play with because you aren't penalized for fighting.
30-40: High level game, now your actually fighting the big boy, crey are still running around, rikti are all over the place, you first experience nemesis and the circle of thorns as well as the devouring earth roll out the heavy guns against you. A good team build becomes a must for big game hunting, teams are easier to find of course if you aren't punished for making them.
40-50: Ultra-High level game:
Rikti are coming out of all the cracks, nemesis are bringing out the heavy robotics against you, malta and the carnival of shadows will lock you down and tear you apart in no time flat, the circle of thorns throws large numbers of behemoth overlords at you and demented possesed scientitsts will attack you with a bewildering array of elemental powers. You will first set foot int he Rikti crash site, the shadow shard, and in the hive in these levels and experience epic battles with monstrosisties better left unknown. A few minions are more than a match for many determined soloers, even tanks find it hard to keep going with chain stunning high acc enemies blasting them.
At this level currently there is a real grouping problem, mainly there is practically no-one there to group with, they are either soloing or new guys look for a PL. Whats the root of this problem? All our good friends, the tankers, controllers, and defenders were left behind at levle 32, we didn't need them anymore, they were extra baggage. Its not to say we couldn't use them, but the punishment to your XP for their very presence precludes people from even SKing them.
The problem isn't blasters, its not AoE, its not scrappers, in not fire burn tankers or Fire/dev blasters, perma-elude scrappers, or fire imp controllers. It the entire XP system.
I don't know how I can stress the importance of this one point.
YOU ARE PUNISHING PEOPLE FOR MAKING GROUPS . If you stop punishing groupers, there are going to be more of them and our friends in the non-solo department will finally get the posistions they deserve.
